GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

A THEORY OF GOOD OR VALUE 465
Much has been said in previous pages with regard to
the variations in the deliverances of the moral sense in
different communities. The conclusion was reached that
these variations were not purely arbitrary, but stood in
a specific relation to the needs of the society to which the
individual happened to belong. 1 And not only to the needs
and circumstances of his society but also to those of his class
within society. Thus the moral valuations of a slave will
be different from those of a free man, and qualities of
independence and leadership, which are valued in a
member of the English public-school class, will tend to
be condemned as upstart impudence and unprincipled
ambition when they appear in the Communist worker,
who devotes his energies and his talents to leading and
organizing his fellows. Now, the needs of classes in a society
vary. Hence, a certain course of action by a member of
class X, which will seem right to another member of that
class, will seem wrong to a member of class Y, but would
have seemed right to him, if it had been taken by another
member of class Y. In a word, moral valuations are relative
to social need, circumstance and status.
In most societies that have existed there has been a
marked divergence between the conduct that men called
right, and which a morally virtuous man felt it, therefore,
to be his duty to do, and that which was in fact right. In
other words, the conduct which a morally virtuous man has
felt it to be his duty to do has often, has, in fact, usually,
produced consequences which contained a smaller amount
of absolute value than would have been contained in the
consequences of other actions which it was open
to the
agent to do, but which he did not consider to be his duty.
How is the Divergence between what is Thought Right
and What is Right to be Adjusted? How is this divergence
to be adjusted? How, in other words for this and nothing
else is involved is a man to be induced to wish to do
what is really right and to desire and to pursue what i#*
* See Chapter VIII, pp. 301-303.