Ethics and some modern world problems / by Willam McDougall.

  • William McDougall
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ethics and some modern world problems / by Willam McDougall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not fitted to profit by university education, that they are not of the intellectual and moral calibre that must be presupposed in its clientele by any true university system. Why, then, cannot we escape from our per¬ plexities by courageously putting into practice the officially and generally accepted principles of universal ethics?1 The answer in brief is that the good sense which, in all the foregoing and in many other instances, finds itself opposed to the precepts of universal ethics is not, as so commonly alleged, the ex¬ pression of mere selfishness and immorality. It is rather the expression of the rival ethics, the system of National Ethics, which, though now unformulated and unacknowledged by our moral philosophers, has nevertheless played an essen- 1 These principles may be defined concisely as the practice of a universal and strictly impartial philanthropy. The demands of such philanthropy are well stated by Prof. R. B. Perry in the following passage: “Though there may be no express hostility to the more developed cultural activities, nevertheless the motive of philanthropy is to bring up those who have fallen behind, even if it be necessary to halt the vanguard of human attainment. So long as there is a single human being starving, every other consideration is to be subordinated to getting that man fed [and, it might fairly be added, well clothed and educated]. It will be time to think of perfection—such is the feeling of the philanthropist—when those who are in deadly peril have been brought to a place of safety.” (“The Present Conflict of Ideals.”)
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