Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/21

 when we wish to be truthful. Thus, finally, that alone was recognised as certain knowledge which man produced from himself.

But not alone the subject and the method but also the object of philosophy was different. Natural philosophy aimed at the examination of the necessary connection of cause and effect. Its point of view was that of causality. Ethics, on the other hand, dealt with the will and duty of man, with ends and aims which he strives for. Thus its point of view is that of a conscious aim or teleology.

Now these two conceptions do not always reveal themselves with equal sharpness in all the various schools of thought.

There are two methods of explaining the moral law within us.

We can search for its roots in the obvious forces of human action, and, as a result, appeared the pursuit of happiness or pleasure. With commodity production, when goods are produced by private producers independently of each other, happiness and pleasure, and the conditions necessary thereto, become a private matter. Consequently, men came to look for the foundation of the moral law in the individual need for happiness or pleasure. That is good which makes for the individual pleasure and increases his happiness, and evil is that which produces the contrary. How is it then possible that not everybody under all circumstances has a desire for the good? That is explained by the fact that there are various kinds of pleasure and happiness. Evil arises when we choose a lower kind of pleasure, or happiness in preference to a higher, or sacrifice a lasting pleasure to a momentary and fleeting one. Thus it arises from ignorance or short sightedness. Accordingly, Epicurus looked on the intellectual pleasures as higher than the physical because they last longer and give unalloyed satisfaction. He considers the pleasure of repose greater than the pleasure of action. Spiritual peace seems to him the greatest pleasure. In consequence all excess in any pleasure is to be rejected; and even selfish action is bad, since