The ethics of Hercules

There had been a murder in the Maritime Provinces, and two men, a jurist and a layman, were discussing it. The murdered man, it appeared, had from time to time missed some of his sheep, and one day, upon hearing a shot fired, ran down into his pasture, and came upon two boys, one of whom was carrying a gun, and the other a bag whose contours plainly revealed that it contained the body of a sheep. The farmer ordered the boys to follow him to town to give an account of their misbehavior; and this they proceeded to do without any show of resistance or word of objection. But suddenly, and without any warning, the boy who carried the gun shot the farmer in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The murderer was later apprehended, and put into the county jail, awaiting trial.

“And would they hang a boy of seventeen in Canada?” asked the layman.

“Why not?” enquired the jurist, “They can hang anyone here who has reached the age of discretion, and who knows the difference between right and wrong.”

“And will you tell me,” parried the layman, “just what that age is, and exactly what that difference is?”

The jurist eyed his inquisitor for a moment, and burst into a laugh. “Only a fool would ask such a question!” he retorted, and turned away.

All of which goes to show that a man may be proficient in legal technique, and yet be an ignoramus in ethics. Knowledge of the meaning of the word “right” is both possible and profitable, and it is hardly too much to suppose that such knowledge, when disseminated, might even produce a salutary effect upon legal theory and legal practice.

Anyone who endeavors to marshal the array of all the uses to which the word “right” is put, will be astonished to find out how extensive the list is. In point of the richness of its denotation and connotation, this concept exceeds the term “good.” And while it resembles that word in being used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an adverb, it significantly differs from the term “good” in that it is employed to refer principally to the relations and functions of things, and hardly ever to objects of the physical environment.

No man’s span of perception is large enough, or his span of attention long enough, to surround the complete array of the uses of the word “right” unless this array be divided into classes. Such division will presently appear. And I think it can be shown that no matter how little in common some of the terms of this array seem, to a casual observer, to possess, when they are thus grouped into classes, they will be subtly linked together by adequate bonds. Let us then introduce:

Class A

The original signification of our concept was straight, a word, be it noted, that is usually defined in the negative. (See Ex. 1, p. 76.) Why we have a negative definition for a word that seems to have a positive meaning, especially to mathematicians and draughtsmen, is not at first quite obvious. However, when this phenomenon is duly examined from the point of view of the mechanics of man’s locomotor apparatus, its secret is no longer hidden. All of the movements naturally produced by the appendages of the body are curvilinear: the arm being a lever, or radius vector, it always draws arcs in space or on paper; so does the hand as a whole, and so do the fingers. “Right” signifying straight, therefore, is defined negatively simply because straight lines are alien to the physics and mechanics of man’s original nature.

Where, then, did man get the notion of straightness, and what has this first class of the uses of “right” to do with ethics? Man got the notion of straightness, we surmise, from such things as freely falling bodies, which give not only the idea of perpendicular, but also and at the same time the ideas of direct and immediately; from the sunbeams which drew for him imaginary lines among the clouds and through the foliage of the forest; from his need of taking the shortest course across the fields in pursuit of wild animals for the supply of his larder; and from his reminiscent ponderings of the comparative merits of less and less curved and crooked arrows used in the chase. Moreover, man walks with the greatest safety and pursues his game with the greatest chances of success when his feet go without hesitation on a level or straight surface. Under these conditions he can attain his ends directly and immediately; as the saying is, “Things will then come out all right.” Consequently, even the straight line has ethical implications: the speed with which some actions are performed and the time required to cover the distance between man and his objective are very often the chief considerations in the attainment of a good or the avoidance of an evil thing.

And this brings us by a very slight transition to

Class B

Here the purpose involved, or the end sought, is neither praised nor blamed. Nor have we indeed as yet reached any basis by which a criterion of purposes and ends can be established. So far as we have gone, “right” implies technique, and nothing more.

The members of this class are as follows:

Class C

“Right” as Descriptive of any Statement Which Reports the Facts; of any Opinion or Judgment that is Correct; and of any Person Who Judges, Thinks, or Acts in Accordance with the Facts or the Truth about a Matter.[12]

It will be observed that the significations in this class are all symptomatic of a slight change in the meaning of the concept “right.” The emphasis here is upon true opinions and judgments in contrast to false ones. Moreover, the range of behavior covered by Class C is somewhat broader than that denoted by the two preceding classes. He who now uses this word “right” becomes judicial, and makes statements he is willing to defend. More than this we cannot say. We assume many a time, no doubt, that the statements we call true are backed by something not ourselves; and while in some cases nature’s laws are in a sense “behind” our statements, yet unless this is the case, there is nothing whatever to fall back upon. Thus, while a man may demonstrate that dynamite is, as he says, truly explosive, yet in cases of the equitable adjustment of social frictions, where both parties pour out a tumult of exaggerations, no similar truth of opinion is obtainable. It would therefore be illogical to assume that we have reached any absolute criterion in passing from Class B to Class C of “right.” He who uses this concept in this connection has, indeed, ventured more than he who uses it only to imply the preceding two classes, but he is not thereby gifted with superior powers of discretion. All we can say is that he who undertakes to make a judgment with all the available information before him is more likely to be chosen as a referee again. He will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that if he makes mistakes, they will probably be some that he has never made before. And this way much of human progress lies.

Class D

The use of our concept in this connection is firmly bound to its use in the preceding classes. For it is no accident that in the mechanistic process called evolution human aims and purposes have come to be furthered and achieved principally through the power and skill of the arm and hand. The “right” arm and hand point reasonably straight, throw missiles in a fairly direct manner, and their powerful shots bring down the quarry immediately. (Class A.) These parts of the body are also among the most educible and skilful in the technique requisite for bringing about a desired end. Their action-patterns are indeed often the very method by which ambitions are achieved. (Class B.) And when we have reached a judgment that is deemed to be true or in accordance with the facts of the matter (Class C.), it is our “right” hand that is ready to be motivated in its defence. Even the art of writing, in the original sense of cutting, tearing, or scratching to produce a record or a design, is not at all distantly related to the functions of this part of the body.

With this clearly understood, the transition is easy to make to

Class E

Legal “Rights”; that is, Those Claims and Interests the Establishment and Protection of Which May Be Secured by Force and even Violence.[14]

As used in this connection, “right” is partially equivalent to might, since our concept here connotes an organized force,—a physical power,—which, under given conditions, can be employed for the purpose of establishing claims and protecting interests. This organized force is popularly referred to as “the Law,” especially by those who indulge in back-yard altercations and cry out: “If you do that again, I’ll have the Law on you!” And the ordinary man, whose six or seven years of public schooling have implanted in him the fixed habit of reifying all abstractions, understands the law as equivalent to a transcendental force of some kind which makes his threats effective. As befits the mental calibre of such a man, the law frequently becomes synonymous with the functions of the police, who are naïvely supposed to know when and how to protect everybody’s legal rights. This is an error. Not only are the police extremely ignorant persons, but they have scarcely any legal status whatever. They are “the tolerated remnant of the autocratic power which absolute monarchs once exercised over their subjects.” Law and legal rights are functions of the courts, while the police are simply unattached huskies hired to bring into court those who do not come there of their own initiative. We must look elsewhere for the source of the might which legal rights are said and felt to possess, namely, in the origin and function of law itself.

Briefly stated, law originated as a means to protect men against loss of property, against bodily harm, and against damage to their personality through the actions of their fellows. It did not originate as a means to prevent or repair the damage to life or property caused by cloudbursts or lightning, or the loss of income brought about by avalanches, laziness, or disease; it had only to do with actions for which some man could be held responsible. Now the actions which produce the loss of property, bodily harm, and damage to personality are usually actions arising from, as well as leading to, emotional disturbances. Theft, murder, and libel, for example, are about the most potent stimuli to violent retaliation that can be provided. Nevertheless, it is sound psychology that most emotions quickly cool if the stimulus be withdrawn, that wrath has to be nursed if it is to be kept warm, and that absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Here is where the law performs its chief function. For the law is simply an ingenious device to get a judgment on the conflict of human interests which shall not be tinged with the passions that provoked the conflict. And while legal procedure may not always be fair, especially in the eyes of the loser, its methods certify that it shall not be precipitous or rancorous in rendering a decision. Legal rights, therefore, are not equivalent to the capacity for revenge, but rather consist in the ability to get old quarrels looked at by new and unbiased eyes. Herein consists much of the prestige of the law, and since prestige has always been regarded as a kind of power, men are not slow to employ it in the establishment of their claims and the protection of their interests.

Law, however, is frequently misinterpreted when its function is thought to be preventative of discord, rather than judicial and equitable. Law is no guardian angel. No law can prevent the unobserved Richard Roe from murdering the defenceless John Doe; nor can it hinder the murderer (still unobserved) from altering Doe’s will to his own material advantage; neither can it be guaranteed to forestall the murderer from making the false plea that Doe was about to assault his daughter. The law did not make man in its own image; according to scripture it was God who did that. Law does not set out to protect the careless or the poor in spirit. Its machinery is normally put into operation only for those with enough initiative to look out for their own interests. If a patentee knowingly allows one infringement of his patent rights, he might as well donate his invention to the public. The law does not hunt for trouble, or carry on a bureau for the exchange of expressions of malcontent. It does not even demand that a clearly known offender of society, and one conscious of his offence, enter a plea of guilty. Actually, the function of law is simply to preserve and to restore order and peace in society, and not to define what that order and peace shall be. Were ninety per cent of the people in the world suddenly to become stubbornly devoted to thieving, the public peace would have to be redefined in terms of their attitude toward property. Moreover, as it is now, the law merely attempts to imitate the security which is provided by “gentlemen’s agreements,” which security is largely maintained without the help of the courts. For it is very plain that millions keep the peace, while only a few hundreds know the law. Law, then, may be fairly characterized as an impersonal referee, whose business it is to persuade and oblige the disturbers of the social equilibrium to employ the methods and standards of conduct which have always marked free men.

With this by way of introduction, it is not difficult to understand why “right” in the legal sense of the word is so closely related to might. For the term “legal rights” refers not only to those claims and interests which may be established and protected, but also and rather to those which have long been secured by force. In other words, some of them have the advantage of the momentum of custom and tradition. Now custom and tradition, whatever else they may be, are certainly action-patterns which are generated and maintained by the bodies of human beings. They are habits, both of overt action and covert thought,—response processes of the neuro-muscular apparatus. The tenacity of these habits, moreover, is due to the combined action of two well-known physiological mechanisms,—the conditioned reflex and the circular reflex. The conditioned reflex, which is dependent upon the repetition of stimuli, is particularly prevalent where day by day the same persons, the same kinds of property, and the same predicaments of living are met with; and so we may say that customs and traditions (and with them the inevitable claims and interests) are created by the environment as much as by the organism. The circular reflex, or proprio-ceptive reinforcement of any action-tendency, governs much of our behavior, even though we little suspect it. It underlies occupational postures, idiosyncracies of gait and of facial expression, and indeed, without circular reflexes we should not have either tenacity of purpose or the ability to hold a grudge. Its function in the establishment and maintenance of those action-patterns on which tradition depends is of paramount importance. And since these two reflexes are largely responsible for the difficulty with which habits of action and thought are broken, the support which they give to maintaining the tradition of legal rights is hardly to be overestimated. Thus, from the mechanistic point of view, the homage which we give to legal rights is after all simply equivalent to the expenditure of energy in our bodies for the purpose of maintaining particular habits of action. Indeed, in those who maintain the public peace, all the energy which goes into actions which promote the order of society is literally spent to uphold legal rights of one sort or another. It is this energy, this physical power, which we referred to recently when we said that “right” is partially equivalent to might.

And yet, in spite of the apparently great amount of muscle power that is, so to speak, behind all legal rights, from the logical point of view, the use and effectiveness of this power is altogether contingent upon the exact nature of the claim and interest which one desires to be secured. The logical statement of the situation here involved would take the form of a hypothetical proposition, namely, If the claim or interest is of a certain kind, then and then only may it be established and protected. And while this might seem at first to indicate that legal rights were seriously lacking in point of authority, yet this is not the case, for the strongest possible assertions that can be made are always couched in the form of hypothetical propositions. As Couterat states in his “Algebra of Logic,” “Every proposition which implies another is stronger than the latter, and the latter is weaker than the one which implies it.” The blunt categorical proposition is far less powerful, since by itself it implies nothing whatever, whereas hypotheticals leave no doubt as to the necessary consequences. All the laws of nature, which, by the way, cannot be broken, are stated in hypothetical form. Moreover, since it is the antecedent, and not the consequent, of a hypothetical proposition which gives it strength, it is easy to see that any particular claim and interest is rendered all the more likely of being established and protected if similar claims and interests have long been recognized in the law as valid. In practice we find this to be the case: the common law which is the oldest code is also the one to which new claims to legal right are invariably referred.

Having looked at the picture of legal rights from one angle, let us now look at it from another. While in strict logic the statement of these rights in the form of a hypothetical imperative gives them an undeniable strength, it must now be admitted that from the pragmatic point of view it signifies at times a discouraging weakness. For it has often been the case that the establishment of claims and the protection of interests has in practice depended upon such vexatious variables as the pet theories of experts (e. g., alienists), the hunger, fatigue, and stubbornness of jurymen, the internal secretions of judges, a crowded or empty condition of the jails, current sociological theory, and even such astonishing things as one’s affiliation with secret societies, or one’s political “pulls,” not to mention, except by a passing remark, the determination of a litigant to carry his case to the higher courts clear beyond the ability of his antagonist’s purse to follow him there. So that if we ask whether some particular claim or interest can and will be established or protected, the real answer in a large number of border-line cases is, “Nobody knows.” Justice, who carries in her hand a balance whereby to weigh the evidence fairly, has also her eyes blindfolded against seeing what manner of weights are put into either pan. This defect of law, however, is not to be wondered at when we remember that legal theory cannot anticipate all of the innumerable claims and interests which either honest or knavish persons are likely to support as valid. If the theory of law had been as complicated as human society has become, it could not have accomplished the half of what it has already achieved.

From all this it can be seen that the assertion of a legal right is not always equivalent to its substantiation. Times change, bringing with them new faces and other minds, new problems and new interpretations. Nor, for that matter, are all commonly accepted rights under the law equally to be supported by physical force. Strictly speaking, only those rights which imply a correlative duty are truly legal rights. Reciprocity of action is essential. For example, if Baker has a legally recognized or substantiated right to do, receive, or enjoy something, it is the duty of Atkins and others not to infringe or nullify that right. Mark also, that both duty and right here imply that physical force may be directed against some specified person, or against all persons generally in case of need, in order to establish the claim and protect the interest involved. However, as may be already suspected, not everything that is legally sanctioned or which enters into legal machinery has the same force behind it as in the case we have just cited. The right of ownership, for example, which to the layman seems to be a unit right, involves five distinct things, as follows: (1) the jus disponendi, or right to give away, (2) the jus utendi, or right to use, (3) the jus abutendi, or the right to abuse, (4) the jus prohibendi, the right to keep others away, and (5) the jus possidendi, or the right to recover the property. But only one of these is, strictly speaking, a right in the sense that it involves a correlative duty, namely, the jus prohibendi. For the jus disponendi is simply a power, and not a right at all: and the jus utendi is wholly negative in the legal sense, implying non-interference in the exercise of a natural power; whereas the jus abutendi is a liberty (neither a right nor a power) whose exercise is nominally unrestricted: while the jus possidendi is simply the legal capacity to get back that which one is said to own.

This ends our account of legal rights. We now pass to the consideration of the other uses of this most comprehensive ethical concept. Somewhat by way of contrast to that which has just preceded, let us at once consider

Class F

under which are comprised what are popularly known as “moral” rights.[15]

A casual glance at the appended list of the members of this class might lead one to consider them simply as a continuation of legal rights, but this is by no means the case. Albeit moral rights are identical with legal rights in so far as they imply a multitude of human claims and interests, they are nevertheless emphatically different from them on a much more important point. Moral rights lack all implications of an organized physical force to compel their recognition. The only compulsions that can be said to assist in the establishment of the claims and the protection of the interests comprised under the scope of moral rights are the approval and disapproval of the group which undertakes to recognize and support them. In fine, these compulsions amount to the force of public opinion. And while this force is at times provocative of changes in the method or content of the law which may later be recognized as good, on the whole, public opinion is usually so unspecific and inconstant as to be wholly negligible as a power to enforce any demands. Certainly no jurist regards moral right as obligatory.

On still another count moral rights show a serious defect. For when we say that the enforcement of the claims and interests comprised within the scope of moral rights depends upon the approval of the group, it must not be supposed that the actions of any group and the actions which it approves are necessarily one and the same. This is a sour paradox, but its appropriateness cannot be successfully denied. The standard of conduct which any group subscribes to under pressure, either in writing, or before an audience, is singularly different from the behavior of the group under easier circumstances. Moreover, it is the exception, and not the rule, for those who dominate a group,—whether such masters be parents, political bosses, or any other form of lordling,—to hold their charges to a stricter accountability than they themselves, removed from correlative restraints, recognize as imperative. Doubtless, in the execution of the law, many a time privileges are granted to people of wealth and prestige which are denied to the humbler petitioners at the bar; but the difference between legal and moral practice is significantly this: that in legal practice evasions are no integral part of the machinery. This does not amount to a condemnation of moral rights: it is merely holding up the mirror to man, in order that he may see himself clearly. All in all, consistency may be as impracticable as it has been unsought for in the daily affairs of men.

However, when we consider the unusual claims made in behalf of moral rights, there are valid exceptions to be taken to them. For while in the strict legal sense, moral right is impotent, yet according to the expressed opinion of the untutored majority, moral right is far mightier than legal right. Let us see why this is so.

In the first place, not all human claims and interests are or can be protected by law. It is not the purpose of law to be rigid. However many statutes, for example, are enacted year by year, the interests they are supposed to protect increase too rapidly to be covered by such statutes. Moreover, as in the case with the right of ownership, many powers and privileges are granted, the exact enjoyment or exercise of which no law could either predict or circumscribe. Hence there always remains a residue of interest that is not comprised within the scope of matured legal tradition. But it is just these newer interests for which some persons demand most emphatically the right to be satisfied. We live not in the past, but on the foremost edge of time, and we are prone to demand as much support for our youngest claims as for those which have a thousand years of legal recognition behind them. Now, undoubtedly, many claims are insufficiently recognized by law. When, however, in the pause before this recognition is secured, people begin to claim for such interests a “superior” moral right to be satisfied, and in comparison to that “superior” right assert that legal rights are merely unfounded prejudices, the charge of inconsistency can be leveled directly against them. Ignorance of the function and scope of the law is no excuse for holding it up to ridicule. Indeed, it is not at all certain that the law could include the satisfaction of every human claim and interest whatever without becoming itself destroyed by this inclusion.

In the second place, there are some persons in whom the law’s delays, as well as their experience with the unevenhandedness of justice, has provoked a deep-seated prejudice against particular lawyers and jurists, which prejudice, by means of the fallacy of composition, they readily transmute into a scorn for whatever is expressly denominated as legal. Under such conditions the penchant for moral rights may be often nothing but the product of a mind that has become malcontent with things as they are; with the result that solace is sought in the fiction of a set of moral rights which are regarded as possessing a “higher” or final authority. From such a person come Examples Nos. 59 and 76, recently cited. Two comments can be made upon such a case as this. The first of these is that it is quite certain that no man who has become so pessimistic will see his way clear to the solution of the problem that has given him so much tragic concern. As Spinoza says, “The will and the intellect are one and the same,” but as Spinoza also hinted, the intellect and the emotions are not. Moreover, such malcontentedness is relatively easy to annul: let anyone who curses the law begin to make use of it to his advantage, and his “suppressed complex,” as the Freudians would say, rapidly evaporates.

A third and final reason why moral rights and the so-called moral law are sometimes regarded as superior to all things legal is that among so many persons the curious conviction obtains that they are individually the pets of Providence, and that consequently whether they stir themselves or not, become sagacious or remain meek as lambs, their affairs will be satisfactorily adjusted without their exertions. Under such illusions many persons take refuge throughout their lives, forgetting curiously enough that the order of nature has not supplied them with benevolent guardians, tutors, and managers. The result is that to such people right is synonymous merely with what ought to be, rather than with even a small part of what already is. But when they thus employ the term right, it is debased. One often hears such people say with regard to a catastrophe: “Oh, well, I suppose we shall have to make the best of it,”—a remark that is rarely prophetic of anything more than continued brooding. If it prophesied the accumulation of technique for a continuous, constructive effort, their moral rights would not be so bereft of reality.

Class G

Here the word “right” signifies certain unspecified and unrestricted liberties and privileges sanctioned in the manner of customs, the only authority behind which is the threat of social ostracism should they be disregarded.[16] As will be observed at once, some of the members of this class might, if one prefers, be included in some of the other classes of “right.”

Class H

That which is most convenient, desirable, or favorable; conforming to one’s wish or desire; to be preferred; fortunate; lucky, etc.[17] Some of these examples, like those in the preceding class, may in the eyes of some judges be more appropriately classified in another place. If so, let the change be made. There is undoubtedly an echo of Class B and of Class F in several instances. But a more important item seems to be that here are unmistakable hints of an adverbial or expletive signification for our concept. This hint is fully carried out in the final division,

Class I

in which the term “right” signifies “very,” “in a great degree,” as in certain titles: (111) “Right reverend,” (112) “Right honorable,” as well as in the expressions: (113) “Right truly may it be said,” and (114) “The word ‘cootie’ is right old Scottish.” However, as this use of the concept right is often to be interpreted as signifying “justly entitled to the name of,” or “having the true character of,” Class I may be regarded as a footnote to Classes C and G.

This completes our search for the significations of the word “right.” Nevertheless, all this is merely a preliminary step toward the main business of our investigation, namely, the discovery of the action-patterns which are implied by these nine classes we have just delimited. We have seen that these classes are all subtly connected, and this leads us to hope that some greatest common denominator will be found that will factor into all of them. It is also apparent that as we pass from Class A to Class E, we reach a climax, after which we decline; that up to the climax there is order and dignity, and that from Class F onwards our array consists mostly of scraps and debris. Our problem, then, is to exhibit not only the motor attitude which each class implies, but also the procession of such attitudes throughout the whole nine classes. For only by so doing shall we be able to comprehend the meaning of this important ethical concept.

The Meaning of the Word “Right”

1. As deduced from Class A. It will be recalled that this class signifies straight (not curved or crooked in any way), direct (by the shortest course), and immediately (in the quickest time). These words, moreover, refer not only to events in nature, but also and more particularly, to human activities. It has also been pointed out that when a man can proceed in a straight line toward his objective, he will proceed directly, and arrive there in the quickest possible time. Such behavior is, within the limits hitherto defined, described as right. Now what does all this involve in the way of action-patterns? It involves, first, perception of the goal, second, ability to keep the goal in mind, and third, energy sufficient to attain it. According to Max Meyer, one of the instincts manifested by a hungry organism is “to proceed forward in a straight line” (!) And whether this be truly instinctive or not, the example illustrates our point very nicely. For any organism vexed with hunger of any sort whatsoever (and there are, according to the poets, many kinds), will do “right” in following Max Meyer’s advice. The action-pattern implied in all this is not difficult to determine. It is the coordination of motor activities requisite for the movement of the whole body speedily through space, unwaveringly toward its objective.

The complete analysis of the mechanisms by which such behavior is accomplished would be both too difficult and too exhaustive to be undertaken here. We may, however, point out some few of the salient factors involved. It has been shown that, so far as Class A is concerned, to do right is to proceed directly and immediately, and along a straight line, if possible, to the desired object. Such behavior requires both strength and skill; from which it also follows that a feeble, untrained body will be unable to do “right” in a great many cases, simply because it cannot reach its goal in the face of obstacles. This is our common observation. Before a baby learns to walk, it cannot proceed directly or immediately across a floor. Neither can an exhausted man, unable to use the sun for a compass, find his way to safety out of a tropical forest. For a person in his predicament, things are not likely to come out “right.” Furthermore, in a great many cases of the same sort, skill and strength are both required; neither one alone is sufficient to attain the desired end. Let now the psychologist tell the story of how the attainment of skill depends upon a standard equipment of sense organs, a sound and complete brain, and muscles from which sensory stimuli elicit precise responses. Let also the physiologist relate here how bodily vigor likewise depends upon the interrelation of internal functions: how the heart, lungs, brain, muscles, thyroid, liver, and adrenals all work together to make any effort successful and complete. When this has been said, the meaning of the word “right” as defined in Class A will have been more fully revealed.

2. As deduced from Class B. Here the word “right” is used to describe the method or object by which any desire may be realized. The requirements for membership in this class appear at first to be less rigid than was the case with Class A. The speed of motion that was stressed in the former class is inessential here, as well as the necessity of proceeding by the shortest course. Here also a beefy body is not as imperative as are skill and sagacity. But let us not make a favorite of either class before we have heard the whole story. And first let us ask, what is the typical action-pattern implied by Class B? The answer is not difficult to give. There is a phrase, “selective excitability,” which psychologists have long applied to the situation where a sensori-motor mechanism is attuned by practice to respond to one specific stimulus, and to be entirely unresponsive to others. We exhibit this selective excitability every time we take “our” hat from the crowded coat-room, choose “our” favorite cigar from a case full of attractive Havanas, or fumble thoughtfully in “our” pocket for a cent to give to the crouching beggar. In every such case, we are said to employ the “right” object and perform the “right” action. Actions of this sort involve choice, which as we have already hinted (See footnote, p. 32, Chap. II.), involves the use of one member of a pair of antagonistic muscles. Consequently, we may describe the action-pattern underlying the use of “right” in Class B as any sort of behavior which involves selective excitability and selective activity. So that whatever Class B lacks in generality as compared with Class A, is compensated for by an increase in precision and, what is equally important, by an economy of human energy in the pursuit of the desired object. The importance of this last factor has already been sufficiently hinted at in the quotation that appears on the title-page of this book.

3. As deduced from Class C. The change from Class A to Class B involved an increase in what is known as intelligence, that is, the ability to solve new problems. The change to Class C may be regarded as involving a continued advance of the same general character. But this change involves something more. For, as we have already stated, “right” now becomes “descriptive of any statement which reports the facts: of any opinion or judgment that is correct: and of any person who judges, thinks, or acts in accordance with the facts or truth of a matter.” Two changes in emphasis are consequently to be noted here. First, the word “right” is applied to utterances rather than to deeds alone; and second, a metonomy is introduced in the application of our concept to persons who make correct statements. This shift of emphasis from an action to the description of it, and from the description to the describer need not cause us any difficulty, even though it envisages for us a million years of the education of the human race.

The success of our search for the meaning of our concept is here dependent upon the function of speech to imply and predict action,—a function which we have already commented upon in our second chapter. Words, like thoughts, are either reminiscent of overt action, or else they assist in preparing us for it. When, then, a man uses the word “right” to commend either statements or persons, it is the same as if he were to say: “Either there were, or there are, or there may be, objects and events as you describe, and I think as you do about them.” The action-pattern here implicated is plainly that of belief. It involves a lowered threshold with respect to the person or statement called “right,” and a correspondingly higher threshold toward those persons or statements which contradict what is accepted. And as was the case with Class B, this action-pattern involves the use of one of the halves of a system of antagonistic muscles, since the “emphasis here is upon true opinions and judgments in contrast to false ones.” This, however, is not all that can be said upon this point. For every case of belief is a case of constitutional readiness so to respond. And while we do not exactly know how the body provides such predeterminations, if the theory of action-patterns is sound, the conjecture is not unfounded that belief is a function of chronic postures maintained in the muscles of the voluntary system.

Evidences in favor of this conjecture are readily supplied from our everyday scrutiny of the faces of our fellow-men. The beggar’s hand is actually a different hand than the hand of the donor; as he sits on the sidewalk, his predetermination to receive alms is patent in the chronic posture of even his palm and fingers. The courtesan not only manifests her willingness to exchange smiles by the chronic postures in her eyelids and mouth, but with a fitness that a De Maupassant might celebrate, she also acquires a carriage that betokens her particular vocation. Contrariwise, the generous, affable man gives evidence that his traits are at least muscle-deep; while every actor will confess that if he gets into the adequate posture, the character he is depicting is automatically portrayed. Those who pray also confess that there are certain bodily attitudes which hinder, and others which assist, the flow of sentiment which they desire. Photographic evidences such as these, however, are not the only proofs we possess of postural predeterminations of action and thought, for it is sound physiology that in the multifariously complex musculature of the body, there are unnoticed postural tensions being generated and maintained all the while. And since, according to the all-or-none principle of nervous and muscular activity, every motor tendency is a truly positive physiological event, whenever we manifest belief, some part of the body is preparing to execute a movement appropriate to the assertion implied. Indeed, we may safely postulate that a large portion of what we call our individuality is a function of those chronic postures which our habits have hitherto established in our motor mechanism,—which postures ever thereafter determine what we shall do, say, and believe.

4. As deduced from Class D. Here the word “right” is used to signify “the hand which is normally the stronger,” whence, by association, it refers to a variety of related things, as hitherto indicated. We have previously noted that the concept “right” is a term we often use when the attainment of a purpose is under consideration, and here we again see the same motif displayed. Everybody knows that the “right” hand is important in the acquisition of skill of all sorts, and in getting in touch with the things we call “good.” Evidences of the paramount usefulness of the “right” hand to carry out overt actions are ubiquitous. Moreover, levers, pliers, and a hundred other tools are simply extensions of its functions and magnifications of its powers. What, then, are the action-patterns suggested by this use of our concept? The answer is extremely simple. The action-patterns we seek are the innumerable activities of the right hand itself. For, as we have previously shown, even to think of the hand involves neuro-muscular activity in it. What the right hand does, is what the concept “right,” as applied to the hand, means. And if, for any reason, the “right” hand is incapacitated or missing, some other part of the body executes the appropriate gesture or manœuvre.

5. As deduced from Class E. The transition from Class D to Class E is made on the basis of a common element that is shared by both. We have just seen that the “right” hand is the stronger and the more adroit, and that consequently it is the one more adequately equipped to turn our wishes into wills. No logician, then, is required to convince us that legal “right,” in the sense of being equivalent to might, connotes the same sort of strength and force as are involved in the grasp and tug of the hand. Were the policeman the pure embodiment of legal “rights,” the action-patterns implied by Class E would be easy to determine, since they would be simply the total behavior of that functionary while on his beat. The problem before us is, to be sure, not quite so easy of solution as reference to the policeman would make it, but nevertheless, our previous discussion of legal “right” has hinted just what that solution is to be. For legal “rights” are one and all concerned with the security of whatever things a man calls his, together with the adjustment of conflicting claims regarding them. To enumerate in detail all the action-patterns here implied would be equivalent to making an inventory of all the deeds that had ever been performed to preserve property, life, and personality, and to maintain and restore peace and order in society. Let the historian open his books and show us the panorama of these achievements. And while we should see upon many of his pages portrayals of torpid conservatism, ruthless domineering, and magnificent cunning, we should also behold examples of that impersonal referee of whom we have already spoken, whose business it is to persuade and oblige the disturbers of the social equilibrium to employ the methods and standards of conduct which have always marked free men. He who would clearly comprehend such a panorama must needs give it more than a fugitive glance; for as it required time to be created, so does it require time in which to be appreciated.

6. As deduced from Class F. Moral “rights” are all those unsecured claims and inexactly specified interests whose only protection is the approval and disapproval of the community, reinforced at times by an appeal to a super-human protagonist. A comparison between the motor-attitudes implied by Class E and Class F reveals several important differences. Juristic thinking, which we may for convenience characterize as the attitude implied by Class E, is on the whole logically coherent; moralistic thinking, on the contrary, commits every known logical fallacy. Again, juristic thinking is content to regard human problems capable of solution at the hands of human beings, and to consider that the verdicts of unruffled men and of men expert in their lines is final; while moralistic thinking is ever prone to employ methods which, on account of their provincialism and importunity, do not stand analysis at the hands of unbiased investigators. Finally, the “higher judge” which moralists assert stands behind the claims they make, is simply a misinterpretation of the meaning of long unrelieved tensions which have accumulated in their skeletal muscles. For while we do not declare that all claims unsecured by law are ethically invalid, we do nevertheless assert that the typical moralist’s attitude toward all such unsecured claims is not one that is suited to bridge the gap between our liquid matter and its good. Nevertheless, we may say without equivocation that behind every declaration of moral rights there is an anxiety lest some dependable good be lost, and this motor attitude we conceive to be the greatest common divisor of all the significations included under Class F.

7. As deduced from Class G. Although this class resembles the preceding one in that it refers to customs whose maintenance depends upon the approval and disapproval of the group, Class G lacks all of the fiercely Stoical and Puritanical elements found in Class F, just as it lacks the logical rigor pertaining to Class E. The action-patterns implied by this present class are rather those of a courteous gentleman, who persuades whenever he can by a gesture, but who does not try twice to persuade those who will not yield to that kind of a suggestion.

8. As deduced from Class H. Since “right” here signifies that which is convenient, desirable, favorable, etc., the action-patterns which it implies are practically identical with those of the first three classes of “good.” Certainly every example previously cited under this class points to an outgoing reaction.

9. As deduced from Class I. The adverbial use of our concept here implies merely a gesture of positive emphasis that may be added to any other action-pattern.

Having previously sorted the manifold significations of the word “right” among these nine classes, and having subsequently shown what the organism was doing when it employed this word with respect to each of these classes, it now remains to discover whether any one action-tendency is commonly hinted by each and all of these nine classes. If such a common tendency can be discovered, the word “right” may then indeed be said to possess all these various significations indicated in our array; otherwise, we shall err in considering it to be one and the same word in all the examples previously cited. In attempting to discover and certify such a common tendency, moreover, we shall employ the same method suggested for the summarizing of the meanings of the word “good.” We recognize that in the title by which each class of “right” is denoted, there is no presumption that such a title does more than indicate the general trend of that class; logically, the titles merely imply the greatest common divisors of the many phrases included in the classes. So that when we now attempt to define the common tendency in all the action-patterns we have just deduced from these nine classes, we are to consider only their similarities, while discarding their differences. There is nothing novel in this method; it is simply the way in which all concepts have been unconsciously derived.

Such a common tendency is not difficult to discover. Each class as we defined it in behavioristic terms turned out to imply an action-tendency that played an important part in the behavior of human beings while in the pursuit of the objects they desire, or in the attainment of their ends, however variously conceived or projected. Let us, then, bring the whole matter to a focus by saying that whenever we describe a behavior situation in which the dominant feature is the controlling and directing of human energies, the employment of technique to further man’s purposes, or the attaining of any good whatsoever, the critical word is “right.” This is, indeed, what our concept, as we have analysed it, finally means.

Further than this a strictly scientific ethics does not go, and, moreover, further than this no intellectually honest man will go. Right simply means what people use the word to signify,—employing it either as a gesture to point out some object or relationship in the environment, or else as an index of what sort of behavior may be expected of them in the future. Accordingly, all insistence on a “higher and immutable right” as the one real meaning of the term is either a sign of mal-observation or of logorrhea. And if anyone still insists on knowing how one determines what is right, we refer such a person to our array of 114 terms, where in each case the basis for such determination can be inferred. But if such a person still demands an ultimate and irrefutable criterion, the only thing left for him to do is to attempt to be God; but it is suggested in advance that the role of deity might, under the circumstances, be even more difficult to play than the more familiar rôle of man.