generation. The crucial
questions raised by a changing Athenian democracy were no matters of
air-born speculation to Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. Nor is it an
accident that the philosopher who so sought to vindicate the worth of
man as an end _per se_ should have sent from his apparently isolated
study in Koenigsberg his glad acclaim of the French Revolution. The
abounding interest of the English Utilitarians in the economics, the
politics, the social reform, of the nineteenth century needs no
comment. There are texts for study today because the men who wrote
them were keenly concerned about a nobler mode of life for mankind. To
invite the student to share their reflections without expecting
worthier conduct is to ignore the essential purpose by which those
reflections were prompted.

=Governing aim in ethics teaching=

Hence our first recommendation--that the _content of the ethics
courses be determined by the principal aim of so interpreting the
experiences and interests of the student as to stimulate worthier
behavior through a better understanding of the general problem of
right human relationships_.

Our second recommendation as to aims is suggested by certain extremes
in the practice of today. Reference to problems of immediate concern
does not mean that ultimate considerations are to be shelved. Indeed,
it must rather be stressed that such discussions miss their best
object, _if they fail to lead to searching reflection upon ultimate
standards_. The temptation to forego such inquiry today is strong. In
their desire to be practical and up-to-date, many teachers are
altogether too ready to rest the case for moral obligation upon a kind
of easy-going hedonism, the fallacy of provisionalism, as Professor
Felix Adler calls it. Tangible "goods" like happiness or "social
values" are held up as standards, as if these values were ends in
themselves and the problem of an ultimate human worth were irrelevant.

It may very well be a modest attitude to say that we can no longer
busy ourselves with the nature of ultimate ends and that we can best
employ our energies in trying to define the various goods which
contribute now and here to human betterment. Let the effort be made,
by all means. But when the last of empirical goods have been examined
and appraised (assuming for the moment that we can indeed appraise
without possessing ultimate norms) the cardinal question still waits
for answer: To what are all these good