THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG
THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG
BY FRANZ BRENTANO
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
BY CECIL HAGUE
FORMERLY LECTOR AT
PRAGUE UNIVERSITY
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
1902
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
The present translation owes its origin to a desire on the part of the
translator of bringing to the wider notice of his fellow-countrymen a
work which has proved beneficial and stimulating to himself. Written
during short intervals of leisure while studying with Professor Anton
Marty of Prague University, it has had the advantage of his careful and
constant supervision. Without his aid it would scarcely have seen the
light. The translator has especially to thank Professor S. A. Alexander,
of Owens College, Manchester, for his valuable help in the general
revision and the translation of several difficult passages. It is now,
alas, too late to do more than record the translator’s debt to the late
Professor Adamson, of Glasgow University, whose revision and correction
of this essay was one of the last services rendered to the cause of
truth by a life-long disciple.
_West Dulwich, 1902._
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
This lecture, which I now bring before the notice of a larger public,
was delivered by me before the Vienna Law Society on January 23, 1889.
It then bore the title: “Of the Natural Sanction for Law and Morality.”
This title I have changed in order to bring its general purport more
clearly into prominence; otherwise I have made scarcely any further
alteration. Numerous notes have been added, and an already published
essay: “Miklosich on Subjectless Propositions” appended. In what way it
bears upon inquiries apparently so remote will be evident in the sequel.
The occasion of the lecture was an invitation extended to me by Baron
Von Hye, President of the Society. It was his wish that what had been
said here a few years ago by Ihering, as jurist, in his address, _Über
die Entstehung des Rechtsgefühls_, might in the same Society be
illustrated by me from the philosophic point of view. It would be a
mistake to assume from the incidental nature of the circumstances to
which it owed its first appearance that the Essay was only a fugitive,
occasional study. It embraces the fruits of many years’ reflection. The
discussions it contains form the ripest product of all that I have
hitherto published.
These thoughts form a fragment of a Descriptive Psychology, which, as I
now venture to hope, I may be enabled in the near future to publish in
its complete form. In its wide divergence from all that has hitherto
been put forward, and especially by reason of its being an essential
stage in the further development of some of the views advocated in my
_Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_ it will be sufficiently
evident that during the period of my long literary retirement I have not
been idle.
Specialists in philosophy will find also in this lecture what will be at
once recognized as new. As regards the general reader, the rapidity with
which I pass from one question to another might at first completely
conceal many a sunken reef which required to be circumnavigated, many a
precipice which had to be avoided. Surely I, if any one, have reason,
owing to the conciseness of statement employed, to remember the saying
of Leibnitz and pay little attention to refutation and much to
demonstration. A glance at the notes--which, were they to do full
justice to the subject, would need to be multiplied an hundredfold--will
give him a further idea of those bye-paths which have misled so many,
and prevented their finding an issue to the labyrinth. Meantime I would
be well content--nay, I would regard it as the crown to all my
efforts--should all that has been said appear so self-evident to him
that he does not deem himself bound to thank me once in return.
No one has determined the principles of ethics as, on the basis of new
analyses, I have found it necessary to determine them, no one,
especially among those who hold that in the foundation of those
principles the feelings must find a place, have so radically and
completely broken with the subjective view of ethics. I except only
Herbart. But he lost himself in the sphere of aesthetic feeling, until
at last we find him so far from the track that he, who in the
theoretical philosophy is the irreconcilable enemy of contradiction,
nevertheless in practical philosophy (i.e. ethics) tolerates it when his
principles--the highest universally valid ideas--rush into conflict with
one another. Still his teaching remains in a certain aspect truly
related with mine, while, on other sides, other celebrated attempts to
discover a basis for ethics find in it points of contact.
In the notes, individual points are more sharply defined, a very
detailed examination of which would have been too prolix in the lecture.
Many an objection already urged has been met, many an expected rejoinder
anticipated. I also hope that some will be interested in the several
historical contributions, especially in the inquiries concerning
Descartes, where I trace back the doctrine of evidence to its causes and
point out two further thoughts, one of which has been misunderstood, the
other scarcely noticed, neither treated with the consideration they
deserve. I refer to his fundamental classification of mental states and
to his doctrine of the relation of love to joy, and of hate to sadness.
With several highly honoured investigators of the present--assuredly not
least honoured by myself--I have entered into a polemical debate, and
indeed most vigorously with those whose previous attack has compelled
me to a defence. I hope that they do not regard it as a violation of
_their_ claims, when I seek, to the utmost of my power, to help the
truth, which we in common serve, to her rights, and I assure them in
turn, that as I myself speak frankly, so also none the less do I welcome
with all my heart every sincere word of my opponent.
FRANZ BRENTANO.
CONTENTS
THE ORIGIN OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT AND WRONG
A LECTURE
PAGE
1. Value of History and Philosophy for Jurisprudence; the new proposals
for the reform of legal studies in Austria 1
2. Our theme; Relation to Ihering’s lecture before the Vienna Law
Society 2
3. Twofold meaning of the expression “natural right” 2
4. Points of agreement with Ihering; rejection of the “jus naturae”
and “jus gentium”; pre-ethical political statutes 3
5. Opposition to Ihering; There exists a universally valid naturally
recognizable moral law. Relative independence of the question 4
6. The notion “natural sanction” 4
7. Manifold misconception of the same by philosophers 6
8. Habitually developed feeling of compulsion as such is no sanction 6
9. Motives of hope and fear as such not yet sanction 6
10. The thought of the arbitrary command of a higher power is not the
natural sanction 7
11. The ethical sanction is a command similar to the logical rule 8
12. The aesthetic point of view; as little in ethics as in logic
the right one 9
13. Kant’s Categorical Imperative an impracticable fiction 10
14. Necessity for preliminary psychological inquiries 10
15. No willing without a final end 10
16. The problem: which end is right? the chief problem of ethics 11
17. The right end is the best among attainable ends; obscureness
of this definition 11
18. Of the origin of the conception of the good; it has not its origin in
the sphere of the so-called external impression 12
19. The common characteristic of everything psychical 12
20. The three fundamental classes of psychical phenomena; idea
(Vorstellung), judgment, feeling (Gemütsbewegung) 13
21. The contrasts, belief and denial, love and hate 15
22. Of these opposed modes of relation one is always right, one wrong 15
23. The conception of the good 15
24. Distinction of the good in the narrow sense from what is good for
the sake of some other good 16
25. Love is not always a proof that an object is worthy to be loved 16
26. “Blind” and “self-evident” judgment 17
27. Analogous distinction in the sphere of pleasure and displeasure;
criterion of the good 18
28. Plurality of the good; problems associated therewith 21
29. Whether by “the better” is to be understood that which deserves
to be loved with more intensity 21
30. Right determination of the conception 22
31. When and how do we recognize that anything is in itself preferable?
The case of the opposite, of absence, of the addition of
like to like 23
32. Cases where the problem is insoluble 25
33. Whether the Hedonists in this respect would have the advantage 26
34. Why these failures prove less disadvantageous than might
be feared 27
35. The sphere of the highest practical good 28
36. The harmonious development 28
37. The natural sanction respecting the limits of right 29
38. The natural sanction for positive ethical laws 29
39. The power of the natural sanction 30
40. True and false relativity respecting ethical rules 30
41. Derivation of well known special enactments 32
42. Why other philosophers, by other ways, arrive at the same goal 32
43. Whence arise the universally extended ethical truths? Unclearness
concerning processes in one’s own consciousness 33
44. Trace of the influence of the moments severally mentioned 35
45. Lower currents exercising an influence 37
46. Necessity of guarding against overlooking the distinction between
ethical and pseudo-ethical development 39
47. Value of such developments in the pre-ethical time; establishment
of the social order; formation of dispositions; outlines of laws
at the disposal of legislative ethical authority; security against
doctrinaire tendencies 39
48. Beneficent influences which still operate continually
from this side 41
49. A further word on the reform of politico-legal studies 42
NOTES.
PAGE
13. In defence of my characterization of Herbart’s ethical criterion 44
14. Of Kant’s Categorical Imperative 44
16. The Nicomachean Ethics and Ihering’s “fundamental idea” in
his work; _Der Zweck im Recht_ 46
17. Of the cases of smaller chances in the effort after higher ends 46
18. Of the dependence of the conceptions upon concrete perceptions 46
19. The term “intentional” 47
21. The fundamental classification of mental states in Descartes 47
22. Windelband’s error in respect of the fundamental classification of
mental states; short defence of various attacks upon my _Psychology
from the Empirical Standpoint_; Land, on a supposed improvement on
formal logic; Steinthal’s criticism of my doctrine of judgment 50
23. In criticism of Sigwart’s theories of the existential and
negative judgments 55
24. Descartes on the relation of “love” to “joy” and of “hate” to
“sadness” 69
25. Of the notions of truth and existence 69
26. Of the unity of the notion of the good 71
27. Of “evidence.” Descartes “Clara et distincta perceptio.” Sigwart’s
doctrine of “evidence” and his “postulates” 71
28. Of ethical subjectivism. Aristotle’s oversight in respect of the
source of our knowledge of the good. Parallels between his
error in respect of the feelings (Gemütsthätigkeit), and Descartes’
doctrine of the “Clara et distincta perceptio” as a pre-condition
of the logically justified judgment; modern views which approach
to this doctrine 78
29. Of the expressions “gut gefallen” and “schlecht gefallen” 84
31. Typical case of a constant geometrical relation of mental values 85
32. Cases in which something at the same time both pleases and
displeases 85
33. Establishment of universal laws of valuation on the basis of a
single experience 86
34. Certain moments in the theory of ethical knowledge are of more
importance for the theodicy than for ethics itself 87
35. Explanation of the manner in which anything in certain cases is
recognized as preferable 87
36. The two cases, unique in their kind, in which preferability becomes
clear for us from a certain character in the act of preference 87
39. Gauss on the measurement of intensities 89
40. Against exaggerated expectations from the so-called psycho-physical
law 89
40. Defence against the objection of a too great ethical rigour 90
41. Love of neighbour in harmony with greater care of one’s own good 91
43. Why the narrowness of human foresight should not do injury to
moral courage 92
44. In criticism of Ihering’s view of the notion of right and of his
criticism of older views 93
45. Of the provisional ethical sanction of objectionable laws 96
60. Self-contradiction of Epicurus 97
64-65. Proof for the law of addition of like to like; testimony for it in
the teaching of the Stoa, of the theistic Hedonists, and in the
demand for immortality; Helmholtz 98
67. The great theologians are opponents of the arbitrary character of
the divine law of morals 99
68. John Stuart Mill on the doctrine of the distinction between
“blind” and “self-evident judgments” 99
(The numbers missing in the index contain only literary references.)
MIKLOSICH ON SUBJECTLESS PROPOSITIONS
(Appendix to pages 14 and 55).
I. Short sketch of the essential features treated in Miklosich’s
article 105
II. Critical remarks 110
Biographical Note 119
A LECTURE
1. The invitation to lecture extended to me by the Law Society was the
more binding as it gave expression in strong terms to a conviction
which, unfortunately, seems on the point of falling into abeyance.
Proposals for a reform of legal studies have been heard (and they are
even said to have proceeded from university circles) which can only mean
that the roots of jurisprudence deeply implanted as they are in the
spheres of ethics and national history may be severed, without the
organism itself suffering any vital injury.
As regards history, this counsel is to me, I confess, utterly
inexplicable; in respect of philosophy, I can excuse it only on the
ground that the men who at present occupy the chairs in the legal
faculty have taken a deep and gloomy impression of the mistakes of a
period which has lately passed away. A personal reproach may therefore
well be spared them. Yet indeed such suggestions were every bit as wise
as would be the case if a medical faculty were to propose to erase from
their plan of obligatory studies zoology, physics and chemistry.
If Leibnitz in his _Vita a se ipso lineata_, speaking of himself, says:
“I found that my earlier studies in history and philosophy lightened
materially my study of law,” and if, as in his _Specimen difficultatis
in jure_, deploring the prejudices of contemporary jurists, he exclaims:
“Oh! that those who busy themselves with the study of law would throw
aside their contempt of philosophy and see that without philosophy most
of the questions of their jus form a labyrinth without issue!” what
indeed would he say were he to rise again to-day, to these retrograde
reform movements?
2. The worthy President of the Society, who has retained such a lively
and wide sense of the real scientific needs of his profession, expressed
to me his own special wishes respecting the theme to be chosen. The
question as to the existence of a natural right was, he said, a subject
which enjoyed an exceptional interest with the members of the Law
Society; and he himself was anxious to learn what attitude I would adopt
with regard to the views there expressed by Ihering some years ago.[1]
I consented gladly, and have therefore designated as the subject of my
lecture the natural sanction for law and morality, wishing thereby, at
the same time, to indicate in what sense alone I believe in a natural
right.
3. For a two-fold meaning may be associated with the term “natural”:--
(1) It may mean as much as “given by nature,” “innate,” in
contradistinction to what has been acquired during historical
development either by deduction or by experience.
(2) It may mean, in contradistinction to what is determined by the
arbitrary will of a dictator, the rules which, in and for
themselves and in virtue of their nature are recognized as right
and binding.
Ihering rejects natural right in either of these meanings.[2] I, for my
part, agree as thoroughly with him regarding the one meaning as I differ
from him regarding the other.
4. I agree completely with Ihering when, following the example of John
Locke, he denies all innate moral principles.
Further, like him, I believe neither in the grotesque _jus naturae_,
i.e. _quod natura ipsa omnia animalia docuit_, nor in a _jus gentium_,
in a right which, as the Roman jurists defined it, is recognized as a
natural law of reason by the universal agreement of all nations.
It is not necessary to have gone deeply into zoology and physiology in
order to see that we can no longer use the animal world as a criterion
for the setting up of ethical standards, even if one is not disposed to
go so far as Rokitansky in pronouncing protoplasma, with its aggressive
character, an unrighteous and evil principle.
As to a common code of right for all nations, such a belief was a
delusion which might hold good in the antique world; in modern times
when the ethnographical horizon has been extended, and the customs of
barbarous races drawn upon for comparison, these laws can no longer be
recognized as a product of nature, but only as a product of culture
common to the more advanced nations.
As regards all this, therefore, I am in agreement with Ihering; I am
also substantially in agreement with him when he asserts that there have
been times without any trace of ethical knowledge and ethical feeling;
at any rate without anything of the kind that was commonly accepted.
Indeed I acknowledge unhesitatingly that this state of things continued
even when larger communities under state government had been
constituted. When Ihering, in support of this view, points to Greek
mythology with its gods and goddesses destitute of moral thought and
feeling, and maintains that, by the lives of the gods, the life of
mankind in the period in which these myths took shape may be
interpreted,[3] he does but use a method of proof which Aristotle has
already employed in a similar manner in his _Politics_.[4] This also
must therefore be conceded him, and we shall, on this ground, no longer
deny that the earliest political laws supported by penal sanction were
established without the help of any feeling of right founded upon moral
insight. There are, therefore, no natural moral laws and legal precepts
in the sense that they are given by nature herself, that they are
innate; in this respect, Ihering’s views have our entire approval.
5. We have now to meet the second and far more important question: Do
there exist truths concerning morality, taught by nature herself, and is
there moral truth, independent of all ecclesiastical, political, in fact
every kind of social authority? Is there a natural moral law which, in
its nature, is universally and incontestably valid for men of every
place and time, valid indeed for every kind of thinking and sentient
being; and does the knowledge of it lie within the realm of our mental
faculties? Here we are at the point where I join issue with Ihering. To
this question, which Ihering answers in the negative, I return a decided
affirmative. Which of us is here in the right our present inquiry into
the natural sanction for law and morality will, I hope, make clear.
At any rate, the decision as to the former question, whatever Ihering[5]
himself may think to the contrary, does not in any way prejudge the
latter. Innate prejudices do exist; these are natural in the former
sense, but they lack natural sanction; whether true or false, they
possess no immediate validity. On the other hand, there are many
propositions recognized after a natural manner, which are incontestably
certain and have universal validity for all thinking beings, which,
however, as, for example, the Pythagorean theorem are anything but
innate, else the blissful first discoverer had never offered his
hecatomb to the god.
6. In what has been said I have made it sufficiently evident how, when I
speak of natural sanction, I understand the notion of sanction. Yet it
will be well to linger a moment in order to exclude another inadequate
view.
“Sanction” signifies “making fast.” Now a law may be fixed in a double
sense:
(1) It may be fixed in the sense of becoming law, as when a
proposed law receives validity by ratification on the part of the
highest legislative authority.
(2) In the sense of being rendered more effectual by attaching to
it positive punishments, perhaps also rewards.
It is in this latter sense that sanction was spoken of by writers of
antiquity, as when Cicero[6] says of the leges Porciae: “Neque quicquam
praeter sanctionem attulerunt novi”; and Ulpian:[7] “Interdum in
sanctionibus adijicitur, ut qui ibi aliquid commisit, capite puniatur.”
It is in the former sense that the expression is more usual in modern
times; a law is said to be “sanctioned” when it secures validity by
receiving confirmation at the hands of the highest authority.
Manifestly sanction in the second sense presupposes sanction in the
first, which sanction is the more essential, since, without it, the law
would not truly be law at all. Such a natural sanction therefore is of
the last necessity if anything whatever is to bear by nature the stamp
of law or morality.
7. If we now compare with such a view what has been said by philosophers
concerning the natural sanction for morality, it will be easily seen how
often they have overlooked its essential character.
8. Many think that they have discovered a natural sanction in respect of
a certain line of conduct when they have shown that a certain feeling of
compulsion so to act is developed within the individual. Since every
one, for example, renders services to others in order to receive similar
services in return, there at last arises a habit of performing such
services even in cases where there has been no thought of recompense.[8]
This it is which is thought to constitute the sanction for love of our
neighbour.
But this view is entirely erroneous. Such a feeling of compulsion is
certainly a force driving to action, but it is assuredly not a sanction
conferring validity. Besides, the inclination to vice develops according
to the same law of habit, and exercises, as an impulse, the most
unbounded sway. The miser’s passion which leads him, in his desire of
amassing riches, to submit to the heaviest sacrifices and to commit the
most extreme cruelties, certainly constitutes no sanction for his
conduct.
9. Again, motives of hope or fear that a certain manner of behaviour,
as, for example, regard for the general good, will render us agreeable
or disagreeable to other and more powerful beings, these it has often
been sought to regard as a sanction for such conduct.[9] But it is
manifest that the most cringing cowardice, the most servile flattery
might then boast a natural sanction. As a matter of fact virtue shines
out most brightly where neither threats nor entreaties are able to
divert her from the right path.
10. Some speak of an education in which man, as belonging to an order of
living beings accustomed to live in society, receives from those by whom
he is surrounded. An injunction is repeatedly laid upon him, the
command: “You ought.” It lies in the nature of things that certain
actions are very frequently and generally required of him. There is thus
formed an association between his mode of action and the thought: “You
ought.” And so it may happen that he may come to regard, as the source
of this command, the society in which he lives, or even something
vaguely conceived to be higher than an individual, that is to say,
something regarded in a way as superhuman. The “ought” associated by him
with such a being would then constitute the sanction of conscience.[10]
In this case the natural sanction would then consist in the naturally
developed belief in the command of a more powerful will.
But it is manifest that such a belief in the command of a more powerful
being contains, as yet, nothing which deserves the name of a sanction.
Such a conviction is shared by one who knows himself to be at the mercy
of a tyrant or of a robber horde. Whether he obey, or bid defiance, the
command itself contains nothing able to give to the required act a
sanction similar to that of the conscience. Even if he obey he does so
through fear, not because he regards the command as one based on right.
The thought, therefore, that an act is commanded by some one does not
constitute a natural sanction. In the case of every command issued by an
external will the question arises: Is such a command authorized or is
it not? Neither is there any reference here to a command enforced by a
still higher power enjoining obedience to the former. For then the
question would again reappear, and we should proceed from one command to
another enjoining obedience to the former, and from that to a third
enjoining in like manner obedience to the second, and so on _ad infin_.
Just as in the case of the feeling of compulsion, and in that of the
fear or hope of recompense, so also the thought of the command of an
external will cannot possibly be the sanction for law and morality.
11. But there are also commands in an essentially different sense;
commands in the sense in which we speak of the commands of logic
respecting our judgments and conclusions. We are not here concerned with
the will of logic, since a will logic manifestly has not, nor with the
will of the logician, to which we have in no way sworn allegiance. The
laws of logic are naturally valid rules of judging, that is to say, we
are obliged to conform to them, since conformity to these rules ensures
certainty in our judgments, whereas judgments diverging from these rules
are liable to error. What we therefore mean is a natural superiority
which thought-processes in conformity with law have over such as are
contrary to law. So also in ethics, we are not concerned with the
command of an external will but rather with a natural preference similar
to that in logic, and the law founded on that preference. This has been
emphasized not only by Kant but also by the majority of great thinkers
before him. Nevertheless there are still many--unfortunately even among
the adherents of the empirical school to which I myself belong--by whom
this fact has neither been rightly understood nor appreciated.
12. In what then lies this special superiority which gives to morality
its natural sanction? Some regarded it as, in a sense, external, they
believed its superiority to consist in beauty of appearance. The Greeks
called noble and virtuous conduct Τὀ καλὁν, the beautiful, and the
perfect man of honour καλοκἀγαθός; though none of the philosophers of
antiquity set up this aesthetic view as a criterion. On the other hand,
David Hume[11], among modern thinkers, has spoken of a moral sense of
the beautiful which acts as arbiter between the moral and the immoral,
while still more recently the German philosopher, Herbart,[12] has
subordinated ethics to aesthetics.
Now I do not deny that the aspect of virtue is more agreeable than that
of moral perversity. But I cannot concede that in this consists the only
and essential superiority of ethical conduct. It is rather an inner
superiority which distinguishes the moral from the immoral will, in the
same way that it is an inner superiority which distinguishes true and
self evident judgments and conclusions from prejudices and fallacies.
Here also it cannot be denied that a prejudice, a fallacy has in it
something unbeautiful, often indeed something ridiculously
narrow-minded, which makes the person so scantily favoured by Minerva
appear in a most disadvantageous attitude; yet who, on this account,
would class the rules of logic among those of aesthetics, or make logic
a branch of aesthetics?[13] No, the real logical superiority is no mere
aesthetic appearance but a certain inward rightness which then carries
with it a certain superiority of appearance. It will, therefore, be
also a certain inward rightness which constitutes the essential
superiority of one particular act of will over another of an opposite
character; in which consists the superiority of the moral over the
immoral.
The belief in this superiority is an ethical motive; the knowledge of it
is the right ethical motive, the sanction which gives to ethical law
permanence and validity.
13. But are we capable of attaining to such knowledge? Here lies the
difficulty which philosophers have for a long time sought in vain to
solve. Even to Kant it seemed as though none had found the right end of
the thread by means of which to unravel the skein. This the Categorical
Imperative was to do. It resembled however, rather the sword drawn by
Alexander to cut the Gordian knot. With such a palpable fiction the
matter is not to be set right.[14]
14. In order to gain an insight into the true origin of ethical
knowledge it will be necessary to take some account of the results of
later researches in the sphere of descriptive psychology. The limited
time at my disposal makes it necessary for me to set forth my views very
briefly, and I have reason to fear that by its conciseness the
completeness of the statement may suffer. Yet it is just here that I ask
your special attention, in order that what is most essential to a right
understanding of the problem be not overlooked.
15. The subject of the moral and immoral is termed the will. What we
will is, in many cases, a means to an end. In that case we will this end
also, and even in a higher degree than the means. The end itself may
often be the means to a further end; in a far reaching plan there may
often appear a whole series of ends, the one being always connected in
subordination to the other as a means. There must be present, however,
one end, which is desired above all others and for its own sake; without
this essential and final end all incentive would be lacking, and this
would involve the absurdity of aiming without a goal at which to aim.
16. The means we employ in order to gain an end may be manifold, may be
right or wrong. They are right when they are really adapted to the
attainment of the end.
The ends, also, even the most essential and final ends, may be manifold.
It is a mistake which appeared especially in the eighteenth century,
nowadays the tendency is more and more to abandon it, that every one
seeks the same end, namely, his own highest possible pleasure.[15]
Whoever can believe that the martyr facing with full consciousness the
most terrible tortures for the sake of his conviction--and there were
some who had no hope of recompense hereafter--was thus inspired by a
desire after the greatest possible pleasure, such a man must have either
a very defective sense of the facts of the case, or, indeed, have lost
all measure of the intensities of pleasure and pain.
This, therefore, is certain: even final ends are manifold, between them
hovers the choice, which, since the final end is for everything the
determining principle, is of the most importance. What ought I to strive
after? Which end is the right one, which wrong? This, as Aristotle long
ago declared, is the essential, the cardinal question in ethics.[16]
17. Which end is right, for which should our choice declare itself?
Where the end is fixed and it is merely a question as to the choice of
means, we reply: Choose means which will certainly attain the end. Where
it is a question as to the choice of ends we would say: Choose an end
which reason regards as really attainable. This answer is, however,
insufficient, many a thing attainable is rather to be shunned than
sought after; choose the best among attainable ends, this alone is the
adequate answer.[17]
But the answer is obscure; what do we mean by “the best”? what can be
called “good” at all? and how can we attain to the knowledge that one
thing is good and better than another?
18. In order to answer this question satisfactorily, we must, above all,
inquire into the origin of the conception of the good, which lies, like
the origin of all our conceptions, in certain concrete impressions.[18]
We possess impressions with _physical_ content. These exhibit to us
sensuous qualities localized in space. Out of this sphere arise the
conceptions of colour, sound, space and many others. The conception of
the good, however, has not here its origin. It is easily recognizable
that the conception of the good like that of the true, which, as having
affinity, is rightly placed side by side with it, derives its origin
from concrete impressions with _psychical_ content.
19. The common feature of everything psychical consists in what has been
called by a very unfortunate and ambiguous term, consciousness; i.e. in
a subject-attitude; in what has been termed an _intentional_ relation to
something which, though perhaps not real, is none the less an inner
object of perception[19] No hearing without the heard, no believing
without the believed, no hoping without the hoped for, no striving
without the striven for, no joy without the enjoyed, and so with other
mental phenomena.
20. The sensuous qualities which are given in our impressions with
physical content exhibit manifold differences. So also do the
intentional relations given in our impressions with psychical content.
And, as in the former case, the number of the senses is determined by
reference to those distinctions between sensuous qualities which are
most fundamental (called by Helmholtz distinctions of modality), so in
the latter case the number of fundamental classes of mental phenomena is
fixed by reference to the most fundamental distinctions of intentional
relation.[20]
In this way we distinguish three fundamental classes. Descartes in his
_Meditations_[21] was the first to exhibit these rightly and completely;
but sufficient attention has not been paid to his observations, and they
were soon quite forgotten, until in recent times, and independently of
him, these were again discovered. Nowadays they may lay claim to
sufficient verification.[22]
The first fundamental class is that of ideas (Vorstellungen) in the
widest sense of the term (Descartes’ ideae). This class embraces
concrete impressions, those for example which are given to us through
the senses, as well as every abstract conception.
The second fundamental class is judgment (Descartes’ judicia). Previous
to Descartes these were thought of as forming, along with ideas, _one_
fundamental class, and since Descartes’ time philosophy has fallen once
more into this error. This view regarded judgment as consisting
essentially in a combination or relation of ideas to one another. This
was a gross misconception of its true nature. We may combine or relate
ideas as we please, as in speaking of a golden mountain, the father of a
hundred children, a friend of science; but as long as nothing further
takes place there can be no judgment. Equally true is it that an idea
always forms the basis of a judgment, as also of a desire; but it is not
true that, in a judgment, there are always several ideas related to one
another as subject and predicate. This is certainly the case when I say:
“God is just,” though not when I say: “There is a God.”
What, therefore, distinguishes those cases where I have not only an idea
but also a judgment? There is here added to the act of presentation a
second intentional relation to the object given in presentation, a
relation either of recognition or rejection. Whoever says: “God,” gives
expression to the idea of God; whoever says: “There is a God,” gives
expression to a belief in him.
I must not linger here, and can only assure you that this, if anything,
admits to-day of no denial. From the philological standpoint Miklosich
confirms the results of psychological analysis.[23]
The third fundamental class consists of the emotions in the widest sense
of the term, from the simple forms of inclination or disinclination in
respect of the mere idea, to joy and sadness arising from conviction and
to the most complicated phenomena as to the choice of ends and means.
Aristotle long since included these under the term Ὄρεζις. Descartes
says this class embraces the _voluntates sive affectus_. As in the
second fundamental class the intentional relation was one of recognition
or rejection, so in the third class it is one of love or hate, (or, as
it might be equally well expressed,) a form of pleasing or displeasing.
Loving, pleasing, hating, displeasing, these are given in the simplest
forms of inclination or disinclination, in victorious joy as well as in
despairing sorrow, in hope and fear, and in every form of voluntary
activity. “Plait-il?” asks the Frenchman; “es hat Gott gefallen,” one
reads in (German) announcements of a death; while the “Placet,” written
when confirming an act, is the expression of the determining fiat of
will.[24]
21. In comparing these three classes of phenomena it is found that the
two last mentioned show an analogy which, in the first, is absent. There
exists, that is, an opposition of intentional relation; in the case of
judgment, recognition or rejection, in the case of the emotions, love or
hate, pleasure or displeasure. The idea shows nothing of a similar
nature. I can, it is true, conceive of opposites, as for example white
and black, but whether I believe in this black or deny it, I can only
represent it to myself in one way; the representation does not alter
with the opposite act of judgment; nor again, in the case of the
feelings, when I change my attitude towards it according as it pleases
or displeases me.
22. From this fact follows an important conclusion. Concerning acts of
the first class none can be called either right or wrong. In the case of
the second class on the other hand, one of the two opposed modes of
relation, affirmation and rejection, is right the other wrong, as logic
has long affirmed. The same naturally holds good of the third class. Of
the two opposed modes of relation, love and hate, pleasure and
displeasure, in each case one is right the other wrong.
23. We have now reached the place where the notions of good and bad,
along with the notions of the true and the false which we have been
seeking, have their source. We call anything true when the recognition
related to it is right.[25] We call something good when the love
relating to it is right. That which can be loved with a right love, that
which is worthy of love, is good in the widest sense of the term.
24. Since everything which pleases does so, either for its own sake, or
for the sake of something else which is thereby produced, conserved or
rendered probable, we must distinguish between a primary and a secondary
good, i.e. what is good in itself, and what is good on account of
something else, as is specially the case in the sphere of the useful.
What is good in itself is the good in the narrower sense. It alone can
stand side by side with the true. For everything which is true is true
in itself, even when only mediately known. When we speak of good later
we shall therefore mean, whenever the contrary is not expressly
asserted, that which is good in itself.
In this way we have, I hope, made clear the notion of good.[26]
25. There follows now the still more important question: How are we to
know that anything is good? Ought we to say that whatever is loved and
is capable of being loved is worthy of love and is good? This is
manifestly untrue, and it is almost inconceivable that some have fallen
into this error. One loves what another hates, and, in accordance with a
well known psychological law already previously referred to it often
happens that what at first was desired merely as a means to something
else, comes at last from habit to be desired for its own sake. In such a
way the miser is irrationally led to heap up riches and even to
sacrifice himself for their sake. The actual presence of love,
therefore, by no means testifies unconditionally to the worthiness of
the object to be loved, just as affirmation is no unconditional proof of
what is true.
It might even be said that the first statement is even more _evident_
than the second, since it can hardly happen that he who affirms anything
at the same time holds it to be false, whereas it frequently happens
that a person, even while loving something, confesses himself that it is
unworthy of his love:
“Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.”
How then are we to know that anything is good?
26. The matter appears enigmatical, but the enigma finds a very easy
solution.
As a preliminary step to answering the question, let us turn our glance
from the good to the true.
Not everything which we affirm is on this account true. Our judgments
are frequently quite blind. Many a prejudice which we drank in, as it
were, with our mother’s milk presents to us the appearance of an
irrefutable principle. To other equally blind judgments all men have, by
nature, a kind of instinctive impulsion, as, for example, in trusting
blindly to the so-called external impression, or to a recent
remembrance. What is so recognized may often be true, but it may equally
well be false since the affirming judgment contains nothing which gives
to it the character of rightness.
Such, however, is the case in certain other judgments, which in
contradistinction to these blind judgments may be termed “obvious,”
“self-evident” judgments; as, for example, the Principle of
Contradiction, and every so-called inner perception which informs me
that I am now experiencing sensations of sound or colour, or think and
will this or that.
In what, then, does the distinction between these lower and higher forms
of judgment essentially consist? Is it a distinction in the degree of
belief, or is it something else? It is not a distinction in the degree
of belief; the instinctive blind assumptions arising from habit are
often not in the slightest degree weakened by doubts, and we are unable
to get rid of some even when we have already seen their logical falsity.
But such assumptions are the results of blind impulse, they have nothing
of the clearness peculiar to the higher forms of judgment. Were the
question to be raised: “What is then your reason for believing that?” no
rational answer would be forthcoming. It is quite true that if the same
inquiry were to be made respecting the immediately evident judgment here
also no reason could be given, but in face of the clearness of the
judgment the inquiry would appear utterly beside the point, in fact
ridiculous. Every one experiences for himself the difference between
these two classes of judgment, and in the reference to this experience,
consists, as in the case of every conception, the final explanation.
27. All this is, in its essentials, universally known,[27] and is
contested only by a few, and then not without great inconsistency. Far
fewer have noticed an analogous distinction between the higher and lower
forms of the feelings of pleasure and displeasure.
Our pleasure or displeasure is often quite like blind judgment, only an
instinctive or habitual impulse. This is so in the case of the miser’s
pleasure in piling up, in those powerful feelings of pleasure and pain
connected in men and animals alike with the appearance of certain
sensuous qualities, moreover, as is especially noticeable in tastes,
different species and even different individuals, are affected in a
quite contrary manner.
Many philosophers, and among them very considerable thinkers, have
regarded only that mode of pleasure which is peculiar to the lower
phenomena of the class, and have entirely overlooked the fact that there
exists a pleasure and a displeasure of a higher kind. David Hume, for
example, betrays almost in every word that he has absolutely no idea of
the existence of this higher class.[28] How general this oversight has
been may be judged from the fact that language has no common name for
it.[29] Yet the fact is undeniable and we propose now to elucidate it by
a few examples.
We have already said that we are endowed by nature with a pleasure for
some tastes and an antipathy for others, both of which are purely
instinctive. We also naturally take pleasure in clear insight,
displeasure in error or ignorance. “All men,” says Aristotle in the
beautiful introductory words of his _Metaphysics_,[30] “naturally desire
knowledge.” This desire is an example which will serve our purpose. It
is a pleasure of that higher form which is analogous to _self-evidence_
in the sphere of judgment. In our species it is universal. Were there
another species which, while having different preferences from us in
respect of sensible qualities, were opposed to us in loving error for
its own sake and hating insight, then assuredly we should not in the
latter as in the former case say: that it was a matter of taste, “de
gustibus non est disputandum”; rather we should here answer decisively
that such love and hatred were fundamentally absurd, that such a species
hated what was undeniably good, and loved what was undeniably bad in
itself. Now why, where the feeling of compulsion is equally strong, do
we answer differently in the one case than in the other? The answer is
simple. In the former case the feeling of compulsion was an instinctive
impulse; in the latter the natural feeling of pleasure is a higher love,
having the character of rightness.[31] We therefore notice when we
ourselves have such a feeling, that its object is not merely loved and
lovable, its opposite hated and unlovable, but also that the one is
worthy of love, the other worthy of hatred, and therefore that one is
good, the other bad.
Another example. As we prefer insight to error, so also, generally
speaking, we prefer joy (unless indeed it be joy in what is bad) to
sadness. Were there beings among whom the reverse held good, we should
regard such conduct as perverse, and rightly so. Here too it is because
our love and our hatred are qualified as right.
A third example is found in feeling itself so far as it is right and has
the character of rightness. As was the case with the rightness and
evidence of the judgment, so also the rightness and higher character of
the feelings are also reckoned as good, while love of the bad is itself
bad.[32]
In order that, in the sphere of ideas, we may not leave the
corresponding experiences unmentioned: here in the same way every idea
is found to be something good in itself, and that with every enlargement
in the realm of our ideas, quite apart from what of good or bad may
result therefrom, the good within us is increased.[33]
Here then, and from such experiences of love qualified as right, arises
within us the knowledge that anything is truly and unmistakably good in
the full extent to which we are capable of such knowledge.[34]
This last clause is added advisedly; for we must not, of course, conceal
from ourselves the fact that we have no guarantee that everything which
is good will arouse within us a love with the character of rightness.
Wherever this is not the case our criterion fails, and the good then, so
far as our knowledge and practical account of it are concerned, is as
much as non-existent.[35]
28. It is, however, not _one_ but many things which we thus recognize as
good. And so the questions remain: In that which is good, and especially
in what, as good, is attainable, which is the better? and further, which
is the highest practical good? so that it may become the standard for
our actions.
29. We must first inquire: When is anything better than anything else
and recognized by us as better? and what is meant by “the better” at
all?