CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: CRITIQUE OF KANT

I begin my statement of the ethical ideal with a critique of Kant. The reason for this is that Kant stands forth preëminent among all philosophers as the one who emphatically asserts that the attribute of inviolability attaches to every human being, in his formula that _every_ man is to be treated as an end _per se_, and never to be used as a mere tool by others. The formula as thus worded by him is subject to grave objections which will be dealt with later on. But the grand conception of the moral worthwhileness of all men is specially connected with the name of Kant. Did he succeed, on the basis of his system, in establishing this conception? He seems to make it the corner-stone of his ethics. Is the corner-stone secure?

Referring again to my individual development, I should find it difficult to express how much Kant’s _Metaphysik der Sitten_ and _Kritik der praktischen Vernunft_ at one time meant to me.

The one ethical fact of which I was so to speak perfectly assured, the “inviolability” so often mentioned in previous chapters, is extremely hard to justify to the thinking mind. The empirical school of philosophers scoff at the very notion of it. The practice of the world is a perpetual, painful evidence of the small attention paid to it, and even idealistic philosophers from Plato down have found it quite possible to construct quasi-ethical systems based on the idea, not of human equality, but of the inferiority of the greater number. In Kant, however, one encounters an epoch-making philosopher who not only accepts as a fact the idea of inviolability, and of the kind of equality that goes with it, but who undertakes to set it forth in such a manner as to command the assent of the reason. For a long time I believed that he had succeeded in his great enterprise; and it was only after years of discipleship, not indeed without suppressed misgivings, that I began to see that I had been mistaken.

My eyes were opened when I realized certain extremely questionable moral consequences to which his doctrine led him: for instance, his unspeakable theory of marriage, his defense of capital punishment, the stiff individualism of his system, and his failure to establish an instrumental connection between the empirical goods, of wealth, culture, and the like, and the supreme good or supreme end as defined by him. I was forced by these unsound conclusions to ask myself whether the foundations of the system are sound. Surely if it is true of any system of thought, it is true of an ethical system that it must be judged by its fruits. The Kantian system is indeed vastly impressive, and even sublime in some of its aspects. We travel on the road along which Kant leads with a certain sense of exaltation, but when at the end of our journey we find that we have reached a goal at which we cannot consent to abide, it is imperative to inquire whether the point of departure was well taken.

The point of departure in Kant’s exposition is the existence in all men of a sense of duty. Moral relations subsist only between moral beings. All men possess a sense of duty,—therefore all men are moral beings, therefore all are morally equal,—therefore no one may be used as a mere tool for the benefit of others, but is to be treated as worth while on his own account. Thus runs the argument.

The sense of duty is the consciousness of being bound to render implicit obedience to a categorical imperative. Our rational nature tells us categorically what is right to do. Our rational nature issues absolute commands. The sense of duty is man’s response to them. Kant does not for a moment imply that either he or anyone else has ever adequately obeyed. The moral dignity, the moral equality of men, does not depend on the obedience but on the consciousness of the obligation to obey—on acknowledged subjection to the command. The actual moral performances of some men are certainly better than those of others; but of no one, not even of the best of men, can it be shown that the moral principle in its purity, that is, unadulterated by baser incentives, was ever the actuating motive of his conduct. The different members of the human species differ morally in degree, but are of the same moral kind, being distinguished from the lower animals not because they obey the moral law, but because they recognize the obligation to obey it. This sort of consciousness may be dim in some, but it exists in all. The most brutal murderer is dimly aware of the holy law which he has transgressed.

The great dictum of the universal moral equality of mankind is thus made to depend on an assumed fact. If this fact can be successfully disputed, the dictum itself is imperilled. It has been disputed, not flippantly, but most seriously, and it is in my opinion obnoxious to fatal objections. I do not indeed believe it possible to establish the negative, to wit, that the sense of duty does not lurk somewhere, is not latent somewhere in the consciousness of persons morally the most obtuse; but I hold it to be impossible to prove the affirmative, to wit, that a sense of duty does exist in all human beings, even in the most degraded. Kant’s dictum of equality depends on making good the affirmative proposition, but this he has failed to do.

One circumstance especially which at first sight seems favorable to Kant’s contention turns against him. He has been assailed on the ground that his categorical imperative is a fiction, that no such an imperative plays a rôle in the actual experience of men. On the contrary, the actual experience of men is replete with categorical imperatives. Nothing in the life of man plays a greater rôle than these imperatives. The danger that threatens Kant’s demonstration is due to the number of rival categoricals that compete with his, and from which the one he sets up is not with certainty distinguishable. To put the matter simply, what is called in technical language a categorical imperative is nothing else than a way of acting somehow felt by the individual to be obligatory upon him, whether he likes it or dislikes it. It is a constraint in which he is bound to acquiesce, a public rule of some sort which overrides his private propensities.

Constraints of this sort are numerous. Many of them no one would think of designating as moral. Some are distinctly antimoral. I will mention a few:—for instance, the rules of behavior derived from the _tabu_ notion. Certain kinds of food may not be eaten; certain objects like the Ark of the Covenant in David’s time may not be touched.[19] Strict _tabus_ obtain in regard to marriage such as the rules of endogamy and exogamy. Certain persons may not even be looked at. A feeling of horror is felt toward those who transgress these rules; and the transgression of them is often considered far more reprehensible than a moral sin. It would evidently be absurd to characterize a Hottentot or a Fiji Islander as the moral equal of a civilized man on the ground that, like the latter, he possesses the sense of duty, consisting in his case of an unquestioning acknowledgment of the categorical imperative of _tabus_.

Gang loyalty is another instance in point. In one of our prisons a certain convict is at present paying the penalty of a crime which was really committed by one of his pals. He could have got off scot free if he had “squealed.” But “squealing” is contrary to the honor code of the gang and he preferred to sacrifice his liberty rather than prove recreant to the claims of gang loyalty. There are some writers who hold that this is an instance of morality, genuine as far as it goes, but restricted within too narrow a circle. The fact that it is restricted within too narrow a circle, that fidelity to a few is compatible with violent hostility against the community at large, seems to me to prove that the moral quality is absent. Morality is either universal or nothing. Gang loyalty is a social phenomenon, but not an ethical phenomenon. The distinction between the two terms will be enforced later on. In any event the sense of constraint is manifest. The moral character of the constraint I deny.

Another example of an imperative which is categorical enough but at the same time non-ethical is furnished by Darwin’s well-known explanation of the original of conscience. He assumes that certain ways of behaving which our ancestors found to be socially useful, have become registered as it were in our organisms, and constitute a kind of race-consciousness which persists in each individual. This latent consciousness is potent as a tendency, though often not masterful enough to repress the recalcitrant egoistic impulses. A conflict ensues. The deep ingrained tendency makes itself felt. And as social beings we are aware that we ought to side with it. But the egoistic impulses break out on the surface of consciousness and vehemently urge us in the opposite direction. The feeling of obligation, and thereafter of remorse, are the record of the inner struggle. I do not here undertake to discuss at length the truth of Darwin’s theory. There are a number of weak spots in it, to which I shall merely allude in passing. First, he speaks of acts found to be socially useful in primitive communities. Is it possible to show that the same or similar acts retain their utility in a developed industrial society like that of the present day? Is not the term “socially useful” extremely vague, and can the notion implied in it be expanded without the assistance of a truly ethical principle?[20] Then again, why should the thing called social utility overawe the individual mind and thwart individual purpose? Why should not the daring egotist affirm his right to be and flourish in the present hour, in the teeth of social utility? It will be said that the claims are insistent, that the tendency is ingrained, that it has become instinctive in him, and that he cannot release himself from the control it exercises over him. But instincts can be weakened and in time extinguished, like the fear of the dark, when the absence of an objective cause is recognized. Why should not the altruistic impulse likewise, by the method of Freudian analysis, if you please, be exposed to the light, and the egotist thereby be enabled to disembarrass himself of the interference of dead ancestors in his life purposes, and to proceed on his way undisturbed by any inward qualms?

These examples serve to illustrate the point with which we are here concerned, namely, that the presence and operation of undoubted constraints does not establish the existence in all men of the sense of duty on which Kant founds universal moral equality. Kant would indeed object that all these so-called constraints or imperatives are hypothetical, and not really categorical. By an hypothetical imperative he understands one in which the command depends upon an “if”—_if_ there be invisible spirits such as primitive men imagined, then the rules of _tabu_ follow. _If_ the safety of the gang is an object of commanding interest, then gang loyalty is obligatory. _If_ the preservation and prosperity of human society in general (a society superior to that of ants and of bees indeed but like them a product of nature and not radically distinct from them) be regarded as the supreme end of desire and endeavor, then the rules of social behavior are to be obeyed. But, he would say, none of these objects are fit to rank so high. They all are optional ends. An hypothetical imperative is one in which the end pursued is optional, the imperative extending only to the means. If the end be desired, then it is reasonable, and in so far imperative, that we adopt the means that lead to its attainment. An imperative truly categorical, however, is one in which the obligation extends to the end proposed as well as to the means. It is not left to our inclination to embrace or to refuse the end, it being of such a kind as absolutely to constrain us to accept it.

But if this be so, then in this first part of our criticism we turn upon Kant and declare that he has nowhere given us reason to believe that the acceptance of an absolute end is implied in the kind of constraints to which the generality of men submit. And again if such acceptance cannot be proved, then the universal moral equality of men based by him on the presence in all of the sense of duty disappears, and his lofty ethical structure breaks down at this point.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] See II Samuel, VI, 6, 7.

[20] Primitive communities valued coöperation because it was socially useful. But there are different kinds of coöperation. Which kind shall we of today adopt? The mere idea of coöperation affords no clue. The self-sacrifice of the individual to the whole of which he is a part is socially useful. But on what occasions and to what degree is it useful? Altruism is socially useful. We are to serve others. But what in them shall we serve? Their physical needs, their intellectual needs, all their needs together? Is that humanly possible? Here again an ethical principle is required to define the quality and the limits of the service. The latent race-consciousness of which Darwin speaks affords no light on the ethical problems proper. The concept of social utility, if not valueless, is at best only of subsidiary value in any attempt to solve these problems. So far from reading once and for all the riddle of conscience, Darwin has not read aright the terms of the riddle.