LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Accession °"4 79 class Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/formalmaterialelOOwashrich THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION Vol. Ill No. t THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL ELEMENTS DP KANT'S ETHICS BY WILLIAM MORROW WASHINGTON, Pli.I). Sometime Scholar in Philosophy in Columbia University June, 1898 The Macmillan Co., 66 Fifth Avenue, New York Mayer and Muller, Mark&rafenstrasse, Berlin Price 60 cents £8 1 CONTENTS 1 Introductory 7 II The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals . . 14 III The Critique of Pure Practical Reason 29 IV The Metaphysic of Ethics 63 V Conclusion (with Scheme) 66 86479 INTRODUCTION THE primal fact that strikes one in Kant's Ethics, leaving out of view the fact that they are a necessary part of his complete method, is that pe is thoroughly animated by they spirit of Stoicism ; knd that further, in this spirit, he is aim- ing more particularly at a refutation of the contemporary sensationalistic schools. In accomplishing the double ob- ject called forth by these two facts, and in fitting his doc- trines into the terminology of the critical method, he had the misfortune to express himself in terms peculiar to Logic ; thereby provoking a merely logical refutation, and one, on that account, often wide of the mark and quite blind to the ethical truth conveyed. The terminology thus adopted was that by which the elements of a science are classed under one of the two heads of Form or Matter. This division served Kant doubly thus : it allowed him to distinguish as the Greeks had done, between Reason, Will and Spirit on the one hand, and Sense, Impulse, Matter and Body on the other; at the same time by advocating an ethics of " form, "(he showed that he regarded the moral law as a product of Reasomin contrast to the Moral Sense foundation of the English scnool. For, he thought, Ethics must proceed from reason; and to be ^ Ethics, must give a law, the a priori product of pure reason ; / and which, therefore, can be only the mere concept ox form of a law. On the other hand, a doctrine which ignores the mandatory character of virtue fills up the gap thus left by descriptions of virtue's pleasantness ; in which case, all that is 71 7 8 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL [g accomplished is to make the objects of the will (the matter) pleasant, and their attainment desired ; therefore we must rule out absolutely from Ethics the matter of desire. In Kant's use of the word, there is but one^ derivation for the matter of desire ; it is the sense-given, hence is par- ticular, empirical and merely contingent. For " Form," on the other hand, we may find two sources, Reason and the Understanding, used to denote respectively the faculty which deals with Ideas notjbased on intuition, but produced from its own spontaneity, and that which has no conceptions except those derived from sensible intuition. When he reached the period of his_ejhi£ajjwntin^;s, Kant had finished his investigation of the limits of the Understand- ing, and Reason became of first importance as a field of re- search. As a result, the Understanding falls into the back- ground, and occupies a somewhat equivocal position. As a faculty of abstraction, itf belongs to the formal world and is concerned with the form of knowledge.) As opposed to the intelligible intuitionless world in which Reason dwells by its purely spontaneous nature, Understanding ranks with the sensible world of intuitions. (The division of intelligible and sensible worlds is the one most prominently before Kant's mind in his Ethics.)/ Nevertheless his phraseology is not so constant as not to allow of a frequent use of the division be- tween Sensibility and Understanding. Form thus comes to have two distinct references. It may be (i) merely the universal to be arrived at by abstraction from the particulars given in intuition; (2) the rational, as distinct from the sensible and intelligible, and not derived from intuition. In the former sense, Kant is a conceptualist; though there is an intimation, in his conception of the Categories, that if the universal does not lie in the mind before the particular is presented in intuition, at least the mind is ready beforehand for such presentation. gl ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS g (in his Ethics, Kant is carried clear into the camp of Real- ism : the universal, as a law, exists apart from the particular and can never be found in the particular. But it exists so only in our conception of a rational being. J This last qualification denotes the psychological aspect ot Kant's attitude, and is really the solution of the whole ques- tion as to his position on this point, into which his distinc- tion between Form and Matter compels us to inquire. For while Kant uses this division as thoroughly as any scholastic could desire, he never takes the scholastic's ontological point of view. It is not to decide priority or reality of existence that leads him to make this abstraction, but the necessity of denoting the different psychological sources of ideas, of their causes, and of concepts. Where or how the moral law ex- ists, Kant did not care to inquire. That/it existed, prior to all experience in the conception of the v very nature of a rational being, was enough. So far it had reality as cer- tainly as did the Ideas of Plato. Without being at all con- cerned, therefore, in the ontological quarrel of Nominalism and Realism, Kant's Ethics denote a strongly^realistic stand- point. The difference between Matter and Form, in Kant's con- ception of them, is the same as in Aristotle's ; but he never uses the terms in the Aristotelian sense. Instead of form and matter being coeternal principles of things, they are now elements of knowledge. Form is that element supplied by Understanding and Reason ; matter is that given through the senses. The sense-given can never be anything but the particular, contingent and a posteriori. The necessary and universal, from its very nature, must be the product of the reason, of the pure reason a priori. That place where Kant comes nearest to the scholastic meaning of the terms is in his distinction between formal and material knowledge and in the division of the sciences on this I0 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL |^ I0 basis. This is at the very beginning of his work ; all the conceptions are present that appear at any time, but Kant is here insisting on the a priori character of the one, the empir- ical, of the other sort of knowledge. Accordingly that idea is not so strongly brought out, which advancingly distin- guishes his use of the terms from the traditional one. This is the conception that matter and form are not eternal prin- ciples of the same thing. There is, on the contrary, nothing in Kant to prevent the supposition that they may exist apart, though, indeed, form without matter would be empty, and matter without form would have no meaning for us. Aris- totle's form and matter do not exclude each other : form is matter in a higher stage of development; matter is form in a lower stage. In Kant's conception they are fixed ;. form is, as it were, the mental mold through which matter passes in its cognition by the mind. Form is the determination ; matter, that which is determined. We have, therefore, two different conceptions of form, the traditional and the Kantian. The difference may be illus- trated thus : in the scholastic meaning, the form of a sentence is that determination of words which is essential to their becoming a sentence, i. e. y there must be a subject, a predi- cate verb, and if the verb be transitive, an object, and so on. The matter of such a sentence is the specific subject, predi- cate verb and object. In Kant's use, the matter is both this form and matter, if these together form part of a cognition. The form is that in the conceiving mind whereby they are cognized ; it is that by which mind legislates for nature. Thus, /the Categorical Imperative is the form of the law. ) In the former sense, it is comparable to the formal syllogism. That is, fit is not the law, but the form in which all maxims on which one acts must be molded in order that their con- sistency may be tested :1 just as all reasoning must be sub- mitted to the formal syllogism in order to test its validity. ! j ] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS \ i •Jin the second, or Kantian use, the form of the law is a law: a law because it expresses moral necessity) and, being necessary, proceeds a priori from reason alone ; the form of a law because it is given by pure reason, and is, therefore, merely the idea of a law in general. In Kant's own use we may distinguish two sorts of form ; the first is the category, whose correlative matter are the objects of sensible intuition. Form and matter in this sense are the subject-matter of physics, regarded as the science of the whole realm of nature and speculations thereon. Besides the category as a form of judgment, the mind also deals in Ideas for which no sensible intuition can possibly be found. On this account Reason in its speculative use, i. e. the Understanding, rejects them as elements of knowledge at all; they are " conceptions without perceptions," and conse- quently empty. Reason as deliberative Will, on the other hand, settles the account of such Ideas very differently by making them the foundation stones of rational morality. The understanding can deal only with the materials pro- vided it by the sensibility. Rational Will, on the contrary, produces its Ideas from its own spontaneity. It is therefore absurd to attempt to find, corresponding to these forms, a matter in the meaning previously given the term, namely, the sense-given. We must find a new and broader definition for matter. It is the very nature of the Ideal Conceptions of the reason to be realized. " In order to extend a pure cognition prac- tically, there must be an a priori purpose given, that is, an end as object of the will." ■ That is, we may call this pur- posed end the matter of an Ideal. We see, therefore, that both understanding and reason have an object (matter); but that of the former is Gegenstand, the given in intuition, that of the latter is Zweck, " an object possible of realization through Freedom" (spontaneity). From this point of view I2 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL [ I2 the department of thought under which the Ideas fall is that of purpose, of ends to be attained ; which is Ethics. ( Under Ethics, consequently, is understood all that does not come within the domain of nature (physics), where purpose is not possible, j Of the nature of the Ideal as the subject- matter proper of Ethics, we shall learn more in the consid- eration of the chapter on H the Object of pure practical Reason," and in the Dialectic. The length to which Kant carried the abstraction of the a priori and empirical elements of knowledge, and in ethics especially, his passion to get a binding universal, abstracted altogether from time-given circumstances, forced him into a position continually more marked by realism. His hatred of the sense-given increased correspondingly. So that " mater- ialistic" has for him all the meaning attached in common parlance to that term as opposed to intellectual or spiritual. It represents all that is base and sensualistic in principles. This sense is not brought out in a well defined way, but is seen most clearly in such affirmations as : " all material practical principles as such are of one and the same kind, and come under the general principle of self-love or private happiness; " 2 "the direct opposite of the principle of moral- ity (obtains), when the principle of private happiness is made the determining principle of the will." 3 This bias led Kant to limit almost altogether the word matter to the sense- given, although it includes any object, whether of thought or sense. ( Formal Ethics is the product of pure practical reason a priori. )To find the elements of it we must analyze the term "morality;" to establish its reality and authority we must proceed synthetically. The latter task is the Critique's. The former is that of the Grundlegung; 4 which is accord- ingly an analysis of the formal presuppositions which must necessarily be found in morality if it is to have reality, i. e., j 3 ] ELEMENTS OF KANT 'S E THICS 1 3 is to be regarded as the science of Law and Duty. To this analysis we will now proceed. 1 Abbott's Kant, 4th ed., p. 231. 8 Abbott, p. 108. • Ibid., p. 124; Kirchman, K. d. prac. Ver., S. 41. * I have throughout chosen to call the " Fundamental Principles of the Meta- physic of Morals " by the first word of the German title. II THE GRUNDLEGUNG : FORMAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF MORALITY WE are immediately introduced to the formal and material as elements of knowledge by the statement that it was on them as a basic principle that Greek philosophy divided knowledge into the three departments of Physics, Ethics and Logic. The definitions here given show that Kant already intends to support the conclusions later reached in the Critique of Practical Reason, and foreshadowed in that of the Pure Reason ; namely, that Physics is the science of Natures Ethics of the supersensible (corresponding to Greek " Metapnysics ") ; that the latter can establish those Ideas of reason to which Metaphysics had failed to give reality) Logic is the underlying science which prescribes how one must think in the other two ; i. e. it supplies the form. While thus identifying his use of formal and material with the Greek, Kant from the beginning uses the terms in his own fashion by adding the psychological element which had been absent from the former meaning. For logic is now not only the philosophy of forms, but of forms of the understanding and of reason: besides being empty, it must come a priori from pure reason. Otherwise it would not be, as it is, valid for all thought and capable of demonstration. When such a pure philosophy is applied to definite objects of the understanding, as found in Ethics and Physics, it is called Metaphysic. Metaphysic is thus material be- cause applied to a specific object ; but is also formal, inas- 14 [14 I 5 ] ELEMENTS CF KANT'S E TIIICS f 5 much as it is not empirical, and is a systematization of the rational parts of physics and ethics. Tabulating Kant's statements, we have the following division of sciences as re- gards their form and matter : Philosophy Pure _ . — . ^ Empirical Formal (Logic) Material (Metaphysic) Anthropology Experimental (Material Ethics) Physics of Ethics of Physics Rechtslehre Tugendlehre (formal) ' (material) It is seen that in Kant's opinion there are two metaphysics, those of etjiics and phvj>ics ; and in each of the sciences there can be but one metaphysic. The division of Ethics into Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre (formal and material) is made in the Metaphysic of Ethics, and we have no concern with it at present. The intent of this subdividing is to bring out Kant's con- ception that/in formal (pure) ethics only can a law, neces- sary and universal, be found. \ Any principle that needs time- given conditions to develop and establish it, and cannot, therefore, be justified a priori ', is material and not able to furnish a necessary law. . /Of the metaphysic of Ethics,, the subject-matter is the Will ;j rtbt the will generally, as treated in psychology, but a pos- sible, pure will. And the purpose of the metaphysic is the finding of the supreme canon of morality, a necessary and universal law, the ground of whose a priority in a more ex- \ plicitly ethical sense is its necessity to moral experience. The method adopted by Kant to attain his end is to find by analysis all that is contained, presupposed that is, in the 1 6 THE FORMAL AND MA TERIAL [ t g v term rational morality. This analysis will furnish the foun- dation of a metaphysic of morals. The concepts found to inhere in "morality" will be such as are necessarily deter- mined before there can be any morality ; i. e. y the formal conditions of morality. To find these conditions is the task of the " Grundlegung." The subsequent proof of the real existence of morality will be the work of the Critique. / The first condition of morality, that which conditions all others, is the Good Will. 1 The Good Will is absolute good.) As such, it is formal; that is, a possible will which sets forth what the actual will ought to be, and thus determines the formal conditions of a will's becoming good. Not to violate the requirements of formal morality ,(it must be a will which gives only universal laws,, being indeterminate as regards specific objects and containing the mere form of volition. 2 By " absolute " Kant means the unconditioned, of which he gives two definitions : 3 (i) the supreme unconditioned condition which is the condition of all others and is not sub- ordinate to any; (2) that whole which is not a part of a greater whole of the same kind (the unrelated). He applies the former definition to the Good Will: it is the supreme good and the condition of every other (without which they , could not exist), but is not the sole and complete good. 4 \ "A good will is good not because of what it performs, but simply by virtue of the volition, that is, it is good in itself. y 5 Not that it is unrelated, but that its goodness is not in the least affected by its relation to anything else ; and that the fact that it attains material good is not what makes its voli- tion good. The will can become formal good only through a formal reason (that is, one abstracted from ends), namely, the fact that is the unconditioned condition of all other prin- ciples of pure morality. 6 In opposition to this formal good men have tried to up- hold a material good based on the empirical principle of I j ] ELEMENTS OF KAN T'S E THICS j 7 Happiness. Their position is refuted by the fact of the existence of reason and its office, which is not the attain- ment and preservation of happiness. The Will is not at first defined further than to distinguish it from wish; 7 and to affirm that it acts according to concepts or principles, and is consequently a deliberative will or practical reason. 8 In the Metaphysic of Ethics a distinction is made between rational and elective will. The elective will is of two kinds, human which is merely affected by sensible desire, and animal which is altogether determined by such. 9 "Will" at first has a narrower meaning, being denied to all but rational beings ; and being indeed the faculty of acting according to principles. Later, the Rational Will alone is the practical reason, and gives laws: elective will gives maxims. Elec- tive will alone is free ; /rational will is neither free nor unfreey Animals have no free-will, being determined by physical impulses. Rational will through its laws, which become subjectively the maxims of the elective will, controls the latter ; or would do so were it not weakened by disuse and submission to the inclinations. Proceeding from the conception of the Good Will as the first presupposition of morality, Kant takes up the notion of. Duty. fThe idea of Duty involves that of a will 3° unless there be a cause able to choose its own ends there can be no responsibility for results. (An act to be moral must be done from a sense of duty,^not from inclination ; and such an act derives its moral worth not from the matter, the end in view, but altogether from the principle on which one acts. Duty is opposed to inclination, and has no pleasantness connected with it ; reluctance to accept the obligation being one of its essentials. 11 Kant asserts that consciousness of his moral worth, 1, tf.Ythat he can act on principles in obedience to Duty, is man's highest good ; j but affirms also that one can- not be certain of this worth, since he cannot tell whether he 1 8 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL [jg is acting from Duty alone; "we cannot observe the maxims themselves, not even always in ourselves." n Duty is defined in terms of Law, which is the next step in the analysis. For Duty is but a species of the wider term tLaw; a law that applies only to free rational beings. Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the law."/ 4 This duty is a conception of formal morality ; it is not de- rived from experience, and without it no moral experience is possible. That it is a conception, and one a priori, in- volves a contradiction of the English School, which had made it a sense. Later, in the Metaphysic of Ethics, Kant dis- tinguishes further between formal and material Duty. The former is obligation, " the necessity of a free action under a categorical imperative of reason." 15 Material duty " is the action to which a person is bound. It is therefore the mat- ter of obligation." 16 The notion of Law is implied in that of Duty, as the latter follows on the conception of the Good Will. " The notion of duty stands in immediate relation to a law," 17 and " is in itself already the notion of a constraint of the free elective will by the law." 18 (For Kant, Ethics is the science of Law ; of a law expressing itself concretely in the single word, Duty.\ That is the form every law must take in order to have its weight as a moral law. It is a priori, one being not even a moral being till he has experienced it. {To be moral, one must have a sense of duty to start wit/h is his dictum. /" A law (a moral practical law) is a proposition, which contains a categorical imperative (a command). "\ Such a proposition is objective and universal — a principle for all rational nature. There are also subjective principles, called 2 This is the Type of the moral law. For instance, I see a man killed by accident. Judging from it as a fact of nature, I conclude that it would be as evil morally to will myself to commit such an act as it is for it to happen unintentionally in the course of events. Of the Type of the law it is to be observed, that being formal and universal it is as empty as we have already seen the categorical imperative to be, and consequently it is impossible to draw trustworthy conclusions from it. The Motives of Pure Practical Reason In the Grundlegung, 33 Kant has distinguished between the spring (Triebfeder) as the subjective ground of desire, and the motive or objective ground of volition (Bewegungs- grund). Chapter III. of the Critique is on the "springs" of pure practical reason. This is translated " motives " by Abbott, Kant having altered his terms ; for he has already said that a volition resting on a spring is material, but now treats of such as formal. He is therefore using the word spring in the same sense that he previously used motive. If an act rests on feeling (Triebfeder) it may conform to the law, but will possess only legality. 34 To be moral it must find its ground of determination (motive, Bewegungs- grund) in the form of the law. In maintaining this Kant asserts that the form can and must be both objective and subjective ground of determination of the will. In filling these two offices, it is dangerous to allow other motives (for instance, that of interest as upheld by Hutcheson) to co- operate with the sense of Duty. The essential point of all determination of the will by the law is that as a free will it is determined simply by the law without the co-operation of sensible impulses and even to the rejection of all such. 35 In withdrawing from the aid of such impulses or in com- batting their influence, the action of the law as a motive is only negative; the succeeding feeling may be called a pain. 53] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS 53 Consequently, as law as a motive can be known a priori only, we have a case in which we can from a priori consider- ations determine the relation of a cognition to a feeling of pleasure or pain. All inclinations, regarded as material motives, constitute self-regard. This is either self-love (selfishness) or satis- faction with oneself (self-conceit). There is a self-love which on account of its reasonableness is only checked by the pure practical reason. Self-conceit, on the other hand, the law strikes down altogether, and in so doing commands respect. Respect thus becomes the only feeling known a priori y being the result of an intellectual cause. ^ The moral law performs three offices : 36 it is the formal determining principle of action by means of practical reason ; as such it informs the subject of the law that his volition must conform to what the sense of duty directs him to perform. The law is also a material and objective determining prin- ciple of the objects of actions in so far as in willing it is to be decided whether they are good or evil ; that is, the law is capable of denoting what ends are good or the opposite. The statement of these two offices are a reiteration of the first two formulae of the categorical imperative, and corres- ponds to the division of a maxim into a form (its universal validity) and a matter (its end). 37 Besides these, the law, as it produces a feeling, respect for itself, is also a subjective determining principle, a motive to action. It is a motive which deprives the will of every material spring, taking "from self-love its influence, and from self-conceit its illu- sion." The law is the objective moral motive; the sub- jective motive is respect for the law. 3 !^ Respect applies to persons, not to things. It is "a tribute which we cannot refuse to merit, whether we will or not." 3 9 Although a feeling, it is one neither of pleasure nor pain : the former is shown in the fact that we yield to it reluctantly, A 54 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL [54 and always endeavor to reduce the credit due a man for his morality. That it is not painful is known to those who have risen far enough above self-conceit to contemplate the law in its majesty. In motivation of the will through respect for the law, the will is first determined objectively and directly ; freedom restricts the influence of the inclinations, and thus produces a feeling of displeasure, which can be known a priori from the moral law. The feeling of displeasure, how- ever, is itself a sign of the ascendancy of the law over material considerations, and is followed by respect for the law. Re- spect (all pathological obstacles having been removed) thus becomes the motive of the will ; but only to objects approved by the sense of duty. An action according to the law fol- lowing on motivation through respect is duty ; which includes in its conception obligation, a determination to actions with- out regard to the reluctance felt in doing them. That is, obligation is the duty arising from the necessity that the will be determined by the law ; duty, however, is a broader con- ception and includes with this moral determination the ne- cessity of objective agreement of the action with the law. 40 The strongest argument that can be brought against the moral sense theory (and it applies more forcibly to more egoistic schools) is that it disregards the necessity of con- straint by a sense of duty to check the inclinations, as human nature is constituted and must ever remain so long as physi- cal human nature endures. We can never be quite free from desires and inclinations, and on that account " stand under a discipline [a restraint] of reason, and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything there- from, or by an egotistic presumption diminish aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect for this law. Duty and obligation are the 55] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS 55 only names that we must give to our relation to the moral law." 4I If constraint of the faculty of desire can be got only through a discipline of reason^ then that is a sufficient justifi- cation for the rationalistic standpoint, for the view that the attainment of morality depends on the presence in the agent of a sense of responsibility, which must determine the will by presenting its moral principles as unconditioned laws. In what is the basis of this Duty which governs rational nature? It can spring from "nothing less than a power which elevates man above himself (as a part of the world of sense)," which connects him with an order (conceivable only to the intellect) which commands the sensible world. "This power is nothing but personality ," ' 42 and personality is independence on the mechanism of nature and also the fac- ulty of a being which is subject to laws given by its own reason. Duty, that is, can be the offspring of reason alone ; it is a form, an idea, not a sense as English-speaking people have chosen to regard it. , This then is the nature of the true motive of pure practical reason ; it can be nothing else than a product, a conception, of the reason itself. It is no other than the pure moral law, inasmuch as that makes us conscious of the sublimity of our own supersensible existence and subjectively produces re- spect for our higher nature. 43 One cannot fail to observe in Kant's conception of respect for the law an analogy to the moral sense of Hutcheson. Many of Kant's statements as to what respect is not seem directly aimed at Hutcheson's description of the attributes and office of the moral feeling, with a view to denying its validity and truthfulness. The two feelings are both inde- pendent of the will and both act without any relation to pleasure or pain, neither being connected with' objects of in- tuition. Reverence for the majesty of the law is called forth in the midst of, and even by, displeasure at the baffling of 5 6 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL [56 lust ; Moral Sense compels love toward the benefactor of his fellow-man even when the benefaction is a deprivation of in- terest to one's self. Kant grants that being a feeling, respect cannot give rise to the idea of duty, which is necessary to moral experience ; in Hutcheson's case, duty is done away with as Moral Sense is a faculty immediately leading men to love the good fcr its own sake. Reverence is known a priori, but only as an effect, being involuntarily produced by a con- ception of the moral law ; Moral Sense, on the other hand, is regarded as an implanted faculty of perceiving immediately the goodness of an act. The Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason The Dialectic of practical reason arises from a controversy as to the object of the will. The practical reason must have an object on which to act, but must not be determined thereby. The proper and only moral object is the Good. The time has now come to define the Good, and it is in doing so that reason falls into controversy ; for practical reason (the will) is an element of the faculty of desire, whose object is happiness. The end of the will, considered as reason, is virtue. In deciding on the constituents of the true moral object, we must decide on the relation of these two elements, Virtue and Happiness. According to Stoic doctrine, virtue is its own reward. This may mean either one of two things: that happiness is not a state worthy of man, he should be above trying to be happy; or else that happiness is included in the very notion of virtue, and that one may test his happiness by this, that if he is virtuous, he is certain to be happy ; if he is not virtuous, his happiness is a delusion. Kant denies both of these the- ses, and his position differs from the Stoic's radically in this, that he denies positively that one can be moral and at the same time seek either virtue or happiness. His Ethics is properly 57] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS 57 a denial of both Stoic and Epicurean doctrine, and the reason he aimed his remarkable assault against the latter only Was not chiefly his hatred of hedonism, but because in his day no other end but happiness was dwelt upon as of value ; no one thought of determining himself by the amount of virtue to be gained. He wished to defend virtue by denying that it or anything else was a moral end ; by maintaining that Ethics is concerned with purpose, not with ends. When we take these facts into consideration we understand Kant's position in the Dialectic much more clearly. His attack on pleasure in the Analytic included in its range vir- tue also, in so far as they are both determining principles of the will ; as anything else he had attacked neither pleasure nor virtue. When, therefore, he speaks of the Good as the object of practical reason, he does not mean the end which one ought to seek, but that which inevitably follows on obedi- ence to the law. Now every one acknowledges that true obedience to the law brings virtue ; and the Stoics alleged that consciousness of its attainment is happiness. Kant's conception of the re- lation of reason and sense forbids his taking this view ; virtue in his opinion does not include happiness any more than happiness includes virtue. Nevertheless he is not ready in ascetic fashion to renounce happiness, but, on the contrary, asserts that happines is a true element of the Summum Bonum. Virtue is a good, the highest (summum) good. But summum is used in two senses : it may denote the condition which is itself unconditioned (supreme) ; or, the whole which is not part of a greater whole of the same kind (per- fect). Virtue is the supreme good; but in the real summum bonum, the perfect good, reason demands that happiness be included. Virtue is not alone " the object of the desires of rational finite beings ; for this requires happiness also, and 58 THE FORMAL AND MATERIAL Y?% that not merely in the partial eyes of the person who makes himself an end, but even in the judgment of an impartial reason." " The reason here spoken of is not the reason pre- viously conceived as opposed to sense ; it is reason from the point of view of the organic unity of the individual demand- ing that the sensible nature be not excluded from the moral world, but that a synthesis, a causal nexus, be made between the objects of the natural and the rational man, between hap- piness and virtue. The siimmnm bonum, according to the a priori cognition of reason, contains both virtue and happiness. As Kant has denied the Stoics' conception of the relation between them, (which was analytic), and as their connection is cognized a priori, it must be synthetic, one of cause and effect. Herein lies the dilemma: either the desire for happiness is the mo- tive to maxims of virtue, or maxims of virtue are the efficient cause of happiness. The first thesis is impossible because it contradicts the conclusion of the Analytic that a will which finds its maxims in the desire for happiness is not moral. A desire for happiness may produce good deeds (that is, deeds having the same effect as though prompted by Good Will) but never a virtuous mind. But on the other hand we do not ordinarily conceive of happiness as a result of good princi- ples, but of natural causes acting on the organism without reference to the disposition of the will, or the state of one's mind. Nevertheless — and thus the antinomy is solved — this proposition (that virtue produces happiness), is false only when virtue is considered as a form of causality in the sensi- ble world. But when we consider a rational being as cause in the noumenal world, it becomes possible to think of him as connected with happiness, as effect in the phenomenal world ; not immediately, but through the power and good- ness of God. The happiness thus produced is naturally not the same as that resulting from indulging the inclinations, 59] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS $g inasmuch as it has no physical cause. It is " the negative satisfaction in one's existence" called self -contentment ;^ and in it the dialectic establishes as possible a natural and neces- sary connection between the consciousness of morality and the expectation of a proportionate happiness as its result. 46 We have already found a defence of Kant in his intro- duction of happiness into Ethics in the fact that his attack on it was against it merely as a determining principle of the will. He saw plainly that a pure morality, by which man would accomplish his best, must contain no intimation of pleasure to be gained by one's attainments ; for almost in- evitably one will allow himself to be motived by desire for an object, and the morality of character will be lost. The law, therefore, must make no promise of pleasure to be gained by obedience. On the other hand, Ethics is a science of Ends, and must in this capacity treat of pleasure ; it is no inconsistency to find it causally connected as a result with morality. Nevertheless there is an inconsistency in Kant's present point of view, namely, in treating happiness as a moral good at all. This may be taken in two ways : he meant to deny it to be a moral good only when its maxims are taken as a determining principle of the will. There is nothing, how- ever, that permits us to make this supposition ; it is contrary to his whole dualistic standpoint. Or else it was, as men- tioned before, a conquest over his dualism in favor of the organic unity of man. In this case — though its logic is undoubtedly weak — it seems to me he can be forgiven for the more common-sense view of things. Moreover it is an inconsistency to introduce even virtue into his system as an object ; it may be a result, but if Duty commands uncondi- tionally not even virtue can be brought in as object, unless it be identified with Duty. To do this is the intention of the second formula of the categorical imperative. But in con- 60 THE FORMAL AND MA FERIAL [6 sidering the summutn bonum Kant probably had in mind too strongly the Good as thought by the Greeks (a perfecting of the whole man) to remember it as merely an attribute of volitions. An object of the will is a necessary presupposition, but the moment we define this object as " the Good" we have differ- entiated it and the resulting concept is material. When out of the empty concept of Good we derive one which is sum- mum bonum, we have a matter of which the former concept is the form ; and this matter in turn is form to the two material concepts of Perfection and Happiness. This is the course Kant takes, and we thus have a progression indefi- nitely from formal to material, viz : FORM Object of the Will the GOOD Sumtnum Bonum Perfection Happiness Physical, Moral, &c, &c. Physical, Moral, &c, &c. MATTER. Here matter and form are used in the logical meaning; and it was by such a progression from indefinite to definite running through his several works that Kant sought to get a content to his formal principle. (He died before he got it.) Kant's conception of the summum bonum as a necessary result of a morally-determined volition demanded that one's own happiness be included in it. 47 This, however, was con- trary to his notion of duty (the summum bonum' s realization being such), and in the metaphysic of Ethics he concluded 6 1 ] ELEMENTS OF KANT y S E THICS 6 x that one ought to seek every one else's happiness, but not his own. 48 From the necessity of realizing the siimmum bonum and the impossibility of doing so in this life, Kant deduces the fact of Immortality. From the necessity for a cause adequate to reward perfect Virtue with perfect happiness, he arrives at a belief in the existence of God. Of his conception of God and Immortality he gives but little hint; they are both a priori Ideas, necessary to the realization of the snmmum bonum but not to the existence of morality, as is Freedom. The belief in immortality on this ground has become a part of the religious consciousness of the day, at least of the part of it called the most "advanced." The principle contained therein is probably the philosophic basis on which arose a belief in the existence of a Purgatory — certainly the most philosophic (when cleared of its superstitions) of current dogmas of the Next World. Of the argument for the exist- ence of God not much notice need be taken. It would have no weight whatever, I am assured, did we not have other foundation for that belief. These Ideas, as such (although not categories, as is Freedom), might have been shown to be functional activities of the understanding ; that is, con- ceptions which in one form or another we cannot help thinking. But for freedom there is found a moral necessity, and Kant seeks for one for each of these two Ideas. That he has found it for a belief in God I do not think. Certainly a re- ligion such as he evolves from this belief, which looks upon moral laws as divine commands solely because it is found that God can dispense happiness as a reward, is as ignoble as any egoistic theory of morals ; and this conclusion is the only one I can reach, although he endeavors to show that under this religion one can still be determined by the moral law alone. 49 1 Abbott, p. 146. 2 Ibid., p. 101. s Ibid., p. 361, et seq. * Epictetus. 62 THE FORMAL AXD MATERIAL [6 2 9 1 would not belittle Stoicism; but have stated its position as it appears to one who considers it as doctrine, separately from the appreciation of its upholders. For the truth is that Stoicism is the men who live it. Viewed from the standpoint of them, its empty forms become filled to overflowing with awe-inspiring person- ality and need no other content. 6 Abbott, p. 52. 7 Ibid., p. 107. 8 Ibid., p. 108. v Ibid., p. 114. 10 Ibid., p. 122. " Ibid., p. 123. 12 Ibid., p. 129. 13 Selby-Bigge : British Moralists, p. 74. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., p. 94. i6 Abbott, p. 1 30. 17 Ibid., p. 297. 18 Ibid., p. 123. 19 "The conception of the summum bonum as a whole . . . includes my own happiness, yet it is not this that is the determining principle of the will which is enjoined to promote the summum bonum, but the moral law." {Abbott, p. 227.) And the same thing is observed again, in almost the same passage, viz., p. 224. 20 Abbott, p. 67. 21 Ibid., p. 137. 22 SempWs Translation, 3d Edition, p. 299. » Abbott, p. 67. **Ibid., pp. 182-201. KIbid., p. 129. 26 Ibid., p 296. 27 Nevertheless the object of practical reason as treated of in this chapter, is not the Ideal but actions as called good, bad or indifferent in actual experience. The object as Ideal is treated under the head of the summum bonum. ™ Abbott, p. 153, ™Ibid., p. 227. ™ Ibid., p. 160. 81 Ibid., p. 160. 32 Ibid., p. 161. 83 Ibid., p. 45. 31 Ibid., p. 164. 35 Ibid, p. 165. 36 Ibid., p. 168. ^ Ibid., p. 54; supra, p. 25. 38 Ibid., p. 17. 39 Ibid., p. 169. 40 Ibid., p. 174. Compare with pages 278, 279. 41 Ibid., p. 175. K "- Ibid., p. 180. « Ibid., p. 182. "Ibid., p. 206. 45 Ibid., p. 214. "Ibid., p. 215. 47 Ibid., p. 227 ** Ibid., p. 296. * Ibid., p. 226. IV THE METAPHYSIC OF ETHICS " Every volition must have an object, and therefore, a matter," is Kant's declaration in the Critique; 1 and as voli- tion is the psychological subject of Ethics, there must ac- cordingly be an Ethics of Ends. The categorical imperative, according to the form of which one must will in order to be moral, " is not concerned with the matter of the action, its intended result" 2 In the chapter on the Object of Practical Reason, however, we found that there is an end which can conform to the imperative, namely, the realization of the Good. In what this realization will consist is the subject of investigation in the Doctrines of Virtue (Tugendlehre). In so far, therefore, this treatise is on the matter of Ethics, and is a continuation of the chapter on the object of practical reason : ** If I am bound to make something which lies in the notions of practical reason an end to myself, and therefore besides the formal determining principle of the elective will (as contained in law), to have already a material principle, an end which can be opposed to the end derived from sen- sible impulses : then this gives the notion of an end which is itself a duty." 3 This matter, however, is still an empty a priori form (conception) of the reason, and any categorical commanding its realization must be subject to the criticism attaching to every universal form, that it may be formally consistent and not be materially (actually)* right. In considering the matter of morality JKant divides his subject (Morals) into two parts, Jurisprudence and Ethics J 63 [63 ' 64] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS 64 (Rechtslehre and Tugendlehre). The former is entirely formal, and pays no regard to ends. (The latter considers ends, but only such as are also virtues\ It would seem from this fact that Jurisprudence is a purer doctrine of morality than Ethics; but the contrary is true because (like civil law generally) Jurisprudence places the spring m something else than the moral law (e. g., fear of imprisonment). 4 Conse- quently, Jurisprudence requires only external conformity to the law, legality or morality of conduct //Ethics demands the internal morality of character, or action from love of the law. Ethics commands "internal actions," and external actions only when they are required by the internal law of dut* (Ethics considers two ends which are duties : one's own perfection and others' happiness.} We cannot reverse these and make others' perfection or our own happiness an end. There are two sorts of perfection : ( 1 ) the totality of char- acteristics which constitute a Thing (material perfection) ; (2) teleological perfection in the performance of an Act (formal perfection). 6 The latter is the perfection which is a duty. It is the highest reach of the endeavor to overcome the passions, and consequently is cultivation of the will, or moral disposition. \ Kant's conception of the will is such that it does not allow him to say that one being can make the cultivation of another's will his end) Nevertheless another can assist very materially in attaining the desired end ; else there would be no need of parents guarding their children from contaminating circumstances or of teaching them les- sons of virtue. In discussing the question of one's own harjriinesg, it will be noticed (Kant does not prove that it is wrong to seek it, but merely says that it is useless to discuss it, because each one of us is already and inevitably seeking it.! He really does not discuss it as a duty at all, as there is no object in (5 5 ] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS 65 telling men it is their duty to do that which they are already doing for the pleasure found in it. If, therefore, we change our conception of Duty and consider it solely as what one ought to do, without reference to any feeling of reluctance to it, or of pleasure or pain in the doing, we will find the com- mand "Love yourself" to be as formal, a priori and neces- sary as that to love one's neighbor. And this is the more common-sense English view of obligation. 8 Ethics does not command actions, but gives laws for the maxims of action; 9 it supplies a form by which we may test our maxims to see whether they are moral. In other words, /Ethics dictates not specific acts, but principles. J Jurispru- dence, on the other hand, supplies laws for particular actions. C\s a result, ethical duties are of indeterminate (weiter) obli- gation ; juridical duties are of strict obligation. jEthics gives a law that one shall make his fellow happy, butieaves to his intellect to decide the means thereto. Jurisprudence states a law that commands (or more generally, forbids) that a specific act be performed. 1 ! 1 Abbott,^. 1 23. % Ibid., p. 33. * Ibid., p. 291. * Ibid., p. 275. Kant calls Jurisprudence a doctrine of external freedom; at the same time it admits of a spring other than the law, i. L O This is the system of Autonomy. In applying it in prac- tice one is to choose his maxim according to his sense of 66 [66 67] ELEMENTS OF KANT'S ETHICS 6y duty (#. ^., the idea of law in general) ; if it can serve as a universal law, the volition and the resulting action are good in themselves. The difference between this system and all others is that the latter can be reduced to Heteronomy, i. e., in the last analysis to a system in which the principle by which the will is determined is a desire for happiness (a par- ticular). In this system there is no law, and the sole motive is a love of self. Its maxims may or may not conform to the moral law ; they cannot be moral. Man is, in Kant's opinion, under the rule of reason ; his desires need to be restrained by the faculty which can forecast events. On this account all morality takes on the cast of law, and its particular eth- ical form is an unconditioned OUGHT. The essential of Heteronomy is not that its principle pro- ceed from without, but from the sensibility. The principal School of this sort in Kant's time was that of the Moral Sense ; of this I have spoken at the beginning of Section III. In the interest of Rationalism Kant attacks this theory, tak- ing as his main thesis that only man's reason, not his sensi- bility, can from its nature, seek the good ; and to uphold this, he denies that a sense can ever determine man to seek any- thing but his own happiness. Such-~an expression as a "Sense of Duty" to him is unintelligible. Kant's whole theory, therefore, is based on the opposition between Reason [^ and Sense. On this account he took as an essential of duty what is probably only a temporary symptom, namely its undesirableness from the standpoint of the sensibility. On the other hand, as he himself notes, his opponents took too little account of the existing conflict between Interest and Duty; Kant magnified it, they minimized it. The fact of lasting value in Kant's theory is that morality is an attribute of character; the important point in the opposing theory is that the ethical conflict is but temporary. 1 Heteronomy is the name given by Kant to any system in which the matter is elevated to a principle. 3 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. N0V20W41M ^Ss. tettjf »£a % 'Mty APR 39 1043 ** ^ NOV 2 !£J3 '*, NOV 2 1943 Ma- 1^ te^. JUN 4 - ^~ L ~ Rt MAY i — rr ■ *..- c o LD 21-100m -77cf9(io2s) >t 31037 %m VSRStw' m<