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respect its authority and hold ourselves responsible. The standard is
conceived as a control over our impulses and desires. The man who
recognizes such a law and is anxious to find and to do his duty, we call
conscientious; as governing his impulses, he has self-control; as
squaring his conduct strictly by his standard, he is upright and
reliable.
If I think of "_good_," I am approaching conduct from the standpoint of
value. I am thinking of what is desirable. This too is a standard, but
it is a standard regarded as an end to be sought rather than as a law. I
am to "choose" it and identify myself with it, rather than to control
myself by it. It is an "ideal." The conscientious man, viewed from this
standpoint, would seek to discover the true good, to value his ends, to
form ideals, instead of following impulse or accepting any seeming good
without careful consideration. In so far as impulses are directed by
ideals the thoroughly good man will be straightforward, "sincere": that
is, he will not be moved to do the good act by fear of punishment, or by
bribery, just as the upright man will be "governed by a sense of duty,"
of "respect for principles."
=Summary of the Characteristics of the Moral.=--To sum up the main
characteristics of the moral life viewed in cross-section, or when in
full activity, we may state them as follows:
On the side of the "what," there are two aspects:
(a) The dominance of "higher," ideal interests of knowledge, art,
freedom, rights, and the "life of the spirit."
(b) Regard for others, under its various aspects of justice, sympathy,
and benevolence.
On the side of the "how" the important aspects are:
(a) The recognition of some standard, which may arise either as a
control in the guise of "right" and "law," or as measure of value in the
form of an ideal to be followed or good to be approved.
(b) A sense of duty and respect for the law; sincere love of the good.
(a) and (b) of this latter division are both included under the
"conscientious" attitude.
=2. The Moral as a Growth.=--The psychologists distinguish _three
stages_ in conduct: (a) Instinctive activity. (b) Attention; the stage
of conscious direction or control of action by imagery; of
deliberation, desire, and choice. (c) Habit; the stage of unconscious
activity along lines set by previous action. Consciousness thus
"occupies a curious middle ground between hereditary reflex and
automatic activities upon the one hand and acquired habitual activities
upon the other." Where the original equipment of instincts fails to meet
some new situation, when there are stimulations for which the system has
no ready-made response, consciousness appears. It selects from the
various responses those which suit the purpose, and when these responses
have become themselves automatic, habitual, consciousness "betakes
itself elsewhere to points where habitual accommodatory movements are as
yet wanting and needed."[2] To apply this to the moral development we
need only to add that this process repeats itself over and over. The
starting-point for each later repetition is not the hereditary instinct,
but the habits which have been formed. For the habits formed at one age
of the individual's life, or at one stage of race development, prove
inadequate for more complex situations. The child leaves home, the
savage tribe changes to agricultural life, and the old habits no longer
meet the need. Attention is again demanded. There is deliberation,
struggle, effort. If the result is successful new habits are formed, but
upon a higher level. For the new habits, the new character, embody more
intelligence. The first stage, purely instinctive action, we do not call
moral conduct. It is of course not _im_moral; it is merely _un_moral.
The second stage shows morality in the making. It includes the process
of transition from impulse, through desire to will. It involves the
stress of conflicting interests, the processes of deliberation and
valuation, and the final act of choice. It will be illustrated in our
treatment of race development by the change from early group life and
customs to the more conscious moral life of higher civilization. The
third stage, well-organized character, is the goal of the process. But
it is evidently only a relative point. A good man has built up a set of
habits; a good society has established certain laws and moral codes. But
unless the man or society is in a changeless world with no new
conditions there will be new problems. And this means that however good
the habit was for its time and purpose there must be new choices and new
valuations. A character that would run automatically in every case would
be pretty nearly a mechanism. It is therefore the second stage of this
process that is the stage of active moral consciousness. It is upon this
that we focus our attention.
Moral growth from the first on through the second stage may be described
as a process in which man becomes more _rational_, more _social_, and
finally more _moral_. We examine briefly each of these aspects.
=The Rationalizing or Idealizing Process.=--The first need of the
organism is to live and grow. The first instincts and impulses are
therefore for food, self-defence, and other immediate necessities.
Primitive men eat, sleep, fight, build shelters, and give food and
protection to their offspring. The "rationalizing" process will mean at
first greater use of intelligence to satisfy these same wants. It will
show itself in skilled occupations, in industry and trade, in the
utilizing of all resources to further man's power and happiness. But to
rationalize conduct is also to introduce new ends. It not only enables
man to get what he wants; it changes the kind of objects that he wants.
This shows itself externally in what man makes and in how he occupies