INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS BY THEODORE DE LA. GUNA PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BRYN MAWR COLLEGE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1928 All rights reterted COFYBIGHT, 1914, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Bet up and electrotyped. Published December, 1914, Norfaooto J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick fe Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U. S. A. PREFACE THE title of this book is intended to be fairly descriptive of it. It treats of ethics as a science, which if not wholly inde pendent of metaphysical considerations and of no science can that be said is sufficiently independent to permit of separate positive treatment. And under the broad license of an introduction it presents not only an outline of the science as we find it to-day, but some account of the past which has made it what it is. Part I contains brief chapters upon the scope and methods of the science and upon one metaphysical topic the freedom of the will which cannot well be passed over in silence. But it is mainly given up to a discussion of the subjects of moral judgments and a survey of the various kinds of standards according to which, under the conditions of savage or of civil ized life, moral judgments are made. It is thus intended to present a broad background of facts against which the ex planatory theories, old and new, may be the better appreciated. Part II is a review of the principal Greek and English ethical theories. In an introductory note I have given my reasons for including this review. It does not purport to be a history of ethics, even for the periods which it covers. By neglecting much that is important to the historian, I have gained space for a fuller and, I trust, more interesting and instructive treatment of the men andmovements that are included. In connection with Part II a selection from the ethical classics should certainly be read and this, however meager, should not fail to comprise Books I, II, and X of the Nicomachean Ethics. Especially in the case of the Greek ethicists, I have not always found it possible to separate the moral theories entirely from their metaphysical basis indeed, to have done so would vi PREFACE in some cases have amounted to a falsification. But I have at least relegated the metaphysics to a strictly subordinate place. In Part III a positive treatment of moral problems is pre sented in connection with the elements of the general theory of values. . So far as I know, this is the first attempt at an elementary presentation of any of the newer phases of the latter subject. Not that the theory of values as such is new. It is as old as ethics itself. But in recent years it has under gone a great development, and one of unusual interest a development, however, which has remained buried in mono graphs and treatises that are wholly inaccessible to the under graduate student as well as to the educated public generally. It should be observed that Part III is intelligible I would not say equally intelligible without the previous reading of Part II, which may therefore be omitted if time requires or the instructor so prefers. Parts I and III will then serve as an Elements of Ethics. I hope, however, that this ex treme course may not often be taken. It may, however, often be necessary to omit some passages of Part II and it is not so closely written but that omissions can easily be made. I would suggest that Chapter X and the account of the stimuli of the moral sense in Chapter XI, while dealing of matters of great importance in themselves, may be most easily spared by the beginner. I should not know how to record the debts which I have incurred in writing this book and I shall not attempt it. The great debts, of which I remain ever conscious, are, natu rally enough, to my own teachers of ethics, Professor Howison of California and Professor McGilvary of Cornell and Wis consin but such debts are more easily felt than set forth. I should, however, mention that in the writing of Chapter XI I received several suggestions from Dr...