The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and WrongBrentano, Franz
Philosophy
The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong
Brentano, Franz
Ethics
[32] (_p. 20_). In order to exclude a misunderstanding and the
doubts necessarily connected therewith, I add the following remark
to what has been suggested shortly in the text. In order that an
act of feeling may be called purely good in itself it is requisite:
(1) that it be right; (2) that it be an act of pleasing and not an
act of displeasing. If either condition be absent, it is already,
in a certain respect, bad in itself; pleasure at the misfortunes of
others (Schadenfreude) is bad on the first ground; pain at the sight
of injustice, on the second ground. If both conditions are lacking,
the act is still worse, in accordance with the principle of summation
of which we shall speak later in the lecture. According to this same
principle, where a feeling is good, its increase increases also the
goodness of the act, while, similarly, where an act is purely bad, or
at least participates in any respect in the bad, with the intensity
of the feeling increases the badness of the act. When the act is a
mixed one, good and bad manifestly increase, or diminish, in simple
proportion to one another. The “plus” belonging to the one or the
other side, must therefore, with the increase in intensity of the
act become ever greater, with its decrease ever smaller. And so the
surplus of good in the act may, under certain circumstances in spite
of its impurity, be described as a very great good, while conversely,
the surplus of the bad may, despite the admixture of the good, be
described as something very bad (cf. note 36).
[33] (_p. 20_). It may happen that, at the same time, one and the
same thing is both pleasing and displeasing. First, something in
itself displeasing may yet be pleasing as a means to something else,
and vice versa; then a case may arise where something instinctively
repels us, while at the same time it is loved by us with a higher
love. We may thus have an instinctive repugnance to a sensation, which
is yet at the same time (and every idea, qua idea, is good), a welcome
enrichment of our world of ideas. Aristotle has said: “It happens
that desires enter into conflict with each other. This happens when
the reason (λὁγος) and the lower desires (ἐπιθυμα) are in opposition
(_De Anima_ iii. 10). And again: “Now the lower desires (ἐπιθυμία)
gain a victory over the higher, now the higher over the lower, and as”
(according to the ancient astronomy) “one celestial sphere the other,
so one desire draws off the other with it when the individual has lost
the firm rule over himself” (_De Anima_ ii.).
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