Introduction to the science of ethics
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| Introduction to the science of ethics |
From the introduction:
The title of this book is intended to be fairly descriptive of it. It treats ethics as a science, which if not wholly independent of metaphysical considerations — and of no science can that be said — is sufficiently independent to permit of separate positive treatment. And under the broad license of an 'introduction', it presents not only an outline of the science as we find it today but some account of the past which has made it what it is.
Part I contains brief chapters on the scope and methods of the science and on one metaphysical topic (the freedom of the will) which cannot well be passed over in silence. But it is mainly given up to a discussion of the subjects of moral judgments and a survey of the various kinds of standards according to which, under the conditions of savage or civilized life, moral judgments are made.
It is thus intended to present a broad background of facts against which the explanatory theories, old and new, maybe the better appreciated. Part II is a review of the principal Greek and English ethical theories.
In an introductory note, I have given my reasons for including this review. It does not purport to be a history of ethics, even for the periods that it covers. By neglecting much that is important to the historian, I have gained space for a fuller and, I trust, more interesting and instructive treatment of the men and movements that are included. In connection with Part II a selection from the ethical classics should certainly be read; and this, however meagre, should not fail to comprise Books I, II, and X of the Nicomachean Ethics.
Especially in the case of the Greek ethicists, I have not always found it possible to separate the moral theories entirely from their metaphysical basis; indeed, to have done so would in some cases have amounted to a falsification. But I have at least relegated metaphysics to a strictly subordinate place. In Part III a positive treatment of moral problems is presented in connection with the elements of the general theory of values.
So far as I know, this is the first attempt at an elementary presentation of any of the newer phases of the latter subject.
Not that the theory of values as such is new. It is as old as ethics itself. But in recent years it has undergone a great development, and one of unusual interest — a development, however, which has remained buried in monographs and treatises that are wholly inaccessible to the undergraduate student as well as to the educated public generally. It should be observed that Part III is intelligible — I would not say equally intelligible — without the previous reading of Part II, which may therefore be omitted if time requires or the instructor so prefers.
Parts I and III will then serve as 'Elements of Ethics.' I hope, however, that this extreme course may not often be taken. It may, however, often be necessary to omit some passages of Part II; and it is not so closely written that omissions can easily be made. I would suggest that Chapter X and the account of the stimuli of the moral sense in Chapter XI while dealing with matters of great importance in themselves, may be most easily spared by the beginner. I should not know how to record the debts which I have incurred in writing this book, and I shall not attempt it.
