The Data of Ethics
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~110,000 words · 546 passages
Cite this work
- APAHerbert Spencer. (n.d.). The Data of Ethics. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/the-data-of-ethics
- MLAHerbert Spencer. "The Data of Ethics." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/the-data-of-ethics.
- ChicagoHerbert Spencer. The Data of Ethics. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/the-data-of-ethics.
What it is about
The 1879 book in which Spencer tried to found morals on biology: good conduct is conduct that favours life, and evolution is carrying us towards it.
Context and history
It is the first part of his system of ethics, published ahead of the rest because he feared dying before writing it. The argument links three steps: conduct is an adjustment of means to ends; conduct is the more evolved the better it maintains the life of the doer, of his offspring and of his fellows; and moral development therefore consists in bringing it about that these three cease to conflict. Spencer believed evolution leads there of itself, and that a state would come in which duty would no longer be needed because doing good would be pleasant. It is among the most serious attempts to derive 'ought' from 'is', and G. E. Moore took it precisely as his example of what he named the naturalistic fallacy.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
A reference to the programme of the "System of Synthetic Philosophy" will show that the chapters herewith issued constitute the first division of the work on the _Principles of Morality_, with which the System ends. As the second and third volumes of the _Principles of Sociology_ are as yet unpublished, this installment of the succeeding work appears out of its place. I have been led thus to deviate from the order originally set down by the fear that persistence in conforming to it might result in leaving the final work of the series unexecuted. Hints, repeated of late years with increasing frequency and distinctness, have shown me that health may permanently fail, even if life does not end, before I reach the last part of the task I have marked out for myself. This last part of the task it is to which I regard all the preceding parts as subsidiary. Written as far back as 1842, my first essay, consisting of letters on The _Proper Sphere of Government_, vaguely indicated what I conceived to be certain general principles of right and wrong in political conduct, and from that time onward my ultimate purpose, lying behind all proximate purposes, has been that of finding for the principles of right and wrong, in conduct at large, a scientific basis. To leave this purpose unfulfilled, after making so extensive a preparation for fulfilling it, would be a failure the probability of which I do not like to contemplate, and I am anxious to preclude it, if not wholly, still partially. Hence the step I now take. Though this first division of the work terminating the Synthetic Philosophy, cannot, of course, contain the specific conclusions to be set forth in the entire work, yet it implies them in such wise that, definitely to formulate them requires nothing beyond logical deduction.