Problems of Conduct

Problems of Conduct, by Durant
Drake

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Title: Problems of Conduct
Author: Durant Drake
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PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT
AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY OF ETHICS
BY
DURANT DRAKE
A.M. (Harvard) Ph.D. (Columbia)
Associate Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at Wesleyan
University
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
1914

TO THE DEAR TWO WHOSE INTEREST IN PROBLEMS OF
CONDUCT FIRST AWAKENED MINE AND WHOSE
EAGERNESS TO KNOW AND DO REMAINS UNDIMMED BY

THE YEARS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER

PREFACE
This book represents in substance a course of lectures and discussions
given first at the University of Illinois and later at Wesleyan University.
It was written to meet the needs both of the college student who has the
added guidance of an instructor, and of the generalreader who has no
such assistance. The attempt has been made to keep the presentation
simple and clear enough to need no interpreter, and by the list of
readings appended to each chapter, to make a self directed further study
of any point easy and alluring. These references are for the most part to
books in English, easily accessible, and both intelligible and interesting
to the ordinary untrained reader or undergraduate. Some articles from
the popular reviews have been included, which, if not always
authoritative, are interesting and suggestive.
The function of the instructor who should use this as a textbook would
consist, first, in making sure that the text was thoroughly read and
understood; secondly, in raising doubts, suggesting opposing views,
conducting a discussion with the object of making the student think for
himself; and, thirdly, in adding new material and illustration and
directing the outside readings which should supplement this purposely
brief and summary treatment. The books to which reference is made in
the lists of readings, and other books approved by the instructor, should
be kept upon reserved shelves for the constant use of the class in the
further study of questions suggested by the text or raised in the
classroom.
It will be noticed that the disputes and the technical language of
theorists have been throughout so far as possible avoided. The
discussion of historical theories and isms' is unnecessarily bewildering
to the beginner; and the aim has been rather to keep as close as possible
to the actual experience of the student and the language of everyday life.
Far more attention is given than in most books on ethics to concrete
contemporary problems. After all, an insight into the fallacies of the

reasoning of the various ethical schools, an ability to know what they
are talking about and glibly refute them, is of less importance than an
acquaintance with, and a firm, intelligent attitude toward, the vital
moral problems and movements of the day. I have prayed to be saved
from academic abstractness and remoteness, and to go as straight as I
could to the real perplexities from which men suffer in deciding upon
their conduct. The purpose of a study of ethics is, primarily, to get light
for the guidance of life. And so, while referring to authors who differ
from the views here expressed, I have sought to impart a definite
conception of relative values, to offer a thread for guidance through the
labyrinth of moral problems, and to effect a heightened realization of
the importance and the possibilities of right living.
It is necessary, indeed, in order to justify and clarify our concrete moral
judgments, that we should reach clear and firmly grounded conclusions
upon the underlying abstract questions. And the habit of laying aside
upon occasion one's instinctive