CHAPTER XIX

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.

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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.

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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.

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