CHAPTER VI

SELF-REALIZATION AND THE SYSTEM OF VIRTUES


1. Intuitional and Empirical Conceptions of Virtue.--2. Virtue as Interpreted by Self-Realization.--3. The Classification of the Virtues.--4. Historic Methods of Classifying the Virtues.--5. Other Methods of Classifying the Virtues.--6. Defects of These Classifications Illustrated by Pre-evolutionary Classification of Living Forms.--7. Classification of Virtues as Stages in Self-Organization Illustrated by Evolutionary Classification.--8. Classification of Virtues in Accordance with Method of Self-Realization.--9. Advantages of Such Classification.

1. Intuitional and Empirical Conceptions of Virtue. The treatment of the different virtues or duties which are a recognized part of morality has varied in accordance with the theory of conscience, whether intuitional or empirical. Intuitionists have regarded the several virtues as habits of character whose moral worth is self-evident to the human conscience. In this view, certain forms of conduct such as courage and temperance and justice are given a peculiar authority and prestige in human life. It is, moreover, a necessary consequence of its self-evident character that this authority should be admitted universally by men of all races and times. Thus Intuitionists have been led to maintain that a general agreement exists among all human beings as to the fundamental duties or virtues. If such agreement exists it should not be difficult to discover what these virtuous practices are, and the Intuitionists have endeavored to enumerate them. But, possessing no standard of moral value in the form of an end to the attainment of which all right practices are related as means, it is not strange that these moralists, in the face of the bewildering diversity of beliefs and practices that

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enter into the morality of different peoples and times, should have failed in their attempt to discover and catalogue the fundamental human virtues. The Empiricist, on the contrary, believing that judgments of moral value are determined by the conditions of individual existence and social survival, does not expect to find any such general agreement among men, as to the types of conduct and character which are approved as good. He does not believe that any rule of action possesses absolute authority over the life of men, and points to the lack of agreement among races, as to what is virtuous and what is vicious, as evidence sustaining his position. He is not tempted to undertake a description or classification of all the virtues, seeing in the failure of the Intuitionist's attempt sufficient proof of the futility of such an undertaking.

2. Virtue as Interpreted by Self-Realization.-In this matter Self-realization as usual takes the via media and attains the larger truth. In accordance with this point of view, a virtue is any habit or disposition required of a human individual as a means to his Self-realization.¹ It is apparent at once that this conception of virtue allows for and explains the many and confusing differences of opinion among men as to what practices are virtuous. What is meat to one man is poison to another; yet each must have his proper means of subsistence if he is to live and develop his powers. Furthermore, the conditions of man's life, the character of the human environment, vary with every individual, every race, and every epoch; yet it is these conditions and circumstances that the individual 1    The relation of duty and virtue was explained in Chap. I of Part II. These two words do not signify different things, the one an outward act, which is distinct from the other, an inward quality. Rather do they both refer to the same thing, to an activity which is judged an essential part of goodness. For convenience, the term virtue will be employed exclusively in the discussion which follows in the present chapter, it being understood to mean equally a habit of action or a disposition to act.

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must reckon with and utilize, if he is to maintain his existence and realize his larger self. It is not strange then that what one race esteems highly as a virtue another race at a-different period of development and. under other conditions should regard with great disapproval and repugnance. If an Eskimo should meet the game he is hunting in unusually large numbers and under circumstances exceptionally favorable to himself, it might well be a virtuous action for him to make as large a kill as possible in order to provide food for himself and his family during the winter; but such wholesale slaughter of game by a sportsman in a civilized country would be rightly condemned and viewed with abhorrence. For the scholar who works long hours at his desk or in his laboratory it is a duty to take exercise in the open-air for a certain time each day; for the farmer who works in the fields or the mechanic whose trade is pursued out-of-doors this duty does not exist, but virtue for him consists in keeping his intellectual faculties alive by daily reading and thought.

Adopting the principle of Self-realization we are thus able to make ample allowance for the variety of conditions under which moral development proceeds and do full justice to the relative and changing character of moral distinctions; but we have also found that there are certain conditions which are essential to all human life and conduct. Every human individual possesses a set of natural instincts and a number of spiritual capacities, which relate him as a natural being to material objects and other individuals, as a conscious self to other selves in a community of intelligence and personality, as a human personality to the Universal Order and Purpose. These conditions, holding for all human beings, determine on broad lines the course of Self-realization for every one. In view of the aforesaid characteristics of human nature and human life which seem to be fixed and essential, all men must

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achieve a series of adjustments if they are to organize their conduct. These activities of adjustment which are necessary for self-organization in the case of every human being deserve most truly the designation of virtues. Since they are indispensable means to the attainment of Self-realization, the supreme end, they share its absolute moral worth. And as they are practices required equally of all men who would completely organize their conduct, they may be distinguished from habits of character requisite to Self-realization in different individuals and with particular societies, and be properly regarded as universal virtues. But to maintain that these habits of adjustment, necessary to complete self-organization in all men, are universal in their authority, does not mean that their worth as virtues is recognized by all peoples or observed by all individuals. For the organization of conduct is achieved through a slow and arduous development both in society and the individual; in consequence many peoples have never gone beyond the earlier stages and the first adjustments; they admit the obligation to temperance and courage but have hardly a notion of idealism or benevolence. Just to this extent, accordingly, their moral development is incomplete and self-organization unattained.

3. The Classification of the Virtues.-Thus to conceive of virtuous actions as necessary steps in the organization of conduct, and of the fundamental virtues as activities which the essential conditions of human life require of all men who would achieve Self-realization, gives the most satisfactory solution to the problem of the virtues and their inter-relation. Interpreting the virtues as necessary stages in self-organization they are made functions within a single process and hence joined in an organic system. Moreover, a criterion or standard is supplied by which the claims of an activity or disposition to be admitted to the class of virtues may be tested. To receive a place in the

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system such an activity must be shown to be necessary to Self-realization under the universal conditions of human life. Thus the foundation is laid for a classification of the virtues which shall be systematic, comprehensive, and--most important of all--expressive of the inherent character of moral development itself. The value of such a classification would seem to be self-evident. Yet thus it does not appear to recent writers on Ethics; in fact the whole undertaking has fallen into disfavor. Professor Dewey regards a cataloged list of the virtues with an exact definition of each as undesirable and impossible.² Professor Mackenzie thinks that the attempt to make a list of the particular virtues is almost frivolous.³ The relative and changing character of moral distinctions, and the dependence of all judgments of vice and virtue upon individual opinion, are cited as showing the futility of any attempt to make a classification of the virtues which shall possess universal validity. The general acceptance of any classification, moreover, would mean that morality had become formalized and conventional; since moral development, itself living and fluent, cannot without violence be restricted to the limits of fixed forms of conduct and character. In defense of the value and importance to Ethics of defining and classifying the virtues, the reply may be made that if Ethics is to succeed in its chief purpose of describing in an intelligible and convincing fashion the essential. features of the good life, it must be able to give this life some coherent form, some definite framework. Such form or framework is supplied only when we define the activities which are necessary constituents of goodness in all individuals. Furthermore, if the conclusions of Ethics are to furnish guidance in life they must contain recommendations sufficiently concrete 2    DEWEY AND TUFTS: Ethics, p. 402.
3    MACKENZIE: Manual Of Ethics, p. 366.


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and certain to be carried out in practice. There is danger lest present-day Ethics in its anxiety to avoid stereotyped formulas and systematic principles should leave its students with ideas too indefinite and complicated to be remembered or applied in actual life. There is cause then for the complaint of the French moralist who wrote a few years ago deploring the lack of agreement in their practical recommendations among teachers of Ethics in French universities, saying these differences of opinion furnished capital for the enemies of philosophy in ecclesiastical circles.⁴ He then detailed a list of ten virtues and maintained that these at least might be generally recognized by moralists as essential to good conduct.

4. Historic Methods of Classifying the Virtues The most important, and still the most celebrated, classification of the virtues is that of Plato, who describes the four “cardinal” virtues, Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice. This classification doubtless owes its fame and continued influence to the fact that it is really organic--being based upon an analysis of the faculties of the human self and a study of the conditions of their activity in human society. Recognizing three “faculties” in the human soul, the rational, spirited, and appetitive, Plato considers that a virtue resides in the discharge Of its proper office by each of these faculties, Wisdom in the control by reason of appetite, Courage in the execution by will of the commands issued by reason to sensuous desire, and Temperance in the subjection of appetite and desire to the control of reason. Justice, the virtue remaining, consists in the harmonious activity of the whole self which results from the proper functioning of each of these faculties within its own pe is evidently identical with Self-realization and the three other virtues may 4    LALANDE: “Tres Principes Universels de 1'Education Morale,” Revue de Metaphysique, Vol. IX, p. 237.
SELF-REALIZATION AND SYSTEM OF VIRTUES 311 be considered as adjustments required for this end by the essential characteristics of the human self. The classification is patently unsatisfactory, however, because it does not contain enough virtues to cover the whole field of the moral life. It has a semblance of adequacy only because justice is made to include all the social virtues. Perceiving this defect in the Platonic classification, Aristotle gives us a much longer list of virtues. But while his classification is much more inclusive and concrete than that of Plato, it is less organic and essential. He first divides virtues into two classes, intellectual and moral, the former being activities of reason alone and the latter involving both the rational and the non-rational principles in human nature and consisting in the control by reason of desire and emotion. Now the law of reason in the conduct of life is that of the-organic mean, i.e. such regulation of every impulse and activity as will make it a means to the realization of the end of life itself. The moral virtues then consist in the observance of this “golden mean” in the gratification of every desire. Aristotle enumerates a number of virtues which thus represent moderation in the different departments of human nature and the various activities of human life. His account of these virtues, while always highly illuminating and instructive, contains, through its very fullness and detail, much that applies only to his own time and people. One misses, moreover, a unifying principle which will reveal the inner and essential articulation of these forms of conduct. As Mackenzie says, Aristotle's list of the virtues is little more than a “collection of specimens of some of the most important types to be found in his age and country.”⁵

5. Other Methods of Classifying the Virtues.-Many other classifications of the virtues have been made since the time of the Greek moralists. A method frequently 5    MACKENZIE: Manual of Ethics, p. 372.

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used is as follows: Certain types of action are recognized as virtuous. These are examined and compared. Points of similarity are noted by which several virtues are associated together and at the same time set off from other virtues which do not possess these qualities. One of these aspects in which groups of virtues differ is selected as a convenient principle of classification. Thus the object of reference of a virtue is often chosen as a handy means of classifying it. Certain virtues are distinguished as self-regarding, like prudence and temperance; others are said to be social in their reference, like justice and sympathy. Or, the faculties which they bring into play are hit upon as a principle for dividing the virtues. We then have intellectual virtues, like tolerance and sincerity; virtues of the will, as courage and self-control; and those of the affections, as kindness, loyalty, etc. An excellent illustration of this way of treating the virtues is furnished by the classification of Thomas Aquinas, the accepted philosopher of the Roman Catholic church. Thomas first divides the virtues, according to their source, into natural and supernatural. The supernatural virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are produced in man by God. The natural virtues man acquires by the exercise of his own powers. They, in their turn, ate divided, according to. their source in human nature, into intellectual and moral virtues. The moral virtues are four, justice, prudence, courage, and temperance. In classifying these four, Thomas uses another principle and distinguishes them according to the object of their reference. Thus justice, because it refers to the good of others, is separated from Prudence, courage, and temperance, which are concerned with the welfare of self.

6. Defects of These Classifications Illustrated by Pre-evolutionary Classification of Living Forms. Such a method of classification has grave faults. It is bound to SELF-REALIZATION AND SYSTEM OF VIRTUES 313 lead to results largely subjective, because the principle used depends upon individual taste and opinion. The same virtue may belong to an indefinite number of groups, according to the quality or aspect of it chosen for emphasis. Thus tolerance may be classed with sincerity as an intellectual, or with justice as a social virtue, according as we emphasize its source in the individual nature, or the end toward which it is directed. Then, too, a principle of classification so selected for convenience's sake affords no test of the fitness of any activity to be admitted to the system of virtues. Suppose we classify the virtues according to the object of their reference. Then any practice designed to promote the welfare of the self, e.g. cunning, might be included among the self-regarding virtues. At least the principle of classification would furnish no obstacle. But these and many other shortcomings have their roots in one fundamental defect,-a principle is employed in classification which is not organic to the field of its application. Hence it follows inevitably that the results obtained are subjective, and room is left for endless doubt and dispute. No necessity attaches to the conclusions because the essential inter-relation of the facts is not observed. The biological sciences have long since abandoned a method of classification whose results are so unsatisfactory. Before the time of Darwin, however, plants and animals were classified in this fashion. The naturalists of the eighteenth century based their classifications for the most part upon broad and easily discovered resemblances in the external characters of organisms. Such similarities in structure and habit as seemed important to the individual investigator were utilized by him in the grouping of forms. None of the systems thus constructed gained universal acceptance; for all were subjective, and hence artificial. But the advent of evolution changed all this, and put into 314

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the hands of the biologist a new and better instrument for the organization of his field. The relation of descent was seen to constitute the natural principle of classification. Living forms which are grouped genetically are not arbitrarily associated by an external tie and a common label; they are organically united by community of descent and consequent identity of nature. By their phylogenetic affinities the various living forms are grouped, into an organic system, between the members of which there is essential inter-relation and functional inter-dependence.

7. Classification of Virtues as Stages in Self-Organization Illustrated by Evolutionary Classification. We now ask, can we make such a classification of the virtues, a classification based not on external resemblances but on organic interconnection? Can we apply the organic conception to the moral life, and conceive of the virtues as functions, whose nature and position are determined by the part they play in the realization of the Moral Ideal? This is quite possible if we understand the moral life as a' development whose end is the complete organization of human conduct, and the different virtues as necessary steps in this process of organization. Pursuing this method we reach, it would appear, a satisfactory classification of the virtues. It resembles the classification of living forms made by the biologist. Like this, it is a natural arrangement based upon genetic relationship and functional interdependence. As the various species of plants and animals are regarded as stages in the evolution of the living organism, so the different virtues are conceived as steps in the evolution of conduct. As the many living species are united by genetic affinities in one great organic system, so the different virtues are united in the complete organization of conduct. As the species are classified according to the part they play in the process of organic evolution, so the virtues are classified according to the office they SELF-REALIZATION AND SYSTEM OF VIRTUES 315 discharge in the organization of conduct. Thus our ideal of a principle organic to the field of its application is realized. The virtues are classified within the system according to the function which they discharge in its organization. Temperance and prudence are associated because both are required in the organization of individuality. Justice and benevolence are distinguished from them and classed together because necessary for the adjustment of the individual to society, Finally, it may be noticed that here the principle used in classification is itself a test of the fitness of any activity to be admitted to the system. For it is only through the function which it discharges in the organization of conduct that an activity can be classed among the virtues.

8. Classification of the Virtues in Accordance with the Method of Self-Realization.-Adopting the method proposed and following it out along the lines indicated in previous chapters, we recognize first that self-organization for man involves three necessary aspects: I. The organization of impulses and activities within the nature of the individual. II. The organization of individual interests within society. III. The adjustment of human welfare to Universal Reality. We see further that self-organization in each of the first two aspects (with which alone Ethics is directly concerned) can be achieved only through two subordinate activities of adjustment. These adjustments, rendered habitual, are in truth necessary steps in the organization of conduct. They are as follows:

I. INDIVIDUAL.

a) The adjustment of all natural desires to the material comfort and well-being of the individual. b) The adjustment of the individual's physical com-

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fort and well-being to those ideals required to satisfy his spiritual capacities.

II. SOCIAL.

a) The adjustment of individual interest to the interests of others with whom he comes into personal contact. b) The adjustment of all individual interests to the welfare of all human personality.

Let it be noted finally that each of these habits of adjustment has two sides; a negative, in the repression or restriction of constituent activities; and, a positive, in the attainment of a more comprehensive end thereby. Such positive and negative sides may be clearly distinguished in any adjustment which is a step in progressive organization and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that in the four or (including the religious) the five adjustments above-named, each side furnishes the basis for a virtue. It is of course a well-known fact that the virtues go in pairs, the members of which supplement and complete one another, as e.g. justice and benevolence, temperance and prudence. Thus we are enabled to designate and define ten virtues which are necessary steps or stages in Self-realization under the universal conditions of human life.

1. INDIVIDUAL.

a-1) Temperance.-The habit of restraining single impulses and desires in the interest of individual well-being. a-2) Prudence.-The habit of furthering individual comfort and security through the due subordination of single impulses and desires. b-3) Courage.-The habit of sacrificing individual safety and comfort in the attainment of a larger and more comprehensive good.

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b-4) Idealism (Wisdom, Efficiency, Refinement).- The habit of exercising the higher spiritual capacities of the individual at the expense of his material comfort and pleasure.

11. SOCIAL.

a-5) Kindness.-The habit of surrendering individual interest when this is known to conflict with the interest of another. a-6) Friendship.-The habit of promoting another's welfare with disregard for one's own interest. b-7) Justice.-The habit of subordinating individual interest, whether of self or of others, to the good of humanity. b-8) Benevolence.-The habit of promoting the welfare of all fellow-men, whether in community, nation, or world, by means of individual effort and initiative.

111. RELIGIOUS.

a-9) Reverence.-The subordination of human interests to the ends of Universal Intelligence. a-10) Piety.-The adoption by man of the Universal Purpose as his good.

9. Advantages of Such Classification The agreement of the classification here proposed with modern evolutionary conceptions is brought out clearly if we compare it with that made by Thomas Aquinas and adopted by Roman Catholic moralists. Indeed, the classification here given is related to that of Thomas much as modern genetic systems in biology are related to those of the pre-Darwinian naturalists. Thus Thomas separates absolutely the supernatural from the natural virtues. The former are gifts of God; the latter have natural causes. In an analogous way pre-Darwinian science separated man from other animal species, believing that the peculiar circumstances of his creation had given him a unique place in the organic realm. We have recognized no such difference in kind between the “religious” and other virtues. All are stages in one process

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of organization, the religious virtues representing simply the final step in which the individual adjusts himself to Universal Reality. In a like manner, of course, modern science admits of no absolute separation between the human and other species. In his detailed classification of the natural virtues Thomas makes sharp distinctions based upon single features chosen as principles of division, thus separating the intellectual from the moral virtues according to the faculties which they bring into play, rational or appetitive, and among the moral virtues distinguishing two classes according to the object of their reference, social or selfish. All this reminds us of eighteenth-century classifications in biology by means of parts and attributes singled out by the systematist because serviceable to his purpose. On the other hand, the arrangement suggested above agrees with modern evolutionary systems in allowing no arbitrary distinction of forms, but classifying them all according to the their genetic affinities in one process of development. The following chapters are devoted to a study of these different virtues which represent, in their orderly sequence, the necessary stages in the life of Self-realization.


REFERENCES

DEWEY AND TUFTS, Ethics, Chap. XIX.
MACKENZIE, Manual of Ethics, Book II, Chap. III, and Book III, Chap. IV.
PAULSEN, System of Ethics, Book III, Chap. I.
ALEXANDER, Moral Order and Progress, Book II, Chap. VI.
SIDGWICK, Methods of Ethics, Book III, Chap. II.
SETH, Ethical Principles, Part II, Chaps. I, II.
GREEN, Prolegomena to Ethics, Book III, Chap. V.
ARISTOTLE, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II (Welldon's trans.).
PLATO, Republic, Book IV (Trans. of Davies and Vaughn).