Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation: Reprinted from Green's Philosophical Works, vol. II., with Preface by Bernard Bosanquet — John Shaqi
Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation: Reprinted from Green's Philosophical Works, vol. II., with Preface by Bernard BosanquetGreen, Thomas Hill
Philosophy
Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation: Reprinted from Green's Philosophical Works, vol. II., with Preface by Bernard Bosanquet
Green, Thomas Hill
Liberty; Natural law; Political obligation
seeks satisfaction' are presumably objects of what Kant called the
'empirical will,' while the 'law of his being' corresponds to Kant's
'pure ego.' But just as Kant must be supposed to have believed in
some identity between the pure and empirical will, as implied in the
one term 'will,' though he does not explain in what this identity
consists, so the proposition before us apparently ascribes man's
quest for self-satisfaction as directed to certain objects, to the
same law of his being which prevents it from finding it there. Is not
this nonsense?'
[1] [Above, section 1 RLN]
20. To such questions we answer as follows. The proposition before
us, like all the theories of moral freedom which we have noticed,
undoubtedly implies that the will of every man is a form of one
consciously self-realising principle, which at the same time is
not truly or fully expressed in any man's will. As a form of this
self-realising principle it may be called, if we like, a 'pure ego'
or 'the pure ego' of the particular person; as directed to this
or that object in such a way that it does not truly express the
self-realising principle of which it is a form, it may be called the
'empirical ego' of that person. But if we use such language, it must
be borne in mind that the pure and empirical egos are still not two
egos but one ego; the pure ego being the self-realising principle
considered with reference either to its idea, its possibility, what
it has in itself to become, the law of its being, or to some ultimate
actualisation of this possibility; the empirical ego being the same
principle as it appears in this or that state of character, which
results from its action, but does not represent that which it has
in itself to become, does not correspond to its idea or the law of
its being. By a consciously self-realising principle is meant a
principle that is determined to action by the conception of its own
perfection, or by the idea of giving reality to possibilities which
are involved in it and of which it is conscious as so involved; or,
more precisely, a principle which at each stage of its existence is
conscious of a more perfect form of existence as possible for itself,
and is moved to action by that consciousness. We must now explain a
little more fully how we understand the relation of the principle
in question to what we call our wills and our reason,--the will
and reason of this man and that,--and how we suppose its action to
constitute the progress of morality.
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