Revival: Ethics: An Investigation of the Facts and Laws of the Moral Life (1908)

Volume I: Introduction: The Facts of Moral Life

Wilhelm Wundt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138566422
• eBook ISBN: 9781351343404
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

It has been my object in the present work to investigate the problems of ethics in the light of an examination of the facts of moral life. One reason for this procedure is my desire to conduct the reader by the same path that I myself have followed in approaching ethical questions.

Part I
the facts of the moral life

CHAPTER I
language and ethical ideas

1 The General Idea of Morality

a History of the words ‘ethisch’ (ethical), ‘moralisch’ (moral) and ‘sittlich.’

LANGUAGE is the oldest witness to the course of development of all human ideas. Before any other form of tradition grows up, language has given definite names to the dominant conceptions of the popular consciousness; and the word, with its many changes and refinements of meaning, is a mirror of the gradual development and mutation of ideas. Hence it is to language that we must put our first questions in investigating the origin of ethical ideas.

At the same time, this capacity of language for development, a capacity which seems inexhaustible, more especially as it affects the meaning of words, obliges us to use its testimony with caution in our attempt to draw conclusions as to the conceptions which it originally expressed. On the one side there is no small danger that meanings of late origin be referred back to the earliest stages of language, and that ideas which arose under stress of individual or specifically scientific requirements be regarded as primitive deliverances of the popular consciousness; while, on the other, the absence of sharply separated linguistic symbols cannot be interpreted, without further evidence, as indicating a defective discrimination of ideas. It is probable that homonyms played a very large part in primitive language. Hence only such usage as is preserved in literary monuments can enable us to determine with perfect certainty whether given ideas exist or not; and only when we are thus in a position to trace the history of a word through all its changes of meaning, is it possible for us to draw conclusions from them, with any degree of certainty as to the development of consciousness.

The need of this caution is shown in the very first problem that meets us in the investigation of ethical ideas on linguistic ground,—the question of the origin and significance of the general ethical terms that have come into use. It is usually regarded as profoundly significant that language brings the ‘moral’ and the ‘customary’ (the Sittliche and Sitte) into such close connection. The fact that this reference to ‘custom’ (mos, ἔθος) is found in at least three different languages, Greek, Latin and German, is supposed to be a proof that the connection is not accidental, but rather points to a way of looking at things which is natural and necessary to the human consciousness. It has even been regarded as a special merit of the German language, as compared with Greek, Latin and the ancient oriental tongues, that the words by which it expresses the two concepts have gradually become differentiated, and the idea of the ethical thereby more clearly distinguished from that of the customary and the legal.¹ But we find no confirmation of these conjectures in the actual history of the word Sittlichkeit. The connection between the ‘moral’ and the ‘customary’ is not of native growth either in German or in Latin; it is due to the influence of Greek usage. And even in Greek it had no root in any ultimate tendency of the popular consciousness, but was effected by one man, no less a personage than the great realistic moralist of the Hellenic world. Aristotle drew a distinction between ethical and intellectual (dianoëtic) virtues: the word ‘ethics’ (ἦθικἀ) was adopted later by his school to cover the subjects treated under both headings. In making it, he used ἦθος primarily in the sense of character and disposition. But his inquiry into the origination and confirmation of moral character led him to emphasise instruction and practice as the principal incentives to intellectual and ethical virtue respectively; and the close relationship of the words ἦθος and ἔθος seemed to him to be in itself an argument for the connection between virtue and custom.¹ Modern philology also considers the words to have been originally identical, and thus decides in favour of the etymological essay of the ancient philosopher. But there can be no doubt that in the linguistic usage of his time their significance was felt to be different. Ἒθος, like the allied Latin term consuetudo, laid the chief emphasis upon external custom. In the case of ἦθος, the earlier and narrower significance, still retained in Homer, of the abiding-place of men or animals had been changed to that of the disposition resulting from the familiar environment,—a change of meaning which is typical of the origin of a large number of terms denoting psychical states and mental characteristics. There can be no question that Aristotle, when he called the virtues which are rooted in disposition and character ‘ethical,’ was thinking principally of this secondary significance, which even at the present day marks off ‘ethos’ as specifically different from custom. The thought of an etymological connection with the like-sounding ἔθος, a word familiar to him in the sense of ‘use and wont,’ was first suggested to the philosopher by his own ethical theory; the theory can hardly owe its origin to a fact of linguistic relationship which had long since disappeared from the general linguistic consciousness.

The Romans borrowed all their philosophical terminology from the Greeks, and that of ethics is no exception to the rule. Thus the term moralis, which gave rise to the expression philosophia moralis, was a direct translation of Aristotle. Cicero remarks expressly, in the passage where he introduces the word, that he has formed it on the analogy of the Greek ἦθικός ‘in order to enrich the Latin language.’¹ The Latin word mos is, as a matter of fact, by no means synonymous with ἦθος in the Aristotelian sense; the Roman originally meant by mos, mores merely the externals of custom, or the characteristic of ordering one’s conduct in accordance with current standards: but this Cicero overlooked. The term moralitas, from the adjective moralis, does not occur in classical Latin.² It passed into the modern Romance languages and into English from ecclesiastical Latin, in which it had a great vogue. In German, it is highly probable that the word sittlich = moralis is simply a rough translation of the Latin term, and that its adoption led to the formation of Sittlichkeit as the equivalent of the substantive moralitas. This view is borne out by the fact that in Middle High German the word sittlich (sitelich) is used exclusively in the sense of the modern sittig, to mean ‘modest,’ ‘seemly,’ ‘according to custom,’ while the word Sittlichkeit is not found.³

Such is the result of an inquiry into the linguistic usage of the civilised peoples with whom we are most nearly concerned. When we remember, further, that in every other instance where we can interrogate the natural linguistic consciousness we find only names for individual virtues and special moral excellences, it seems fair to conclude that the concept of the ethical in general does not arise except by way of scientific reflection. This does not mean that the primitive consciousness was entirely lacking in anticipations of it. Praise and blame are such natural expressions of the way in which we regard the actions of our fellow-men, that they could not have been wanting even while the capacity for ethical discrimination was in its crudest stage; and as soon as there was praise and blame, all the acts that were c praiseworthy,’ different as they might be in details, would necessarily be felt to belong together. But between this instinctive grouping and the conscious union of the various ethical phenomena under a single concept, there lies a long labour of abstract thought, such as always requires science for its accomplishment. On the other hand, as science, in forming its concepts, has invariably followed the natural lines of connection and division, it follows, of course, that scientific ideas have in turn had a strong reactive influence on the general consciousness and its ideational contents as coined into language.

b ‘Good’ and ‘Bad.’

The marks of this influence are seen most clearly in certain ideas which had so far developed, before the general idea of morality took shape, as practically to cover the antithesis of ‘praiseworthy’ and ‘blameworthy’: the ideas of good and bad. No languages seem to be without them; but in none is their original significance precisely the same. Thus the Hindoo identifies the good with the true, the bad with the untrue. The Greek uses άγαθός to indicate personal bravery and other commendable characteristics; a sense which reminds us of the peculiar connection of the ‘good’ and the ‘beautiful’ in the Greek mind. In the Latin bonus, on the other hand, the original stress is upon the material gifts of fortune, and the superiority of birth which goes with them. Lastly, the English good and German gut are etymologically connected with the German Gattey and so mean ‘fitting,’—a fact which seems to indicate a high esteem for any generally useful aptitude.¹ Similar varieties of meaning have become stereotyped in the words which group the total sum of praiseworthy characteristics under an abstract objective idea. The Greek ἀρετή, for example, points us to the outward circumstance of personal courage and the other moral attributes; the Latin virtus lays emphasis upon manliness and steadfastness of character; while in German the reference to what is suitable and fitting is even more explicit to the modern linguistic consciousness in the substantive Tugend than it is in the adjective gut.

So the familiar statement that it is never really possible to translate the words of one language into another receives what is, perhaps, its very strongest confirmation in the case of ethical terminology. At the same time, we should not hastily infer from this that there was originally no agreement at all as regards the morally praiseworthy and blameworthy. Steadfastness was as certainly esteemed a virtue by the Hindoo as truthfulness by the Romans or ancient Germans. It is only the relative estimation of the different moral attributes that varies. And even this difference has grown gradually less, in the natural course of development of the popular consciousness, under the influence of an universal tendency in the formation of concepts: the tendency to the continual enlargement of the meanings of words. The most striking praiseworthy attribute comes to serve more and more as a designation for the praiseworthy in general. The unity of the moral personality, in which different virtues are always manifested together, was a great incentive to this extension of meaning, suggesting as it must the use of the term ‘good’ to denote the union of a whole number of personal traits. But here too the final step remained for philosophical ethics. Just as it had created a general designation for morality, so it gave the ideas of ‘good,’ ‘bad’ and ‘virtue’ a more widely-reaching value and significance, in which the old national and local shading of ethical appreciation disappeared, leaving only those last indelible traces which even philosophy cannot completely do away with. So the gradual levelling out of specific ethical preferences goes hand in hand with the formation of the general concept of morality, both processes alike finding their completion only in scientific ethical reflection.

Now it is an universal characteristic of change of meaning in words that external, sensible properties furnish designations for the facts of the inner, mental life. In the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ the traces of this sensible origin are exceedingly clear. Indeed, they are perhaps more obvious here than anywhere else, since both meanings, the sensible and the ethical, have remained side by side in ordinary use. We speak today of a ‘good dinner, as naturally as we speak of a ‘good action,’ and of a ‘bad tooth’ as naturally as of a ‘bad conscience’; and the same phenomenon recurs in the corresponding words of all languages. But wherever we can procure evidence of the original significance of a word, we find that it comes closer to the sensible than to the ethical meaning: and we have consequently every right to suppose that the ethical application grew out of the sensible, however early in the history of language the transference may have taken place. Possibly, the very fact that it did take place at an early period has assured the continuance of the sensible meaning of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ For in this respect the words stand in marked contrast with other comparatively recent terms of the ethical vocabulary, in which an original non-ethical significance has been entirely displaced by ethical usage.¹

It is also possible that the very early transference of meaning from sensible to ethical, in the words for ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ accounts for a peculiarity which appears to attach to these adjectives in language, almost without exception: I mean the fact that all the words for ‘good,’ and the great majority of those for ‘bad,’ originally possess no degrees of comparison, and that language has therefore been compelled to have recourse for their formation to other word-stems. The reader will think at once of the English good and better, of the Latin bonus and melior, of the Greek ἀγαθός and βελτίων or ἀμείνων, etc. In the case of ‘bad’ or ‘evil,’ the phenomenon is not quite so constant. It is true that the Latin malus has the comparative form pejor; but Greek very soon renounced the borrowing process,—we find κακίων and κάκιστος even in Homer. In English we have bad and worse; and in German there is a certain tendency to avoid the direct comparative: the forms böser, böseste do not appear till Middle High German, and in modern usage are preferably replaced by other derivatives, e.g., schlechter (in Luther’s German, ärger). These linguistic phenomena have been regarded as evidence that the popular consciousness is inclined to give the term ‘good’ an absolute value, which excludes any idea of more or less.¹ But it is to be noted as against such an interpretation, that besides the word for ‘bad,’ those for ‘great’ and ‘small’ show something of the same character; and that, generally speaking, the formation of derivatives from different word-stems to express related ideas is not by any means unusual: cf., e.g., the forms of the auxiliary verb. On the other hand, the phenomena seem to be confined to very old linguistic formations, dating from a time when language could still derive ideas of similar meaning from different modes of sense perception. Here, then, is another fact, which, like the continuance of a secondary sensible meaning alongside of the ethical, noticed just now, bears valuable testimony to the early origination of moral ideas. It is further characteristic that the change of form in degrees of comparison is limited to a group of adjectives which can be employed directly, for the description of an individual man, in cases where there is no intention of comparing him with other objects possessed of similar attributes. In this sense, therefore, we may very well say that language attaches an absolute value to the terms, ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘great’ and ‘small.’ But the absolute significance is nothing more than that, e.g., which belongs to the proper name. The adjectives have been employed like proper names,—often, perhaps, in place of them,—as constant designations of particular persons. In such cases the idea of quantitative comparison is altogether absent. Hence in the quite different cases where comparison does come in question, it is natural that recourse should be had to different word-formations. Even so, however, the uniform lack of normal degrees of comparison for the term ‘good’ marks that word off from the remaining three, and may be regarded as a sign of constant and especial attention to the praiseworthy features of human personality.

The influence of the moral personality, which shows so clearly in these facts, is seen quite as plainly in the phenomena of the development and differentiation of particular ethical ideas. There, too, the study of language leads inevitably to the conclusion that the idea of morality is at first intimately connected with the person and with personal conduct, and that its severance from this substrate is a very slow and gradual process. Only in course of time do ethical ideas acquire an objective significance of their own, so that they can be made topics of thought without any direct reference to the concrete contents of an actual moral life.

2 The Development of Special Moral Ideas

a The Separation of Ethical Ideas from their Substrate

The gradual severance of individual ethical ideas from the substrate of moral personality and conduct upon which they were originally based is a process that stands in the most intimate connection with the formation of general ethical concepts. No general idea of morality is possible, indeed, until the process of separation has run its full course in the individual case. Hence the antithesis of good and bad, which contains the germ of the general idea of morality, was at first inextricably bound up with the sensible idea of a person whose actions call forth the admiration or disapproval of his fellow-men.

In the present instance, however, the use of good and bad to denote personal characteristics seems to have passed over into an impersonal and objective use at a relatively early period. A connecting link between the two uses was furnished by the application of the words to desirable and undesirable objects; and when the impersonal meaning had established itself, the step to a still more abstract ethical significance could be taken without much difficulty. Thus ‘goods,’ bona, τὰ ἀγαθά, in the sense of material possessions, i.e., as referred to sensible objects, undoubtedly come earlier in the history of language than ‘good,’ etc., as applied to ethical actions and intentions. And it may well be that ‘good,’ in this latter meaning, originally carried with it the consciousness of a metaphorical transference of the kind that we still feel to-day when, e.g., we call virtue a ‘good.’

But variety of usage and significance is not the only thing that puts the stamp of primitiveness and originality upon the terms ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ Nowhere do these attributes appear more clearly than in the technical, ethical employment of the words to denote abstract objective ideas: their adjectival character is writ large upon them. In many other cases all traces of this origin in the adjective have been obliterated, the derivation of the word belonging to a remote period in the history of language for which we have lost all...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part I The Facts of the Moral Life
• Index of Names and Subjects