Let us recall once more (as at the beginning of Chapter 9) that in primitive societies religion, morals, law, customs, manners exist as an undifferentiated whole. We cannot say with confidence which came first. They came together. It is only in comparatively modern times that they have become clearly differentiated from each other; and as they have done so, they have developed different traditions.

1. Bentham’s Deontology

Nowhere is a more logical, better-organized, or more stimulating discussion of private ethics to be found than in the two volumes of Jeremy Bentham’s Deontology: or The Science of Morality. Yet these two volumes have had an unfortunate history. They were published posthumously, in 1834. They do not profess to be wholly by Bentham, even on their title page.

1. The Views of Spencer and Bentham

The two main issues on which moral philosophers have been most deeply divided, almost from time immemorial, have been that of Hedonism versus Non-Hedonism (some supposedly broader or “higher” goal), and that of Egoism versus Altruism. These two issues overlap, so much so that they are often confused with each other.

1. “Individual” and “Society”

Let us summarize the discussion in the two preceding chapters to see where it has brought us.

1. How Means Become Ends

All men act. They act purposefully. They employ means to achieve ends. This may seem elementary. Yet there has been no more fertile source of confusion in ethical philosophy than that concerning means and ends.

1. Mistaking Means for Ends

We come now to the doctrine that we ought to perform our “duty” simply because it is our “duty”—the doctrine, in other words, that morality has no other end beyond itself. Before the formulation of utilitarianism, this was the most commonly accepted view, and it still has a tremendous hold on men’s minds. In its modern form, however, it was most explicitly formulated by Immanuel Kant, and it is in that form that it is most convenient to examine it.

1. The Dilemma of Hume and Spencer

One of the central problems of ethics is the extent to which its rules and imperatives are absolute or merely relative. The chief reason why this problem still lacks a satisfactory solution is that its very existence is so seldom explicitly recognized. On the one hand are absolutists like Kant, with his Categorical Imperative, and his tacit assumption that our duties are always simple, clear, and never in conflict.

1. The Value of Value

Aldous Huxley, in his book Ends and Means (1937) and in some of his essays, was greatly troubled by what he thought was the verdict of “Science” regarding the existence of “Value.” “Science,” he thought, denied “value” and “meaning” in the Universe; yet “Science” must be wrong: life, he asserted, does have “value” and “meaning.”

1. When Intuitions Conflict

The ethical doctrine known as Intuitionism is perhaps the oldest known to man. It existed as a tacit assumption long before it made any appearance as an explicit philosophical tenet. It is the theory that we know immediately, without consideration of their consequences, what acts are “right” and what acts are “wrong.”

1. Duties—Universal or Special?

Just as, in our economic life, there is a necessary division and specialization of labor, so in our moral life there is a necessary division and specialization of duty. Failure to recognize this has led to a great deal of confusion in ethical thought. It is commonly assumed that what is a duty for one must be a duty for all, and that what is not a duty for most of us cannot be made a duty for anyone. It is commonly assumed, in other words, that a duty must either be universal or it is not a duty at all.