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Chapter 4 William James and Moral Philosophy  A lthough James addressed the moral issues of his time such as war, imperialism, and racism, he did not write extensively on ethical theory. He devoted only one work to that subject, the essay, “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life.” In this essay he did not intend to show how the average person should think about moral issues, but how the moral philosopher should think about these issues. The essay investigates the question: “What should the moral philosopher do?” James did not consider philosophers to be necessarily any wiser or more ethical than anyone else and did not claim that he as a philosopher had any special insight to bring to the table. Nevertheless, the moral philosopher has a special task in helping the rest of the community create a moral universe. In describing this task, he reveals his thinking about the meaning of morality. The Task of the Moral Philosopher Moral philosophers go to work in an environment in which there is no ready-made moral universe. Fortunately, there are moral ideals and moral relations. The philosopher has the task of weaving the ideals and relations into a moral universe. A moral ideal is anything that anyone thinks ought to be. Ideals are given in experience before any judgment is made as to which moral ideals are better and, therefore, ought to prevail. But a multitude of moral ideals, experienced subjectively, certainly does not constitute a universe . Rather, such a situation can be termed a chaos of conflicting voices. In setting out on his task of creating a moral universe, James distinguishes three questions: First comes the psychological question, which asks about the origin of these ideals. Second, the metaphysical question asks what  31  the value terms mean. Finally, James asks the casuistic question concerning what is right in practice. James did not devote much space to the psychological question in this article . He mentions the theory of associationism only to reject it. Associationism, which enjoyed much popularity in his time and provided the basis of utilitarianism, holds that we view something as good or bad because we associate it with pleasant or painful experiences in our past. James rejected associationism as incompatible with the reality of our moral experience . On the contrary he argues, All the more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of the probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lesson it has so far taught us must learn to bend. (WB, 189) So while associationism looks backwards at the origin of preferences, morality must look ahead to how we ought to act now and in the future. As he did all through his life, James attributed an active role to thoughts. Whatever their origin, the meaning of our thoughts resides in the work that they do in shaping our world. James attributes more importance to the metaphysical question: What do value terms mean? Looking at all of the claims that have been made by moral philosophers, James observes that they have only one thing in common; they all express claims. He comes to the startling conclusion that a moral ideal consists simply of satisfying a moral claim. This conclusion, at first, sounds not only startling, but also ludicrous. It seems that it either naively ignores the abundance of evil claims, or it falls into a subjectivism that cannot distinguish good from evil. To understand James, the reader must go beyond this immediate impression and carefully follow the development of his argument. James begins with the assertion that values can exist only for conscious beings. For something to be valuable there must be someone who values it. If the world were totally dead and there were no living beings and no God, there would be no value. But if any conscious being, human or divine, or whatever other animal or other conscious being values something, it has that much value. Everything that can be called good holds a value to someone. If any conscious being expresses a value by claiming the good of something, that thing is to that extent good. Therefore, every claim ought to be satisfied unless, and this unless is crucial, it conflicts with another claim. To satisfy a claim is good; to frustrate a claim therefore is bad. My claim or your claim taken by itself is always good and ought to be satisfied. But...

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