And further, with the development of
intelligence, new ways of fulfilling the necessary tasks suggest
themselves, moral problems arise where none were felt before. Men
learn that they have not made the most of their opportunities or
lived the best possible lives; they have veered this way and that
according to the moment's impulse, they have been misled by
ingrained habits and paralyzed by inertia, they have wandered at
random for lack of a clear vision of their goal. The task of the
moralist is to attain such a clear vision; to understand, first, the
basis of all preference, and then, in detail, the reasons for
preferring this concrete act to that. Here are a thousand impulses
and instincts drawing us, with infinite further possibilities
suggesting themselves to reflection; the more developed our natures
the more frequently do our desires conflict. Why is any one better
than another? How can we decide between them? Or shall we perhaps
disown them all for some other and better way.
Man's effort to solve these problems is revealed outwardly in a
multitude of precepts and laws, in customs and conventions; and
inwardly in the sense of duty and shame, in aspiration, in the
instinctive reactions of praise, blame, contentment, and remorse. The
leadings of these forces are, however, often divergent, sometimes
radically so. We must seek a completer insight. There must be some
best way of solving the problem of life, some happiest, most useful
way of living; its pursuit constitutes the field of ethics.
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