Coherence Theory of Goodness

Abstract

M t } -ORAL goodness is distinctively human, belongs to conduct as it issues from will and is social."' This passage introduces us at once to the leading notions in Alexander's moral theory: (i) that morality is an affair of motives or will and (2) that it is in essence social. It has been supposed that goodness belongs to the will in itself as a mere mental function. But this is erroneous. The will which is the subject matter of the science of ethics is not the isolated will but the will in its interrelation with other wills. And the will becomes the subject of moral judgment because of its concern with objects which exist apart from it and are contemplated by minds in common. Minds can judge each other as good or bad only as directed upon these objects. I can judge you to be doing right or wrong only so far as I see you willing an object which I approve or condemn. It is not your will I approve merely as a mental process; what I approve is your will for temperate drinking or preservation of property. There is no such thing as inner morality, if it is thought of as independent of what is willed.2