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CHAPTER I
MORALITY AND FEAR OF PUNISHMENT
SOME time ago Mr. A, a grocer, carried out a somewhat
dubious business transaction. He has since been nervy and ill at
ease by day and has suffered from insomnia at night. When
these symptoms became very troublesome he consulted a
doctor to whom he confided the whole story. It then became
clear that Mr. A’s nervous disturbances were the effects of fear:
fear of the police. Mr. A had no moral scruples about the
illegality of what he had done. He was simply terrified lest he be
found out.
Mr. G, who lives in the same neighbourhood as Mr. A, has
also been showing marked signs of nervous strain. He is a
manufacturer. A short time ago he was offered a substantial
order that he could hardly afford to refuse, on condition that a
misleading description was put on the goods ordered. In this
instance no question of illegality arose. Many other
manufacturers in his trade would have complied with the
instructions that Mr. G had been given and thought no more about it.
But Mr. G is a man of strict moral principle both in his personal
and business life. Now he is suffering anxiety because he cannot
make up his mind whether to risk a serious business loss or to
compromise with his principles. Part of this anxiety is a feeling
of fear, exactly like that suffered by Mr. A. Why should Mr. G
be afraid?
The Bi-polarity of the Moral Attitude
Every moral attitude is bi-polar. It has a positive and a
negative aspect. Implicit in every ethical concept is the
awareness of a contrast between a ‘good’, towards which the
individual is drawn by desire or love, and its antithesis, an ‘evil’ for
which there is felt aversion, and fear that arises from knowledge
of weakness. In the life of every moral person fear, therefore,
plays a definite role. It is not necessarily fear of punishment. It
may be, as in the case of Mr. G, fear of the self that can be
betrayed by its own weakness.
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