CHAPTER XII

THE WIDENING AND DEEPENING RANGE OF ETHICAL

OBLIGATION

1

I. The Process Outlined

A QUOTATION from Sir Henry Maine will serve as a text for the present chapter. It reads as follows:

"What is the real origin of the feeling that it is not creditable to drive a hard bargain with a near relative or friend? It can hardly be said that there is any rule of morality to forbid it. The feeling seems to me to bear the traces of the old notion that men united in natural groups do not deal with one another on principles of trade. . . . The general proposition which is the basis of political economy made its first approach to truth under the only circumstances which admitted of men meeting at arm's length, not as brothers of the same group, but as strangers. . . . If the notion of getting the best price for movable property has only crept to reception by insensible steps, it is all but certain that the idea of taking the

...

1 This subject is presented in popular form in the author's "Social Law of Service," and the first part of this chapter entitled "The Process Outlined" is little more than a reprint of a portion of that chapter.

highest obtainable rent for land is relatively of very modern origin. The rent of land corresponds to the price of goods, but doubtless was infinitely slower in conforming to economical law, since the impression of a brotherhood in the ownership of land still survived, when goods had long since become the subject of individual property." 1

The ancient village community was an association of men bound together by peculiarly close ties. These men were generally supposed to be descended from a common ancestor and thus to be more or less closely related, and any outsiders received into the community became members of this large family. They felt themselves to be brothers, and in an imperfect manner attempted to establish brotherly relations among themselves. Competition was greatly restrained, in fact in the modern sense could hardly be said to exist, — custom regulated prices, and sharp practice and hard bargaining were viewed with disapprobation and often severely punished. Ethical obligation extended to all the relations of life. The range of this obligation, however, was not extensive; once outside the community, moral law was scarcely recognized. There was often a place touching three or four village communities, but not belonging to any one, which was neutral territory. This became a market where the customs and usages of the village community no longer held sway, and it was in this market that the idea of the legitimacy 1 "Village Communities," pp. 195–198.

of hard bargaining and sharp practice took its origin, as we are told by Sir Henry Maine. This authority regards sharp practice and hard bargaining as true economic practice, and inquires why it is that somehow or another men are still frequently inclined to view it with disapprobation. He finds the explanation in survivals of feelings which once obtained among closely connected groups of men. The highest rent obtainable for land is not always exacted in England, and it is said that there are places where such an exaction would ostracize the landowner. The explanation given is that manorial groups were substituted for village communities, and that they still survive, even if in imperfect form.

As old groups of men broke up with modern progress, ethical ideas have seemed to become weaker, and there has been an attempt to take one great department of social life, namely, the economic, entirely outside the range of ethical obligation. Ancient groups were associations of brothers, but those not within the groups were enemies. The three words, "foreigner," "stranger," and "enemy," were similar, and often the same word denoted all three relationships that of foreigner, that of stranger, that of enemy. When men's dealings were chiefly with those not connected by any recognized tie of mutual obligation, each one naturally tried to do the best he could for himself, regardless of consequences to others. Yet there never has been a time when there have not been

those associations of one sort or another within which ordinarily good men have viewed with disapprobation hard bargaining. It may be said, indeed, that a genuine feeling of brotherhood is incompatible with sharp practice and hard bargaining, and Sir Henry Maine is altogether on the wrong track when he looks for a time when what he styles economic practices shall universally obtain, and men shall applaud the person who drives a hard bargain or indulges in sharp practices with neighbors and friends. The breakdown of old ties which were intensive and not extensive led to a great weakening in the intensity of ethical feeling, especially in business life, because the same amount of feeling was, if we may use such an expression, made to cover a so much larger territory. Men, however, have long been taught in all civilized nations that all men are brothers, and most enlightened persons profess to accept this teaching of universal brotherhood. There has been, then, an extension of brotherhood which is simply immense, placing us in the modern world indefinitely in advance of the closely related but exclusive groups of the ancient world. The range of ethical obligation has been widened until it embraces all humanity, but it has not been deepened in propor

The work of deepening this feeling, how

ever, goes on uninterruptedly.

Day by day the phrase, "All men are brothers," comes to mean more and more, and the time is surely coming when it will ethically mean as much

in the world at large as once it did in the village community; and when that time comes no decent man will any longer advocate the legitimacy of the universal sway of sharp practice and hard bargaining. Men will then try to put all business relations upon a brotherly basis, and will always inquire what forms of industrial organization and what modes of doing business are in accordance with the highest standards of right, and best promote the general welfare. It is this deepening process of ethical obligation which explains many social problems of our day. The deepening is going on with remarkable rapidity, and the result is that men everywhere bring ethical tests to bear upon all relations of life, and are rejecting as unsound all practices and customs inconsistent with genuine brotherhood. Mere conventional phrases no longer satisfy us; we want the reality of brotherhood. Now a business world, which has taken its origin in the middle ground lying between communities within which the range of ethical obligation was confined, can never satisfy a highly developed ethical consciousness unless it has in the processes of growth gotten far away from its earlier characteristics. Men may talk and argue as they will about economic law, yet there is deep down in our hearts a feeling that there is something better than sharp practice and hard bargaining.

It was an unbelieving age of materialism which asserted the all-sufficiency, and even beneficence, of self-interest, and attempted to restrict economic