Throughout all history civilized man has had recourse to two methods of adjusting conflicting interests and effecting social change. These contrasting methods may be defined by the terms �cooperation� and �coercion.� They do not stand in complete contrast either philosophically or politically. There is an intermediate ground in which they tend to merge into one another and the lines of distinction are not clear. Generally speaking, however, they involve widely different theories in regard to the nature of man, the morality of social conduct and the technique of effective group action. In practice they have had widely different results both in the inner life of man and in the character of social institutions and instruments.
Men contribute to one another only through their differences. The moral problem is whether differences and conflicts shall be creative or devastating in their effect. We are convinced that the prevailing use of coercion perpetuates in the spirit of man and in social institutions an element that is destructive of the good life. In this brief paper, however, we make no attempt to prove a thesis or to cover a field that ranges widely through all human relationships from family life to international affairs. We are concerned rather with outlining certain issues and suggesting certain criteria of moral judgment upon these issues.
