The field of ethics

George Herbert Palmer

"In these lectures I propose to offer an introduction to ethics of a somewhat novel kind. An introduction might properly enough sketch in outline the principal doctrines of moral science. It might analyze the working of the will, and its relation to perception and the cognitive process. It might explore the origin of the moral sentiments; or might attempt to determine the ultimate aim by which, however remotely, conduct is directed. I shall adopt none of these wise methods, but shall simply try to fix the place of ethics in a rational scheme of the universe. I wish to see how it is parted off from neighboring provinces of knowledge, and what kind of being he must be who is the object of its study. Why should there be a science of ethics at all, I ask. Is it an invention of scholars? Or, if all treatises on it were blotted out to-day, would the toiling multitude reconstruct them...