SOCIOLOGY AND ETHICS SOCIOLOGY AND ETHICS THE FACTS OF SOCIAL LIFE
AS THE SOURCE OF SOLUTIONS FOR THE THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL
PROBLEMS OF ETHICS BY EDWARD GARY HAYES, PH. D., LL. D. PROFESSOR
OF SOCIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AUTHOR OF AN
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW
YORK LONDON 1921 TO MY THREE SONS These writings of Comte, Spencer,
Schaeffle, etc. are of course incomplete attempts, but nevertheless
they are the most important supports for an empirical ethics, and
indispensable aids for solving the common problems of the special
social sciences. Thus if one places the emphasis chiefly upon
synthesis or upon the particular investigation of those problems
which all of the special social sciences have in common one will
not be able to deny the right of this sociology which in fact is
only a sort of developed empirical ethics to an established place
among the sciences. GUSTAV SCHMOLLER, Grundriss der Allgemeinen
Volkswirtschaftslehre. Religion is an unselfish enthusiasm uniting
vast bodies of men in aspiration toward an ideal, and proving the
source of heroic virtues. W. E. H. LECKY, History of Rationalism in
Europe. What do I care whether all things are composed of atoms, or
of similar parts or of fire and earth For is it not enough to know
the nature of the good and the evil, and the measures of the
desires and the aversions, and also the movements toward things and
from them and, using these as rules, to administer the affairs of
life, but not to trouble ourselves about the things above us For
these things are perhaps incomprehensible to the human mind and if
any man should even suppose them to be in the highest degree
comprehensible, what then is the profit of them, if they are
comprehended And must we not say that those men have needless
trouble who assign these things as necessary to the philosophers
discourse Fragment attributed to EPICTETUS. PREFACE This essay
skirts the entrance to vistas which it does not penetrate. But it
suffices to convey the main idea of sociology as the scientific
ethics, an idea which I hope will fructify in many minds. Most of
the manuscript has lain in a drawer for years other years and the
labor of other minds must be expended before the treatment of this
theme will be complete. What is here presented is an attempt to
lift into its proper prominence one phase of sociology, and of
course it cannot at the same time give equal emphasis to its other
phases. On pages 31 to 33 there is emphatic warning against going
too far toward identifying sociology and ethics. At the same time
it is not forgotten that with both Comte and Spencer sociology
began as a philosophy of life. And it would cause the writer no
distress of mind if in some universities the teaching of sociology
should be assigned to the department of philosophy. I am fully
aware that the way to secure great vogue for a book upon ethics is
to invent a plausible argument, or even one that is not very
plausible, for believing that which most people already believe,
while, on the other hand, only comparatively few readers are
hospitable to any modification in popular beliefs on this subject
If some find it hard to tolerate the treatment of ethical problems
as within the scope of matter-of-fact science and as belonging to
the realm of cause and effect, still I vii viii PREFACE hope that
they will nevertheless find tne treatment as awhole not destructive
but decidedly constructive. If I am somewhat venturesome in
handling the accepted be liefs, it is not for mere love of
adventure, nor from dis regard of the values affected, but because
I hold the theory that in the end thought helps life more when
thought is true than when thinking is prostituted to serve
preferences. And even if this theory, or faith, should prove
erroneous some may choose to spend their mental life on a cold and
arid plateau of unclouded sincerity, rather than in any steaming
valley of tropical illusion...
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