The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and EthicCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic
Croce, Benedetto
Economics; Ethics; Will
The second form abandons, it is true, the abstract for the concrete,
but assumes two different volitional acts in the same concrete: the
one real, arising from the actual situation, the other, thought or
imagined, side by side with the former: this would be the volition,
that the intention. According to such a theory, it is always possible
to _direct the intention,_ that is, the real volition can always join
with the volitional act imagined and produce a nexus, in which the
volition exists in one way, the intention in another; the first bad
and the second good, or the first good and the second bad. Thus the
honourable man approved by the Jesuit, of whom Pascal speaks, although
he desire the death of him from whom he expects an inheritance and
rejoice when it takes place, yet endows his desire with a special
character, believing that what he wishes to attain is the prosperity
of his affairs, not the death of his fellow-creature. Or the same man
may kill the man who has given him a blow; but in so doing he will fix
his thought upon the defence of his honour, not upon the homicide.
Since he is not able to abstain from the action, he at least (they say)
purines the intention. The worst of this is that the real situation,
the only one of which we can take account, is the historical, not the
imaginary situation. In the reality of the consequent volition, it is
not a question of his own prosperity and nothing more, but of his own
prosperity coupled with the death of another, or of false prosperity.
It is not a question of his own honour and nothing more, but of his own
honour in conjunction with the violation of the life of another, that
is, of false honour. Thus the asserted fact of prosperity and honour
is changed into two qualified bad actions, and what was honourable
in the imaginary case, becomes dishonourable in the real case, which
is indeed the only one of which it is question. It is of no use to
imagine a situation that differs from reality, because it is to the
real situation that the intention is directed, not to the other, and
therefore it is not possible to direct, that is to say, to change the
intention, if the actual situation do not change.
The antipathy that has been shown for good-hearted and well-intentioned
men in recent centuries, and for practical doctrines with intention
as their principle (the morality of intention, etc.), arises from the
sophisms that we have here criticized. But since it is henceforward
clear to us that those so-called well-intentioned and good-hearted
people have neither good hearts nor good intentions and are nothing
but hypocrites, and because we do not admit any distinction between
intention and will, we are without fear or antipathy in respect to
the use of the word "intention," understanding it as a synonym for
"volition."
[Sidenote: _Critique of volition with base either unknown or
imperfectly known._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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