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Whether because of the emphasis of traditional religious salvation of the personal soul or for some other reason, there is a tendency, to restrict the ultimate scope of morals to the reflex effect of conduct on one’s self. Even utilitarianism, with all its seeming independence of traditional theology and its emphasis upon the general good as the criterion for judging conduct, insisted its hedonistic psychology of “private pleasure” as the motive for action. The idea that the stable and expanding institution of all things that make life worthwhile throughout all human relationships is the real object of all intelligent conduct is depressed from view by the cur- rent conception of morals as a special kind of action chiefly concerned with either the virtues or the enjoyments of individuals in their personal capacities. In changed form we still retain the notion of a division of activity, into two kinds having very different worth’s. The result is the depreciated meaning that has come to be attached to the very meaning of the “practical” and the useful. Instead of being extended to cover all forms of action by means of which all the values of life are ex- tended and rendered more secure, including the diffusion of the fine arts and the cultivation of taste. the processes of education and all activities which are concerned with rendering human relationships more significant and worthy, the meaning of “practical” is limit- ed to matters of ease, comfort, riches, bodily security and police order, possibly health, etc., things which in their isolation from other goods can only lay claim to restricted and narrow value. In consequence, these subjects are handed over to technical sciences andarts. They are no concern of “higher” interests which feel that nomatter what happens to inferiorgoods in the vicissitudes of natural existence, the highest valuesare immutable characters of theultimately real.
Our depreciatory attitude towards “practice” would be modifiedif we habitually thought of it in itsmost liberal sense, and if we surrendered our customary dualismbetween two separate kinds of value, one intrinsically higher andone inherently lower. We shouldregard practice as the only means(other than accident) by whichwhatever is judged to be honourable, admirable, approvable can bekept in concrete experiential existence. In this connection the entire import of “morals” would betransformed. How much of the tendency to ignore permanent objective consequences in differencesmade in natural and social relations; and how much of the emphasis upon personal and internalmotives and dispositions irrespective of what they objectivelyproduce and sustain, are productsof the habitual depreciation of theworth of action in comparison withforms of mental processes, ofthought and sentiment, whichmake objective difference in thingsthemselves ?
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Directions (81 – 90) : Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given. Certain words/phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions : Whether because of the emphasis of traditional religious salvation of the personal soul or for some other reason, there is a tendency, to restrict the ultimate scope of morals to the reflex effect of conduct on one’s self. Even utilitarianism, with all its seeming independence of traditional theology and its emphasis upon the general good as the criterion for judging conduct, insisted its hedonistic psychology of “private pleasure” as the motive for action. The idea that the stable and expanding institution of all things that make life worthwhile throughout all human relationships is the real object of all intelligent conduct is depressed from view by the cur- rent conception of morals as a special kind of action chiefly concerned with either the virtues or the enjoyments of individuals in their personal capacities. In changed form we still retain the notion of a division of activity, into two kinds having very different worth’s. The result is the depreciated meaning that has come to be attached to the very meaning of the “practical” and the useful. Instead of being extended to cover all forms of action by means of which all the values of life are ex- tended and rendered more secure, including the diffusion of the fine arts and the cultivation of taste. the processes of education and all activities which are concerned with rendering human relationships more significant and worthy, the meaning of “practical” is limit- ed to matters of ease, comfort, riches, bodily security and police order, possibly health, etc., things which in their isolation from other goods can only lay claim to restricted and narrow value. In consequence, these subjects are handed over to technical sciences andarts. They are no concern of “higher” interests which feel that nomatter what happens to inferiorgoods in the vicissitudes of natural existence, the highest valuesare immutable characters of theultimately real.
Our depreciatory attitude towards “practice” would be modifiedif we habitually thought of it in itsmost liberal sense, and if we surrendered our customary dualismbetween two separate kinds of value, one intrinsically higher andone inherently lower. We shouldregard practice as the only means(other than accident) by whichwhatever is judged to be honourable, admirable, approvable can bekept in concrete experiential existence. In this connection the entire import of “morals” would betransformed. How much of the tendency to ignore permanent objective consequences in differencesmade in natural and social relations; and how much of the emphasis upon personal and internalmotives and dispositions irrespective of what they objectivelyproduce and sustain, are productsof the habitual depreciation of theworth of action in comparison withforms of mental processes, ofthought and sentiment, whichmake objective difference in thingsthemselves ?
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