Ethical Principles In Theory And Practice - An Essay In Moral Philosophy

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE AN ESSAY IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY By HANS DRIESCH, PH. D. Hon. LL. D. Aberdeen Hon. M. D. Hamburg Hon. S C. D. Nanking Foreign Member of the Linnean Society and of the Academy of Science, Heidelberg Member of Phi Kappa Phi late Presides of the Society for Psychical Research, London, and of the Society for Psychical Research, Athens Professor of Philosophy in the University of Leipzig Translated by W. H. JOHNSTON, B. A. LONDON GEORGE ALLEN UNWIN LTD MUSEUM STREET The German original, Die Sittlicle T jjffirj puVlisW Leipzig, in 4927 FIRST PUBLISHED IN GREAt BRITAIN IN 1930 All rights reserved PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY UNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING PREFACE WHEN a man has reached the age of sixty years he has some justification for writing on Ethics for at that age he has himself experienced many of those human situa tions which form the subject of Ethics, and is therefore acquainted with them in that detail which is essential for a complete ethical system. At that age he is also more firlfely convinced than ever that Ethics, as soon as it passes beyond questions of mere meaning which is its proper task, although too oftep i neglected must be a confession and no more. The reader may reply that he is not interested in confessions. History, however, shows us two great examples which may yet cause him to retract. For at least they can stimulate the reader to thought, and perhaps to contradiction. That, too, would suffice, if only there is thought. Almost all the existing modern systems of Ethics deal with formal definitions, and at bottom repeat more or less the same thing about them in slightly different words. In this work these are a side-issue, andtherefore are treated briefly. Their treatment in Section I is based upon my theoretical works, the Theory of Order and the Theory of Reality, but will be intelligible to those who are not acquainted with those works. Our chief concern is moral teaching that is, the practical element. For this very reason questions of the day, especially political questions, play a great part in this work, although of course they do not do so in a form specifically adapted tq 8 ETHICAL PRINCIPLES definite persons, countries, or events, though such may have been present to the mind of the author. After all, the question of peace is a political question, and this question is the ethical question par excellence so that it is not too much to say that in our time this question and all that is connected with it takes precedence over all others. This book does not constitute a political dogma or a political science in the proper sense. Least of all ij, it written in a party spirit. No one party will be entirely in agreement with it but the author hopes that statesmen may profit by it. For a true statesman, especially if he governs, must act in accordance with ethical rules, even though he knows that in practice he will fall far short of perfect compliance, since he is operating upon men, and is in conflict with their stupidity, ignorance, and sloth, and sometimes with their ill will. In such a case even the best statesman knows that, of the good at which he aims, only a very small portion is attainable. His office is full of renunciation, nor can it be otherwise. However, the smallest practical progress towards the good is none the less valuable. The man who preaches a code has an easier task than he who hasto realize one for paper is long-suffering. Hence we may freely admit that progress towards the good, however small, actually realized by the statesman is of greater moral value than an ethical system, however perfect, set up by a philosopher. The highest value of all i to be assigned to a life lived as a pattern in Ethics...