Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/96

82 good takes on an empirical character. Koppelmann, on the other hand, regards his own laws as laws which we actually apply as moral standards, as a priori laws, which are rooted in our own innermost essence.

That the teachings of the modern teleological school of ethics have not been without influence upon our author is also apparent from his answer to the question concerning the sanction of the categorical imperative. Sollen is really a Wollen, though not exactly in the way in which Kant had understood it. As rational beings we desire complete spiritual community and, consequently, also the reign of the laws of the spiritual community. We desire them all the more because the dignity of mankind and our own personal worth and dignity depend upon them. It is therefore not necessary to have recourse to a noumenal world in order to explain the consciousness of obligation: we really desire what the categorical imperative aims at. This conception enables Koppelmann to solve a problem which had given Kant a great deal of trouble, the question of the relation of morality and happiness. How can the desire for happiness, which forms an inextinguishable factor in the human soul, be reconciled with morality? Man desires the spiritual kingdom and his happiness depends on the realization of that kingdom; his desire for happiness therefore is identical with his desire for the kingdom. But since his moral aspirations are also directed towards that kingdom, there is a harmony between the desire for the universal reign of the moral law and the desire for happiness. If Kant had seen this, it would not have been necessary for him to bring in the idea of God merely to make possible the realization of happiness in proportion to virtue. At the same time, according to Koppelmann, man must believe in the realization of the highest good, and faith in the highest good necessarily leads to religion, or rather, to ethical monotheism; indeed, the consistent development of faith in the highest good necessarily points to a supersensible realization of the same. As with Kant, metaphysical conceptions are here regarded as inseparable from the ethical conceptions.

The theory developed by Koppelmann shows a tendency common in our day to make peace between the different schools of ethics. It seeks to reconcile the principles of rationalistic intuitionism, as taught by Kant, with the so-called teleological theory, both in the hedonistic and energistic forms of the latter. The emphasis, however, is laid on the rigoristic element: though 'universal legislation' aims at the highest good, we must not consciously aim at this, but must do our duty for duty's sake. The free will problem is also settled in a manner agreeable to most modern moralists. Koppelmann refuses to accept Kant's doctrine of freedom in the form in which Kant offers it, and assumes a causality of reason: