234
PAR TIS A N R'EV lEW
Or take the interpretation of the passage from Dewey in which
he discusses the relation between ideals and actual conditions. "The
alternative," Dewey writes, "is not between abdication and acquiescence
on one side, and neglect and ignoring on the other; it is between a
morality which is effective because related to what is, and a morality
which is futile and empty because framed in disregard of actual condi–
tions." To which Vivas replies with gusto that
"it
is not the business of
moral reflection to
affirm what is."
But to affirm here means to approve,
precisely what Dewey clearly excludes as one alternative.
If
I prescribe
what a man should do to achieve
his
health, am I thereby approving
the condition he is now in? But can I disregard it? The business of
moral reflection, continues Vivas, is
"to affirm what ought to be,"
as
if
anyone can intelligently prescribe what ought to be without taking note
of what is whether in health or morals. What a man ought to do must
at least be possible for
him
to do, and whether it is possible cannot be
determined without some reference to the actual. Were Vivas to deny
this he would be admitting that his moral injunctions were completely
irrelevant to human experience. And in fact, elsewhere in the book,
Vivas· accepts what Dewey writes on this and other points although
he previously denounced
him
for making them.
Before turning
to
an analysis of Mr. Vivas' positive views, there is
one more preliminary question of somewhat general interest. From first
to last he keeps denouncing the blindness of naturalists to the richness,
complexity, and pathos of human experience, and contrasts their moral
obtuseness with his own superior insight into values. He declares that
the
cause of his deepest opposition to naturalism is its secularism. Since
naturalism denies the non-temporal spirit in man, the consequence is a
barbaric society in which injustice and cruelty thrive. Dewey and other
naturalists, whether they know it or not, have "advocated the destruc–
tion of all the values that are basically constitutive of our civilization."
Now strictly speaking, secularism is a social philosophy which is
opposed to the existence of an established church with authoritative
power in civic
affairs.
Its opposite is clericalism. The characteristic doc–
trines of secularism are compatible with personal belief or disbelief
in
theism and spiritualism. Conversely, it is logically possible for natural–
ists like Hobbes and Santayana, not to speak of non-believing states–
men, to favor giving the church a privileged position in society to in–
sure "peace and order." Historically, however, it is quite true that the
growth of naturalism has been accompanied by an extension of secu–
larism. But is
it
also true that either historically or psychologically secur–
laristic naturalism coarsens moral sensitivity and blinds those who hold
it to
the
tragedies and injustices of our time as Vivas reiterates?
