ETHICS

otherwise called Moral Philosophy or Morals, is the science which treats of the nature and laws of the actions of intelligent beings, considered as to whether they are right or wrong, good or bad. Its subject-matter is human conduct and character in view of a standard or ideal. It refers to constant elements in human nature, and, like esthetics and logic, is of universal application. The science is more or le closely connected with theology, psychology, politics, political economy, and jurisrudence, but what most strictly beongs to it is the investigation of the principles and basis of duty or the moral law, and an inquiry into the nature and origin of the faculty by which duty is recognized. Various answers have been given to the question why we call an action good or bad, such as that it is consistent or not with the will of God, or with the nature of things, or with the greatest happine of the greatest number, or that an inward faculty decides it to be such or such; and a great variety of ethical systems has been proposed. Ancient Ethical Systems. The foundations of the leading systems were laid in antiquity, the names of So crates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Cynics, and the Stoics being especially prominent. All the Greek philosophers, however, considered ethics from an individualistic standpoint, and paid little attention either to politics or to sociology. The introduction of Christianity brought a new element into ethical speculation, and among Christians ethics were intimately a ociated with theology, and morality was regarded as based on and regulated by a definite code contained in the sacred writings. The speculations of the Greeks were not, however, disregarded, and some of the ablest Christian moralists (as Augustine, Peter Lombard, Erigena, Anselm, and A quinas) endeavoured to harmonize the Greek theories with the Christian dogmatics. Most modern ethical systems consider the subject as apart from theology and as based on independent philosophical principles, and they fall into one of two great cla es—the utilitarian systems, which recognize as the chief good, happine , or the greatest po ible satisfaction of the tendencies of our nature; and the rationalistic systems, which recognize that ideas of law and obligation can have their source only in reason. Utilitarianism has been rightly called universal hedonism, as distinguished from the hedonism of Epicurus, which was egoistic. The first of the modern Utilitarian school in England was Hobbes (1588-1679). Among subsequent names are those of Cudworth, Locke, Clarke, Shaftesbury, Butler, Hutches on, Hume, Adam Smith, Reid, Paley, Whewell, Bentham, J. S. Mill, . Paley held that men ought to act so as to further the greatest po ible happine of the race, because God wills the happine of men, and rewards and punishes them according to their actions, the divine commands being ascertained from Scripture and the light of nature. Bentham’s utilitarianism is considerably different from Paley’s. It was entirely di ociated from theology or Scripture, and maintained that increase of happine ought to be the sole object of the moralist and legislator, pleasure and pain being the sole test of actions. To utilitarianism as a special development belong the later ‘evolution ethics’ represented by Herbert Spencer, in which biological conceptions, such as ‘the preservation of the human race,’ take the place of the Benthamite criterion for determining what is good and bad in actions, Rationalism. Another theory of ethics places the moral principle in the sentimental part of our nature, that is, in the direct sympathetic pleasure or sympathetic indignation we have with the impulses which prompt to action or expre ion. By means of this theory, which he treats as an original and inexplicable fact in human nature, Adam Smith explains all the phenomena of the moral consciousne . In aes the ethical systems. of the Rationalistic school, systems which recognize that the ideas of law and obligation can have their source only in reason, the question, what is the source of the laws by which reason governs, gives rise to a number of psychological theories, amongst which we may notice Clarke’s view of the moral principles as rational intuitions or axioms analogous to those of mat he 235 ETHIOPIA matics; Butler’s theory of the natural authority of conscience; the position of Reid, Stewart, and other members of the later Intuitional school, who conceive a moral faculty implanted in man which not only perceives the ‘rightne ’ or ‘moral obligation’ of actions, but also impels the will to perform what is seen to be right. Very similar, as far as _ cla ification goes, is the position of Kant, who holds that reason recognizes the immediate obligation of certain kinds of conduct, and that an action is only good when done from a good motive, and that this motive must be e entially different from a natural inclination of any kind.— BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Sidgwick, The Method of Ethics; A. C. Bradley, Ethical Studies; H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics; L. Stephen, The Science of Ethics; The English Utilitarians; W. Wundt, Ethics; J. Martin eau, Types of Ethical Theory; A. Sutherland, The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct; E. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas; W. R. Sorley, The Moral Life; C. Read, Natural and Social Morality.