Ethics. Джон Дьюи
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nature. So long as this is merely accepted as an end, and not compared with others, valued, and chosen, it is not properly moral.
The same is true of emotions. There are certain emotions on the instinctive level. Such are parental love in its most elemental form, sympathy as mere contagious feeling, anger, or resentment. So far as these are at this lowest level, so far as they signify simply a bodily thrill, they have no claim to proper moral value. They are tremendously important as the source from which strong motive forces of benevolence, intelligent parental care, and an ardent energy against evil may draw warmth and fire.
Finally, even the coöperation, the mutual aid, which men give, so far as it is called out purely by common danger, or common advantage, is not in the moral sphere in so far as it is instinctive, or merely give and take. To be genuinely moral there must be some thought of the danger as touching others and therefore requiring our aid; of the advantage as being common and therefore enlisting our help.
But even although these processes are not consciously moral they are nevertheless fundamental. The activities necessary for existence, and the emotions so intimately bound up with them, are the "cosmic roots" of the moral life. And often in the higher stages of culture, when the codes and instruction of morality and society fail to secure right conduct, these elementary agencies of work, coöperation, and family life assert their power. Society and morality take up the direction of the process and carry it further, but they must always rely largely on these primary activities to afford the basis for intelligent, reliable, and sympathetic conduct.
LITERATURE
Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 1890; Bücher, Industrial Evolution, Eng. tr., 1901, Arbeit und Rythmus, 3rd ed., 1901; Schurtz, Urgeschichte der Kultur, 1900; Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-sacrifice in Through Nature to God, 1899; Dewey, Interpretation of the Savage Mind, Psychological Review, Vol. IX., 1892, pp. 217–230; Durkheim, De la Division du Travail Social, 1893; P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, a Factor in Evolution, 1902; Ross, Foundations of Society, 1905, Chap. VII.; Baldwin, Article Socionomic Forces in his Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology; Giddings, Inductive Sociology, 1901; Small, General Sociology, 1906; Tarde, Les Lois de l'Imitation, 1895; W. I. Thomas, Sex and Society, 1907, pp. 55–172; Gummere, The Beginnings of Poetry, 1901; Hirn, The Origin of Art, 1900.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid a Factor in Evolution; Bagehot, Physics and Politics.
[20] Eastman, Indian Boyhood.
[21] The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, Chs. II.-V.
[22] Ibid., p. 99.
CHAPTER IV
GROUP MORALITY—CUSTOMS OR MORES
We have seen how the natural forces of instinct lead to activities which elevate men and knit them together. We consider next the means which society uses for these purposes, and the kind of conduct which goes along with the early forms of society's agencies. The organization of early society is that of group life, and so far as the individual is merged in the group the type of conduct may be called "group morality." Inasmuch as the agencies by which the group controls its members are largely those of custom, the morality may be called also "customary morality." Such conduct is what we called at the opening of the previous chapter "the second level." It is "ethical" or "moral" in the sense of conforming to the ethos or mores of the group.
§ 1. MEANING, AUTHORITY, AND ORIGIN OF CUSTOMS
Meaning of Customs or Mores.—Wherever we find groups of men living as outlined in Chapter II., we find that there are certain ways of acting which are common to the group—"folkways." Some of these may be due merely to the fact that the members are born of the same stock, just as all ducks swim. But a large part of human conduct, in savage as truly as in civilized life, is not merely instinctive. There are approved ways of acting, common to a group, and handed down from generation to generation. Such approved ways of doing and acting are customs, or to use the Latin term, which Professor Sumner thinks brings out more clearly this factor of approval, they are mores.[23] They are habits—but they are more. They imply the judgment of the group that they are to be followed. The welfare of the group is regarded as in some sense imbedded in them. If any one acts contrary to them he is made to feel the group's disapproval. The young are carefully trained to observe them. At times of special importance, they are rehearsed with special solemnity.
Authority Behind the Mores.—The old men, or the priests, or medicine men, or chiefs, or old women, may be the especial guardians of these customs. They may modify details, or add new customs, or invent explanations for old ones. But the authority back of them is the group in the full sense. Not the group composed merely of visible and living members, but the larger group which includes the dead, and the kindred totemic or ancestral gods. Nor is it the group considered as a collection of individual persons. It is rather in a vague way the whole mental and social world. The fact that most of the customs have no known date or origin makes them seem a part of the nature of things. Indeed there is more than a mere analogy between the primitive regard for custom and that respect for "Nature" which from the Stoics to Spencer has sought a moral standard in living "according to nature." And there is this much in favor of taking the world of custom as the standard: the beings of this system are like the person who is expected to behave like them; its rules are the ways in which his own kin have lived and prospered, and not primarily the laws of cosmic forces, plants, and animals.
Origin of Customs; Luck.—The origin of customs is to be sought in several concurrent factors. There are in the first place the activities induced by the great primitive needs and instincts. Some ways of acting succeed; some fail. Man not only establishes habits of acting in the successful ways; he remembers his failures. He hands successful ways down with his approval; he condemns those that fail.
This attitude is reënforced by the views about good luck and bad luck. Primitive man—and civilized man—is not ruled by a purely rational theory of success and failure. "One might use the best known means with the greatest care, yet fail of the result. On the other hand, one might get a great result with no effort at all. One might also incur a calamity without any fault of his own."[24] "Grimm gives more than a thousand ancient German apothegms, dicta, and proverbs about 'luck.'"[25] Both good and bad fortune are attributed to the unseen powers, hence a case of bad luck is not thought of as a mere chance. If the ship that sailed Friday meets a storm, or one of thirteen falls sick, the inference is that this is sure to happen again. And at this point the conception of the group welfare as bound up with the acts of every member, comes in to make individual conformity a matter for group concern—to make conduct a matter of mores and not merely a private affair. One most important, if not the most important, object of early legislation was the enforcement of lucky rites to prevent the individual from doing what might bring ill luck on all the tribe. For the conception always was that the ill luck does not attach itself simply