Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/587

Rh that no individual knowledge can be the norm for all times? or, "How can the universal be present in the particular, the absolute in the historically concrete, the divine in the human?" concerns dogmatic theology only.

In a purely Socratic manner, Gallwitz proceeds to search for a moral principle, endeavoring first to mark off the sphere in which morality moves. "The predicate 'moral' is ascribed to an act not on account of the act itself but simply because that act is, under the given circumstances, a consistent expression of the agent's character." What, then, is this organ of morality? The human will alone, apart from its relation to the phenomenal world, as Kant would hold? No, for the human personality is a unit, a whole, whose development is conditioned by its interaction with the external world. We cannot limit morality to the sphere of moral willing, but must take account also of the technical aspect, of the moral Können. Nor is it proper to designate feeling as the sole organ of morality, after the manner of hedonists, though feeling, to be sure, cannot be altogether excluded from a science of ethics. Neither can the sensuous functions be separated from the mental functions. The organ of morality, the author concludes, is the entire, undivided, sensuous-mental (sinnlich-geistig) human personality, in its interaction with the external world. But what is the principle by which we measure the content of the territory thus marked off? Now, inasmuch as a moral act is a combination of natural excitations and reactions of the personality, ethics must be teleological. But the utilitarian theory demand, though satisfying this, is insufficient, because it fails to do justice to the subjective factor. Furthermore, it is irreconcilable with two facts: (1) that moral rules command with absolute authority; (2) that they disregard the wishes of the actor. Besides, the assertion that it is external nature alone which impels a man to moral action rests on the false assumption that external occurrences are uniform and act uniformly on the subject. The notion of law is, however, a mere abstraction, which introduces into reality a uniformity (Gesetzmässigkeit) foreign to it. The general proposition that pleasure determines a man to develop his faculties and further the common weal does not hold, for the feelings of different persons on occasion of the same natural excitations show differences. In short, utilitarianism cannot explain the most important phenomena of moral life. Welfare or happiness is the end of life; moral laws serve that end. But the individual morality of a people may bring it pain and even death. Moreover, men do not consciously aim at this end.

A survey of history shows us that a nation aims not at the mere maintenance of life but at the security and preservation of its individuality. The ego does not strive after pleasure. It is determined by law to