St Ignatius College - Ignatian Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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82 IGNATIAN approach the opposite pole, vice, and he is irresistibly re- pelled. The whole philosophy is too material, too opposed to both fact and reason to answer my question. May I ask what is your explanation, Mr. Handlos? and the speaker turned toward the man who had been debating with the doctor. Thus far I had been a casual listener, but the peculiar nature of the conversation began to arouse my attention, and to set my brain in action. The man addressed as Handlos was now speaking. I'm what philosophers technically call a hedonist. First of all some things we do, afford us pleasure, others cause us pain. Whatever causes pleasure is good. What gives pain is evil. Now reason demands that we should follow the pleasurable and hence the good, and avoid the painful and the therefore evil. This doctrine, if you examine it, is but the analysis of your own conduct. But your system, urged the young questioner, is sub- ject to the same objection as before. Pleasure and pain do not oblige, they are only motives which may or may not in- fluence my judgment. Suppose I feel inclined to act against the feelings of pleasure, what then ? The explanation of that is simple. Although the course you follow may be painful to some, the reason you pursue it, is because it is pleasurable to you. If that is the case, you must admit a variable standard of ethics. That is, an act, suicide for instance, may be a virtue in one man, an evil in another. Now I think y0u'll admit suicide is a wrong, yet men often take theirilives in order to avoid pain, and this according to you constitutes virtue. Beyond this, such a system would soon vitiate both private-and public morals. Some of the most vicious actions that man can perform are accompanied by pleasures, in fact we call them sensuous pleasures. They are acknowledged vices, yet you would have to call them good actions. Again, it would destroy public virtue. Hedonism looks only to the individual. It neglects entirely the duties which man owes to others. The only thing that would be wrong about

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WHY MUST I BE MORAL? 81 night lullaby, why don't you, instead of hurling part of your bed-room's furniture at your serenader, go out and get a warrant against the cat for disturbing the peace? 4 The group laughed, including the doctor, who however continued his explanation: You must remember that I did not deny free will. All right then, suppose we say that man is endowed with free will, then since this necessarily entails operations that no material faculty can perform it must be a spiritual faculty. Now, instinct is materialg hence you would have a material faculty necessitating a spiritual one. Since law can only be imposed by a superior, and we are speaking here of the moral law, it is absurd to claim that an inferior faculty can impose a law on a superior one. , It strikes me, too, interrupted a tall aggressive looking fellow fwho, I afterwards learned, was a lawyerj, that, in- stead of answering your question, my friend has proven its contradictory. I-Iow's that? put in the doctor, with a slight show of heat. Well, the question was: 'Why must one be moral ?' that is to say, 'why must he do good and avoid evil?' By at- tributing this obligation to instinct, you have proven that we should be immoral at times. Not a bit of it. I never said anything like it! . No, not explicitly, but implicitly. You claim that we should follow instinct. But instinct often compels us to be angry or lustful. Hence if the good is what instinct dictates you would make acknowledged vices, virtues l Good! that is a point I did not think of, the young man insisted. The whole trouble with the theory of instinct is, that it makes a man a mere machine, compelled by ex- terior forces to act or not to act. This system might well be compared to a magnet, and a compass needle. Ap- proach one pole of the magnet toward the compass and im- mediately it will be attracted, approach the other pole and it repels the needle. Man is the compass needle in your doctrine. Approach a virtue and he is irresistibly drawn,

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WHY MUST I BE MORAL? 83 murder, is that it might cause mental anguish to the mur- derer. That may be all very true when it comes to cold logic, but taking experience as a criterion, it strikes me that many and many a time the thought of consequent pleasure and pain prevent a man from commiting a crime, remarked Handlos, somewhat decisively. I'm only too willing to grant that these considerations are strong factors in deterring a man from evil, but they are not obligatory. My question is 'Why must I be moral ?' not 'what influences my decisions ?' Moreover pleasure and pain are, as you just stated, consequent upon an act, hence before you can tell whether an act is good or bad you must perform it and then if it causes you pleasure you know it was good, if it causes you pain it was bad. This is evidently absurd. No, Handlos, 'hedonism' is no answer to my question. An elderly gentleman who had taken no part in the dis- cussion thus far, suggested a new solution: While,I agree that we must follow the dictates of reason and that we are infiuenced by personal pain and pleasure, yet I think that the solution is to be found in the fact that man is a social animal, and that in consequence of that fact, he is bound to respect the common good of the community and not to infringe upon the duties which he owes to his fellow men. Thus in the oft- repeated example of murder, the criminal is violating the right of a fellow man to his life and thus he commits a wrong. Since we are allowed the protection of society we are necessarily obliged to respect the rights of the individuals living in society. What is useful for promoting the common weal is therefore the good, what obstructs its advancement is evil. Your system is far more humane than the preceding one, answered Smith, since it substitutes altruism for ego- ism. Yet it lies open to many objections. First of all it does not answer my question. No explanation advanced thus far explains to me why I am obliged to keep the moral law. Your doctrines merely state what is right and wrong, not