The Will to Believe also contains James's most developed account of
morality, "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life." Morality for
James rests on sentience — without it there are no moral claims and no
moral obligations. But once sentience exists, a claim is made, and
morality gets "a foothold in the universe" (WB 198). Although James
insists that there is no common essence to morality, he does find a
guiding principle for ethical philosophy in the principle that we
"satisfy at all times as many demands as we can" (WB, 205). This
satisfaction is to be achieved by working towards a "richer
universe…the good which seems most organizable, most fit to enter into
complex combinations, most apt to be a member of a more inclusive
whole" (WB, 210). This work proceeds by a series of experiments, by
means of which we have learned to live (for the most part) without
"polygamy and slavery, private warfare and liberty to kill, judicial
torture and arbitrary royal power." (WB, 205) . However, James holds
that there is "nothing final in any actually given equilibrium of
human ideals, [so that] as our present laws and customs have fought
and conquered other past ones, so they will in their turn be
overthrown by any newly discovered order which will hush up the
complaints that they still give rise to, without producing others
louder still" (WB, 206).
---SPSmith
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