That some degree of inequality should be necessary
in communities of men, in view of the differentiation
of function implied in cooperative effort, may be
admitted. How far the inherited organization or
the existing environment of a given community may
make it necessary, in the interests of all, to grant
a large measure of power or prerogative to a single
individual, or to the few, is fair matter for investigation.
But the most cursory glance at the pages of history,
the most superficial survey of the present condition
of mankind, must make it evident that a far-seeing
and enlightened social will has not been the determining
factor in bringing into existence many of the institutions
which are accepted by the actual social will of a
given epoch.
Neither Alexander the Great nor Napoleon can be regarded
as true exponents of the social will. The rule
of the oligarchy is based upon selfish considerations.
The institution of slavery overrides the will of the
bondsman in the interests of his possessor. The
perennial struggle between the “haves”
and the “have nots”—the rich
and the poor—is, unfortunately, carried
on by those engaged in it with a view to their own
interests and not with a view to the good of society
as a whole.
That those to whom especial opportunities are, by
the accident of their position, open, or by whom special
rights are inherited, should accept the situation
as right and proper is not to be wondered at.
All rights and duties have their roots in the past,
and conceptions of what is feasible and desirable
are always influenced by tradition. While from
the standpoint of the real social will anomalous and
accidental it is nevertheless psychologically explicable
and natural that the mediaeval knight should be bound
by the rules of chivalry only in his dealings with
those of his own rank; that the murder of a priest
should be regarded as a crime of a special class;
that benefit of clergy should be extended to a limited
number of those guilty of the same offence; that the
lists of the deadly sins should, in an age dominated
by the monastic idea, smack so strongly of the cloister.
Natural it is, and, perhaps, inevitable, that such
expressions of the social will should make their appearance.
They have their place in the historic evolution of
society. But they betray the fact that man is
imperfectly rational. They cannot be regarded
as expressions of the permanent rational will which
belongs to man as man.
CHAPTER XXI
THE RATIONAL SOCIAL WILL
82. REASONABLE ENDS.—We have seen
in the chapter on “Rationality and Will,”
that we cannot consider a man rational unless his choices
are harmonized and converge upon some comprehensive
end. It has been hinted, furthermore, that not
all comprehensive ends can be described as reasonable
or rational.
Copyrights
A Handbook of Ethical Theory from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
