The Science of Ethics Author:Michael Cronin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II A MAN'S DUTIES CONCERNING HIMSELF, AND SOME OF HIS DUTIES TOWARDS OTHERS In a sense, all a man's duties concern himself or are duties towards hi... more »mself, for they all concern some good object or end, the attainment of which constitutes a perfection, in some sense, of one's self. Most duties, however, concern the self only indirectly. Directly they are duties to attain some object quite distinct from the perfecting of one's self, e.g. our duty to help the poor, to avoid stealing, murder, etc. But some duties are such that the immediate object which they concern is one's own self; their immediate and direct aim is toperfect one's self, e.g. the duty to improve one's intellect, to strengthen one's character, to sustain life and health. This is the class of duty with which we are here concerned, duties the direct object of which is a man's own self. The obvious objection will occur to the reader—how can a man have duties towards himself ? Why may not each of us do what he likes with himself ? He who owns a book can treat it in what way he likes ; why not treat himself in what way he likes ? The assumption, it will be added, that each one owns himself is here quite legitimate, for nature has given each man into his own control ; he directs himself in all his actions ; and what does ownership mean except that a man controls the thing which is possessed, and that he can exclude others from its control ? Man owns himself, therefore, and can do what he likes with himself, and, therefore, has no duties in regard to himself. Reply (a) It is not true that man controls himself to the extent that is supposed in this objection and that is commonly assumed. We do not bring ourselves into existence, nor maintain ourselves in existence, and there are thousands of functions, ph...« less