e dual fact of
cooperation and conflict is, in a sense, the root of the moral
problem. How is one individual to attain happiness without
at the same time interfering with the happiness of others?
How can the desires with which all men come into the world be
fulfilled for all men?

The adjustment of these problems is at once complicated
and facilitated by the fact that one of man's most powerful
native desires is, as we have already seen, his desire to please
other men. This extreme sensitivity to the praise and blame
of his fellows operates powerfully to qualify men's other
instincts. The ruthlessness with which men might otherwise
fulfill their desires is checked by the fact that within
themselves there is a conflict between the desire to win other sorts
of gratification, and the desire to win the praise of others and
to avoid their blame. This is simply one instance of what we
shall have occasion presently to note, that not only is there a
conflict between men in the fulfillment of their native instincts,
but within individuals an adjustment must be made between
competing impulses themselves.

The kinds of conflict that occur between men in the fulfillment
of their original native tendencies, are as various as
those tendencies and their combinations. It may be a conflict,
as in primitive life, between individuals seeking food
from the same source. It may be a clash in the pursuit of one
form or another of self-enhancement, enhancement which
can come to only some individual out of a group. The sex
instinct has afforded, in the case of the "eternal triangle,"
an example of the sharing by two people of an imperious
desire for precisely the same object of satisfaction. These
conflicts of interest are an inevitable result of the constitution
of human nature. It is perfectly natural that human beings
constituted with largely identical impulses should not
infrequently seek identical satisfactions. Groups as well as
individuals may come into collision, and for analogous reasons.
Class divisions over the distribution of wealth, international
wars over the distribution of territory, are sufficiently
familiar examples.

THE LEVELS OF MORAL ACTION--CUSTOM--THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF "FOLKWAYS." No anthropologist seems to have
discovered anywhere individuals living totally alone or in total
oblivion to the needs or interests of others. The human
necessity for cooeperation and the human desire for companionship
bring individuals