Page:Philosophical Review Volume 4.djvu/67

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THE METHOD OF IDEALIST ETHICS.
[Vol. IV.

ence to Greek Ethics, where this view was widely taken: by Aristotle, in particular, it was firmly held; well-being, or εὐδαιμονία, according to his conception of it, was such an ideal. Here question (2) becomes identical with (1).

But we may distinguish a region of mental activity where obligation is commonly supposed to obtain in a more special way than it does in our general intellectual and emotional processes: the sphere of 'volition' as manifested in outward movements. This is 'conduct' in the ordinary sense; and 'moral obligation,' as ordinarily understood, is limited more or less definitely to this sphere. It is with 'conduct' in this narrower sense that modern, and especially English, Ethics has dealt. Here question (2) is a narrower question than (1). But it might still be maintained that we cannot proceed far in dealing with (2) without having (consciously or unconsciously) adopted some definite point of view with regard to the inquiries embraced under (1). Thus the Intuitionists hold that Duty consists in obedience to certain moral laws which are inherent in human nature, and are 'intuitively known to be unconditionally binding.' Here there is apparently no reference to a supreme End of life; nevertheless these writers, as a rule, have theorized as if obedience to these laws constituted the highest human good. This view was explicitly formulated by the profoundest among them, when he said, "The one unconditional Good is the Good Will."

Question (1), then, is the most fundamental: What is the supreme Ideal of human life?

Now the problem of whether there is such an ideal, and of the form under which we may represent it, can evidently be settled only by an appeal to the facts of our inner conscious experience—to the actual constitution of the human mind. Its constitution is shown to us, at least in part, by Psychology; but we must push the psychological question so far that it becomes ontological. We cannot rest content with a conclusion which, though it is true 'for Psychology,'—true in the psychological reference,—may yet be wholly or partly false in some other reference. We want to know what the human