PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT

AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY OF ETHICS

BY

DURANT DRAKE

A.M. (Harvard) Ph.D. (Columbia)

Associate Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at Wesleyan
University

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

1914

TO THE DEAR TWO WHOSE INTEREST IN PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT FIRST AWAKENEDMINE AND WHOSE EAGERNESS TO KNOW AND DO REMAINS UNDIMMED BY THEYEARS MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER

PREFACE

This book represents in substance a course of lectures and discussionsgiven first at the University of Illinois and later at WesleyanUniversity. It was written to meet the needs both of the collegestudent who has the added guidance of an instructor, and of thegeneralreader who has no such assistance. The attempt has beenmade to keep the presentation simple and clear enough to need nointerpreter, and by the list of readings appended to each chapter,to make a self directed further study of any point easy and alluring.These references are for the most part to books in English, easilyaccessible, and both intelligible and interesting to the ordinaryuntrained reader or undergraduate. Some articles from the popularreviews have been included, which, if not always authoritative,are interesting and suggestive.

The function of the instructor who should use this as a textbook wouldconsist, first, in making sure that the text was thoroughly read andunderstood; secondly, in raising doubts, suggesting opposing views,conducting a discussion with the object of making the student thinkfor himself; and, thirdly, in adding new material and illustrationand directing the outside readings which should supplement thispurposely brief and summary treatment. The books to which referenceis made in the lists of readings, and other books approved by theinstructor, should be kept upon reserved shelves for the constantuse of the class in the further study of questions suggested bythe text or raised in the classroom.

It will be noticed that the disputes and the technical language oftheorists have been throughout so far as possible avoided. Thediscussion of historical theories and isms' is unnecessarilybewildering to the beginner; and the aim has been rather to keep asclose as possible to the actual experience of the student and thelanguage of everyday life. Far more attention is given than in mostbooks on ethics to concrete contemporary problems. After all, aninsight into the fallacies of the reasoning of the various ethicalschools, an ability to know what they are talking about and gliblyrefute them, is of less importance than an acquaintance with, and afirm, intelligent attitude toward, the vital moral problems andmovements of the day. I have prayed to be saved from academicabstractness and remoteness, and to go as straight as I could to thereal perplexities from which men suffer in deciding upon their conduct.The purpose of a study of ethics is, primarily, to get light for theguidance of life. And so, while referring to authors who differ fromthe views here expressed, I have sought to impart a definite conceptionof relative values, to offer a thread for guidance through thelabyrinth of moral problems, and to effect a heightened realizationof the importance and the possibilities of right living.

It is necessary, indeed, in order to justify and clarify our concretemoral judgments, that we should reach clear and firmly groundedconclusi

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