The Moral Universe and the Creator of Value

There is no good without someone for whom things are good. An unconscious universe — matter in motion, events without a subject — contains no value, no better or worse. The moment a sentient being enters the picture, however, its claims and satisfactions are real facts about the world. What that being finds good is, for it, genuinely good — and since it is the only register of value in its vicinity, its good is absolutely good from the universe's perspective.

Once there are many sentient beings, their claims conflict. The task of the moral philosopher is not to discover a pre-existing moral order but to arrange the satisfaction of the maximum number of claims with the minimum of sacrifice. There is no algorithm for this — it requires judgment, imagination, and the willingness to live experimentally. Moral progress is a process of expanding the circle of whose claims we acknowledge as real.

James distinguishes the "easy-going" from the "strenuous" mood in morality. The easy-going mood accepts the world as it is; the strenuous mood presses against it in the name of ideals. The existence of a divine audience — a God who calls us to the highest — is, for James, a powerful stimulus to the strenuous mood. This is not a proof of God's existence but an account of what the religious hypothesis, if true, would contribute to the moral life: infinite stakes and infinite encouragement.

"The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" was first delivered before the Yale Philosophical Club in 1891 and appeared in the International Journal of Ethics the same year.