The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and EthicCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic
Croce, Benedetto
Economics; Ethics; Will
the philosophical spirit in itself, when it conceived economic facts
as they take place in the individual, prior to what is called society,
thus positing the concept of an isolated economy. Conversely, Economic,
Æsthetic, Ethic and all philosophical problems and sciences lost their
true nature and became bastardized, when gross _sociologism_ replaced
among social contingencies those universals, which philosophers had
with great labour removed from them and thought in their purity.
Defining laws, then, as facts that occur, not only in society,
but also in the isolated individual, our intention is simply to
concentrate attention upon the concept of _true society,_ which is _all
reality,_ and not allow it to be diverted and confused with accidental
determinations, of the kind that may and may not be.
[Sidenote: _Laws as individual product: programmes of individual life._]
No great art is required to find instances of individuals who make
laws for themselves, carry them out and change them, grant rewards to
themselves and inflict upon themselves punishments; nor is there any
need to incommode the worthy Robinson of the economists to this end.
Without being obliged to make the effort of imagining ourselves cast
upon a desert island and provided only with a sack of corn and the
Bible, it suffices to have eyes and to observe our daily life, for
numbers of examples of internal legislation to present themselves.
Those laws, made for our use and consumption, are called _programmes
of life._ Who can live without programmes? Who does not decide that he
will desire certain actions and avoid certain others? From youth onward
we begin to legislate in this way and this production of internal laws
is interrupted only by death. We say, for instance:--"I shall devote
my life to agriculture: I shall live in the country every year from
June to November; from December to February I shall come to town,
that I may not lose touch with political or social life; from March
to May I shall travel, for pleasure and instruction." This programme
is subdivided and completed with other programmes, according to the
various conditions and possibilities taken into consideration; and laws
are established as to the way one should conduct oneself in respect to
religion, family, friends, the State, the Church and also in respect to
this or that individual; for (as is observed by Logic) the individual
conceived as a fixed being, also becomes a concept, abstraction, group,
series, or class. He who wished it, would be able to establish a
parallel between programmes or individual laws and laws that are called
social: in the individual would be found fundamental statutes, laws,
rules, ordinances, temporary arrangements, contracts, single laws and
all the other legal forms found in societies. Now in what conceivable
way do the programmes of the individual differ from those of society?
Are not those laws _programmes,_ and are not those programmes _laws?_
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