As I indicated earlier, I am working on a piece re-examining the concept of Freedom, especially as it relates to the notion of "market" in economic theory. Because this piece is taking longer than I intended, I am posting some preliminary notes I had made on Schopenhauer's critique of Kantian ethics in "The Basis of Morality" or Grundprobleme der Ethik, which can be regarded as the philosophical groundwork for the de-struction of the Classical notion of Freedom, with its apotheosis in the Freiheit of Classical German Idealism vehemently chastised by Schopenhauer and later by Nietzsche as "astute theology". Cheers.
This
is not to deny the merits of philosophical speculation. But it is as foolish as
it is futile to believe that we can “ab-stract” or “asport” ourselves from the
materiality of life, from its immanence, and “transcend” it so as “to
com-prehend” it: - because the “com-prehension” oozes out of the
“trans-scension” (as Kierkegaard admonished Hegel – existence oozes out through
the meshes of his philosophical net). Schopenhauer returns to the
identification of metaphysics and ethics in the introduction to “The Basis”,
and in so doing he absorbs the latter into the former – precisely by taking
that “neutral” standpoint, by seeking to stand outside morality and therefore
outside the “corpor-reality” of being, of life. Nietzsche will flagellate him
not for this, but for re-smuggling the ethical concepts back into the
“immoralist” conception of the Will (cf ‘TotI’, part on “untimely thinker”); because
instead of “accepting Life”, Schop “the pessimist, the decadent, the nihilist”
recants his nihilism for the comfort of “sympathy” (Mitleid – “with-pain” or
“co-suffering”), an ethics akin to that of Christianity. What Nietzsche denies
is mostly this “renegade”, “apostatic” flight from nihilism, not pursuing it to
the end, not so much the notion of “the Will”, which returns as “Will to
Power”, which is the “acceptance” of the “World”, the affirmation of “Life”,
not its rejection and Entsagung, “renunciation”.
Schop. intimates from
the outset that “ethics” must be derived from “metaphysics”, as Kant prescribed
(Grndl.d.Met.d.Sittens).
His own Basis of
Morality
contains a vigorous attack upon the fundamental
principles
of Kant's ethical theory. According to him, Kant "founds . . .
his moral
principle not on any provable fact of consciousness,
such as an
inner natural disposition, nor yet upon any objective
relation of
things in the external world, . . . but on pure
Reason,
which ... is taken, not as it really and exclusively
is,—an
intellectual faculty of man,
— but as a
self-existent hypostatic
essence, yet
without the smallest authority."^
The second
Critique
inconsistently retains what was declared untenable
in the
'Transcendental Dialectic', by the obvious subterfuge of
raising the
speculative reason into a genus, and then deducing
from it a
second species, practical reason,—a procedure similar
to that
accounting for the origin of immaterial substance, and
as
inconsistent as it is useless in the solution of the ethical
problem.^
Through the road of knowledge, through understanding
and reason,
we can arrive at perception and conception
respectively;
but cognition is always restricted to phenomena,
the thing-in-itself is unknowable.
•G., Ill , pp. 510, 511;
Basis of Morality, tr. by A. B. Bullock, London ,
1903.
pp. 44, 45. For a fuller discussion of this problem,
cf. the writer's article on
"Schopenhauer's Criticism of Kant's Theory of
Ethics," The Philosophical
Review, Vol. XIX, No. 5, Sept., 1910, pp. 512-534-
2G.. Ill ,
pp. SI I ff.; Bullock, pp. 45 ff.
'C/. R. Behm, Vergleichung der kantischen und
schopenhauerischen Lehre in
Ansehung
der Kausalitdt, Heidelberg ,
1892, p. 39.
The “Grundprobleme der Ethik” opens with the Machiavelli-Hobbesian
distinction between what men “ought” to do and what they “actually” (wirklich)
do. The inability of Kant “to bridge the gap” between the Ding an sich and Pure
Reason, indeed the very “formal purity” of that Reason that could found its
essence only upon the postulate of an all-encompassing transcendental “Freedom”
at the end of the causal chain immanent to human intuition and the Verstand
“subject to rules” – this very “gap” or distinction (Unterschied) that Schop.
recognized as Kant’s “greatest contribution” to metaphysics can be “bridged”
only by the “force” (a fortiori) of human experience - the principle of sufficient reason, according
to which the fact that something exists is the very “ground” or “reason” for
its existence.
It is at this point that Schopenhauer makes what he
regards
as his own great contribution to philosophical
thought; here
it is that Schopenhauer's philosophy joins onto the
Kantian,
or rather springs from it as from its parent stem.^
"Upon
the path of
the idea one can never get beyond the idea; it is
a
rounded-off whole, and has in its own resources no clue leading
to the
nature of the thing in itself, which is toto genere different
•G., Ill , pp. 510,
511; Basis of Morality, tr. by A. B. Bullock, London , 1903.
pp. 44, 45. For a fuller discussion of this problem,
cf. the writer's article on
"Schopenhauer's Criticism of Kant's Theory of
Ethics," The Philosophical
Review, Vol. XIX, No. 5, Sept., 1910, pp. 512-534-
2G.. Ill ,
pp. SI I ff.; Bullock, pp. 45 ff.
'C/. R. Behm, Vergleichung der kantischen und
schopenhauerischen Lehre in
Ansehung der Kausalitdt, Heidelberg , 1892, p. 39.
EXPERIENCE AND REALITY. 65
from it. If
we were merely perceiving beings, the way to the
thing in
itself would be absolutely cut off from us. Only
the
other side of our own being can disclose to us the
other side of
the inner being of things. This path I
have followed."^ Kant
is correct
in holding that we are unable to arrive at the ultimate
reality of
things by the road of knowledge; but he then proceeds
to deny the
possibility of all metaphysics, thus ignoring,
in his
Critique of Pure Reason, the paramount ontological significance
of non-cognitive experience.
iG.,
I. p. 638; H.K., II. p. 118. Cf. G., IV, p.
lis-
The chain of causality, therefore, cannot be abstracted from a false
infinity “at the end of which” there must be a “transcendental” substance or
category that can “com-prehend” it as its toto genere “op-posite” (ob-ject or
Gegen-stand) – the “freedom” and “reason” upon which Kant wishes to erect or
“found” both Pure Reason as the rational entity and Practical Reason as the
“ethical moment” of Pure Reason whereby the “free will” is “governed” by
“rational rules” that lead to the “Categorical Imperative”. To indulge in such
abstraction is “to posit” unjustifiably the very “conclusion” that we are
seeking to prove. Not only is the Categorical Imperative nowhere to be seen
“empirically”, in reality; but also nowhere is it “written”: it is a delusion
both empirically in terms of observable human nature and formally in terms of
the internal consistency of its “ethical content or Diktats”. Furthermore, Kant
presumes to extend the “a priori synthetic” from the world of physical events
(where also it can be challenged as inapplicable) to that of morality. Schop
has easy play of this argument – a simple non sequitur. For there is no causal
relation whatsoever between an action and a “rule of action”: one cannot be
inferred apodictically from the other except as a tautology devoid of content
or as vacuous exhortation (wishful thinking). Indeed, if the “rule of action”
is defined in “pure” terms, it then lacks all “practical” content whatsoever –
in other words, “pure reason” voids “practical reason” of its raison d’etre.
Pure ethics is a mirage. (See ‘Basis’, p99 to 103.)
We shall therefore with all
the greater interest and curiosity await the solution
of the problem he [Kant] has set himself, namely, how
something is to arise out of nothing, that is,' how
out of purely a priori conceptions, which contain
nothing empirical or material, the laws of material
human
action are to grow up. (Basis, p56.)
Now,
had it been wished to use Reason, instead of deifying
it, such assertions as these must long ago have been
met by the simple remark that, if man, by virtue
of a special organ, furnished by his Reason, for
solving the riddle of the world, possessed an innate
metaphysics that only required development ; in that
76 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
case there would have to be just as complete agreement
on metaphysical matters as on the truths
of arithmetic and geometry ; and this would make
it totally impossible that there should exist on the
earth a large number of radically different religions,
and a still larger number of radically different
systems
of philosophy.
It is on this ground that Schop attacks the “transcendental idealism”
of Kant (‘Basis’, ch4). And this is where one can see the similarity with
Heidegger’s notion of “transcendental imagination” as a bridge between “pure
intuition” and “understanding” where the latter remains, unequivocally, a
purely mechanical function that cannot be elevated to “Pure Reason” (see my
‘Heidegger’s Kantbuch’). These criticisms had already appeared in the “Essay on
Freedom of the Will”. Kantian Practical Reason is initially the offspring of
the “freedom” of the will, but soon under the “regulative principle” of Pure
Reason becomes subordinated to a “Logic” that Schop shows is only
“instrumental” and “phenomenic” - that is belongs only to the Verstand/Vernunft
as a “mechanical” application of “formal reasoning” (conception) to “the world
as Vorstellung” (perception). (See ‘Basis’, ch4, c. p73, with reference to
intuition and causality or “sufficient reason”.) Thus, pure reason pretends to
arrogate to itself the “right” to dictate “categorical imperatives” that rule
the conduct of the will! The dichotomy of “lower” heteronomous “perceptive
intuition” and “higher” autonomous “pure reason” Schop correctly traces back to
Descartes’s influence on Kant, a “transcendental” distinction rejected by
Spinoza (see ‘Note’ at end of Ch4 of ‘Basis’). For Schop., this is the height
of imposture, the sublime Ohnmacht of the Ratio-Ordo – the impotent pretence of
“moral Theology”. (Heidegger makes an identical criticism – without even
acknowledging Schop! See my ‘H’s Kbuch’.)
NOTE.
If we wish to reach the real origin of this hypothesis
of Practical Reason, we must trace its descent a
little further back. We shall find that it is derived
ON THE BASIS OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 77
from a doctrine, which Kant totally confuted, but
which nevertheless, in this connection, lies secretly
(indeed he himself is not aware of it) at the root
of his assumption of a Practical Reason with its
Imperatives and its Autonomy—a reminiscence of
a former mode of thought. I mean the so-called
Rational Psychology, according to which man is
composed of two entirely heterogeneous substances
—the material body, and the immaterial soul. Plato
was the first to formulate this dogma, and he
endeavoured
to prove it as an objective truth. But it
was Descartes who, by working it out with scientific
exactness, perfectly developed and completed it.
And this is just what brought its fallacy to light, as
demonstrated by Spinoza, Locke, and Kant successively.
It was demonstrated by Spinoza ; because his
philosophy consists chiefly in the refutation of his
master's twofold dualism, and because he entirely and
expressly denied the two Substances of Descartes,
and took as his main principle the following
proposition
: " Substantia cogitans et substantia extensa
una eademque est substantia, quae jam sub hoc, jam
sub illo attributo comprehenditur.''^
^ It was demonstrated
by Locke ; for he combated the theory of
innate ideas, derived all knowledge from the sensuous,
and taught that it is not impossible that Matter
should think. And lastly, it was demonstrated by
* The thinking substance, and substance in extension
are
one and the self-same substance, which is contained
now
under the latter attribute {i.e., extension), now
under the
former {i.e., the attribute of thinking).
—Ethica, Part II.,Prop. 7. Corollary.
78 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
Kant, in his Kritik der Rationalen Psychologies as
given in the first edition. Leibnitz and Wolff were
the champions on the bad side ; and this brought
Leibnitz the undeserved honour of being compared
to
the great Plato, who was really so unlike him.
Tsanoff at p65:
Nevertheless, Kant's theory of freedom,
untenable though
it is in its technical form, serves to
indicate his realization of the
inadequate and incomplete character of
his epistemology and its
implications.
The doctrine of the transcendental freedom of
man's will
recognizes implicitly, Schopenhauer maintains, that
in man
necessity is phenomenal only, and that in him the thing-in-
itself
manifests its inner nature in the form of Will. "What,
then, Kant
teaches of the phenomenon of man and his action
my teaching
extends to all phenomena in nature, in that it makes
the will as
a thing-in-itself their foundation.
"^ For man is not
toto genere different from the rest of experience, but
differs only
in degree. The World as Idea is, as Kant says, purely
phenomenal;
but it does not exhaust reality. "As the world is in one
aspect
entirely idea, so in another it is entirely will. A reality
which is
neither of these two, but an object in itself (into which
the thing in itself has unfortunately
dwindled in the hands of
Kant), is
the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis
fatuus in
philosophy."^ The path of
objective knowledge does
not lead us to the real nature of things, and so far
Schopenhauer
is in thorough agreement with Kant. But "the thing in itself can,
as such,
only come into consciousness quite directly, in this way,
that it is
itself conscious of itself; to wish to know it objectively
is to desire
something contradictory."* The thing-in-itself
is unknowable, precisely because it is not a matter of
knowledge
but
is in its inmost essence Will.
iG., I. p. 638; H.K.,
II. p. 118. Cf. G., IV, p. 115
2G.. II, pp. 201-202; H.K., II, p. 377.
'G., I, p. 3S; H.K.. I, p. 5
*G.,
II, p. 227; H.K.. II, p. 405.
It follows quite
obviously that when Schop is asking Kant for the “e-vidence”, the
“observability” of his “Moral Law”, he is already placing Kant’s Ethics “fuori
giuoco”, “off-side”, by asking the impossible: the “scientific” demonstration
of a “deontological” rule. Kant, for his part, had made the opposite error: –
the petitio principii of “do what is moral because it is moral”, whence Schop’s
objection rifled from the outset: “Who tells you?” (ch2, ‘Basis’), or “where is
it inscribed?” (P52, ch4, ‘Basis’) But from this point “morality” can only be
understood as “praxis”, because we too can ask Schop – why must morality be
written somewhere or be a “physical or natural” observable and e-vident
reality? We cannot turn Kant’s Freedom (the will) into Necessity (the
Categorical Imperative, which is another version of “reciprocity” or lex
commutativa, as Schop shows on p85): but the will must be “applied” and there
is a “judgement” we must make on how to do this whereby we do not turn the “freedom
of the will” (poter volere) into another “necessity” (volere potere). An
“obligation” that is “absolute” is a contradictio in adjecto (‘Basis’, pp32-3)
because it turns heteronomy (obligation, something “external” and
“constraining” the will) into autonomy (a free decision of the will), whereby
the free will constrains itself! – And so goes the circulus vitiosus.
The ancients, then, equally with the moderns, Plato
being the single exception, agree in making virtue
only a means to an end. Indeed, strictly speaking,
even Kant banished Eudaemonism from Ethics more
in appearance than in reality, for between virtue and
happiness he still leaves a certain mysterious
connection;
—there is an obscure and difficult passage in
his doctrine of the Highest Good, where they occur
together ; while it is a patent fact that the course
of
virtue runs entirely counter to that of happiness.
But, passing over this, we may say that with Kant
the ethical principle appears as something quite
independent
of experience and its teaching ; it is transcendental,
or metaphysical. He recognises that human
conduct possesses a significance that oversteps all
possibility of experience, and is therefore actually
the
bridge leading to that which he calls the
"intelligible
" ^ world, the mundus noumenon^ the world of
Things in themselves.
The fame, which the Kantian Ethics has won, is
due not only to this higher level, which it reached,
Vorstellung, that is, The World as Will and Idea ;
" Idea"
being used much as eibaXov sometimes is (cf. Xen.
Sym.,
4, 21), in the sense of "an image in the
mind," " a mental
picture."
—{Translator.)]
' It seems better to keep this technical word than to
attempt a cumbrous periphrasis. The meaning is
perfectly
clear. The sensibilia {phaenomena) are opposed to the
intelligibilia
(noumena), which compose the transcendental
world. So the individual, in so far as he is a
phaenomenon,
has an empirical character ; in so far as he is a
noumenon,
his character is intelligible {intelligibilis). The
mundus intelligibilis,
or mundus noumenon is the Kocrfxos noetos of
New Platonism.—(Translator.)
PRELIMINAKY REMARKS. 25
but also to the moral purity and loftiness of its
conclusions.
Kant's proton pseudos (first false step) lies in his
conception of Ethics itself, and this is found very
clearly expressed on page 62 (R., p. 54) : " In a
system of practical philosophy we are not concerned
with adducing reasons for that which takes place,
but with formulating laws regarding that which
ought to take place, even if it never does take
place." This is at once a distinct petitio
principii.
Who tells you that there are laws to which our
conduct ought to be subject ? Who tells you that
that ought to take place, which in fact never does
take place ? What justification have you for making
this assumption at the outset, and consequently
for forcing upon us, as the only possible one, a
system of Ethics couched in the imperative terms of
legislation ? I say, in contradistinction to Kant,
that
the student of Ethics, and no less the philosopher
in general, must content himself with explaining and
interpreting that which is given, in other words,
that which really is, or takes place, so as to obtain
an understanding of it, and I maintain furthermore
that there is plenty to do in this direction, much
more than has hitherto been done, after the lapse
28THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 29
of thousands of years.
Every obligation derives all sense and meaning
simply and solely from its relation to threatened
punishment or promised reward. Hence, long before
Kant was thought of, Locke says : " For since it
would be utterly in vain, to suppose a rule set to
the free actions of man, without annexing to it some
enforcement of good and evil to determine his will ;
we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also
some reward or punishment annexed to that law
{Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. II., ch. 33,
§ 6). What ought to be done is therefore necessarily
conditioned by punishment or reward ; consequently,
to use Kant's language, it is essentially and
inevitably
THE IMPERATIVE FORM OF THE KANTIAN ETHICS. 33
hypothetical, and never, as he maintains, categorical.
If we think away these conditions, the conception
of obligation becomes void of sense ; hence absolute
obligation is most certainly a contradictio in
adjecto.
A commanding voice, whether it come from within,
or from without, cannot possibly be imagined except
as threatening or promising. Consequently obedience
to it, which may be wise or foolish according to
circumstances, is yet always actuated by selfishness,
and therefore morally worthless.
The complete unthinkableness and nonsense of
this conception of an unconditioned obligation, which
lies at the root of the Kantian Ethics, appears
later in the system itself, namely in the Kritik der
Praktiscken Vernunft: just as some concealed poison
in an organism cannot remain hid, but sooner or later
must come out and show itself. For this obligation,
said to be so unconditioned, nevertheless postulates
more than one condition in the background ; it assumes
a rewarder, a reward, and the immortality of the
person to be rewarded.
This is of course unavoidable, if one really makes
Duty and Obligation the fundamental conception of
Ethics ; for these ideas are essentially relative, and
depend for their significance on the threatened
penalty
or the promised reward. The guerdon which is
assumed to be in store for virtue shows clearly enough
that only in appearance she works for nothing. It
is, however, put forward modestly veiled, under the
name of the Highest Good, which is the union of
Virtue and Happiness. But this is at bottom nothing
else but a morality that derives its origin from
34 THE BASIS OF MORALITY,
Happiness, which means, a morality resting on
selfishness.
In other words, it is Eudaemonism, which
Kant had solemnly thrust out of the front door of
his system as an intruder, only to let it creep in
again by the postern under the name of the Highest
Good. This is how the assumption of unconditioned
absolute obligation, concealing as it does a contradiction,
avenges itself. Conditioned obligation, on
the other hand, cannot of course be any first
principle
for Ethics, since everything done out of regard for
reward or punishment is necessarily an egoistic
transaction, and as such is without any real moral
value. All this makes it clear that a nobler and
wider view of Ethics is needed, if we are in earnest
about our endeavour to truly account for the
significance
of human conduct—a significance which
extends beyond phaenomena and
is eternal.
Metaphysical Foundation of Ethics
Ch7:
Schop’s discussion
of the link between ethics and metaphysics, before he undertakes the
“foundations of ethics” in Part 3, are described so tersely in Ch7 as to make
this possibly the best summary of his philosophy I have encountered; thus, it
is important to sift through it carefully.
The strict and absolute necessity of the acts of
Will, determined by motives as they arise, was first
shown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza, and Hume, and
also by Dietrich von Holbach in his Systeme de la
Nature ; and lastly by Priestley it was most
completely
and precisely demonstrated. This point,
indeed, has been so clearly proved, and placed beyond
' V. Note on " intelligible " in Chapter I.
of this Part.
—{Translator.)
115
116 THE BASIS OF MORALITY,
all doubt, that it must be reckoned among the
number of perfectly established truths, and only crass
ignorance could continue to speak of a freedom,
of a liberum arbitrium indifferentiae (a free and
indifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor
did Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his
predecessors, hesitate to consider the Will as fast
bound in the chains of Necessity, the matter
admitting,
as he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This
is proved by all the passages in which he speaks of
freedom only from the theoretical standpoint.
Nevertheless,
it is true that our actions are attended with
a consciousness of independence and original
initiative,
which makes us recognise them as our own
work, and every one with ineradicable certainty
feels that he is the real author of his conduct, and
morally responsible for it. But since responsibility
implies the possibility of having acted otherwise,
which possibility means freedom in some sort or
manner; therefore in the consciousness of responsibility
is indirectly involved also the consciousness
of freedom. The
key to resolve the contradiction,
that thus
arises out of the nature of the case, was
at last
found by Kant through the distinction he
drew with
profound acumen, between phaenomena
and the
Thing in itself (das Ding an sich). This
distinction
is the very core of his whole philosophy,
and its greatest merit.
Schop sees a
contradiction: “man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”. Again we
find here Hobbes’s “in foro interno” and “externo” distinction – the Cartesian
inheritance. But, as we will see, it is Schop’s “trans-mutation” of Kant’s
distinction that will enable him to dis-card the Cartesian ego (oops!).
Objectively, human actions can be described “casuistically”, either in mechanical
manner or else in terms of “conditioning”. The operari can be described
objectively, behaviouristically or “positively” (Comte) so that the principle
of sufficient reason applies. The “motives” behind the operari are knowable,
discernible – even manipulable, if so wished. And yet we know that at the
“source” of this operari must lie an “ultimate cause” that is impossible to
identify, either empirically or even (contra Kant) a priori. The reason is that
this “ultimate cause” must be toto genere, toto caelo different from the causal
chain of events, the sufficient reason.
This is what lies
behind the Scholastic “operari sequitur esse” – in other words, “actions follow
being”. This is so because “the totality” of the causal chain cannot be
“com-prehended” through yet another “link” in the chain (an “elephant” or
“camel” on the back of which the world rests) or what Heidegger would style as
an “intra-mundane” or “intra-temporal”, therefore “spatial”, cause. There is an
“antinomy” (here comes Lukacs) between Freedom and Necessity, which Schop
incorrectly calls a “contradiction” almost in a Hegelian sense. If everything
is “determined”, what determines the determined?
For Schop, the
greatness of Kant, “the greatest merit of his entire philosophy [consists in
drawing] the distinction… between phaenomena and the Ding an sich”. Kant does
not, like Aristotle, nominate a “causa causans”, because that would be to pose
as “meta-ta-physika” an “original source” (a pleonasm), a “primus inter pares
of beings”, which is a “bad infinite”. We need not (!) a Fichtean “projectio
per hiatus irrationalem”, but rather a veritable “force” or “spring”, the
“esse”, of this causal chain – a “source” that “is” the causal chain
(Heidegger’s “pure now-sequence”) but “intuited” ec-statically, as
“being-outside-itself”. And this is precisely how that “esse” is to be
under-stood, com-prehended. The “esse” is the “nature” of the operari but it is
not another “being”, it is not another “link”. Rather, it is “the being of
being”, the “dimension” of being, its “horizon”.
The individual, with his immutable, innate character,
strictly determined in all his modes of expression
by the law of Causality, which, as acting through
the medium of the intellect, is here called by the
THE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. 117
name of Motivation,—the individual so constituted
is only the phaenomenon (Erscheinung). The Thing
in itself which underlies this phaenomenon is outside
of Time and Space, consequently free from all
succession and plurality, one, and changeless. Its
constitution in itself is the intelligible character,
which is equally present in all the acts of the
individual, and stamped on every one of them,
like the impress of a signet on a thousand seals.
The empirical character of the phaenomenon—the
character which manifests itself in time, and in
succession of acts—is thus determined by the
intelligible
character ; and consequently, the individual,
as phaenomenon, in all his modes of expression,
which are called forth by motives, must show the
invariableness of a natural law. Whence it results
that all his actions are
governed by strict necessity.
Not “Motivation”,
then, explains human behaviour, but “character”, which is as inscrutable and
impenetrable as – nay, it “is” the Thing in itself! Whereas Kant identified the
Ding an sich with the Ob-ject, Schop has turned it into a “transcendental
Sub-ject” with a special… “character”. Kant had derived the Subject from the
need for Freedom to comprehend Necessity, because Necessity “in-vokes” Freedom.
And this “Freedom” is the very Ratio, the Pure Reason, that makes possible the
a priori synthetic judgements derived from our pure intuition and are filtered
through the understanding. Pure Reason is the rule-making faculty that is
conscious of its ability to make rules, and that is therefore “auto-nomous”
because subject only to its own “rules”, to “Logic”. The Ding an sich therefore
is the Ob-ject that is “perceptible” only as “phenomena” that are “regulated”
ultimately by “rules” emanating from Pure Reason.
It is here that
Schop departs from this antinomic “triumvirate”, this “unholy trinity” (all
good things come in threes”, he quipped in ‘WWR’) – the Subject, the Object,
and the Phenomena.
The theory
itself, and the whole question regarding
the nature
of Freedom, can be better
understood
if we view them in connection with a
general
truth, which I think, is most concisely
expressed by
a formula frequently occurring in the
scholastic
writings : Operari sequitur esse. In
other
words,
everything in the world operates in accordance
with what it
is, in accordance with its inherent
nature, in
which, consequently, all its modes of
expression
are already contained potentially, while
actually
they are manifested when elicited by external
causes ; so
that external causes are the means
whereby the
essential constitution of the thing is
* I.e., What is done is a consequence of that which
is.
THE INTELLIGIBLE AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. 119
revealed.
And the modes of expression so resulting
form the
empirical character ; whereas its hidden,
ultimate
basis, which is inaccessible to experience,
is the
intelligible character, that is, the real nature
'per se of
the particular thing in question. Man
forms no exception to the rest of nature ; he too
has a changeless character, which, however, is
strictly
individual and different in each case. This character
is of course empirical as far as we can grasp it, and
therefore only phaenomenal ; while the intelligible
character is whatever may be the real nature in
itself of the person. His actions one and all, being,
as regards their external constitution, determined
by motives, can never be shaped otherwise than in
accordance with the unchangeable individual character.
As a man is,
so he his bound to act. Hence
for a given person
in every single case, there is
absolutely
only one way of acting possible : Operari
sequitur esse.
The Kantian Ding an
sich, then, is not “the Ob-ject”. It is the “intelligible character” of the
“empirical objectification”, of the operari and of “the World”, so that now the
Ding an sich is no longer a “Thing”: it is an “entity” a “force” that comes
from within ex-per-ience, that ob-jectifies and extrinsic-ates itself in the
world; it is something “outside Time and Space” because it “originates” with
them! This would be the equivalent of Kant’s transcendental subject were it not
for the fact that it is not a “Subject”, not an “entelechy” or an “essent” or
even a “faculty”: it is a “force”, a Welt-prinzip; it is “Life as a force”; it
is “the Will”.
It follows that
there is no hiatus or chasm or lacuna between Subject and Object and that
therefore “Phenomena” or “Representations” are not “images” or “aspects” of the
Object as “perceived” by the Subject but are instead “objectifications” of the
Will itself – they are a subject-object unity. No “Object” or “Reality” stands
“behind” the phenomena. Instead, the phenomena are the “actuality”
(Wirklichkeit), the manifestation of the Will. That is how human activity can
be both “free and responsible” and “necessary and motivated” at one and the
same time. (Again, no contradiction, in the Kantian conception; it was merely
an “antinomy”.)
Freedom belongs only to the intelligible
character, not to the empirical. The operari
(conduct) of a given individual is necessarily
determined externally by motives, internally by his
character ; therefore everything that he does
necessarily
takes place. But in his esse (i.e., in what
he is), there, we find Freedom. He might have
been something different ; and guilt or merit attaches
to that which he is. All that he does follows
from what he is, as a mere corollary. Through
Kant's
doctrine we are freed from the primary error
of
connecting Necessity with esse (what one is),
and Freedom
with operari (what one does) ; we
' I.e., his acts are a consequence of what he is.
120 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
become aware
that this is a misplacement of terms,
and that
exactly the inverse arrangement is the
true one. Hence it is clear that the moral responsibility
of a man, while it first of all, and obviously,
of course, touches what he does, yet at bottom
touches what he is ; because, what he is being the
original datum, his conduct, as motives arise, could
never take any other course than that which it
actually does take.
To the extent that
the awareness of the “autonomy” of “esse” is recognized, the Kantian
perspective applies: whereas before it was in the realm of “action”, in the
operari, that “freedom” was located, whilst the “nature” or “character” or
“essence” (esse, Wesen) was interpreted as “necessity”, as “determinant”, now
instead it is the former that is “necessary” or “conditioned” and the latter
that is “free” or “unconditioned”, not even “regulated” a priori.
So that it
is the esse (what one is) which in reality is accused by
conscience,
while the operari (what one does) supplies
the
incriminating evidence. Since we are only
conscious of
Freedom through the sense of responsibility;
therefore
where the latter lies the former must
THEORY OF FREEDOM. 121
also be ; in
the esse (in one's being). It is the
operari
(what one does) that is subject to necessity.
But we can
only get to know ourselves, as well as
others
empirically ; we have no a priori knowledge
of our character.
But this is where
the analogy with Kant ends – because Kant never distinguishes between “the
transcendental subject” and “mechanical action”: the one is “the subject” of
the other. In Schop, on the contrary, there is no “Subject” to take this
“responsibility”: there is only a “sense of responsibility”, but no actual
identification of an “authorial entity” that assumes it. So when Schop claims
that “it is through Kant’s doctrine” that we reach this inversion, he is really
saying that “Kant’s doctrine” (the distinction between Ding an sich and
phenomenon) has allowed him to reach this inversion – but only by radically
re-directing Kant’s distinction “inwards” toward “the sentient organs”, past
pure intuition and into “the Will”!
In a “Note” on “The
Theory of Freedom”, Schop elucidates the scope of his inversion and, in the
process, gives us an insight in his thinking process and a delightful link with
Heidegger:
He who is capable of recognising the essential
part of a thought, though clothed in a dress very
different from what he is familiar with, will see,
as I do, that this Kantian doctrine of the
intelligible
and empirical character is a piece of insight already
possessed by Plato. The difference is, that with Kant
it is
sublimated to an abstract clearness ; with Plato
it is
treated mythically, and connected with metempsychosis
[in that the
soul chooses which body to inhabit],
because, as
he did not perceive the ideality
of Time, he
could only represent it under a temporal
form.
This is extremely
interesting: for we can see how Heidegger had simply “to stand outside” this
“temporal form” and hypostatize “time” as the horizon of “the Will” or the
Platonic “soul”, so that now these are transmuted into “Da-sein”, that is, pure
intuition in the horizon of time, “being” understood not as “temporal form” –
“intra-temporally” – but as “outside itself”, as “ec-static” being, as
“ec-sistence”, being… “there”. But by con-fining himself strictly to this
“horizon of time”, Heidegger avoids all the problems that entangle Schop
immediately. First and foremost, how can the Will “objectify” itself? Second,
what “differentiates” the Will in its “worldly” objectifications? Third, how
can the Will lack “identity” or “agency” and still be “active”? Fourth, is the
Will then not yet another qualitas occulta?
Egoism as manifestation of the Will
If indeed the
“empirical” or observable side of human action can form “the basis [Grundwerke]
of morality”, if the Will is unobservable yet knowable intuitively as the
qualitas occulta, the “life-force” or “impetus” behind its objectification as
“the world”, it follows that our theory of ethics cannot start from “quod
homines facere debeant”, but rather from “quod facere solent”. The Kantian
Sollen and the “Moral Theology” to which it gives rise disappear from view – we
are led back to the perspective of Machiavelli and Hobbes.
The
objection will perhaps be raised that Ethics
is not
concerned with what men actually do, but
that it is
the science which treats of what their
conduct
ought to be. Now this is exactly the position
148 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
which I
deny. In the critical part of the
present
treatise I have sufficiently demonstrated that the
conception
of ought, in other words, the imperative form of
Ethics, is valid only in theological morals, outside
of
which it loses all sense and meaning. The end which
I place
before Ethical Science is to point out all the
varied moral
lines of human conduct ; to explain
them ; and
to trace them to their ultimate source.
Consequently
there remains no way of discovering
the basis of Ethics except the empirical.
Now, the objective
historical observation of human beings leads us to the conclusion that what
keeps human beings from harming one another is the overwhelming force of the
State: take away the State and all the “moral rules” and ethical standards
quickly fall apart, revealing a desolate landscape of aggression, the Hobbesian
bellum omnium contra omnes:
In describing
“Egoism” as the overriding motivation empirically observable as inducing human
action, Schop offers us at the same time the most dramatic description of the
operari of the Will:
The chief
and fundamental incentive in man, as in
animals, is
Egoism, that is, the urgent impulse to
exist, and exist under the best circumstances.
…
Now
this Egoism
is, both in animals and men, connected
in the closest
way with their very essence and being ;
indeed, it
is one and the same thing. For this
reason
all human actions, as a rule, have their origin in
Egoism, and to it, accordingly, we must always first
turn, when we try to find the explanation of any
given line of conduct ; just as, when the endeavour
is made to guide a man in any direction, the means
to this end are universally calculated with reference
to the same all-powerful motive. Egoism is, from
its nature,
limitless. The individual is filled
with
the unqualified desire of preserving his life, and of
keeping it free from all pain, under which is included
all want and privation. He wishes to have the
greatest possible amount of pleasurable existence,
and every gratification that he is capable of appreciating
; indeed, he attempts, if possible, to evolve fresh
capacities for enjoyment. Everything that opposes
the
strivings of his Egoism awakens his dislike, his
anger, his
hate : this is the mortal enemy, which
he tries to annihilate.
It appears from this that Schop is no longer basing himself
on empirical observation, but rather is extrapolating from his original
metaphysical intuition of the Ding an sich as the Will to live. It is the
“introspectivity” of this intuition and its “temporal form” that makes it
solipsistic. Because the Will is inscrutable and unobservable, only
intelligible, it follows that its “objectification” is boundless, unlimited –
that its élan can be checked only by other “Wills to live” manifesting
themselves as “the world”. It follows that the only limit to the
objectification of the Will is posed by contrary Wills.
…...
The ultimate reason of this lies in the fact that
every one is directly conscious of himself, but of
others only indirectly, through his mind's eye ; and
the direct impression asserts its right. In other
words, it is in
consequence of the subjectivity which
is essential
to our consciousness that each person
is himself
the whole world ; for all that is objective
exists only
indirectly, as simply the mental
picture of
the subject ; whence it comes about that
everything
is invariably expressed in terms of self-consciousness.
There
is a certain looseness in Schop’s terminology. We must distinguish between the
mental or intellectual ability of individuals as a manifestation of the Will
and the Will itself. They are two different things in that the Will is a force,
an impetus, an élan – it must not be confused with a “subject” or an “ego” or
with “self-consciousness”. These “objectifications” may induce in the “body” a sense
of “identity”, but in fact this identity is only a by-product of the
objectification, of the “phenomenality” of the Will in the world constituted by
other Wills which pose a limit to its objectification.
The only world which the individual
really grasps, and of which he has certain knowledge,
he carries in himself, as a mirrored image fashioned
by his brain ; and he is, therefore, its centre.
Consequently
he is all in all to himself ; and since he
ANTIMORAL INCENTIVES. 153
feels that he contains within his ego all that is
real,
nothing can be of greater importance to him than his
own self.^ Moreover this supremely important self,
this
microcosm, to which the macrocosm stands in relation
as its mere modification or accident,—this, which is
the individual's whole world, he knows perfectly well
must be destroyed by death ; which is therefore for
him equivalent to the destruction of all things.
Such, then,
are the elements out of which, on the
basis of the
Will to live, Egoism grows up, and
like a
broad trench
it forms a perennial separation between
man and man.
The necessary
outcome is that each individual (body) must be restrained by an “external
force” from the threat of mutual annihilation:
Now, unless
154 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
external
force (under which must be included every
source of
fear whether of human or superhuman
powers), or
else the real moral incentive is in
effective
operation, it is certain that Egoism always
pursues its
purposes with unqualified directness ;
hence
without these checks, considering the countless
number of
egoistic individuals, the bellum omnium
contra omnes ^ would be the order of the day, and
prove the
ruin of all. Thus is explained the early
construction by reflecting
reason of state government,
which,
arising, as it does, from a mutual fear of
reciprocal
violence, obviates the disastrous consequences
of the
general Egoism, as far as it is
possible to do by negative
procedure.
Of course, Schop
fails to explain how this “reflecting reason” can manage the “early construction
of state government”. In this we see the inferiority of Schop’s theoretical
construct to Hobbes’s, superior for its theorization of the “alienation” of
individual freedom, its subtler empiricist theory of the self, and more
“scientific” mechanicism, and the “historical” antecedent of civil war in the
status naturae prior to the status civilis. Schop’s “negative procedure” (part
of the negatives Denken) still serves to highlight the “hypothetical” status of
the bellum civium and the “conventional” “early construction” of the State. But
whereas his construction is exclusively “conventional”, Hobbes manages to
present his “Commonwealth” as a historical “state by acquisition” precisely by
combining the Necessity of self-interest with the “forum internum” of reason in
the “willful alienation” of Freedom in the “ultima ratio” of self-preservation.
This is something Schop’s Will and his critique of “Freedom” cannot do (cf
Cacciari, ‘DCP’, p64).
Now, the “early
construction” involves two elements: “reflecting reason”, which represents
“Egoism guided into self-interest”, and the assumption of “possession” into
this “early construction of state government”, which is the status civilis.
The term Eigennutz
(self-interest) denotes Egoism, so far as
the latter
is guided by reason, which enables
it, by
means of reflection,
to prosecute its purposes system-
150ANTIMORAL INCENTIVES. 151
atically; so that animals may be called egoistic,
but not self-interested (eigennutzig). I shall
therefore
retain the word Egoism for
the general idea.
Schop next tackles
the question of property rights, and he seems to follow Hobbes once again:
In point of
fact, the general correctness of conduct which is
adopted in
human intercourse, and insisted on as
a rule no
less immovable than the hills, depends
principally
on two external necessities ; first, on legal
ordinance,
by virtue of which the rights of every
man are
protected by public authority ; and secondly,
on the
recognised need of possessing civil honour,
-in other
words, a good name, in order to advance
in the world….
Such are the two custodians that keep guard on
the correct conduct of people, without which, to
speak frankly, we should be in a sad case, especially
with reference to property, this central point in
human
life, around which the chief part of its energy and
138 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
activity revolves. For the purely ethical motives to
integrity,
assuming that they exist, cannot as a rule
be applied,
except very indirectly, to the question of
ownership as
guaranteed by the state. These motives,
in fact,
have a direct and essential bearing only on
natural
right ; with positive right their connection is
merely
indirect, in so far as the latter is based on the
former.
Natural right, however, attaches to no other
property
than that which has been gained by one's own
exertion ;
because, when this is seized, the owner is
at the same
time robbed of all the efforts he expended
in acquiring
it. The theory of preoccupancy I
reject
absolutely, but cannot here set forth its refutation.^
Now of course all estate based on positive right ought
ultimately and in the last instance (it matters not
how many intermediate links are involved) to rest
on the natural right of possession. But what a
distance there is, in most cases, between the title deeds,
that belong to our civil life, and this natural
right—their original source !
But then, how can
altruistic or compassionate behaviour be explained? For this also is
observable:
But, for this
to be possible, I must in some way or other be
identified with him ; that is, the difference between
myself and
him, which is the precise raison d'etre
of my
Egoism, must be removed, at least to
a certain
170 THE BASIS OF MORALITY.
extent. Now, since I do not live in his skin, there
remains only the knowledge, that is, the mental
picture, I have of him, as the possible means whereby
I can so far identify myself with him, that
my action declares the difference to be practically
effaced. The process here analysed is not a dream,
a fancy floating in the air ; it is perfectly real,
and
by no means infrequent. It is, what we see every
day,—the phaenomenon of Compassion ; in other words,
the direct
participation, independent of all ulterior
considerations,
in the sufferings of another, leading to
sympathetic
assistance in the effort to prevent or remove
them ; whereon in the last resort all satisfaction and all
well-being and happiness depend. It is this Compassion
alone which is the real basis of all voluntary justice
and all genuine loving-kindness. Only so far as an
action springs therefrom, has it moral value ; and all
conduct that proceeds from any other motive whatever
has none.
So the question now
turns on how this “difference” or “wall” between persons that is constituted by
Egoism can be removed.
No doubt this
operation is astonishing, indeed hardly
comprehensible.
It is, in fact, the great mystery of
Ethics, its
original phaenomenon, and the boundary
stone, past
which only transcendental speculation may
dare to take
a step. Herein we see the wall of
partition,
which, according to the light of nature (as
reason is called by old theologians), entirely separates
being from
being, broken down, and the non-ego to
THE ONLY TRUE MORAL INCENTIVE. 171
a certain extent identified with the ego. I wish for
the moment
to leave the metaphysical explanation
of this
enigma untouched, and first to
inquire
whether all acts of voluntary justice and true loving kindness
really arise from it. If so, our problem
will be solved, for we shall have found the ultimate
basis of
morality, and shown that it lies in
human
nature itself. This
foundation, however, in its turn
cannot form
a problem of Ethics, but rather, like
every other
ultimate fact as such, of Metaphysics.
Only the
solution, that the latter offers of the
primary
ethical phaenomenon, lies outside the limits
of the
question put by the Danish Royal Society,
which is
concerned solely with the basis ; so
that
the transcendental
explanation can be given merely
as a voluntary and
unessential appendix.
Thus, the breaching
of “the wall of partition” separating “ego from non-ego” is possible: but the
possibility can be accounted for only by metaphysics, not by ethics. The scope
of ethics starts from its “basis”, and the basis “lies in human nature”. All
that matters for ethics is that the source of certain ethical behaviour can be
established empirically. But the foundation of that source is to be found in
metaphysics.