The Basis of Morality
by Arthur Schopenhauer · English · Gutenberg #44929 · 471,292 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Basis of Morality
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Basis of Morality
Author: Arthur Schopenhauer
Translator: Arthur Brodrick Bullock
Release date: February 16, 2014 [eBook #44929]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44929
Credits: Produced by Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Internet Archive - Cornell University)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BASIS OF MORALITY ***
THE BASIS OF MORALITY
BY
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
_Translated with Introduction and Notes by_
ARTHUR BRODRICK BULLOCK, MA.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1903
PRIZE ESSAY
ON
THE BASIS OF MORALITY
NOT APPROVED
BY
THE DANISH ROYAL SOCIETY OF SCIENCES
COPENHAGEN, 30 _January_, 1840.
"To preach Morality is easy, to found it difficult.--"
(SCHOPENHAUER: _Ueber den Willen in der Natur_; p. 128)
MATRI CARISSIMAE.
CONTENTS.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
THE QUESTION
PART I.
_INTRODUCTION._
I. THE PROBLEM
II. GENERAL RETROSPECT
PART II.
_CRITIQUE OF KANT'S BASIS OF ETHICS._
I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS
II. ON THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS
III. ON THE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES IN PARTICULAR
IV. ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
NOTE.
V. ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS
VI. ON THE DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS
VII. KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE
VIII. KANT'S DOCTRINE OP THE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER,
THEORY OF FREEDOM
NOTE
IX. FICHTE'S ETHICS AS A MAGNIFYING GLASS FOR THE ERRORS OF THE KANTIAN
PART III.
_THE FOUNDING OF ETHICS._
I. CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM
II. SCEPTICAL VIEW
III. ANTIMORAL INCENTIVES
IV. CRITERION OF ACTIONS OF MORAL WORTH
V. STATEMENT AND PROOF OF THE ONLY TRUE MORAL INCENTIVE
VI. THE VIRTUE OF JUSTICE
VII. THE VIRTUE OF LOVING-KINDNESS
VIII. THE PROOF NOW GIVEN CONFIRMED BY EXPERIENCE
IX. ON THE ETHICAL DIFFERENCE OF CHARACTER.
PART IV.
_ON THE METAPHYSICAL EXPLANATION OF THE PRIMAL ETHICAL PHAENOMENON._
I. HOW THIS APPENDIX MUST BE UNDERSTOOD
II. THE METAPHYSICAL GROUNDWORK
JUDICIUM REGIAE DANICAE SCIENTIARUM SOCIETATIS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
This translation was undertaken in the belief that there are many
English-speaking people who feel more than a merely superficial
interest in ethical research, but who may not read German with
sufficient ease to make them care to take up the original. The
present Essay is one of the most important contributions to Ethics
since the time of Kant, and, as such, is indispensable to a thorough
knowledge of the subject. Moreover, from whatever point of view it be
regarded,--whether the reader find, when he closes the book, that his
conviction harmonises with the conclusion reached, or not; it would
be difficult to find any treatise on Moral Science more calculated
to stimulate thought, and lift it out of infantile imitation of some
prescribed pattern. The believer in the Kantian, or any other, basis of
Ethics, could hardly measure the strength or the weakness of his own
position more surely than by comparing it with the Schopenhauerian;
while he who is yet in search of a foundation will find much in the
following pages to claim his attention.
Those acquainted with the luminous imagery, the subtle irony, the
brusque and penetrating vigour of the German, will doubtless admit that
it is no easy task to reduce Schopenhauer to adequate English prose;
and if this has been attempted by the present writer, no one can be
more conscious than he of the manifold shortcomings discoverable. But
such as it is, the work is heartily offered to all who still follow the
true student's rule, "Gladig wolde he lerne und gladig teche," with
the single hope that it may help, however slightly, to widen their
knowledge, and ripen their judgment.
My friend, R. E. Candy, Esq., I.C.S., has kindly given me information
concerning several Indian names.
ROME: _June_, 1902.
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION.
Ὃν δὲ θεοὶ τιμῶσιν, ὁ καὶ μωμεύμενος αἰνεῑ.
--Theognis: 169.
In 1837 the Danish Royal Society of Sciences propounded, as subject
for a prize competition, the question with which this treatise opens;
and Schopenhauer, who was glad to seize the opportunity of becoming
better known, prepared, and sent to Copenhagen, the earliest form of
"The Basis of Morality." In January, 1840, the work was pronounced
unsuccessful, though there was no other candidate. In September of the
same year it was published by the author, with only a few unimportant
additions, but preceded by a long introduction, which, cast in the form
of an exceedingly caustic philippic, is, in its way, a masterpiece. In
1860, (only a month before Schopenhauer's death,) the second edition
was printed with many enlargements and insertions, the short preface,
dated August being one of the last things he wrote.[1]
The reason why the prize was withheld is not far to seek, and need not
detain us. At that time the philosophical atmosphere was saturated with
Hegel, and, to a certain extent, with Fichte; hence it is easy to
imagine with what ruffled, not to say, scandalised feelings the Academy
must have risen from its perusal of the work. Moreover, putting Hegel
and Fichte out of the question, the position advanced was in 1840 so
new, indeed so paradoxical (as Schopenhauer himself admits); there is
at times such an aggressiveness in the style; the whole essay is so
much more calculated to startle than to conciliate; that we cannot feel
much surprise at the official decision.
In the Judgment published by the Society three reasons are given for
its unfavourable attitude. The second is declared to be not only
dissatisfaction with the mode of discussion (_ipsa disserendi forma_),
but also inability to see that Schopenhauer proves his case. As the
third is alleged the "unseemly" language employed in connection with
certain "_summi philosophi_" (Hegel and Fichte). These two objections
are of course in themselves perfectly legitimate, and how far the
Academy was right or wrong may be left for the reader to determine.
But the first reason stated is of a different kind, and affords as neat
an instance of self-stultification proceeding _ex cathedra_ as can well
be found. It is true that the question is worded vaguely enough, but
if it means anything, it asks where the "_philosophiae moralis fons
et fundamentum_"--the foundation of moral science--is to be sought
for, _i.e._, where it is to be found. Turning to the Judgment we read:
"He" (Schopenhauer) "has omitted to deal with the essential part of
the question, apparently thinking that he was required to establish
some fundamental principle of Ethics": which he was required to do,
unless the Society's Latin is borrowed from _Νεϕαλοκοκκυγία._ And then
it goes on to declare that he treated as secondary, indeed as an _opus
supererogationis,_ the very thing which the Academy intended should
occupy the first place, namely, the connection between Metaphysics
and Ethics.[2] But the "_metaphysicae et ethicae nexus_," so far from
being formulated in the question as the chief point to be considered,
is not even mentioned! The Society thus denies having asked what it
actually did ask, while the discussion, which it asserts was specially
indicated, is not suggested by a single word. Its embarrassment is
sufficiently shown by this unworthy shifting, to enlarge upon which
would here be out of place.[3]
It is not intended to offer any criticism either on Schopenhauer's main
position in this essay, or on the various side-issues involved. The
reader is supposed to be accurately acquainted with the fundamentals of
his philosophy, as contained in _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_,
and is invited to be the critic himself. But perhaps a few remarks on
the structure and general trend of the work may not be amiss.
After preliminary considerations, partly to show the difficulty of the
subject, partly to clear the ground (Part I.), the treatise opens with
a searching critique of Kant's Ethical Basis, of the Leading Principle
of his system, and of its derived forms. (Part II., Chapters I.-VI.)[4]
Schopenhauer's conclusion is that the Categorical Imperative is a very
cleverly woven web, yet in reality nothing but the old theological
basis in disguise, the latter being the indispensable, if invisible,
clothes' peg for the former; and that Kant's _tour de main_ of deducing
his Moral Theology from Ethics is like inverting a pyramid. The theory
of Conscience is next discussed (Chapter VII.). The half-supernatural
element which Kant introduced under the highly dramatic form of a court
of justice holding secret session in the breast, is examined, and
eliminated; and Conscience is defined as the knowledge that we have of
ourselves through our acts.
But if, so far, the result obtained is distinctly unfavourable to
Kant, Schopenhauer is glad to agree with him on one point, namely, the
theory of Freedom, to a brief notice of which he now passes (Chapter
VIII.). He points out that the solution of this question is found in
the doctrine of the co-existence of Liberty and Necessity: according to
which the basis of our nature, the so-called Intelligible Character,
that lies outside the forms attaching to phaenomena, namely, Time,
Space, and Causality, is transcendentally free; while the Empirical
Character, together with the whole person, being, as a phaenomenon,
the transient objectivation of the Intelligible Character, under the
laws of the _principium individuationis_, is strictly determined.[5]
Part II. closes with a sufficiently amusing examination of Fichte
(Chapter IX.). His proper function is shown to be that of a magnifying
glass for Kant. By means of this powerful human lens we can see the
monstrous shapes into which the Kantian pet creations are capable of
developing. Thus we find the Categorical Imperative become a Despotic
Imperative, the "Absolute Ought" grown into a fathomless inscrutable
_Εἱμαρμένη_, etc.
With Part III. we reach the positive part of the work. Schopenhauer
begins (Chapter I.) by emphasising the necessity of finding a basis
for Ethics that appeals, not to the intellect, but to the intuitive
perception. Such (he says) can never be any artificial formula, which
surely crumbles to powder beneath the rough touch of real life;
rather must it be something springing out of the heart of things, and
therefore lying at the root of man's nature. But is there, he asks
(Chapter II.), after all, such a thing as natural morality? Is anything
good ever done absolutely without an egoistic motive? The conclusion
arrived at is that, although much may be, and has been, at all times,
said in favour of the Sceptical View, and although this view is in
fact true as regards the greater number of apparently unselfish
acts, yet there can be no doubt that truly moral conduct does occur,
that deeds of justice and loving-kindness are occasionally performed
without the smallest hope of reward, or fear of punishment involved
in their omission. The last paragraph of chis chapter is important
because it puts in the clearest light what, according to Schopenhauer,
is the end of Ethics. Its aim, he says, is =not= to treat of that
which people =ought to do= (for "ought" has no place except in
theological Morals, whether explicit, or implicit); but "to point out
all the varied moral lines of human conduct; to explain them; and to
trace them to their ultimate source." This definition, which assigns no
educative function to Ethics, strictly agrees with the doctrine of the
unchangeableness of character. (_V_. Chapter IX. of this Part.)
Our philosopher then proceeds to show (Chapter III.) that there are two
fundamental "antimoral" incentives in man's nature: Egoism and Malice.
Be it, however, here remarked that a still simpler classification would
reduce these two to one. Malice may well be regarded as nothing but
Egoism carried to its extreme, developed to gigantic proportions. It is
a distinct source of gratification to certain natures to witness the
suffering of another; because a diminution of the latter's capacity
for action, whether effected by itself, or not, is regarded by an ego
of this kind as an increase of its own power to do as it likes,--as an
enhancement of its own glorification.
In Chapter IV. the ultimate test of truly moral conduct is explained to
be the absence of all egoistic motivation; and in Chapters V.-VII.,
by a process of careful reasoning, every human act is traced to one
of three original springs, namely, (1) Egoism, (2) Malice, and (3)
Compassion; or to a combination of (1) and (3), or (1) and (2).[6] Of
these the third is shown to be the only counter-motive to the first
and second, and in fact the sole source of the two cardinal virtues,
justice and loving-kindness, which are explained as the manifestation
of Compassion in a lower, and a higher, degree, respectively. In
the course of the demonstration the question as to how far a lie is
legitimate comes incidentally under discussion; as also the theory of
Duty; duties being defined as "actions, the simple omission of which
constitutes a wrong." (Cf. Part II., Chapter III.)
The position now reached, namely, that Compassion is the one and only
fount of true morality, because it is the sole non-egoistic source of
action, is (says Schopenhauer) a strange paradox; hence the testimony
of experience and of universal human sentiment is appealed to, in
confirmation of it, under nine different considerations (Chapter
VIII.). They are as follows:--
(1) An imaginary case.
(2) Cruelty, which means the maximum deficiency in Compassion, is the
mark of the deepest moral depravity. Therefore the real moral incentive
must be Compassion.
(3) Compassion is the only thoroughly effective spring of moral conduct.
(4) Limitless Compassion for all living things is the surest and most
certain token of a really good man.
(5) The evidence of separate matters of detail.
(6) Compassion is more easily discerned in its higher power; it is more
obviously the root of loving-kindness than of justice.
(7) Compassion does not stop short with men; it includes all living
beings.
(8) Considered simply from the empirical point of view, Compassion is
the best possible antidote to Egoism, no less than the most soothing
balsam for the world's inevitable suffering.
(9) Rousseau's testimony is quoted, as well as passages from the
Paṅća-tantra, Pausanias, Lucian, Stobaeus, and Lessing; and reference
is made to Chinese Ethics and Hindu customs.
Part III. closes (Chapter IX.) with an inquiry into the Ethical
Difference of Character. The theory that this difference is innate
and immutable is supported by numerous extracts from various writers
of all periods, and illustrated in many ways. But all the evidence
accumulated hardly amounts to more than so many hints and indications,
and the matter (says Schopenhauer) was only satisfactorily explained
by Kant's doctrine of the Intelligible and Empirical Character. (Cf.
Part II., Chapter VIII.) According to this, the ethical difference
between man and man is an original and ultimate datum, caused by
the transcendentally free act of the Intelligible Character, that
is, the Will, as Thing in itself, outside phaenomena; the Empirical
Character being, so to say, the reflection of the Intelligible,
mirrored through the functions of our perceptive faculty, namely,
Time, Space, and Causality. Hence the former, while manifested in
plurality and difference of acts, yet necessarily always wears the same
unchangeable features, inasmuch as it is but the appearance-form of
the unity behind. If the reader asks why "the essential constitution
of the Thing in itself underlying the phaenomenon" is so enormously
different in different individuals, it can only be said that our
intellect, conditioned, as it is, by the laws of Causality, Space, and
Time, has no power to deal with noumena, its range being limited to
phaenomena; and that therefore this question is one of those which have
no conceivable answer. (Cf. _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, vol.
ii., chap. 50., Epiphilosophie.)[7]
The discussion now terminated points to the conclusion that
nine-tenths, or perhaps nineteen-twentieths, of what we do is, more
or less, due to Egoism, conscious or unconscious; while acts of real
morality, that is, of unselfish justice and pure loving-kindness
(admitting that they occur) are to be attributed to Compassion, that
is, the sense of =suffering with= another. Nor is the principle of
Altruism new. It is as old as man himself. All the rare and sensitive
natures in the world have given utterance to it, each in his own way.
Like a golden thread it runs from the earliest Indian literature to
George Eliot, to Tolstoï; and every day, for unnumbered ages, "from
youth to eld, from sire to son," in lowly dwellings and in princes'
palaces, it has been unawares translated into action.
And if we may forecast the future from the past, it would appear that
in all the stormy seas yet to be traversed by the human race, before
its little day is spent, Compassion will ever be the surest guide to
better things; and that the light of knowledge illuminating the path,
whereby the world may become relatively happier, will always vary
directly as man's susceptibility to its promptings: for "=Durch
Mitleid wissend=" is not truer of Parsifal than of all other
saviours.
In the fourth Part of the treatise Schopenhauer attempts the
metaphysical explanation of Compassion, which for those, who still
think that Metaphysics is something more than a pseudo-science of the
past--like Alchemy or Astrology--will have special interest.
It should be observed (as is pointed out in our author's Preface
to the first edition) that the line of thought followed does not
belong to any particular metaphysical school, but to many; being in
fact a principle at the root of the oldest systems in the world, and
traceable in one form or another down to Kant. As in the dawn of
history it was our own Aryan forefathers, who divined with subtle
intuition the ideality of Time and Space; so in the fulness of the
ages it was reserved for another Aryan of Scotch descent to formulate
the same in exact language. Now, by the vast majority of men the
ideality of the _principium individuationis_ is undoubtedly either
not consciously realised at all, or else but dimly perceived under
the form of allegories and mythologies. Yet, if this theory be true,
if individuation be only a phaenomenon depending on the subjectivity
of Time and Space, then Compassion, and its external expression, the
_ἀγάπη_ that is greater than Faith and Hope, receive their final
explanation. And every _εὐθανασία_; every word that vibrates in
harmony with the inspired rhapsody of 1 Corinthians xiii.; every act
of genuine justice, or of true loving-kindness, done by man to man, as
well as the uplifting emotion which stirs our hearts at the sight of
such conduct:--all these things become fraught with a new and luminous
significance: the secret writing is interpreted, its deepest meaning
disclosed.
Moreover, the "thou shalt," and the "thou shalt not," no less of the
various theologies than of the Categorical Imperative, may from this
point of view be accounted for, on the ground of the =identity=
of man, so far as he is =noumenal=, with the transcendental
Reality behind phaenomena. The crude threats of punishment and promises
of reward, the stern Moral Law, poised in mid air,--these hypotheses,
and all their varieties (whose function is in reality nothing
else but to check Egoism), are seen to be due to the intellect's
imperfect comprehension of, or rather, its vague groping after, the
transcendental unity of life, however individualised and differentiated
as a phaenomenon in Time and Space.[8] It thus becomes apparent
that the position developed by Schopenhauer in the third and fourth
parts of the Essay is not so much destructive, as explanatory, of
the usual theories, which, if once the former be fully grasped, lose
themselves in it as stars and moon in the light of day. They are at
once interpreted, and shown to be no longer of importance. Similarly,
all the religions of the world, "which are the Metaphysics of the
people," find their _raison d'être_ in the same doctrine. The theory
of an =external= _δημιουργὸς_ takes its place as the natural mode
of denoting, in children's language, the =internal= metaphysical
Entity, whose appearance-form, in terms of our consciousness, is
called the Universe. The circle is completed; the discords vanish,
and an ultimate harmony is reached. And so over the thrice-tangled
skein of phaenominal existence a simplifying and integrating light
is shed, showing that the _πᾱν_ is but the reflection of the _ἕν_,
under the forms of our faculty of perception, namely, Time, Space, and
Causality--forms, which necessarily imply plurality and change, on
which, again, in the last resort the _Welt-Schmerz_ depends.
"The One remains, the many change and pass;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments."
"What an unspeakable gain," says Richard Wagner,[9] "we should bring
to those who are terrified by the threats of the Church, and, on the
other hand, to those who are reduced to despair by our physicists, if
we could quicken the noble edifice of 'Love, Faith, and Hope,' with a
clear consciousness of the ideality of the world, conditioned by the
laws of Space and Time, which form the sole basis of our perceptive
capacity! In that case all anxious inquiries as to a 'Where' and 'When'
of the 'other world' would be understood to be only answerable by a
blissful smile. For, if there is a solution to these questions, which
seem of such boundless importance, our philosopher has given it with
incomparable precision and beauty in the following sentence, which, to
a certain extent, is only a corollary to the definition of the ideality
of Time and Space: 'Peace, Rest, and Bliss dwell only there where there
is =no where, and no when=.'" (_V_. Schopenhauer: _Parerga and
Paralipomena,_ vol. ii., chap. 3, § 30 bis.)
[1] He died September 21st.
[2] It should be noticed that this "essential part of the question," a
few lines before, is said to have been passed over altogether (_omisso
enim eo, quod potissimum postulabatur_).
[3] Any one who cares to see how this Judgment, the Danish Royal
Society of Sciences, Hegel, Fichte, and "Professors of Philosophy" in
general, are all pulverised together under our sage's withering wrath
and trenchant irony, should read his Introduction to each Edition.
[4] Incidentally (Chapter III.), duties towards ourselves, properly
so called, are shown to be non-existent from the Schopenhauerian
standpoint. Cf. the definition of Duty in Part III., Chapter VI.
[5] Schopenhauer treated this subject exhaustively in his Essay on
"The Freedom of the Will," which, written immediately before, and more
fortunate than, the present treatise, was awarded the prize by the
Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences in January, 1839.
[6] If, as above suggested, Malice be taken as a form of Egoism, we may
simplify as follows:--
Egoism. Compassion. (_a_) Lower power: seen in (_a_) Lower power: seen
in selfishness, covetousness, etc. justice. (_b_) Higher power: seen in
(_d_) Higher power: seen in malice, cruelty, etc. loving-kindness.
Egoism (not in its higher power) may be simultaneously operative with
Compassion in every possible proportion.
[7] _V_. Also the _Neue Paralipomena_, chap. vii.; _Zur Ethik,_ §
248, where Schopenhauer calls this "the hardest of all problems." On
the one hand, we have the metaphysical unity of the Will, as Thing in
itself, which, as the Intelligible Character, is present, whole and
undivided, in all phaenomena, in every individual; on the other hand,
we find, as a fact of experience, the widest possible difference in the
Empirical Character, no less of animals than of men. That is to say,
"_difference_" must be predicated of the Thing in itself! It is obvious
that we here touch a contradiction, which, for the rest, lies at the
root of the Schopenhauerian doctrine of the Will.
[8] The reader will remember the fine poetic presentment of this view
of things, which Goethe with intuitive perception gives in the Faust,
Part I., where the Erdgeist says:
"_So schaff' ich am sausenden_ WEBSTUHL DER ZEIT, _Und wirke_ DER
GOTTHEIT LEBENDIGES KLEID." ]
[9] V. _Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen_ von Richard Wagner. Zweite
Auflage, vol. x. "Was nützt diese Erkenntnis?" p. 361:--_Welchen
unsäglichen Gewinn würden wir aber den einerseits von den Drohungen
der Kirche Erschreckten, andererseits den durch unsere Physiker zur
Verzweiflung Gebrachten zuführen, wenn wir dein erhabenen Gebäude von
"Liebe, Glaube und Hoffnung" eine deutliche Erkenntnis der, durch die
unserer Wahrnehmung einzig zu Grunde liegenden Gesetze des Raumes
und der Zeit bedingten, Idealität der Welt einfügen könnten, durch
welche dann alle die Fragen des beängstigten Gemüthes nach einem
"Wo" und "Wann" der "anderen Welt" als nur durch ein seliges Lächeln
beantwortbar erkannt werden müssten? Denn, giebt es auf diese, so
grenzenlos wichtig dünkenden Fragen eine Antwort, so hat sie unser
Philosoph, mit unübertrefflicher Präzision und Schönheit, mit diesem,
gewissermaassen nur der Definition der Idealität von Zeit und Raum
beigegebenen Ausspruche ertheilt: "Frieda, Ruhe, und Glückseligkeit
wohnt allein da, wo es_ KEIN WO UND KEIN WANN _giebt."_
THE QUESTION
The question advanced by the Royal Society, together with the
considerations leading up to it, is as follows:--
_Quum primitiva,', moralitatis idea, sive de summa lege morali
principalis notio, sua quadam 'propria eaque minime logica necessitate,
turn in ea disciplina appareat, cui propositum est cognitionem_ τοῡ
ἠθικοῡ _explicare, turn in vita, partim in conscientiae judicio de
nostris actionibus, partim in censura morali de actionibus aliorum
hominum; quumque complures, quae ab illa ider inseparables sunt,
eamque tanquam originem respiciunt, notiones principales ad_ τὸ ἠθικόν
_spectantes, velut officii notio et imputationis, eadem necessitate
eodemque ambitu vim suam exserant,--et tamen inter eos cursus viasque,
quas nostrae aetatis meditatio philosophica persequitur, magni momenti
esse videatur, hoc argumentum ad disputationem revocare,--cupit
Societas, ut accurate haec quaestio perpendatur et pertractetur:_
_=Philosophiae moralis fons et fundamentum= utrum in idea
moralitatis, quae immediate conscientia contineatur, et ceteris
notionibus fundamentalibus, quae ex illa prodeant, explicandis
=quaerenda sunt=, an in alio cognoscendi principio?_
(The original idea of morality, or the leading conception of the
supreme moral law, occurs by a necessity which seems peculiar to the
subject, but which is by no means a logical one, both in that science,
whose object it is to set forth the knowledge of what is moral, and
also in real life, where it shows itself partly in the judgment passed
by conscience on our own actions, partly in our moral estimation of the
actions of others; moreover, most of the chief conceptions in Ethics,
springing as they do out of that idea, and inseparable from it (as,
for instance, the conception of duty, and the ascription of praise
or blame) assert themselves with the same necessity, and under the
same conditions. In view of these facts and because it appears highly
desirable, considering the trend of philosophic investigation in our
time, to submit this matter to further scrutiny; the Society desires
that the following question be carefully considered and discussed:--
=Is the fountain and basis of Morals to be sought for= in an idea
of morality which lies directly in the consciousness (or conscience),
and in the analysis of the other leading ethical conceptions which
arise from it? or is it to be found an some other source of knowledge?)
PART I.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE PROBLEM.
"Why do philosophers differ so widely as to the first principles of
Morals, but agree respecting the conclusions and duties which they
deduce from those principles?"
This is the question which was set as subject for a prize essay by
the Royal Society of Holland at Harlem, 1810, and solved by J.C.F.
Meister; and in comparison with the task before us, the inquiry
presented no extraordinary difficulty. For:--
(1) The present question of the Royal Society has to do with nothing
less important than the objectively true basis of morals, and
consequently of morality. It is an Academy, be it observed, which
invites this inquiry; and hence, from its position, it has no practical
purpose in view; it asks for no discourse inculcating the exercise of
uprightness and virtue, with arguments based on evidence, of which
the plausibility is dwelt on, and the sophistry evaded, as is done
in popular manuals. Rather, as its aim is not practical, but only
theoretical, it desires nothing but the purely philosophical, that
is, the objective, undisguised, and naked exposition of the ultimate
basis of all good moral conduct, independent of every positive law, of
every improved assumption, and hence free from all groundwork, whether
metaphysical or mythical. This, however, is a problem whose bristling
difficulties are attested by the circumstance that all philosophers in
every age and land have blunted their wits on it, and still more by
the fact that all gods, oriental and occidental, actually derive their
existence therefrom. Should therefore this opportunity serve to solve
it, assuredly the Royal Society will not have expended its money amiss.
(2) Apart from this, a peculiar disadvantage will be found to attach
to any theoretical examination of the basis of morals, because such
an investigation is suspiciously like an attempt to undermine, and
occasion the collapse of, the structure itself. The fact is, that in
this matter we are apt to so closely associate practical aims with
theory, that the well-meant zeal of the former is with difficulty
restrained from ill-timed intervention. Nor is it within the power
of every one to clearly dissociate the purely theoretical search for
objective truth, purged of all interest, even of that of morality as
practised, from a shameless attack on the heart's sacred convictions.
Therefore he, who here puts his hand to the plough, must, for his
encouragement, ever bear in mind that from the doings and affairs of
the populace, from the turmoil and bustle of the market-place, nothing
is further removed than the quiet retreat and sanctuary of the Academy,
where no noise of the world may enter, and where the only god raised on
a pedestal is Truth, in solitary, naked sublimity.
The conclusion from these two premises is that I must be allowed
complete freedom of speech, as well as the right of questioning
everything; and furthermore, that if I succeed in really contributing
something, however small, to this subject, then that contribution will
be of no little importance.
But there are still other difficulties obstructing my path. The
Royal Society asks for a short monograph setting forth the basis of
Ethics entirely by itself; which means to say, independent of its
connection with the general system, _i.e._, the actual metaphysics of
any philosophy. Such a demand must not only render the accomplishment
of the task more difficult, but necessarily make it imperfect. Long
ago Christian Wolff, in his _Philosophia Practica_ (P. II., § 28)
observed: "_Tenebrae in philosophia practica non dispelluntur, nisi
luce metaphysica effulgente_" (Darkness in practical philosophy is
only dispersed, when the light of metaphysics shines on it;) and Kant
in the Preface to his _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_ remarks:
"Metaphysics must precede, and is in every case indispensable to,
moral philosophy." For, just as every religion on earth, so far as
it prescribes morality, does not leave the latter to rest on itself,
but backs it by a body of dogmas (the chief end of which is precisely
to be the prop of the moral sense); so with philosophy, the ethical
basis, whatever it be, must itself attach to, and find its support in,
one system of metaphysics or another, that is to say, in a presupposed
explanation of the world, and of existence in general. This is so,
because the ultimate and true conclusion concerning the essential
nature of the Universe must necessarily be closely connected with that
touching the ethical significance of human action; and because, in any
case, that which is presented as the foundation of morality, if it is
not to be merely an abstract formula, floating in the clouds, and out
of contact with the real world, must be some fact or other discoverable
either in the objective kosmos, or else in man's consciousness; but,
as such, it can itself be only a phaenomenon; and consequently, like
all other phaenomena, it requires a further explanation; and this
explanation is supplied by Metaphysics. Philosophy indeed is such a
connected whole that it is impossible to exhaustively discuss any one
part without all the others being involved. Thus Plato says quite
correctly: _ψυχῆs oὗν ϕύσιν ἀξίως λόγου κατανοῆσαι oἴει δυνατὸν εἷναι,
ἄνευ τῆς τοῡ ὅλον ϕυσεως_; (Phaedr., p. 371, Ed. Bip.) (Do you think
then it is possible to understand at all adequately the nature of
the soul, without at the same time understanding the nature of the
Whole, _i.e._, the totality of things?) The metaphysics of nature, the
metaphysics of morals, and the metaphysics of the beautiful mutually
presuppose each other, and only when taken as connected together do
they complete the explanation of things as they really are, and of
existence in general. So that whoever should exactly trace one of
these three to its ultimate origin, would be found to have necessarily
brought the others into his solution of the problem; just as an
absolutely clear and exhaustive understanding of any single thing in
the world would imply a perfect comprehension of everything else.
Now if we were to start from a given system of metaphysics, which is
assumed to be true, we should reach synthetically a basis of morals,
and this basis, being, so to say, built up from below, would provide
the resulting ethical structure with a sure foundation. But in the
present case, since the terms of the question enforce the separation
of ethics from all metaphysics, there remains nothing but the analytic
method, which proceeds from facts either of external experience, or of
consciousness. It is true that thus the ultimate origin of the latter
may be traced back to the human spirit, a source which then, however,
must be taken as a fundamental fact, a primary phaenomenon, underivable
from anything else, with the result that the whole explanation remains
simply a psychological one. At best its connection with any general
metaphysical standpoint can only be described as accessory. On the
other hand, the fundamental datum, the primary phaenomenon of Ethics,
so found in man's nature, could itself in its turn be accounted for
and explained, if we might first treat of metaphysics, and then by
the synthetic method deduce Ethics from it. This would mean, however,
nothing less than the construction of a complete system, of philosophy,
whereby the limits of the given question would be far exceeded. I
am, therefore, compelled to answer it within the lines which its own
isolated narrowness has laid down.
And lastly, there is the following consideration. The basis on which
it is here intended to place Ethics will prove to be a very small
one; and the consequence is that of the many lawful, approvable, and
praiseworthy actions of mankind, only the minority will be found to
spring from purely moral motives, while the majority will have to be
attributed to other sources. This gives less satisfaction, has not such
a specious glitter as, let us say, a Categorical Imperative, which
always stands ready for commands, only that itself in its turn may
command what ought to be done, and what ought to be left undone;[1] not
to mention other foundations that are entirely material.
I can only, therefore, remind the reader of the saying in Ecclesiastes
(iv. 6): "Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full
with travail and vexation of spirit." In all knowledge the genuine,
proof-resisting, indestructible coefficient is never large; just as in
the earth's metallic strata a hundredweight of stone hides but a few
ounces of gold. But whether others will prefer--as I do--the assured
to the bulky possession, the small quantity of gold which remains in
the crucible to the big lump of matter that was brought along with
it; or whether I shall rather be charged with having removed from
Ethics its basis, instead of providing one, in so far as I prove that
the lawful and commendable actions of mankind often do not contain a
particle of pure moral worth, and in most cases only a very little,
resting, as they do, otherwise on motives, the sufficiency of which
must ultimately be referred to the egoism of the doer; all this I must
leave undecided; and I do so, not without anxiety, nay, rather with
resignation, because I have long since been of the same mind as Johann
Georg von Zimmermann, when he said: "Rest assured until your dying day,
that nothing in the world is so rare as a good judge." (_Ueber die
Einsamkeit_; Pt. I., Ch. iii., p. 93.)
For all true and voluntary righteousness, for all loving-kindness, for
all nobleness, wherever these qualities may be found, my theory can
only point to a very small foundation; whereas my opponents confidently
construct broad bases for Morals, which are made strong enough for
every possible burden, and are at the same time thrust upon every
doubter's conscience, accompanied with a threatening side-glance at his
own morality. As contrasted with these, my own position is indeed in
sore and sorry plight. It is like that of Cordelia before King Lear,
with her weakly worded assurance of dutiful affection, compared with
the effusive protestations of her more eloquent sisters. So that there
seems to be need of a cordial that may be furnished by some maxim taken
from intellectual hunting grounds, such as, _Magna est vis veritatis,
et praevalebit_. (Great is the strength of truth, and it will prevail.)
But to a man who has lived and laboured even this fails to give much
encouragement. Meanwhile, I will for once make the venture with truth
on my side; and what opposes me will at the same time oppose truth.
[1] That is, the Categorical Imperative appears at first as your
"obedient humble servant," ready to perform any useful service, _e.g._,
the solving of ethical riddles; while it ends by gaining the upper
hand, and commanding.--(_Translator_.)
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL RETROSPECT.
For the people morality comes through, and is founded on, theology, as
the express will of God. On the other hand, we see philosophers, with
few exceptions, taking special pains to entirely exclude this kind of
foundation; indeed, so they may but avoid it, they prefer even to find
a refuge in sophistry. Whence comes this antithesis? Assuredly no more
efficient basis for Ethics can be imagined than the theological; for
who would be so bold as to oppose the will of the Almighty and the
Omniscient? Unquestionably, no one; if only this will were proclaimed
in an authentic, official manner (if one may say so), whereby no
possible room for doubt could be left. This, however, is precisely the
condition which does not admit of being realised. It is rather the
inverse process which is attempted. The law declared to be the will of
God men try to accredit as such, by demonstrating its agreement with
our own independent, and hence, natural moral views, and an appeal
is consequently made to these as being more direct and certain. But
this is not all. We perceive that an action performed solely through
threat of punishment and promise of reward would be moral much more
in appearance than in reality; since, after all, it would have its
root in Egoism, and in the last resort the scale would be turned by
the greater or less amount of credulity evinced in each case. Now it
was none other than Kant who destroyed the foundations of Speculative
Theology, which up to his time were accounted unshakable. Speculative
Theology had hitherto sustained Ethics, and in order to procure for the
former an existence of some sort, if only an imaginary one, his wish
was to proceed inversely, and make Ethics sustain Speculative Theology.
So that it is now more than ever impossible to think of basing Ethics
on Theology; for no one knows any longer which of the two is to be the
supporter, and which the supported, and the consequence is a _circulus
vitiosus_.
It is precisely through the influence of Kant's philosophy; through the
contemporaneous effect of the unparalleled progress made in all the
natural sciences, with regard to which every past age in comparison
with our own appears childish; and lastly, through the knowledge of
Sanskrit literature, and of those most ancient and widest spread
faiths, Brahmanism and Buddhism, which, as far as time and space go,
are the most important religions systems of mankind, and, as a matter
of fact, are the original native religions of our own race, now well
known to be of Asiatic descent--our race, to which in its new strange
home they once more send a message across the centuries;--it is because
of all this, I say, that the fundamental philosophical convictions of
learned Europe have in the course of the last fifty years undergone a
revolution, which perhaps many only reluctantly admit, but which cannot
be denied. The result of this change is that the old supports of Ethics
have been shown to be rotten, while the assurance remains that Ethics
itself can never collapse; whence the conviction arises that for it
there must exist a groundwork different from any hitherto provided,
and adaptable to the advanced views of the age. The need of such is
making itself felt more and more, and in it we undoubtedly find the
reason that has induced the Royal Society to make the present important
question the subject of a prize essay.
In every age much good morality has been preached; but the explanation
of its _raison d'être_ has always been encompassed with difficulties.
On the whole we discern an endeavour to get at some objective truth,
from which the ethical injunctions could-be logically deduced; and
it has been sought for both in the nature of things, and in the
nature of man; but in vain. The result was always the same. The will
of each human unit was found to gravitate solely towards its own
individual welfare, the idea of which in its entirety is designated
by the term "blissfulness" (_Glückseligkeit_); and this striving
after self-satisfaction leads mankind by a path very, different to
the one morality would fain point out. The endeavour was next made
now to identify "blissfulness" with virtue, now to represent it as
virtue's consequence and effect. Both attempts have always failed; and
this for no want of sophistry. Then recourse was had to artificial
formulas, purely objective and abstract, as well _a posteriori_ as
_a priori_, from which correct ethical conduct undoubtedly admitted
of being deduced. But there was nothing found in man's nature to
afford these a footing, whereby they might have availed to guide the
strivings of his volition, in face of its egoistic tendency. It appears
to me superfluous to verify all this by describing and criticising
every hitherto existing foundation of morality; not only because I
share Augustine's opinion, _non est pro magno habendum quid homines
senserint, sed quae sit rei veritas_ (It is the truth about a thing,
not men's opinions thereon, that is of importance); but also because it
would be like _γλαύκας εἰς 'Aθήνας κομίζειν_ (_i.e._, carrying coals to
Newcastle); for previous attempts to give a foundation to Ethics are
sufficiently well-known to the Royal Society, and the very question
proposed shows that it is also convinced of their inadequateness.
Any reader less well-informed will find a careful, if not complete,
presentment of the attempts hitherto made, in Garve's _Uebersicht der
vornehmsten Principien der Sittenlehre_, and again, in Stäudlin's
_Geschichte der Moralphilosophie._ It is of course very disheartening
to reflect that Ethics, which so directly concerns life, has met with
the same unhappy fate as the abstruse science of Metaphysics, and that
its first principle, though perpetually sought for ever since the time
of Socrates, has still to be found. Moreover, we must remember that
in Ethics, much more than in any other science, what is essential
is contained in its fundamental propositions; the deductions are so
simple that they come of themselves. For all are capable of drawing
a conclusion, but few of judging. And this is exactly the reason why
lengthy text-books and dissertations on Morals are as superfluous as
they are tedious. Meantime, if I may postulate an acquaintance with all
the former foundations of Ethics, my task will be lightened. Whoever
observes how ancient as well as modern philosophers (the Church creed
sufficed for the middle ages) have had recourse to the most diverse
and extraordinary arguments, in order to provide for the generally
recognised requirements of morality a basis capable of proof, and how
notwithstanding they admittedly failed; he will be able to measure the
difficulty of the problem, and estimate my contribution accordingly.
And he who has learned to know that none of the roads hitherto struck
on lead to the goal, will be the more willing to tread with me a very
different path from these--a path which up to now either has not been
noticed, or else has been passed over with contempt; perhaps because
it was the most natural one.[1] As a matter of fact my solution of the
question will remind many of Columbus' egg.
It is solely to the latest attempt at giving, a basis to Ethics--I mean
the Kantian--that a critical examination will be devoted. I shall make
it all the more exhaustive, partly because the great ethical reform of
Kant gave to this science a foundation having a real superiority to
previous ones and partly because it still remains the last important
pronouncement in this domain; for which reason it has obtained general
acceptance up to the present day, and is universally taught, although
differently garnished by certain changes in the demonstration and in
the terminology. It is the ethical system of the last sixty years,
which must be removed ere we enter on another path. Furthermore, my
criticism of the Kantian basis will give me occasion to examine and
discuss most of the fundamental conceptions of Ethics, and the outcome
of this investigation I shall later on be able to postulate. Besides,
inasmuch as opposites illustrate each other, it is exactly this course
which will be the best preparation and guide, indeed the direct way, to
my own position, which in its essential points is diametrically opposed
to Kant's. It would therefore be a very perverse beginning to skip
the following criticism, and turn at once to the positive part of my
exposition, which then would remain only half intelligible.
In any case the time has assuredly arrived for once to cite Ethics
before the bar of a searching scrutiny. During more than half a century
it has been lying comfortably on the restful cushion which Kant
arranged for it--the cushion of the Categorical Imperative of Practical
Reason. In our day this Imperative is mostly introduced to us under
a name which, being smoother and less ostentatious, has obtained more
currency. It is called "the Moral Law"; and thus entitled, with a
passing bow to reason and experience, it slips through unobserved into
the house. Once inside, there is no end to its orders and commands; nor
can it ever afterwards be brought to account. It was proper, indeed
inevitable, that Kant, as the inventor of the thing, should remain
satisfied with his creation, particularly as he shelved by its means
errors still more glaring. But to be obliged to look on and see asses
disporting themselves on the comfortable cushion which he prepared, and
which since his time has been more and more trampled on and flattened
out--this truly is hard. I allude to the daily hackney compilers, who,
with the ready confidence born of stupidity, imagine that they have
given a foundation to Ethics, if they do but appeal to that "Moral
Law" which Is alleged to be inherent in our reason; and then they
complacently weave upon this such a confused and wide-reaching tissue
of phrases that they succeed in rendering unintelligible the clearest
and simplest relations of life: and all this, without ever once
seriously asking themselves whether in point of fact there really does
exist such a "Moral Law," as a convenient code of morality, graven in
our heads or hearts.
Hence I admit the especial pleasure I feel in proceeding to remove
from Ethics its broad cushion of repose, and I unreservedly
declare my intention of proving that Kant's Practical Reason and
Categorical Imperative are completely unwarrantable, baseless,
and fabricated assumptions; and I shall further show that Kant's
whole system, like those of his predecessors, is in want of a solid
foundation. Consequently Ethics will again be consigned to its
former entirely helpless condition, there to remain, until I come to
demonstrate the true moral principle of human nature--a principle
which is incontestably efficient, and has its root in our very
being. The latter, however, has no such broad basis to offer as the
above-mentioned cushion; so that, doubtless, those who are accustomed
to take things easily, will not abandon their comfortable old seat,
before they are thoroughly aware how deeply the ground on which it
stands is undermined.
[1]
_Io dir non vi saprei per qual sventura,_
_O piuttosto per qual fatalità,_
_Da noi credito ottien più l'impostura,_
_Che la semplice e nuda verità._
CASTI.
[I cannot tell what mischief sly,
Or rather what fatality,
Leads man to credit more the lie
Than truth in naked purity.] (_Translator_)
PART II.
CRITIQUE OF KANT'S BASIS OF ETHICS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
It is Kant's great service to moral science that he purified it of all
Eudaemonism. With the ancients, Ethics was a doctrine of Eudaemonism;
with the moderns for the most part it has been a doctrine of salvation.
The former wished to prove that virtue and happiness are identical;
but this was like having two figures which never coincide with each
other, no matter how they may be placed. The latter have endeavoured
to connect the two, not by the principle of identity, but by that of
causation, thus making happiness the result of virtue; but to do this,
they were obliged to have recourse to sophisms, or else to assume the
existence of a world beyond any possible perception of the senses.
Among the ancients Plato alone forms an exception: his system is not
eudaemonistic; it is mystic, instead. Even the Ethics of the Cynics
and Stoics is nothing but a special form of Eudaemonism, to prove
which, there is no lack of evidence and testimony, but the nature of my
present task forbids the space.[1]
The ancients, then, equally with the moderns, Plato being the single
exception, agree in making virtue only a means to an end. Indeed,
strictly speaking, even Kant banished Eudaemonism from Ethics more in
appearance than in reality, for between virtue and happiness he still
leaves a certain mysterious connection;--there is an obscure and
difficult passage in his doctrine of the Highest Good, where they occur
together; while it is a patent fact that the course of; virtue runs
entirely counter to that of happiness. But, passing over this, we may
say that with Kant the ethical principle appears as something quite
independent of experience and its teaching; it is transcendental, or
metaphysical. He recognises that human conduct possesses a significance
that oversteps all possibility of experience, and is therefore actually
the bridge leading to that which he calls the "intelligible"[2] world,
the _mundus noumenôn_, the world of Things in themselves.
The fame, which the Kantian Ethics has won, is due not only to this
higher level, which it reached, but also to the moral purity and
loftiness of its conclusions. It is by the latter that most people have
been attracted, without paying much attention to the foundation, which
is propounded in a very complex, abstract and artificial form; and Kant
himself required all his powers of acumen and synthesis to give it an
appearance of solidity. Fortunately, he separated his Ethics from the
exposition of its basis, devoting to the latter a special work entitled
the _Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, the theme of which will
be found to be precisely the same as that of our prize essay. For on
page xiii of the preface he says: "The present treatise is nothing
else but an attempt to find out and establish the supreme principle of
morality. This is an investigation, whose scope is complete in itself,
and which should be kept apart from all other moral researches.". It
is in this book that we find the basis, that is to say, the essentials
of his Ethics set forth with an acute penetration and systematic
conciseness, as in no other of his writings. It has, moreover, the
great advantage of being the first of Kant's moral works, appearing,[3]
as it did, only four years later than the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_,
and consequently it dates from the period when, although he was
sixty-one, the detrimental effect of old age on his intellect was not
yet perceptible. On the other hand, this is distinctly traceable in
the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, which was published in 1788, or
one year later than the unhappy remodelling of the _Kritik der Reinen
Vernunft_ in the second edition, whereby the latter, his immortal
master-piece, was obviously marred. An analysis of this question is
to be found in the preface to the new edition by Rosenkranz,[4] from
which my own investigation makes it impossible for me to dissent. The
_Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_ contains in its essentials the same
material as the above-mentioned--_Grundlegung_; only the latter has
a more concise and rigorous form, while in the former the subject is
handled with greater prolixity, interspersed with digressions and even
padded with some pieces of moral rhetoric, to heighten the impression.
When Kant wrote it, he had at last, and late in life, become deservedly
famous; hence, being certain of boundless attention, he allowed greater
play to the garrulity of old age.
But the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_ contains two sections
which are peculiar to itself. First: the exposition of the relation
between Freedom and Necessity (pp. 169-179 of the fourth edition,
and pp. 223-231 in Rosenkranz). This passage is above all praise,
and undoubtedly was framed earlier in his life, as it is entirely
in harmony with his treatment of the same subject in the _Kritik
der Reinen Vernunft_ (pp. 560-586; Rosenkranz, p. 438, sqq.). And
secondly: the _Moraltheologie_, which will more and more come to be
recognised as the real object Kant had in view. In his _Metaphysische
Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre_ this _pendant_ to the deplorable
_Rechtslehre_, written in 1797, the debility of old age is at length
fully pre-ponderant. For all these reasons the present criticism will
mainly deal with the treatise first mentioned, _viz.,_ the _Grundlegung
zur Metaphysik der Sitten_, and the reader will please understand
that all the page numbers given by themselves refer to it. Both the
other works will only be considered as accessory and secondary. For a
proper comprehension of the present criticism, which, in probing the
Kantian Ethics to its depths, bears directly and principally on this
_Grundlegung_, it is very desirable that the latter be carefully read
through again, so that the mind may have a perfectly clear and fresh
presentment of what it contains. It is but a matter of 128 and xiv
pages (in Rosenkranz only 100 pages altogether). I shall quote from
the third edition of 1792, adding the page number of the new complete
publication by Rosenkranz, with an R. prefixed.
[1] For a complete demonstration v. _Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung_, Vol. I., § 16, p. 103, sqq., and Vol. II., Chap. 16, p.
166, sqq. of the third edition. _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_,
that is, _The World as Will and Idea_; "Idea" being used much as
_εἵδωλον_ sometimes is (cf. Xen. _Sym.,_ 4, 21), in the sense of "an
image in the mind," "a mental picture."--(_Translator_.)
[2] It seems better to keep this technical word than to attempt a
cumbrous periphrasis. The meaning is perfectly clear. The _sensibilia_
(_phaenomena_) are opposed to the _intelligibilia_ (_noumena_), which
compose the transcendental world. So the individual, in so far as he
is a phaenomenon, has an empirical character; in so far as he is a
noumenôn, his character is intelligible (_intelligibilis_). The _mundus
intelligibilis,_ or _mundus noumenôn_ is the _κόσμος νοητὸς_ of New
Platonism.--(_Translator_.)
[3] It was published in 1785: _The Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,_ first
edition, in 1781.--(_Translator_.)
[4] His analysis is really derived from myself, but in this place I am
speaking incognito.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
Kant's _πρῶτον ψεῡδος_ (first false step) lies in his conception of
Ethics itself, and this is found very clearly expressed on page 62
(R., p. 54): "In a system of practical philosophy we are not concerned
with adducing reasons for that which takes place, but with formulating
laws regarding that which =ought to take place, even if it never
does take place=." This is at once a distinct _petitio principii._
Who tells you that there are laws to which our conduct =ought= to
be subject? Who tells you that that =ought to take place, which in
fact never does take place=? What justification have you for making
this assumption at the outset, and consequently for forcing upon us,
as the only possible one, a system of Ethics couched in the imperative
terms of legislation? I say, in contradistinction to Kant, that the
student of Ethics, and no less the philosopher in general, must content
himself with explaining and interpreting that which is given, in
other words, that which really is, or takes place, so as to obtain an
=understanding= of it, and I maintain furthermore that there is
plenty to do in this direction, much more than has hitherto been done,
after the lapse of thousands of years. Following the above _petitio
principii_, Kant straightway, without any previous investigation,
assumes in the preface (which is entirely devoted to the subject),
that purely moral laws exist; and this assumption remains thenceforth
undisturbed, and forms the very foundation of his whole system. We,
however, prefer first of all to examine the conception denoted by the
word "law." The true and original meaning of the term is limited to
law as between citizens; it is the _lex_, _νόμος_, of the Romans and
Greeks, a human institution, and depending on human volition. It has
a secondary, derived, figurative, metaphorical meaning, when applied
to Nature, whose operations, partly known _a priori_, partly learnt
by experience, and which are always constant, we call natural laws.
Only a very small portion of these natural laws can be discerned _a
priori_, and with admirable acuteness, Kant set them apart, and classed
them under the name "Metaphysics of Nature." There is also undoubtedly
a law for the human will, in so far as man belongs to Nature; and
this law is strictly provable, admits of no exception, is inviolable,
and immovable as the mountains, and does not, like the Categorical
Imperative, imply a quasi-necessity, but rather a complete and absolute
one. It is the law of motivation, a form of the law of causation; in
other words, it is the causation which is brought about by the medium
of the understanding. It is the sole demonstrable law to which the
human will =as such= is subject. It means that every action can
only take place in consequence of a sufficient motive. Like causality
in general, it is a natural law. On the other hand, moral laws, apart
from human institution, state ordinance, or religious doctrine, cannot
rightly be assumed as existing without proof. Kant, therefore, by
taking such laws for granted, is guilty of a _petitio principii_, which
is all the bolder, in that he at once adds (page vi of the preface)
that a moral law ought to imply "=absolute necessity=." But
"absolute necessity" is everywhere characterised by an inevitable chain
of consequence; how, then, can such a conception be attached to these
alleged moral laws (as an instance of which he adduces "thou shalt
not lie"[1])? Every one knows, and he himself admits, that no such
consecution for the most part takes place; the reverse, indeed, is the
rule.
In scientific Ethics before we admit as controlling the will other laws
besides that of motivation-laws which are original and independent of
all human ordinance--we must first prove and deduce their existence;
that is, provided in things ethical we are concerned not merely with
recommending honesty, but with practising it. Until that proof be
furnished, I shall recognise only one source to which is traceable
the importation into Ethics of the conception =Law, Precept,
Obligation=. It is one which is foreign to philosophy. I mean the
Mosaic Decalogue. Indeed the spelling "=du sollt="[2] in the
above instance of a moral law, the first put forward by Kant, naïvely
betrays this origin. A conception, however, which can\ point to no
other source than this, has no right, without undergoing further
scrutiny, thus to force its way into philosophical Ethics. It will
be rejected, until introduced by duly accredited proof. Thus on the
threshold of the subject Kant makes his first _petitio principii_, and
that no small one.
Our philosopher, then, by begging the question in his preface, simply
assumes the conception of =Moral Law= as given and existing
beyond all doubt; and he treats the closely related conception of Duty
(page 8, R., p. 16) exactly in the same way. Without subjecting it
to any further test, he admits it forthwith as a proper appurtenance
of Ethics. But here, again, I am compelled to enter a protest. This
conception, equally with the kindred notions of =Law, Command,
Obligation=, etc., taken thus unconditionally, has its source in
theological morals, and it will remain a stranger to philosophical
morals, so long as it fails to furnish sufficient credentials drawn
either from man's nature, or from the objective world. Till then, I
can only recognise the Decalogue as the origin of all these connected
conceptions. Since the rise of Christianity there is no doubt that
philosophical has been unconsciously moulded by theological ethics.
And since the latter is essentially dictatorial, the former appears in
the shape of precepts and inculcation of Duty, in all innocence, and
without any suspicion that first an ulterior sanction is needful for
this _rôle_; rather does she suppose it to be her proper and natural
form. It is true that all peoples, ages, and creeds, and indeed all
philosophers (with the exception of the materialists proper) have
undeniably recognised that the ethical significance of human conduct is
a metaphysical one, in other words, that it stretches out beyond this
phaenomenal existence and reaches to eternity; but it is equally true
that the presentment of this fact in terms of Command and Obedience, of
Law and Duty, is no part of its essence. Furthermore, separated from
the theological hypotheses whence they have sprung, these conceptions
lose in reality all meaning, and to attempt a substitute for the
former by talking with Kant of =absolute= obligation and of
=unconditioned= duty, is to feed the reader with empty words, nay
more, is to give him a _contradictio in adjecto_[3] to digest.
Every obligation derives all sense and meaning; simply and solely from
its relation to threatened punishment or promised reward. Hence, long
before Kant was thought of, Locke says: "For since it would be utterly
in vain, to suppose a rule set to the free actions of man, without
annexing to it some enforcement of good and evil to determine his
will; we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also some reward or
punishment annexed to that law." (_Essay on the Human Understanding_,
Bk. II., ch. 33, § 6). What =ought= to be done is therefore
necessarily conditioned by punishment or reward; consequently, to use
Kant's language, it is essentially and inevitably =hypothetical=,
and never, as he maintains, =categorical=. If we think away these
conditions, the conception of obligation becomes void of sense; hence
absolute obligation is most certainly a _contradictio in adjecto._
A commanding voice, whether it come from within, or from without,
cannot possibly be imagined except as threatening or promising.
Consequently obedience to it, which may be wise or foolish according
to circumstances, is yet always actuated by selfishness, and therefore
morally worthless.
The complete unthinkableness and nonsense of this conception of an
=unconditioned obligation=, which lies at the root of the Kantian
Ethics, appears later in the system itself, namely in the _Kritik der
Praktischen Vernunft_: just as some concealed poison in an organism
cannot remain hid, but sooner or later must come out and show itself.
For this =obligation=, said to be so =unconditioned=,
nevertheless postulates more than one condition in the background; it
assumes a rewarder, a reward, and the immortality of the person to be
rewarded.
This is of course unavoidable, if one really makes Duty and Obligation
the fundamental conception of Ethics; for these ideas are essentially
relative, and depend for their significance on the threatened penalty
or the promised reward. The guerdon which is assumed to be in store
for virtue shows clearly enough that only in appearance she works
for nothing. It is, however, put forward modestly veiled, under the
name of the =Highest Good=, which is the union of Virtue and
Happiness. But this is at bottom nothing else but a morality that
derives its origin from Happiness, which means, a morality resting on
selfishness. In other words, it is Eudaemonism, which Kant had solemnly
thrust out of the front door of his system as an intruder, only to
let it creep in again by the postern under the name of the =Highest
Good=. This is how the assumption of =unconditioned absolute
obligation=, concealing as it does a contradiction, avenges itself.
=Conditioned= obligation, on the other hand, cannot of course be
any first principle for Ethics, since everything done out of regard for
reward or punishment is necessarily an egoistic transaction, and as
such is without any real moral value. All this makes it clear that a
nobler and wider view of Ethics is needed, if we are in earnest about
our endeavour to truly account for the significance of human conduct--a
significance which extends beyond phaenomena and is eternal.
As all obligation is entirely dependent on a condition, so also is
all duty. Both conceptions are very closely related, indeed almost
identical. The only difference between them might be said to be that
obligation in general may rest on mere force, whereas duty involves
the sense of obligation deliberately undertaken, such as we see
between master and servant, principal and subordinate, rulers and the
ruled. And since no one undertakes a duty _gratis,_ every duty implies
also a right. The slave has no duties, because he has no rights; but
he is subject to an obligation which rests on sheer force. In the
following Part I shall explain the only meaning which the conception
"=Duty=" has in Ethics.
If we put Ethics in an =imperative= form, making it a Doctrine of
Duties, and regard the moral worth or worthlessness of human conduct
as the fulfilment or violation of duties, we must remember that this
view of Duty, and of Obligation in general, is undeniably derived
solely from theological Morals, and primarily from the Decalogue,
and consequently that it rests essentially and inseparably on the
assumption of man's dependence on another will which gives him commands
and announces reward or punishment. But the more the assumption of
such a will is in Theology positive and precise, the less should it
be quietly and unsuspectingly introduced into philosophical Morals.
Hence we have no right to assume beforehand that for the latter the
=imperative Form=, the ordaining of commands, laws, and duties
is an essential and a matter of course; and it is a very poor shift
to substitute the word "absolute" or "categorical" for the external
condition which is indissolubly attached to such conceptions by
their very nature: for this gives rise, as explained above, to a
_contradictio in adjecto_.
Kant, then, without more ado or any close examination, borrowed
this =imperative Form= of Ethics from theological Morals. The
hypotheses of the latter (in other words, Theology) really lie at
the root of his system, and as these alone in point of fact lend
it any meaning or sense, so they cannot be separated from, indeed
are implicitly contained in, it. After this, when he had expounded
his position the task of developing in turn a Theology out of his
Morals--the famous _Moraltheologie_--was easy enough. For the
conceptions which are implicitly involved in his Imperative, and which
lie hidden at the base of his Morals, only required to be brought
forward and expressed explicitly as postulates of Practical Reason. And
so it was that, to the world's great edification, a Theology appeared
depending simply on Ethics, indeed actually derived therefrom. But
this came about because the ethical system itself rests on concealed
theological hypotheses. I mean no derisive comparison, but in its form
the process is analogous to that whereby a conjurer prepares a surprise
for us, when he lets us find something where he had previously employed
his art to place it. Described in the abstract, Kant's procedure is
this: what ought to have been his first principle, or hypothesis
(_viz_., Theology) he made the conclusion, and what ought to have been
deduced as the conclusion (_viz_., the Categorical Command) he took as
his hypothesis.[4] But after he had thus turned the thing upside down,
nobody, not even he himself, recognised it as being what it really was,
namely the old well-known system of theological Morals. How this trick
was accomplished we shall consider in the sixth and seventh chapters of
the present Part.
Ethics was of course frequently put in the imperative form, and treated
as a doctrine of duties also in pre-Kantian philosophy; but it was
always then based upon the will of a God whose existence had been
otherwise proved, and so there was no inconsequence. As soon, however,
as the attempt was made, as Kant attempted, to give a foundation to
Ethics independent of this will, and establish it without metaphysical
hypotheses, there was no longer any justification for taking as its
basis the words "thou shalt," and "it is thy duty" (that is, the
imperative form), without first deducing the truth thereof from some
other source.
[1] Du sollt (_sic_) nicht lügen.
[2] Sollt is the old form for "_sollst_." Cf. Eng., _shalt_: Icel;
_skalt_--(_Translator_.)
[3] A contradiction in the adjective. This occurs when the epithet
applied to a noun contradicts its essential meaning.--(_Translator_.)
[4] Like the converse of a geometrical proposition, this Kantian
inversion is not necessarily true; its validity, in fact, depends
on the conclusion being implicitly contained in the hypothesis.
--(_Translator_.)
CHAPTER III.
ON THE ASSUMPTION OF DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES IN PARTICULAR.
This form of the doctrine of duties was very acceptable to Kant,
and in working out his position he left it untouched; for, like his
predecessors, along with the duties towards others he ranged also
duties towards ourselves. I, however, entirely reject this assumption,
and, as there will be no better opportunity, I shall here incidentally
explain my view.
Duties towards ourselves must, just as all others, be based either
on right or on love. Duties towards ourselves based on right are
impossible, because of the self-evident fundamental principle _volenti
non fit injuria_ (where the will assents, no injury is done). For what
I do is always what I will; consequently also what I do to myself is
never anything but what I will, therefore it cannot be unjust. Next, as
regards duties towards ourselves based on love. Ethics here finds her
work already done, and comes too late. The impossibility of violating
the duty of self-love is at once assumed by the first law of Christian
Morals: "Love thy neighbour as thyself." According to this, the love
which each man cherishes for himself is postulated as the _maximum_,
and as the condition of all other love; while the converse, "Love
thyself as thy neighbour" is never added; for every one would feel that
the latter does not claim enough. Moreover, self-love would be the sole
duty regularly involving an _opus supererogationis_. Kant himself says
in the _Metaphysische Anfangsgründe zur Tugendlehre_, p. 13 (R., p.
230): "That which each man inevitably wills of himself, does not belong
to the conception of Duty." This idea of duties towards ourselves is
nevertheless still held in repute, indeed it enjoys for the most part
special favour; nor need we feel surprise. But it has an amusing effect
in cases where people begin to show anxiety about their persons, and
talk quite earnestly of the duty of self-preservation; the while it is
sufficiently clear that fear will lend them legs soon enough, and that
they have no need of any law of duty to help them along.
First among the duties towards ourselves is generally placed that of
not committing suicide, the line of argument taken being extremely
prejudiced and resting on the shallowest basis. Unlike animals, man is
not only a prey to =bodily= pain limited to the passing moment,
but also to those incomparably greater =mental= sufferings, which,
reaching forwards and backwards, draw upon the future and the past; and
nature, by way of compensation, has granted to man alone the privilege
of being able to end his life at his own pleasure, before she herself
sets a term to it; thus, while animals necessarily live so long as they
can, man need only live so long as he =will=.
Whether he ought on ethical grounds to forego this privilege is a
difficult question, which in any case cannot be decided by the usual
superficial reasoning. The arguments against suicide which Kant does
not deem unworthy of adducing (p. 53, R., p. 48 and p. 67, R., p.
57), I cannot conscientiously describe as other than pitiable, and
quite undeserving of an answer. It is laughable indeed to suppose that
reflections of such a kind could have wrested the dagger from the hands
of Cato, of Cleopatra, of Cocceius Nerva (Tac. _Ann_., vi. 26) or of
Arria the wife of Paetus (Plin., _Ep_., iii. 16). If real moral motives
for not committing suicide actually exist, it is certain that they lie
very deep, and cannot be reached by the plummet of ordinary Ethics.
They belong to a higher view of things than is adaptable even to the
standpoint of the present treatise.[1]
That which generally comes next on the rubric of duties towards
ourselves may be divided partly into rules of worldly wisdom, partly
into hygienic prescriptions; but neither class belongs to Morals in the
proper sense. Last on the catalogue comes the prohibition of unnatural
lust--onanism, _paederastia,_ and bestiality. Of these onanism is
mainly a vice of childhood, and must be fought against much more with
the weapon of dietetics than with that of ethics; hence we find that
the authors of books directed against it are physicians (_e.g._,
Tissot and others) rather than moralists. After dietetics and hygiene
have done their work, and struck it down by irrefutable reasoning, if
Ethics desires to take up the matter, she finds little left for her to
do. Bestiality, again, is of very rare occurrence; it is thoroughly
abnormal and exceptional, and, moreover, so loathsome and foreign to
human nature, that itself, better than all arguments of reason, passes
judgment on itself, and deters by sheer disgust. For the rest, as being
a degradation of human nature, it is in reality an offence against the
species as such, and in the abstract; not against human units. Of the
three sexual perversions of which we are speaking it is consequently
only with _paederastia_ that Ethics has to do, and in treating of
Justice this vice finds its proper place. For Justice is infringed by
it, in face of which fact, the dictum _volenti non fit injuria_ is
unavailing. The injustice consists in the seduction of the younger and
inexperienced person, who is thereby ruined physically and morally.
[1] There are ascetic reasons, which may be found in the Fourth Book,
Vol. I., § 69, of my chief work (_Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_).
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
With the imperative Form of Ethics, which in Chapter II. we proved to
be a _petitio principii_, is directly connected a favourite idea of
Kant's, that may be excused, but cannot be adopted. Sometimes we see
a physician, after having employed a certain remedy with conspicuous
success, henceforth prescribing it for almost all diseases; to such
a one Kant may be likened. By separating the _a priori_ from the
_a posteriori_ in human knowledge he made the most brilliant and
pregnant discovery that Metaphysics can boast of. What wonder then
that thereafter he should try to apply this method, this sundering of
the two forms, everywhere, and should consequently make Ethics also
consist of two parts, a pure, _i.e._ an _a priori_ knowable part, and
an empirical? The latter of these he rejects as unreliable for the
purpose of founding Ethics. To trace out the former and; exhibit it by
itself is his purpose in the _Grundlegung der Metaphysik der Sitten_,
which he accordingly represents as a science purely _a priori_, exactly
in the same way as he sets forth the _Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der
Naturwissenschaft_. He asserts in fact that the =Moral Law=,
which without warrant, without deduction, or proof of any sort, he
postulates as existing, is furthermore a Law knowable _a priori_ and
independent of all =internal= or =external experience=; it
"_rests_" (he says) "=solely on conceptions of pure Reason; and is
to be taken as a synthetic proposition a priori=" (_Kritik der
Praktischen Vernunft_: p. 56 of fourth Edition; R., p. 142). But
from this definition the implication immediately follows that such a
Law can only be formal, like everything else known _a priori_, and
consequently has only to do with the =Form= of actions, not
with their =Essence=. Let it be thought what this means! He
emphatically adds (p. vi of the preface to the _Grundlegung;_ R., p. 5)
that it is "useless to look for it either subjectively in man's nature,
or objectively in the accidents of the external world," and (preface
of the same, page vii; R., p. 6) that "nothing whatever connected
with it can be borrowed from knowledge relating to man, _i.e._, from
anthropology." On page 59 (R., p. 52) he repeats, "That one ought on no
account to fall into the mistake of trying to derive one's principle of
morality from the special constitution of human nature"; and again, on
page 60 (R., p. 52), he says that, "Everything derived from any natural
disposition peculiar to man, or from certain feelings and propensities,
or indeed from any special trend attaching solely to human nature,
and not necessarily to be taken as the Will of =every rational
being=," is incapable of affording a foundation for the moral law.
This shows beyond all possibility of contradiction that Kant does not
represent the alleged moral law as a _fact of consciousness_, capable
of empirical proof--which is how the later would-be philosophers, both
individually and collectively, wish to pass it off. In discarding every
empirical basis for Morals, he rejects all internal, and still more
decidedly all external, experience., Accordingly he founds--and I call
special attention to this--his moral principle not on any provable
_fact of consciousness_, such as an inner natural disposition, nor yet
upon any objective relation of things in the external world. No! That
would be an empirical foundation. Instead of this, _pure conceptions
a priori_, _i.e._, conceptions, which so far contain nothing derived
from internal or external experience, and thus are simply shells
without kernels--these are to be made the basis of Morals. Let us
consider the full meaning of such a position. Human consciousness as
well as the whole external world, together with all the experience and
all the facts they comprise, are swept from under our feet. We have
nothing to stand upon. And what have we to hold to? Nothing but a few
entirely abstract, entirely unsubstantial conceptions, floating in the
air equally with ourselves. It is from these, or, more correctly, from
the mere form of their connection with judgments made, that a _Law_ is
declared to proceed, which by so-called =absolute necessity= is
supposed to be valid, and to be strong enough to lay bit and bridle on
the surging throng of human desires, on the storm of passion, on the
giant might of _egoism_. We shall see if such be the case.
With this preconceived notion that the basis of Morals must be
necessarily and strictly a priori, and entirely free from everything
empirical, another of Kant's favourite ideas is closely connected.
The moral principle that he seeks to establish is, he says, a
=synthetic proposition a priori, of merely formal contents=, and
hence exclusively a matter of =Pure Reason=; and accordingly,
as such, to be regarded as valid =not only for men=, but for
=all possible rational beings=; indeed he declares it to hold
good for man "on this account alone," _i.e._, because _per accidens_
man comes under the category of rational beings. Here lies the cause
of his basing the Moral principle not on any feeling, but on =pure
Reason= (which knows nothing but itself and the statement of its
antithesis). So that this =pure Reason= is taken, not as it
really and exclusively is--an intellectual faculty of man--but =as
a self-existent hypostatic essence=, yet without the smallest
authority; the pernicious effects of such example and precedent being
sufficiently shown in the pitiful philosophy of the present day.
Indeed, this view of Morals as existing not for men, as men, but for
all rational beings, as such, is with Kant a principle so firmly
established, an idea so favourite, that he is never tired of repeating
it at every opportunity.
I, on the contrary, maintain that we are never entitled to raise
into a _genus_ that which we only know of in a single species. For
we could bring nothing into our idea of the _genus_ but what we had
abstracted from this one species; so that what we should predicate of
the _genus_ could after all only be understood of the single species.
While, if we should attempt to think away (without any warrant) the
particular attributes of the species, in order to form our _genus_,
we should perhaps remove the exact condition whereby the remaining
attributes, hypostatised as a _genus_, are made possible. Just as we
recognise =intelligence in general= to be an attribute of animal
beings alone, and are therefore never justified in thinking of it as
existing outside, and independent, of animal nature; so we recognise
=Reason= as the exclusive attribute of the human race, and have
not the smallest right to suppose that Reason exists externally to
it, and then proceed to set up a _genus_ called "Rational Beings,"
differing from its single known species "Man"; still less are we
warranted in laying down laws for such imaginary =rational beings
in the abstract=. To talk of rational beings external to men is
like talking of =heavy beings= external to bodies. One cannot
help suspecting that Kant was thinking a little of the dear cherubim,
or at any rate counted on their presence in the conviction of the
reader. In any case this doctrine contains a tacit assumption of an
_anima rationalis,_ which as being entirely different from the _anima
sensitiva_, and the _anima vegetativa_, is supposed to persist after
death, and then to be indeed nothing else but _rationalis_. But in the
_Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ Kant himself has expressly and elaborately
made an end of this most transcendent hypostasis. Nevertheless, in
his ethics generally, and in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_
especially, there seems always to hover in the background the thought
that the inner and eternal essence, of man consists of =Reason=.
In this connection, where the matter only occurs incidentally, I must
content myself with simply asserting the contrary. Reason, as indeed
the intellectual faculty as a whole, is secondary, is an attribute of
phaenomena, being in point of fact conditioned by the organism; whereas
it is the =Will= in man which is his very self, the only part of
him which is metaphysical, and therefore indestructible.
The success with which Kant had applied his method to the theoretical
side of philosophy led him on to extend it to the practical. Here
also he endeavoured to separate pure _a priori_ from empirical _a
posteriori_ knowledge. For this purpose he assumed that just as
we know _a priori_ the laws of Space, of Time, and of Causality,
so in like manner, or at any rate analogously, we have the moral
plumb-line for our conduct given us prior to all experience, and
revealed in a Categorical Imperative, an absolute "Ought." But how
wide is the difference between this alleged moral law _a priori_, and
our theoretical knowledge _a priori_ of Space, Time, and Causality!
The latter are nothing but the expression of the forms, _i.e._, the
functions of our intellect, whereby alone we are capable of grasping
an objective world, and wherein alone it can be mirrored; so that the
world (as we know it) is absolutely conditioned by these forms, and all
experience =must= invariably and exactly correspond to them--just
as everything that I see through a blue glass must appear blue. While
the former, the so-called moral law, is something that experience pours
ridicule on at every step; indeed, as Kant himself says, it is doubtful
whether in practice it has ever really been followed on any single
occasion. How completely unlike are the things which are here classed
together under the conception of =apriority=! Moreover, Kant
overlooked the fact that, according to his own teaching, in theoretical
philosophy, it is exactly the =Apriority= of our knowledge of
Time, Space, and Causality--independent as this is of experience--that
limits it strictly to phaenomena, _i.e._, to the picture of the world
as reflected in our consciousness, and makes it entirely invalid as
regards the real nature of things, _i.e._, as regards whatever exists
independently of our capacity to grasp it.
Similarly, when we turn to practical philosophy, his alleged moral
law, if it have an _a priori_ origin in ourselves, must also be only
phaenomenal, and leave entirely untouched the essential nature of
things. Only this conclusion would stand in the sharpest contradiction
as much to the facts themselves, as to Kant's view of them. For it is
precisely the moral principle in us that he everywhere (_e.g., Kritik
der Praktischen Vernunft_, p. 175; R., p. 228) represents as being in
the closest connection with the real essence of things, indeed, as
directly in contact with it; and in all passages in the _Kritik der
Reinen Vernunft,_ where the mysterious Thing in itself comes forward a
little more clearly, it shows itself as the =moral principle= in
us, as =Will=. But of this he failed to take account.
In Chapter II. of this Part, I explained how Kant took over bodily
from theological Morals the =imperative form= of Ethics, _i.e._,
the conception of obligation, of law, and of duty; and how at the same
time he was constrained to leave behind that which in the realm of
theology alone lends force and significance to these ideas. But he
felt the need of some basis for them, and accordingly went so far as
to require that the _conception of duty_ itself should be also the
_ground of its fulfilment_; in other words, that it should itself be
its own enforcement. An action, he says (p. 11; R., p. 18), has no
genuine moral worth, unless it be done simply as a matter of duty,
and for duty's sake, without any liking for it being felt; and the
character only begins to have value, if a man, who has no sympathy in
his heart, and is cold and indifferent to others' sufferings, and who
is =not by nature a lover of his kind=, is nevertheless a doer of
good actions, solely out of a pitiful sense of duty. This assertion,
which is revolting to true moral sentiment; this apotheosis of
lovelessness, the exact opposite, as it is, of the Christian doctrine
of Morals, which places love before everything else, and teaches that
without it nothing profiteth (1 Cor. xiii. 3); this stupid moral
pedantry has been ridiculed by Schiller in two apposite epigrams,
entitled _Gewissensskrupel_ (Scruples of Conscience) and _Entscheidung_
(Decision).[1]
It appears that some passages in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_,
which exactly suit this connection, were the immediate occasion of the
verses. Thus, for instance, on p. 150 (R., p. 211) we find: "Obedience
to the moral law, which a man feels incumbent on him, is based not on
voluntary inclination, nor on endeavour willingly put forth, without
any authoritative command, but on a sense of duty." Yes, it must be
commanded! What slavish morality! And again on p. 213 (R., p. 257):
"Feelings of compassion, and of tender-hearted sympathy would be
actually troublesome to persons who think aright, because through such
emotions their well weighed maxims would become confused, and so the
desire would grow up to be rid of them, and to be subject solely to
the lawgiver--Reason." Now I maintain without hesitation that what
opens the hand of the above-described (p. 11; R., p. 18) loveless doer
of good, who is indifferent to the sufferings of other people, cannot
(provided he have no secondary motives) be anything else than a slavish
_δεισιδαιμονία_ (fear of the gods), equally whether he calls his fetich
"Categorical Imperative" or Fitzlipuzli.[2] For what but fear can move
a hard heart?
Furthermore, on p. 13 (R., p. 19), in accordance with the above view,
we find that the moral worth of an action is supposed to lie, by
no means in the =intention= which led to it, but in the maxim
which was followed. Whereas I, on the contrary, ask the reader to
reflect that it is the =intention alone= which decides as to the
moral worth, or worthlessness, off an action, so that the same act
may deserve condemnation or praise according to the intention which
determined it. Hence it is that, whenever men discuss a proceeding
to which some moral importance is attached, the =intention= is
always investigated, and by this standard alone the matter is judged;
as, likewise, it is in the _intention_ alone that every one seeks
justification, if he see his conduct misinterpreted or excuse, if its
consequence be mischievous.
On p. 14 (R., p. 20) we at last reach the definition of Duty, which
is the fundamental conception of Kant's entire ethical system. It is:
"The necessity of an action out of respect for the law." But what is
=necessary= takes place with absolute certainty while conduct
based on pure duty generally does not come off at all. And not only
this; Kant himself admits (p. 25; R., p. 28) that there are =no
certain instances= on record of conduct determined solely by pure
duty; and on p. 26 (R., p. 29) he says: "It is utterly impossible to
know with certainty from experience whether there has ever really
been one single case in which an action, however true to duty, has
rested simply on its idea."--And similarly on p. 28 (R., p. 30)
and p. 49 (R., p. 50). In what sense then can =necessity= be
attributed to such an action? As it is only fair always to put the
most favourable interpretation on an author's words, we will suppose
him to mean that an act true to duty is =objectively= necessary,
but =subjectively= accidental. Only it is precisely this that
is more easily said than thought for where is the =Object= of
this =objective= necessity, the consequence of which for the
most part, perhaps indeed always, fails to be realised in objective
reality! With every wish to be unbiassed, I cannot but think that
the expression--=necessity of an action=--is nothing but an
artificially concealed, very forced paraphrase of the word "ought."[3]
This will become clearer if we notice that in the same definition the
word _Achtung_ (respect) is employed, where _Gehorsam_ (obedience) is
meant. Similarly in the note on p. 16 (R., p. 20) we read: "_Achtung_
signifies simply the subordination of my will to a law. The direct
determination of the will by a law, and the consciousness that it is
so determined--this is what is denoted by _Achtung_" In what language?
In German the proper term is _Gehorsam_. But the word _Achtung_, so
unsuitable as it is, cannot without a reason have been put in place of
the word _Gehorsam._ It must serve some purpose; and this is obviously
none other than to veil the derivation of the imperative form, and of
the conception of duty, from theological Morals; just as we saw above
that the expression "necessity of an action," which is such a forced
and awkward substitute for the word "shall," was only chosen because
"shall" is the exact language of the Decalogue. The above definition:
"Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for the law," would
therefore read in natural, undisguised, plain language: "Duty signifies
an action which =ought= to be done out of obedience to a law."
This is "the real form of the poodle."[4]
But now as to the Law, which is the real foundation stone of the
Kantian Ethics. =What does it contain? And where is it inscribed?=
This is the chief point of inquiry. In the first place, be it observed
that we have two questions to deal with: the one has to do with the
=Principle=, the other with the =Basis= of Ethics--two
entirely different things, although they are frequently, and sometimes
indeed intentionally, confused.
The principle or main proposition of an ethical system is the shortest
and most concise definition of the line of conduct which it prescribes,
or, if it have no imperative form, of the line of conduct to which it
attaches real moral worth. It thus contains, in the general terms of
a single enunciation, the direction for following the path of virtue,
which is derived from that system: in other words, it is the _ὅ,τι_[5]
of virtue. Whereas the =Basis= of any theory of Ethics is the
_διότι_[6] of virtue, the =reason= of the obligation enjoined,
of the exhortation or praise given, whether it be sought in human
nature, or in the external conditions of the world, or in anything
else. As in all sciences, so also in Ethics the _ὅ,τι_ must be clearly
distinguished from the _διότι_. But most teachers of Morals wilfully
confound this difference: probably because the _ὅ,τι_ is so easy, the
_διότι_ so exceedingly difficult, to give. They are therefore glad to
try to make up for the poverty on the one hand, by the riches on the
other, and to bring about a happy marriage between _Πενία_ (poverty)
and _Πόρος_ (plenty), by putting them together in one proposition.[7]
This is generally done by taking the familiar _ὅ,τι_ out of the simple
form in which it can be expressed, and forcing it into an artificial
formula, from which it is only to be deduced as the conclusion of
given premises; and the reader is led by this performance to feel
as if he had grasped not only the thing, but its cause as well. We
may easily convince ourselves of this by recalling all the most
familiar principles of Morals. As, however, in what follows I have
no intention of imitating acrobatic tricks of this sort, but purpose
proceeding with all honesty and straightforwardness, I cannot make the
principle of Ethics equivalent to its basis, but must keep the two
quite separate. Accordingly, this _ὅ,τι_--_i.e._, the principle, the
fundamental proposition--as to which in its essence all teachers of
Morals are really at one, however much they may clothe it in different
costumes, I shall at once express in the form which I take to be
the simplest and purest possible, _viz.: Neminem laede, immo omnes,
quantum potes, juva_. (Do harm to no one; but rather help all people,
as far as lies in your power.) This is in truth the proposition which
all ethical writers expend their energies in endeavouring to account
for. It is the common result of their manifold and widely differing
deductions; it is the _ὅ,τι_ for which the _διότι_ is still sought
after; the consequence, the cause of which is wanting. Hence it is
itself nothing but the _Datum_ (the thing given), in relation to which
the _Quaesitum_ (the thing required) is the problem of every ethical
system, as also of the present prize essay. The solution of this
riddle will disclose the real foundation of Ethics, which, like the
philosopher's stone, has been searched for from time immemorial. That
the _Datum_, the _ὅ,τι_, the principle is most purely expressed by the
enunciation I have given, can be seen from the fact that it stands to
every other precept of Morals as a conclusion to given premises, and
therefore constitutes the real goal it is desired to attain; so that
all other ethical commandments can only be regarded as paraphrases, as
indirect or disguised statements, of the above simple proposition. This
is true, for instance, even of that trite and apparently elementary
maxim: _Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris_[8] (Do not to
another what you are unwilling should be done to yourself.) The defect
here is that the wording only touches the duties imposed by law, not
those required by virtue;--a thing which can be easily remedied by
the omission of _non_ and _ne_. Thus changed, it really means nothing
else than: _Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva._ But as
this sense is only reached by a periphrasis, the formula gains the
appearance of having also revealed its own ultimate foundation, its
_διότι_; which, however, is not the case, because it does not in the
least follow that, if I am unwilling that something be done to myself,
I ought not to do it to others. The same is true of every other
principle or leading proposition of Ethics that has hitherto been put
forward.
If we now return to the above question:--how does the law read, in
obeying which, according to Kant, duty consists? and on what is it
based?--we shall find that our philosopher, like most others, has in an
extremely artificial manner closely connected the principle of Morals
with its basis. I again call attention to what I have already examined
at the outset--I mean, the Kantian claim that the principle of Ethics
must be purely _a priori_ and purely formal, indeed an _a priori_
synthetical proposition, which consequently may not contain anything
material, nor rest upon anything empirical, whether objectively in
the external world, or subjectively in consciousness, such as any
feeling, inclination, impulse, and the like. Kant was perfectly aware
of the difficulty of this position; for on p. 60 (R., p. 53) he says:
"It will be seen that philosophy has here indeed reached a precarious
standpoint, which yet is to be immovable, notwithstanding that it
is neither dependent on, nor supported by, anything in heaven or on
earth." We shall therefore with all the greater interest and curiosity
await the solution of the problem he has set himself, namely, how
something is to arise out of nothing, that is, how out of purely _a
priori_ conceptions, which contain nothing empirical or material, the
laws of material human action are to grow up. This is a process which
we may find symbolised in chemistry, where out of three invisible gases
(Azote, Hydrogen, and Chlorine[9]), and thus in apparently empty space,
solid sal-ammoniac is evolved before our eyes.
I will, however, explain, more clearly than Kant either would or
could, the method whereby he accomplishes this difficult task. The
demonstration is all the more necessary because what he did appears
to be seldom properly understood. Almost all Kant's disciples have
fallen into the mistake of supposing that he presents his Categorical
Imperative directly as a fact of consciousness. But in that case
its origin would be anthropological, and, as resting on experience,
although internal, it would have an empirical basis: a position which
runs directly counter to the Kantian view, and which he repeatedly
rejects. Thus on p. 48 (R., p. 44) he says: "It cannot be empirically
determined whether any such Categorical Imperative exists everywhere";
and again, on p. 49 (R., p. 45): "The possibility of the Categorical
Imperative must be investigated entirely on _a priori_ grounds,
because here we are not helped by any testimony of experience as to
its reality." Even Reinhold, his first pupil, missed this point; for
in his _Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophie am Anfange des_ 19.
_Jahrhunderts_, No. 2, p. 21, we find him saying: "Kant assumes the
moral law to be a direct and certain reality, an original fact of the
moral consciousness." But if Kant had wished to make the Categorical
Imperative a fact of consciousness, and thus give it an empirical
foundation, he certainly would not have failed at least to put it
forward as such. And this is precisely what he never does. As far as
I know, the Categorical Imperative appears for the first time in the
_Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ (p. 802 of the first, and p. 830 of the
fifth edition), entirely ex nunc (unexpectedly), without any preamble,
and merely connected with the preceding sentence by an altogether
unjustifiable "therefore."; It is only in the _Grundlage zur Metaphysik
der Sitten_--a book to which we here devote especial attention--that
it is first introduced expressly and formally, as a deduction from
certain concepts. Whereas in Reinhold's _Formula concordiae des
Kriticismus_,[10] we actually read on p. 122 the following sentence:
"We distinguish moral self-consciousness from the =experience=
with which it, as an original fact transcending all knowledge, is
bound up in the human consciousness; and we understand by such
self-consciousness the =direct consciousness of duty=, that is, of
the =necessity= we are under of admitting the legitimacy--whether
pleasurable or the reverse--of the will, as the stimulus and as the
measure of its own operations."
This would of course be "a charming _thesis_, with a very pretty
_hypothesis_ to boot."[11] But seriously: into what an outrageous
_petitio principii_ do we find Kant's moral law here developed! If
=that= were true, Ethics would indubitably have a basis of
incomparable solidity, and there would be no need of any questions
being set for prize essays, to encourage inquiry in this direction.
But the greatest marvel would be, that men had been so slow in
discovering such a fact of consciousness, considering that for the
space of thousands of years a basis for Morals has been sought after
with zealous patient toil. How Kant himself is responsible for this
deplorable mistake, I shall explain further on; nevertheless, one
cannot but wonder at the undisputed predominance of such a radical
error among his disciples. Have they never, whilst writing all their
numberless books on the Kantian philosophy, noticed the disfigurement
which the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ underwent in the second
edition, and which made it an incoherent, self-contradictory work?
It seems that this has only now come to light; and, in my opinion,
the fact has been quite correctly analysed in Rosenkranz's preface to
the second volume of his complete edition of Kant's works. We must,
however, remember that many scholars, being unceasingly occupied as
teachers and authors, find very little time left for private and exact
research. It is certain that _docendo disco_ (I learn by teaching) is
not unconditionally true; sometimes indeed one is tempted to parody
it by saying: _semper docendo nihil disco_ (by always teaching I
learn nothing); and even what Diderot puts into the mouth of Rameau's
nephew is not altogether without reason: "'And as for these teachers,
do you suppose they understand the sciences they give instruction
in? Not a bit of it, my dear sir, not a bit of it. If they possessed
sufficient knowledge to be able to teach them, they would not do so.'
'Why?' 'Because they would have devoted their lives to the study of
them.'"--(Goethe's translation, p. 104.) Lichtenberg too says: "I have
rather observed that professional people are often exactly those who
do not know best." But to return to the Kantian Ethics: most persons,
provided only the conclusion reached agrees with their moral feelings,
immediately assume that there is no flaw to be found in its derivation;
and if the process of deduction looks difficult, they do not trouble
themselves much about it, but are content to trust the faculty.
Thus the foundation which Kant gave to his moral law by no means
consists in its being proved empirically to be a fact of consciousness;
neither does he base it on an appeal to moral feeling, nor yet on
a _petitio principii_, under its fine modern name of an "absolute
Postulate." It is formed rather of a very subtle process of thought,
which he twice advances, on p. 17 and p. 51 (R., p. 22, and p. 46), and
which I shall now proceed to make clear.
Kant, be it observed, ridiculed all empirical stimuli of the will,
and began by removing everything, whether subjective or objective, on
which a law determining the will's action could be empirically based.
The consequence is, that he has nothing left for the substance of his
law but simply its =Form=. Now this can only be the abstract
conception of =lawfulness=. But the conception of lawfulness
is built up out of what is valid for all persons equally. Therefore
the substance of the law consists of the conception of what is
universally valid, and its contents are of course nothing else than its
=universal validity=. Hence the formula will read as follows: "Act
only in accordance with that precept which you can also wish should
be a general law for all rational beings." This, then, is the real
foundation--for the most part so greatly misunderstood--which Kant
constructed for his principle of Morals, and therefore for his whole
ethical system. Compare also the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, p.
61 (R., p. 147); the end of Note 1.
I pay Kant a tribute of sincere admiration for the great acumen he
displayed in carrying out this dexterous feat, but I continue in
all seriousness my examination of his position according to the
standard of truth. I will only observe--and this point I shall take
up again later on--that here =reason=, because, and in so far
as, it works out the above explained special ratiocination, receives
the name of =practical reason=. Now the Categorical Imperative
of Practical Reason is the law which results from this process of
thought. Consequently Practical Reason is not in the least what most
people, including even Fichte, have regarded it--a special faculty
that cannot be traced to its source, a _qualitas occulta_, a sort of
moral instinct, like Hutcheson's "moral sense"; but it is (as Kant
himself in his preface, p. xii. [R., p. 8], and elsewhere, often enough
declares) one and the same with =theoretical reason=--is, in fact,
=theoretical reason= itself, in so far as the latter works out the
ratiocinative process I have described. It is noticeable that Fichte
calls the Categorical Imperative of Kant an =absolute Postulate=
(_Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre_, Tübingen, 1802, p.
240, Note). This is the modern, more showy, expression for _petitio
principii_, and thus we see that he, too, regularly accepted the
Categorical Imperative, and consequently must be included among those
who have fallen into the mistake above criticised.
The objection, to which this Kantian basis of Morals is at once and
directly exposed, lies in the fact that such an origin of a moral law
in us is impossible, because of its assumption that man would quite
of his own accord hit on the idea of looking about for, and inquiring
after, a law to which his will should be subject, and which should
shape its actions. This procedure, however, cannot possibly occur to
him of itself; at best it could only be after another moral; stimulus
had supplied the first impulse and motive thereto; and such a stimulus
would have to be positively operative, and real; and show itself to be
such, as well as spontaneously influence, indeed force its presence
upon, the mind. But anything of this sort would run counter to Kant's
assumption, which, according to the chain of reasoning above described,
is to be regarded as itself the origin of all moral conceptions--in
fact, the _punctum saliens_ of Morality. Consequently, as long as there
is no such antecedent incentive (because, _ex hypothesi_, there exists
no other moral stimulus but the process of thought already explained),
so long Egoism alone must remain as the plumb-line of human conduct,
as the guiding thread of the law of motivation; so long the entirely
empirical and egoistic motives of the moment, alone and unchecked,
must determine, in each separate case, the conduct of a man; since,
on this assumption, there is no voice to arrest him, neither does any
reason whatever exist, why he should be minded to inquire after, to
say nothing of anxiously searching for, a law which should limit and
govern his will. And yet it is only possible on this supposition that
he should think out the above remarkable piece of mental legerdemain.
It matters not how far we may care to put a strict and exact
interpretation on this Kantian process, or whether we choose to tone it
down to some dim, obscurely felt operation of thought. No modification
of it can attack the primary truths that out of nothing, nothing
comes, and that an effect requires a cause. The moral stimulus, like
every motive that effects the will, must in all cases make itself felt
spontaneously, and therefore have a positive working, and consequently
be real. And because for men the only thing which has reality is the
empirical, or else that which is supposed to have a possibly empirical
existence, therefore it follows that the moral stimulus cannot but
be empirical, and show itself as such of its own accord; and without
waiting for us to begin our search, it must come and press itself upon
us, and this with such force that it may, at least possibly, overcome
the opposing egoistic motives in all their giant strength. For Ethics
has to do with actual human conduct, and not with the _a priori_
building of card houses--a performance which yields results that no man
would ever turn to in the stern stress and battle of life, and which,
in face of the storm of our passions, would be about as serviceable as
a syringe in a great fire.
I have already noticed above how Kant considered it a special merit of
his moral law that it is founded solely on abstract, pure _a priori_
conceptions, consequently on =pure reason=; whereby its validity
obtains (he says) not only for men, but for all rational beings as
such. All the more must we regret that pure, abstract conceptions _a
priori_, without real contents, and without any kind of empirical
basis can never move, at any rate, men; of other rational beings
I am of course incapable of speaking. The second defect, then, in
Kant's ethical basis is its lack of real substance. So far this has
escaped notice, because the real nature of his foundation has in all
probability been thoroughly understood only by an exceedingly small
number of those who were its enthusiastic propagandists. The second
fault, I repeat, is entire want of reality, and hence of possible
efficacy. The structure floats in the air, like a web of the subtlest
conceptions devoid of all contents; it is based on nothing, and can
therefore support nothing, and move nothing. And yet Kant loaded it
with a burden of enormous weight, namely, the hypothesis of the Freedom
of the Will. In spite of his oft declared conviction that freedom in
human action has absolutely no place; that theoretically not even its
possibility is thinkable (_Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, p. 168;
R., p. 223); that, if the character of a man, and all the motives which
work on him were exactly known, his conduct could be calculated as
certainly and as precisely as an eclipse of the moon (_ibidem_, p. 177;
R., p. 230): he nevertheless makes an assumption of freedom (although
only _idealiter_, and as a postulate) by his celebrated conclusion:
"You can, because you ought"; and this on the strength of his precious
ethical basis, which, as we see, floats in the air incorporeal. But if
it has once been clearly recognised that a thing =is not=, and
=cannot be=, what is the use of all the postulates in the world?
It would be much more to the purpose to cast away that on which the
postulate is based, because it is an impossible supposition; and this
course would be justified by the rule _a non posse ad non esse valet
consequentia_;[12] and by a _reductio ad absurdum_, which would at the
same time be fatal to the Categorical Imperative. Instead of which one
false doctrine is built up on the other.
The inadmissibility of a basis for Morals consisting of a few entirely
abstract and empty conceptions must have been apparent to Kant himself
in secret. For in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_, where (as I
have already said) he is not so strict and methodical in his work, and
where we find him becoming bolder on account of the fame he had gained,
it is remarkable how the ethical basis gradually changes its nature,
and almost forgets that it is a mere web of abstract ideas; in fact,
it seems distinctly desirous of becoming more substantial. Thus, for
instance, on p. 81 (R., p. 163) of the above work are the words: "The
Moral Law =in some sort a fact of Pure Reason=." What is one to
think of this extraordinary expression? In every other place that which
is fact is opposed to what is knowable by pure reason. Similarly on
p. 83 (R., p. 164) we read of "a Reason which directly determines the
Will"; and so on.
Now let us remember that in laying his foundation Kant expressly and
repeatedly rejects every anthropological basis, everything that
could prove the Categorical Imperative to be a fact of consciousness,
because such a proof would be empirical. Nevertheless, his successors
were so emboldened by incidental utterances like the above that
they went to much greater lengths. Fichte in his work, _System der
Sittenlehre_, p. 49, warns us expressly "not to allow ourselves to be
misled into trying to explain, and derive from external sources, the
consciousness that we have duties, because this would be detrimental
to the dignity and absoluteness of the law." A very nice excuse! Again
on p. 66 he says: "The principle of Morality is a thought which is
based on the =intellectual intuition= of the absolute activity
of the intelligence, and which is directly conceived by the pure
intelligence of its own accord." What a fine flourish to conceal the
helplessness of this clap-trap! Whoever may like to convince himself
how Kant's disciples, little by little, totally forgot and ignored
the real nature of the foundation and derivation which their master
originally gave to the moral law, should read a very interesting essay
in Reinhold's _Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophie im Anfange des_
19. _Jahrhunderts_, No. 2, 1801. In it, on pp. 105 and 106, it is
maintained "that in the Kantian philosophy Autonomy (which is the same
thing as the Categorical Imperative) is a fact of consciousness, and
cannot be traced further back, inasmuch as it declares itself by means
of a direct consciousness."
But in this case, it would have an anthropological, and consequently
empirical, foundation--a position which is diametrically opposed to
Kant's explicit and repeated utterances. Again, on p. 108 we find:
"Both in the practical philosophy of criticism, and in the whole of the
purified or higher transcendental philosophy, Autonomy is that which
is founded, and which founds, by itself alone; and which is neither
capable of, nor requires, any other foundation; it is that which is
absolutely original, true and certain _per se;_ the primal truth; the
_prius κατ' ἐξοχήν (par excellence)_; the absolute principle. Whoever,
therefore, imagines, requires, or seeks any basis for this Autonomy
external to itself, can only be regarded by the Kantian School as
wanting in moral consciousness;[13] or else as failing to interpret
this consciousness correctly, through the employment of false first
principles in his speculations. The School of Fichte and Schelling
declares him to be afflicted with a dulness of intellect that renders
him incapable of being a philosopher, and forms the characteristic of
the unholy _canaille_, and the sluggish brute, or (to use Schelling's
more veiled expression) of the _profanum vulgus_ and the _ignavum
pecus_." Every one will understand how much truth there can be in a
doctrine which it is sought to uphold by such defiant and dogmatic
rhetoric. Meanwhile, we must doubtless explain by the respect that this
language inspired, the really childish credulity with which Kant's
followers accepted the Categorical Imperative, and at once treated
it as a matter beyond dispute. The truth is that in this case any
objections raised to a theoretical assertion might easily be confounded
with moral obliquity; so that every one, although he had no very clear
idea in his own mind of the Categorical Imperative, yet preferred to
be silent, believing, as he did, in secret, that others were probably
better off, and had succeeded in evolving a clearer and more definite
mental picture of it. For no one likes to turn his conscience inside
out.
Thus in the Kantian School Practical Reason with its Categorical
Imperative appears more and more as a hyperphysical fact, as a Delphian
temple in the human soul, out of whose dark recesses proceed oracles
that infallibly declare not, alas! what will, but what ought to,
happen. This doctrine of Practical Reason, as a direct and immediate
fact, once it had been adopted, or rather introduced by artifice
combined with defiance, was unhappily later on extended also to
Theoretical Reason; and not unnaturally: for Kant himself had often
said that both are but one and the same Reason (_e.g_., Preface, p.
xii; R., p. 8). After it had been once admitted that in the domain of
the Practical there is a Reason which dictates _ex tripode_,[14] it was
an easy step to concede the same privilege to Theoretical Reason also,
closely related as the latter is to the former--indeed, consubstantial
with it. The one was thus pronounced to be just as immediate as the
other, the advantage of this being no less immense than obvious.
Then it was that all philosophasters and fancy-mongers, with J.H.
Jacobi--the denouncer of atheists--at their head, came crowding to
this postern which was so unexpectedly opened to them. They wanted
to bring their small wares to market, or at least to save what they
most valued of the old heirlooms which Kant's teaching threatened
to pulverise. As in the life of the individual a single youthful
mistake often ruins the whole career; so when Kant made that one
false assumption of a Practical Reason furnished with credentials
exclusively transcendent, and (like the supreme courts of appeal)
with powers of decision "without grounds," the result was that out of
the austere gravity of the Critical Philosophy was evolved a teaching
utterly heterogeneous to it. We hear of a Reason at first only dimly
"surmising," then clearly "comprehending" the "Supersensuous," and
at last endowed with a perfect "intellectual intuition" of it. Every
dreamer could now promulgate his mental freaks as the "absolute,"
_i.e._, officially issued, deliverances, and revelations of this
Reason. Nor need we be surprised if the new privilege was fully taken
advantage of.
Here, then, is the origin of that philosophical method which appeared
immediately after Kant, and which is made up of clap-trap, of
mystification, of imposture, of deception, and of throwing dust in the
eyes. This era will be known one day in the History of Philosophy as
"The Period of Dishonesty." For it was signalised by the disappearance
of the characteristic of honesty, of searching after truth in common
with the reader, which was well marked in the writings of all previous
philosophers. The philosophaster's object was not to instruct, but
to befool his hearers, as every page attests. At first Fichte and
Schelling shine as the heroes of this epoch; to be followed by the man
who is quite unworthy even of them, and greatly their inferior in point
of talent--I mean the stupid and clumsy charlatan Hegel. The Chorus is
composed of a mixed company of professors of philosophy, who in solemn
fashion discourse to their public about the Endless, the Absolute, and
many other matters of which they can know absolutely nothing.
As a stepping-stone to raise Reason to her prophetic throne a
wretched _jeu d'esprit_ was actually dragged in, and made to serve.
It was asserted that, as the word _Vernunft_ (Reason) comes from
_vernehmen_ (to comprehend), therefore _Vernunft_ means a capacity
to =comprehend= the so-called "Supersensuous," _i.e._,
_Νεϕελοκοκκυγία_,[15] or Cloud-cuckoo-town. This pretty notion met
with boundless, approval, and for the space of thirty years was
constantly repeated in Germany with immense satisfaction; indeed, it
was made the foundation of philosophic manuals. And yet it is as clear
as noon-day that of course _Vernunft_ (Reason) comes from. _vernehmen_
(to comprehend), but only because Reason makes man superior to animals,
so that he not only hears, but also =comprehends= (_vernimmt_)--by
no means, what is going on in Cloud-cuckoo-town--but what is said,
as by one reasonable person to another, the words spoken being
=comprehended= (_vernommen_) by the listener; and this capacity is
called _Reason_ (_Vernunft_).
Such is the interpretation that all peoples, ages, and languages
have put on the word Reason. It has always been understood to mean
the possession of general, abstract, non-intuitive ideas, named
=concepts=, which are denoted and fixed by means of words. This
faculty alone it is which in reality gives to men their advantage
over animals. For these abstract ideas, or concepts, that is, mental
impressions formed of the sum of many separate things, are the
condition of =language= and through it of actual =thought=;
through which again they determine the consciousness not only of the
present (which animals also have), but of the past and the future as
such; whence it results that they are the _modulus_, so to say, of
clear recollection, of circumspection, of foresight, and of intention;
the constant factor in the evolution of systematic co-operation, of
the state, of trades, arts, sciences, religions, and philosophies,
in short, of everything that so sharply distinguishes human from
animal life. Beasts have only intuitive ideas, and therefore also
only intuitive motives; consequently the dependence of their volition
on motives is manifest. With man this dependence is no less a fact;
he, too (with due allowance for individual character), is affected
by motives under the strictest law of necessity. Only these are
for the most part not _intuitive_ but _abstract_ ideas, that is,
conceptions, or thoughts, which nevertheless are the result of previous
intuitions, hence of external influences. This, however, gives him
a relative freedom--relative, that is, as compared with an animal.
For his action is not determined (as it is in all other creatures) by
the surroundings of the moment as intuitively perceived, but by the
thoughts he has derived from experience, or gained by instruction.
Consequently the motive, by which he, too, is necessarily swayed, is
not always at once obvious to the looker-on simultaneously with the
act; it lies concealed in the brain. It is this that lends to all his
movements, as well as to his conduct and work as a whole, a character
manifestly different from that observable in the habits of beasts. He
seems as though guided by finer, invisible threads; whence all his
acts bear the stamp of deliberation and premeditation, thus gaining
an appearance of independence, which sufficiently distinguishes them
from those of animals. All these great differences, however, spring
solely out of the capacity for =abstract ideas, concepts=. This
capacity is therefore the essential part of =Reason=, that is,
of the faculty peculiar to man, and it is called _το λόγιμον_,[16]
_το λογιστικον,_ =ratio, la ragione, il discorso, raison, reason,
discourse of reason=. If I were asked what the distinction is
between it and =Verstand=, _νοῡς_, =intellectus, entendement,
understanding=; I should reply thus: The latter is that capacity
for knowledge which animals also possess in varying degrees, and which
is seen in us at its highest development; in other words, it is the
direct consciousness of the law of =Causality=--a consciousness
which precedes all experience, being constituted by the very form
of the understanding, whose essential nature is, in fact, therein
contained. On it depends in the first place the intuitive perception of
the external world; for the senses by themselves are only capable of
=impression=, a thing which is very far from being =intuitive
perception=; indeed, the former is nothing but the material of the
latter: _νοῡς ὁρᾷ, καὶ νοῡς ἀκούει, τ'ἄλλα κωϕὰ καὶ τυϕλά._ (The mind
sees, the mind hears; everything else is deaf and blind.) =Intuitive
perception= is the result of our directly referring the impressions
of the sense-organs to their cause, which, exactly because of this
act of the intelligence, presents itself as an =external object=
under the mode of intuition proper to us, _i.e._, in =space=.
This is a proof that the Law of Causality is known to us _a priori_,
and does not arise from experience, since experience itself, inasmuch
as it presupposes intuitive perception, is only possible through the
same law. All the higher qualities of the intellect, all cleverness,
sagacity, penetration, acumen are directly proportional to the
exactness and fulness with which the workings of Causality in all its
relations are grasped; for all knowledge of the =connection=
of things, in the widest sense of the word, is based on the
comprehension of this law, and the clearness and accuracy with which
it is understood is the measure of one man's superiority to another
in =understanding=, shrewdness, cunning. On the other hand, the
epithet =reasonable= has at all times been applied to the man who
does not allow himself to be guided by intuitive impressions, but by
=thoughts= and =conceptions=, and who therefore always sets
to work logically after due reflection and forethought. Conduct of this
sort is everywhere known as =reasonable=. Not that this by any
means implies uprightness and love for one's fellows. On the contrary,
it is quite possible to act in the most reasonable way, that is,
according to conclusions scientifically deduced, and weighed with the
nicest exactitude; and yet to follow the most selfish, unjust, and even
iniquitons maxims. So that never before Kant did it occur to any one
to identify just, virtuous, and noble conduct with =reasonable=;
the two lines of behaviour have always been completely separated, and
kept apart. The one depends on the =kind of motivation=; the
other on the difference in fundamental principles. Only after Kant
(because he taught that virtue has its source in Pure Reason) did the
virtuous and the reasonable become one and the same thing, despite the
usage of these words which all languages have adopted--a usage which
is not fortuitous, but the work of universal, and therefore uniform,
human judgment. "Reasonable" and "vicious" are terms that go very
well together; indeed great, far-reaching crimes are only possible
from their union. Similarly, "unreasonable" and "noble-minded" are
often found associated; _e.g._, if I give to-day to the needy man
what I shall myself require to-morrow more urgently than he; or,
if I am so far affected as to hand over to one in distress the sum
which my creditor is waiting for; and such cases could be multiplied
indefinitely.
We have seen that this exaltation of Reason to be the source of all
virtue rests on two assertions. First, as =Practical Reason=,
it is said to issue, like an oracle, peremptory Imperatives purely
_a priori._ Secondly, taken in connection with the false explanation
of =Theoretical Reason=, as given in the _Kritik der Reinen
Vernunft_, it is presented as a certain faculty essentially concerned
with the =Unconditioned=, as manifested in three alleged Ideas[17]
(the impossibility of which the intellect at the same time recognises
_a priori_). And we found that this position, as an _exemplar vitiis
imitabile_,[18] led our muddy-headed philosophers, Jacobi at their
head, from bad to worse. They talked of =Reason= (_Vernunft_)
as directly comprehending (_vernehmend_) the "=Supersensuous=,"
and absurdly declared that it is a certain mental property which has
to do essentially with things transcending all experience, _i.e._,
with metaphysics; and that it perceives directly and intuitively the
ultimate causes of all things, and of all Being, the Supersensuous,
the Absolute, the Divine, etc. Now, had it been wished to use Reason,
instead of deifying it, such assertions as these must long ago have
been met by the simple remark that, if man, by virtue of a special
organ, furnished by his Reason, for solving the riddle of the world,
possessed an innate metaphysics that only required development; in
that case there would have to be just as complete agreement on
metaphysical matters as on the truths of arithmetic and geometry; and
this would make it totally impossible that there should exist on the
earth a large number of radically different religions, and a still
larger number of radically different systems of philosophy. Indeed,
we may rather suppose that, if any one were found to differ from the
rest in his religious or philosophical views, he would be at once
regarded as a subject for mental pathology. Nor would the following
plain reflection have failed to present itself. If we discovered a
species of apes which intentionally prepared instruments for fighting,
or building, or for any other purpose; we should immediately admit
that it was endowed with Reason. On the other hand, if we meet with
savages destitute of all metaphysics, or of all religion (and there are
such); it does not occur to us to deny them Reason on that account.
The Reason that =proves= its pretended supersensuous knowledge
was duly brought back to bounds by Kant's critique; but Jacobi's
wonderful Reason, that directly =comprehends= the supersensuous,
he must indeed have thought =beneath= all criticism. Meanwhile, a
certain imperious and oracular Reason of the same kind is still, at the
Universities, fastened on the shoulders of our innocent youth.
NOTE.
If we wish to reach the real origin of this hypothesis of Practical
Reason, we must trace its descent a little further back. We shall find
that it is derived from a doctrine, which Kant totally confuted,
but which nevertheless, in this connection, lies secretly (indeed
he himself is not aware of it) at the root of his assumption of a
Practical Reason with its Imperatives and its Autonomy--a reminiscence
of a former mode of thought. I mean the so-called Rational Psychology,
according to which man is composed of two entirely heterogeneous
substances--the material body, and the immaterial soul. Plato was
the first to formulate this dogma, and he endeavoured to prove it
as an objective truth. But it was Descartes who, by working it out
with scientific exactness, perfectly developed and completed it. And
this is just what brought its fallacy to light, as demonstrated by
Spinoza, Locke, and Kant successively. It was demonstrated by Spinoza;
because his philosophy consists chiefly in the refutation of his
master's twofold dualism, and because he entirely and expressly denied
the two Substances of Descartes, and took as his main principle the
following proposition: "_Substantia cogitans et substantia externa
una eademque est substantia, quae jam sub hoc, jam sub illo attribute
comprehenditur._"[19] It was demonstrated by Locke; for he combated
the theory of innate ideas, derived all knowledge from the sensuous,
and taught that it is not impossible that Matter should think. And
lastly, it was demonstrated by Kant, in his _Kritik der Rationalen
Psychologie_, as given in the first edition. Leibnitz and Wolff were
the champions on the bad side; and this brought Leibnitz the undeserved
honour of being compared to the great Plato, who was really so unlike
him.
But to enter into details here would be out of place. According to
this Rational Psychology, the soul was originally and in its essence
a =perceiving= substance, and only as a consequence thereof did
it become possessed of volition. According as it carried on these two
modes of its activity, Perception and Volition, conjoined with the
body, or incorporeal, and entirely _per se_, so it was endowed with a
lower or higher faculty of perception, and of volition in like kind.
In its higher faculty the immaterial soul was active solely by itself,
and without co-operation of the body. In this case it was _intellectus
purus_, being composed of concepts, belonging exclusively to itself,
and of the corresponding acts of will, both of which were absolutely
spiritual, and had nothing sensuous about them--the sensuous being
derived from the body.[20] So that it perceived nothing else but pure
Abstracts, Universals, innate conceptions, _aeternae veritates_,
etc.; wherefore also its volition was entirely controlled by purely
spiritual ideas like these. On the other hand, the soul's =lower=
faculty of Perception and Volition was the result of its working in
concert and close union with the various organs of the body, whereby a
prejudicial effect was produced on its an mixed spiritual activity.
Here, _i.e._, to this =lower= faculty, was supposed to belong
every =intuitive= perception, which consequently would have
to be obscure and confused, while the =abstract=, formed by
separating from objects their qualities, would be clear! The will,
which was determined by preceptions thus sensuously conditioned, formed
the lower Volition, and it was for the most part bad; for its acts
were guided by the impulse of the senses; while the other will (the
higher) was untrammelled, was guided by Pure Reason, and appertained
only to the immaterial soul. This doctrine of the Cartesians has been
best expounded by De la Forge, in his _Tractatus de Mente Humana_,
where in chap. 23 we read:[21] _Non nisi eadem voluntas est, quae
appellatur appetitus sensitivus, quando excitatur per judicia, quae
formantur consequenter ad perceptiones sensuum; et quae appetitus
rationalis nominatur, cum mens judicia format de propriis suis ideis,
independenter a cogitationibus sensuum confusis, quae inclinationum
ejus sunt causae.... Id, quod occasionem dedit, ut duae istae diversae
voluntatis propensiones pro duobus diversis appetitibus sumerentur,
est, quod saepissime unus alteri opponatur, quia propositum, quod mens
superaedificat propriis suis perceptionibus, non semper consentit cum
cogitationibus, quae menti a corporis dispositione suggeruntur, per
quam saepe obligatur ad aliquid volendum, dum ratio ejus earn aliud
optare facit._
Out of the dim reminiscence of such views there finally arose Kant's
doctrine of the Autonomy of the Will, which, as the mouth-piece of
Pure, Practical Reason, lays down the law for all rational beings as
such, and recognises nothing but =formal= motives, as opposed
to =material=; the latter determining only the lower faculty of
desires, to which the higher is hostile. For the rest, this whole
theory, which was not really systematically set forth till the time
of Descartes, is nevertheless to be found as far back as Aristotle.
In his _De Anima_ I. 1, it is sufficiently clearly stated; while
Plato in the _Phaedo_ (pp. 188 and 189, edit. Bipont.) had already
paved the way, with no uncertain hints. After being elaborated to
great perfection by the Cartesian doctrine, we find it a hundred
years later waxed bold and strong, and occupying the foremost place;
but precisely for this reason forced to reveal its true nature. An
excellent _résumé_ of the view which then prevailed is presented in
Muratori's _Della Forza della Fantasia,_ chaps. 1-4 and 13. In this
work the imagination is regarded as a purely material, corporeal organ
of the brain (the lower faculty of perception), its function being to
intuitively apprehend the external world on the data of the senses;
and nought remains for the immaterial soul but thinking, reflecting,
and determining. It must have been felt how obviously this position
involves the whole subject in doubt. For if Matter is capable of the
intuitive apprehension of the world in all its complexity, it is
inconceivable that it should not also be capable of abstracting this
intuition; wherefrom everything else would follow. Abstraction is of
course nothing else than an elimination of the qualities attaching to
things which are not necessary for general purposes, in other words,
the individual and special differences. For instance, if I disregard,
or abstract, that which is peculiar to the sheep, ox, stag, camel,
etc., I reach the conception of ruminants. By this operation the ideas
lose their intuitiveness, and as merely abstract, non-intuitive notions
or concepts, they require words to fix them in the consciousness, and
allow of their being adequately handled. All this shows that Kant
was still under the influence of the after-effect of that old-time
doctrine, when he propounded his Practical Reason with its Imperatives.
[1] These epigrams form the close of Schiller's poem "Die Philosophen,"
which is worth reading in this connection--(_Translator_.)
[2] More correctly, Huitzilopochtli: a Mexican deity.
[3] Or "shall," as in the "thou shall," of the Decalogue
--(_Translator_.)
[4] "_Des Pudels Kern_"; _V._ Goethe's _Faust_, Part I. _Studirzimmer._
Schopenhauer means that his analysis has forced the real meaning
out of Kant's language, just as Faust by his exorcism compels
Mephistopheles, who was in the form of a poodle, to resume his true
form.--(_Translator_.)
[5] _ὅ,τι_: _i.e._, the "what" a thing is; its principle, or
essence.--(_Translator_.)
[6] _διότι_: _i.e._, the "wherefore" of a thing; its _raison d'être,_
its underlying cause.--(_Translator_.)
[7] Schopenhauer was doubtless thinking of the famous myth in
Plato's _Symposium_ Chap. 23 (Teubner's edition, Leipzig, 1875),
where Eros is represented as the offspring of _Πόρος_ and _Πενία_,
who on the birthday of Aphrodite were united in the garden of
Zeus.--(_Translator._)
[8] Hugo Grotius attributes it to the Emperor Severus.
[9] Azote=Nitrogen. The formula for Ammonium Chloride or Sal-ammoniac
is NH4Cl.--(_Translator_).
[10] To be found in the fifth number of the _Beiträge zur Uebersicht
der Philosophie am Anfange des_ 19. _Jahrhunderts_--a journal of the
greatest importance for critical philosophy.
[11] "_Einen erklecklichen_ SATZ, _ja, und der auch was_ SETZT."
SCHILLER.
[12] To argue from impossibility to non-existence is valid--_i.e._
the impossibility of a thing makes its non-existence a safe
conclusion.--(_Translator._)
[13]
_Dacht' ich's doch! Wissen sie nichts Vernünftiges mehr_
_zu erwidern,_
_Schieben sie's Einem geschwind in das Gewissen hinein_.
--SCHILLER, _Die Philosophen._
_Just as I thought! Can they give no more any answer of reason,_
_Quickly the ground is changed: Conscience, they say, is at fault._
--(_Translator._)
[14] As from the Pythian tripod: _i.e._,--with official authority, _ex
cathedra._
[15] _V_. Aristoph., _Aves_, 819 _et alibi_.--(_Translator_.)
[16] _λόγιμος_ means "remarkable," being never used in the sense of
"rational." _Tὸ logikὸn_ is perhaps a possible expression; the right
word is _λόγος_.--(_Translator_.)
[17] The three Ideas are: (1) The Psychological; (2) The Cosmological;
(3) The Theological. _V_. The Paralogisms of Pure Reasons, in the
Dialectics: _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft,_ Part I.--(_Translator_.)
[18] An example easy to be imitated in its faults. _V_. Horace, _Ep._
Lib. I., xix. 17.--(_Translator_.)
[19] The thinking substance, and substance in extension are one and the
self-same substance, which is contained now under the latter attribute
(_i.e._, extension), now under the former (_i.e._, the attribute of
thinking).--_Ethica_, Part II., Prop. 7. Corollary.
[20] _Intellectio pura est intellectio, quae circa nullas imagines
corporeas versatur_. (Pure intelligence is intelligence that has
nothing to do with any bodily forms.)--Cart., _Medit_., p. 188.
[21] It is nothing but one and the same will, which at one time is
called sensuous desire, when it is stimulated by acts of judgment,
formed in consequence of perceptions of the senses; and which at
another time is called rational desire (_i.e._ desire of the reason),
when the mind forms acts of judgment about its own proper ideas,
independently of the thoughts belonging to, and mixed up with, the
senses; which thoughts are the causes of the mind's tendencies....
That these two diverse propensities of the will should be regarded as
two distinct desires is occasioned by the fact that very often the
one is opposed to the other, because the intention, which is built
up by the mind on the foundation of its own proper perceptions, does
not always agree with the thoughts which are suggested to the mind by
the body's disposition; whereby it (the mind) is often constrained
to will something, while its reason makes it choose something
different.--(_Translator_.)
CHAPTER V.
ON THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
After having tested in the preceding chapter the actual basis of Kant's
Ethics, I now turn to that which rests on it--his =leading principle
of Morals=. The latter is very closely connected with the former;
indeed, in a certain sense, they both grew up together. We have seen
that the formula expressing the principle reads as follows: "Act only
in accordance with that precept which you can also wish should be a
general law for all rational beings." It is a strange proceeding for a
man, who _ex hypothesi_ is seeking a law to determine what he should
do, and what he should leave undone, to be instructed first to search
for one fit to regulate the conduct of all possible rational beings;
but we will pass over that. It is sufficient only to notice the fact
that in the above guiding rule, as put forth by Kant, we have obviously
not reached the moral law itself, but only a finger-post, or indication
where it is to be looked for. The money, so to say, is not yet paid
down, but we hold a safe draft for it. And who, then, is the cashier?
To say the truth at once: a paymaster in this connection surely very
unexpected, being neither more nor less than =Egoism=, as I shall
now demonstrate.
The precept, it is said, which =I can wish= were the guide of all
men's conduct, is itself the real moral principle. That which =I can
wish= is the hinge on which the given direction turns. But what can
I truly wish, and what not? Clearly, in order to determine what I can
wish in the matter under discussion, I require yet another criterion;
for without such I could never find the key to the instruction which
comes to me like a sealed order. Where, then, is this criterion to
be discovered? Certainly nowhere else but in my Egoism, which is the
nearest, ever ready, original, and living standard of all volition, and
which has at any rate the _jus primi occupantis_ before every moral
principle. The direction for finding the real moral law, which is
contained in the Kantian rule, rests, as a matter of fact, on the tacit
assumption that I can only wish for that which is most to my advantage.
Now because, in framing a precept to be generally followed, I cannot
regard myself as always active, but must contemplate my playing a
=passive= part _eventualiter_ and at times; therefore from this
point of view my =egoism= decides for justice and loving-kindness;
not from any wish to =practise= these virtues, but because it
desires to =experience= them. We are reminded of the miser, who,
after listening to a sermon on beneficence, exclaims:
"_Wie gründlich ausgeführt, wie schön!_--
_Fast möcht' ich betteln gehn."_
(How well thought out, how excellent!--
Almost I'd like to beg.)
This is the indispensable key to the direction in which Kant's leading
principle of Ethics is embedded; nor can he help supplying it
himself. Only he refrains from doing so at the moment of propounding
his precept, lest we should feel shocked. It is found further on in
the text, at a decent distance, so as to prevent the fact at once
leaping to light, that here, after all, in spite of his grand _a
priori_ edifice, =Egoism= is sitting on the judge's seat, scales
in hand. Moreover, it does not occur, till after he has decided,
from the point of view of the _eventualiter_ passive side, that this
position holds good for the active _rôle_ as well. Thus, on p. 19 (R.,
p. 24) we read: "That I could not =wish= for a general law to
establish lying, because people would no longer believe me, or else
pay me back in the =same coin=." Again on p. 55 (R., p. 49): "The
universality of a law to the effect that every one could promise what
he likes, without any intention of keeping his word, would make the
promise itself, together with the object in view, whatever that might
be, impossible; for no one would =believe= it." On p. 56 (R., p.
50), in connection with the maxim of =hard-heartedness=, we find
the following: "A will, which should determine this, would contradict
itself; for cases can occur, in which a man needs the love and sympathy
of others, and in which he, by virtue of such a natural law, evolved
from his own will, would deprive himself of all hope of the help,
which he desires." Similarly in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_
(Part I., vol. i., chap. 2, p. 123; R., p. 192): "If every one were to
regard others' distress with total indifference, and you were to belong
to such an order of things; would you be there with the concurrence
of your will?" _Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam_![1]
one could reply. These passages sufficiently show in what sense the
phrase, "to be able to wish," in Kant's formula is to be understood.
But it is in the _Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre_, that
this real nature of his ethical principle is most clearly stated. In
§ 30 we read: "For every one wishes to be helped. If, however, a man
were to give utterance to his rule of unwillingness to help others,
all people would be justified in refusing him assistance. Thus this
rule of selfishness contradicts itself." =Would be justified=,
he says, =would be justified=! Here, then, it is declared, as
explicitly as anything can be, that moral obligation rests solely and
entirely on presupposed =reciprocity=; consequently it is utterly
selfish, and only admits of being interpreted by egoism, which, under
the condition of =reciprocity=, knows how to make a compromise
cleverly enough. Such a course would be quite in place if it were a
question of laying down the fundamentals of state-organisation, but
not, when we come to construct those of ethics. In the _Grundlegung_,
p. 81 (R., p. 67), the following sentence occurs: "The principle of
always acting in accordance with that precept which you can also wish
were universally established as law--this is the only condition under
which a man's will can never be in antagonism with itself." From what
has been said above, it will be apparent that the true meaning of the
word "antagonism" may be thus explained: if a man should sanction the
precept of injustice and hard-heartedness, he would subsequently, in
the event of his playing a =passive= part, recall it, and so his
will would =contradict= itself.
From this analysis it is abundantly clear that Kant's famous leading
principle is not--as he maintains with tireless repetition--a
=categorical=, but in reality a =hypothetical= Imperative;
because it tacitly presupposes the condition that the law to be
established for what I do--inasmuch as I make it universal--shall
also be a law for what is done to me; and because I, under this
condition, as the _eventualiter_ non-active party, =cannot=
possibly =wish= for injustice and hard-heartedness. But if I
strike out this proviso, and, trusting perhaps to my surpassing
strength of mind and body, think of myself as always =active=,
and never =passive=; then, in choosing the precept which is to
be universally valid, if there exists no basis for ethics other than
Kant's, I can perfectly well wish that injustice and hard-heartedness
should be the general rule, and consequently order the world
Upon the simple plan,
That they should take, who have the power,
And they should keep, who can.
--(WORDSWORTH.)
In the foregoing chapter we showed that the Kantian leading principle
of Ethics is devoid of all real foundation. It is now clear that to
this singular defect must be added, notwithstanding Kant's express
assertion to the contrary, its concealed hypothetical nature, whereby
its basis turns out to be nothing else than Egoism, the latter being
the secret interpreter of the direction which it contains. Furthermore,
regarding it solely as a formula, we find that it is only a
periphrasis, an obscure and disguised mode of expressing the well-known
rule: _Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris_ (do not to another
what you are unwilling should be done to yourself); if, that is, by
omitting the _non_ and _ne_, we remove the limitation, and include the
duties taught by love as well as those prescribed by law. For it is
obvious that this is the only precept which I can wish should regulate
the conduct of all men (speaking, of course, from the point of view of
the possibly =passive part= I may play, where my =Egoism=
is touched). This rule, _Quod tibi fieri, etc._, is, however, in its
turn, merely a circumlocution for, or, if it be preferred, a premise
of, the proposition which I have laid down as the simplest and purest
definition of the conduct required by the common consent of all ethical
systems; namely, _Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva_ (do
harm to no one; but rather help all people, as far as lies in your
power). The true and real substance of Morals is this, and never can
be anything else. But on what is it based? What is it that lends force
to this command? This is the old and difficult problem with which man
is still to-day confronted. For, on the other side, we hear Egoism
crying with a loud voice: _Neminem juva, immo omnes, si forte conducit,
laede_ (help nobody, but rather injure all people, if it brings you any
advantage); nay more, Malice gives us the variant: _Immo omnes, quantum
potes, laede_ (but rather injure all people as far as you can). To
bring into the lists a combatant equal, or rather superior to Egoism
and Malice combined--this is the task of all Ethics. _Heic Rhodus, heic
salta!_[2]
The division of human duty into two classes has long been recognised,
and no doubt owes its origin to the nature of morality itself. We
have. (1) the duties ordained by law (otherwise called the--perfect,
obligatory, narrower duties), and (2) those prescribed by virtue
(otherwise called imperfect, wider, meritorious, or, preferably, the
duties taught by love). On p. 57 (R., p. 60) we find Kant desiring
to give a further confirmation to the moral principle, which he
propounded, by undertaking to derive this classification from it. But
the attempt turns out to be so forced, and so obviously bad, that
it only testifies in the strongest way against the soundness of his
position. For, according to him, the duties laid down by statutes rest
on a precept, the contrary of which, taken as a general natural law, is
declared to be quite =unthinkable= without contradiction; while
the duties inculcated by virtue are made to depend on a maxim, the
opposite of which can (he says) be conceived as a general natural law,
but cannot possibly be wished for. I beg the reader to reflect that the
rule of injustice, the reign of might instead of right, which in the
Kantian view is not even thinkable as a natural law, is in reality,
and in point of fact, the dominant order of things not only in the
animal kingdom, but among men as well. It is true that an attempt has
been made among civilised peoples to obviate its injurious effects by
means of all the machinery of state government; but as soon as this,
wherever, or of whatever kind, it be, is suspended or eluded, the
natural law immediately resumes its sway. Indeed between nation and
nation it never ceases to prevail; the customary jargon about justice
is well known to be nothing but diplomacy's official style; the real
arbiter is brute force. On the other hand, genuine, _i.e._, voluntary,
acts of justice, do occur beyond all doubt, but always only as
exceptions to the rule. Furthermore: wishing to give instances by way
of introducing the above-mentioned classification, Kant establishes the
duties prescribed by law first (p. 53; R., p. 48) through the so-called
duty towards oneself,--the duty of not ending one's life voluntarily,
if the pain outweigh the pleasure. Accordingly, the rule of suicide is
held to be not even =thinkable= as a general natural law. I, on
the contrary, maintain that, since here there can be no intervention
of state control, it is exactly this rule which is proved to be an
actually existing, unchecked natural law. For it is absolutely certain
(as daily experience attests) that men in the vast majority of cases
turn to self-destruction directly the gigantic strength of the innate
instinct of self-preservation is distinctly overpowered by great
suffering. To suppose that there is any thought whatever that can have
a deferring effect, after the fear of death, which is so strong and
so closely bound up with the nature of every living thing, has shown
itself powerless; in other words, to suppose that there is a thought
still mightier than this fear--is a daring assumption, all the more so,
when we see, that it is one which is so difficult to discover that the
moralists are not yet able to determine it with precision. In any case,
it is certain that arguments against suicide of the sort put forward
by Kant in this connection (p. 53: R., p. 48, and p. 67; R., p. 57)
have never hitherto restrained any one tired of life even for a moment.
Thus a natural law, which incontestably exists, and is operative every
day, is declared by Kant to be simply =unthinkable= without
contradiction, and all for the sake of making his Moral Principle the
basis of the classification of duties! At this point it is, I confess,
not without satisfaction that I look forward to the groundwork which I
shall give to Ethics in the sequel. From it the division of Duty into
what is prescribed by law, and what is taught by love, or, better,
into justice and loving-kindness, results quite naturally though a
principle of separation which arises from the nature of the subject,
and which entirely of itself draws a sharp line of demarkation; so that
the foundation of Morals, which I shall present, has in fact ready to
hand that confirmation, to which Kant, with a view to support his own
position, lays a completely groundless claim.
[1] How rashly do we sanction an unjust law, which will come home to
ourselves!--(Hor., _Sat_., Lib. I., iii. 67.)
[2] "Here is Rhodes, here make your leap!" _I.e._, "Here is the place
of trial, here let us see what you can do!" This Latin proverb is
derived from one of Aesop's fables. A braggart boasts of having once
accomplished a wonderful jump in Rhodes, and appeals to the evidence
of the eye-witnesses. The bystanders then exclaim: "Friend, if this
be true, you have no need of witnesses; for this is Rhodes, and your
leap you can make here." The words are: _ἀλλ', ὦ ϕίλε, εἰ τοῡtο ἀληθές
ἐστιν, oὐδὲν δεῑ σοι μαρτύρων αὕtη γὰρ 'Rόδος καὶ πήδημα_. _V._
_Fabulae Aesopicae Collectae_. Edit. Halm, Leipzig: Teubner. 1875. Nr.
203b, p. 102. The other version of the fable (Nr. 203, p. 101) gives:
_ὦ oὗtos, eἰ ἀlêthès τoῡτ ἐstin, oὐdὲn deῑ soi martyrôn ἰdoὺ ἡ Ρόδος,
ἰdoὺ kaὶ τὸ πήδημα._--(_Translator_.)
CHAPTER VI.
ON THE DERIVED FORMS OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLE OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS.
It is well known that Kant put the leading principle of his Ethics
into another quite different shape, in which it is expressed directly;
the first being indirect, indeed nothing more than an indication as
to how the principle is to be sought for. Beginning at p. 63 (R.,
p. 55), he prepares the way for his second formula by means of very
strange, ambiguous, not to say distorted,[1] definitions of the
conceptions =End= and =Means=, which may be much more simply
and correctly denoted thus: an =End= is the direct motive of an
act of the Will, a =Means= the indirect: _simplex sigillum veri_
(simplicity is the seal of truth). Kant, however, slips through his
wonderful enunciations to the statement: "=Man=, indeed every
rational being, exists =as an end in himself=." On this I must
remark that "to exist as an end in oneself==" is an unthinkable
expression, a _contradictio in adjecto_.[2] To be an end means to
be an object of volition. Every end can only exist in relation to a
will, whose end, _i.e._, (as above stated), whose direct motive it is.
Only thus can the idea, "end" have any sense, which is lost as soon as
such connection is broken. But this relation, which is essential to
the thing, necessarily excludes every "in itself." "End in oneself"
is exactly like saying: "Friend in oneself;--enemy in oneself;--uncle
in oneself;--north or east in itself;--above or below in itself;"
and so on. At bottom the "end in itself" is in the same case as the
"absolute ought"; the same thought--the theological--secretly, indeed,
unconsciously lies at the root of each as its condition. Nor is the
"absolute worth," which is supposed to be attached to this alleged,
though unthinkable, "end in itself," at all better circumstanced.
It also must be characterised, without pity, as a _contradictio in
adjecto_. Every "worth" is a valuation by comparison, and its bearing
is necessarily twofold. First, it is =relative=, since it exists
for some one; and secondly, it is =comparative=, as being compared
with something else, and estimated accordingly. Severed from these two
conditions, the conception, "worth," loses all sense and meaning, and
so obviously, that further demonstration is needless. But more: just
as the phrases "end in itself" and "absolute worth" outrage logic, so
true morality is outraged by the statement on p. 65 (R., p. 56), that
irrational beings (that is, animals) are =things=, and should
therefore be treated simply as =means=, which are not at the same
time ends. In harmony with this, it is expressly declared in the
_Metaphysische Anfanggründe der Tugendlehre,_ § 16: "A man can have no
duties towards any being, except towards his fellow-men;" and then, §
17, we read: "To treat animals cruelly runs counter to the duty of man
=towards himself=; because it deadens the feeling of sympathy for
them in their sufferings, and thus weakens a natural tendency which
is very serviceable to morality in relation to =other men=." So
one is only to have compassion on animals for the sake of practice,
and they are as it were the pathological phantom on which to train
one's sympathy with men! In common with the whole of Asia that is not
tainted by Islâm (which is tantamount to Judaism), I regard such tenets
as odious and revolting. Here, once again, we see withal how entirely
this philosophical morality, which is, as explained above, only a
theological one in disguise, depends in reality on the biblical Ethics.
Thus, because Christian morals leave animals out of consideration
(of which more later on); therefore in philosophical morals they
are of course at once outlawed; they are merely "things," simply
=means= to ends of any sort; and so they are good for vivisection,
for deer-stalking, bull-fights, horse-races, etc., and they may be
whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy quarry carts.
Shame on such a morality which is worthy of Pariahs, Chandalas and
Mlechchas[3]; which fails to recognise the Eternal Reality immanent
in everything that has life, and shining forth with inscrutable
significance from all eyes that see the sun! This is a morality which
knows and values only the precious species that gave it birth; whose
characteristic--=reason=--it makes the condition under which a
being may be an object of moral regard.
By this rough path, then,--indeed, _per fas et nefas_ (by fair means
and by foul), Kant reaches the second form in which he expresses the
fundamental principle of his Ethics: "Act in such a way that you at
all times treat mankind, as much in your own person, as in the person
of every one else, not only as a Means, but also as an End." Such a
statement is a very artificial and roundabout way of saying: "Do not
consider yourself alone, but others also;" this in turn is a paraphrase
for: _Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris_ (do not to another
what you are unwilling should be done to yourself); and the latter,
as I have said, contains nothing but the premises to the conclusion,
which is the true and final goal of all morals and of all moralising;
_Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes juva_ (do harm to no one;
but rather help all people as far as lies in your power). Like all
beautiful things, this proposition looks best unveiled. Be it only
observed that the alleged duties towards oneself are dragged into this
second Kantian edict intentionally and not without difficulty. Some
place of course had to be found for them.[4]
Another objection that could be raised against the formula is that the
malefactor condemned to be executed is treated merely as an instrument,
and not as an end, and this with perfectly good reason; for he is
the indispensable means of upholding the terror of the law by its
fulfilment, and of thus accomplishing the law's end--the repression of
crime.
But if this second definition helps nothing towards laying a foundation
for Ethics, if it cannot even pass muster as its leading principle,
that is, as an adequate and direct summary of ethical precepts; it
has nevertheless the merit of containing a fine _aperçu_ of moral
psychology, for it marks =egoism= by an exceedingly characteristic
token, which is quite worth while being here more closely considered.
This =egoism=, then, of which each of us is full, and to conceal
which, as our _partie honteuse_, we have invented =politeness=,
is perpetually peering through every veil cast over it, and may
especially be detected in the fact that our dealings with all those,
who come across our path, are directed by the one object of trying
to find, before everything else, and as if by instinct, a possible
=means= to any of the numerous =ends= with which we are
always engrossed. When we make a new acquaintance, our first thought,
as a rule, is whether the man can be useful to us in some way. If he
can do =nothing= for our benefit, then as soon as we are convinced
of this, he himself generally becomes nothing to us. To seek in all
other people a possible means to our ends, in other words, to make
them our instruments, is almost part of the very nature of human
eyes; and whether the instrument will have to suffer more or less
in the using, is a thought which comes much later, sometimes not at
all. That we assume others to be similarly disposed is shown in many
ways; _e.g._, by the fact that, when we ask any one for information
or advice, we lose all confidence in his words directly we discover
that he may have some =interest= in the matter, however small or
remote. For then we immediately take for granted that he will make us
a means to his ends, and hence give his advice not in accordance with
his =discernment=, but with his =desire=, and this, no matter
how exact the former may be, or how little the latter seem involved;
since we know only too well that a cubic inch of desire weighs much
more than a cubic yard of discernment. Conversely, when we ask in such
cases: "What ought I to do?" as a rule, nothing else will occur to our
counsellor, but how we should shape our action to suit his own ends;
and to this effect he will give his reply immediately, and as it were
mechanically, without so much as bestowing a thought on our ends;
because it is his Will that directly dictates the answer, or ever the
question can come before the bar of his real judgment. Hence he tries
to mould our conduct to his own benefit, without even being conscious
of it, and while he supposes that he is speaking out of the abundance
of his discernment, in reality he is nothing but the mouth-piece of
his own desire; indeed, such self-deception may lead him so far as to
utter lies, without being aware of it. So greatly does the influence of
the Will preponderate that of the Intelligence. Consequently, it is not
the testimony of our own consciousness, but rather, for the most part,
that of our interest, which avails to determine whether our language be
in accordance with what we discern, or what we desire. To take another
case. Let us suppose that a man pursued by enemies and in danger of
life, meets a pedlar and inquires for some by-way of escape; it may
happen that the latter will answer him by the question: "Do you need
any of my wares?" It is not of course meant that matters are always
like this. On the contrary, many a man is found to show a direct and
real participation in another's weal and woe, or (in Kant's language)
to regard him as an end and not as a means. How far it seems natural,
or the reverse, to each one to treat his neighbour for once in the way
as an end, instead of (as usual) a means,--this is the criterion of the
great ethical difference existing between character and character; and
that on which the mental attitude of sympathy rests in the last resort
will be the true basis of Ethics, and will form the subject of the
third part of this Essay.
Thus, in his second formula, Kant distinguishes Egoism and its opposite
by a very characteristic trait; and this point of merit I have all the
more gladly brought out into strong light and illustrated, because in
other respects there is little in the groundwork of his Ethics that I
can admit.
The third and last form in which Kant put forward his Moral Principle
is the =Autonomy= of the Will: "The Will of every rational
being is universally legislative for all rational beings." This of
course follows from the first form. As a consequence of the third,
however, we are asked to believe (see p. 71; R., p. 60) that the
specific characteristic of the Categorical Imperative lies in the
=renunciation of all interest= by the Will when acting from a
sense of duty. All previous moral principles had thus (he says) broken
down, "because the latter invariably attributed to human actions at
bottom a certain interest, whether originating in compulsion, or
in pleasurable attraction--an interest which might be one's own,
or another's" (p. 73; R., p. 62). (=Another's=: let this be
particularly noticed.) "Whereas a universally legislative Will must
prescribe actions which are =not= based on any =interest= at
all, but solely on a feeling of duty." I beg the reader to think what
this really means. As a matter of fact, nothing less than volition
without motive, in other words, effect without cause. Interest and
Motive are interchangeable ideas; what is interest but _quod mea
interest_, that which is of importance to me? And is not this, in one
word, whatever stirs and sets in motion my Will? Consequently, what is
an interest other than the working of a motive upon the Will? Therefore
where a motive moves the Will, there the latter has an interest; but
where the Will is affected by no motive, there in truth it can be as
little active, as a stone is able to leave its place without being
pushed or pulled. No educated person will require any demonstration of
this. It follows that every action, inasmuch as it necessarily must
have a motive, necessarily also presupposes an interest. Kant, however,
propounds a second entirely new class of actions which are performed
without any interest, _i.e._, without motive. And these actions
are--all deeds of justice and loving-kindness! It will be seen that
this monstrous assumption, to be refuted, needed only to be reduced to
its real meaning, which was concealed through the word "interest" being
trifled with. Meanwhile Kant celebrates (p. 74 sqq.; R., p. 62) the
triumph of his Autonomy of the Will by setting up a moral Utopia called
the Kingdom of Ends, which is peopled with nothing but =rational
beings= _in abstracto_. These, one and all, are always willing,
without willing any actual =thing= (_i.e._, without interest):
the only thing that they will is that they may all perpetually will in
accordance with one maxim (_i.e._, Autonomy). _Difficile est satiram
non scribere_[5] (it is difficult to refrain from writing a satire).
But there is something else to which Kant is led by his autonomy of
the will; and it involves more serious consequences than the little
innocent Kingdom of Ends, which is perfectly harmless and may be left
in peace. I mean the conception of =human dignity=. Now this
"dignity" is made to rest solely on man's autonomy, and to lie in the
fact that the law which he ought to obey is his own work, his relation
to it thus being the same as that of the subjects of a constitutional
government to their statutes. As an ornamental finish to the Kantian
system of morals such a theory might after all be passed over. Only
this expression "=Human Dignity=," once it was uttered by Kant,
became the shibboleth of all perplexed and empty-headed moralists. For
behind that imposing formula they concealed their lack, not to say,
of a real ethical basis, but of any basis at all which was possessed
of an intelligible meaning; supposing cleverly enough that their
readers would be so pleased to see themselves invested with such a
"dignity" that they would be quite satisfied.[6] Let us, however,
look at this conception a little more carefully, and submit it to
the test of reality. Kant (p. 79; R., p. 66) defines =dignity=
as "an unconditioned, incomparable value." This is an explanation
which makes such an effect by its magnificent sound that one does
not readily summon up courage to examine it at close quarters; else
we should find that it too is nothing but a hollow hyperbole, within
which there lurks like a gnawing worm, the _contradictio in adjecto_.
Every value is the estimation of one thing compared with another; it
is thus a conception of comparison, and consequently relative; and
this relativity is precisely that which forms the essence of the idea.
According to Diogenes Laertius (Book VII., chap. 106),[7] this was
already correctly taught by the Stoics. He says: _τὴn δὲ ἀξίαν εἶναι
ἀμοιβὴν δοκιμάστου, ἢν ἂν ὁ ἔμπειρος τῶν Πραγμάτων τάξῃ ὅμοιον εἐπεῑν,
ἀμείβεσθαι πυροὺς πρὸς τὰς σὺν ἡμιονô κριθάς._[8] An =incomparable,
unconditioned, absolute value=, such as "dignity" is declared by
Kant to be, is thus, like so much else in Philosophy, the statement in
words of a thought which is really unthinkable; just as much as "the
highest number," or "the greatest space."
"_Doch eben wo Begriffe fehlen_,
_Da stellt ein WORT zu rechter Zeit sich ein._"
(But where conceptions fail,
Just there a WORD comes in to fill the blank.)
So it was with this expression, "=Human Dignity=." A most
acceptable phrase was brought into currency. Thereon every system of
Morals, that was spun out through all classes of duty, and all forms of
casuistry, found a broad basis; from which serene elevation it could
comfortably go on preaching.
At the end of his exposition (p. 124; E., p. 97), Kant says: "But how
it is that =Pure Reason= without other motives, that may have
their derivation elsewhere, can by itself be =practical=; that is,
how, without there being any object for the Will to take an antecedent
interest in, the simple principle of the universal validity of all the
precepts of Pure Reason, as laws, can of itself provide a motive and
bring about an interest which may be called purely moral; or, in other
words, how it is that Pure Reason can be practical;--to explain this
problem, all human reason is inadequate, and all trouble and work spent
on it are vain." Now it should be remembered that, if any one asserts
the existence of a thing which cannot even be conceived as possible, it
is incumbent on him to prove that it is an actual reality; whereas the
Categorical Imperative of Practical Reason is expressly not put forward
as a fact of consciousness, nor otherwise founded on experience. Rather
are we frequently cautioned not to attempt to explain it by having
recourse to empirical anthropology. (Cf. _e.g._, p. vi. of the preface;
R., p. 5; and pp. 59, 60; R., p. 52). Moreover, we are repeatedly
(_e.g._, p. 48; R., p. 44) assured "that no instance can show, and
consequently there can be no empirical proof, that an Imperative of
this sort exists everywhere." And further, on p. 49 (R., p. 45), we
read, "that the reality of the Categorical Imperative is not a fact of
experience." Now if we put all this together, we can hardly avoid the
suspicion that Kant is jesting at his readers' expense. But although
this practice may be allowed by the present philosophical public of
Germany, and seem good in their eyes, yet in Kant's time it was not so
much in vogue; and besides, Ethics, then, as always, was precisely the
subject that least of all could lend itself to jokes. Hence we must
continue to hold the conviction that what can neither be conceived as
possible, nor proved as actual, is destitute of all credentials to
attest its existence. And if, by a strong effort of the imagination,
we try to picture to ourselves a man, possessed, as it were, by a
_daemon_, in the form of an =absolute Ought=, that speaks only in
Categorical Imperatives, and, confronting his wishes and inclinations,
claims to be the perpetual controller of his actions; in this figure
we see no true portrait of human nature, or of our inner life; what we
=do= discern is an artificial substitute for theological Morals,
to which it stands in the same relation as a wooden leg to a living one.
Our conclusion, therefore, is, that the Kantian Ethics, like all
anterior systems, is devoid of any sure foundation. As I showed at
the outset, in my examination of its =imperative Form=, the
structure is at bottom nothing but an inversion of theological Morals,
cloaked in very abstract formulae of an apparently _a priori_ origin.
That this disguise was most artificial and unrecognisable is the more
certain, from the fact that Kant, in all good faith, was actually
himself deceived by it, and really believed that he could establish,
independently of all theology, and on the basis of pure intelligence _a
priori_, those conceptions of the Law and of the hests of Duty, which
obviously have no meaning except in =theological Ethics=; whereas
I have sufficiently proved that with him they are destitute of all real
foundation, and float loosely in mid air. However, the mask at length
falls away in his own workshop, and theological Ethics stands forth
unveiled, as witness his doctrine of the Highest Good, the Postulates
of Practical Reason; and lastly, his Moral Theology. But this
revelation freed neither Kant nor the public from their illusion as to
the real state of things; on the contrary, both he and they rejoiced to
see all those precepts, which hitherto had been sanctioned by Faith,
now ratified and established by Ethics (although only _idealiter_, and
for practical purposes). The truth is that they, in all sincerity, put
the effect for the cause, and the cause for the effect, inasmuch as
they failed to perceive that at the root of this system of Morals there
lay, as absolutely necessary assumptions, however tacit and concealed,
all the alleged consequences that had been drawn from it.
At the end of this severe investigation, which must also have been
tiring to my readers, perhaps I may be allowed, by way of diversion, to
make a jesting, indeed frivolous comparison. I would liken Kant, in his
self-mystification, to a man who at a ball has been flirting the whole
evening with a masked beauty, in hopes of making a conquest; till at
last, throwing off her disguise, she reveals herself--as his wife.
[1] To keep the play of words in "_geschrobene," "verschrobene,"_ we
may perhaps render them: "twisted ... mistwisted."--(_Translator._)
[2] A contradiction in that which is added. A term applied to two ideas
which cannot be brought into a thinkable relationship.--(_Translator._)
[3] A Chaṇḍāla (or Ćaṇḍāla) means one who is born of a Brahman woman
by a Śūdra husband, such a union being an abomination. Hence it is a
term applied to a low common person. Mlechcha (or Mleććha) means a
foreigner; one who does not speak Sanskṛit, and is not subject to Hindu
institutions. The transition from a "a barbarian" to a bad or wicked
man, is easy.--(_Translator_.)
[4] These so-called duties have been discussed in Chapter III. of this
Part.
[5] Juvenal, _Sat_. I. 30.
[6] It appears that G. W. Block in his _Neue Grundlegung der
Philosophie der Sitten_, 1802, was the first to make "Human Dignity"
expressly and exclusively the foundation-stone of Ethics, which he then
built up entirely on it.
[7] _V_. Diogenes Laertius, _de Clarorum Philosophorum Vitis, etc._,
edit. O. Gabr. Cobet. Paris; Didot, 1862. In this edition the passage
quoted is in chap. 105 _ad fin.,_, p. 182.--(_Translator_.)
[8] They teach that "worth" is the equivalent value of a thing
which has been tested, whatever an expert may fix that value to
be; as, for instance, to take wheat in exchange for barley and a
mule.--(_Translator._)
CHAPTER VII.
KANT'S DOCTRINE OF CONSCIENCE.
The alleged Practical Reason with its Categorical Imperative, is
manifestly very closely connected with Conscience, although essentially
different from it in two respects. In the first place, the Categorical
Imperative, as commanding, necessarily speaks =before= the
act, whereas Conscience does not till afterwards. =Before=
the act Conscience can at best only speak =indirectly=, that
is, by means of reflection, which holds up to it the recollection
of previous cases, in which similar acts after they were committed
received its disapproval. It is on this that the etymology of the word
=Gewissen= (Conscience) appears to me to rest, because =only
what has already taken place is gewiss=[1] (certain). Undoubtedly,
through external inducement and kindled emotion, or by reason of the
internal discord of bad humour, impure, base thoughts, and evil desires
rise up in all people, even in the best. But for these a man is not
morally responsible, and need not load his conscience with them;
since they only show what the genus _homo,_ not what the individual,
who thinks them, would be capable of doing. Other motives, if not
simultaneously, yet almost immediately, come into his consciousness,
and confronting the unworthy inclinations prevent them from ever being
crystallised into deeds; thus causing them to resemble the out-voted
minority of an acting committee. By deeds alone each person gains an
empirical knowledge no less of himself than of others, just as it is
deeds alone that burden the conscience. For, unlike thoughts, these are
not problematic; on the contrary, they are certain (_gewiss_), they are
unchangeable, and are not only thought, but =known= (_gewusst_).
The Latin _conscientia_,[2] and the Greek _συνείδησις_[3] have the same
sense. Conscience is thus the =knowledge= that a man has about
what he has done.
The second point of difference between the alleged Categorical
Imperative and Conscience is, that the latter always draws its
material from experience; which the former cannot do, since it is
purely _a priori_. Nevertheless, we may reasonably suppose that Kant's
Doctrine of Conscience will throw some light on this new conception
of an =absolute Ought= which he introduced. His theory is
most completely set forth in the _Metaphysische Anfangsgründe zur
Tugendlehre_, § 13, and in the following criticism I shall assume that
the few pages which contain it are lying before the reader.
The Kantian interpretation of Conscience makes an exceedingly imposing
effect, before which one used to stand with reverential awe, and
all the less confidence was felt in demurring to it, because there
lay heavy on the mind the ever-present fear of having theoretical
objections construed as practical, and, if the correctness of Kant's
view were denied, of being regarded as devoid of conscience. I,
however, cannot be led astray in this manner, since the question
here is of theory, not of practice; and I am not concerned with the
preaching of Morals, but with the exact investigation of the ultimate
ethical basis.
We notice at once that Kant employs exclusively Latin legal
terminology, which, however, would seem little adapted to reflect the
most secret stirrings of the human heart. Yet this language, this
judicial way of treating the subject, he retains from first to last,
as though it were essential and proper to the matter. And so we find
brought upon the stage of our inner self a complete Court of justice,
with indictment, judge, plaintiff, defendant, and sentence;--nothing is
wanting. Now if this tribunal, as portrayed by Kant, really existed in
our breasts, it would be astonishing if a single person could be found
to be, I do not say, =so bad=, but =so stupid=, as to act
against his conscience. For such a supernatural assize, of an entirely
special kind, set up in our consciousness, such a secret court--like
another Fehmgericht[4]--held in the dark recesses of our inmost being,
would inspire everybody with a terror and fear of the gods strong
enough to really keep him from grasping at short transient advantages,
in face of the dreadful threats of superhuman powers, speaking in tones
so near and so clear. In real life, on the contrary, we find, that
the efficiency of conscience is generally considered such a vanishing
quantity that all peoples have bethought themselves of helping it out
by means of positive religion, or even of entirely replacing it by the
latter. Moreover, if Conscience were indeed of this peculiar nature,
the Royal Society could never have thought of the question put for the
present Prize Essay.
But if we look more closely at Kant's exposition, we shall find
that its imposing effect is mainly produced by the fact that he
attributes to the moral verdict passed on ourselves, as its peculiar
and essential characteristic, a form which in fact is not so at all.
This metaphorical bar of judgment is no more applicable to moral
self-examination than it is to every other reflection as regards
what we have done, and might have done otherwise, where no ethical
question is involved. For it is not only true that the same procedure
of indictment, defence, and sentence is occasionally assumed by that
obviously spurious and artificial conscience which is based on mere
superstition; as, for instance, when a Hindu reproaches himself with
having been the murderer of a cow, or when a Jew remembers that he has
smoked his pipe at home on the Sabbath; but even the self-questioning
which springs from no ethical source, being indeed rather unmoral than
moral, often appears in a shape of this sort, as the following case
may exemplify. Suppose I, good-naturedly, but thoughtlessly, have made
myself surety for a friend, and suppose there comes with evening the
clear perception of the heavy responsibility I have taken on myself--a
responsibility that may easily involve me in serious trouble, as the
wise old saying, _ἐγγύα παρά δ' ἃτα_![5] predicts; then at once there
rise up within me the Accuser and the Counsel for the defence, ready
to confront each other. The latter endeavours to palliate my rashness
in giving bail so hastily, by pointing out the stress of circumstance
or of obligation, or, it may be, the simple straightforwardness of
the transaction; perhaps he even seeks excuse by commending my kind
heart. Last of all comes the Judge who inexorably passes the sentence:
"A fool's piece of work!" and I am overwhelmed with confusion So much
for this judicial form of which Kant is so fond; his other modes of
expression are, for the most part, open to the same criticism. For
instance, that which he attributes to conscience, at the beginning of
the paragraph, as its peculiar property, applies equally to all other
scruples of an entirely different sort. He says: "It (conscience)
follows him like his shadow, try though he may to escape. By pleasures
and distractions he may be stupefied and billed to sleep, but he
cannot avoid occasionally waking up and coming to himself; and then he
is immediately aware of the terrible voice," etc. Obviously, this may
be just as well understood, word for word, of the secret consciousness
of some person of private means, who feels that his expenses far exceed
his income, and that thus his capital is being affected, and will
gradually melt away.
We have seen that Kant represents the use of legal terms as essential
to the subject, and that he keeps to them from beginning to end; let
it now be noted how he employs the same style for the following finely
devised sophism. He says: "That a person accused by his conscience
should be identified with the judge is an absurd way of portraying a
court of justice; for in that case the accuser would invariably lose."
And he adds, by way of elucidating this statement, a very ambiguous
and obscure note. His conclusion is that, if we would avoid falling
into a contradiction, we must think of the judge (in the judicial
conscience-drama that is enacted in our breasts) as different from us,
in fact, as another person; nay more, as one that is an omniscient
knower of hearts, whose hests are obligatory on all, and who is
almighty for every purpose of executive authority.[6] He thus passes by
a perfectly smooth path from conscience to superstition, making the
latter a necessary consequence of the former; while he is secretly sure
that he will be all the more willingly followed because the reader's
earliest training will have certainly rendered him familiar with such
ideas, if not have made them his second nature. Here, then, Kant finds
an easy task,--a thing he ought rather to have despised; for he
should have concerned himself not only with preaching, but also with
practising truthfulness. I entirely reject the above quoted sentence,
and all the conclusions consequent thereon, and I declare it to be
nothing but a shuffling trick. It is =not true= that the accuser
must always lose, when the accused is the same person as the judge;
at least not in the court of judgment in our hearts. In the instance
I gave of one man going surety for another, did the accuser lose? Or
must we in this case also, if we wish to avoid a contradiction, really
assume a personification after Kant's fashion, and be driven to view
objectively as =another person= that voice whose deliverance would
have been those terrible words: "A fool's piece of work!"? A sort of
Mercury, forsooth, in living flesh? Or perhaps a prosopopoeia of the
_Μῆτις_ (cunning) recommended by Homer (_Il._ xxiii. 313 sqq.)?[7]
But thus we should only be landed, as before, on the broad path of
superstition, aye, and pagan superstition too.
It is in this passage that Kant indicates his Moral Theology, briefly
indeed, yet not without all its vital points. The fact that he takes
care, not to attribute to it any objective validity, but rather to
present it merely as a form subjectively unavoidable, does not free him
from the arbitrariness with which he constructs it, even though he only
claims its necessity for human consciousness. His fabric rests, as we
have seen, on a tissue of baseless assumptions.
So much, then, is certain. The entire imagery--that of a judicial
drama--whereby Kant depicts conscience is wholly unessential and in
no way peculiar to it; although he keeps this figure, as if it were
proper to the subject, right through to the end, in order finally
to deduce certain conclusions from it. As a matter of fact it is a
sufficiently common form, which our thoughts easily take when we
consider any circumstance of real life. It is due for the most part to
the conflict of opposing motives which usually spring up, and which
are successively weighed and tested by our reflecting reason. And no
difference is made whether these motives are moral or egoistic in their
nature, nor whether our deliberations are concerned with some action in
the past, or in the future. Now if we strip from Kant's exposition its
dress of legal metaphor, which is only an optional dramatic appendage,
the surrounding nimbus with all its imposing effect immediately
disappears as well, and there remains nothing but the fact that
sometimes, when we think over our actions, we are seized with a certain
self-dissatisfaction, which is marked by a special characteristic.
It is with our conduct _per se_ that we are discontented, not with
its result, and this feeling does not, as in every other case in
which we regret the stupidity of our behaviour, rest on egoistic
grounds. For on these occasions the cause of our dissatisfaction is
precisely because we have been too egoistic, because we have taken
too much thought for ourselves, and not enough for our neighbour; or
perhaps even because, without any resulting advantage, we have made
the misery of others an object in itself. That we may be dissatisfied
with ourselves, and saddened by reason of sufferings which we have
inflicted, not undergone, is a plain fact and impossible to be denied.
The connection of this with the only ethical basis that can stand an
adequate test we shall examine further on. But Kant, like a clever
special pleader, tried by magnifying and embellishing the original
_datum_ to make all that he possibly could of it, in order to prepare a
very broad foundation for his Ethics and Moral Theology.
[1] Both words are, of course, derived from _wissen = scire_ =
_εἱδέναι_.--(_Translator_.)
[2] Cf. Horace's _conscire sibi, pallescere culpa: Epist_. I. 1, 61. To
be conscious of having done wrong, to turn pale at the thought of the
crime.
[3] _Συνείδησις = consciousness_ (of right or wrong
done).--(_Translator._)
[4] The celebrated Secret Tribunal of Westphalia, which came into
prominence about A.D. 1220. In A.D. 1335 the Archbishop of Cologne was
appointed head of all the Fehme benches in Westphalia by the Emperor
Charles IV. The reader will remember the description of the trial scene
in Scott's _Anne of Geierstein_. Perhaps the Court of Star Chamber
comes nearest to it in English History.--(_Translator._)
[5] If you give a pledge, be sure that Ate (the goddess of mischief)
is beside you; _i.e._, beware of giving pledges.--Thales ap. Plat.
_Charm_. 165 A.
[6] Kant leads up to this position with great ingenuity, by having
recourse to the theory of the two characters coexistent in man--the
_noumenal_ (or _intelligible_) and the _empirical_; the one being in
time, the other, timeless; the one, fast bound by the law of causality,
the other free.--(_Translator._)
[7] Greek: _Άλλ' ἄγε δὴ σύ, ϕίλος, μêτιν ἐμβάλλεο θυμῷ, κ.τ.λ._
CHAPTER VIII.
KANT'S DOCTRINE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE[1] AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. THEORY
OF FREEDOM.
The attack I have made, in the cause of truth, on Kant's system of
Morals, does not, like those of my predecessors, touch the surface
only, but penetrates to its deepest roots. It seems, therefore,
only just that, before I leave this part of my subject, I should
bring to remembrance the brilliant and conspicuous service which he
nevertheless rendered to ethical science. I allude to his doctrine of
the co-existence of Freedom and Necessity. We find it first in the
_Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ (pp. 533-554 of the first, and pp. 561-582
of the fifth, edition); but it is still more clearly expounded in the
_Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_ (fourth edition, pp. 169-179; R., pp.
224-231).
The strict and absolute necessity of the acts of Will, determined by
motives as they arise, was first shown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza,
and Hume, and also by Dietrich von Holbach in his _Système de la
Nature_; and lastly by Priestley it was most completely and precisely
demonstrated. This point, indeed, has been so clearly proved, and
placed beyond all doubt, that it must be reckoned among the number of
perfectly established truths, and only crass ignorance could continue
to speak of a freedom, of a _liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_ (a
free and indifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor did
Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his predecessors, hesitate
to consider the Will as fast bound in the chains of Necessity, the
matter admitting, as he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This
is proved by all the passages in which he speaks of freedom only from
the =theoretical= standpoint. Nevertheless, it is true that our
actions are attended with a consciousness of independence and original
initiative, which makes us recognise them as our own work, and every
one with ineradicable certainty feels that he is the real author
of his conduct, and morally =responsible= for it. But since
responsibility implies the possibility of having acted otherwise,
which possibility means freedom in some sort or manner; therefore
in the consciousness of responsibility is indirectly involved also
the consciousness of freedom. The key to resolve the contradiction,
that thus arises out of the nature of the case, was at last found by
Kant through the distinction he drew with profound acumen, between
phaenomena and the Thing in itself (_das Ding an sich_). This
distinction is the very core of his whole philosophy, and its greatest
merit.
The individual, with his immutable, innate character strictly
determined in all his modes of expression by the law of Causality,
which, as acting through the medium of the intellect, is here called
by the name of Motivation,--the individual so constituted is only the
=phaenomenon= (_Erscheinung_). The =Thing= in itself which
underlies this phaenomenon is outside of Time and Space, consequently
free from all succession and plurality, one, and changeless. Its
constitution in itself is the =intelligible character=, which
is equally present in all the acts of the individual, and stamped on
every one of them, like the impress of a signet on a thousand seals.
The empirical character of the phaenomenon--the character which
manifests itself in time, and in succession of acts--is thus determined
by the intelligible character; and consequently, the individual, as
phaenomenon, in all his modes of expression, which are called forth
by motives, must show the invariableness of a natural law. Whence it
results that all his actions are governed by strict necessity. Now
it used to be commonly maintained that the character of a man may
be transformed by moral admonitions and remonstrances appealing to
reason; but when the distinction between the intelligible and empirical
character had once been drawn, it followed that the unchangeableness,
the inflexible rigidity of the empirical character, which thinking
people had always observed, was explained and traced to a rational
basis, and consequently accepted as an established fact by Philosophy.
Thus the latter was so far harmonised with experience, and ceased to
stand abashed, before popular wisdom, which long before had spoken the
words of truth in the Spanish proverb: _Lo que entra con el capillo,
sale con la mortaja_ (that which comes in with the child's cap, goes
out with the winding-sheet); or: _Lo que en la leche se mama, en la
mortaja se derrama_ (what is imbibed with the milk, is poured out again
in the winding-sheet).
This doctrine of the co-existence of Freedom and Necessity I regard
as the greatest of all the achievements of human sagacity. With the
Transcendental Aesthetics it forms the two great diamonds in the crown
of Kant's fame, which will never pass away. In his Treatise on Freedom,
Schelling obviously served up the Kantian teaching in a paraphrase,
which by reason of its lively colouring and graphic delineation, is for
many people more comprehensible. The work would deserve praise if its
author had had the honesty to say that he is drawing on Kant's wisdom,
not on his own. As it is, a certain part of the philosophic public
still credits him with the entire performance.
The theory itself, and the whole question regarding the nature of
Freedom, can be better understood if we view them in connection with
a general truth, which I think, is most concisely expressed by a
formula frequently occurring in the scholastic writings: _Operari
sequitur esse_.[2] In other words, everything in the world operates in
accordance with what it is, in accordance with its inherent nature, in
which, consequently, all its modes of expression are already contained
potentially, while actually they are manifested when elicited by
external causes; so that external causes are the means whereby the
essential constitution of the thing is revealed. And the modes of
expression so resulting form the =empirical= character; whereas
its hidden, ultimate basis, which is inaccessible to experience, is
the =intelligible= character, that is, the real nature _per se_
of the particular thing in question. Man forms no exception to the
rest of nature; he too has a changeless character, which, however,
is strictly individual and different in each case. This character is
of course =empirical= as far as
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/44929