Moral Science; a Compendium of EthicsBain, Alexander
Philosophy
Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics
Bain, Alexander
Ethics; Ethics -- History
The synthetic use of the pure practical reason, in the Categorical
Imperative, is legitimized; Autonomy of the Will is explained; Duty is
shown to be no phantom--through the conception of Freedom of Will,
properly understood. Theoretically (speculatively), Freedom is
undemonstrable; being eternally met, in one of the (cosmological)
Antinomies of the Pure Reason, by the counter-assertion that everything
in the universe takes place according to unchanging laws of nature.
Even theoretically, however, Freedom is not inconceivable, and morally
we become certain of it; for we are conscious of the 'ought' of duty,
and with the 'ought' there must go a 'can.' It is not, however, as
Phenomenon or Sensible Ens that a man 'can,' is free, has an absolute
initiative; all phenomena or Sensible Entia, being in space and time,
are subject to the Natural Law of Causality. But man is also Noumenon,
Thing-in-self, Intelligible Ens; and as such, being free from
conditions of time and space, stands outside of the sequence of Nature.
Now, the Noumenon or Ens of the Reason (he assumes) stands higher than,
or has a value above, the Phenomenon or Sensible Ens (as much as Reason
stands higher than Sense and Inclination); accordingly, while it is
only man as Noumenon that 'can,' it is to man as Phenomenon that the
'ought' is properly addressed; it is upon man as Phenomenon that the
law of Duty, prescribed, with perfect freedom from motive, by Man as
Noumenon, is laid.
_Freedom of Will_ in Man as Rational End or Thing-in-self is thus the
great Postulate of the pure Practical Reason; we can be sure of the
fact (although it must always remain speculatively undemonstrable),
because else there could be no explanation of the Categorical
Imperative of Duty. But inasmuch as the Practical Reason, besides
enjoining a law of Duty, must provide also a final end of action in the
idea of an unconditioned Supreme Good, it contains also two other
Postulates: Man being a sentient as well as a rational being, Happiness
as well as Perfect Virtue or Moral Perfection must enter into the
Summum Bonum (not, one of them to the exclusion of the other, as the
Stoics and Epicureans, in different senses, declared). Now, since there
is no such necessary conjunction of the two in nature, it must be
sought otherwise. It is found in postulating _Immortality_ and _God_.
_Immortality_ is required to render possible the attainment of moral
perfection. Virtue out of _respect_ for law, with a constant tendency
to fall away, is all that is attainable in life. The _Holiness_, or
complete accommodation of the will to the Moral Law, implied in the
Summum Bonum, can be attained to only in the course of an infinite
progression; which means personal Immortality. [As in the former case,
the _speculative_ impossibility of proving the immateriality, &c., of
the supernatural soul is not here overcome; but Immortality is
_morally_ certain, being demanded by the Practical Reason.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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