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[Chapter 9.] Three Social Sciences: [Economics, Politics, Ethics] 73. The ethical question is the question of the extent and manner in which the various activities are translated over into conscious values. It is a question not of a particular mechanism in which this control goes on, or structure in which a mechanism is centered, but of how far and in what way the activities come to consciousness and in what way they are present as conscious values. 74. We may say ethics deals with the ends or ideals involved in these reciprocal activities, provided we do not mean ideals objectively32 aimed at, but the ideals as they are reflected into consciousness. There are no moral values except in consciousness, so to take any value as value is to raise the ethical question. 75. 1. The economic phase is a question of mechanism or machinery by which individuals reciprocally stimulate and control each other. When we ask how an individual stimulates and controls, we have a question of economics. 2. If we ask concerning the structure of the organism through which this reciprocal relation and response is exercised, and through which the conscious values are mediated, we have the political question. 3. [The1ethical question is a question ofends. Economics is question of means. Politics is a question ofadjustment of the two, or the technique. Ethics gives the idea of freedom, that is, the amount of value of social activities which is absorbed. 76. On the side of Economics it is demands. On the side of Politics it is the assumed rights33 ofindividual and organ; it is goods, powers, claims. On the side of readjustment, Ethics gives us responsibility, Economics gives us supply, and Politics obligations. The organization ofsocial consciousness is to maintain the equilibrium between freedom and responsibility, demand and supply, rights and obligations. Responsibility can be only in the exercise of freedom, that is, you can't go on except on past habit, so one can exercise demand only. Virtue, ofthe supply he already has. Effective demand is simply supply functioning. Rights which one can exercise defend a position he has in the organism. It is the relationship involved in that position, and they are the obligations one has to meet. Every right means an obligation. It means an activity and therefore means something for a person to do. We call it a right when we see that it is referred to the individual's own consciousness. It is a duty or obligation when we take content of obligation and ask what is involved in it. 77- To go again to the ethical side. There follows the impossibility of any abstract ideal or standard. The attempt to discover a law which is the law is fu- Lectures on Political Ethics 149 tile. The ethical question is: What are the values recognized as we go on? It is a functional value, and we are victims to ethical fallacy when we abstract and set it up by itself. There is no ethics outside the ethical process. 78. We have two aspects of ethics: one the historical, which is an account of various types of values, progressively realized; and psychological ethics, or the statement ofthe form ofprocess by which reconstruction ofvalues occurs. The search for abstract value outside of process lands us into something which is neither psychological nor historical ethics, but metaphysical ethics in the sense that it transcends the process. The question of ends and force in volition is only relative or functional distinction. The measure of force or idea of force is intelligible only in reference to some end. Economics does its selecting on side of force, and ethics does its selecting on side of end. 79. Politics deals with anatomy ofstructure. The structural side is necessarily assumed in all economics, but it must not be disregarded. The people who manage economics are the political institution. The same fact may be ethical, economical, or political, according to the point of view. ...

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