Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/241

No. 2.]

The moral feelings (especially the feeling of remorse or guilt) seem to many to be connected with the idea that one could in a given case have acted differently, and the validity of this idea is made the condition of the continuance of these feelings. This is to confuse the standpoint of psychology with that of ethics. The psychologist has not to prove the validity of the idea which determines the feelings, but only to show how this connection has arisen, (1) The more demands a psychical condition makes upon the interest and attention, the more do we neglect the conditioning circumstances. This is especially true of a serious decision of will, where the new state, connected with the thought of action, is in opposition to that of inner strife and consideration. (2) The decision brings with it a peculiar feeling of unrestrictedness or force which drives into the background the thought that this state has been caused. (3) The memory of the state of deliberation leads us to conceive the objective possibility of a different decision. (4) The condition of the ego looking back upon the act with remorse is widely different from that in which it made the decision, yet we ascribe to the past ego both the force which led to the decision, and that which at the present moment leads to its condemnation. (5) The future appears undetermined because we cannot form any clear picture of it without pictures of other possibilities coming in. The feeling of remorse has ethical value only as it awakens an impulse to improvement. Mere brooding over what cannot be helped is unethical. Remorse arises from the sharp contrast between what my own conviction recognizes as right, and what memory reveals to me regarding the disposition of my will. Nor can it be said that, from a deterministic standpoint, remorse does not differ in kind from the pain which is felt because of some physical or mental defect; for, (1) in the will, the real self finds its most emphatic expression, and, therefore, the self-condemnation is strongest and deepest; and, (2) a change of will is not impossible, just in virtue of its lawfulness. When we pronounce ethical judgments upon others, the question is not whether or not they could have acted otherwise; but we blame an act in order that the will may become other in future. We have no right to pronounce ethical judgment upon others except from ethical motives. Every one who expresses an ethical judgment uses forces which are among the strongest and deepest in the world, and imposes upon himself, therefore, an ethical responsibility.