The science of morals and rights should be based on the study of moral and juridical facts. These facts consist of rules of conduct that have received sanction. The problems to be solved in this field of study are:
Another matter, obviously, is to consider how we arrived at our current ideas of property and how theft has come to be a crime in certain conditions determined by the law; we must, too, define the conditions that account for the protective rule of the rights of property being here more and there less observed, that is, how it happens that some societies have more, and some, fewer thieves. These two questions are distinct, but even so, they could not be treated separately, for they are closely linked. There are the causes which have led to the establishment of rule, or law and order, and there are the causes responsible for the ascendancy of rule over the minds of men, sometimes over few, sometimes many. These causes are not identical but are yet of a kind to act as a check on each other and also to throw light one on the other. The problem of the origin and the problem of the operation of the function must therefore form the subject matter of research. This is why the equipment of the method used in studying the science of morals and rights is of two kinds. On the one hand we have comparative history and ethnography, which enable us to get at the origin of the rule, and show us its component elements first dissociated and then accumulating by degrees. In the second place there are comparative statistics, which allow us to compute the degree of relative authority with which this rule is clothed in individual consciousnesses and to discover the causes which make this authority variable. It is true we are not at present able to treat every moral problem from both points of view, for very often statistical data are lacking. This is perhaps the moment to remark that a science with its own technique ought to tackle both these questions.
In thus defining the subject of our inquiry, we have at the same time settled its sub-divisions. The moral and juridical facts—let us say, briefly, just moral facts—consist of rules of conduct that have sanction. Sanction is thus the feature common to all facts of this kind. No other kind of fact within the human order shows this peculiarity. For sanction, as we have defined it, is not simply any consequence following automatically on the act of a human being, as when we say, misusing the term, that intemperance brings illness as its sanction or laziness of the candidate, failure in examinations. Sanction is certainly a consequence of the act, but a consequence which results not from the act taken in isolation but from the conforming or not conforming to a rule of conduct already laid down. Theft is punished and this penalty is a sanction. But that is not because theft consists of this or that operation in the material sphere: the repressive counter-action that sanctions the right of property is entirely due to the fact that theft, that is, an assault on the property of another, is forbidden. Theft is punished only because it is prohibited. Let us suppose a society having a concept of property different from that which we hold: acts considered to-day as thefts and punished as such would then lose their significance and cease to be checked. The sanction, then, is not due to the essential nature of the act, since it can be withdrawn, the act remaining what it was. The sanction depends absolutely on the relation that exists between this act and a regulation governing its toleration or prohibition. This will explain why it is by reference to the sanction that all the rules of law and morality are defined.
That being so, the sanction, as the essential element of any moral rule at all, should naturally form the primary object of our inquiry. This is why the first part of these lectures has been devoted to a theory of sanctions. We have distinguished the different kinds of sanction—penal, moral, civil; and we have sought for the root common to them all and starting from that root, we have enquired how their differences came to be determined. This study of sanctions has been made independently of any consideration as to the rules themselves. Having thus isolated the features they have in common, we should turn to the rules. It is in them that the vital part—the heart—of this science lies.
Now these rules are of two kinds. The first apply to all men alike. They are those relating to mankind in general, that is, to each one of us as to our neighbour. All rules that set out the way in which men must be respected and their progress advanced—whether it be ourselves or our fellow-men—are equally valid for all mankind without exception. These rules of universal moral application are again divided into two groups: those concerning the relation of each one of us to his own self, that is, those that make up the moral code called ‘individual’; and those concerning the relations we maintain with other people, with the exception of any particular grouping. The obligations laid upon us by both the one and the other arise solely from our intrinsic human nature or from the intrinsic human nature of those with whom we find ourselves in relation. They could not therefore vary from one individual to another, in the face of an identical moral consciousness. We have examined the first of these two groups of rules and the study of the second will form the latter part of the lectures. We should not, by the way, be surprised that these two divisions of morals, so closely related in some aspects, are so widely separated in our study and lie at the two extremes of the science. This division is quite reasonable. The function of the rules of the individual moral code is in fact to fix in the individual consciousness the seat of all morals—their foundations, in the widest sense: it is on these foundations that all else rests. On the other hand, the rules which determine the duties that men owe to their fellows, solely as other men, form the highest point in ethics. This, then, is the climax and it is the sublimation of all the rest. The order of the inquiry is thus not an artificial one: it corresponds exactly to the order of things.
But between these two extremes lie duties of a different kind. They depend not on our intrinsic human nature in general but on particular qualities not exhibited by all men. It has been observed by Aristotle that, to some degree, morals vary according to the agents who practise them. The morals of a man, he said, are not those of a woman, and the morals of the adult not those of the child; those of the slave are not those of the master, and so on. … The observation is on the mark and it has nowadays a far greater field of application than Aristotle could have imagined. In reality, the greater part of our duties have this character. That indeed applied to those we had occasion to study last year, I mean to those duties which as a whole constitute the rights and the morals of the family. There indeed we find the difference of the sexes, of the ages, the difference that arises from a greater or lesser degree of kinship, and all these differences affect moral relations. It is the same, too, with the duties we shall be studying shortly, that is, civic duties, or those of man towards the State. For, since all men are not subject to the same State, they have by this fact duties which differ and are sometimes in opposition. Leaving aside entirely the antagonisms thus caused, civic obligations vary according to the State, and all States have not the same basis. The duties of the citizen are not the same in an aristocracy as in a democracy or in a democracy as in a monarchy. Family duties and civic duties do, however, exhibit a fairly large measure of common ground. For everyone, in principle, belongs to a family and founds one. Everyone is father, mother, uncle and so on. … And whilst everyone is not of the same age at the same moment, nor, therefore, has the same duties within the family, these differences are only fugitive, and whilst these various duties are not fulfilled at the same time by all, they are fulfilled by each one successively. There are no duties which man has not had to assume—at least, in the normal course of things. Only the differences based on sex endure and they tend to diminish to mere shades of difference. In the same way, whilst civic morals change according to the State, everyone nevertheless is the subject of a State and for that reason has duties, which everywhere have a similarity in their basic features—(duties of loyalty, service). No man exists who is not a citizen of a State. But there are rules of one kind where the diversity is far more marked; they are those which taken together constitute professional ethics. As professors, we have duties which are not those of merchants. Those of the industrialist are quite different from those of the soldier, those of the soldier from those of the priest, and so on. … We might say in this connection that there are as many forms of morals as there are different callings, and since, in theory, each individual carries on only one calling, the result is that these different forms of morals apply to entirely different groups of individuals. These differences may even go so far as to present a clear contrast. Of these morals, not only is one kind distinct from the other, but between some kinds there is real opposition. The scientist has the duty of developing his critical sense, of submitting his judgment to no authority other than reason; he must school himself to have an open mind. The priest or the soldier, in some respects, have a wholly different duty. Passive obedience, within prescribed limits, may for them be obligatory. It is the doctor’s duty on occasion to lie, or not to tell the truth he knows. A man of the other professions has a contrary duty. Here, then, we find within every society a plurality of morals that operate on parallel lines. It is with this part of ethics we shall be concerned. The place we assign to it in the course of this study is thus exactly in line with its features we have just identified. This moral particularism—if we may call it so—which has no place in individual morals, makes an appearance in the domestic morals of the family, goes on to reach its climax in professional ethics, to decline with civic morals and to pass away once more with the morals that govern the relations of men as human beings. In this respect, then, professional ethics find their right place between the family morals already mentioned and civic morals, that we shall speak of later. We shall therefore have a few words to say about professional ethics.
We shall only touch on them briefly, for it is obviously impossible to describe the code of morals proper to each calling and to expound them—their description alone would be a vast undertaking. It only remains to make a few comments on the more important aspects of the subject. We may reduce these to two: (1) what is the general nature of professional ethics compared with any other province of ethics? (2) what are the general conditions necessary for establishing any professional ethics and for their normal working?
The distinctive feature of this kind of morals and what differentiates it from other branches of ethics, is the sort of unconcern with which the public consciousness regards it. There are no moral rules whose infringement, in general at least, is looked on with so much indulgence by public opinion. The transgressions which have only to do with the practice of the profession, come in merely for a rather vague censure outside the strictly professional field. They count as venial. A penalty by way of discipline, for instance, imposed on a public servant by his official superiors or the special tribunals to which he is responsible, never sullies the good name of the culprit seriously, unless of course it were at the same time an offence against common morality.—A tax collector who commits some unscrupulous action is treated as any other perpetrator of such actions; but a book-keeper who is complacent about the rules of scrupulous accounting, or an official who as a rule lacks energy in carrying out his duties, does not give the impression of a guilty person, although he is treated as such in the organization to which he belongs. The fact of not honouring one’s signature is a disgrace, almost the supremely shameful act, in business. Elsewhere it is looked on with a very different eye. We do not think of withholding respect from a bankrupt who is only bankrupt. This feature of professional ethics can moreover easily be explained. They cannot be of deep concern to the common consciousness precisely because they are not common to all members of the society and because, to put it in another way, they are rather outside the common consciousness. It is exactly because they govern functions not performed by everyone, that not everyone is able to have a sense of what these functions are, of what they ought to be, or of what special relations should exist between the individuals concerned with applying them. All this escapes public opinion in a greater or lesser degree or is at least partly outside its immediate sphere of action. This is why public sentiment is only mildly shocked by transgression of this kind. This sentiment is stirred only by transgressions so grave that they are likely to have wide general repercussions.
It is this very fact which is a pointer to the fundamental condition without which no professional ethics can exist. A system of morals is always the affair of a group and can operate only if this group protects them by its authority. It is made up of rules which govern individuals, which compel them to act in such and such a way, and which impose limits to their inclinations and forbid them to go beyond. Now there is only one moral power—moral, and hence common to all—which stands above the individual and which can legitimately make laws for him, and that is collective power. To the extent the individual is left to his own devices and freed from all social constraint, he is unfettered too by all moral constraint. It is not possible for professional ethics to escape this fundamental condition of any system of morals. Since, then, the society as a whole feels no concern in professional ethics, it is imperative that there be special groups in the society, within which these morals may be evolved, and whose business it is to see they be observed. Such groups are and can only be formed by bringing together individuals of the same profession or professional groups. Furthermore, whilst common morality has the mass of society as its sole sub-stratum and only organ, the organs of professional ethics are manifold. There are as many of these as there are professions; each of these organs—in relation to one another as well as in relation to society as a whole—enjoys a comparative autonomy, since each is alone competent to deal with the relations it is appointed to regulate. And thus the peculiar characteristic of this kind of morals shows up with even greater point than any so far made: we see in it a real decentralization of the moral life. Whilst public opinion, which lies at the base of common morality, is diffused throughout society, without our being able to say exactly that it lies in one place rather than another, the ethics of each profession are localized within a limited region. Thus, centres of a moral life are formed which, although bound up together, are distinct, and the differentiation in function amounts to a kind of moral polymorphism.
From this proposition another follows at once by way of corollary. Each branch of professional ethics being the product of the professional group, its nature will be that of the group. In general, all things being equal, the greater the strength of the group structure, the more numerous are the moral rules appropriate to it and the greater the authority they have over their members. For the more closely the group coheres, the closer and more frequent the contact of the individuals, and, the more frequent and intimate these contacts and the more exchange there is of ideas and sentiments, the more does a public opinion spread to cover a greater number of things. This is precisely because a greater number of things is placed at the disposal of all. Imagine, on the other hand, a population scattered over a vast area, without the different elements being able to communicate easily; each man would live for himself alone and public opinion would develop only in rare cases entailing a laborious calling together of these scattered sections. But when the group is strong, its authority communicates itself to the moral discipline it establishes and this, it follows, is respected to the same degree. On the other hand, a society lacking in stability, whose discipline it is easy to escape and whose existence is not always felt, can communicate only a very feeble influence to the precepts it lays down. Accordingly, it can be said that professional ethics will be the more developed, and the more advanced in their operation, the greater the stability and the better the organization of the professional groups themselves.
That condition is adequately fulfilled by a number of the professions. This applies above all to those more or less directly connected with the State, that is, those having a public character, such as the army, education, the Law, the government and so on. … Each one of these groups of functions forms a clearly defined body having its own unity and its own particular regulations, special agencies being instructed to see these are enforced. These agencies are sometimes officials appointed to supervise the work of their subordinates (inspectors, directors, seniors of all kinds in the official hierarchy). Sometimes they are regular tribunals, nominated by election or otherwise, and charged with preventing any serious defections from professional duty (supreme councils of the law, of public education, disciplinary boards of all kinds). Besides these callings there is one which is not of an official kind in the same degree but which has, however, an organization of a certain similarity: this is the advocates’ association. The association (or ‘order’, to use the recognized term) is in fact an organized corporate body that holds regular meetings and is subject to an elected council, whose business it is to enforce the traditional rules applying to the group. In all these instances the cohesion of the group is clearly seen and assured by its very organization. There is also to be found a pervading discipline that regulates all details of the functional activity and is capable of enforcing it if needs be.
Nevertheless—and this is the comment that matters most—there is a whole category of functions that do not satisfy this condition in any way: these are the economic functions, both industry and trade. Clearly, the individuals who follow the same calling are on terms with one another by the very fact of sharing a like occupation. Their very competition brings them in touch. But there is nothing steady about these connexions: they depend on chance meetings and concern only the individuals. It is a matter of this manufacturer being in touch with the other: it is not a matter of a body of members of one and the same industry meeting at fixed periods. What is more, there is no corporate body set above all the members of a profession to maintain some sort of unity, to serve as the repository of traditions and common practices and see they are observed at need. There is no organ of this description, because it can only be the expression of a life common to the group, and the group has no life in common—at least, not in any sustained kind of way. It is quite an exception to find a whole group of workers of this sort meeting in conference to deal with questions of general interest. These conferences last only for a time; they do not endure beyond the special occasion for which they were convened, and so the collective life they evoked dies with them.
Now, this lack of organization in the business professions has one consequence of the greatest moment: that is, that in this whole sphere of social life, no professional ethics exist. Or at least, if they do they are so rudimentary that at the very most one can see in them maybe a pattern and a foreshadowing for the future. Since by the force of circumstance there is some contact between the individuals, some ideas in common do indeed emerge and thus some precepts of conduct, but how vaguely and with how little authority. If we were to attempt to fix in definite language the ideas current on what the relations should be of the employee with his chief, of the workman with the manager, of the rival manufacturers with each other and with the public—what vague and equivocal formulas we should get! Some hazy generalizations on the loyalty and devotion owed by staff and workmen to those employing them; some phrases on the moderation the employer should use in his economic dominance; some reproach for any too overtly unfair competition—that is about all there is in the moral consciousness of the various professions we are discussing. Injunctions as vague and as far removed from the facts as these could not have any very great effect on conduct. Moreover, there is nowhere any organ with the duty of seeing they are enforced. They have no sanctions other than those which a diffused public opinion has at hand, and since that opinion is not kept lively by frequent contact between individuals and since it therefore cannot exercise enough control over individual actions, it is lacking both in stability and authority. The result is that professional ethics weigh very lightly on the consciousnesses and are reduced to something so slight that they might as well not be. Thus, there exists to-day a whole range of collective activity outside the sphere of morals and which is almost entirely removed from the moderating effect of obligations.
Is this state of affairs a normal one? It has had the support of famous doctrines. To start with, there is the classical economic theory according to which the free play of economic agreements should adjust itself and reach stability automatically, without its being necessary or even possible to submit it to any restraining forces. This, in a sense, underlies most of the Socialist doctrines. Socialist theory, in fact, like classical economic theory, holds that economic life is equipped to organize itself and to function in an orderly way and in harmony, without any moral authority intervening; this, however, depends on a radical change in the laws of property, so that things cease to be in the exclusive ownership of individuals or families and instead, are transferred to the hands of the society. Once this were done, the State would do no more than keep accurate statistics of the wealth produced over given periods and distribute this wealth amongst the associate members according to an agreed formula. Now, both these theories do no more than raise a de facto state of affairs which is unhealthy, to the level of a de jure state of affairs. It is true, indeed, that economic life has this character at the present day, but it is impossible for it to preserve this, even at the price of a thoroughgoing change in the structure of property. It is not possible for a social function to exist without moral discipline. Otherwise, nothing remains but individual appetites, and since they are by nature boundless and insatiable, if there is nothing to control them they will not be able to control themselves.
And it is precisely due to this fact that the crisis has arisen from which the European societies are now suffering. For two centuries economic life has taken on an expansion it never knew before. From being a secondary function, despised and left to inferior classes, it passed on to one of first rank. We see the military, governmental and religious functions falling back more and more in face of it. The scientific functions alone are in a position to dispute its ground, and even science has hardly any prestige in the eyes of the present day, except in so far as it may serve what is materially useful, that is to say, serve for the most part the business professions. There has been talk, and not without reason, of societies becoming mainly industrial. A form of activity that promises to occupy such a place in society taken as a whole cannot be exempt from all precise moral regulation, without a state of anarchy ensuing. The forces thus released can have no guidance for their normal development, since there is nothing to point out where a halt should be called. There is a head-on clash when the moves of rivals conflict, as they attempt to encroach on another’s field or to beat him down or drive him out. Certainly the stronger succeed in crushing the not so strong or at any rate in reducing them to a state of subjection. But since this subjection is only a de facto condition sanctioned by no kind of morals, it is accepted only under duress until the longed-for day of revenge. Peace treaties signed in this fashion are always provisional, forms of truce that do not mean peace to men’s minds. This is how these ever-recurring conflicts arise between the different factions of the economic structure. If we put forward this anarchic competition as an ideal we should adhere to—one that should even be put into practice more radically than it is to-day—then we should be confusing sickness with a condition of good health. On the other hand, we shall not get away from this simply by modifying once and for all the lay-out of economic life; for whatever we contrive, whatever new arrangements be introduced, it will still not become other than it is or change its nature. By its very nature, it cannot be self-sufficing. A state of order or peace amongst men cannot follow of itself from any entirely material causes, from any blind mechanism, however scientific it may be. It is a moral task.
From yet another point of view, this amoral character of economic life amounts to a public danger. The functions of this order to-day absorb the energies of the greater part of the nation. The lives of a host of individuals are passed in the industrial and commercial sphere. Hence, it follows that, as those in this milieu have only a faint impress of morality, the greater part of their existence is passed divorced from any moral influence. How could such a state of affairs fail to be a source of demoralization? If a sense of duty is to take strong root in us, the very circumstances of our life must serve to keep it always active. There must be a group about us to call it to mind all the time and, as often happens, when we are tempted to turn a deaf ear. A way of behaviour, no matter what it be, is set on a steady course only through habit and exercise. If we live amorally for a good part of the day, how can we keep the springs of morality from going slack in us? We are not naturally inclined to put ourselves out or to use self-restraint; if we are not encouraged at every step to exercise the restraint upon which all morals depend, how should we get the habit of it? If we follow no rule except that of a clear self-interest, in the occupations that take up nearly the whole of our time, how should we acquire a taste for any disinterestedness, or selflessness or sacrifice? Let us see, then, how the unleashing of economic interests has been accompanied by a debasing of public morality. We find that the manufacturer, the merchant, the workman, the employee, in carrying on his occupation, is aware of no influence set above him to check his egotism; he is subject to no moral discipline whatever and so he scouts any discipline at all of this kind.
It is therefore extremely important that economic life should be regulated, should have its moral standards raised, so that the conflicts that disturb it have an end, and further, that individuals should cease to live thus within a moral vacuum where the life-blood drains away even from individual morality. For in this order of social functions there is need for professional ethics to be established, nearer the concrete, closer to the facts, with a wider scope than anything existing to-day. There should be rules telling each of the workers his rights and his duties, not vaguely in general terms but in precise detail, having in view the most ordinary day-to-day occurrences. All these various inter-relations cannot remain for ever in a state of fluctuating balance. A system of ethics, however, is not to be improvised. It is the task of the very group to which they are to apply. When they fail, it is because the cohesion of the group is at fault, because as a group its existence is too shadowy and the rudimentary state of its ethics goes to show its lack of integration. Therefore, the true cure for the evil is to give the professional groups in the economic order a stability they so far do not possess. Whilst the craft union or corporate body is nowadays only a collection of individuals who have no lasting ties one with another, it must become or return to being a well-defined and organized association. Any notion of this kind, however, comes up against historical prejudices that make it still repugnant to most, and on that account it is necessary to dispel them.