Classification - Fragment

1.585-588      G-c.1093-1


  585. In the Popular Science Mon.,hly for January, 1901
(LVIII et seq.) ** I enumerated a number of ethical classes of
motives meaning by a motive, not a spring of action, but an
aim of end appearing ultimate to the agent. Any such
dassification may be rendered more minute by subdivisions, or
broader by aggregations of dasses. My endeavor was to make
my enumeration about evenly specific throughout. Upon a
reexamination of it, it appears to me ta be sufficiently complete
and systematic to afford a tolerable material to be cut up,
worked over, and amplified into a satisfactory dassification
of ends. It is in the hope that others may be moved to interest
themselves in this work and complete it, or help to complete it,
that I now give an improved statement of it.
  This statement will be facilitated and made dearer by a
notation which is designed to show what the essential elements
of the different ends appear to me to be.
  586. A. A man may act in a quasi-hypnotic response to
an instant command. I indicate this by the letter A.
  B. A man may act from obedience, although not to a
concrete command. I indicate this by B. In this case, he may still
act as purely on the impulse of the moment as in case A. Only
if he does so, while still acting from pure obedience, not from
any impulse of his own, it must be a Mrs. Grundy, a vague
personiJication of the community, which he obeys. I will
indicate an end into which such personification enters as an
element by a letter z following the capital letter.
  Is there any way in which a man can act from pure obedience
when there is no concrete command without the element zP
Undoubtedly, provided he acts in obedience to a law. I will
indicate that an end involves a conscious reference to a law, or

 * c. 1903.
 ** See vol. 9.|p323

geral reason, by writing the figure 1 before the capital letter.
We find, then, under B,
  Bz. Acting under dread of Mrs. Grundy, without
generalizing her dictum.
  1B. Acting under awe of a law, without criticizing its
obligation.
  But cannot the elements 1 and z be combined? Cannot a
man act under the influence of a vague personification of the
community and yet according to a general rule of conduct?
Certainly: he so acts when he conforms to custom. Only if
it is mere custom and not law, it is not a case of obedience, but
of conformity to norm, or exemplar. (I never use the word
norm in the sense of a precept, but only in that of a pattern
which is copied, this being the original metaphor.) I indicate
an end which presents a norm to be conformed to by the capital
letter C.
  Conformity to a norm may take place by an immediate
impulse. It then becomes instinctive imitation. But here the
man does not vaguely personify the community, but puts
himself in the shoes of another person, as we say. I call this putting
of oneself in another's place, retroconsciousness. I indicate
that an end essentially involves retroconsciousness by writing
the letter y after the capital.
  Conformity to a norm may also take place without either
the y or the z element. Only in this case the norm must be a
definite ideal which is regarded as in itself {...}.
I indicate an end which essentially involves the recognition of
a definite ideal as universally and absolutely desirable by
putting the figure 2 before the capital. Under C, then, we have
the following cases:
  Cy. Instinctive imitation.
  1Cz. Conformity to custom.
  2C. Conformity to the {...}, unanalyzed.
  587. The elements 1 and y can be combined. That is to
say, a man may act from putting himself in another's place
and according to a general reason furnished by that
retroconsciousness. That is, he acts for the sake of that other's
welfare. The object need not be a person: an estate or a plant
can be treated with the same affection. But this is no longer
conformity to a norm; it is devotion to somebody or something.
|p324

  588. In like manner, the elements 2 and z may be
combined. That is to say, a man's ultimate end may lie in a vague
personification of the community and at the same time may
contemplate a definite general state of things as the summum
bonum. That is, his heart may be set upon the welfare and
safety of the community. But this again is devotion, not
conformity to a norm. An end the adoption of which involves
devotion shall be indicated by the capital letter D.
  Devotion may operate in a momentary impulse. In that
case, the agent does not put himself in the place of the object,
 -- for that, without reflection, results merely*