Page:Karl Kautsky - Ethics and The Materialist Conception of History - tr. J. B. Askew (1906).pdf/22

 respect, love, and the help of my neighbour, as well as the prosperity of the community to which I belong, are factors which are necessary to my own prosperity, which, however, I cannot attain if I only look out for myself without any scruples.

This view of Ethics had the advantage that it appeared quite natural and that it was very easy to reconcile it with the needs of those who were content to regard the knowledge which our senses give us of the knowable world as real, and to whom human existence itself formed only a part of this world. On the other hand, this view of Ethics was bound to produce in its turn that materialist view of the world. A theory which founded Ethics on the longing for pleasure or happiness of the individual, or on egoism, and the materialist world-concept conditioned and lent each other mutual support. The connection of both elements comes most completely to expression in Epicurus (341–270 ). His materialist philosophy of nature is founded with a distinctly ethical aim. The materialist view of nature is in his view alone in the position to free us from the fears which a foolish superstition awakens in us, and to give us that peace of soul without which true happiness is impossible.

On the other hand, all those elements who were opposed to this philosophy were obliged to reject this ethics and vice versa: those who were not satisfied with his ethics were not satisfied with the materialism either. And the Ethic of Egoism, or the pursuit of individual happiness, gave ample opportunity for attack. In the first place it did not explain how the moral law arose as a binding moral force, as the duty to do the right, and not simply as advice to prefer the more rational kind of pleasure to the less rational. And the speedy, decisive moral judgments on good and bad are quite different from the balancing up between different kinds of pleasures or utilities. Finally also, it is possible to feel a moral sense of duty even in cases where the most generous interpretation, can find no pleasure or ability from which the pursuit of this duty can be deduced. If I refuse to lie, although