right or

But, we

Why do

they have a conscience. They call an act wrong because conscience tells them so. ask, why does conscience tell them so? the feelings of approval (and disapproval) and the ought-feeling surround the ideas of certain acts? Because our parents and teachers, present and past, have made the connection for us? But who made the connection for them? What is the principle which originally governed the process? What is the ultimate reason or ground why certain acts are judged as they are judged? In other words, what is the ultimate ground of moral distinctions, why is right right, and wrong wrong? What in the last

analysis makes it right or wrong?

Why is it right

to tell the truth, and wrong to lie and steal?

Had

2. The Theological View. Simply because God has willed it, answers one school, which was founded by the medieval schoolmen, Duns Scotus and William Occam. God has made the connection spoken of before. Stealing and lying are wrong because God has arbitrarily decreed them to be so. He, as He might and could have done, declared them to be right, then stealing and lying would be right. "God does not require actions because they are good," says the old schoolman Gerson, "but they are good because He requires them; just as others are evil because He forbids them."1 We might, if we chose, call this the theological school.

1 See Janet, Theory of Morals, translated by M. Chapman, p. 167; Lecky, History of European Morals, pp. 17 ff. According

3. The Popular View. -No, says another class of thinkers, an act is right or wrong intrinsically. It is absurd to ask why lying and stealing are wrong. Moral truths are as self-evident as the axioms of geometry. We might as well ask why twice two are four as ask why stealing is wrong. The ethical rules are absolutely true, they are necessary truths; we cannot possibly withhold our assent from them, and yet we cannot prove them. And as God is bound by the truths of mathematics and cannot make twice two anything but four, so He is bound by the moral law and cannot make stealing right.1 An act is right or wrong because conscience tells me so, and conscience tells me so because it is so. Behind the dicta of conscience we cannot go.2 Let us call this school the popular or common-sense school. 4. The Teleological View. But the scientific instinct is too strong in man to be silenced by such dogmatic assertions as the foregoing. The philosophical thinker demands reasons, and is not to be put off with words. He is apt to begin at the very point where the popular mind abandons the search as useless or impossible. We desire to know why an act is right, what makes it right, and receive the dogmatic reply that it is right in itself, that it is absolutely right, that there is no reason for its being to Descartes, the will of God makes all moral distinctions; He could make good bad. See his Meditations, "Answer to the Sixth Objection."

1 See Thomas Aquinas and his school.

2 See the rational intuitionists discussed in chap ii, § 3.

right beyond the fact that conscience dictates it, or that it is right because God wills it: car tel est son bon plaisir ! Now we are willing to admit that conscience dictates it, and that what conscience dictates is for the time being right. And we are also willing to admit that it is the will of God. But we would know why conscience speaks as it does, what has guided it in its deliverances, what is the principle or criterion or standard underlying its judgments. There must be some ultimate ground for the distinctions which it makes. And if God made right right and wrong wrong, we would know why He did it, why He made stealing wrong, what reason He had for doing it, what purpose He had in view when He willed it. Wherever we find an instinct we investigate and seek to explain it, to discover its raison d'être if it has any. I ask, Why do we eat and drink and sleep; and you tell me with a contemptuous smile, Because we are hungry and thirsty and tired, which, though perfectly true, does not answer my question at all. I desire to know the raison d'être of eating and drinking and sleeping, the purposes aimed at and realized by these functions, the principles on which they rest.

5. Arguments for Teleology. Let us see whether we cannot find a reason for our question, What is the ultimate ground of moral distinctions? Why is it right to tell the truth, and wrong to lie and steal? The following reflections may suggest the

answer:

(1) Every willed action has some end in view. We desire to realize a purpose. Indeed, all action tends to realize an end or purpose, even instinctive and automatic action. It lies in the very nature of things that acts and motives should produce results. Now if human conduct is willed by man, and if the will always aims at results, it is to be supposed that moral conduct aims at results, that it realizes ends or purposes which are desired by man. And we should not go far amiss in saying that these results or effects are the raison d'être, the reason for existence, of moral conduct.

(2) When we reflect upon the modes of conduct which our age calls right and wrong, we find that those which are called right or good uniformly produce effects different from those which are called wrong or bad, and that the effects of the former are preferred, desired, and approved, while the effects of the latter are disliked and disapproved. Falsehood, calumny, theft, treachery, murder, etc., produce results which we call pernicious and evil; truthfulness, honesty, loyalty, benevolence, justice, produce consequences of a beneficial nature. The universe is so arranged that certain acts are bound to have certain effects, and human nature is so constituted that some effects are desired and others hated. The act of murder carries countless evils in its train: the destruction of the victim and his life's hopes, feelings of grief and desires for revenge in the hearts of the related survivors, general sorrow

and a feeling of insecurity in the entire community. The family of the murdered man may also suffer material loss by the removal of their supporter, while other circles are indirectly affected by their misfortune. The murderer himself cannot live the life of peace and security which he enjoyed before the crime. He has drawn upon himself the wrath of his fellows, not to speak of the legal punishment which may stare him in the face. The mark of Cain is upon him, the blood of his victim cries for revenge, men fear him and hate him, and he fears and hates them in return. Such and many kindred effects are bound to follow the commission of crime even in the most primitive state of society. And it would be impossible for men to live together in a community in which acts having such effects were habitually practised. A society cannot thrive whose members lie and steal and commit murder and otherwise disregard each other, in which the wicked are not punished and wrongs redressed, in which even thieves and rascals fall out. Now would it not be safe to assume that these effects, both internal and external, are the significant thing in morals?

(3) We also notice that whenever our conscience leaves us in the lurch, and fails to indicate the proper course to pursue, we frequently attempt to reason about our conduct. What, we ask ourselves, would be the effect of such and such an act upon ourselves and others and society at large? I may fully approve of a line of action which I have been pursuing and