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

75O ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE MODERNS
a difference for which the idealist theory of the State
makes no provision.
NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF VOLUNTARY
ETHICAL ASSOCIATIONS. Trade Unions in Russia
perform a further function. They are centres of community
life. It is their business to ensure that the factory, mine or
store is not merely a place where work is done, but a
place where cultural development is provided for those
who are doing the work* Clubs and educational institutions,
cr&ches, restaurants, theatres, music, sports and
games all these are in Russia organized by the Trade
Unions to cater for the cultural and recreational needs
of the people. These cultural centres organized on a
functional and not a territorial basis will serve to direct
our attention to a second class of voluntary associations
which, during the last hundred yean, has enormously
increased in number, associations, namely, of individuals
for cultural and ethical purposes. The relevance of these
associations for our present discussion is that, as in the case
of the economic associations, they owe little or nothing
of the spirit which inspires them, of the purposes which
they serve or of the functions which they perform, to the
Nation-State to which their members happen to belong.
Since the Renaissance the moral and religious aspects of
the individual's life have become increasingly dissociated
from the State. The result, as I have already pointed out,
is that it is no longer considered to be the business of the
lawgiver, as it was in Plato's State, to decide what 'the
good life for the individual shall be. It is only during the
last century, however, that the importance of individual
choice in ethical matters has received general recognition.
Ever since Mill insisted upon the value of individual
initiative in the sphere of belief, 1 there has been an increas-
ing disposition to recognize that it is only through individuals
that the vague aspirations and religious insight of
a particular age gain expression; it is even conceded that
1 See Chapter XIV, pp. 594-506*