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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
Laski has been and remains one of the most erudite and influential of the English liberals—indeed, regardless of which of his books the liberal reads, he finishes it with the feeling that Laski is a force for good in political life. However, for the kind of philosopher who is accustomed to make distinctions between morality, ethics, ideology, and descriptive science, there are certain confusions in Laski's writings that give grounds for criticism of both a theoretical and practical nature.
1 Whether such an ethics is a cognitive discipline, whether ethical standards are objective, whether ethical predicates are basic in either an ontological or linguistic sense, are questions I do not need to answer here. Indeed, they are questions which, I think, cannot be answered anywhere at present. Metaphysicians it is true are properly concerned with the metaphysical status of ethical predicates such as “good” and “better” and their relation to descriptive predicates such as “yellow.” In fact it is the dubious privilege of all metaphysicians to be concerned with questions which have at present no adequate answers. However, regardless of how one answers these metaphysical questions there is as a brute fact moral experience to be dealt with in any complete philosophy, for philosophy, as an analysis and organization of the totality of our experience, cannot afford to neglect so important a segment of man's experience. Finding a place for such moral experience in one's total philosophy is undoubtedly a theoretical discipline regardless of whether one describes it as cognitive and objective in the sense that physics is cognitive and objective. In this paper I am not concerned with such system building.
I am, however, concerned with making certain theoretical clarifications which a philosopher interested in ethics is qualified to make and justified in making. Such a philosophy can distinguish between the behavior sciences which describe how men as a matter of fact do behave and the normative disciplines which discuss how men ought to behave; he can in general distinguish descriptive statements from normative statements; and he can separate the strands of anthropology, psychology, ideology, phenomenology, and morality which usually appear confusedly mixed together in most writings called moral philosophy.
2 “Law and the State,” in Studies in Law and Politics, 1932, 248.
3 Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, 1936.
4 Liberty in the Modern State, 1930, 70, 72.
5 Ibid., 72.
6 “Law and the State,” in Studies in Law and Politics, 247.
7 Ibid., 246.
8 Ibid., 250.
9 For a discussion of the scope of the “philosophy of law” see G. Bergmann and L. Zerby, “The Formalism in Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law,” Ethics, January, 1945. Section IV of this paper deals in particular with the relation between sociological validity and formal or legal validity.
10 “Law and the State,” 243–4.
11 Ibid., 239–40.
12 “Judicial Process,” in The Dangers of Being a Gentleman, 1940, 111.
13 “Judicial Process,” 120.
14 Liberty in the Modern State, 29.
15 Ibid., 28.
16 Ibid., 25, 26.
17 Ibid., 28.
18 On the Study of Politics, 1926, 7.
19 Ibid., 11.
20 “Man is one among many obstinately refusing reduction to unity. His separateness, his isolation, are indefeasible; indeed, they are so ultimate that they are the basis out of which his civic obligations are builded. He cannot abandon the consequences of his isolation which are, broadly speaking, that his experience is private and the will built out of that experience personal to himself. If he surrenders it to others, he surrenders his personality,” Liberty in the Modern State, 1930, 31. See also p. 73, and elsewhere.
21 On the Study of Politics, 16.
22 “Foundations, Universities, and Research,” in The Dangers of Obedience, 1930, 155.
23 Ibid., 155.
24 Ibid., 157.
25 Ibid., 166.
26 Ibid., 175.
27 For a philosophical analysis of ‘historicism’ see G. Bergmann, “Holism, Historicism, and Emergence.” Phil. of Science, 11, 1944, pp. 209–221.
28 Reflections on the Revolution of Our Times, 1943, 360.
29 Ibid., 361.
30 Ibid., 359.
31 Grammar of Politics, 1925, 36, 91; Liberty in the Modern State, 76. See Meyer Magid's essay, “Laski: Individualistic Pluralism,” in English Political Pluralism, 1941, 57.
32 Law in the Modern State, 70–1.
33 Reflections on the Revolution of our Time, 390.
34 In an article entitled “An Ethics for Today,” Professor E. W. Hall has formulated an ethical postulate which he suggests corrects the weakness of traditional liberalism. “Anything freely chosen by the individual is, by the fact of being freely chosen, good, and disregarding certain further qualifications to be indicated in a moment, any such good is equal to any other. … The free choice which defines good is to be ‘realistic’ and ‘intelligent.’ More accurately, things freely chosen by individuals are equally good only if the choices are equally realistic and intelligent. A more intelligent or realistic choice makes its object more valuable. … When the means of attaining alternative ends are not available, a supposed choice between them is not, in any realistic sense, a choice at all. Not wishful thinking but effective choice, issuing in action that, so far as can be anticipated, will achieve the chosen object, confers value. Thus choices must be implemented. And this implementation, in most cases, is not solely up to the individual. Society must make available means. … But besides being realistic, free choices must be ‘intelligent.’ By this I mean that in choosing between attainable alternatives, the individual must have adequate knowledge of what these attainable alternatives really are, and what probable consequences would be entailed if they were attained.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, II, #4, July, 1943, 444–46.
It would seem to me that such an ethics as this could provide for Laski's political ideals a much firmer foundation than the basis he actually uses. And I believe that Hall's ethics could not have been formulated had he not clearly distinguished ethics as a theoretical discipline from both the factual sciences of psychology and sociology on the one hand and from concrete proposals for action on the other.
35 Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, 399. See also 272.
36 Ibid., 409, also 390, 374, 348; and, Liberty in the Modern State, 13, 33.