Comprehensive Notes on McDougall and Theories of Human Nature

Historical Perspectives on the Sources of Human Action

  • Socrates
    • Reason is sole determinant of human behaviour.
    • Virtue = Knowledge; Vice = Ignorance.
  • Plato
    • Builds state theory on Socratic premise; advocates philosopher-king.
    • Failure: learned prince of Syracuse could not be made virtuous by reason alone.
  • Aristotle
    • Equally devoted to reason yet justifies slavery so some may exercise it – foreshadows modern racial supremacism (e.g.
      Hitler’s German-race doctrine).
  • Jeremy Bentham
    • Human acts aimed at pleasure–gain and pain-avoidance.
    • Objection: we label things pleasant because we already desire them.
  • Karl Marx
    • Feeding/economic instinct is sole life-urge.
    • Cannot explain love of art, knowledge, or morality for their own sakes.
  • Sigmund Freud
    • Sexual instinct underlies all activity.
  • Alfred Adler
    • Disagrees with Freud; prime motive = self-display / self-assertion.
  • C. G. Jung
    • Compromise: general life-urge manifesting across feeling & conation.
  • William McDougall (focus of chapter)
    • All human activity springs from inherited animal instincts.

Dominance of Instinct-Based Theories & Need for a Second Urge

  • Learned opinion currently favours McDougall, Freud, Adler, Marx → man as creature of inherited impulses.
  • Author’s thesis: a distinct, powerful human-specific urge beyond instinct ultimately rules action.
  • Recognising two separate sources would clarify baffling social-science problems and enhance human happiness.

McDougall’s Instinct Theory Summarised

  • Key quotation: “The instincts are the prime movers of all human activity … Take away these instinctive dispositions … the organism would become inert and motionless.”
  • Instincts inherited wholesale from animals; true character therefore identical to animal instincts.
  • Biological purpose: preserve individual & species.
  • Intelligence merely modifies expression, forming national & individual character.

Why Pure Reason Cannot Modify Instinct Alone

  • Reason = “handmaid of desire”; discriminates but is not itself a desire.
  • Instinctive urge alters only when its strength is raised or lowered relative to other desires; reason cannot supply that energy.
  • Over- or under-indulgence (beyond biological need) suggests an additional urge that can
    • Restrain instincts (asceticism).
    • Reinforce instincts (excesses).

Volition / Will: The Missing Factor

  • Appears when a weaker moral desire triumphs over a stronger instinctive temptation.
  • William James’ symbolism for moral effort:
    • Without effort: I \;{<}\; P
    • With effort: I + E \;{>}\; P
    • Where:
    • II = ideal / weaker motive,
    • PP = propensity / stronger instinct,
    • EE = added effort (will).
  • James leaves source of EE unexplained — “dead wall of mystery.”

McDougall’s Solution: Instinct of Self-Assertion

  • Additional motive power = self-display / self-assertion instinct.
  • Example: Boy conquers fear in presence of spectators; applause activates self-assertion to aid the weaker impulse.
  • Argues moral conduct’s lowly animal origin should not lessen its dignity.

Rational Objections to the Self-Assertion Explanation

  • Why favour the weaker desire? Stronger instinct could equally gratify self-assertion (e.g., revenge).
  • Historical martyrs choose death over riches — contradicts self-assertion logic.
  • Public-opinion motive often “goes beyond all rational grounds” (McDougall’s own admission).
  • Circularity:
    • Society admires prophets → boy seeks approval.
    • But prophets originally acted without society’s prior admiration.
    • Need an antecedent source of their will and our capacity to admire it.

Author’s Alternative: Urge of Self-Consciousness / Love of the Ideal

  • Distinct, non-instinctive urge of the self seeks Beauty/Ideal for its own satisfaction.
  • Two desire-types:
    1. Animal-instinct desires.
    2. Human-self desires (ideal-oriented).
  • Volition = self’s desire overriding instinct.
  • When love of ideal is strong, moral action may follow “line of least resistance,” contradicting James’ formula.
  • Boy’s courage re-interpreted: approval of friends = temporary ideal → gains strength to defeat fear.

McDougall’s Implicit Admission of a Separate Self

  • Describes a “central feature or nucleus of personality … the man himself … most essential part.”
  • Acknowledges it may view instinctive desires with “horror and detestation.”
  • Yet still tries to reduce its sentiment (self-regard) to a constellation of instinctive emotions — paradox: such a powerful regulator remains “weak.”

Sentiment Theory: McDougall vs. Author

  • McDougall: Sentiments built from repeated excitation & grouping of emotions around an object.
    • Rudimentary fear → incorporates other emotions → full-blown hatred.
  • Author’s critique:
    • Sentiment pre-exists emotions; emotions are events within a sentiment’s career.
    • Love of Communism example: single conviction can instantly reshape all emotions without prior repeated excitations.
    • Rapid ideological conversions (e.g., overnight Nazi→Communist) prove judgment, not emotional conditioning, births sentiment.
    • Hate is not separate; it is an aspect of love — we hate what threatens what we love.
    • Respect is either mere discipline or another facet of love; perfect love and perfect respect converge as reverence.

Love as Innate Function of Consciousness

  • Only one basic sentiment: Love of what consciousness judges beautiful.
  • Object evolves with experience; capacity is innate, “natively given.”
  • When one object loses beauty, love immediately shifts — no sentiment can decay without replacement.
  • Animals possess crude, automatic analogues; limited brain freedom restricts true sentiment.

Emotions Belong Primarily to Consciousness, Not Instinct

  • Human richness of emotion unmatched in animals → evidence emotions are consciousness-based.
  • Consciousness evolved instincts (materialised tendencies) as tools, not vice-versa.
  • Instinct-attached emotions (fear, disgust, etc.) serve biological survival in animals, but are ultimately governed by the ideal in humans.

Laughter: Zero-Emotion State

  • Real (not feigned) laughter = momentary release from constant emotional tension imposed by the ideal.
  • Peculiar to humans because only free consciousness can experience full emotional spectrum.

Re-Examining the Boy-and-Father Example

  • Child’s low-level ideal = gratification of attraction instincts.
  • Father’s anger thwarts these → fear + hatred.
  • Growth in age/knowledge could elevate ideal → reinterpret father’s acts, removing hatred.

Role of Ideal in Emotion & Will

  • In cultured persons, emotions aroused mainly by threats/support to the ideal, not physical body.
  • Emotions tied to instinct become servants of ideal through conscious control.

Final Rejection of “Instinct-Only” Foundation

  • Ideals inspire self-sacrifice and even death — impossible if they were mere derivative groups of life-preserving instincts.
  • Therefore, sentiment of love for ideals is an independent source of human action, capable of ruling instincts rather than emerging from them.

Key Numerical & Textual References

  • William James, Principles of Psychology, Vol II, p.549549 → moral effort equation.
  • McDougall’s quoted pages: 102102–116116 in transcript.
  • Repeated emphasis on biological function of instincts vs. supra-biological function of ideal.