A Handbook of Ethical Theory

rable, good or bad, according to their setting. How shall we judge of the blow that takes away human life? It may be the involuntary reaction of a man startled by a shock; it may be a mot

sychologist; to the moralist they are, taken alone, as unmeaning as the letters of the alphabet, but, like them, capable in combination of carrying many meanings. A

ally defective and the emotionally insane; nor do we expect a savage caught in the bush to harbor the same emotions, or to have the same ethical outlook, as the missionary with whom we may confront him. The concepts of moral responsibility, of desert, of guilt, are emptied of all signi

look at his life and its setting in a broad way, to scrutinize with care both the nature of man and the environment without which that nature could find no expression. When he does this, he on

ood, conceived of his good or "well-being" as largely identical with "well- doing." This "well-doing" meant to him "fulfilling the proper functions of man," or in other words acting as the nature of man prescribes. [Footnote: Politics, i, 2. See, further, on Man's Nature, chapter xxvi.] To the Stoic man's duty was action in accordance with

y differ, in their kind, from each other. To each kind, a life of a certain sort seems appropriate. The rational being is expected

fe. However the behavior of the brute may vary in the presence of varying conditions, the degree of the variation seems to be determined by rather narrow limits. These

e can definitely be expected to express itself in a human life,-one lower or higher, but, in every case, distinguishable from the life of the brute. It means something to speak of the physical and mental constitution of man, that mysterious reservoir from which his emotions and actions are supposed t

n ages of man are not stored ready-made in the little body of the infant. At any rate, they are beyond the reach of the most penetrating vision. In the case of the simple mechanisms which can be constructed by man a forecast of future function is possible on the basis of a general knowledge of mechanics. But there is no living being of whose internal constitution we have a similar knowledge. From the behavior of the creature we gather a knowl

died. The conception of that nature appears to be rather definite and unequivocal. When it is once attained, we speak with some assurance of the way in which the creature will act in this situation or in that. If, however,

om the finished product of civilization? What a difference in range of emotion, in reach of intellect, in stored information, in freedom o

worthy of the name, the sport and slave of his environment, it is natural to act in one way. For enlightened humanity, acquainted with the past and forecasting the future, developed in intellect and refined in feeling, rich in the possession of arts and sciences, intel

more than that man is gifted with an intelligence superior to that of the brutes? To do this is, to be sure, to give some vague indication of man's original endowment. But it c

n a return to undeveloped man. The nature of the chicken is not best revealed in the egg. And, as man can