Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/595

581 is an intelligible ideal. From the standpoint of that ideal rationality would be chosen, and hence would be intrinsically good. So we can say not only that good is the object of rational choice, but also that rationality is a good. If good is unintelligible apart from rational choice, then in choosing good we must choose rational choice itself. So that Kant's 'good will' the attitude of rational choice is an unqualified good. But to stop here gives a hopeless circle. The choice we choose must be distinguished from self, that is, it must be an intelligible universe. Pleasure is involved in rational choice, since the choosing of that choice pleases us. But a pleasure is ultimately good only when it is the subjective aspect of rational choice. The presence of what we experience as evil,—e.g., pain or a perverse choice,—has been thought to show that the universe is not completely good. But choice implies moral alternatives. A world in which there was no evil would not be a completely good world. Optimism holds that just enough evil exists to bring out the full content of the good. Pessimism holds that just enough good exists to bring out the full content of evil. One is bright through the strength of its darkness, the other is dark through the strength of its light. A world 'Beyond Good and Evil' would be neither dark nor bright; it would be invisible.

The 'feeling of moral obligation' is distinguished from other moral sentiments in that it is a species of self-consciousness. It is a sentiment of an agent with respect to his own action. We here have to do with a sentimental judgment, or a passionate experience which when cooled precipitates a judgment. We may paraphrase the feeling of moral obligation as 'the feeling that I ought or ought not to perform this action.' We may fairly ask just how one feels, when one feels that one ought or ought not. Here is a complex emotion which may be analyzed and finally brought under those laws of consciousness which psychology discovers. Or we may ask how one comes to feel that one ought or ought not. Such an inquiry eventually brings us not only to psychological but to biological and sociological principles. Or we may ask what acts men have felt that they ought or ought not to perform. This inquiry is affiliated in methods and laws with anthropology, comparative religion, and history. And we must attend to the simple question, &#39;What acts ought I to perform?' It is claimed that this last question may be answered in terms of the others that is, what I ought to perform is what I feel that I ought to perform. To justify this it is argued that the feeling of obligation reflects the will of God, or the lasting interests of mankind, or it is held that the obligatory act is any act, provided only that it be felt about the agent himself in a specific manner. This is a question of fact. Does not one feel in a specific way that an act is obligatory? If so, the acts so judged, when truly so judged, have a common character other than feeling. If one seeks an end and is confronted with a situation, then there is a right act in the premises, regardless of any feeling