THE PROBLEM OF ETHICS, STARTING FROM THE HISTORY OF ETHICS
An ethic of self-devotion, or an ethic of self-perfecting?
THOUGHT, then, which reaches bottom, arrives at an unshakeable
world-and-life affirmation. Let it now try whether it can lead us to
an ethic. But that it may not proceed with us, as it so often does,
merely at random, it shall gather from the thought which has hitherto
been devoted to ethics all the guidance which is there to be found.
What does the history of ethics teach?
As a quite general principle we learn from it, that the object of all
ethical enquiry is the discovery of the universal basic principle of
the moral.
The basic principle of the moral must show itself to be a necessity of
thought, and must bring man to an unceasing, living, and practical
conflict and understanding with reality.
The principles of the moral which have hitherto been offered us are
absolutely unsatisfying. This is clear from the fact that they cannot
be thought out to a conclusion without leading to paradoxes, or losing
in ethical content.
Classical thought tries to conceive of the ethical as that which
brings rational pleasure. It did not succeed, however, from that
starting-point in arriving at an ethic of active devotion. Shut up
within the egoistic-utilitarian, it ends in an ethically-coloured
resignation.
The ethical thought of modern times is from the outset
social-utilitarian. It is to it a matter of course that the individual
must devote himself in every respect to his fellow-individuals, and to
society. But when it tries to [pg 222] give a firm foundation to this
ethic of devotion which seems to it so much a matter of course, and to
think it out to a conclusion, it is driven to the most remarkable
consequences, which are inconsistent with each other in the most
varied directions. At one time it explains devotion as a refined
egoism; at another as something which society forcibly imposes on
individuals; at another as something which it develops in him by
education; at another, as in Bentham, as something which he adopts as
one of his convictions on the ground of the urgent representations of
society; at another as an instinct which he obeys. The first
assumption cannot be carried through; the second, third, and fourth
are unsatisfying because they allow ethics to reach men from the
outside; the last leads to a _cul-de-sac_. If, for example, devotion
is an instinct, it must, of course, be made conceivable how thought
can work upon it, and raise it to the level of a considered, widely
inclusive, voluntary activity at which level it first becomes ethical.
This, which is its peculiar problem, utilitarianism does not
recognise, much less solve. It is always in too much of a hurry to
come to practical results. At last it gives its bond to biology and
social science, which bring it to conceiving itself as herd-mentality,
wonderfully developed and capable of still further development. It
thereby bring itself to a halt far below the level of real ethics.
The ethic of devotion fails therefore most remarkably, although it
starts from what is most elementary and essential in ethics, to shape
itself in a way which satisfies thought. It is as if it had the true
basic principle of ethics within its reach, yet always grasped to
right or left of it.
By the side of these two attempts to understand ethics as effort to
procure rational pleasure, or as devotion to one’s fellow-men and to
society, there is a third, which tries to explain ethics as effort
after self-perfecting. This attempt has in it something abstract and
venturesome. It disdains to start from a universally acknowledged
content of the ethical, as utilitarianism does, and in contrast to
that [pg 223] sets before thought the task of deriving the whole
content of ethics from the effort after self-perfecting.
Plato, the first representative in the West of the ethics of
self-perfecting, and Schopenhauer try to solve the problem by setting
up, as do the Indians, world- and life-denial to be the basic
principle of the ethical. That, however, is no solution. World- and
life-denial, if consistently thought out and carried through, does not
produce an ethic but reduces ethics to impotence.
Kant, the modern restorer of the ethic of self-perfecting, sets up the
conception of absolute duty, but without giving it any content. He
thereby admits his inability to derive the content of ethics from the
effort after self-perfecting.
If the ethic of self-perfecting tries really to acquire a content, it
must allow that ethics consist either in world- and life-denial or in
higher world- and life-affirmation. The first need not be considered;
there remains, therefore, only the other.
Spinoza conceives the higher world- and life-affirmation as a thinking
absorption in the universe. He does not, however, arrive thereby at a
real ethic, but only at an ethically-coloured resignation.
Schleiermacher uses much art to lend this ethical colouring a more
brilliant tone. Nietzsche avoids the paths of resignation, but reaches
thereby a world- and life-affirmation which is ethical only so far as
it feels itself to be an effort after self-perfecting.
The only thinker who succeeds to some extent in giving to
self-perfecting within world- and life-affirmation an ethical content
is J. G. Fichte. The result, however, is valueless, because it
presupposes an optimistic-ethical view of the nature of the universe
and of the position of man within it, which is based upon inadmissible
speculation.
The ethic of self-perfecting is therefore not capable of so
establishing the basic principle of the moral, that it has a content
which is ethically satisfying; the ethic of devotion, on the other
hand, starting from the content which it [pg 224] presupposes, cannot
reach a basic principle of ethics which is grounded in thought. The
attempt made by antiquity to conceive ethics as that which brings
rational pleasure we need no longer consider. It is only too clear
that it does not take sufficiently into account the enigma of
devotion, and can never solve it. There remain, therefore, for
consideration only the two undertakings, so strangely opposed to one
another, one of which starts from devotion as a generally accepted
content of the ethical in order to conceive it as belonging to the
self-perfecting of man, while the other starts from self-perfecting
and seeks to conceive devotion as an item in its content which is a
necessity of thought.
Is there a synthesis of these two? In other words, do devotion and
self-perfecting belong together in such a way that the one is
contained in the other?
If this inward unity has not been visible hitherto, may not the cause
be that reflexion, whether upon devotion or upon self-perfecting, did
not go deep enough and was not sufficiently inclusive?
Ethics and a theory of knowledge. Ethics and natural happenings. The
enthusiastic element in ethics
Before thought attempts to investigate more deeply and completely the
nature of devotion and that of self-perfecting, it must proceed
further to put clearly before itself what there is offered to it in
the way of different kinds of knowledge and other considerations on
its journey through the Western search for ethics.
It may be accepted as something fully recognised that ethics have
nothing to expect from any theory of knowledge. Depreciation of the
reality of the sensible world brings them merely apparent profit.
Thought believes it can draw from the possibility of a spiritualising
of the world some advantage for the optimistic-ethical interpretation
of it. It has been, however, established by this [pg 225] time that
ethics can no more be derived from an ethical interpretation of the
world than world- and life-affirmation can be referred back to an
optimistic interpretation of it, and that they must instead of that
find their foundation in themselves in a world which is recognised as
absolutely enigmatic. At once and for ever, then, all attempts to
bring ethical and epistemological idealism into connexion with one
another have to be recognised as useless for ethics. Ethics can let
space and time go hang.
In epistemological investigations into the nature of space and time
ethics feel a satisfaction which is strong but uninterested. They view
them as efforts after knowledge which must be made, but they know that
the results can never touch what is essential in any world- and
life-view. It suffices them to know that the whole world of sense is a
manifestation of forces, that is to say of an enigmatically manifold
will-to-live. In this their thought is spiritualistic. It is
materialistic, however, so far as it presupposes manifestation and
force to be connected in such a way that any effect produced upon the
former influences the force which lies behind it. Ethics feel that if
it were not thus possible for one will-to-live to produce through the
manifestation effects on another will-to-live, they would have no
reason for existing. But to investigate how this relation between
force and its manifestation is to be explained from the standpoint of
epistemology, and whether it can be explained at all, ethics can leave
undecided as being none of their business; they claim for themselves,
just as does natural science, the right to remain free from
preconceptions.
In this connexion it is interesting to observe that it is among the
representatives of scientific materialism that enthusiastic ethical
idealism is often to be met with, while the adherents of
spiritualistic philosophy are usually moralists with an unemotional
temperament.
With renunciation of all help from epistemological [pg 226] idealism,
it follows that ethics ask for nothing and expect nothing from
speculative philosophy. They declare they have nothing to do with any
kind of ethical interpretation of the world.
Thought gathers, further, from the history of ethics that the latter
cannot be conceived as being merely a natural happening which
continues itself in man. In the ethical man natural happenings come
into contradiction with themselves. Nature knows only a blind
affirmation of life. The will-to-live which animates natural forces
and living beings is concerned to work itself out unhindered. But in
man this natural effort is in a state of tension with a mysterious
effort of a different kind. Life-affirmation exerts itself to take up
life-denial into itself in order to serve other living beings by
self-devotion, and to protect them, even eventually by self-sacrifice,
from injury or destruction. It is true that self-devotion plays a
certain _rôle_ in non-human living beings. As a temporary instinct it
rules in sexual love and in parental love; as a permanent instinct it
is found in certain individual members of animal species (_e.g._,
ants, bees) which, because sexless, are incomplete individualities.
These manifestations are in a certain way a prelude to the interplay
of life-affirmation and life-denial which is at work in the ethical
man. They do not, however, explain it. That which is active elsewhere
only as a temporary instinct, or as an instinct in incomplete
individualities and that, too, always within special relations of
solidarity with others, becomes now, in man, a steady, voluntary,
unlimited form of action, a result of thought, in which individuals
endeavour to realise the higher life-affirmation. How does this come
about?
Here one is faced once more by the problem of the _rôle_ which thought
plays in the origin of ethics. It seizes on something of which a
preliminary form is seen in an instinct, in order to extend it and
bring it to perfection. It comprehends the content of an instinct, and
tries to give it practical application in new and consistent action.
[pg 227]
In some way or other the _rôle_ of thought lies in the fulfilment of
life-affirmation. It rouses the will-to-live to recognise as in
analogy with the life-affirmation which is in itself, the
life-affirmation which shows itself in the manifold life which is
everywhere around it, and to join in its experiences. On the
foundation of this world-affirmation life-denial takes its place as a
means of helping forward this affirmation of other life than its own.
It is not life-denial in itself that is ethical, but only such as
stands in the service of world-affirmation and becomes purposive
within it.
Ethics are a mysterious chord in which life-affirmation and
world-affirmation are the ground-note and the fifth; life-denial is
the third.
It is important, further, to know what is to be gathered from ethical
inquiry down to the present time about the intensity and the extension
of the life-denial which stands in the service of world-affirmation.
Again and again the attempt has been made to establish this
objectively. In vain! It belongs to the nature of devotion that it
must live itself out subjectively and without reservations.
In the history of ethics there is downright fear of what cannot be
subjected to rules and regulations. Again and again thinkers have
undertaken to define devotion in such a way that it remains rational.
This, however, is never done except at the cost of the naturalness and
living character of ethics. Life-denial remains something irrational,
even when it places itself at the service of a purposive policy. A
universally applicable balance between life-affirmation and
life-denial cannot be established. They remain in a state of continual
tension. If any relaxation does take place, it is a sign that ethics
are collapsing, for in their real nature they are unbounded
enthusiasm. They originate indeed in thought, but they cannot be
carried through to a logical conclusion. Anyone who undertakes the
voyage to a true ethic must be prepared to be carried round and round
in the whirlpool of the irrational.
[pg 228]
The ethic of ethical personality, and the ethic of society
Together with the subjectively enthusiastic nature of ethics goes the
fact that it never wishes to succeed in developing the ethic of
ethical personality into a serviceable ethic of society. It seems so
obvious, that from right individual ethics right social ethics should
result, the one continuing itself into the other like a town into its
suburbs. In reality, however, they cannot be so built that the streets
of the one continue as those of the other. The plans of each are drawn
on principles which take no account of that.
The ethic of ethical personality is personal, incapable of regulation,
and absolute; that which is established by society for its own
prosperous existence is supra-personal, regulated, and relative. Hence
the ethical personality cannot surrender to it, but lives always in
continuous disputation with it, obliged again and again to oppose it
because it finds its focus too short.
In the last analysis the antagonism between the two arises from their
differing valuations of humaneness. Humaneness consists in this—that
no human being is ever sacrificed to a purpose. The ethic of ethical
personality aims at preserving humaneness. That which is established
by society is impotent in that respect.
When the individual is faced with the alternative of having to
sacrifice in some way or other the happiness or the existence of
another, or else to bear the loss himself, he is in a position to obey
the demands of ethics and to choose the latter. But society, thinking
impersonally and pursuing its aims impersonally, does not allow the
same weight to consideration for the happiness or existence of an
individual. In principle humaneness is not an item in its ethic. But
individuals come continually into the position of being in one way or
another executive organs of society, and then the conflict between the
two points of view becomes active. That this may always be decided in
its own favour, [pg 229] society exerts itself to limit as closely as
possible the authority of the ethic of personality, although inwardly
it has to acknowledge its superiority. It wants to have servants who
will never oppose it.
Even a society the ethical standard of which is relatively high, is
dangerous to the ethics of its members. If those things which form
precisely the defects of a social ethic develop strongly, and society
exercises, further, an excessively strong spiritual influence on
individuals, then the ethic of ethical personality is ruined. This
happens in present-day society, the ethical conscience of which is
becoming fatally stunted by a biologico-sociological ethic and this,
moreover, finally corrupted by nationalism.
The great mistake made by ethical thought down to the present time is
that it fails to admit the essential difference between the ethic of
ethical personality and that which is established from the standpoint
of society, and always thinks that it ought, and is able, to cast them
in one piece. The result is that the ethic of personality is
sacrificed to the ethic of society. An end must be put to this. What
matters is to recognise that the two are engaged in a conflict which
cannot be made less intense. Either the ethic of personality raises
the social ethic, so far as it can, to its own level, or it is dragged
down by the latter.
But to get rid of the present unhealthy state of opinion it is not
enough to bring individuals to a consciousness that if they are not to
suffer spiritual harm they must be in a state of continual conflict
with the ethics of society. What matters is to establish a basic
principle of the moral, which will put the ethic of personality in a
position to come with consistency and success to discussion and
agreement with the ethic of society. Hitherto there has been no
possibility of putting this weapon into its hands. Ethics have, as we
know, always been regarded as the most thorough-going possible
devotion to society.
The ethic of ethical personality, then, and the ethic [pg 230] which
is established from the standpoint of society cannot be traced back
the one to the other, and are not of equal value. The first only is a
real ethic; the other is improperly so called. Thought must aim at
finding the basic principle of absolute ethics, if it is to reach the
condition of being ethics at all, and it was because it was not clear
on this point that it made so little progress. Progress in ethics
consists in our making up our minds to think pessimistically of the
ethic of society.
The ethic which is established from the standpoint of society
consists, in its essential nature, in this, that society appeals to
the moral disposition of the individual in order to secure from it
what cannot be forced upon it by compulsion and law. It only comes
nearer to real ethics when it comes to an agreement with the ethic of
personality and tries to bring its own demands on the individual into
harmony as far as possible with the latter’s. In proportion as society
takes on the character of an ethical personality, its ethic becomes an
ethic of ethical society.
The problem of a complete ethic
In general, thought should have busied itself with the question of
what is included in the whole field of ethics, and how the different
elements within it are connected with each other.
In ethics are included the ethic of passive self-perfecting, which is
effected by inward self-liberation from the world (resignation); the
ethic of active self-perfecting effected by means of the mutual
relations between man and man; and the ethic of ethical society.
Ethics are thus an extensive gamut of notes. They start from the not
yet ethical, where the vibrations of resignation begin to make
themselves perceptible as notes of ethical resignation. With
increasingly rapid vibrations they pass from the ethic of resignation
into that of active self-perfecting. Rising still higher they emerge
into the notes of the ethic of [pg 231] society which are already
becoming more or less harsh and noisy, and they die away finally into
the legal commands of society which are never more than conditionally
ethical.
Up to now all ethical systems have been thoroughly fragmentary. They
confine themselves to this or that octave of the gamut. The Indians
and, following in their train, Schopenhauer are, on the whole,
concerned only with the ethic of passive self-perfecting; Zarathustra,
the Jewish prophets, and the great moralists of China only with that
of active self-perfecting. The interest of modern Western philosophy
is fixed almost exclusively on the ethic of society. In consequence of
the starting-point which they chose, the thinkers of antiquity in the
West cannot get any further than an ethic of resignation. The deeper
thinkers among our moderns—Kant, J. G. Fichte, Nietzsche, and
others—have inklings of an ethic of active self-perfecting.
European thought is characterised by almost always playing in the
upper octaves, and not in the lower ones. Its ethic has no bass
because the ethic of resignation plays no part in it. An ethic of
duty, that is an activist ethic, appears to it to be a complete one.
It is because he is a representative of the ethic of resignation that
Spinoza remains such a stranger to his own age.
Inability to understand resignation and the relations prevailing
between ethics and resignation, is the fatal weakness of modern
European thought.
In what, then, does a complete ethic consist? In an ethic of passive
self-perfecting, together with one of active self-perfecting. The
ethic which is established from the standpoint of society is a
supplementary one which has to be corrected by that of active
self-perfecting.
In view of that fact, a complete ethic must be put forward in a shape
which compels it to seek to come to terms with the ethic of society.
[pg 232]