Nothing
could be more practical, more vital, more universally human.
Why should we study ethics?
(1) The most obvious reason for the study of ethics is that we may
get more light for our daily problems. We are constantly having to
choose how we shall act and being perplexed by opposing advantages.
Decide one way or the other we must. On what grounds shall we decide?
How shall we feel assured that we are following a real duty, pursuing
an actual good, and not being led astray by a mere prejudice or
convention? The alternative is, to decide on impulse, at haphazard,
after some superficial and one-sided reflection; or to think the matter
through, to get some definite criteria for judgments, and to face the
recurrent question, what shall we do? In the steady light of those
principles. [Footnote: Cf. Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, vol.
i: "Marcus Aurelius," opening paragraph: "The object of systems of
morality is to take possession of human life, to save it from being
abandoned to passion or allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness
by establishing it in the practice of virtue; and this object they
seek to attain by presenting to human life fixed principles of action,
fixed rules of conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired
moments, in its days of languor or gloom as well as in its days of
sunshine and energy, human life has thus always a clue to follow, and
may always be making way towards its goal.
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