Note 26 — Chapter I

Cf. Social Value, ch. 8. H. J. Davenport is the best modern representative of this extreme individualism in economics. Individualism is nearly dead in modern political, ethical, and sociological theory. Revivals of it appear, however, in W. Fite, Individualism, and in a recent article by R. B. Perry, "Economic Value and Moral Value," Quart. Journal of Economics, May, 1916. (I have discussed Professor Fite's views in the Pol. Sci. Quart. of June, 1912.) Professor Perry would there appear to reduce ethical value to a purely individual phenomenon. But he really brings in a "categorical imperative," not derived from the values of the individual, by the "back door." "Now our general moral law prescribes that an agent shall take account of all the interests which his conduct affects, or shall judge his conduct by its consequences all round." (Loc. cit., p. 481.) Just how this "general moral law" is to be derived from individual values, is not made clear. That the wants of every man should count equally with the wants of the agent is a principle which one would expect from Kant or Fichte, but hardly one which individualism can expect to maintain.