An Introduction to Ethics, for Training Colleges
AN INTRODUCTION
TO ETHICS
FOR TRAINING COLLEGES
by
G. A. JOHNSTON, M.A.
LECTURER IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
LECTURER IN ETHICS IN THE GLASGOW TRAINING COLLEGE
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1915
COPYRIGHT
PREFACE
This little book is designed primarily for students in Training Colleges. In many of these Colleges Ethics is a "professional subject," and the students naturally expect that it will be treated in such a way as to reveal its bearing on the work which they will have to do in the education of the young. In this book it has been my aim to drive a few main lines through ethical theory, and to indicate the application of moral principles to the actual life of the school.
On three points a word of explanation may perhaps be necessary. In the attempt to secure simplicity and brevity, I have avoided, as far as possible, all controversial details, and have endeavoured to state principles positively and clearly. In doing this I have sometimes been forced to try to write more definitively than I should have ventured to do had I been addressing another audience. In a brief and elementary course of Ethics, hesitating qualification and negative criticism are apt to produce confusion in the mind of the student; and at the risk of seeming unduly dogmatic I have tried to reach positive and definite conclusions.
I have chosen to approach the problems of Ethics by way of Psychology; and that for two reasons. In the first place, Training College students have usually had some instruction in Psychology before taking a course in Ethics, and they enter on the latter study more naturally and easily if the psychological prolegomena are emphasised. Further, it is almost impossible to show the relation between Ethics and Moral Education, unless the psychological aspects of Ethics are constantly brought into prominence. On the other hand, the metaphysical foundation of Ethics has been kept strictly in the background. A metaphysical theory does underlie the general argument of these pages, but I have never obtruded it, because a Metaphysic that could be stated in a book such as this would clarify nothing, and might confuse much.
In dealing with the application of moral principles to the work of education, I have been content to indicate broad effects and general lines of influence. Nothing more than this could well be done in an introductory text-book of Ethics. But I have in preparation a small book on Moral Education, which will attempt to treat, in detail, of ways and means of moral instruction and moral training in schools.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the debt which the book owes to Mr. J. C. Smith, H.M. Chief Inspector of Training Colleges, and to my colleagues, Mr. J. W. Scott and Mr. A. K. White, all of whom read the greater part of the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions.
G. A. JOHNSTON.
The University,
- Glasgow, July 1915.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE.
| I. | 1 |
§ 1. What is Ethics? § 2. The Vocation of Man. § 3. Ethics and Moral Education. § 4. Plan of the Book.
PART I. THE GROUNDWORK OF CHARACTER
| II. | 14 |
§ 1. Character, Heredity and Environment. § 2. Physical Heredity. § 3. The Principle of Stability. § 4. The Principle of Change. § 5. The Physical Environment. § 6. Mental and Moral Inheritance. § 7. The Social Environment. §8. Moral Responsibility. §9. Some Educational Aspects.
| III. | 41 |
§ 1. What are Instincts? § 2. Some Prominent Human Instincts. § 3. The Social Significance of Instinct. § 4. The Education of Instinct. § 5. Instinctive Behaviour and Moral Conduct.
| IV. | 57 |
§ 1. Impulse and Instinct. § 2. The Control of Impulse. § 3. Desire. § 4. The Education of Desire. § 5. Ambition, the System of Desire.
| V. | 67 |
§ 1. The General Characteristics of Emotion. § 2. The Control and Organisation of Emotion. § 3. Sentiments.
| VI. | 83 |
§ 1. The Growth of the Self. § 2. The Social Nature of the Self. § 3. Personality and Vocation. § 4. The Self and its Habits. § 5. Some Educational Aspects.
| VII. | 100 |
§ 1. The Self as Purposive and Regulative. § 2. The Nature of Volition. § 3. The Training of the Will. §4. Some Educational Aspects. § 5. The Meaning of Conscience. § 6. Conflicts of Conscience. § 7. The Education of Conscience.
PART II. THE REALISATION OF CHARACTER IN VOCATION
| VIII. | 117 |
§ 1. The Growth of Character. § 2. The Relation of Character to Conduct. § 3. The Meaning of Conduct. § 4. The Implications of Conduct: Freedom, Responsibility, Obligation and Value. § 5. Conduct and the School.
| IX. | 127 |
§ 1. The Development of Moral Judgment. § 2. The Standard as Private Opinion. § 3. The Standard as Social Convention. § 4. The Standard as Feeling. § 5. The Standard as Reason.
| X. | 139 |
§ 1. Preliminary Remarks. § 2. Analysis of a Typical Moral Action. § 3. Is Motive or Consequence the Test of Right and Wrong? § 4. Why should I be Good? § 5. The Sanction of Punishment. §6. The Sanction of Success. § 7. Criticism of the Sanctions. § 8. The Educational Value of External Sanctions.
| XI. | 153 |
§ 1. Moral Obligation. § 2. Why is it Hard to do our Duty? § 3. Rules of Duty. §4. The Authority of Duty. § 5. Duty and the Self.
| XII. | 167 |
§ 1. Pleasure and Life. § 2. Hedonism. § 3. Utilitarianism. § 4. Is Pleasure the Moral Standard? § 5. Is Pleasure the Object of Desire? § 6. Pleasure and the Self.
| XIII. | 180 |
§ 1. Pleasure, Duty, and Happiness. § 2. The Choice of Vocation. § 3. Self-assertion and Self-repression. §4. Loyalty to Vocation. § 5. Training for Vocation.
| XIV. | 205 |
§ 1. The Struggle of the Moral Life. § 2. The Virtues, or Aspects of Goodness. § 3. Courage. § 4. Temperance. § 5. Justice. § 6. Wisdom. § 7. The Education of the Virtues.
| XV. | 220 |
§ 1. Morality and Social Institutions. § 2. The State. § 3. The Family. § 4. The School. § 5. The Church. § 6. Moral Progress and Optimism.
| Index. | 249 |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1983, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 40 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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