Feuerbach expresses this thought clearly and distinctly when he says:
"There can be no question of Morality in the strict sense of the word
except where the subject of discussion is the relationship of man to
man, of one person to another, of me to thee."
Recent contemporary French writers are in no way doubtful of the
meaning implied by the concept of Morality. "Morality," says Littré,
"is the whole collection of rules which determine our conduct towards
others. Moral Good is the ideal, which at any period of a civilization
forms opinions and customs with respect to this conduct; moral evil is
that which offends this ideal." This definition is very incomplete and
weak, as will be seen in the course of our remarks, but on one point it
is quite clear: it treats Morality as a social phenomenon, it
paraphrases it as the adjustment of individual action to the standard
set up by the community. The question of the origin and the aim of this
standard is left open.
L. Lévy-Brühl formulates Littré's idea more clearly. "We call by the
name of Morality the collection of such conceptions, opinions, feelings
and customs respecting the mutual rights and duties of men in their life
as members of a community, as are recognized and generally observed at a
given time in a given civilization."
Thus, according to some, Morality is subjection to an absolute law of
divine, or at any rate of unexplained and inexplicable origin, which
religion or a mysterious inner voice reveals to man; according to
others, it is the recognition that the claims of the community, or at
any rate of the majority of one's fellow men, are of binding force upon
the actions of the individual. These different answers to an inquiry as
to the origin of Morality both contain the tacit admission that it is a
law which peremptorily dictates to man what he shall do and what he
shall not do. But by means of what psychic mechanism does this law
enforce obedience in the consciousness of man? It is remarkable that all
moral philosophers, no matter to what age, nation or school they belong,
dimly feel or clearly recognize that in civilized man at any rate,
natural instincts and judgment are always at war; that the latter
opposes the former; that in the victory of judgment over impulse lies
the very essence of Morality; that consequently the essence of Morality
implies the control and repression of instinct by Reason--in a word,
that it is inhibition.
We have seen that Aristotle, in definite though unconscious opposition
to the Stoics, who consider Morality synonymous with Nature, defines it
as the activity of Reason.
Henry More was the first to express this quite clearly: "Virtue is an
intellectual force of the soul which enables it to control ... animal
instincts and sensual passions."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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