... Hence most of what they value in
this world would have to be omitted by many moralists from any
imagined heaven, because there such things as self-denial and effort
and courage and pity could find no place.... Kant has the bad eminence
of combining both errors in the highest possible degree, since he
holds that there is nothing good except the virtuous will--a view
which simplifies the good as much as any philosopher could wish, and
mistakes means for ends as completely as any moralist could enjoin."
Those of us who are what Mr. Russell would call ethical sceptics will
be delighted at this way of clearing the ground; it opens before us
the prospect of a moral philosophy that should estimate the various
values of things known and of things imaginable, showing what
combinations of goods are possible in any one rational system, and
(if fancy could stretch so far) what different rational systems would
be possible in places and times remote enough from one another not to
come into physical conflict. Such ethics, since it would express in
reflection the dumb but actual interests of men, might have both
influence and authority over them; two things which an alien and
dogmatic ethics necessarily lacks. The joy of the ethical sceptic in
Mr. Russell is destined, however, to be short-lived.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179