Chapter 12 Moral Imagination
Chapter 12 Moral Imagination
(Darwinism
and Morality)
[1] A free spirit
acts according to
his impulses,
that is, according to
intuitions
selected
from the totality
of his world
of ideas by thinking.
For an unfree spirit,
the reason
why
he singles out
a particular intuition
from his world
of ideas
in order to make it
the basis
of an action,
lies
in the world
of percepts
given
to him,
that is,
in his past
experiences.
He recalls,
before coming
to a decision,
what someone else
has done
or recommended
as suitable
in a comparable case,
or
what
God
has commanded to be done
in such a case,
and so on,
and
he acts accordingly.
For a free spirit,
these prior conditions
are not
the only impulses
to action.
He makes
a completely first-hand decision.
What
others
have done in such
a case
worries him
as little
as what
they have decreed.
He has purely ideal
reasons
which
lead him
to select
from the sum
of his concepts
just one
in particular,
and
then
to translate
it
into action.
But
his action will belong
to perceptible reality.
What
he achieves
will thus
be identical
with a quite
definite content
of perception.
The concept
will have
to realize itself
in a single concrete occurrence.
As a concept
it will not be able
to contain
this particular event.
It will refer
to the event
only in the same way
as a concept
is
in general
related
to a percept,
for example,
the concept
of the lion
to a particular lion.
The link
between concept
and percept
is the mental picture.
For the unfree spirit,
this link
is given
from the outset.
Motives
are
present
in his consciousness
from the outset
in the form
of mental pictures.
Whenever
there is
something
he wants
to carry out,
he does it
as he
has seen it done,
or
as he
has been told
to do
it
in the particular case.
Hence
authority
works
best
through examples,
that is, through providing quite
definite
particular actions
for the consciousness
of the unfree spirit.
A Christian
acts not so
much according to the teaching
as according to
the example
of the Savior.
Rules
have
less
value
for acting positively
than
for refraining
from certain actions.
Laws
take on
the form of general concepts only
when
they forbid actions,
but not
when
they prescribe them.
Laws concerning
what
he ought to do
must be given
to the unfree spirit
in quite concrete form:
Clean the street
in front
of your door!
Pay your taxes,
amounting
to the sum
here given,
to the Tax Office
at X!
and so on.
Conceptual form
belongs
to laws
for inhibiting actions:
Thou shalt not steal!
Thou shalt not commit
adultery!
These laws, too,
influence
the unfree spirit
only by means
of a concrete mental
picture,
for example,
that
of the appropriate secular punishment,
or the pangs
of conscience,
or eternal damnation,
and so on.
[2] Whenever
the impulse for an action
is
present
in a general conceptual form
(for example,
Thou shalt do good
to thy fellow men!
Thou shalt live
so that
thou best promotest
thy welfare!)
then
for each particular
case the concrete mental
picture
of the action
(the relation
of the concept
to a content
of perception)
must first be found.
For the free
spirit
who is impelled
by no example,
nor fear
of punishment
or the like,
this translation
of the concept
into a mental picture
is always necessary.
|
| |
[3] Man produces concrete mental pictures
from the sum
of his ideas
chiefly by means
of the imagination.
Therefore
what the free spirit
needs in order to realize his ideas,
in order to be effective,
is moral imagination.
This is the source
of the free spirit's action.
Therefore it
is only men
with moral
imagination
who are,
strictly speaking,
morally productive.
Those
who merely preach morality,
that is,
people
who merely spin
out moral rules
without being able
to condense them
into concrete mental
pictures,
are morally unproductive.
They are like
those critics
who can explain very intelligibly
what
a work of art
ought to be like,
but
who are themselves incapable
of even
the slightest productive effort.
|
| |
[4] Moral imagination,
in order to realize
its mental picture,
must set
to work
in a definite sphere
of percepts.
Human action
does not create
percepts,
but transforms
already existing percepts
and gives them
a new form.
In order to be able
to transform
a definite object
of perception,
or a sum
of such objects,
in accordance
with a moral mental
picture,
one must have grasped
the principle
at work
within the percept picture,
that is,
the way it
has hitherto worked,
to which
one wants to give
a new form
or a new direction.
Further,
it is necessary
to discover
the procedure
by which
it is possible
to change
the given principle
into a new one.
This part
of effective moral
activity
depends
on knowledge
of the particular world
of phenomena
with which
one is concerned.
We shall,
therefore,
look for it
in some branch
of learning
in general.
Moral action,
then,
presupposes,
in addition
to the faculty
of having moral ideas
(moral intuition)
and moral imagination,
the ability
to transform
the world
of percepts
without violating
the natural laws
by which
these are connected.
This ability
is
moral technique.
It can be learnt
in the same sense
in which any kind
of knowledge
can be learnt.
Generally speaking,
men are
better able
to find
concepts
for the existing world
than
to evolve productively,
out of their imagination,
the not-yet-existing actions
of the future.
Hence
it is perfectly possible
for men
without moral
imagination
to receive
such mental pictures
from others,
and
to embody them skillfully
into the actual world.
Conversely,
it may happen
that men
with moral
imagination
lack technical skill,
and must make use of other
men
for the realization
of their mental pictures.
|
| |
[5] In so far
as knowledge
of the objects
within our sphere
of action
is necessary
for acting morally,
our action
depends
upon such knowledge.
What
we are concerned
with here
are laws
of nature.
We are dealing
with natural science,
not ethics.
|
| |
[6]
Moral imagination
and the faculty of having
moral ideas can become objects
of knowledge
only
after they
have been produced
by the individual.
By then,
however,
they no longer
regulate life,
for
they have already regulated it.
They must now be regarded
as effective causes,
like all others
(they are purposes
only
for the subject).
We therefore deal with them
as with a natural history
of moral ideas.
|
| |
[7] Ethics
as a science
that sets standards,
in addition
to this,
cannot exist.
|
| |
[8] Some people
have wanted
to maintain
the standard-setting (normative) character
of moral laws,
at least
in so far
as they
have understood ethics
in the sense
of dietetics,
which deduces general rules
from the organism's requirements
in life
as a basis
for influencing
the body
in a particular way
(e.g.,
Paulsen,
in his System der Ethik).
This comparison
is false,
because
our moral life
is not comparable
with the life
of the organism.
The functioning
of the organism
occurs
without any action
on our part;
we come upon
its laws
in the world ready-made
and can therefore seek them
and apply them
when found.
Moral laws,
on the other hand,
are first created
by us.
We cannot apply them until
we have created them.
The error
arises
through the fact
that,
as regards their content,
moral laws
are not newly created
at every moment,
but are inherited.
Those
that we
have taken over
from our ancestors
appear
to be given,
like the natural laws
of the organism.
But
a later generation
will certainly not be justified
in applying them
as if they
were dietetic rules.
For
they apply
to individuals
and not,
as natural laws do,
to specimens
of a general type.
Considered
as an organism,
I am such
a generic specimen and I
shall live
in accordance
with nature
if
I apply the natural laws
of my general type
to my particular case;
as a moral being,
I am an individual
and
have laws
of my very own.
[9] This view
appears
to contradict
the fundamental doctrine
of modern
natural science known
as the theory
of evolution.
But
it only appears
to do so.
Evolution
is understood
to mean
the real development
of the later
out of the earlier
in accordance
with natural law.
In the organic world,
evolution
is understood
to mean
that the later (more perfect)
organic forms
are real descendants
of the earlier (imperfect) forms,
and
have developed
from them in accordance
with natural laws.
The adherents
of the theory
of organic evolution ought
really to picture to themselves
that there was once
a time
on our earth
when a being
could have followed
with his own
eyes the gradual development
of reptiles
out of proto-amniotes,
had
he been able
to be there
at the time
as an observer,
endowed
with a sufficiently long span
of life.
Similarly,
evolutionists
ought to picture
to themselves
that a being
could have watched
the development
of the solar system
out of the Kant-Laplace
primordial nebula,
had
he been able
to remain
in a suitable spot out
in the cosmic world ether
during that infinitely long time.
That
with such mental pictures,
the nature
of both
the proto-amniotes
and the Kant-Laplace cosmic nebula
would have
to be thought
of differently from the way
the materialist thinkers do,
is here irrelevant.
But
no evolutionist should ever dream
of maintaining
that
he could get
the concept
of the reptile,
with all
its characteristics,
out of his concept
of the proto-amniotic animal,
if he
had never seen
a reptile.
Just
as little would
it be possible
to derive
the solar system
from the concept
of the Kant-Laplace nebula,
if this
concept of a primordial nebula
is thought of
as being directly determined only
by the percept
of the primordial nebula.
In other words,
if the evolutionist
is to think consistently,
he is bound to maintain
that later phases
of evolution
do actually result
from earlier ones,
and
that once
we have been given
the concept
of the imperfect
and
that
of the perfect,
we can see the connection;
but
on no account
should
he agree
that the concept attained
from the earlier is,
in itself,
sufficient
for evolving
the later
out of it.
From this
it follows for ethics
that,
though
we can certainly see
the connection
between later moral concepts
and earlier,
we cannot get even
a single new moral idea
out of the earlier ones.
As a moral being,
the individual
produces his own content.
For the student
of ethics,
the content thus produced
is just
as much
a given thing as reptiles
are a given thing
for the scientist.
Reptiles
have developed
out of proto-amniotes,
but
the scientist cannot get
the concept
of reptiles
out of the concept
of the proto-amniotes.
Later moral ideas
evolve out of earlier,
but
the student of ethics
cannot get
the moral concepts
of a later civilization
out of those
of an earlier one.
The confusion
arises because,
as scientists,
we start
with the facts
before us,
and
then
get to know them,
whereas
in moral action
we ourselves first
create the facts
which
we
then get to know.
In the process
of evolution
of the moral world order
we accomplish
something that,
at a lower level,
is accomplished
by nature:
we alter
something perceptible.
The ethical standard thus
cannot start,
like a law
of nature,
by being known,
but
only by
being created.
Only when it
is there,
can it become
an object
of knowledge.
|
| |
[10] But can
we not
then make
the old
a measure
for the new?
Is not every man
compelled
to measure
the products
of his moral imagination
by the standard
of traditional moral doctrines?
For something
that should reveal itself
as morally productive,
this would be just
as absurd
as to want
to measure
a new form
in nature
by an old one
and say that,
because reptiles
do not conform
to the proto-amniotes,
they are
an unjustifiable (pathological) form.
|
| |
[11] Ethical individualism,
then,
is not
in opposition
to a rightly understood theory
of evolution,
but follows directly
from it.
Haeckel's genealogical tree,
from protozoa
up to man
as an organic being,
ought to be capable
of being continued
without an interruption
of natural law
and without a break
in the uniformity
of evolution,
up to
the individual
as a being that is moral
in a definite sense.
But
on no account
could the nature
of a descendant species
be deduced from the nature
of an ancestral one.
However true it
is
that the moral ideas
of the individual
have perceptibly developed out of those
of his ancestors,
it is equally true
that the individual
is morally barren
unless he
has moral ideas
of his own.
|
| |
[12] The same ethical individualism
that
I have developed
on the basis
of views
already given
could also be derived
from the theory
of evolution.
The final conviction
would be
the same;
only the path
by which
it was reached
would be different.
|
| |
[13] The appearance
of completely new moral ideas
through moral
imagination is,
for the theory
of evolution,
no more miraculous
than the development
of a new animal species
out of an old one ;
only,
as a monistic view
of the world,
this theory
must reject,
in morality
as in science,
every transcendental (metaphysical)
influence,
every influence
that is merely inferred
and cannot be experienced ideally.
In doing so,
the theory
follows
the same principle that guides it
when
it seeks
the causes
of new organic forms
without invoking
the interference
of an extra-mundane Being
who produces every new species,
in accordance
with a new creative thought,
by supernatural influence.
Just
as monism
has
no use
for supernatural creative
thoughts
in explaining
living organisms,
so
it is equally impossible
for it
to derive
the moral world order
from causes
which
do not lie
within the experienceable world.
It cannot admit
that the moral nature
of will
is completely accounted
for
by being traced
back
to a continuous supernatural influence
upon moral life
(divine government
of the world
from the outside),
or
to an act
of revelation
at a particular moment
in history
(giving
of the ten commandments),
or
to God's appearance
on the earth (as Christ).
What happens
to man,
| | | |
