Chapter III
EFFICACY AND LIMITATIONS OF LARGE-
SCALE SOCIAL REFORM
AMONG people who hold what are called * advanced
.TX opinions* there is a widespread belief that the ends
we all desire can best be achieved by manipulating the
structure of society. They advocate, not a 'change of
heart' for individuals, but the carrying through of certain
large-scale political and, above all, economic reforms.
Now, economic and political reform is a branch of what
may be called preventive ethics. The aim of preventive
ethics is to create social circumstances of such a nature that
individuals will not be given opportunities for behaving in
an undesirable, that is to say an excessively 'attached,* way.
Among the petitions most frequently repeated by
Christians is the prayer that they may not be led into
temptation. The political and economic reformer aims at
answering that prayer. He believes that man's environment
can be so well organized, that the majority of temptations
will never arise. In the perfect society, the individual will
practise non-attachment, not because he will be deliberately
and consciously non-attached, but because he will never be
given the chance of attaching himself. There is, -it is
obvious, much'truth in the reformer's contention. In
England, for example, far fewer murders are committed
now than were committed in the past. This reduction in
the murder rate is due to a number of large-scale reforms—
to legislation restricting the sale and forbidding the carry-
ing of arms j to the development of an efficient legal system
which provides prompt redress to the victims of outrage.
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