Mr. Partridge's Challenge

Abstract

Introduction:  In the text, "Ideals of Conduct," C.S. Peirce makes a distinction between one's own conduct and ethics.  One's conduct is a set made up by one's ideals, rules of conduct that apply to them and knowledge of how past acts worked out.  The study of ethics is for him a theoretical inquiry of what conduct, in general, for all men, should be, according to what it is for a person in particular.  Peirce gives to the particular search for the best conduct to follow a great value since it is through it that a man can learn about his liberty and practice to improve his ability in finding, each time, the best way to follow in a given situation.  he says that moral acts are voluntary acts and compares it to reasoning, saying that the latter is a voluntary thought.  "For reasoning is essentially thought that is under self-control, just as moral conduct is conduct under self-control."