Royce's Urbana Lectures: Lecture II

Notes and Discussions ROYCE'S URBANA LECTURES: LECTURE II* Four Types o] Personality The outcome of our opening lecture was briefly this: The ethical values of life are values that belong to single acts in so far as we judge that those acts do or do not conform to an already accepted purpose. In order that my life should have an ethical value for me, I must then possess purposes, or ideals, which I have accepted as mine. In the light of these purposes and ideals I must myself judge my own individual acts. It is with an act in life precisely as it is with a step forward, or with the turning of a corner, considered with reference to the way that one is attempting to find or to follow, when he is aiming to reach a definite place. This step in the way is the right one, this turn of the corner is the right one, if it leads toward the place to which I am going, and if it is the step or the turn that is best adapted to enable me to reach my destination. Hence if I have no destination, if I am walking nowhither, there is no definite sense in which this step or this turn is the right one, unless indeed one is walking merely for exercise, without destination, and is judging one's steps merely with reference to their value as means of exercise. In general, then, it is the already accepted purpose that makes an act, when viewed in the light of this purpose, right or wrong. And my own judgment as to what is right or wrong for me, is inevitably determined by the destination that I have accepted as I set out upon this particular section of my walk of life. It is of course true that we judge the acts of others as right or wrong. It is also true that we may judge our own purposes themselves as right or wrong. But such more elaborate forms of the moral consciousness are partly due to the fact that our purposes themselves may be more or less completely determined by acts of decision that we ourselves make; just as my choice to make a certain place the destination of my walk is itself as much an act as are the steps that I take on the way to the destination. Since the choice of a purpose is then in many cases an act, it is once more subject to moral criticism, and as a choice may be right or wrong. It is further true that since we are human beings together, with similar problems, and with the common interests of rational beings, we judge one another's deeds and choices in the light of what we take to be the wisest insight so far accessible into the purposes of life. But on the other hand, no man can possibly find out what is right or wrong for him merely by accepting the authority of another, in so far as it is mere authority. I may indeed decide to follow a certain authority, for instance, to submit to the law of my country, or to ask my spiritual guide what I ought to do, or to obey the orders of my chief. But such decisions are themselves, from my * Lecture I (The Problem o] Ethics) and introductory remarks by Professor Peter Fuss, University of California, Riverside, appeared in this journal, V:I, pp. 60-78. [269] 270 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY own point of view, acts. And they are my own acts. They are right or wrong for me, when viewed in the light of my own definition of my own purposes. If it is my purpose to submit to obey, to accept an authority, then, to be sure, my act of surrender becomes from my point of view the right act. But this decision is still my own, and only in so far as it is my own can I view it as right. In my eyes obedience is right only when it is in conformity with my own already accepted purpose to obey. Therefore it is quite impossible that...