Even when the motive6 to an action exists in universal conceptual form (e.g., Thou shalt do good to thy fellow-men! Thou shalt live so that thou promotest best thy welfare!), there still remains13 to be found, in the particular case, the concrete idea of the action (the relation of the concept to a content of perception). For a free spirit who is not guided by any model nor by fear of punishment, etc., this translation of the concept into an idea is always necessary.
Concrete ideas are formed by us on the basis of our concepts by means of the imagination. Hence what the free spirit needs in order to realise his concepts, in order to assert himself in the world, is moral imagination. This is the source of the free spirit’s action. Only those men, therefore, who are endowed with moral imagination are, properly speaking, morally productive. Those who merely preach morality, i.e., those who merely excogitate moral rules without being able to condense them into concrete ideas, are morally unproductive. They are like those critics who can explain very competently how a work of art ought to be made, but who are themselves incapable15 of the smallest artistic16 production.
Moral imagination, in order to realise its [201]ideas, must enter into a determinate sphere of percepts. Human action does not create percepts, but transforms already existing percepts and gives them a new character. In order to be able to transform a definite object of perception, or a sum of such objects, in accordance with a moral idea, it is necessary to understand the object’s law (its mode of action which one intends to transform, or to which one wants to give a new direction). Further, it is necessary to discover the procedure by which it is possible to change the given law into the new one. This part of effective moral activity depends on knowledge of the particular world of phenomena17 with which one has got to deal. We shall, therefore, find it in some branch of scientific knowledge. Moral action, then, presupposes, in addition to the faculty18 of moral concepts1 and of moral imagination, the ability to alter the world of percepts without violating the natural laws by which they are connected. This ability is moral technique. It may be learnt in the same sense in which science in general may be learnt. For, in general, men are better able to find concepts for the world as it is, than productively to originate out of their imaginations future, and as yet non-existing, actions. Hence, it is very well possible for [202]men without moral imagination to receive moral ideas from others, and to embody19 these skilfully20 in the actual world. Vice21 versa, it may happen that men with moral imagination lack technical skill, and are dependent on the service of other men for the realisation of their ideas.
In so far as we require for moral action knowledge of the objects upon which we are about to act, our action depends upon such knowledge. What we need to know here are the laws of nature. These belong to the Natural Sciences, not to Ethics22.
Moral imagination and the faculty of moral concepts can become objects of theory only after they have first been employed by the individual. But, thus regarded, they no longer regulate life, but have already regulated it. They must now be treated as efficient causes, like all other causes (they are purposes only for the subject). The study of them is, as it were, the Natural Science of moral ideas.
Ethics as a Normative Science, over and above this science, is impossible.
Some would maintain the normative character of moral laws at least in the sense that Ethics is to be taken as a kind of dietetic which, from the conditions of the organism’s life, deduces general rules, on the basis of which it hopes to give detailed23 directions to the body (Paulsen, System der Ethik). This comparison is mistaken, because our moral life cannot be compared with the life of the organism. The [203]behaviour of the organism occurs without any volition24 on our part. Its laws are fixed25 data in our world; hence we can discover them and apply them when discovered. Moral laws, on the other hand, do not exist until we create them. We cannot apply them until we have created them. The error is due to the fact that moral laws are not at every moment new creations, but are handed down by tradition. Those which we take over from our ancestors appear to be given like the natural laws of the organism. But it does not follow that a later generation has the right to apply them in the same way as dietetic rules. For they apply to individuals, and not, like natural laws, to specimens26 of a genus. Considered as an organism, I am such a generic specimen27, and I shall live in accordance with nature if I apply the laws of my genus to my particular case. As a moral agent I am an individual and have my own private laws.2
The view here upheld appears to contradict that fundamental doctrine28 of modern Natural Science which is known as the Theory of Evolution. But it only appears to do so. By evolution we mean the real development of [204]the later out of the earlier in accordance with natural law. In the organic world, evolution means that the later (more perfect) organic forms are real descendants of the earlier (imperfect) forms, and have grown out of them in accordance with natural laws. The upholders of the theory of organic evolution believe that there was once a time on our earth, when we could have observed with our own eyes the gradual evolution of reptiles30 out of Proto-Amniotes, supposing that we could have been present as men, and had been endowed with a sufficiently31 long span of life. Similarly, Evolutionists suppose that man could have watched the development of the solar system out of the primordial32 nebula33 of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis, if he could have occupied a suitable spot in the world-ether during that infinitely34 long period. But no Evolutionist will dream of maintaining that he could from his concept of the primordial Amnion deduce that of the reptile29 with all its qualities, even if he had never seen a reptile. Just as little would it be possible to derive35 the solar system from the concept of the Kant-Laplace nebula, if this concept of an original nebula had been formed only from the percept of the nebula. In other words, if the Evolutionist is to think consistently, he is bound to maintain that out of earlier phases of evolution later ones really develop; that once the concept of the imperfect and that of the perfect have been given, we can understand the connection. But in [205]no case will he admit that the concept formed from the earlier phases is, in itself, sufficient for deducing from it the later phases. From this it follows for Ethics that, whilst we can understand the connection of later moral concepts with earlier ones, it is not possible to deduce a single new moral idea from earlier ones. The individual, as a moral being, produces his own content. This content, thus produced, is for Ethics a datum36, as much as reptiles are a datum for Natural Science. Reptiles have evolved out of the Proto-Amniotes, but the scientist cannot manufacture the concept of reptiles out of the concept of the Proto-Amniotes. Later moral ideas evolve out of the earlier ones, but Ethics cannot manufacture out of the moral principles of an earlier age those of a later one. The confusion is due to the fact that, as scientists, we start with the facts before us, and then make a theory about them, whereas in moral action we first produce the facts ourselves, and then theorise about them. In the evolution of the moral world-order we accomplish what, at a lower level, Nature accomplishes: we alter some part of the perceptual world. Hence the ethical37 norm cannot straightway be made an object of knowledge, like a law of nature, for it must first be created. Only when that has been done can the norm become an object of knowledge.
But is it not possible to make the old a measure for the new? Is not every man [206]compelled to measure the deliverances of his moral imagination by the standard of traditional moral principles? If he would be truly productive in morality, such measuring is as much an absurdity38 as it would be an absurdity if one were to measure a new species in nature by an old one and say that reptiles, because they do not agree with the Proto-Amniotes, are an illegitimate (degenerate) species.
Ethical Individualism, then, so far from being in opposition39 to the theory of evolution, is a direct consequence of it. Haeckel’s genealogical tree, from protozoa up to man as an organic being, ought to be capable of being worked out without a breach40 of natural law, and without a gap in its uniform evolution, up to the individual as a being with a determinate moral nature. But, whilst it is quite true that the moral ideas of the individual have perceptibly grown out of those of his ancestors, it is also true that the individual is morally barren, unless he has moral ideas of his own.
The same Ethical Individualism which I have developed on the basis of the preceding principles, might be equally well developed on the basis of the theory of evolution. The final result would be the same; only the path by which it was reached would be different.
That absolutely new moral ideas should be developed by the moral imagination is for the theory of evolution no more inexplicable41 than the development of one animal species out of another, provided only that this theory, [207]as a Monistic world-view, rejects, in morality as in science, every transcendent (metaphysical) influence. In doing so, it follows the same principle by which it is guided in seeking the causes of new organic forms in forms already existing, but not in the interference of an extra-mundane God, who produces every new species in accordance with a new creative idea through supernatural interference. Just as Monism has no use for supernatural creative ideas 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 world. It cannot admit any continuous supernatural influence upon moral life (divine government of the world from the outside), nor an influence either through a particular act of revelation at a particular moment in history (giving of the ten commandments), or through God’s appearance on the earth (Divinity of Christ3). Moral processes are, for Monism, natural products like everything else that exists, and their causes must be looked for in nature, i.e., in man, because man is the bearer of morality.
Ethical Individualism, then, is the crown of the edifice42 that Darwin and Haeckel have erected43 for Natural Science. It is the theory of evolution applied44 to the moral life. [208]
Anyone who restricts the concept of the natural from the outset to an artificially limited and narrowed sphere, is easily tempted45 not to allow any room within it for free individual action. The consistent Evolutionist does not easily fall a prey46 to such a narrow-minded view. He cannot let the process of evolution terminate with the ape, and acknowledge for man a supernatural origin. Again, he cannot stop short at the organic reactions of man and regard only these as natural. He has to treat also the life of moral self-determination as the continuation of organic life. The Evolutionist, then, in accordance with his fundamental principles, can maintain only that moral action evolves out of the less perfect forms of natural processes. He must leave the characterisation of action, i.e., its determination as free action, to the immediate47 observation of each agent. All that he maintains is only that men have developed out of non-human ancestors. What the nature of men actually is must be determined48 by observation of men themselves. The results of this observation cannot possibly contradict the history of evolution. Only the assertion that the results are such as to exclude their being due to a natural world-order would contradict recent developments in the Natural Sciences.4 [209]
Ethical Individualism, then, has nothing to fear from a Natural Science which understands itself. Observation yields freedom as the characteristic quality of the perfect form of human action. Freedom must be attributed to the human will, in so far as the will realises purely ideal intuitions. For these are not the effects of a necessity acting49 upon them from without, but are grounded in themselves. When we find that an action embodies50 such an ideal intuition, we feel it to be free. Freedom consists in this character of an action.
What, then, from the standpoint of nature are we to say of the distinction, already mentioned above (p. 8), between the two statements, “To be free means to be able to do what you will,” and “To be able, as you please, to strive or not to strive is the real meaning of the dogma of free will”? Hamerling bases his theory of free will precisely51 on this distinction, by declaring the first statement to be correct but the second to be an absurd tautology52. He says, “I can do what I will, but to say I can will what I will is an empty tautology.” Whether I am able to do, i.e., to make real, what I will, i.e., what I have set before myself as my idea of action, that depends on external circumstances and on my technical skill (cp. p. 200). To be free means to be able to determine by moral imagination out of oneself those ideas (motives) which lie at the basis of action. Freedom is impossible if anything other than I myself (whether a [210]mechanical process or God) determines my moral ideas. In other words, I am free only when I myself produce these ideas, but not when I am merely able to realise the ideas which another being has implanted in me. A free being is one who can will what he regards as right. Whoever does anything other than what he wills must be impelled53 to it by motives which do not lie in himself. Such a man is unfree in his action. Accordingly, to be able to will, as you please, what you consider right or wrong means to be free or unfree as you please. This is, of course, just as absurd as to identify freedom with the faculty of doing what one is compelled to will. But this is just what Hamerling maintains when he says, “It is perfectly54 true that the will is always determined by motives, but it is absurd to say that on this ground it is unfree; for a greater freedom can neither be desired nor conceived than the freedom to realise oneself in proportion to one’s own power and strength of will.” On the contrary, it is well possible to desire a greater freedom and that a true freedom, viz., the freedom to determine for oneself the motives of one’s volitions.
Under certain conditions a man may be induced to abandon the execution of his will; but to allow others to prescribe to him what he shall do—in other words, to will what another and not what he himself regards as right—to this a man will submit only when he does not feel free. [211]
External powers may prevent me from doing what I will, but that is only to condemn55 me to do nothing or to be unfree. Not until they enslave my spirit, drive my motives out of my head, and put their own motives in the place of mine, do they really aim at making me unfree. That is the reason why the church attacks not only the mere14 doing, but especially the impure56 thoughts, i.e., motives of my action. And for the church all those motives are impure which she has not herself authorised. A church does not produce genuine slaves until her priests turn themselves into advisers57 of consciences, i.e., until the faithful depend upon the church, i.e., upon the confessional, for the motives of their actions.
[Contents]
Addition to Revised Edition (1918).
In these chapters I have given an account of how every one may experience in his actions something which makes him aware that his will is free. It is especially important to recognise that we derive the right to call an act of will free from the experience of an ideal intuition realising itself in the act. This can be nothing but a datum of observation, in the sense that we observe the development of human volition in the direction towards the goal of attaining58 the possibility of just such volition sustained by purely ideal intuition. This attainment59 is possible because the ideal intuition is effective through nothing [212]but its own self-dependent essence. Where such an intuition is present in the mind, it has not developed itself out of the processes in the organism (cp. pp. 146 ff.), but the organic processes have retired60 to make room for the ideal processes. Observation of an act of will which embodies an intuition shows that out of it, likewise, all organically necessary activity has retired. The act of will is free. No one can observe this freedom of will who is unable to see how free will consists in this, that, first, the intuitive factor lames61 and represses the necessary activity of the human organism, and then puts in its place the spiritual activity of a will guided by ideas. Only those who are unable to observe these two factors in the free act of will believe that every act of will is unfree. Those who are able to observe them win through to the recognition that man is unfree in so far as he fails to repress organic activity completely, but that this unfreedom is tending towards freedom, and that this freedom, so far from being an abstract ideal, is a directive force inherent in human nature. Man is free in proportion as he succeeds in realising in his acts of will the same disposition62 of mind, which possesses him when he is conscious in himself of the formation of purely ideal (spiritual) intuitions. [213]
1 Only a superficial critic will find in the use of the word “faculty,” in this and other passages, a relapse into the old-fashioned doctrine of faculties63 of the soul. ↑
2 When Paulsen, p. 15 of the book mentioned above, says: “Different natural endowments and different conditions of life demand both a different bodily and also a different mental and moral diet,” he is very close to the correct view, but yet he misses the decisive point. In so far as I am an individual, I need no diet. Dietetic means the art of bringing a particular specimen into harmony with the universal laws of the genus. But as an individual I am not a specimen of a genus. ↑
3 The Editor would call the reader’s attention to the fact that this book was written in 1894. For many years Dr. Steiner’s efforts have been chiefly concentrated in upholding the Divinity of Christ consistently with the broader lines of the Christian Churches. ↑
4 We are entitled to speak of thoughts (ethical ideas) as objects of observation. For, although the products of thinking do not enter the field of observation, so long as the thinking goes on, they may well become objects of observation subsequently. In this way we have gained our characterisation of action. ↑
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analogous
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| adj.相似的；类似的 | |
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dispenses
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| v.分配，分与；分配( dispense的第三人称单数 )；施与；配（药） | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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generic
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| adj.一般的，普通的，共有的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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inhibit
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| vt.阻止，妨碍，抑制 | |
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pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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skilfully
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| adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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specimens
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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reptile
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| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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reptiles
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| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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primordial
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| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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nebula
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| n.星云，喷雾剂 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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datum
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| n.资料；数据；已知数 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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embodies
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| v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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tautology
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| n.无谓的重复；恒真命题 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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lames
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| 瘸的( lame的第三人称单数 )； 站不住脚的； 差劲的； 蹩脚的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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