Ethical Systems (Hardcover)

ETHICAL SYSTEMS HY WILHELM WUNDT SSOR Oh IHILOSOPHV JN TIIK UNIVERMI V OK l Translate bg MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN t KOI E-SOK OF ISYCHOIO V NI K I lltCS IN WKII. S COM kdll LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN CO., LIM. NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN CO. 1906 WUNDTS ETHICS. VOL. I. INTRODUCTION THE FACTS OF THE MORAL LIFE. VOL. II. ETHICAL SYSTEMS, Nov. 1897 Second Edition Feb. 1906. VOL. III. THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY, AND THE SPHERE OF THEIR VALIDITY. TRANSLATORS PREFACE HP HIS volume is a translation of the second book of Professor Wundts Ethik, comprising pages 270-432 of the second German edition. It forms a concise history of Ethics, which apart from its intrinsic interest as a feature of Wundts ethical system will serve to supplement Professor Sidgwicks Outlines by reason of its more extended treatment of Continental schools. The terminology of the first volume has been followed, and English references are substituted for the German wherever possible. Especial thanks are due to Professor E. K Titchener, of Cornell University, for many helpful suggestions, and for a revision of the proof. MARGARET FLOY WASHHURN. CONTENTS ZEbe Development of fl oral Vbcorfe of tbe Vntocrsc CHAPTER I. The Beginnings of Ancient Ethii s . l . 3 rf Prc-Socratic Ethics v . . 3 Socrates and the Socratic Schools 5 Plato and Aristotle . . . 10 Platonic Ethics v T - . . 10 S b The Aristotelian Ethics . r7 3. The Stoics and Epicureans y . . 24 - a Stoic Ethics 7 - . p . 25 Epicurean Ethics . . ... 28 4 Transition to Christian Ethics - . . 31 CHAPTER II. CIini TIAN ETHICS I. The General Basis of Christian Ethics . . 33 2 The System of Augustine, and the Pelagian Controversy . 38 3 Scholastic Ethics . . . . 41 4 The Fall ofScholasticism and the Ethics of the Reformation . 4 S CHAPTER III. I. The Development ot Empirical Ethics . . 53 a Bacon and Hobbes . . 53 b John Locke and the Intellectualism of the Cambridge School . . . 59 Shaftesbury and the English Ethics of the Under standing . . . ... 67 viii Contents PAGE d David Hume and the Scotch Ethics of Feeling . . 73 e The Ethics of French Materialism . 84 2. The Metaphysical Ethics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . . . ... 87 d Descartes and Cartesianism . . 87 b Spinoza . . . ... 92 c Leibniz . . . ... 97 d Wolff and the German Enlightenment . . .104 The Ethics of Kant and of Speculative Idealism . . . 106 a Kant . . . . ... 106 b Fichte . . . . . 119 c Hegel . . . ... 124 d Intermediary Tendencies between Universalism and Indi vidualism . . . . . 127 4. Modern Realistic Ethics . . . . 134 a Herbarts Practical Philosophy . . . 135 German Naturalism and Materialism . . .139 c Utilitarianism and Positivism in England and France . 142 d Utilitarian Ethics as Influenced by the Theory of Evolution . . . . . 153 CHAPTER IV. GENERAL CRITICISM OF ETHICAL SYSTEMS 1. Classification of Ethical Systems . . . . 160 a General Standpoints for such a Classification . .160 b Classification according to motives. . . .161 c Classification according to ends . . . 163 2. Authoritative Ethical Systems . . . . 165 3. Eudaemonistic Systems . . . . 168 a Egoistic Utilitarianism . . . . 168 b Altruistic Utilitarianism . . . . 171 5 Evolutionary Ethical Systems . . . . 186 a Individual Evolutionism . . . . 186 b Universal Evolutionism . . . . . 187 INDEX OF NAMES . . . ... 191 INDEX OF SUBJECTS . . ., 193 VOL. II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL THEORIES OF THE UNIVERSE. n.270-1 T CHAPTER I. ANCIENT ETHICS. I. THE BEGINNINGS OF ANCIENT ETHICS. a Pre-Socratic Rthics. HE earliest Greek speculation was ibujhc must, . part cosmologicaL Hence it took little interest in ethical questions. The sayings ascribed to the mythical or semi mythical Seven Sages are crystallisations of popular morality, which cannot be treated as the beginnings of a science. The earliest philosophical schools, however, joined to their philo sophical endeavours efforts, primarily reformatory, against the popular religion...