ABSTRACT
Anti-rational empiricism in ethics generally sets up the claims of what is called “the concrete facts of the situation” against all abstract rules. Interest in ethical science is thus not to be confused with functions as those of the preacher and moral pedagogue who already know what is right or good in every situation and desire to help men to achieve it. The ideal of a rational ethics can be traced back to the Hellenic idea of deliberate wisdom concerning the management of life, parallel to the science of harmony at the basis of the art of music or the science of physics at the basis of the art of medicine. There is an element of justice in this as against moralists who achieve simplicity in their ethical rules by dismissing with the opprobrious term temptation those pressures which blot out abstract possibilities from the field of the actual choices.
