the other. Some, while accepting the Kantian centu*y- morality, wished to temper and correct its exaggerations, which was not possible, save by a more profound speculative vision of the relation between pleasure and good, the useful and the moral; whereas they believed that they could attain to it by also taking account of pleasure and of happiness, and by conceiving a doctrine of happiness or eudaemonology side by side with Ethic, but subordinate to it (in Italy: Galluppi and Rosmini). Schiller had already recognized in Kant's time the unilaterality of Kant, and had made it the object of criticism and of epigram, which, however, does not mean that he had truly and properly corrected its errors. Others occupied themselves in various ways with the 4i4 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
enumeration and juxtaposition of the principles: thus, for instance, Schopenhauer makes com passion arise beside egoism, which then divides into benevolence and justice; and Herbart, although he excludes the useful, because, accord ing to him, " it refers to a point external to itself,"1 enumerates five practical ideas that are not all truly moral. The affinity both of Herbart and of Schopenhauer, with Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and English and Scottish psychologism, is clear. The study of the practical ideas of Herbart is not without interest as an unconscious affirmation of the necessity of the economic principle. The first of these, indeed, internal freedom, consists in being able to achieve with our own strength the model that we propose to ourselves, and is liberty, but not yet moral liberty. " To be able to decide according to motives" (says Herbart on one occasion) " is already a sign of psychical health: to decide according to the best motives is the condition of morality." The second of the practical ideas, that of perfection, is concerned precisely with the strength of the will, taken in itself, and resembles a combination of the Hellenic virtues of fortitude and temperance. Here willii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 415 ing is considered in itself, independently of its objects, and in this consideration there is no other difference, save their strength, between the various willings: the greater this is, the more it is admired; weakness displeases and strength pleases the practical judgment, and this even when it is unjust, iniquitous and wicked, and notwithstanding such vices.1 Lotze, following Herbart, determines as requisites of actions, that they must be possible, energetic, conscientious on the one hand, and on the other, consequent, habitual, individual, stating that these two series of predicates apply equally to moral and immoral actions.2 — He does not think it worth while to take count of the English utilitarians and post- Kantian intuitionists, or of their French, Italian, and German imitators; because, just as the appearance of a Hobbes, of a Hume, or of a Shaftesbury, is important in their time, so the appearance of a Bentham or of a Spencer out of their time is insignificant, for these latter amuse themselves with the useful, with association and evolution (which according to them should become the socially useful), and with the double principle of egoism and of altruism. Stuart Mill alone 416 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL FT.
can afford some interest, when he says (with that mental inconclusiveness which has seemed to many to be acuteness and equilibrium) that moral pleasures differ from the sensual, not only in degree, but also in genus and in quality (in kind}; and that justice is a class of socially useful actions that arouses feelings themselves also different, not only in degree, but also in genus and in quality (in kind), from those caused by useful actions. In short, the philosophy of the nineteenth century has not only been unable to progress, but has not even been able to maintain itself on a level with the practical doctrines of Fichte and of Hegel, in which a glimpse was caught of the relation of first and second practical degree, and there was a tendency to reconcile passion and' ethicity. Extrinsic VI. Certainly economic science, owing to its union of Ethic andof economic empirico - quantitative character, already noted, Science, from J antiquity to was not mac}e to fi[\ t^e y^ an(J to furnisn a the nineteenth more positive and exact concept of the useful. The contact between Economy and Philosophy remained for a time extrinsic, since economic Science appeared in treatises upon the Philo sophy of the practical, together with the other juridical and historical matter, which it was customary to include with it. The precedent for ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 417 such a union could be found even in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethic, which supplies certain notions as to the concept of price and value. Considerations on the same argument abound in the Scholastics, especially in St. Thomas, whose O economic a always forms part of his Ethic, as the doctrine for the government of the family. Finally, there is an ample discussion of the subject in the treatises of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which took the name of natural Rig Jits. It happened that the English moralists of the eighteenth century were also led to occupy themselves with Economy and the economists with Ethic, owing to the juxtaposition of the two concepts for didascalic reasons and for University convenience. Thus Hutcheson developed Economy, in his Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1747); and the Essays of Hume are occupied with moral and economic questions; and Adam Smith is the author, not only of The Wealth of Nations, but also of The Theory of the Moral Feelings, almost two parts of a Philosophy of the practical. The im portance of economic studies had become so palpable at that time, that toward the end of the century, Buhle was led to include them in the history of philosophy (and we believe that 418 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
he was the first). He exposes at length in his work the ideas of Hume, of Smith, of Stewart, attributing it as a merit to the English writers to have reduced that material to philosophy by a method of treatment without example (he said) in previous centuries.1 Finally, Hegel dedicated certain important paragraphs of his Philosophy of Law, in the section dealing with civil society,2 to the " system of wants," or Economy. The cult of Economy has rather increased than diminished in the nineteenth century and the much -discussed social problem (especially capitalism and socialism) has not been without a certain influence upon treatises of Ethic, where, if we rarely find statements that are strictly economic, there is always plenty of chatter about property and production and the relations between the working and capitalistic class. Philosophical But a more intimate bond could not take questions arising from place, save when attempts to understand the a more intimate contact between material of science and to place it in the system the two. r J of the spirit were united with economic Science, properly so called. For since that science is occupied with human actions and appears to 1 Gesch. d. neueren Philos. (1796-1804), sect. iv. cap. 18 (Fr. tr., Paris, ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 419 give advice as to conduct, in what relation can it possibly stand to Ethic, which is also occupied with actions and also gives advice? —Such a question was in a certain way already implied in the mediaeval idea of a justum pretium, to be placed beside the effective price, which is realized according to the knowledge and con venience of each; it forms the kernel of the debate between the subjective and the objective concept of value, that is, between the purely economic consideration and another resulting from moral exigencies, between the value that is, and that which in a certain way should be. It began to wax ardent, with the accusation, of being theoreticians of egoism, hurled at the great English economists, Smith and Ricardo; this accusation, taken up and modified by others, became accepted as the true and proper designa tion of the function of Economy, which should accordingly be that of studying human actions in their exclusively abstract, egoistic aspect. But, since abstraction is not full reality, the false task assigned to Economy called for the aid of the doctors. Such were the French economists, seized with the mania of teaching generosity to the cold Britons (Blanqui, etc.); such too were the Germans, who wished to induce Economy to 420 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
mend its ways and to become conscious of its lofty duties towards the human race (Knies); such, finally, were the Christians and Catholics, who thought to purify or to exorcise that worldly and diabolical science by mingling with it ethical and economical considerations. It was rarely suspected that economic facts, as such, are neither egoistic nor altruistic, neither moral nor immoral; and when it was desired to philosophize the subject, some one got out of the difficulty by enumerating five groups of human actions, four egoistic and only one moral: the search for the satisfaction of one's own conscience, with the fear of blame attached (Wagner). The problem, especially in Austria, passed from the hands of the mathematicians into those of the psychologists. These have undertaken to seek out the re semblance and the difference between economic and ethical values. But on the psychological ground (as we have already remarked when discussing intuitionistic solutions), far from solv ing the antithesis, philosophy is dissolved. The mathematicians on the other hand, that is to say the economists, who employ the quantitative method, fascinated with the evidence of this pro cedure and failing to realize that it is empty evidence, instead of limiting themselves to the ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 421 construction of their most useful formulae, increase the confusion by beginning to philosophize in the strangest manner; as is to be observed in the case of Pareto, one of the most acute and learned of contemporary economists. In one of his recent writings he exposes the method of economic science with a string of propositions such as these: " II faut faire une operation de separation...Cette premiere operation decompile,...il est ndcessaire de substituer par abstraction, des conceptions simples, au moins relativement, aux objets rdels extremement complexes...Mais la science nest re'ellement lite a une abstraction plutot qiia une autre...Pour peu quon y trouve un avantage...Cela ne suffit pas encore: il faut continuer a stparer et a abstraire..."
And after having thus advised us to treat facts without pity, mutilating them, grinding them down, substituting for them names or abstractions, Pareto continues undisturbed, as though all this were nothing: these theories, " telles, au moins que nous les conccvons, se sdparant des anciens en ce que lies sattachent aux fails et non aux mots "! * If such be the facts, what will be the words?
VII. It is all the more necessary to under- 1 " L'Economie et la sociologie au point de vue scientifique" in Rivista 422 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
The theories of stand the diversity between economic Science the hedonistic anc* ^ Philosophy of economy, between the quantitative and the qualitative processes, owing to the fact that since economic studies first flourished, in the eighteenth century, absurd ideas were introduced into the books of philosophers, as to the calculus of pleasures and the balance of life. Maupertuis' book, Essai de philosophic morale (1749), had a great influence in this direction. Here, a balance is presented, showing a deficit on the side of pleasures; and, following this lead, many Italian philosopher-economists of the same period occupied themselves with such calculations and balances (Ortes, Verri, Briganti, etc.), arriv ing at results, now optimistic, now pessimistic.1 Galluppi, too, accepted the method as a good one,2 and it is no marvel that the poet Leopardi made it his, steeped as he was in the sensualistic philosophy of the preceding century. But not only are the trivial optimistic sophisms of the utilitarians founded upon it, but likewise many of the pessimistic arguments of Schopenhauer and especially of Hartmann, the latter quite unconscious (being in other respects closely connected with the German idealist tradition) 1 See M. Losacco, Le dottrine edonistiche italiane del secolo XVIII 2 Galluppi, Elementi difilosofia (Napoli, 1846), ii. 265-266, 406 sqq.
ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 423 that he was accepting an element of an altogether anti-idealistic, that is, of a mechanistic origin.
For all these reasons, it is important to oppose the concept of the useful (which is not indeed a concept, but an abstraction), given by economic Science, with its philosophic concept. This we have attempted to do in the preceding theory of Economy, as at once distinct from and united with Ethic. In that theory, we have especially striven to collect stray threads of aphorisms and observations of good sense as to the value of the will, even when amoral; as to the doctrines of happiness and of pleasure, of the inferior appetitive faculty, of others dealing with politics and the arts of prudence, of the new conception of the passions, considered as the spirit in its individuality; — we have striven to attach to these that which is as it were the philosophical result drawn from economic Science, that is to say, the idea of a form of value that would be neither the intellectual, the aesthetic, nor the ethical, and cannot by any means be resolved into an ethical anti-value or egoism; — and finally, we have attempted to unite all these threads into one, in order to form the bond that ethical rigorism has hitherto been unable to place between itself and reality, 424 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL between the universal and the practical individual, at the same time justifying utilitarian activity in its autonomy. We believe that this historical sketch will have contributed to make clear the necessity of our attempt.
SECOND SECTION THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE I CRITIQUE OF MATERIAL AND OF FORMALISTIC ETHIC IT is a much -disputed question whether the various Principle of Ethic should be conceived as formal "formal" and " material."
or material. The question, already difficult in itself, has become yet more difficult, so as almost to cause despair of its solution, owing to the fact that those terms, " formal " and " material," are understood (as often happens in philosophy) in a double sense. Hence, those who win assent to their thesis as to the formality of the ethical principle are afterwards wont to avail themselves of this assent, in order stealthily to introduce another thesis, which, although it be also beneath the banner of the " formal," yet has nothing to do with the first and is as false as that is true. And since those who maintain the material principle do the same thing, both 426 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL PT.
alike come to expose their flanks to one another's blows. In the process of unravelling this tangled skein, we shall begin by giving to those two words the meaning that they usually bear in philosophical terminology, meaning by " formal " the universal and by " material " the contingent. And in this signification we affirm, above all, that the principle of Ethic is formal and certainly not material. The ethical Were it material, it would express itself by principle as formal (uni- means of propositions indicating a single volition versal) and not material or a group of single volitions as the true and (contingent).
proper essence of the moral volition; and the moral activity would consist of a determinate action or of a determinate group of actions. But the moral act is always that which surpasses the single or the groups of singles: to will and to effect the single and the series of singles as such, does not appertain to the ethical, but to the merely economic form. He who loves things for things' sake (be they such, and as many as you will, of this or that kind, one, many, infinite) does not yet love the universal, which is every where, and is not exhausted in any particular thing, nor in any number of things, however immense.
If we posit a material principle for Ethic, ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 427 we relapse as a consequence into utilitarianism. Reduction of material to from which we thought we had escaped; because, utilitarian Ethic.
after having asserted the universal, it is now determined, either as a single or (which amounts to the same thing) as a feigned universal, a simply general concept of group or series. This vicissitude, however, presents itself in every sphere of philosophy: when the universal and formal principle of that sphere is materialized, we return to the sphere immediately below it. For example, an /Esthetic that posits as its principle certain single forms of art, thus sub stituting matter for form, relapses from art to life lived, which is the condition that precedes art and upon which art raises itself in order to intuite and to dominate life. Material Ethic has therefore been with reason discredited as heteronomous and utilitarian. Not indeed that it is so directly and admits itself so to be: on the contrary, it professes to be anti-utilitarian and does nothing directly, save to point to a given object as the true content of morality. But that object, being single, implies a merely utilitarian volition; and material Ethic is utilitarian, be cause, whatever it may do or say, it is logically reducible to utilitarianism.
The rejection of all material character from 428 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL FT.
\ the ethical principle is of the greatest importance, principles. for it frees Ethic from a long series of concepts, each one of which has been proposed in turn as the true ethical principle, and several still find many supporters, both in ordinary thought and in treatises called scientific. For us, those concepts should not be examined comparatively, so as to arrive at preferring the one to the other, or a new one of the same type to all the concepts previously enunciated; but they are all false, for one and the same reason, as any other that may in future be excogitated will be false, if it contain in it anything material. Benevolence, A first group of such material principles is love, altruism, etc. • and found in relation to the general concept of an critique of them. action, directed toward the welfare of individuals, other than the individual acting. Morality (they say) is sacrifice of self, benevolence, love, altruism, compassion, humanitarianism, or simply naturalism of the Franciscan sort, which commands us to re spect, protect, and love the animals also, since they too are God's creatures (brother Wolf, sister Fox). Such formulae, especially those of benevolence and altruism, have been and continue to be successful; and hardly a doubt is harboured but that they determine in the most complete and satis factory manner the proper principle of morality.
ir ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 429 But in truth others, as individuals, have no rights that I too do not possess as an individual: I am another for the other, and he is an I for himself; and if each one provided for the good of others, neglecting and trampling upon his own good, the result would be perfectly identical to what would happen, were each one to provide for himself without concern for others. Morality demands the sacrifice of me for the universal end, but of me only in my merely individual ends; and, therefore, in this case, of me as of others. It has no particular animosity against me, so as to wish to sacrifice me at all costs to others. We must be severe, not only with ourselves, but with others also; exigent, not only with our selves, but with others also; and so, on the contrary, benevolent not only toward others, but also toward ourselves; compassionate, not only toward others, but also towards this instrument of labour that we carry about with us and of which we sometimes demand too much; that is, our empirical individuality. Reality is neither democratic nor aristocratic, but both together; it abhors the privilege of some over others as much as that equality, according to which each one must have the same value as the other at every moment. All are in turn 430 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL FT.
masters and servants; worthy of respect as bearers and representatives of good, worthy of punishment and reprehension as clouding and impeding the good. Morality never considers individuals in themselves, but always in their relation to the universal; and in this respect there is no one who does not deserve to be saved or to be suppressed; there is no animal or other being of any kind that should not now be favoured in its existence, now annihilated. No individual is treated as an end, but all as means for universal morality; and they only obtain the dignity of ends, in so far as they are means for universal morality. The rights of animals have been written for and against; but in truth, a lamb has now the duty of being slaughtered, now the right of being left in peace, according to circum stances; in the same way that a man has now the right to go for a walk with his friends and to sing serenades beneath the windows of fair ladies, now the duty of putting on a uniform and of betaking himself beneath the walls of a citadel, where he will be blown in pieces by the enemy's grape-shot. Altruism is as insipid as egoism, and is reducible at bottom to egoism; in much the same way as sensual love, which has justly been called '"egoism for two." Indeed, why ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 431 should we be ready to sacrifice ourselves for others, and to promote their desire in every case and in spite of everything? For what reason, save for the blind and irrational attachment to them which makes a man throw away his life or descend to abjection for a wicked woman furiously loved, surfer every shame and torment for an unworthy son, or yield to the impulses of sympathy inspired by an individual? This blind and irrational attachment to others is at bottom attachment to ourselves, to our nerves, to our fancies, to our convenience, to our habits. It is utility, not morality; for morality wills us to be ready to separate ourselves from others as from ourselves, when the occasion arises, to leave wives and sons and brothers, and follow duty which transcends them all. "Thou only, O ideal, art true,..." or rather, by means of the ideal and of the universal, all things are true; without the ideal, there is not one of them that does not become false, as there is not an organism that does not become vile clay, when abandoned by life.
There is another group of material principles sod r ism, State, which seems to surpass individuals, because it interest of the » race, etc.
makes morality to consist of promoting either ct^que of so-called laws of nature or so-called institutions. Of such kind are those that place morality in the 432 PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICAL n.
service of the social organism and of the State, or of the interest of the Species and of Life (this being understood as animal life or very near to animality). But if it seem that contingent facts are thus escaped, that is not really so. For none of these concepts expresses the universality of the real, but this or that group of its particular manifestations: the life called social or political, this or that animal species, this or that vital manifestation. And none of these facts can be ethically willed without exceptions. The moral man sacrifices the State to the Church, or the Church to the State, atrophies certain organs and suppresses certain vital functions for universal ends, or for the ends of what is called civilization; he defends, preserves and increases certain aptitudes of the human race, but lets others disappear or modifies them, always adapting the interest of the species to that of the ideal. Were he to do otherwise, he would again be substituting utility for morality, his immediate affection for certain things or for certain single and individual facts, to the affection for them that should always be mediated, that is to say, mediated by the universal. Material re- A third group of material principles, called ligious prin ciples, critique religious, which make morality to consist of ii ACTIVITY IN SPECIAL FORMS 433