Christianity and Ethics | Page 7

obligation must be tested, and according to which all conduct must be regulated.
3. Ethics, once more, is concerned with the will. It is based specifically on the fact that man is not only an intellectual being (capable of knowing) and a sensitive being (possessed of feeling) but also a volitional being; that is, a being endowed with self-determining activity. It implies that man is responsible for his intentions, dispositions and actions. The idea of a supreme ideal at which he is to aim and a norm or standard of conduct according to which he ought to regulate his life, would have no meaning if we did not presuppose the power of self-determination. {13} Whatever is not willed has no moral value. Where there is no freedom of choice, we cannot speak of an action as either good or evil.[1] When we praise or blame a man's conduct we do so under the assumption that his action is voluntary. In all moral action purpose is implied. This is the meaning of the well-known dictum of Kant, 'There is nothing in the world . . . that can be called good without qualification except a good will. A good will is good, not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition.'[2] It is the inner aim, the good will which alone gives moral worth to any endeavour. It is not what I do but the reason why I do it which is chiefly of ethical value. The essence of virtue resides in the will, not in the achievement; in the intention or motive, not in the result.
III. The propriety of styling Ethics a science has sometimes been questioned. Science, it is said, has to do with certain necessary and uniform facts of experience; its object is simply to trace effects from causes and to formulate laws according to which sequences inevitably result from certain ascertained causes or observed facts. But is not character, with which Ethics confessedly deals, just that concerning which no definite conclusions can be predicted? Is not conduct, dependent as it is on the human will, just the element in man which cannot be explained as the resultant of calculable forces? If the will is free, and is the chief factor in the moulding of life, then you cannot forecast what line conduct will take or predict what shape character will assume. The whole conception of Ethics as a science must, it is contended, fall to the ground, if we admit a variable and incalculable element in conduct.
Some writers, on this account, are disposed to regard Ethics as an art rather than a science, and indeed, like every normative science, it may be regarded as lying midway between them. A science may be said to teach us to know {14} and an art to do: but as has been well remarked, 'a normative science teaches to know how to do.'[3] Ethics may indeed be regarded both as a science and an art. In so far as it examines and explains certain phenomena of character it is a science: but in so far as it attempts to regulate human conduct by instruction and advice it is an art.[4] Yet when all is said, in so far as Ethics has to do with the volitional side of man,--with decisions and acts of will,--there must be something indeterminate and problematic in it which precludes it from being designated an exact science. A certain variableness belongs to character, and conduct cannot be pronounced good or bad without reference to the acting subject. Actions cannot be wholly explained by law, and a large portion of human life (and that the highest and noblest) eludes analysis. A human being is not simply a part of the world. He is able to break in upon the sequence of events and set in motion new forces whose effects neither he himself nor his fellows can estimate. It is the unique quality of rational beings that in great things and in small things they act from ideas. The magic power of thought cannot be exaggerated. Great conceptions have great consequences, and they rule the world. A new spiritual idea shoots forth its rays and enlightens to larger issues generations of men. There is a mystery in every forth-putting of will-power, and every expression of personality. Character cannot be computed. The art of goodness, of living nobly, if so unconscious a thing may be called an art, is one certainly which defies complete scientific treatment. It is with facts like these that Ethics has to do; and while we may lay down broad general principles which must underlie the teaching of every true prophet and the conduct of every good man, there