Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/164

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147
MOTIVES AND SANCTIONS OF CONDUCT

maintenance of children, and so on. To each of these prohibitions and injunctions legal penalties are attached. (3) The social sanction depends on public opinion. If you do certain things, you will be "sent to Coventry," "cut" by your friends, shunned by your "set," become ostracised by society, and "lose caste." These sanctions operate in every grade of society and at every age, and the punishment they inflict is often of the severest kind. (4) The religious sanction comprises the pains of Hell, and the penalties by which some churches maintain discipline.

So far, we have considered the sanctions only as pains and penalties. But the sanctions also offer rewards to those whose conduct conforms to their requirements. The man who does right will be rewarded.

§ 6. The Sanction of Success. Under each of the four typical classes of sanction some reward or some kind of success is offered to the man who does right. (1) According to the physical sanction, if you live a temperate life, you will be healthy. You will have the physical reward of your moral goodness. Health is almost essential to success. Hence, if you would be successful, live a good life. (2) If you conform to the laws of the land, says the political sanction, they will forward your success. The laws prevent your clerks embezzling your money, they protect the ships in which your merchandise is carried, and they preserve the integrity of your country. Therefore obey the laws, for by so doing you strengthen them and directly contribute to your own success. (3) The social sanction has even more obvious advan-