SHAFTESBURY'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLE OF ADAPTATION TO Thesis for Ph. D. By ALEXANDER LYONS, M.A. ACCEPTED BY THE FACULTY OF NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Memorial Library University of Wisconsin-Madison Το REV. DR. HENRY BERKOWITZ, PHILADELPHIA TO WHOM THE AUTHOR OWES THE BEGINNING OF HIS 232213 JAN 26 1920 BM SHI YL99 CONTENTS I.—A. INTRODUCTION. Aim of thesis expository and critical. Justification for such presentation: Absence of anything similar for the use of the English student of ethics. Shaftesbury considered in comparison with Hobbes. This not usually done. Shaftesbury not in avowed antagonism to Hobbes, but more concerned to defend his own theistic position and thus save ethics in its divorce from religion. He professes opposition to Locke, and yet must be contrasted with Hobbes who furnished the starting point of English ethical speculation. Pages 7-10. B. HOBBES' ETHICAL THEORY. Ethics a human invention necessitated by man's primitive condition of mutual conflict with his fellows. A state of such warfare preventive of peace and progress. Man too selfish voluntarily to reconcile differences. A supreme authority requisite, the will of which in keeping with a covenant to be determinative of conduct. Right, wrong, and conscience take their rise and significance from this covenant. Hobbes' ethical system empirical, relative, and thoroughly hedonistic. Pages 10-11. II.—A. SHAFTESBURY'S ETHICAL TEACHING. Contrast to Hobbes irreconcilable and yet not duly recognized. Shaftesbury, like Hobbes, starts from human nature. The man of his conception social by birth and good by instinct, goodness signifying sociality. His conception of man's nature in striking contrast with orthodox Christian teaching. Conscience: the consciousness of conflict with natural goodness. Conscience as here defined contributory to the conscience of religious teaching. Pages 11-14. B. THE DOCTRINE OF THE WHOLE. The whole, Shaftesbury's starting-point. Its content. Necessity of such a starting-point. The whole no assumption; a logical conclusion. It is inescapable. Failure to find it the result of man's improper attitude. The whole an all-inclusive relationship, an organism. Harmonious, therefore good. The manifold significance and application of the whole. It gives validity to the details of experience and nature. Furnishes standard of measurement of the good. The good, that which is contributory to the whole. Mere harmony insufficient. The whole through its impressiveness conducive to goodness. This specially evidenced in conscience. Disregard of the whole destructive of goodness. The whole further conservative of goodness through pleasure. Man's conflicting affections reconciled by the whole through its assertion of the balance of its harmonious relations. The whole related to a "sovereign genius." A modified dualism. Significance of concept of the whole in Shaftesbury's life. A dominant passion. An exemplification in his patriotism. Shaftesbury's fundamental conception not duly regarded although of considerable influence. Herder, Thomson, Tennyson his beneficiaries. Pope an extensive borrower. Pages 14-25. C. COMPARATIVE VALUE OF SHAFTESBURY'S TEACHING. His superiority to Hobbes and Locke. To these morality a creation human or divine. To Shaftesbury it is uncreate, absolute, and obligatory even upon God. Morality thus uplifted, but God not lowered. Virtue not mere mechanical adaptation but conscious and intentional. Goodness natural adaptation, virtue intentional adaptation. Virtue proportionate to effort. Further, moral motive requisite. A moral motive, that which is of social purport and without personal reference. Shaftesbury Kantian in spirit. Man's native goodness not an accomplishment but a faculty. Goodness the possibility, virtue the realization. Pages 26-28. D. THE MORAL SENSE. Shaftesbury's most characteristic ethical teaching. Morality a substantive universal harmony. The moral sense, that by which this harmony is apprehended, just as artistic beauty is grasped by the artistic sense. Explanation of the moral sense. It is native and indestructible. Not full-formed at birth but educable. sense determinative of conduct. Pages 29-32. E. SHAFTESBURY AND CUMBERLAND. Moral Shaftesbury's other teachings than that of the moral sense anticipated in part by Cumberland although in a far inferior way. Cumberland's method entirely intellectual. Conscience intellectual. Morality mediated through the mind. With Shaftesbury through the feeling. Pages 32-34. F. ETHICS AND RELIGION. Relation in Shaftesbury's system. Little direct value in his discussion of this subject. To be credited with having distinguished the separateness of the two spheres. Shaftesbury not weak in idea of God, but strongly antagonistic to misconceptions of God. Stephen wrongly claims God to be essential to Shaftesbury's system. God real to Shaftesbury but unessential to his teaching. Religion not source of ethics. Ethics possible to atheism. The two mutually supplementary, but the method not indicated. Religion virtually discarded. Kant more helpful. Pages 34-36. G. CLASSIFICATION OF SHAFTESBURY. Hedonistic or intuitional? Nowhere duly discussed. Cursory reading results doubtfully. Ultimate decision to be determined by consideration of both Shaftesbury's opinion and his spirit. His formal ethical writings hedonistic; goodness interpreted in terms of pleasure. His intuitional teachings more emphatic. Virtue based upon inherent attractiveness. His discarding of religion from the ethical standpoint implies the intuitional position. Further exemplification in his opposition to virtue as utility. Consideraton of the spirit of his teachings inforces the intuitional view. In his less formal writings this very palpable. Further, while appeal of virtue is commonly put on its own basis without other reference to pleasure than as a result, virtue is rarely inculcated for the sake of pleasure. Pleasure, when urged, is for the sake of virtue, and not the reverse. And yet his intuitionalism not cogent. Theoretically valid, practically it fails to hold. Earlier part of his writings intuitional, later hedonistic. Shaftesbury realized the practical weakness of the intuitional position. Butler's confession of the weakness of conscience anticipated. Shaftesbury intuitional in intention, hedonistic in realization. Pages 36-39. III. DISCUSSION. Shaftesbury's merit great and manifold. First in English thought to protest against a manufactured morality. He gave impulse to the popularization of the view of morality as sub specie eterni. Some of the general convictions of present sociological teaching anticipated. Confirmation from Giddings and Spencer. Further anticipation and broader application of the insistence of evolutionary ethics. Shaftesbury's most characteristic doctrine, the moral sense, subject to detraction. Misunderstood by Stephen. Its proper interpretation. And yet no novelty but a philosophic expression of a familiar fact: Moral sense an expression of the feelings, striking but psychologically incorrect. The teaching, however, valuable. It emphasizes that morality is ultimately determined by feeling. Failure to indicate method of education of the moral sense a defect. Detraction of Shaftesbury's originality. Windelband not to the point. Fowler more correct. Shaftesbury compacted of Plato and Aristotle, especially Plato. Chiefly a reproduction of Stoicism. His only admissible originality the moral sense, though this not beyond qualification. |