Chapter 9.2 – Philosophy of Freedom

Chapter 15: “The Consequences of Monism”

This is the final chapter of the main text, where Steiner draws together the threads of the entire book and spells out the broader worldview implications of the “monism” he’s been developing since Chapter 10.

Key points:

Steiner restates his central thesis: reality is one unified whole, accessible to thinking, with no unbridgeable gaps — between percept and concept (Chapters 4–7), between nature and freedom (Chapter 10), or between the individual and the general (Chapter 14). This monism stands opposed to any philosophy positing hidden, unknowable realms (metaphysical dualism) or reducing everything to blind mechanism (materialism).
He clarifies the practical ethical consequence: moral life is not about following external commandments, whether religious, social, or based on abstract moral laws, but about each individual bringing forth, through free thinking, their own concrete moral intuitions suited to unique situations (recapping Chapters 9, 11, 12, and 14). This is his mature statement of ethical individualism.
He addresses the worry that this leads to moral chaos or anarchy. Steiner argues the opposite: because true moral intuitions arise from thinking that grasps genuinely universal, objective concepts (not arbitrary personal preference), free individuals acting from real insight will not be in fundamental, chaotic conflict with one another. Mutual understanding between free individuals is possible precisely because they’re all drawing on the same universal conceptual world (echoing Chapter 6’s account of individuality), even though each accesses and applies it uniquely.
He distinguishes his ethical individualism from mere selfishness or subjectivism. Acting from one’s own free insight is not the same as acting on impulse or self-interest — true moral intuition, arrived at through disciplined thinking, has objective validity, even though its origin is individual. Freedom, for Steiner, is compatible with — indeed is the highest form of — moral seriousness, not a license for caprice.
He revisits the relationship between the “world of ideas” and the human being one final time, emphasizing that thinking is how the universe becomes conscious of itself in the human being — cognition isn’t an isolated subjective add-on to reality but reality’s own process of coming to self-understanding through us. This grounds his monism metaphysically: the human “I,” in thinking, participates directly in the same reality that constitutes the world, rather than standing over against it as a separate, merely observing subject.
He closes by affirming that genuine freedom is rare and hard-won, not automatic — most human action remains driven by instinct, feeling, convention, or unreflective habit (as laid out in the hierarchy in Chapter 9). Full freedom, achieved through pure moral intuition, represents a real but demanding possibility and ideal for human development — something to be striven for and increasingly realized, both individually and, implicitly, over the course of human history (echoing the developmental view of morality from Chapter 12).

This chapter functions as the book’s summation: it reasserts the unity of reality against dualism and materialism, restates ethical individualism as the practical heart of the whole inquiry, and affirms that free, self-determined moral action is both possible and the highest expression of human nature — bringing the argument begun with the simple question “Is the human being free?” in Chapter 1 to its full conclusion.

Chapter 14: “Individuality and Genus (Individuality and Species)”

This chapter addresses a tension implicit in everything before it: if human beings are studied by science as members of a species (biologically, sociologically, psychologically classified and typed), how does this square with Steiner’s picture of the person as a free, self-determining individual whose thinking and moral intuitions are unique to them?

Key points:

Steiner acknowledges that human beings are, in many respects, members of a genus (species/type), just like other living things. Biology, anthropology, and social science can meaningfully classify people by race, nationality, family type, character type, and so on — and much of human life and behavior is indeed explicable in these general terms (physical form, many instincts, inherited traits, cultural conditioning).
But he argues the human being is not exhausted by their membership in any general category. Unlike animals, which (in his view) are essentially fully defined by their species-type, each human individual has the capacity — through the free thinking and moral intuition described earlier — to transcend general type and produce something genuinely unique: their own concepts, insights, and moral responses tailored to unrepeatable, particular situations.
He distinguishes two directions of explanation: one can explain a great deal about a person by reference to what’s general (their species, culture, upbringing, psychological “type”) — but the free core of a person’s action, the moment where they generate a fresh moral intuition through their own thinking, cannot be derived from or reduced to any general category. That act is irreducibly individual.
This is why Steiner insists that a truly free deed cannot be predicted or fully explained by any science of general types, no matter how sophisticated — because science of this kind, by its nature, deals with what’s repeatable and general, while free action (per Chapters 9 and 12) arises fresh, from unrepeatable individual insight into an unrepeatable situation.
He uses this to push back against deterministic sociology/biology/psychology that would claim to fully explain (and thus explain away) human action purely in terms of type, heredity, environment, or social conditioning. Such explanations capture the non-free portion of human behavior (which, Steiner readily admits, is often the greater part in practice) but cannot, even in principle, capture the free portion — because the free portion is, by definition, not an instance of a general law but a unique act of individual thinking.
This affirms the human being’s status as simultaneously a natural being (subject to general laws, like any species member) and a spiritual/free being (capable, at least potentially, of acts that escape those general laws through self-generated thought). Both are real and coexist; Steiner isn’t denying the reality of type/heredity/social conditioning, only insisting they don’t tell the whole story.

This chapter reinforces and generalizes the ethical individualism developed in Chapters 9–12, defending it now against reduction by empirical/scientific classification. It sets up the book’s concluding chapters — Chapter 15 (“The Consequences of Monism”), where Steiner draws together the practical and worldview implications of everything argued so far, and the Final Appendices/Additions, where he responds to critics.

Chapter 13: “The Value of Life (Optimism and Pessimism)”

Having established how free moral action actually works (Chapter 12), Steiner now pauses to address a challenge that could undercut the whole project: if life is fundamentally full of suffering and without worth, why would the pursuit of free, self-directed action even matter? This chapter engages critically with philosophical pessimism, especially as represented by Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann.

Key points:

Steiner lays out the pessimist argument. Pessimist philosophers argued that pain and desire structurally outweigh pleasure and satisfaction in life — that wanting is endless and its fulfillment always temporary or illusory, so existence, weighed honestly, comes out net negative. Some (like von Hartmann) argued that the highest ethical response to this is to work toward the negation or overcoming of the will to live/desire itself.
He also presents the optimist counter-position — that pleasure genuinely outweighs pain, and that life, weighed honestly, is worth affirming — while noting that this position, argued on the same terms as pessimism (tallying pleasure against pain), is just as vulnerable to dispute, since such calculations are inherently subjective and unprovable one way or the other.
Steiner’s key move: he rejects the entire framework of weighing pleasure against pain as the basis for valuing life. Both optimism and pessimism, as usually argued, assume that the worth of life must be judged by totaling up feelings of pleasure versus displeasure. Steiner argues this is the wrong measure entirely — it treats human beings as passive recipients of feeling-states to be tallied, rather than as active agents whose worth and meaning come from doing, not merely feeling.
He relocates the value of life in activity/action itself, not in the balance of felt pleasure. For Steiner, what gives life worth isn’t whether pleasant sensations outnumber painful ones, but whether the individual is engaged in real, self-directed, purposeful activity — the kind of free action described in Chapters 9–12. A life devoted to bringing forth one’s own moral intuitions into deeds has worth intrinsic to that activity, regardless of the pleasure/pain ledger.
He argues pessimism, taken to its logical conclusion, would undermine the will to act at all — but observes that even confirmed pessimists (like von Hartmann) don’t actually stop acting or willing; in practice they still pursue goals and engage in life, which Steiner takes as evidence that the theoretical pessimist calculus doesn’t actually match lived human experience.
This defends the free, active human being (his book’s central figure) against the charge that such striving is pointless. By shifting the ground of value from felt pleasure to the intrinsic worth of free, self-determined activity, Steiner secures a reason to affirm the pursuit of freedom and moral action regardless of how the pleasure/pain balance sheet might come out.

This chapter functions as a kind of defense-in-passing — clearing away pessimism as an obstacle — before Steiner moves to the final chapters, where he addresses individuality and its social/species dimension. This sets up Chapter 14, “Individuality and Genus (Individuality and Species),” which examines how the free individual relates to the general categories (species, type, social role) that biology and sociology tend to subsume people under.

Chapter 12: “Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Morality)”

This chapter gets concrete: having argued that free action springs from self-generated moral intuition (Chapter 9) rather than external purpose (Chapter 11), Steiner now explains the actual psychological mechanism by which an abstract moral intuition becomes a specific deed in the real world.

Key points:

Steiner introduces the concept of “moral imagination.” A moral intuition on its own is general — it grasps what’s right in principle for a situation. But translating this into a concrete act requires imagination: the capacity to picture how the general intuition applies to this particular set of circumstances, and to envision the specific action that would realize it. Moral imagination is the bridge between abstract insight and concrete deed.
He pairs this with “moral technique” — the practical, skillful knowledge of the world (how things work, cause and effect, human affairs) needed to actually carry out the imagined action effectively. Good intentions alone aren’t enough; free moral action also requires competence in dealing with the real, physical and social world.
He explicitly rejects the idea that morality can be reduced to fixed, universal rules or laws (moral abstractionism). Ethical systems that try to lay down general commandments in advance (“always do X,” “never do Y”) fail to account for the fact that every situation is unique, and genuine moral insight must be freshly generated for each specific case through intuition and imagination — not mechanically applied from a rulebook.
He engages with Darwinism and evolutionary ethics directly. Some thinkers of his time argued that morality is simply a product of evolutionary development — moral feelings and rules exist because they proved useful for survival, and so ethics is ultimately reducible to biological/social utility. Steiner pushes back: while he doesn’t deny that moral customs have a developmental history, he denies that this history explains away or exhausts the content of true moral intuitions. Evolution can explain the emergence of moral conventions and instincts over time, but the free, individual moral intuitions of the ethically mature person are not merely inherited biological drives — they’re generated anew by thinking, as previously established.
He proposes a developmental view of morality itself. Just as individual freedom is something achieved rather than automatically given (Chapter 9), moral life as a whole has evolved from instinct-driven, custom-bound behavior toward increasingly individualized, intuition-based ethical action. Humanity is gradually moving from morality-as-external-law toward morality-as-free-individual-insight — with Steiner’s “ethical individualism” representing the höher, more evolved stage of this development, not a rejection of moral seriousness but its fulfillment.
This chapter reinforces that free action is not lawless or arbitrary. Because moral imagination must still answer to real moral intuitions (which are not private whims, as clarified in Chapter 11) and must be carried out through genuine competence in the world (moral technique), free action remains disciplined and effective — not a matter of pure caprice.

This chapter fills in the practical, psychological “how” of free ethical action, complementing the more abstract “what” and “why” given in Chapters 9–11. It leads into Chapter 13, “The Value of Life (Optimism and Pessimism),” where Steiner shifts to examine whether life, understood along these lines, is something to be affirmed — engaging with pessimist philosophy (Schopenhauer, von Hartmann) regarding whether existence has worth.

Chapter 11: “World Purpose and Life Purpose (The Purpose of Life)”

Having defended his monistic view of freedom in Chapter 10, Steiner now turns to examine a different but related question: the idea of purpose — does the world, or human life, have an inherent purpose imposed on it from outside, and how does this relate to the freedom he’s been describing?

Key points:

Steiner critiques the traditional idea of an external, predetermined purpose governing nature and human life. The common view (often theological or teleological) holds that the world unfolds according to a fixed plan or goal set by some higher power, and that individual human lives likewise have a preordained purpose they’re meant to fulfill. Steiner finds this picture incompatible with genuine freedom — if my life’s purpose is fixed in advance by an external design, my actions are ultimately just the execution of someone else’s plan, not truly my own.
He distinguishes between purpose imposed from without and purpose/meaning generated from within. Rather than nature or human life having a single, universal goal dictated externally, Steiner argues that meaning and purpose arise through the activity of thinking individuals themselves — each person, through their own concepts and moral intuitions (as described in Chapter 9), generates the purposes that inform their actions, rather than discovering a purpose already fully written into the fabric of the cosmos.
He extends this critique to nature itself. Just as human action doesn’t need an externally imposed goal to be meaningful, natural processes don’t require a hidden cosmic “purpose” to be explained — their lawfulness (as revealed through thinking’s grasp of percept and concept, from earlier chapters) is sufficient. Imposing purpose onto nature from outside is, for Steiner, an illegitimate carryover of human intention onto processes that don’t require it.
This reinforces his ethical individualism. If purpose isn’t a fixed, universal blueprint but something each thinking individual actively brings forth through insight into particular situations, then the “purpose of life” isn’t a single answer valid for everyone — it’s something each person must discover and create through their own free, thinking activity. This directly continues the trajectory from Chapters 9–10: freedom isn’t obedience to an external plan (whether natural law, moral code, or cosmic purpose) but the self-generated activity of the thinking individual.
He’s careful to distinguish this from arbitrary relativism. Rejecting a single externally fixed purpose doesn’t mean “anything goes” — because, as established earlier, genuine moral intuitions are still grounded in real, universally valid concepts (not mere private whim); it’s the origin of the insight (self-generated through thinking) rather than its validity that makes it free.

This chapter clears away the notion of a ready-made cosmic or life purpose waiting to be discovered, reinforcing that meaning and purpose — like freedom itself — are achievements of the thinking individual. This leads naturally into Chapter 12, “Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Morality),” where Steiner explains concretely how an individual translates a moral intuition into a specific, real-world action.

Chapter 10: “Philosophy of Freedom and Monism”

With the positive account of free action laid out in Chapter 9, Steiner now defends and situates his theory against rival philosophical positions — particularly materialism and traditional metaphysical dualism — while explaining what he means by “monism.”

Key points:

Steiner positions his view as a form of monism, meaning he rejects any philosophy that splits reality into two fundamentally separate, unbridgeable realms — e.g., mind versus matter, the knowable world of appearances versus an unknowable “thing-in-itself,” or spirit versus nature. His monism holds that reality is fundamentally one connected whole, and that thinking is the activity through which this unity becomes apparent to us (tying back directly to Chapters 4–7).
He distinguishes his monism sharply from materialism. A materialist explains thinking and consciousness as mere by-products of physical/chemical processes in the brain — ultimately reducible to matter in motion. Steiner rejects this, arguing it cannot account for the self-transparency of thinking established in Chapter 3: thinking is the one activity we observe directly from the inside, and this direct, non-physical self-evidence can’t be explained away as an epiphenomenon of neural mechanics without contradiction.
He also distinguishes it from spiritualistic or metaphysical dualism (positions that posit a hidden “spirit world” or transcendent realm as the true reality standing behind, and inaccessible to, ordinary experience). Steiner insists there’s no need to posit any hidden metaphysical realm beyond the perceptible/thinkable world — reality is fully available to us through the union of percept and concept already described; nothing essential is left over, hidden, or transcendent.
He extends this monism to the ethical/free will question. Just as there’s no unbridgeable gap between percept and concept in general knowledge, there’s no unbridgeable gap between “natural necessity” and “freedom” in human action. Free action, for Steiner, isn’t a miraculous exception that breaks the causal order of nature — it’s what happens when a human being, as a natural being capable of thinking, generates the motivating concept for an action through their own insight rather than through blind mechanism. Freedom and lawfulness aren’t opposites; an action can be fully “caused” by the agent’s own thinking and still be free, because that thinking is the person’s own activity, not an external compulsion.
This directly answers the classical objection that determinism and freedom are mutually exclusive. Critics assume freedom must mean “uncaused” or “random,” while determinists assume all causation is external/mechanical. Steiner’s monism dissolves this by locating the causal origin of free action within the thinking activity of the individual — a cause, yes, but a self-produced one, not an external, alien compulsion.
He briefly touches on the ethical implications: since true freedom (per Chapter 9) is achieved only through pure moral intuition — thinking that grasps what a unique situation genuinely calls for — Steiner’s monism implies that moral life is not about obeying fixed rules or laws imposed from outside, but about each individual’s capacity to discover, through their own thinking, the right concept/action for each concrete situation. This anticipates the ethical individualism he develops more fully in later chapters (particularly Chapter 9’s continuation into “moral imagination” and the book’s later chapters on ethics).

This chapter essentially defends the coherence of Steiner’s whole project: by insisting reality is one unified whole graspable through thinking, he shows why freedom doesn’t need to be smuggled in from outside nature — it’s a natural (if rare and effortful) achievement of a being whose essence includes self-transparent thought.

Chapter 9: “The Idea of Freedom”

This is the pivotal chapter where Steiner finally returns to the question posed in Chapter 1 and begins building his actual case for freedom, using everything established about thinking, percept, concept, feeling, and the I.

Key points:

Steiner distinguishes his approach from both “naive” determinism and vague talk of free will. He insists the question can only be answered by observing how a concrete action actually comes about — tracing, step by step, what happens between a motive arising and a deed being carried out.
He introduces the crucial distinction between the “impulse to act” (or motive/driving force) and the “characterological disposition” that determines which motive becomes decisive. Not every thought that occurs to us leads to action — only those that connect with our will. Steiner analyzes the machinery by which a concept becomes a motive powerful enough to issue in a deed.
He distinguishes different levels at which human action can be determined:
- Purely instinctual action (driven by organic desires/drives, like an animal or infant) — here there’s no freedom, just necessity.
- Action driven by feeling or emotion (acting because something feels right, without full clarity about why) — a step up, but still not fully free, since the person hasn’t consciously penetrated their own motive.
- Action based on reasoned deliberation using concepts and principles adopted from outside (custom, authority, convention, an inherited moral code accepted without independent insight) — more conscious, but still not free, because the governing concept wasn’t self-generated; it was taken over ready-made.
- Action based on pure moral intuition — where the individual, through thinking, grasps the specific concept appropriate to a unique situation, generated freshly by their own insight rather than borrowed from habit or external authority. This, for Steiner, is the only level at which genuine freedom is possible.
This is where Steiner’s key move happens: he locates freedom not in the mere ability to act on a desire, but in the origin of the motivating concept itself. An action is free to the degree that its motivating idea springs from the individual’s own thinking — from real insight into what this specific situation calls for — rather than being imposed by physical drives, unreflective emotion, or unquestioned external rules.
He is careful to note this isn’t a description of how most people act most of the time. Fully free action, in this strict sense, is presented as something of an ideal or achievement — something humans are capable of and move toward, not something automatically guaranteed by simply having a rational mind. Freedom, for Steiner, is thus not a fixed property everyone equally possesses, but a capacity that can be more or less realized depending on how much genuine, self-produced thinking actually informs one’s actions.
This reframes the free will debate itself as a false dilemma. The old argument (“either everything is determined by prior causes, or actions are random/uncaused”) misses a third option: an action can be lawfully grounded (in a real concept, grasped through thinking) while still being free, because the individual’s own thinking — not an external chain of causation — was what actually produced that concept in that moment.

This chapter lays down the heart of Steiner’s positive theory of freedom. The following chapter, “Freedom — Philosophy and Monism,” goes on to defend this account against objections (e.g., from a strictly scientific/deterministic worldview) and situates it within Steiner’s broader monistic outlook.

Chapter 8: “The Factors of Life”

Having secured that thinking can genuinely reach reality (Chapter 7), Steiner now turns from epistemology toward the human being as a whole, concrete individual — asking what elements actually make up our full conscious experience beyond just percept and concept.

Key points:

Steiner introduces additional “factors” of human experience beyond percept and concept. So far the discussion centered on percepts (given data) and concepts (thought-content). Now he adds two more crucial elements: feeling and the “I” (self) as the center that has percepts, forms concepts, and experiences feelings.
Feeling is presented as a distinctive, third element of reality alongside percept and concept. When a concept unites with a percept, the result isn’t purely intellectual — it’s typically accompanied by an inner, felt response (pleasure, interest, aversion, etc.). Feeling is how the union of percept and concept registers within the subject, giving experience its personal, inner coloring. Unlike concepts (universal) or percepts (external), feelings are intimately bound to the individual’s inner life.
He distinguishes feeling from thinking in terms of clarity. Thinking, as established earlier, is uniquely transparent to self-observation — we can watch ourselves think with full clarity. Feeling, by contrast, is more like an inner percept: it presents itself to us similarly to how outer percepts do (as a given), and it likewise needs thinking to be understood and brought to clarity. Left merely felt, without being thought through, feeling remains as murky and unexplained as an unprocessed outer percept.
The “I” emerges as the being who unites all of this. Percepts, concepts, and feelings don’t just float freely — they belong to a subject, the “I,” which stands as the unifying center of experience. Steiner emphasizes that the I is not just another abstract concept but is directly and immediately experienced by each person as the ground of their own activity — most clearly in the act of thinking, where the I actively produces the concept rather than passively receiving it.
This sets up the crucial move toward the will. With percept, concept, feeling, and the I now on the table, Steiner has assembled the full inventory of factors that make up conscious human life. This positions him to ask the next, decisive question: what is willing, and how does it relate to these factors? That question — central to the whole book — is what Chapter 9, “The Idea of Freedom,” will tackle directly, finally returning full-circle to the problem posed in Chapter 1.

This chapter is essentially the last piece of preparatory groundwork — rounding out Steiner’s picture of the human being’s inner life so that the analysis of free will in the chapters ahead has a complete foundation (percept, concept, feeling, and I) to draw on.

Chapter 7: “Are There Limits to Knowledge?”

This chapter is a direct confrontation with a major obstacle to everything Steiner has argued so far: the widespread (largely Kantian) view that human cognition can never reach the true nature of reality — that there’s always an unknowable “thing-in-itself” lying beyond what our minds can grasp. If this view is correct, Steiner’s whole picture of thinking as capable of uniting with percepts to reveal full reality collapses.

Key points:

He identifies the source of the “limits of knowledge” doctrine. Philosophers who hold this view typically assume that what we perceive is only an effect produced in us by some external, unknowable cause — the real object supposedly stays hidden behind the veil of our subjective sensations, forever inaccessible. On this account, percepts are just symbols or signs of a reality we can never directly touch.
Steiner argues this whole picture rests on a flawed premise. It illegitimately treats the process of perception (e.g., light waves triggering nerve responses, physiological/psychological accounts of how sensation arises) as if it told us something about the relationship between percept and reality itself. But these causal, physiological explanations are themselves products of thinking about percepts — so they can’t be used to prove that thinking is powerless to reach reality, since they already depend on thinking having grasped something true about the world (nerves, waves, causation) in the first place. The argument is self-undermining.
He reiterates the core claim from Chapters 4–5: the percept is incomplete, not falsified, on its own. The apparent “gap” between us and reality isn’t a gap between appearance and hidden truth — it’s simply the natural incompleteness of perception before thinking supplies the concept that completes it. Once percept and concept are united, there’s no further hidden “thing-in-itself” left over demanding to be known — the concept isn’t a symbol pointing at reality from outside, it’s a genuine constituent of reality itself, grasped by thinking.
He distinguishes appearance from illusion. Percepts are indeed one-sided and dependent on our organization (a color looks the way it does because of how our eyes work) — but this doesn’t make them unreal or deceptive. It just means the full nature of the thing only reveals itself when percept and concept join. Reality isn’t “behind” the percept; it’s completed through the percept plus its concept.
The upshot: there is no fundamentally unknowable residue. Whatever isn’t yet known is simply not-yet-thought-through — a temporary limitation of the individual’s current knowledge, not a permanent, in-principle boundary built into the structure of cognition itself. Human thinking, when it does its proper work, has no impassable “wall” between itself and the real.

This chapter is important groundwork because it clears away any lingering doubt that thinking is capable of full contact with reality — which is essential before Steiner turns, in Chapter 8, to apply all of this specifically to human action and self-knowledge, asking: is the same directness and freedom from hidden limits available when we try to know ourselves, particularly our own willing? That’s the transition into the book’s second half, where the freedom question proper (from Chapter 1) gets picked back up in earnest.

Chapter 6: “Human Individuality”

Having shown that knowledge is the union of percept and concept, Steiner now asks: where does this leave the individual human being? If concepts are universal (the same triangle-concept for everyone), why isn’t all human experience and thought identical? This chapter locates individuality within the framework built so far.

Key points:

Concepts are universal, but each of us grasps them from a particular standpoint. The concept “triangle” or “cause” doesn’t differ from thinker to thinker in its content — but the specific combination of percepts each person encounters, and the way they’re worked through by that person’s own organization, is unique to them. Individuality doesn’t lie in having private concepts, but in the distinctive vantage point from which the same universal world of concepts is accessed and applied.
The human being is a “special individualization” of thinking itself. Steiner describes each person as an organ through which universal thinking becomes concretely activated in a particular time, place, and set of circumstances. My thinking is genuinely mine — arising through my own activity — even though what I think (the concept itself) is not privately mine but universally valid and shared by all who grasp it correctly.
This resolves an apparent tension. If concepts were purely private (subjective idealism), there’d be no possibility of shared objective knowledge or communication between people. If concepts left no room for individuality (naive realism/rigid rationalism), everyone would think identically, and personal character, perspective, and creativity would be illusions. Steiner’s solution: the content of true concepts is universal, but the organization that produces and applies them — each person’s percept-stream, memory, interests, and mode of connecting concept to percept — is individual.
He uses this to explain why people perceive and understand the world differently despite sharing the same conceptual/logical structure of reality. Differences between people arise not because truth itself is relative, but because each person is working with a different slice of percepts and a unique organizational history to which they apply the shared conceptual world.
This chapter is pivotal for the freedom argument to come. By locating individuality in the activity of thinking (rather than in arbitrary private opinion, or in being a passive vessel for universal law), Steiner prepares the ground for arguing that free action can be genuinely both individual (arising from this person, here, now) and rationally grounded (accessing real, universal concepts) rather than being either random caprice or mechanical necessity.

This sets up Chapter 7, “Are There Limits to Cognition?”, where Steiner will confront and refute the Kantian-influenced view that reality (the “thing-in-itself”) is fundamentally unknowable to human thought — a view that, if true, would undercut everything argued so far about thinking’s capacity to grasp reality.

Chapter 4: “The World as Percept” (also translated “The World as Perception”)

Having established thinking as a unique, self-transparent activity in Chapter 3, Steiner now turns to examine its counterpart: perception. He wants to understand exactly what the “given,” pre-thought world actually consists of, before thinking gets to work on it.

Key points:

Steiner defines the “percept” carefully. A percept is whatever presents itself to us through the senses or inner experience before we’ve applied any concept to it — the raw color, sound, warmth, or feeling, prior to being identified, named, or explained. It’s the world exactly as given, with no interpretation added yet.
He stresses that this pure percept is, strictly speaking, never actually experienced in isolation by adults. In practice, the moment something is perceived, thinking is already at work weaving concepts into it (we don’t just see “a patch of color,” we immediately see “a tree”). So the “pure percept” is something we arrive at only through a kind of deliberate philosophical abstraction — mentally stripping away everything that thinking has already contributed, to isolate what perception alone provides.
This exposes a problem with naive realism. Ordinary consciousness assumes that the world we perceive is simply “the real world,” complete and finished as it appears. Steiner challenges this: what we actually perceive, before thinking supplies connections and explanations, is fragmentary, chaotic, and disconnected — a swarm of isolated impressions with no inherent order. The coherent, orderly world we take for granted is already a joint product of percept and concept, not perception alone.
He also distances himself from subjective idealism. Some philosophers conclude from the incompleteness of percepts that the “real” world must be purely a construction of the mind, with nothing existing independently. Steiner rejects this too — for him, the percept is genuinely given, not invented by the perceiver; it’s just incomplete on its own and requires thinking to reveal its full reality.
This reframes the task of knowledge. If the percept alone is fragmentary and thinking alone is a formal, connecting activity, then neither one by itself is “the real world.” Knowledge, for Steiner, must involve bringing the two together — using thinking to supply what’s genuinely missing from bare perception, not to invent an arbitrary picture layered on top of it.

This chapter essentially clears the ground conceptually: by rigorously defining what a “percept” is (and isn’t), Steiner sets up the crucial next move — showing how concepts (the product of thinking) relate to percepts to jointly constitute full reality, which is the subject of Chapter 5 (“The Act of Knowing the World”).

Chapter 5: “The Act of Knowing the World” (also translated “Knowing the World” or “The Act of Cognition”)

This chapter brings together the two threads from Chapters 3 and 4 — thinking and perceiving — to show how genuine knowledge actually comes about through their interaction.

Key points:

Knowledge arises from the meeting of percept and concept. Neither the raw percept (fragmentary, disconnected sense-data) nor the bare concept (an empty, abstract form of thought) constitutes reality on its own. Steiner argues that the act of knowing is precisely the process of bringing a percept together with its corresponding concept — only then does the “what” of a thing become intelligible, revealing what it actually is, not just that it appears.
This explains our felt need to explain things. We are driven to seek concepts for our percepts because, until a concept is added, a percept remains external and alien to us — a mere impression we haven’t yet understood. Finding the right concept for a percept is experienced as a kind of satisfaction or resolution, because it restores the connectedness that perception alone lacks (echoing the “duality” problem raised in Chapter 2).
Steiner uses the analogy of the world appearing “split” into two halves — the given, and the “thought-out.” Cognition is the activity of reuniting them. What we call “reality” or “actuality” is never percept alone or concept alone, but their union: the concept restores to the percept the connectedness and meaning it originally had within the whole of existence, but which is destroyed for us in the mere act of perceiving separately through our senses.
He addresses why this union feels like an achievement rather than automatic. Because our organization as perceiving beings inherently fragments reality into disconnected sensory bits (this is the price of having a subjective vantage point at all), the work of thinking to reunite percept and concept is a real, active task — not a passive mirroring. Cognition is productive, not merely reproductive.
This lays crucial groundwork for objectivity. Since concepts are not arbitrary inventions of the individual mind but the very thing needed to complete percepts and reveal their true nature, Steiner argues that thinking, though it happens “in” an individual, is not merely subjective. The concepts we grasp are the same for all thinkers — pointing toward a shared, universal element in cognition that transcends personal, private experience.

This chapter effectively resolves the epistemological groundwork of the book: percept and concept together constitute full reality, and knowing is the real activity of uniting them. With this established, Steiner is now positioned to ask a sharper question — what exactly is the human being’s own relationship to this process (i.e., where does the human standpoint fit in), which becomes the focus of Chapter 6, “The Human Individuality.”

Chapter 3: “Thinking in the Service of Knowlesge”

This chapter begins Steiner’s close examination of thinking itself — treating it not just as one mental faculty among others, but as the key to resolving the split between self and world introduced in Chapter 2.

Key points:

Steiner insists we must start from observation, not preconceived theory. Just as a natural scientist observes plants or minerals, Steiner says philosophy must begin by simply observing thinking as it actually occurs — watching how we produce concepts and ideas, rather than assuming in advance some theory about what thinking “really is” (materialist, idealist, or otherwise).
Thinking is unlike any other object of observation. Normally, when we observe something (a rock, an animal, a feeling), the act of observing is separate from the thing observed. But when we observe thinking, the observer and the observed activity are the same — we are using thinking to observe thinking itself. Steiner identified this as a uniquely privileged situation: nowhere else do we have such direct, intimate access to the very process we’re studying.
He distinguishes thinking from perceiving. Perception gives us the raw, disconnected picture of the world — separate sensations, colors, sounds, objects standing side by side without inherent connection. Thinking is the activity that supplies the connections — it relates one perception to another, uncovers concepts, and knits isolated impressions into a coherent, intelligible whole. When we think about a perception, we’re not just receiving it passively; we’re actively producing something (a concept) that reveals what the perception means in relation to everything else.
This is why thinking can bridge the separation identified in Chapter 2. Because thinking’s very nature is to unify disconnected elements, it’s naturally suited to restore the unity between the human being and the world that mere perception cannot achieve.
Thinking has a special status compared to all other human activities and mental content. It isn’t just another subjective process happening “in here,” but is the means by which the world’s own inherent order and connections become manifest. Because we can watch ourselves think, in a way we cannot watch ourselves perceive or feel, thinking offers a foothold for genuinely objective self-knowledge — which will become essential to the later argument for freedom.

In short, this chapter establishes thinking as a unique object of study — the one thing we can observe from the inside — and positions it as the active, connecting force that turns the raw, scattered data of perception into a meaningful, unified picture of the world.

Chapter 2: The Fundamental Desire Knowledge

Having framed the question of freedom at the end of Chapter 1, Steiner steps back to pose the more basic question: why do human beings seek knowledge and explanations at all? He will go on to argue that we can’t get anywhere on the freedom question without first understanding what drives us to think and know in the first place.

Key points:

The world presents itself to us as a riddle. The phenomena of the world appear as gievn to the senses. At the same time we feel compelled to find the underlying connections that might explain the phenolmena. Something remains hidden from us which makes us aware of our antithesis to the given world or perception.
This split is felt as a kind of inner discord. Steiner describes human beings as standing in a peculiar position: we are part of nature, yet we experience ourselves as set over against it, observing and questioning it as if from outside. We feel at once at one with the world and estranged from it — and this tension is precisely what drives philosophical reflection. If we simply fit seamlessly into nature the way a stone or a plant does, the urge to explain things would never arise.
Striving for knowledge is a necessary consequnce born of this duality. Because we experience ourselves as separate from the world of appearances, we are compelled to find the connection again through thinking. Explanation is essentially the act of restoring a unity that perception alone does not give us. This ultimately underlies all scientific, religious and artistic endeavour.
Neither Dualism nor Monism can overcome the separation. Dualism fails to find an anchor point from which to bridge the antithesis between I and World. Monism simply tries to overlook this separation that is present to our consciousness.
This sets the stage for his epistemology. By establishing that the human being’s fundamental relationship to the world is one of separation needing resolution through thought, Steiner prepares to examine how thinking achieves this. This becomes the subject in the following chapters leading into his treatment of thinking as an activity which gives us direct access to reality, not just a subjective picture of it.

In essence, this chapter argues that the drive to seek knowledge stems from a felt duality between ourselves and the world, and that resolving this duality through thinking is the deeper task philosophy must undertake — a task that will ultimately circle back to illuminate the question of human freedom.

Chapter 1: “Conscious Human Action” sets up the central problem to be examined in this book: is the human being free, or are our thoughts and actions determined by natural necessity in the same way physical and chemical processes are?

Key points made by Steiner:

This isn’t just an abstract puzzle. Steiner point sout that the question of freedom has real practical consequences – it forms our sense of dignity, our feeling of responsibility for our actions, and how we judge others’ conduct. If everything we do is strictly necessitated, notions like moral responsibility and guilt lose any objective foundation.
He challenges the popular definition of freedom. Most people equate being “free” with being able to do what they want, or with acting on impulse without external compulsion. Steiner says this is too shallow, because it ignores where the wanting itself comes from.
He separates two different questions:
1. Can I carry out what I have decided to do? (freedom of action — often blocked by external circumstance)
2. Is the decision itself — the willing, the motive – freely arrived at, or is it simply the product of prior causes (upbringing, character, desires, physical drives) I had no hand in choosing?
Steiner insists the deeper philosophical question of freedom is about the second point: the origin of our motives, not merely our ability to act on them.
He points to gradations of inner freedom. A small child acting on a whim, an animal following instinct, and a mature person acting from carefully considered reasons are not equally “free” even if all three are doing what they want. This suggests freedom, if it exists at all, has to do with the degree to which our willing is illuminated by conscious insight rather than blind impulse.
He resists settling the question prematurely. Rather than declaring humans simply free or simply determined, Steiner insists the matter has to be investigated through careful observation of our own inner life — how thoughts, motives, and decisions actually arise in consciousness. This sets up the method for the rest of the book, which builds toward his account of “moral intuition” as the real ground of free action.

In short, this chapter is mostly diagnostic: it clears away superficial ideas of freedom (freedom as “doing what I please”) and reframes the real question as one about the origin and nature of our motives — preparing the ground for the later argument that true freedom is achieved through thinking that penetrates to the ideal grounds of our actions.

15. Ultimate Questions – The Consequences of Monism – 1

The uniform explanation of the world, that is, the monism we have described, derives the principles that it needs for the explanation of the world from human experience. In the same way, it looks for the sources of action within the world of observation, that is, in that part of human nature which is accessible to our self-knowledge, more particularly in moral imagination.

Monism refuses to infer in an abstract way that the ultimate causes of the world that is presented to our perceiving and thinking are to be found in a region outside this world. For monism, the unity that thoughtful observation — which we can experience — brings to the manifold multiplicity of percepts is the same unity that man’s need for knowledge demands, and through which it seeks entry into the physical and spiritual regions of the world. Whoever seeks another unity behind this one only proves that he does not recognise the identity of what is discovered by thinking and what is demanded by the urge for knowledge.

The single human individual is not actually cut off from the universe. He is a part of it, and between this part and the totality of the cosmos there exists a real connection which is broken only for our perception. At first we take this part of the universe as something existing on its own, because we do not see the belts and ropes by which the fundamental forces of the cosmos keep the wheel of our life revolving.

Whoever remains at this standpoint sees a part of the whole as if it were actually an independently existing thing, a monad which receives information about the rest of the world in some way from without. Monism, as here described, shows that we can believe in this independence only so long as the things we perceive are not woven by our thinking into the network of the conceptual world. As soon as this happens, all separate existence turns out to be mere illusion due to perceiving.

Man can find his full and complete existence in the totality of the universe only through the experience of intuitive thinking. Thinking destroys the illusion due to perceiving and integrates our individual existence into the life of the cosmos. The unity of the conceptual world, which contains all objective percepts, also embraces the content of our subjective personality. Thinking gives us reality in its true form as a self-contained unity, whereas the multiplicity of percepts is but a semblance due to the way we are organised.

To recognise true reality, as against the illusion due to perceiving, has at all times been the goal of human thinking. Scientific thought has made great efforts to recognise reality in percepts by discovering the systematic connections between them. Where, however, it was believed that the connections ascertained by human thinking had only subjective validity, the true basis of unity was sought in some entity lying beyond our world of experience (an inferred God, will, absolute spirit, etc.).

On the strength of this belief, the attempt was made to obtain, in addition to the knowledge accessible to experience, a second kind of knowledge which transcends experience and shows how the world that can be experienced is connected with the entities that cannot (a metaphysics arrived at by inference, and not by experience).

It was thought that the reason why we can grasp the connections of things in the world through disciplined thinking was that a primordial being had built the world upon logical laws, and, similarly, that the grounds for our actions lay in the will of such a being. What was not realised was that thinking embraces both the subjective and the objective in one grasp, and that through the union of percept with concept the full reality is conveyed. Only as long as we think of the law and order that permeates and determines the percept as having the abstract form of a concept, are we in fact dealing with something purely subjective. But the content of a concept, which is added to the percept by means of thinking, is not subjective. This content is not taken from the subject, but from reality.

It is that part of the reality that cannot be reached by the act of perceiving. It is experience, but not experience gained through perceiving. If someone cannot see that the concept is something real, he is thinking of it only in the abstract form in which he holds it in his mind. But only through our organisation is it present in such isolation, just as in the case of the percept.

After all, the tree that one perceives has no existence by itself, in isolation. It exists only as a part of the immense machinery of nature, and can only exist in real connection with nature. An abstract concept taken by itself has as little reality as a percept taken by itself. The percept is the part of reality that is given objectively, the concept the part that is given subjectively (through intuition).

Our mental organisation tears the reality apart into these two factors. One factor presents itself to perception, the other to intuition. Only the union of the two, that is, the percept fitting systematically into the universe, constitutes the full reality. If we take mere percepts by themselves, we have no reality but rather a disconnected chaos; if we take by itself the law and order connecting the percepts, then we have nothing but abstract concepts. Reality is not contained in the abstract concept; it is, however, contained in thoughtful observation, which does not one-sidedly consider either concept or percept alone, but rather the union of the two.

That we live in reality (that we are rooted in it with our real existence) will not be denied by even the most orthodox of subjective idealists. He will only deny that we reach the same reality with our knowing, with our ideas, as the one we actually live in. Monism, on the other hand, shows that thinking is neither subjective nor objective, but is a principle that embraces both sides of reality.

When we observe with our thinking, we carry out a process which itself belongs to the order of real events. By means of thinking, within the experience itself, we overcome the one-sidedness of mere perceiving. We cannot argue out the essence of reality by means of abstract conceptual hypotheses (through pure conceptual reflection), but in so far as we find the ideas that belong to the percepts, we are living in the reality.

Monism does not seek to add to experience something non-experienceable (transcendental), but finds the full reality in concept and percept. It does not spin a system of metaphysics out of mere abstract concepts, because it sees in the concept by itself only one side of the reality, namely, the side that remains hidden from perception, and only makes sense in connection with the percept. Monism does, however, give man the conviction that he lives in the world of reality and has no need to look beyond this world for a higher reality that can never be experienced. It refrains from seeking absolute reality anywhere else but in experience, because it is just in the content of experience that it recognises reality.

Monism is satisfied by this reality, because it knows that thinking has the power to guarantee it. What dualism seeks only beyond the observed world, monism finds in this world itself. Monism shows that with our act of knowing we grasp reality in its true form, and not as a subjective image that inserts itself between man and reality. For monism, the conceptual content of the world is the same for all human individuals.

According to monistic principles, one human individual regards another as akin to himself because the same world content expresses itself in him. In the unitary world of concepts there are not as many concepts of the lion as there are individuals who think of a lion, but only one. And the concept that A fits to his percept of the lion is the same that B fits to his, only apprehended by a different perceiving subject. Thinking leads all perceiving subjects to the same ideal unity in all multiplicity.

The unitary world of ideas expresses itself in them as in a multiplicity of individuals. As long as a man apprehends himself merely by means of self-perception, he sees himself as this particular man; as soon as he looks at the world of ideas that lights up within him, embracing all that is separate, he sees within himself the absolute reality living and shining forth. Dualism defines the divine primordial Being as that which pervades and lives in all men.

Monism finds this divine life, common to all, in reality itself. The ideas of another human being are in substance mine also, and I regard them as different only as long as I perceive, but no longer when I think. Every man embraces in his thinking only a part of the total world of ideas, and to that extent individuals differ even in the actual content of their thinking. But all these contents are within a self-contained whole, which embraces the thought contents of all men.

Hence every man, in his thinking, lays hold of the universal primordial Being which pervades all men. To live in reality, filled with the content of thought, is at the same time to live in God. A world beyond, that is merely inferred and cannot be experienced, arises from a misconception on the part of those who believe that this world cannot have the foundation of its existence within itself.

They do not realise that through thinking they find just what they require for the explanation of the percept. This is the reason why no speculation has ever brought to light any content that was not borrowed from the reality given to us. The God that is assumed through abstract inference is nothing but a human being transplanted into the Beyond; Schopenhauer’s Will is human will-power made absolute; Hartmann’s Unconscious, a primordial Being made up of idea and will, is but a compound of two abstractions drawn from experience. Exactly the same is true of all other transcendental principles based on thought that has not been experienced.

15. Ultimate Questions – The Consequences of Monism – 2

The truth is that the human spirit never transcends the reality in which we live, nor has it any need to do so, seeing that this world contains everything the human spirit requires in order to explain it. If philosophers eventually declare themselves satisfied with the deduction of the world from principles they borrow from experience and transplant into an hypothetical Beyond, then it should be just as possible to be satisfied when the same content is allowed to remain in this world, where for our thinking as experienced it does belong.

All attempts to transcend the world are purely illusory, and the principles transplanted from this world into the Beyond do not explain the world any better than those which remain within it. If thinking understands itself it will not ask for any such transcendence at all, since every content of thought must look within the world and not outside it for a perceptual content, together with which it forms something real. The objects of imagination, too, are no more than contents which become justified only when transformed into mental pictures that refer to a perceptual content. Through this perceptual content they become an integral part of reality.

A concept that is supposed to be filled with a content lying beyond our given world is an abstraction to which no reality corresponds. We can think out only the concepts of reality; in order to find reality itself, we must also have perception. A primordial world being for which we invent a content is an impossible assumption for any thinking that understands itself. Monism does not deny ideal elements, in fact, it considers a perceptual content without an ideal counterpart as not fully real; but in the whole realm of thinking it finds nothing that could require us to step outside the realm of our thinking’s experience by denying the objective spiritual reality of thinking itself.

Monism regards a science that limits itself to a description of percepts without penetrating to their ideal complements as incomplete. But it regards as equally incomplete all abstract concepts that do not find their complements in percepts, and that fit nowhere into the conceptual network that embraces the whole observable world. Hence it knows no ideas that refer to objective factors lying beyond our experience and which are supposed to form the content of a purely hypothetical system of metaphysics. All that mankind has produced in the way of such ideas monism regards as abstractions borrowed from experience, the fact of borrowing having been overlooked by the originators.

Just as little, according to monistic principles, can the aims of our action be derived from an extra-human Beyond. In so far as we think them, they must stem from human intuition. Man does not take the purposes of an objective (transcendental) primordial Being and make them his own, but he pursues his own individual purposes given him by his moral imagination.

The idea that realises itself in an action is detached by man from the unitary world of ideas and made the basis of his will. Therefore it is not the commandments injected into this world from the Beyond that live in his action, but human intuitions belonging to this world itself. Monism knows no such world-dictator who sets our aims and directs our actions from outside. Man finds no such primal ground of existence whose counsels he might investigate in order to learn from it the aims to which he has to direct his actions. He is thrown back upon himself. It is he himself who must give content to his action. If he looks outside the world in which he lives for the grounds determining his will, he will look in vain. If he is to go beyond merely satisfying his natural instincts, for which Mother Nature has provided, then he must seek these grounds in his own moral imagination, unless he finds it more convenient to let himself be determined by the moral imaginations of others; in other words, either he must give up action altogether, or else he must act for reasons that he gives himself out of his world of ideas or that others select for him out of theirs.

If he advances beyond merely following his life of sensuous instincts or carrying out the commands of others, then he will be determined by nothing but himself. He must act out of an impulse given by himself and determined by nothing else. It is true that this impulse is determined ideally in the unitary world of ideas; but in practice it is only by man that it can be taken from that world and translated into reality. The grounds for the actual translation of an idea into reality by man, monism can find only in man himself. If an idea is to become action, man must first want it, before it can happen. Such an act of will therefore has its grounds only in man himself. Man is then the ultimate determinant of his action. He is free.

Author’s additions, 1918
In the second part of this book the attempt has been made to demonstrate that freedom is to be found in the reality of human action. For this purpose it was necessary to single out from the whole sphere of human conduct those actions in which, on the basis of unprejudiced self-observation, one can speak of freedom. These are actions that represent the realisation of ideal intuitions.

No other actions will be called free by an unprejudiced observer. Yet just by observing himself in an unprejudiced way, man will have to see that it is in his nature to progress along the road towards ethical intuitions and their realisation. But this unprejudiced observation of the ethical nature of man cannot, by itself, arrive at a final conclusion about freedom. For were intuitive thinking to originate in anything other than itself, were its essence not self-sustaining, then the consciousness of freedom that flows from morality would prove to be a mere illusion. But the second part of this book finds its natural support in the first part. This presents intuitive thinking as man’s inwardly experienced spiritual activity. To understand this nature of thinking by experiencing it amounts to a knowledge of the freedom of intuitive thinking. And once we know that this thinking is free, we can also see to what region of the will freedom may be ascribed. We shall regard man as a free agent if, on the basis of inner experience, we may attribute a self-sustaining essence to the life of intuitive thinking.

Whoever cannot do this will never be able to discover a path to the acceptance of freedom that cannot be challenged in any way. This experience, to which we have attached such importance, discovers intuitive thinking within consciousness, although the reality of this thinking is not confined to consciousness. And with this it discovers freedom as the distinguishing feature of all actions proceeding from the intuitions of consciousness.

The argument of this book is built upon intuitive thinking which may be experienced in a purely spiritual way and through which, in the act of knowing, every percept is placed in the world of reality. This book aims at presenting no more than can be surveyed through the experience of intuitive thinking. But we must also emphasise what kind of thought formation this experience of thinking demands.
It demands that we shall not deny that intuitive thinking is a self-sustaining experience within the process of knowledge. It demands that we acknowledge that this thinking, in conjunction with the percept, is able to experience reality instead of having to seek it in an inferred world lying beyond experience, compared to which the activity of human thinking would be something purely subjective.
Thus thinking is characterised as that factor through which man works his way spiritually into reality. (And, actually, no one should confuse this world conception that is based on the direct experience of thinking with mere rationalism.) On the other hand, it should be evident from the whole spirit of this argument that for human knowledge the perceptual element only becomes a guarantee of reality when it is taken hold of in thinking. Outside thinking there is nothing to characterise reality for what it is. Hence we must not imagine that the kind of reality guaranteed by sense perception is the only one.
Whatever comes to us by way of percept is something that, on our journey through life, we simply have to await. The only question is, would it be right to expect, from the point of view that this purely intuitively experienced thinking gives us, that man could perceive spiritual things as well as those perceived with the senses? It would be right to expect this. For although, on the one hand, intuitively experienced thinking is an active process taking place in the human spirit, on the other hand it is also a spiritual percept grasped without a physical sense organ.
It is a percept in which the perceiver is himself active, and a self-activity which is at the same time perceived. In intuitively experienced thinking man is carried into a spiritual world also as perceiver. Within this spiritual world, whatever confronts him as percept in the same way that the spiritual world of his own thinking does will be recognised by him as a world of spiritual perception. This world of spiritual perception could be seen as having the same relationship to thinking that the world of sense perception has on the side of the senses. Once experienced, the world of spiritual perception cannot appear to man as something foreign to him, because in his intuitive thinking he already has an experience which is purely spiritual in character.
Such a world of spiritual perception is discussed in a number of writings which I have published since this book first appeared. The Philosophy of Freedom forms the philosophical foundation for these later writings. For it tries to show that the experience of thinking, when rightly understood, is in fact an experience of spirit. Therefore it appears to the author that no one who can in all seriousness adopt the point of view of The Philosophy of Freedom will stop short before entering the world of spiritual perception.
It is certainly not possible to deduce what is described in the author’s later books by logical inference from the contents of this one. But a living comprehension of what is meant in this book by intuitive thinking will lead quite naturally to a living entry into the world of spiritual perception.

15. Final Questions – The Consequences of Monism – 1

The unitary explanation of the world—the monism portrayed here—takes the principles needed to explain the world from human experience. It also looks for the sources of action in the observable world: that is, in the human nature accessible to our self-cognition, particularly in moral imagination.

Monism refuses to seek the ultimate causes of the world that appear to our perceiving and thinking by making abstract inferences about something outside that world. For monism, the unity brought to the manifold multiplicity of percepts through the experience of thinking observation is both what our human urge for cognition demands, and the means by which this urge for cognition seeks entry into the physical and spiritual regions of the universe. Those who seek another unity behind the one sought in this way merely prove that they do not recognize the correspondence between what is discovered through thinking and what is demanded by our drive for knowledge.

The single human individual is not, in fact, cut off from the world. The individual is a part of the world, and has a real connection with the whole cosmos, which is broken only for our perception. At first, because we do not see the ropes and pulleys by which the fundamental powers of the cosmos turn the wheel of our own lives, we see our individual part as an entity existing by itself.

Whoever remains at this standpoint sees a part of the whole as an actually independent entity, as a monad, that somehow receives information about the rest of the world from outside. The monism advocated here shows how such independence will be believed in only as long as thinking does not weave what has been perceived into the network of the conceptual world. Once this happens, the existence of separate parts is unmasked as a mere illusion of perceiving. Only through the experience of intuitive thinking can we can find our total, self-contained existence within the universe. Thinking destroys the illusion of perceiving and integrates our individual existence into the life of the cosmos. The unity of the conceptual world, which contains objective percepts, also includes the content of our subjective personality. Thinking gives us the true form of reality, as a unity enclosed within itself, while the multiplicity of percepts is only an illusion conditioned by our organization.

In every age, cognition of the real, as opposed to the illusion of perceiving, has constituted the goal of human thinking. Science has striven to recognize percepts as reality by discovering the lawful connections among them. But wherever it has been believed that the connections transmitted by human thinking have merely subjective significance, the actual ground of unity has been sought in an object set beyond our world of experience (an inferred God, Will, absolute Spirit, etc.).

And, based on this opinion, attempts were then made to achieve—in addition to knowledge of connections recognizable through experience—a second kind of knowledge, based not on experience but on metaphysical inference. This kind of knowledge went beyond experience and revealed a connection between experience and entities that are no longer directly available to us.

On this basis, then, it was believed that we can understand the coherence of the world through orderly thinking because a primal Being built the world according to logical laws. The reason for our actions was also seen in the will of this Being. Yet it was not recognized that thinking simultaneously encompasses the subjective and the objective, and that full reality is conveyed in the union of percept with concept. Only as long as we regard the laws that permeate and determine percepts in the form of abstract concepts are we dealing with something purely subjective. The content of a concept, joined to a percept by thinking, is not subjective. For the content of this concept is taken not from the subject, but from reality.

It is the part of reality that perceiving cannot reach. It is experience, but not experience transmitted by perceiving. Those who cannot imagine that a concept is something real are thinking only of the abstract form in which they hold concepts in their mind. But concepts, like percepts, are present only in this separated form because of our organization.

The tree that we see has likewise no separate existence by itself. The tree is only a part in the great system of nature, and is only possible in real connection with nature. An abstract concept, by itself, has just as little reality as a percept by itself. Percepts are the part of reality that is given objectively, concepts are the part that is given subjectively (through intuition).

Our mental organization tears reality into these two factors. One factor is apparent to perceiving; the other to intuition. Only the union of the two—the percept integrating itself lawfully into the universe—is full reality. If we consider mere perception alone, we do not have reality, only disconnected chaos; if, on the other hand, we consider only the lawfulness of percepts, we are dealing merely with abstract concepts. Abstract concepts contain no reality. Reality lies in thinking observation that does not one-sidedly examine either concepts or percepts by themselves, but rather considers the union of both.

Not even the most orthodox subjective idealist denies that we live in reality and are rooted in it by our real existence. Such idealists only deny that our cognition—our ideas—can reach that real life. Monism, in contrast, shows that thinking is neither subjective nor objective, but a principle that spans both sides of reality.

When we observe with thinking, we execute a process that itself belongs to the order of real events. Through thinking, we overcome, in experience itself, the one-sidedness of mere perceiving. We cannot piece together the essence of reality with abstract, conceptual hypotheses (purely conceptual reflections); we live in reality by finding ideas to match our percepts. Monism does not seek to add anything to experience that is not experienceable (transcendental), but it sees the Real in concepts and percepts.

Monism spins no metaphysics from merely abstract concepts. For, in the concepts by themselves, it recognizes only one side of reality, which remains hidden to perceiving and makes sense only in connection with the percept. Monism evokes the conviction in us that we live in the world of reality, and that we need not seek outside our world for a higher reality that we cannot experience. Because it recognizes the content of experience itself as reality, it seeks absolute reality nowhere but in experience.

It is satisfied by that reality, because it knows that thinking has the power to guarantee it. What the dualist looks for only behind the observable world, a monist finds within this world itself. Monism shows that, in cognizing, we grasp reality in its true form, not in a subjective picture that interposes itself between ourselves and reality. For monism, the conceptual content of the world is the same for all human individuals.

According to monistic principles, one human individual considers another human individual to be of the same kind, because the same world content expresses itself in both. In the unitary world of concepts, there are not, for example, as many concepts of the lion as there are individuals who think about a lion; there is only one concept. The concept that A adds to the percept of the lion is the same as that of B, only it is grasped by means of a different perceptual subject. Thinking leads all perceptual subjects to the common conceptual unity within all multiplicity.

The unitary world of ideas expresses itself in them as in a multiplicity of individuals. As long as we understand ourselves merely through self-perception, we see ourselves as the separate human beings that we are; as soon as we notice the world of ideas that lights up in us, embracing everything separate, we see what is absolutely real light up livingly within us. Dualism fixes on the divine, primordial Being as that which permeates all humans and lives within them all.

Monism finds this universal divine life in reality itself. The conceptual content of another human being is also my own conceptual content, and I see the other as other only as long as I am perceiving, and not once I am thinking. Each person’s thinking embraces only a part of the total world of ideas and, to that extent, individuals also differ through the actual content of their thinking. But the contents exist within a self-enclosed whole that contains the thought contents of all human beings.

The universal, primordial Being permeating all humanity thus takes hold of us through our thinking. Life within reality, filled with thought content, is at the same time life in God. The merely inferred, not-to-be-experienced transcendent realm is based on a misunderstanding by those who believe that what is manifest does not bear within itself the reason for its existence.

They do not realize that, through thinking, they can find the explanation for perception that they seek. This is why no speculation has ever brought to light a content that was not borrowed from the reality given to us. The God derived through abstract inference is only the human being displaced to the Beyond. Schopenhauer’s “Will” is human willpower made absolute. Von Hartmann’s “unconscious primordial Being,” composed of Idea and Will, is a combination of two abstractions of our experience. Exactly the same can be said of all transcendent principles based on thinking that has not been experienced.

15. Final Questions – The Consequences of Monism – 2

In truth, the human spirit never moves beyond the reality in which we live. Nor does it need to, for everything needed to explain the world lies within it. If philosophers declare themselves content in the end with the derivation of the world from principles borrowed from experience and displaced into a hypothetical Beyond, then such satisfaction should also be possible if the same content is left here, where it must be for the kind of thinking that we can experience. Every transcendence beyond this world is only apparent; and the principles transposed outside the world explain the world no better than those lying within it. Nor does thinking that understands itself demand any such transcendence, since it is only within the world, not outside it, that a thought content must seek a perceptual content together with which it can form something real. The objects of imagination, too, are merely contents; they find their justification only in becoming mental pictures that point to a perceptual content. Through that perceptual content, the objects of imagination integrate themselves into reality. A concept supposedly filled with a content, and lying outside the world given to us, is an abstraction and corresponds to no reality. We can think only the concepts of reality; to find reality itself, we also need to perceive. For thinking that understands itself, a primordial essence of the world whose content is invented is an impossible assumption. Monism does not deny the conceptual. On the contrary, it even regards a perceptual content lacking its conceptual counterpart as falling short of the complete reality. Yet it finds nothing in the whole realm of thinking that could require us to step outside of the realm of its experience by denying the objective, spiritual reality of thinking. According to monism, a science that limits itself to describing percepts without penetrating to their conceptual complements is only half complete. But it also sees as incomplete all abstract concepts that find no complement in percepts and that cannot fit into the conceptual network that spans the observable world. Therefore, it recognizes no ideas that refer to something lying objectively beyond our experience and that are supposed to form the content of a merely hypothetical metaphysics. For monism, all such humanly created ideas are abstractions borrowed from experience—an act of borrowing that is simply overlooked by the borrowers.

Just as little, according to monist principles, can the goals of our actions be taken from an extra-human Beyond. To the extent they are in our thought, they must stem from human intuition. Human beings do not make the purposes of an objective (transcendent) primordial Being their own individual purposes, but follow the purposes given to them by their moral imaginations. A person detaches the idea that realizes itself in an action from the single world of ideas and sets it at the base of his or her will. Thus, our actions express not commands from the Beyond injected into our world, but human intuitions that belong to this world. Monism recognizes no world dictator, who would assign aim and direction to our acts from outside ourselves. Human beings find no such primal source of existence whose advice could be sought to learn the goals that we must give our actions. We are returned to ourselves. We ourselves must give our actions their content. We seek in vain if we seek directives for our will outside the world in which we live. If we go beyond the satisfaction of natural drives for which Mother Nature has provided, we must seek such directives in our own moral imaginations, unless we find it easier to let ourselves be directed by the moral imagination of others. That is, we must either forego all action or act according to reasons that either we give ourselves from the world of our ideas or others give us from the same source. If we move beyond our sense-bound life of instinct and execution of the commands of other human beings, then we are determined by nothing other than ourselves. We must act out of an impulse that we set ourselves, and that is determined by nothing else. To be sure, this impulse is conceptually determined in the one world of ideas. But, in fact, it can be drawn down from this world and translated into reality only through a human being. It is only within human beings themselves that monism can find a basis for the human translation of ideas into reality. Before an idea can become an action, a human being must first want it. Therefore, such wanting has its source in human beings themselves. Human beings are thus the ultimate determinants of their actions. They are free.

Addenda to the new edition (1918)
The second part of this book has sought to establish that freedom is to be found in the reality of human action. For this, it was necessary to separate out from the whole realm of human actions those aspects about which, from unprejudiced self-observation, one can speak of freedom. These are actions that realize conceptual intuitions. Other actions, when viewed without prejudice, cannot be called free. Yet precisely through unprejudiced self-observation we should consider ourselves well equipped to progress along the path toward ethical intuitions and their realization. But this unprejudiced observation of human ethical nature cannot by itself offer a final decision about freedom. For, if intuitive thinking itself sprang from some other entity—if its own essence were not self-sustaining—then the consciousness of freedom flowing from morality would prove to be an illusion. The second part of this book, however, finds natural support in the first. The first presents intuitive thinking as an inner spiritual activity of the human being that is actually experienced. But to understand this essence of thinking experientially, is equivalent to knowing the freedom of intuitive thinking. If one knows that this thinking is free, then one also sees the region of the will to which freedom is attributable. We will consider human acts to be free if, on the basis of direct inner encounter, we can ascribe a self-sustaining being to the experience of intuitive thinking. Those who cannot do so will also be unable to find an incontestable path to the acceptance of freedom. The experience emphasized here finds in consciousness the intuitive thinking that also has reality beyond consciousness. With this, it discovers freedom to be characteristic of actions flowing from the intuitions of consciousness.

The content of this book is built on intuitive thinking that can be experienced purely spiritually, and through which every percept is placed within reality during the act of cognition. No more was to be presented than can be surveyed from an experience of intuitive thinking. But we must also emphasize what kind of thought formation the experience of thinking demands. It demands that intuitive thinking not be denied as a self-sustaining experience within the process of cognition. It also demands that we acknowledge its capacity, in conjunction with percepts, to experience reality, instead of seeking reality only in an inferred world outside experience, in the face of which the human activity of thinking would be merely subjective.

Here, then, thinking is characterized as the element through which we, as human beings, enter spiritually into reality (and no one should confuse this world view, based on the experience of thinking, with a mere rationalism). But, on the other hand, it follows from the whole spirit of this portrayal that the element of perception can be considered as real for human cognition only if it is grasped in thinking. The characterization of something as reality cannot occur outside thinking. Therefore, we should not assume that sense perception is the only guarantee of reality. We can only wait for the percepts that emerge in the course of our lives. The only question is whether we can, from the viewpoint of intuitively experienced thinking alone, await perception not only of what is sensory, but also of what is spiritual? We can indeed wait for this. For even if, on one hand, intuitively experienced thinking is an active process performed within the human spirit, on the other hand, it is also a spiritual percept grasped with no sensory organ. It is a percept in which the perceiver himself or herself is active; and it is an activity of one’s self that is simultaneously perceived. In intuitive thinking, human beings are also transferred into a spiritual world as perceivers. What approaches us in that world as a percept, in the same way as the spiritual world of our own thinking, we recognize as the world of spiritual perception. This perceptual world would have the same relation to thinking as does the sensory perceptual world on the side of our senses. As soon as we experience it, the spiritual perceptual world cannot be anything strange to us as human beings, because we already have in intuitive thinking an experience of a purely spiritual character. A number of my later writings discuss such a world of spiritual perception. This book, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: The Philosophy of Freedom is their philosophical foundation. In this book an attempt is made to show that the experience of thinking, properly understood, is already an experience of spirit. Therefore, it seems to me that whoever can adopt the point of view of this book in earnest will not stop short of entering the world of spiritual perception. To be sure, what is portrayed in my later books cannot be logically derived—inferred—from the contents of this book. But a living grasp of what is meant in this book by intuitive thinking will naturally lead onward to a living entry into the world of spiritual perception.

XV. Die letzten Fragen – Die Konsequenzen des Monismus – 2

Der menschliche Geist kommt in Wahrheit nie über die Wirklichkeit hinaus, in der wir leben, und er hat es auch nicht nötig, da alles in dieser Welt liegt, was er zu ihrer Erklärung braucht. Wenn sich die Philosophen zuletzt befriedigt erklären mit der Herleitung der Welt aus Prinzipien, die sie der Erfahrung entlehnen und in ein hypothetisches Jenseits versetzen, so muß eine solche Befriedigung auch möglich sein, wenn der gleiche Inhalt im Diesseits belassen wird, wohin er für das erlebbare Denken gehört. Alles Hinausgehen über die Welt ist nur ein scheinbares, und die aus der Welt hinausversetzten Prinzipien erklären die Welt nicht besser, als die in derselben liegenden. Das sich selbst verstehende Denken fordert aber auch gar nicht zu einem solchen Hinausgehen auf, da ein Gedankeninhalt nur innerhalb der Welt, nicht außerhalb derselben einen Wahrnehmungsinhalt suchen muß, mit dem zusammen er ein Wirkliches bildet. Auch die Objekte der Phantasie sind nur Inhalte, die ihre Berechtigung erst haben, wenn sie zu Vorstellungen werden, die auf einen Wahrnehmungsinhalt hinweisen. Durch diesen Wahrnehmungsinhalt gliedern sie sich der Wirklichkeit ein. Ein Begriff, der mit einem Inhalt erfüllt werden sollte, der außerhalb der uns gegebenen Welt liegen soll, ist eine Abstraktion, der keine Wirklichkeit entspricht. Ersinnen können wir nur die Begriffe der Wirklichkeit; um diese selbst zu finden, bedarf es auch noch des Wahrnehmens. Ein Urwesen der Welt, für das ein Inhalt erdacht wird, ist für ein sich selbst verstehendes Denken eine unmögliche Annahme. Der Monismus leugnet nicht das Ideelle, er sieht sogar einen Wahrnehmungsinhalt, zu dem das ideelle Gegenstück fehlt, nicht für volle Wirklichkeit an; aber er findet im ganzen Gebiet des Denkens nichts, das nötigen könnte, aus dem Erlebnisbereich des Denkens durch Verleugnung der objektiv geistigen Wirklichkeit des Denkens herauszutreten. Der Monismus sieht in einer Wissenschaft, die sich darauf beschränkt, die Wahrnehmungen zu beschreiben, ohne zu den ideellen Ergänzungen derselben vorzudringen, eine Halbheit. Aber er betrachtet ebenso als Halbheiten alle abstrakten Begriffe, die ihre Ergänzung nicht in der Wahrnehmung finden und sich nirgends in das die beobachtbare Welt umspannende Begriffsnetz einfügen. Er kennt daher keine Ideen, die auf ein jenseits unserer Erfahrung liegendes Objektives hindeuten, und die den Inhalt einer bloß hypothetischen Metaphysik bilden sollen. Alles, was die Menschheit an solchen Ideen erzeugt hat, sind ihm Abstraktionen aus der Erfahrung, deren Entlehnung aus derselben von ihren Urhebern nur übersehen wird.

Ebensowenig können nach monistischen Grundsätzen die Ziele unseres Handelns aus einem außermenschlichen Jenseits entnommen werden. Sie müssen, insofern sie gedacht sind, aus der menschlichen Intuition stammen. Der Mensch macht nicht die Zwecke eines objektiven (jenseitigen) Urwesens zu seinen individuellen Zwecken, sondern er verfolgt seine eigenen, ihm von seiner moralischen Phantasie gegebenen. Die in einer Handlung sich verwirklichende Idee löst der Mensch aus der einigen Ideenwelt los und legt sie seinem Wollen zugrunde. In seinem Handeln leben sich also nicht die aus dem Jenseits dem Diesseits eingeimpften Gebote aus, sondern die der diesseitigen Welt angehörigen menschlichen Intuitionen. Der Monismus kennt keinen solchen Weltenlenker, der außerhalb unserer selbst unseren Handlungen Ziel und Richtung setzte. Der Mensch findet keinen solchen jenseitigen Urgrund des Daseins, dessen Ratschlüsse er erforschen könnte, um von ihm die Ziele zu erfahren, nach denen er mit seinen Handlungen hinzusteuern hat. Er ist auf sich selbst zurückgewiesen. Er selbst muß seinem Handeln einen Inhalt geben. Wenn er außerhalb der Welt, in der er lebt, nach Bestimmungsgründen seines Wollens sucht, so forscht er vergebens. Er muß sie, wenn er über die Befriedigung seiner natürlichen Triebe, für die Mutter Natur vorgesorgt hat, hinausgeht, in seiner eigenen moralischen Phantasie suchen, wenn es nicht seine Bequemlichkeit vorzieht, von der moralischen Phantasie anderer sich bestimmen zu lassen, das heißt er muß alles Handeln unterlassen oder nach Bestimmungsgründen handeln, die er sich selbst aus der Welt seiner Ideen heraus gibt, oder die ihm andere aus derselben heraus geben. Er wird, wenn er über sein sinnliches Triebleben und über die Ausführung der Befehle anderer Menschen hinauskommt, durch nichts, als durch sich selbst bestimmt. Er muß aus einem von ihm selbst gesetzten, durch nichts anderes bestimmten Antrieb handeln. Ideell ist dieser Antrieb allerdings in der einigen Ideenwelt bestimmt; aber faktisch kann er nur durch den Menschen aus dieser abgeleitet und in Wirklichkeit umgesetzt werden. Für die aktuelle Umsetzung einer Idee in Wirklichkeit durch den Menschen kann der Monismus nur in dem Menschen selbst den Grund finden. Daß eine Idee zur Handlung werde, muß der Mensch erst wollen, bevor es geschehen kann. Ein solches Wollen hat seinen Grund also nur in dem Menschen selbst. Der Mensch ist dann das letzte Bestimmende seiner Handlung. Er ist frei.

Zusatz zur Neuausgabe (1918)
Im zweiten Teile dieses Buches wurde versucht, eine Begründung dafür zu geben, daß die Freiheit in der Wirklichkeit des menschlichen Handelns zu finden ist. Dazu war notwendig, aus dem Gesamtgebiete des menschlichen Handelns diejenigen Teile auszusondern, denen gegenüber bei unbefangener Selbstbeobachtung von Freiheit gesprochen werden kann. Es sind diejenigen Handlungen, die sich als Verwirklichungen ideeller Intuitionen darstellen. Andere Handlungen wird kein unbefangenes Betrachten als freie ansprechen. Aber der Mensch wird eben bei unbefangener Selbstbeobachtung sich für veranlagt halten müssen zum Fortschreiten auf der Bahn nach ethischen Intuitionen und deren Verwirklichung. Diese unbefangene Beobachtung des ethischen Wesens des Menschen kann aber für sich keine letzte Entscheidung über die Freiheit bringen. Denn wäre das intuitive Denken selbst aus irgendeiner andern Wesenheit entspringend, wäre seine Wesenheit nicht eine auf sich selbst ruhende, so erwiese sich das aus dem Ethischen fließende Freiheitsbewußtsein als ein Scheingebilde. Aber der zweite Teil dieses Buches findet seine naturgemäße Stütze in dem ersten. Dieser stellt das intuitive Denken als erlebte innere Geistbetätigung des Menschen hin. Diese Wesenheit des Denkens erlebend verstehen, kommt aber der Erkenntnis von der Freiheit des intuitiven Denkens gleich. Und weiß man, daß dieses Denken frei ist, dann sieht man auch den Umkreis des Wollens, dem die Freiheit zuzusprechen ist. Den handelnden Menschen wird für frei halten derjenige, welcher dem intuitiven Denkerleben eine in sich ruhende Wesenheit auf Grund der inneren Erfahrung zuschreiben darf. Wer solches nicht vermag, der wird wohl keinen irgendwie unanfechtbaren Weg zur Annahme der Freiheit finden können. Die hier geltend gemachte Erfahrung findet im Bewußtsein das intuitive Denken, das nicht bloß im Bewußtsein Wirklichkeit hat. Und sie findet damit die Freiheit als Kennzeichen der aus den Intuitionen des Bewußtseins fließenden Handlungen.

Die Darstellung dieses Buches ist aufgebaut auf dem rein geistig erlebbaren intuitiven Denken, durch das eine jegliche Wahrnehmung in die Wirklichkeit erkennend hineingestellt wird. Es sollte in dem Buche mehr nicht dargestellt werden, als sich von dem Erlebnis des intuitiven Denkens aus überschauen läßt. Aber es sollte auch geltend gemacht werden, welche Gedankengestaltung dieses erlebte Denken erfordert. Und es fordert, daß es im Erkenntnisvorgang als in sich ruhendes Erlebnis nicht verleugnet werde. Daß ihm die Fähigkeit nicht abgesprochen werde, zusammen mit der Wahrnehmung die Wirklichkeit zu erleben, statt diese erst zu suchen in einer außerhalb dieses Erlebens liegenden, zu erschließenden Welt, der gegenüber die menschliche Denkbetätigung nur ein Subjektives sei.
Damit ist in dem Denken das Element gekennzeichnet, durch das der Mensch in die Wirklichkeit sich geistig hineinlebt (Und niemand sollte eigentlich diese auf das erlebte Denken gebaute Weltanschauung mit einem bloßen Rationalismus verwechseln.) Aber andrerseits geht doch wohl aus dem ganzen Geiste dieser Darlegungen hervor, daß das Wahrnehmungselement für die menschliche Erkenntnis eine Wirklichkeitsbestimmung erst erhält, wenn es im Denken ergriffen wird. Außer dem Denken kann die Kennzeichnung als Wirklichkeit nicht liegen. Also darf nicht etwa vorgestellt werden, daß die sinnliche Art des Wahrnehmens die einzige Wirklichkeit verbürge. Was als Wahrnehmung auftritt, das muß der Mensch auf seinem Lebenswege schlechterdings erwarten. Es könnte sich nur fragen: darf aus dem Gesichtspunkte, der sich bloß aus dem intuitiv erlebten Denken ergibt, berechtigt erwartet werden, daß der Mensch außer dem Sinnlichen auch Geistiges wahrnehmen könne? Dies darf erwartet werden. Denn, wenn auch einerseits das intuitiv erlebte Denken ein im Menschengeiste sich vollziehender tätiger Vorgang ist, so ist es andererseits zugleich eine geistige, ohne sinnliches Organ erfaßte Wahrnehmung. Es ist eine Wahrnehmung, in der der Wahrnehmende selbst tätig ist, und es ist eine Selbstbetätigung, die zugleich wahrgenommen wird. Im intuitiv erlebten Denken ist der Mensch in eine geistige Welt auch als Wahrnehmender versetzt. Was ihm innerhalb dieser Welt als Wahrnehmung so entgegentritt wie die geistige Welt seines eigenen Denkens, das erkennt der Mensch als geistige Wahrnehmungswelt. Zu dem Denken hätte diese Wahrnehmungswelt dasselbe Verhältnis wie nach der Sinnenseite hin die sinnliche Wahrnehmungswelt. Die geistige Wahrnehmungswelt kann dem Menschen, sobald er sie erlebt, nichts Fremdes sein, weil er im intuitiven Denken schon ein Erlebnis hat, das rein geistigen Charakter trägt. Von einer solchen geistigen Wahrnehmungswelt sprechen eine Anzahl der von mir nach diesem Buche veröffentlichten Schriften. Diese «Philosophie der Freiheit» ist die philosophische Grundlegung für diese späteren Schriften. Denn in diesem Buche wird versucht, zu zeigen, daß richtig verstandenes Denk-Erleben schon Geist-Erleben ist. Deshalb scheint es dem Verfasser, daß derjenige nicht vor dem Betreten der geistigen Wahrnehmungswelt haltmachen wird, der in vollem Ernste den Gesichtspunkt des Verfassers dieser «Philosophie der Freiheit» einnehmen kann. Logisch ableiten – durch Schlußfolgerungen – läßt sich aus dem Inhalte dieses Buches allerdings nicht, was in des Verfassers späteren Büchern dargestellt ist. Vom lebendigen Ergreifen des in diesem Buche gemeinten intuitiven Denkens wird sich aber naturgemäß der weitere lebendige Eintritt in die geistige Wahrnehmungswelt ergeben.

XV. Die letzten Fragen – Die Konsequenzen des Monismus – 1

Die einheitliche Welterklärung oder der hier gemeinte Monismus entnimmt der menschlichen Erfahrung die Prinzipien, die er zur Erklärung der Welt braucht. Die Quellen des Handelns sucht er ebenfalls innerhalb der Beobachtungswelt, nämlich in der unserer Selbsterkenntnis zugänglichen menschlichen Natur, und zwar in der moralischen Phantasie. Er lehnt es ab, durch abstrakte Schlußfolgerungen die letzten Gründe für die dem Wahrnehmen und Denken vorliegende Welt außerhalb derselben zu suchen. Für den Monismus ist die Einheit, welche die erlebbare denkende Beobachtung zu der mannigfaltigen Vielheit der Wahrnehmungen hinzubringt, zugleich diejenige, die das menschliche Erkenntnisbedürfnis verlangt und durch die es den Eingang in die physischen und geistigen Weltbereiche sucht. Wer hinter dieser so zu suchenden Einheit noch eine andere sucht, der beweist damit nur, daß er die Übereinstimmung des durch das Denken Gefundenen mit dem vom Erkenntnistrieb Geforderten nicht erkennt. Das einzelne menschliche Individuum ist von der Welt nicht tatsächlich abgesondert. Es ist ein Teil der Welt, und es besteht ein Zusammenhang mit dem Ganzen des Kosmos der Wirklichkeit nach, der nur für unsere Wahrnehmung unterbrochen ist. Wir sehen fürs erste diesen Teil als für sich existierendes Wesen, weil wir die Riemen und Seile nicht sehen, durch welche die Bewegung unseres Lebensrades von den Grundkräften des Kosmos bewirkt wird. Wer auf diesem Standpunkt stehen bleibt, der sieht den Teil eines Ganzen für ein wirklich selbständig existierendes Wesen, für die Monade an, welches die Kunde von der übrigen Welt auf irgendeine Weise von außen erhält. Der hier gemeinte Monismus zeigt, daß die Selbständigkeit nur so lange geglaubt werden kann, als das Wahrgenommene nicht durch das Denken in das Netz der Begriffswelt eingespannt wird. Geschieht dies, so entpuppt sich die Teilexistenz als ein bloßer Schein des Wahrnehmens. Seine in sich geschlossene Totalexistenz im Universum kann der Mensch nur finden durch intuitives Denkerlebnis. Das Denken zerstört den Schein des Wahrnehmens und gliedert unsere individuelle Existenz in das Leben des Kosmos ein. Die Einheit der Begriffswelt, welche die objektiven Wahrnehmungen enthält, nimmt auch den Inhalt unserer subjektiven Persönlichkeit in sich auf. Das Denken gibt uns von der Wirklichkeit die wahre Gestalt, als einer in sich geschlossenen Einheit, während die Mannigfaltigkeit der Wahrnehmungen nur ein durch unsere Organisation bedingter Schein ist. Die Erkenntnis des Wirklichen gegenüber dem Schein des Wahrnehmens bildete zu allen Zeiten das Ziel des menschlichen Denkens. Die Wissenschaft bemühte sich, die Wahrnehmungen durch Aufdeckung der gesetzmäßigen Zusammenhänge innerhalb derselben als Wirklichkeit zu erkennen. Wo man aber der Ansicht war, daß der von dem menschlichen Denken ermittelte Zusammenhang nur eine subjektive Bedeutung habe, suchte man den wahren Grund der Einheit in einem jenseits unserer Erfahrungswelt gelegenen Objekte (erschlossener Gott, Wille, absoluter Geist usw.). – Und, auf diese Meinung gestützt, bestrebte man sich zu dem Wissen über die innerhalb der Erfahrung erkennbaren Zusammenhänge noch ein zweites zu gewinnen, das über die Erfahrung hinausgeht, und den Zusammenhang derselben mit den nicht mehr erfahrbaren Wesenheiten aufdeckt (nicht durch Erleben, sondern durch Schlußfolgerung gewonnene Metaphysik). Den Grund, warum wir durch geregeltes Denken den Weltzusammenhang begreifen, sah man von diesem Standpunkte aus darin, daß ein Urwesen nach logischen Gesetzen die Welt aufgebaut hat, und den Grund für unser Handeln sah man in dem Wollen des Urwesens. Doch erkannte man nicht, daß das Denken Subjektives und Objektives zugleich umspannt, und daß in dem Zusammenschluß der Wahrnehmung mit dem Begriff die totale Wirklichkeit vermittelt wird. Nur solange wir die die Wahrnehmung durchdringende und bestimmende Gesetzmäßigkeit in der abstrakten Form des Begriffes betrachten, solange haben wir es in der Tat mit etwas rein Subjektivem zu tun. Subjektiv ist aber nicht der Inhalt des Begriffes, der mit Hilfe des Denkens zu der Wahrnehmung hinzugewonnen wird. Dieser Inhalt ist nicht aus dem Subjekte, sondern aus der Wirklichkeit genommen. Er ist der Teil der Wirklichkeit, den das Wahrnehmen nicht erreichen kann. Er ist Erfahrung, aber nicht durch das Wahrnehmen vermittelte Erfahrung. Wer sich nicht vorstellen kann, daß der Begriff ein Wirkliches ist, der denkt nur an die abstrakte Form, wie er denselben in seinem Geiste festhält. Aber in solcher Absonderung ist er ebenso nur durch unsere Organisation vorhanden, wie die Wahrnehmung es ist. Auch der Baum, den man wahrnimmt, hat abgesondert für sich keine Existenz. Er ist nur innerhalb des großen Räderwerkes der Natur ein Glied, und nur in realem Zusammenhang mit ihr möglich. Ein abstrakter Begriff hat für sich keine Wirklichkeit, ebensowenig wie eine Wahrnehmung für sich. Die Wahrnehmung ist der Teil der Wirklichkeit, der objektiv, der Begriff derjenige, der subjektiv (durch Intuition) gegeben wird. Unsere geistige Organisation reißt die Wirklichkeit in diese beiden Faktoren auseinander. Der eine Faktor erscheint dem Wahrnehmen, der andere der Intuition. Erst der Zusammenhang der beiden, die gesetzmäßig sich in das Universum eingliedernde Wahrnehmung, ist volle Wirklichkeit. Betrachten wir die bloße Wahrnehmung für sich, so haben wir keine Wirklichkeit, sondern ein zusammenhangloses Chaos; betrachten wir die Gesetzmäßigkeit der Wahrnehmungen für sich, dann haben wir es bloß mit abstrakten Begriffen zu tun. Nicht der abstrakte Begriff enthält die Wirklichkeit; wohl aber die denkende Beobachtung, die weder einseitig den Begriff, noch die Wahrnehmung für sich betrachtet, sondern den Zusammenhang beider.

Daß wir in der Wirklichkeit leben (mit unserer realen Existenz in derselben wurzeln), wird selbst der orthodoxeste subjektive Idealist nicht leugnen. Er wird nur bestreiten, daß wir ideell mit unserem Erkennen auch das erreichen, was wir real durchleben. Demgegenüber zeigt der Monismus, daß das Denken weder subjektiv, noch objektiv, sondern ein beide Seiten der Wirklichkeit umspannendes Prinzip ist. Wenn wir denkend beobachten, vollziehen wir einen Prozeß, der selbst in die Reihe des wirklichen Geschehens gehört. Wir überwinden durch das Denken innerhalb der Erfahrung selbst die Einseitigkeit des bloßen Wahrnehmens. Wir können durch abstrakte, begriffliche Hypothesen (durch rein begriffliches Nachdenken) das Wesen des Wirklichen nicht erklügeln, aber wir leben, indem wir zu den Wahrnehmungen die Ideen finden, in dem Wirklichen. Der Monismus sucht zu der Erfahrung kein Unerfahrbares (Jenseitiges), sondern sieht in Begriff und Wahrnehmung das Wirkliche. Er spinnt aus bloßen abstrakten Begriffen keine Metaphysik, weil er in dem Begriffe an sich nur die eine Seite der Wirklichkeit sieht, die dem Wahrnehmen verborgen bleibt und nur im Zusammenhang mit der Wahrnehmung einen Sinn hat. Er ruft aber in dem Menschen die Überzeugung hervor, daß er in der Welt der Wirklichkeit lebt und nicht außerhalb seiner Welt eine unerlebbare höhere Wirklichkeit zu suchen hat. Er hält davon ab, das Absolut-Wirkliche anderswo als in der Erfahrung zu suchen, weil er den Inhalt der Erfahrung selbst als das Wirkliche erkennt. Und er ist befriedigt durch diese Wirklichkeit, weil er weiß, daß das Denken die Kraft hat, sie zu verbürgen. Was der Dualismus erst hinter der Beobachtungswelt sucht, das findet der Monismus in dieser selbst. Der Monismus zeigt, daß wir mit unserem Erkennen die Wirklichkeit in ihrer wahren Gestalt ergreifen, nicht in einem subjektiven Bilde, das sich zwischen den Menschen und die Wirklichkeit einschöbe. Für den Monismus ist der Begriffsinhalt der Welt für alle menschlichen Individuen derselbe. Nach monistischen Prinzipien betrachtet ein menschliches Individuum ein anderes als seinesgleichen, weil es derselbe Weltinhalt ist, der sich in ihm auslebt. Es gibt in der einigen Begriffswelt nicht etwa so viele Begriffe des Löwen, wie es Individuen gibt, die einen Löwen denken, sondern nur einen. Und der Begriff, den A zu der Wahrnehmung des Löwen hinzufügt, ist derselbe, wie der des B, nur durch ein anderes Wahrnehmungssubjekt aufgefaßt. Das Denken führt alle Wahrnehmungssubjekte auf die gemeinsame ideelle Einheit aller Mannigfaltigkeit. Die einige Ideenwelt lebt sich in ihnen als in einer Vielheit von Individuen aus. Solange sich der Mensch bloß durch Selbstwahrnehmung erfaßt, sieht er sich als diesen besonderen Menschen an; sobald er auf die in ihm aufleuchtende, alles Besondere umspannende Ideenwelt blickt, sieht er in sich das absolut Wirkliche lebendig aufleuchten. Der Dualismus bestimmt das göttliche Urwesen als dasjenige, was alle Menschen durchdringt und in ihnen allen lebt. Der Monismus findet dieses gemeinsame göttliche Leben in der Wirklichkeit selbst. Der ideelle Inhalt eines andern Menschen ist auch der meinige, und ich sehe ihn nur so lange als einen andern an, als ich wahrnehme, nicht mehr aber, sobald ich denke. Jeder Mensch umspannt mit seinem Denken nur einen Teil der gesamten Ideenwelt, und insofern unterscheiden sich die Individuen auch durch den tatsächlichen Inhalt ihres Denkens. Aber diese Inhalte sind in einem in sich geschlossenen Ganzen, das die Denkinhalte aller Menschen umfaßt. Das gemeinsame Urwesen, das alle Menschen durchdringt, ergreift somit der Mensch in seinem Denken. Das mit dem Gedankeninhalt erfüllte Leben in der Wirklichkeit ist zugleich das Leben in Gott. Das bloß erschlossene, nicht zu erlebende Jenseits beruht auf einem Mißverständnis derer, die glauben, daß das Diesseits den Grund seines Bestandes nicht in sich hat. Sie sehen nicht ein, daß sie durch das Denken das finden, was sie zur Erklärung der Wahrnehmung verlangen. Deshalb hat aber auch noch keine Spekulation einen Inhalt zutage gefördert, der nicht aus der uns gegebenen Wirklichkeit entlehnt wäre. Der durch abstrakte Schlußfolgerung angenommene Gott ist nur der in ein Jenseits versetzte Mensch; der Wille Schopenhauers die verabsolutierte menschliche Willenskraft; das aus Idee und Wille zusammengesetzte unbewußte Urwesen Hartmanns eine Zusammensetzung zweier Abstraktionen aus der Erfahrung. Genau dasselbe ist von allen anderen auf nicht erlebtem Denken ruhenden jenseitigen Prinzipien zu sagen.

14. Individuality and Genus

The view that man is destined to become a complete, self-contained, free individuality seems to be contested by the fact that he makes his appearance as a member of a naturally given totality (race, people, nation, family, male or female sex) and also works within a totality (state, church, and so on). He bears the general characteristics of the group to which he belongs, and he gives to his actions a content that is determined by the position he occupies among many others.

This being so, is individuality possible at all? Can we regard man as a totality in himself, seeing that he grows out of one totality and integrates himself into another?

Each member of a totality is determined, as regards its characteristics and functions, by the whole totality. A racial group is a totality and all the people belonging to it bear the characteristic features that are inherent in the nature of the group. How the single member is constituted, and how he will behave, are determined by the character of the racial group. Therefore the physiognomy and conduct of the individual have something generic about them. If we ask why some particular thing about a man is like this or like that, we are referred back from the individual to the genus. The genus explains why something in the individual appears in the form we observe.

Man, however, makes himself free from what is generic. For the generic features of the human race, when rightly understood, do not restrict man’s freedom, and should not artificially be made to do so. A man develops qualities and activities of his own, and the basis for these we can seek only in the man himself. What is generic in him serves only as a medium in which to express his own individual being.

He uses as a foundation the characteristics that nature has given him, and to these he gives a form appropriate to his own being. If we seek in the generic laws the reasons for an expression of this being, we seek in vain. We are concerned with something purely individual which can be explained only in terms of itself. If a man has achieved this emancipation from all that is generic, and we are nevertheless determined to explain everything about him in generic terms, then we have no sense for what is individual.

It is impossible to understand a human being completely if one takes the concept of genus as the basis of one’s judgment. The tendency to judge according to the genus is at its most stubborn where we are concerned with differences of sex. Almost invariably man sees in woman, and woman in man, too much of the general character of the other sex and too little of what is individual. In practical life this does less harm to men than to women.

The social position of women is for the most part such an unworthy one because in so many respects it is determined not as it should be by the particular characteristics of the individual woman, but by the general picture one has of woman’s natural tasks and needs. A man’s activity in life is governed by his individual capacities and inclinations, whereas a woman’s is supposed to be determined solely by the mere fact that she is a woman. She is supposed to be a slave to what is generic, to womanhood in general.

As long as men continue to debate whether a woman is suited to this or that profession “according to her natural disposition”, the so-called woman’s question cannot advance beyond its most elementary stage. What a woman, within her natural limitations, wants to become had better be left to the woman herself to decide. If it is true that women are suited only to that profession which is theirs at present, then they will hardly have it in them to attain any other. But they must be allowed to decide for themselves what is in accordance with their nature. To all who fear an upheaval of our social structure through accepting women as individuals and not as females, we must reply that a social structure in which the status of one half of humanity is unworthy of a human being is itself in great need of improvement.

Anyone who judges people according to generic characters gets only as far as the frontier where people begin to be beings whose activity is based on free self-determination. Whatever lies short of this frontier may naturally become matter for academic study. The characteristics of race, people, nation and sex are the subject matter of special branches of study. Only men who wish to live as nothing more than examples of the genus could possibly conform to a general picture such as arises from academic study of this kind. But none of these branches of study are able to advance as far as the unique content of the single individual. Determining the individual according to the laws of his genus ceases where the sphere of freedom (in thinking and acting) begins. The conceptual content which man has to connect with the percept by an act of thinking in order to have the full reality cannot be fixed once and for all and bequeathed ready-made to mankind. The individual must get his concepts through his own intuition. How the individual has to think cannot possibly be deduced from any kind of generic concept. It depends simply and solely on the individual. Just as little is it possible to determine from the general characteristics of man what concrete aims the individual may choose to set himself. If we would understand the single individual we must find our way into his own particular being and not stop short at those characteristics that are typical.

In this sense every single human being is a separate problem. And every kind of study that deals with abstract thoughts and generic concepts is but a preparation for the knowledge we get when a human individuality tells us his way of viewing the world, and on the other hand for the knowledge we get from the content of his acts of will. Whenever we feel that we are dealing with that element in a man which is free from stereotyped thinking and instinctive willing, then, if we would understand him in his essence, we must cease to call to our aid any concepts at all of our own making. The act of knowing consists in combining the concept with the percept by means of thinking.

With all other objects the observer must get his concepts through his intuition; but if we are to understand a free individuality we must take over into our own spirit those concepts by which he determines himself, in their pure form (without mixing our own conceptual content with them). Those who immediately mix their own concepts into every judgment about another person, can never arrive at the understanding of an individuality. Just as the free individuality emancipates himself from the characteristics of the genus, so must the act of knowing emancipate itself from the way in which we understand what is generic.

Only to the extent that a man has emancipated himself in this way from all that is generic, does he count as a free spirit within a human community. No man is all genus, none is all individuality. But every man gradually emancipates a greater or lesser sphere of his being, both from the generic characteristics of animal life and from domination by the decrees of human authorities.

As regards that part of his nature where a man is not able to achieve this freedom for himself, he constitutes a part of the whole organism of nature and spirit. In this respect he lives by copying others or by obeying their commands. But only that part of his conduct that springs from his intuitions can have ethical value in the true sense. And those moral instincts that he possesses through the inheritance of social instincts acquire ethical value through being taken up into his intuitions.

It is from individual ethical intuitions and their acceptance by human communities that all moral activity of mankind originates. In other words, the moral life of mankind is the sum total of the products of the moral imagination of free human individuals. This is the conclusion reached by monism.

14. Individuality and Genus

The view that human beings are capable of self-enclosed, free individuality seems to be contradicted by the fact that, as human beings, we both appear as parts within a natural whole (race, tribe, people, family, male or female gender) and act within that whole (state, church, and so forth). We bear the general characteristics of the community to which we belong and we give to our actions a content that is determined by the place that we occupy within a larger group.

Given all this, is individuality possible at all? If human beings grow out of one totality and integrate themselves within another, can we consider separate human beings as wholes unto themselves?

The qualities and the functions of a part are determined by the whole. An ethnic group is a whole, and all who belong to it bear the characteristics determined by the nature of the group. How the individual is constituted and how the individual behaves are determined by the character of the group. Thus, the physiognomy and the activity of the individual have a generic quality. If we ask why this or that about a person is this or that way, we must refer back from the individual to the genus. This explains to us why something about the individual appears in the form we observe.

But human beings free themselves from what is generic. If we experience it properly, what is humanly generic does not limit our freedom, nor should it be made to do so artificially. As human beings, we develop qualities and functions of our own, whose source can only be sought within ourselves. What is generic about us serves only as a medium through which we can express our own distinct being. We use the characteristics nature gives us as a basis, and we give these the form that corresponds to our own being. We look in vain to the laws of the genus for an explanation of that being’s actions. We are dealing with an individual, and individuals can be explained only individually. If a human being has achieved such emancipation from the generic, and we still want to explain everything about that person in generic terms, then we have no sense for what is individual.

It is impossible to understand a human being fully if one bases one’s judgment on a generic concept. We are most obstinate in judging according to type when it is a question of a person’s sex. Man almost always sees in woman, and woman in man, too much of the general character of the other sex and too little of what is individual. In practical life, this does less harm to men than it does to women. The social position of women is unworthy, for the most part, because it is at many points determined not, as it should be, by the individual characteristics of an individual woman, but by the general mental picture that others form of the natural duties and needs of the female. The activity of a man in life is determined by his individual capacities and inclinations; that of a woman is supposed to be determined exclusively by the fact that she is, precisely, a woman. Woman is supposed to be a slave of the generic, of what is universally womanish. As long as men debate whether women are suited to this or that profession “according to their natural disposition,” the so-called woman question cannot evolve beyond its most elementary stage. What women are capable of according to their nature should be left to women to decide. If it is true that women are suited only to the profession that is currently allotted to them, then they will hardly be able to attain any other on their own. But they must be allowed to decide for themselves what is appropriate to their nature. Anyone who fears a cataclysm in our social conditions if women are accepted not as generic entities but as individuals should be told that social conditions in which one half of humanity leads an existence unworthy of human beings are conditions that stand in great need of improvement.

Those who judge human beings according to generic characteristics stop before the boundary beyond which people begin to be beings whose activity is based on free self-determination. What lies short of that boundary can, of course, be an object of scientific investigation. Racial, tribal, national, and sexual characteristics form the content of specific sciences. Only persons who want to live merely as examples of a genus can fit themselves into a generic picture derived from such scientific investigation. But all these sciences together cannot penetrate to the specific content of single individuals. Where the region of freedom (in thinking and action) begins, determination of individuals by the laws of the genus comes to an end. The conceptual content that, in order to have full reality, human beings must connect with a percept through thinking cannot be fixed once and for all, and bequeathed in finished form to humanity. Individuals must gain their concepts through their own individual intuitions. How an individual should think cannot be derived from some generic concept. Each individual must set the standard all alone. Nor is it possible to tell, from general human traits, which concrete goals an individual chooses to seek. Anyone who wishes to understand a particular individual must penetrate to that individual’s particular being, not remain at the level of typical characteristics. In this sense, every single human being is a separate problem. All science concerned with abstract thoughts and generic concepts is only a preparation for the kind of cognition imparted to us when a human individuality communicates to us its way of viewing the world. And all such science is only preparatory for the kind of cognition we attain from the content of a human individuality’s willing. When we have the sense that we are dealing with the aspect of a person that is free from typical styles of thought and generic desires, then we must make use of no concept from our own mind if we want to understand that person’s essence. Cognition consists in linking a concept with a percept through thinking. For all other objects, the observer must penetrate to the concept by means of his or her own intuition. Understanding a free individuality is exclusively a question of bringing over into our own spirit in a pure form (unmixed with our own conceptual content) those concepts by which the individuality determines itself. People who immediately mix their own concepts into any judgment of others can never attain understanding of an individuality. Just as a free individuality frees itself from the characteristics of the genus, cognition must free itself from the approach appropriate to understanding what is generic.

People can be considered free spirits within the human community only to the degree that they free themselves from the generic in this way. No human is all genus; none is all individuality. But all human beings gradually free a greater or lesser sphere of their being both from what is generic to animal life and from the controlling decrees of human authorities.

Our remaining part, where we have yet to win such freedom, still constitutes an element within the total organism of nature and mind. In this regard, we live as we see others live or as they command. Only the part of our action that springs from our intuitions has moral value in the true sense. And what we have in the way of moral instincts through inheritance of social instincts becomes something ethical through our taking it up into our intuitions. All the moral activity of humanity arises from individual ethical intuitions and their acceptance in human communities. We could also say that the ethical life of humanity is the sum total of what free human individuals have produced through their moral imagination. This is the conclusion reached by monism.

13. The Value of Life (Pessimism and Optimism) – 2

If pessimistic ethicists believe that, by proving that pain exceeds pleasure, they are paving the way for selfless devotion to the work of culture, they are not taking into account that human will, by its very nature, is not influenced by this knowledge. Human striving is governed by the quantity of possible satisfaction after all difficulties have been overcome. Hope of such satisfaction is the basis of all human activity. The work of each individual and the whole work of culture springs from this hope. Pessimistic ethics believes it must present the human pursuit of happiness as impossible, so that people will devote themselves to the proper ethical tasks. But these ethical tasks are nothing other than our actual natural and spiritual drives, and their satisfaction will be striven for despite the accompanying pain. The pursuit of happiness that pessimism wishes to eliminate is quite non-existent. We perform the tasks we must because, once we have really recognized their nature, it is in our very nature to want to perform them.

Pessimistic ethics asserts that we can devote ourselves to what we recognize as our life’s task only once we have abandoned the pursuit of happiness. But no ethics can invent any life tasks other than realizing what human desires demand and fulfilling our ethical ideals. No ethics can take away our pleasure in the fulfillment of our desires. If the pessimist says, “Do not strive for pleasure, you can never attain it, but strive for what you recognize to be your task,” the response must be: “But this is how human beings already are.” The claim that humans strive merely for happiness is the invention of a philosophy gone astray. We strive for satisfaction of what our essential nature desires, and we have in view the concrete objects of this striving and not some abstract “happiness.” Fulfillment of such striving is a pleasure. When pessimistic ethics demands that you strive, not for pleasure, but for what you have recognized as your life’s task, it is pointing to what humans by their nature want. Human beings do not need to be turned upside down by philosophy; they do not need to throw away their nature in order to be ethical. Morality lies in striving for a goal recognized as just; and it is human nature to pursue the goal as long as the pain involved does not cripple the desire for it. This is the nature of all real willing. Ethics is not based on the extirpation of all striving for pleasure so that bloodless, abstract ideas can assert their dominance unchallenged by a strong yearning for enjoyment in life. Ethics is based on strong will, borne by conceptual intuitions, that attains its goal even if the path is thorny.

Ethical ideas spring from human moral imagination. Their realization depends upon their being desired strongly enough to overcome pain and suffering. Ethical ideals are human intuitions, the driving forces that our own spirit harnesses. We want them because their realization is our highest pleasure. We do not need ethics to forbid us to strive for pleasure and then tell us what we should strive for. We shall strive for ethical ideals if our moral imagination is active enough to endow us with intuitions that give our willing the strength to make its way against the obstacles—including the unavoidable pain— lying within our organization.

Those who strive toward ideals of sublime greatness do so because such ideals are the content of their being, and to realize them brings an enjoyment compared with which the pleasure that pettiness derives from satisfying everyday drives is trivial. Idealists revel spiritually in the transformation of their ideals into reality.

Whoever would extirpate the pleasure in fulfilling human longing must first make humans into slaves who act not because they want to, but only because they ought to. For the achievement of what we want gives pleasure. What is called “the Good,” is not what we ought to do, but what we want to do when we express our full, true human nature. Those who do not recognize this must first drive out of us what we want and then must impose from without the content we are to give to what we want.

We value the fulfillment of a desire because it springs from our own being. What we have attained has value because it is wanted. If we deny any value to the goal of human willing as such, then we must find valued goals that have value in something that human beings do not want.

The ethics built upon pessimism springs from a neglect of moral imagination. Only those who consider the individual human spirit incapable of providing itself with the content of its striving can see the totality of what we want in the yearning for pleasure. The person without imagination creates no ethical ideas. Such a person must receive these ideas from without. Our physical nature ensures that we strive after satisfaction of our lower desires. But development of the whole human being also includes desire originating in the spirit. Only if we believe that human beings have no such desires can we claim that they must be received from without. We would then be justified in saying that we are duty bound to do something that we do not want. Every ethics that requires us to repress what we want in order to fulfill tasks that we do not want, fails to reckon with the whole human being and reckons instead with a human being devoid of the capacity for spiritual desire. For harmoniously developed human beings, so called ideas of the Good lie not without but within the circle of their being. Ethical conduct lies not in the elimination of a one-sided self-will but in full development of human nature. Anyone who considers ethical ideals attainable only if we kill off our self-will is unaware that such ideals are wanted by human beings just as we want satisfaction of the so-called animal drives.

There is no denying that the views sketched here may easily be misunderstood. Immature people, with no moral imagination, like to see the instincts of their own half-developed natures as the full content of humanity and dismiss all ethical ideals not of their own making, so that they can “express themselves” undisturbed. It is obvious that what is right for the complete human being does not apply to half-developed human nature. What we would expect of mature human beings cannot also be expected of those who still need to be educated for their ethical nature to pierce the husk of their lower passions. But I have not tried to show here what must be impressed on an unevolved human being, but rather what lies within the nature of a mature human being. The goal was to demonstrate the possibility of freedom, and freedom does not appear in acts based on sensory or psychic constraint, but in acts borne by spiritual intuitions.

Mature human beings assign themselves their own value. They do not strive for pleasure, handed to them as a gift of grace by nature or by the creator; nor do they fulfill an abstract duty that they recognize as such after having renounced the striving for pleasure. They act as they want to—that is, according to the standard of their ethical intuitions—and they feel their true joy in life to be the achievement of what they want. They determine the value of life by comparing what has been achieved with what was attempted. The ethics that replaces want with should—that replaces inclination with duty—logically determines the value of a human being by comparing what duty requires with how he or she fulfilled it. It measures people by a yardstick that lies outside their own being.

The view developed here returns us to ourselves. It recognizes as the true value of life only what we individually regard as such according to the measure of what we want. It knows of no value in life that is not recognized by the individual, just as it knows of no life goal that does not spring from the individual. It sees our own master and our own assessor in the essential individuality of each of us, seen into from all sides.

Addendum to the new edition (1918)
If one clings to the apparent objection that human willing, as such, is irrational and that we must show people this—so that they will see that the goal of ethical striving lies ultimately in liberation from human willing—then what has been presented in this chapter can be misunderstood. Just such an apparent objection was raised to me by a competent critic, who said that it is the business of a philosopher to consider what the thoughtlessness of beasts and most people neglects—namely, to draw up the real balance sheet of life. But whoever raises this objection fails to see the main point. If freedom is to be realized, then the willing within human nature must be sustained by intuitive thinking. At the same time, certainly, willing can be determined by other things than intuitions; yet morality and moral value come about only in the free realization of intuition flowing from the human essence. Ethical individualism is suited to portray ethics at its full worth, for it does not take the position that there is anything truly ethical in what brings about an outward agreement between our willing and a given norm, but rather in what arises from out of human beings when they develop ethical willing as an element of their full natures. To do something immoral appears to them then as a maiming, a crippling of their essence.

13. The Value of Life (Pessimism and Optimism) – 1

A counterpart to the question of life’s purpose or vocation is that of life’s value. In relation to this question, we encounter two opposed views, together with every conceivable attempt at compromise between them.

One view says that this world is the best that could conceivably exist, and that life and action in it are gifts of inestimable value. Everything exhibits harmonious and purposeful cooperation, and everything is worthy of admiration. Even what is apparently bad and evil may be recognized as good from a higher standpoint: it represents a beneficial counterpart to what is good. We value the good all the more for its contrast with evil. Nor is evil something truly real; we merely sense as evil what is a lesser degree of good. Evil is the absence of good, not something significant in itself.

The other view claims that life is full of trial and tribulation; everywhere unpleasure outweighs pleasure, pain outweighs joy. Existence is a burden, and in all circumstances nonexistence would be preferable to existence.

The main proponents of the first view—optimism—are Shaftesbury and Leibniz1; of the second view—pessimism—the main proponents are Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann.

Leibniz believes this is the best of all possible worlds. A better one is impossible, for God is good and wise. A good God wants to create the best of all worlds; a wise God knows what is best. Such a God can distinguish the best from all other (worse) possibilities. Only an evil or unwise God could create a world worse than the best possible.

Anyone who starts from this viewpoint finds it easy to prescribe the direction that human activity must take to contribute its share to the greatest good of the world. A human being must only discover the counsels of God and act accordingly. If we know what God intends for the world and the human race, then we shall also do what is right. And we will gladly add our own good to the good of the world. From the optimistic standpoint, then, life is worth living. It must stimulate us to cooperative participation.

Schopenhauer pictures the matter differently. He thinks of the ground of the universe not as an allwise and allgood being, but as blind drive or will. The fundamental trait of all willing is eternal striving, ceaseless yearning for satisfaction that can, however, never be attained. For as soon as we attain the goal of our striving, a new need arises, and so on. Satisfaction lasts less than an instant. The whole remaining content of our life is unsatisfied craving—that is, dissatisfaction, suffering. If our blind urge is finally dulled, then we become contentless, and infinite boredom fills our existence. Therefore, the best course is to stifle wishes and needs, to extirpate our wanting. Schopenhauer’s pessimism leads to inactivity; his ethical goal is universal sloth.

By a fundamentally different method, von Hartmann tries to found pessimism and then use it for ethics. Following a favored tendency of our time, von Hartmann attempts to found his worldview on experience. From observation of life, he seeks to discover whether pleasure or pain predominates in the world. Reviewing everything that appears good or fortunate to us in the light of reason, he shows that all supposed contentment proves on closer inspection to be illusion. It is illusory to believe that we have sources of happiness and satisfaction in health, youth, freedom, adequate income, love (sexual pleasure), compassion, friendship and family life, self esteem, honor, fame, power, religious education, pursuit of science and art, hope of life hereafter, or participation in cultural evolution. Soberly considered, every pleasure brings much more evil and suffering into the world than pleasure. The displeasure of a hangover is always greater than the pleasure of intoxication. Pain predominates in the world. No human being, not even the relatively happiest, would, if asked, choose to endure this miserable life a second time. And yet, since von Hartmann does not deny the presence of conceptuality (wisdom) in the world, but rather accords it a validity equal to blind urge (or will), he can attribute the world’s creation to his Primordial Being only if he can make the pain of the world serve a wise world-purpose. The pain of the world’s creatures, however, is none other than God’s pain, for the life of the world as a whole is identical with the life of God. An all-wise being, however, can only have as its goal liberation from suffering and, since all existence is suffering, that means liberation from existence. Thus, the aim of world-creation is to carry being over into the far better state of non-being. The world process is a continual struggle against God’s pain and ends finally in the annihilation of all existence. Hence human morality is participation in the annihilation of existence. God created the world to free Himself through the world from His infinite pain. According to von Hartmann, that pain must “be considered in a certain way as an itching rash on the Absolute.” Through this itching eruption, the unconscious healing power of the Absolute frees itself from an inner illness; or else we must think of it “as a painful poultice that the all-one Being applies to itself, in order first to draw an inner pain outward and then remove it altogether.” Human beings are integral members of the world. God suffers in them. He created them to disperse His infinite pain. The pain that each one of us suffers is only a drop in the infinite ocean of God’s pain.

Human beings must steep themselves in the awareness that the quest for individual satisfaction (egoism) is foolish. All they need to do is dedicate themselves through selfless devotion to the world process—the redemption of God. Thus, in contrast to Schopenhauer’s pessimism, Hartmann’s pessimism leads to devoted activity in a lofty task.

But what about the claim that this view is based on experience?

To strive for satisfaction is to reach, in one’s life activity, beyond life’s given content. A creature is hungry: that is, when the furtherance of its organic functions requires new life content in the form of nourishment, it strives to be filled. To strive for honor means to regard one’s personal actions and omissions as valuable only when they are recognized from without. The striving for knowledge arises when, before we have understood it, something seems missing from the world we see, hear, and so on. Fulfillment of striving creates pleasure in the striving individual; lack of fulfillment creates pain. It is important to note here that pleasure or pain depend only on the fulfillment or nonfulfillment of striving. Striving itself can in no way count as pain. If it turns out that, in the moment one striving is fulfilled, a new striving immediately appears, I cannot say that, for me, pleasure has given birth to pain, because enjoyment always creates a desire for its repetition or for new pleasure. I can speak of pain only when this desire hits up against the impossibility of its fulfillment. Even when an enjoyment that I have experienced creates a longing for a greater or more refined experience of pleasure, I can speak of it as pain created by the earlier pleasure only if I lack the means to experience that greater or more refined pleasure. Only when pain appears as a natural consequence of enjoyment (as when a woman’s sexual pleasure is followed by the suffering of childbirth and the cares of child rearing) can I consider enjoyment the creator of pain. If striving by itself evoked pain, then every reduction of striving should be accompanied by pleasure. But the opposite is the case. A lack of striving in our lives produces boredom, which is connected with displeasure. Since striving can, in the nature of things, last a long time before receiving any fulfillment and since, for the moment, it remains content with that hope, it must be acknowledged that pain has nothing to do with striving as such, but depends merely on its nonfulfillment. Schopenhauer, then, is certainly wrong when he holds desire or striving in itself (the will) to be the source of pain.

In reality, it is just the reverse. Striving (desiring), as such, brings joy. Who does not know the enjoyment offered by hope of a goal that is distant, but intensely desired? This joy is the companion of work whose fruits will come our way only in the future. Such pleasure is quite independent of attaining our goal. If this goal is finally attained, the pleasure of fulfillment is then added, as something new, to the pleasure of striving. But if anyone claims that the pain of disappointed hope adds to the pain of an unattained goal, and makes the pain of unfulfillment greater in the end than the pleasure there might have been in the fulfillment, we would have to reply that the opposite can also occur. The recollection of pleasure will just as often have a mitigating effect on the pain of unfulfillment. Anyone who cries out, in the face of shattered hopes, “I have done all that I could!” is proof of this. The blissful sense of having tried to do one’s best is overlooked by those who, with every unfulfilled desire, assert that not only is the joy of fulfillment absent, but even the enjoyment of desiring itself is destroyed.

Fulfillment of desire evokes pleasure, and nonfulfillment evokes pain. But we must not conclude from this that pleasure is satisfaction of desire and pain is its nonsatisfaction. Both pleasure and pain can be present in someone without being a consequence of desire. Illness is pain that is not preceded by desire. Anyone claiming that illness is an unsatisfied desire for health errs in seeing the obvious wish not to become sick, a wish that is never brought into awareness, as a positive desire. If we inherit a legacy from a rich relative of whose existence we had no notion, it fills us with a pleasure that had no preceding desire.

Those who wish to investigate whether there is an excess on the side of pleasure or pain must take into account the pleasure of desiring—the pleasure of the fulfillment of desire—and the pleasure that comes to us without effort. On the other side of the ledger, they must put the displeasure of boredom, that of unfulfilled striving, and finally, what encounters us apart from our desires. To this column belongs the pain caused by work imposed upon us that we have not chosen for ourselves.

The question now arises: what is the right method for reckoning the balance of these credits and debits? Eduard von Hartmann believes that it is reason that weighs them.

To be sure, he also says, “Pain and pleasure exist only to the extent that they are felt.” It follows from this that there is no other yardstick for pleasure than the subjective one of feeling. I must feel whether the sum of my pleasurable and unpleasurable emotions results in a balance of joy or pain within me. Regardless of this, von Hartmann claims

Though the value of every creature’s life can be found only by looking at its own subjective yardstick, this is not to say that every creature calculates the total emotional contents of life correctly or, in other words, that its total estimate of its own life is correct with regard to its subjective experiences.

Thereby, rational judgment about feeling is made once more into the proper evaluator.

Those who adhere more or less exactly to the views of such thinkers as Eduard von Hartmann might believe that, to evaluate life properly, they have to clear away the factors that falsify our judgment about the balance of pleasure and pain. There are two ways that they can try to do this.

First, they can show that our desire (drive, will) interferes negatively with a sober evaluation of our feelings. For example, while we ought to realize that sexual enjoyment is a source of troubles, the power of the sexual drive seduces us, promising greater pleasure than it delivers. We want the enjoyment, and so do not admit to ourselves that it makes us suffer.

Second, adherents of this view can submit feelings to a critique and try to demonstrate, in the light of reason, that the objects to which our feelings attach are illusory, and that they are destroyed as soon as our ever growing intelligence sees through the illusions.

In other words, they can consider the question in the following way. If an ambitious man, for instance, wants to know whether pleasure or pain has played the greater part in his life thus far, he must free himself from two sources of error in judgment. Since he is ambitious, this fundamental character trait will make him magnify the joys over the recognition of his achievements and diminish the humiliations caused by his setbacks. But when he actually experienced the setbacks, he felt the humiliations deeply, precisely because he is ambitious. In memory, however, these setbacks appear in a milder light; while the joys of recognition, to which he is so susceptible, engrave themselves all the deeper. Certainly, for the ambitious man, it is a real benefit that this should be so.

Illusion diminishes his displeasure in the moment of self-observation. Yet his judgment is false. The sufferings over which a veil is drawn for him had to be really experienced in all their strength, and so he actually enters them incorrectly on his life’s balance sheet. To arrive at a proper judgment, the ambitious man would have to rid himself of his ambition at the moment of contemplation. He would have to review his life with no colored glass before his spiritual eyes. Otherwise, he is like a merchant who enters his own business zeal in the credit column.

Holders of this view can go still further, however. They can say that the ambitious man must also realize that the recognition for which he strives is worthless. Either on his own or with the help of others, he will realize that recognition by others can have no importance for a rational person— after all, we can always be sure that “the majority is wrong and the minority is right in all such matters that are not fundamental questions of evolution or have not already been completely solved by science,” so that “whoever makes ambition his guiding star places his happiness in life at the mercy of such a judgment.” If the ambitious man can say all this to himself, then he must characterize as illusion what his ambition pictured as reality. And therefore he must also characterize as illusion the feelings that attach to these illusions. On this basis, it may be said that the feelings of pleasure resulting from illusion must also be stricken from the balance. What is left, then, represents the illusion-free sum of pleasure, and this is so small in comparison with the sum of pain that life is joyless, and nonbeing is preferable to being.

But, while it is immediately obvious that the interference of ambition deceives us into false calculations concerning pleasure, what has been said about recognizing the illusory character of pleasure’s objects must still be challenged. It would be an error to remove from the calculation of life’s pleasure all feelings of pleasure attached to real or supposed illusions. For the ambitious man has really enjoyed the admiration of the masses, regardless of whether he himself, or someone else, later recognizes this admiration as illusory. This process does not in the least diminish the feeling of pleasure that was enjoyed. Elimination of all such “illusory” feelings from life’s balance does not set right our judgment about feelings, but rather erases from life feelings that were really present.

And why should those feelings be eliminated? Whoever has these feelings experiences pleasure through them; whoever has conquered them experiences through that conquest (not through feeling, in a self-satisfied way, “What a wonderful person I am!” but through the objective sources of pleasure that lie within the conquest itself) a pleasure that is spiritualized, to be sure, but no less significant. If feelings are struck from the pleasure column because they attach to objects that turn out to be illusory, then the value of life is made dependent on not the quantity but the quality of pleasure, and that, in turn, is made dependent on the value of the things that cause the pleasure. However, if I want to determine the value of life only from the quantity of pleasure or pain, then I must not presuppose something else by which I first determine the value or valuelessness of the pleasure. If I say, “I want to compare the quantity of pleasure with the quantity of pain to see which is greater,” then I must also bring into the calculation all pleasure and pain in their actual amounts, quite apart from whether they are based on illusion or not. Anyone who ascribes less lifevalue to a pleasure based on illusion than to one that is justifiable by reason is making the value of life dependent on factors other than pleasure.

The person who estimates pleasure at a lower rate because it attaches to a worthless object is like a merchant who enters in his ledger the considerable profits of a toy factory at a quarter of their worth, on the grounds that the factory produces mere playthings for children.

If it is merely a question of weighing the relative quantities of pleasure and pain, then the illusory character of the objects of certain feelings of pleasure should be left completely out of the picture.

With its reasoned consideration of the quantities of pleasure and pain created by life, the path recommended by von Hartmann therefore brings us to this point: we know how we are to set up our accounts; we know what we have to place on each side of our ledger. But how should the calculation now be made? Is reason, in fact, equipped to reckon the balance?

If the calculated profit does not equal a business’s demonstrable past profits or future gains, then the merchant has made an error. The philosopher, too, will certainly have made an error of assessment if it is impossible to demonstrate that a cleverly calculated surplus of pleasure or pain is actually felt.

For the moment, I shall not review the calculations of the pessimists who support their opinions with a rationalist worldview; still, anyone deciding whether or not to carry on with the business of life will first demand to be shown where the calculated surplus of pain is to be found.

Here we touch the point where reason by itself is not in a position to determine the surplus of pleasure or pain, but must rather demonstrate that surplus as a percept in life. For human beings cannot attain reality solely through concepts, but only through the interpenetration, mediated by thinking, of concepts and percepts (and feelings are percepts). A merchant, likewise, will close his business only if the loss calculated by his accountant is confirmed by the facts. If that does not happen, he will have the accountant calculate again. We conduct the business of life in just the same way. If a philosopher wants to prove that pain is much more common than pleasure, and yet we do not feel this to be so, then we say: you have made a mistake in your brooding; think it through again! But, if, at a given moment, a business really suffers such losses that its credit can no longer satisfy the creditors, then bankruptcy results even if the merchant’s bookkeeping obscures the state of his affairs. In the same way, if, at a certain moment, the quantity of a person’s pain is so great that no hope (credit) of future pleasure can offer solace, then this must lead to bankruptcy in the business of life.

Yet the number of suicides is still relatively small in proportion to the multitude of those who live bravely on. Only very few people give up the business of life because of the presence of pain. What follows from this? Either it is incorrect to say that the quantity of pain is greater than the quantity of pleasure, or else we simply do not make continuation of life dependent on the quantity of pleasure or pain that we feel.

Eduard von Hartmann’s pessimism is unique in explaining life as worthless (because pain predominates), and yet maintaining that we must go through it nonetheless. We must do so because the world purpose mentioned above (p. 197) can be achieved only through ceaseless, devoted human labor. But, as long as human beings still pursue their egotistical desires, they are unsuited to such selfless labor. They can devote themselves to their true task only if they have convinced themselves, through experience and reason, that the pleasures in life striven for by egotism cannot be attained. In this way, the conviction of pessimism is supposed to be a source of selflessness. An education based on pessimism is supposed to eradicate egotism by presenting it with its own hopelessness.

In von Hartmann’s view, the striving for pleasure is originally based in human nature. Only insight into the impossibility of fulfillment makes this striving yield to higher tasks for humanity.

But one cannot say that egotism is truly overcome by an ethical worldview that seeks to achieve devotion to non-egotistical life aims by the acceptance of pessimism. Ethical ideals are said to be strong enough to master the will only if a person has seen that a selfish striving for pleasure cannot bring satisfaction. We human beings, whose selfishness has yearned for the grapes of pleasure, find them sour because we cannot reach them. Therefore, we leave them and devote ourselves to a selfless way of life. In the pessimist’s view, moral ideals are not strong enough to overcome egotism. Instead, pessimists base their dominion on the ground previously cleared for them by the recognition of the hopelessness of self-seeking.

If human beings strove for pleasure by nature and were unable to attain it, then annihilation of existence and salvation through nonexistence would be the only rational goal. But if we hold that God is the actual bearer of the world’s suffering, then human beings have to make it their task to bring about God’s salvation. Attainment of that goal is hindered, not furthered, by suicide of the individual. Rationally, God can have created human beings only in order for them to bring about His salvation by their actions. Otherwise, creation would be pointless. And this kind of worldview does think in terms of extra-human goals. Each of us must contribute our specific labor to the universal work of salvation. If we withdraw from this labor through suicide, what we ourselves were meant to do must be undertaken by others who have to bear the torment of existence in our stead. And since God resides in each being as the actual bearer of pain, the suicide does nothing to diminish God’s suffering; rather, it imposes on God the new difficulty of creating a substitute.

All of this presupposes that pleasure is the measure of life’s worth. Life is expressed through a number of drives (needs). If the value of life depended on whether it brought more pleasure or pain, any drive bringing its bearer a surplus of pain would be considered worthless. Let us now look at drives and pleasures to see whether the former can be measured by the latter. To avoid the suspicion that we consider that life begins with “the aristocracy of intellect,” we shall begin with a “purely animal” need: hunger.

Hunger arises when our organs can no longer function properly without a new supply of nourishment. What hungry persons strive for first is to satisfy their hunger. As soon as sufficient nourishment has been supplied and hunger ceases, everything striven for by the drive for food has been attained. In this case, the enjoyment that attaches to satisfaction consists initially in the removal of the pain caused by hunger. But an additional need joins itself to the mere drive to satisfy hunger. The person does not want only to bring the disturbed organic functions back into good order through the intake of nourishment, nor simply to overcome the pain of hunger; the person also wants this to be accompanied by pleasant sensations of taste. When we are hungry and half an hour remains before a tasty meal, we might even keep away from less interesting fare that could satisfy our hunger in order to avoid spoiling our pleasure in what is to come. We need hunger to have the full enjoyment of our meal. In this way, hunger becomes the occasion of pleasure for us. If all the hunger in the world could be quieted, it would result in the full measure of enjoyment attributable to the presence of the need for food. But to this we would still have to add the special enjoyment at which gourmets aim through an extraordinary cultivation of the palate.

This kind of enjoyment would have the greatest imaginable value if the need for it never went unsatisfied, and if, along with the enjoyment, we did not have to accept a certain quantity of pain into the bargain.

Modern science holds that nature produces more life than it can maintain; that is, nature creates more hunger than it is in a position to satisfy. In the struggle for existence, the excess life that is produced must perish painfully. Granted, in each moment, the needs of life are greater than the available means of satisfying them, and therefore the pleasure of life is compromised. Yet this in no way diminishes the pleasure in life that is actually present. Wherever desire finds satisfaction, there is a corresponding quantity of enjoyment—even if there exists, in this creature or others, a huge number of unsatisfied drives. What is diminished is the value of the enjoyment of life. If only a portion of the needs of a living creature find satisfaction, the creature has a corresponding degree of enjoyment. The smaller the enjoyment is in proportion to the total demands of life in the sphere of the desires in question, the less value that enjoyment will have. We can imagine the value represented by a fraction whose numerator is the enjoyment actually present and whose denominator is the total sum of the needs. When the numerator and the denominator are equal, that is, when all needs are satisfied, then the fraction has a value of one. It becomes greater than one when more pleasure is present in a living creature than its desires demand; it is smaller if the quantity of enjoyment lags behind the sum of desires. But as long as the numerator (the enjoyment) has even the slightest value, the fraction can never equal zero. If, before dying, I were to make a final account, and mentally distribute over my whole life both the quantity of enjoyment related to a particular drive (for example, hunger) and the demands of that drive, then the pleasure experienced might have a very slight value, but it can never be quite valueless. Given a constant quantity of enjoyment, a creature’s increased needs diminish the value of the pleasure in life. The same applies to the totality of life in nature. The greater the total number of creatures in relation to the number whose drives are fully satisfied, the lower is the average value of the pleasure in life. Our shares in life’s pleasure in the form of instincts fall in value when we cannot hope to cash them in for the full amount. If I have enough to eat for three days and then must go hungry for the next three, the pleasure of those three days of eating is not diminished. But I must then think of it as distributed over the six days, so that its value in terms of my food drive is reduced to one half. It is the same with the amount of pleasure in relation to the degree of my need. If I have enough hunger for two pieces of buttered bread but I only get one, then the pleasure derived from it has only half of the value that it would have if I had been satisfied by that one piece alone. This is how the value of pleasure in life is determined. It is measured against life’s needs. Our desires are the yardstick; pleasure is what we measure. The enjoyment of being satisfied has value only because of the existence of hunger. It has value of a specific magnitude depending on its relation to the magnitude of the existing hunger.

Unfulfilled demands in life cast a shadow even over desires that are satisfied and thus diminish the value of pleasurable hours. But we can also speak of the present value of a feeling of pleasure. The smaller a pleasure in relation to the duration and the intensity of our desire, the less the present value of a feeling of pleasure will be.

A quantity of pleasure has full value for us when its duration and degree exactly coincide with our desire. When it is smaller than our desire, the value of a given quantity of pleasure is diminished; when the pleasure is greater, we have an undesired surplus, which is felt as pleasure only for as long as we can heighten our desire during the enjoyment itself. If we are in no position to keep the growth of our desire in step with the increase of pleasure, then pleasure turns into displeasure. The object that would otherwise content us assails us without our wanting it, and we suffer from it. This is one proof that pleasure has value for us only as long as we can measure it against our desire. An excess of pleasant feeling changes into pain. We can observe this especially in persons whose desire for any kind of pleasure is very slight. In persons whose drive for food is stunted, eating quickly leads to nausea. Again, we can see from this that desire is the yardstick for the value of pleasure.

Pessimists might say that an unsatisfied drive for food brings into the world not merely displeasure because of lost enjoyment, but also positive pain, suffering, and misery. They can appeal here to the nameless misery of those who are starving, and to the totality of pain arising indirectly, for such people, from lack of food. And, if pessimists want to extend their claim to nonhuman nature as well, they can point to the sufferings of animals who starve at certain times of the year because of lack of nourishment. Pessimists claim that such ills far outweigh the quantity of enjoyment brought into the world by the drive for food.

Doubtless, we can compare pleasure and pain and determine the surplus of one or the other, just as we can with profit and loss. But, if pessimists believe that an excess exists in the column of displeasure, and infer the worthlessness of life from that, then they err in making a calculation that is never made in real life.

In a given instance, our desire is oriented toward a specific object. As we have seen, the greater our pleasure is in relation to our desire, the greater is the value of pleasure in satisfying the desire.

But the quantity of pain that we are willing to accept in order to attain the pleasure also depends on the magnitude of our desire. We compare the magnitude of the pain not with the pleasure, but with the magnitude of our desire. Someone who takes great pleasure in eating will, because of enjoyment in better times, be able to sustain a period of hunger better than someone who lacks this joy in eating. A woman who wants children does not compare the pleasure of having one to the quantity of pain in pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing, and so forth, but to her desire to have a child.

We never strive for an abstract pleasure of a certain magnitude but for concrete satisfaction in a very specific way. If we strive for a pleasure that must be satisfied by a specific object or sensation, then we cannot be satisfied by another object or sensation that would offer a pleasure of the same magnitude. For someone who is striving to satisfy hunger, the pleasure in so doing cannot be replaced with an equally pleasurable walk. Only if our desire were for a specific quantity of pleasure in the abstract would it disappear as soon as the price of achieving it turned out to be a greater quantity of pain. But, since satisfaction is sought in a specific way, the pleasure of fulfillment arises even if a pain that outweighs the pleasure must also be taken with it. Because the instincts of living creatures move in a specific direction, and aim at a concrete goal, it is impossible to reckon as an equivalent factor the quantities of pain that may obstruct the path to this goal. Provided that the desire is strong enough to be present to some degree after overcoming the pain—however great this may be in absolute terms—the pleasure of satisfaction can still be tasted to its full extent. Thus, desire does not compare pain directly with the attained pleasure; it indirectly compares its own (relative) magnitude with that of the pain. It is not a question of whether the pleasure or the pain involved will be greater, but rather whether the desire for the goal or the hindrance of pain will be greater. If the hindrance is greater than the desire, then the latter bows to the inevitable, weakens, and strives no further.

Since satisfaction is always demanded in a specific way, the pleasure associated with it acquires such a significance that, after satisfaction has occurred, we must take the unavoidable quantity of pain into account only to the extent that it has diminished the quantity of our desire. If I am a passionate devotee of beautiful views, I never calculate how much pleasure I will get from the view from a mountain peak and compare it with the pain of the laborious ascent and descent. I consider only whether, after overcoming these difficulties, my desire for the view will still be sufficiently lively. Only indirectly, through the intensity of the desire, do pleasure and pain together yield a result. The question is never whether pleasure or pain is present in surplus but whether the will for the pleasure is great enough to overcome the pain.

A proof for the correctness of this assertion is the fact that we put a higher value on pleasure when it must be purchased at the cost of great pain than when it falls into our lap like a gift from heaven. If pain and torment have diminished our desire, and the goal is nevertheless attained, then the pleasure is that much greater in proportion to the remaining quantity of desire. Now, as I have, it is this proportional relationship that represents the value of the pleasure. Further proof is provided by the fact that living creatures (including human beings) express their drives as long as they are in a position to bear the pains and torments that they encounter. The struggle for existence is but a consequence of this fact. Living creatures strive to fulfill themselves; only those whose desires are smothered by the force of the opposing difficulties give up the struggle. Every living creature seeks nourishment until lack of nourishment destroys its life. Human beings, too, only take their own lives if they believe (rightly or wrongly) that the goals of life worth striving for are unattainable. As long as we believe in the possibility of achieving what seems to us to be worth striving for, we will struggle against all torment and pain. Philosophy would have to convince us that wanting makes sense only if the pleasure is greater than the pain; by nature, we want to achieve the objects of our desire if only we can bear the necessary pain, however great it might be. But such philosophy would be in error, because it makes human will dependent on a circumstance (surplus of pleasure over pain) that is originally foreign to us. The original measure of our will is desire, and desire asserts itself as long as it can.

The calculation of the pleasure and pain of satisfying a desire that is set up by life—not by rational philosophy— can be looked at in the following way. Suppose that, when buying a certain quantity of apples, I am obliged to take twice as many bad apples as good ones, because the seller wants to unload his merchandise. If the value I place on the smaller quantity of good apples is so high that, in addition to the purchase price, I am willing to assume the cost of disposing of the bad apples, then I will not hesitate for a moment to take the bad apples. This example illustrates the relationship between the quantities of pleasure and pain coming from any of our drives. I determine the value of the good apples not by subtracting their number from that of the bad ones, but by seeing whether, despite the presence of the bad ones, the good ones still retain some value.

Just as I disregard the bad apples when I enjoy the good ones, so I give myself up to the satisfaction of a desire after having shaken off the unavoidable suffering.

Even if pessimism were correct in its claim that there is more pain than pleasure in the world, this would have no influence on our willing, for living creatures would still strive after whatever pleasure remains. Empirical proof that pain outweighs joy (if it could be given) would indeed demonstrate the fruitlessness of the philosophical position that sees the value of life in a surplus of pleasure (eudemonism), but it could not demonstrate that our will is itself unreasonable; for our will aims not at a surplus of pleasure, but at the quantity of pleasure that remains after the pain has been endured. This always appears as a goal worth striving for.

Attempts have been made to refute pessimism by asserting that it is impossible to calculate the surplus of pleasure or pain in the world. Calculation is possible only if we can compare the magnitudes of the elements of the calculation. Every pain or pleasure has a specific magnitude (intensity and duration). We can even compare the approximate magnitudes of different kinds of pleasurable sensation. We know whether a good cigar or a good joke gives us more pleasure. There can be no objection to comparing different kinds of pleasure and pain with regard to their magnitudes. Researchers who make it their business to determine the surplus of pleasure or pain in the world proceed from thoroughly justifiable premises. We may assert the incorrectness of pessimistic conclusions, but we may question neither the possibility of a scientific estimation of the quantities of pleasure and pain, nor therefore the determination of the balance of pleasure. Yet it is wrong to claim that the results of such calculation have some bearing on human volition. We really evaluate our actions according to whether pleasure or pain predominates only when we are indifferent to the objects of our activity. If it is a matter merely of deciding between enjoying a game or a light conversation after a day’s work, and I am indifferent as to which of the two I choose, then I shall ask myself which brings me the greater surplus of pleasure. I shall certainly abandon an activity if the scale dips toward the side of pain. When we buy a toy for a child, our choice depends on what we think will give the most pleasure. In all other circumstances, however, we do not base our decisions exclusively on the balance of pleasure.

XIII. Der Wert des Lebens (Pessimismus und Optimismus) -2

Wenn also die pessimistischen Ethiker der Ansicht sind, durch den Nachweis, daß die Unlust in größerer Menge vorhanden ist als die Lust, den Boden für die selbstlose Hingabe an die Kulturarbeit zu bereiten, so bedenken sie nicht, daß sich das menschliche Wollen seiner Natur nach von dieser Erkenntnis nicht beeinflussen läßt. Das Streben der Menschen richtet sich nach dem Maße der nach Überwindung aller Schwierigkeiten möglichen Befriedigung. Die Hoffnung auf diese Befriedigung ist der Grund der menschlichen Betätigung. Die Arbeit jedes einzelnen und die ganze Kulturarbeit entspringt aus dieser Hoffnung. Die pessimistische Ethik glaubt dem Menschen die Jagd nach dem Glücke als eine unmögliche hinstellen zu müssen, damit er sich seinen eigentlichen sittlichen Aufgaben widme. Aber diese sittlichen Aufgaben sind nichts anderes als die konkreten natürlichen und geistigen Triebe; und die Befriedigung derselben wird angestrebt trotz der Unlust, die dabei abfällt. Die Jagd nach dem Glücke, die der Pessimismus ausrotten will, ist also gar nicht vorhanden. Die Aufgaben aber, die der Mensch zu vollbringen hat, vollbringt er, weil er sie kraft seines Wesens, wenn er ihr Wesen wirklich erkannt hat, vollbringen will. Die pessimistische Ethik behauptet, der Mensch könne erst dann sich dem hingeben, was er als seine Lebensaufgabe erkennt, wenn er das Streben nach Lust aufgegeben hat. Keine Ethik aber kann je andere Lebensaufgaben ersinnen als die Verwirklichung der von den menschlichen Begierden geforderten Befriedigungen und die Erfüllung seiner sittlichen Ideale. Keine Ethik kann ihm die Lust nehmen, die er an dieser Erfüllung des von ihm Begehrten hat. Wenn der Pessimist sagt: strebe nicht nach Lust, denn du kannst sie nie erreichen; strebe nach dem, was du als deine Aufgabe erkennst, so ist darauf zu erwidern: das ist Menschenart, und es ist die Erfindung einer auf Irrwegen wandelnden Philosophie, wenn behauptet wird, der Mensch strebe bloß nach dem Glücke. Er strebt nach Befriedigung dessen, was sein Wesen begehrt und hat die konkreten Gegenstände dieses Strebens im Auge, nicht ein abstraktes ‘Glück’; und die Erfüllung ist ihm eine Lust. Was die pessimistische Ethik verlangt nicht Streben nach Lust, sondern nach Erreichung dessen, was du als deine Lebensaufgabe erkennst, so trifft sie damit dasjenige, was der Mensch seinem Wesen nach will.. Der Mensch braucht durch die Philosophie nicht erst umgekrempelt zu werden, er braucht seine Natur nicht erst abzuwerfen, um sittlich zu sein. Sittlichkeit liegt in dem Streben nach einem als berechtigt erkannten Ziel; ihm zu folgen, liegt im Menschenwesen, solange eine damit verknüpfte Unlust die Begierde danach nicht lähmt. Und dieses ist das Wesen alles wirklichen Wollens. Die Ethik beruht nicht auf der Ausrottung alles Strebens nach Lust, damit bleichsüchtige abstrakte Ideen ihre Herrschaft da aufschlagen können, wo ihnen keine starke Sehnsucht nach Lebensgenuß entgegensteht, sondern auf dem starken, von ideeller Intuition getragenen Wollen, das sein Ziel erreicht, auch wenn der Weg dazu ein dornenvoller ist.

Die sittlichen Ideale entspringen aus der moralischen Phantasie des Menschen. Ihre Verwirklichung hängt davon ab, daß sie von dem Menschen stark genug begehrt werden, um Schmerzen und Qualen zu überwinden. Sie sind seine Intuitionen, die Triebfedern, die sein Geist spannt; er will sie, weil ihre Verwirklichung seine höchste Lust ist. Er hat es nicht nötig, sich von der Ethik erst verbieten zu lassen, daß er nach Lust strebe, um sich dann gebieten zu lassen, wonach er streben soll. Er wird nach sittlichen Idealen streben, wenn seine moralische Phantasie tätig genug ist, um ihm Intuitionen einzugeben, die seinem Wollen die Stärke verleihen, sich gegen die in seiner Organisation liegenden Widerstände, wozu auch notwendige Unlust gehört, durchzusetzen.

Wer nach Idealen von hehrer Größe strebt, der tut es, weil sie der Inhalt seines Wesens sind, und die Verwirklichung wird ihm ein Genuß sein, gegen den die Lust, welche die Armseligkeit aus der Befriedigung der alltäglichen Triebe zieht, eine Kleinigkeit ist. Idealisten schwelgen geistig bei der Umsetzung ihrer Ideale in Wirklichkeit. Wer die Lust an der Befriedigung des menschlichen Begehrens ausrotten will, muß den Menschen erst zum Sklaven machen, der nicht handelt, weil er will, sondern nur, weil er soll. Denn die Erreichung des Gewollten macht Lust. Was man das Gute nennt, ist nicht das, was der Mensch soll, sondern das, was er will, wenn er die volle wahre Menschennatur zur Entfaltung bringt. Wer dies nicht anerkennt, der muß dem Menschen erst das austreiben, was er will, und ihm dann von außen das vorschreiben lassen, was er seinem Wollen zum Inhalt zu geben hat.

Der Mensch verleiht der Erfüllung einer Begierde einen Wert, weil sie aus seinem Wesen entspringt. Das Erreichte hat seinen Wert, weil es gewollt ist. Spricht man dem Ziel des menschlichen Wollens als solchem seinen Wert ab, dann muß man die wertvollen Ziele von etwas nehmen, das der Mensch nicht will.

Die auf den Pessimismus sich aufbauende Ethik entspringt aus der Mißachtung der moralischen Phantasie. Wer den individuellen Menschengeist nicht für fähig hält, sich selbst den Inhalt seines Strebens zu geben, nur der kann die Summe des Wollens in der Sehnsucht nach Lust suchen. Der phantasielose Mensch schafft keine sittlichen Ideen. Sie müssen ihm gegeben werden. Daß er nach Befriedigung seiner niederen Begierden strebt: dafür aber sorgt die physische Natur. Zur Entfaltung des ganzen Menschen gehören aber auch die aus dem Geiste stammenden Begierden. Nur wenn man der Meinung ist, daß diese der Mensch überhaupt nicht hat, kann man behaupten, daß er sie von außen empfangen soll. Dann ist man auch berechtigt, zu sagen, daß er verpflichtet ist, etwas zu tun, was er nicht will. Jede Ethik, die von dem Menschen fordert, daß er sein Wollen zurückdränge, um Aufgaben zu erfüllen, die er nicht will, rechnet nicht mit dem ganzen Menschen, sondern mit einem solchen, dem das geistige Begehrungsvermögen fehlt. Für den harmonisch entwickelten Menschen sind die sogenannten Ideen des Guten nicht außerhalb, sondern innerhalb des Kreises seines Wesens. Nicht in der Austilgung eines einseitigen Eigenwillens liegt das sittliche Handeln, sondern in der vollen Entwickelung der Menschennatur. Wer die sittlichen Ideale nur für erreichbar hält, wenn der Mensch seinen Eigenwillen ertötet, der weiß nicht, daß diese Ideale ebenso von dem Menschen gewollt sind, wie die Befriedigung der sogenannten tierischen Triebe.

Es ist nicht zu leugnen, daß die hiermit charakterisierten Anschauungen leicht mißverstanden werden können. Unreife Menschen ohne moralische Phantasie sehen gerne die Instinkte ihrer Halbnatur für den vollen Menschheitsgehalt an, und lehnen alle nicht von ihnen erzeugten sittlichen Ideen ab, damit sie ungestört «sich ausleben» können. Daß für die halbentwickelte Menschennatur nicht gilt, was für den Vollmenschen richtig ist, ist selbstverständlich. Wer durch Erziehung erst noch dahin gebracht werden soll, daß seine sittliche Natur die Eischalen der niederen Leidenschaften durchbricht: von dem darf nicht in Anspruch genommen werden, was für den reifen Menschen gilt. Hier sollte aber nicht verzeichnet werden, was dem unentwickelten Menschen einzuprägen ist, sondern das, was in dem Wesen des ausgereiften Menschen liegt. Denn es sollte die Möglichkeit der Freiheit nachgewiesen werden; diese erscheint aber nicht an Handlungen aus sinnlicher oder seelischer Nötigung, sondern an solchen, die von geistigen Intuitionen getragen sind. Dieser ausgereifte Mensch gibt seinen Wert sich selbst. Nicht die Lust erstrebt er, die ihm als Gnadengeschenk von der Natur oder von dem Schöpfer gereicht wird; und auch nicht die abstrakte Pflicht erfüllt er, die er als solche erkennt, nachdem er das Streben nach Lust abgestreift hat. Er handelt, wie er will, das ist nach Maßgabe seiner ethischen Intuitionen; und er empfindet die Erreichung dessen, was er will, als seinen wahren Lebensgenuß. Den Wert des Lebens bestimmt er an dem Verhältnis des Erreichten zu dem Erstrebten. Die Ethik, welche an die Stelle des Wollens das bloße Sollen, an die Stelle der Neigung die bloße Pflicht setzt, bestimmt folgerichtig den Wert des Menschen an dem Verhältnis dessen, was die Pflicht fordert, zu dem, was er erfüllt. Sie mißt den Menschen an einem außerhalb seines Wesens gelegenen Maßstab. – Die hier entwickelte Ansicht weist den Menschen auf sich selbst zurück. Sie erkennt nur das als den wahren Wert des Lebens an, was der einzelne nach Maßgabe seines Wollens als solchen ansieht. Sie weiß ebensowenig von einem nicht vom Individuum anerkannten Wert des Lebens wie von einem nicht aus diesem entsprungenen Zweck des Lebens. Sie sieht in dem allseitig durchschauten wesenhaften Individuum seinen eigenen Herrn und seinen eigenen Schätzer.

Zusatz zur Neuausgabe 1918.
Verkennen kann man das in diesem Abschnitt Dargestellte, wenn man sich festbeißt in den scheinbaren Einwand: das Wollen des Menschen als solches ist eben das Unvernünftige; man müsse ihm diese Unvernünftigkeit nachweisen, dann wird er einsehen, daß in der endlichen Befreiung von dem Wollen das Ziel des ethischen Strebens liegen müsse. Mir wurde von berufener Seite allerdings ein solcher ScheinEinwand entgegengehalten, in dem mir gesagt wurde, es sei eben die Sache des Philosophen, nachzuholen, was die Gedankenlosigkeit der Tiere und der meisten Menschen versäumt, eine wirkliche Lebensbilanz zu ziehen. Doch wer diesen Einwand macht, sieht eben die Hauptsache nicht: soll Freiheit sich verwirklichen, so muß in der Menschennatur das Wollen von dem intuitiven Denken getragen sein; zugleich aber ergibt sich, daß ein Wollen auch von anderem als von der Intuition bestimmt werden kann, und nur in der aus der Menschenwesenheit erfließenden freien Verwirklichung der Intuition ergibt sich das Sittliche und sein Wert. Der ethische Individualismus ist geeignet, die Sittlichkeit in ihrer vollen Würde darzustellen, denn er ist nicht der Ansicht, daß wahrhaft sittlich ist, was in äußerer Art Zusammenstimmung eines Wollens mit einer Norm herbeiführt, sondern was aus dem Menschen dann ersteht, wenn er das sittliche Wollen als ein Glied seines vollen Wesens in sich entfaltet, so daß das Unsittliche zu tun ihm als Verstümmelung, Verkrüppelung seines Wesens erscheint.

XIII. Der Wert des Lebens (Pessimismus und Optimismus) -1

Ein Gegenstück zu der Frage nach dem Zwecke oder der Bestimmung des Lebens ist die nach dessen Wert. Zwei entgegengesetzten Ansichten begegnen wir in dieser Beziehung, und dazwischen allen denkbaren Vermittlungsversuchen. Eine Ansicht sagt Die Welt ist die denkbar beste, die es geben kann, und das Leben und Handeln in derselben ein Gut von unschätzbarem Werte. Alles bietet sich als harmonisches und zweckmäßiges Zusammenwirken dar und ist der Bewunderung wert. Auch das scheinbar Böse und Üble ist von einem höheren Standpunkte als gut erkennbar; denn es stellt einen wohltuenden Gegensatz zum Guten dar; wir können dies um so besser schätzen, wenn es sich von jenem abhebt. Auch ist das Übel kein wahrhaft wirkliches; wir empfinden nur einen geringeren Grad des Wohles als Übel. Das Übel ist Abwesenheit des Guten; nichts was an sich Bedeutung hat.

Die andere Ansicht ist die, welche behauptet: das Leben ist voll Qual und Elend, die Unlust überwiegt überall die Lust, der Schmerz die Freude. Das Dasein ist eine Last, und das Nichtsein wäre dem Sein unter allen Umständen vorzuziehen.

Als die Hauptvertreter der ersteren Ansicht, des Optimismus, haben wir Shaftesbury und Leibniz, als die der zweiten, des Pessimismus, Schopenhauer und Eduard von Hartmann aufzufassen.

Leibniz meint, die Welt ist die beste, die es geben kann. Eine bessere ist unmöglich. Denn Gott ist gut und weise. Ein guter Gott will die beste der Welten schaffen; ein weiser kennt sie; er kann sie von allen anderen möglichen schlechteren unterscheiden. Nur ein böser oder unweiser Gott könnte eine schlechtere als die bestmögliche Welt schaffen.

Wer von diesem Gesichtspunkte ausgeht, wird leicht dem menschlichen Handeln die Richtung vorzeichnen können, die es einschlagen muß, um zum Besten der Welt das Seinige beizutragen. Der Mensch wird nur die Ratschlüsse Gottes zu erforschen und sich danach zu benehmen haben. Wenn er weiß, was Gott mit der Welt und dem Menschengeschlecht für Absichten hat, dann wird er auch das Richtige tun. Und er wird sich glücklich fühlen, zu dem andern Guten auch das Seinige hinzuzufügen. Vom optimistischen Standpunkt aus ist also das Leben des Lebens wert. Es muß uns zur mitwirkenden Anteilnahme anregen.

Anders stellt sich Schopenhauer die Sache vor. Er denkt sich den Weltengrund nicht als allweises und allgütiges Wesen, sondern als blinden Drang oder Willen. Ewiges Streben, unaufhörliches Schmachten nach Befriedigung, die doch nie erreicht werden kann, ist der Grundzug alles Wollens. Denn ist ein erstrebtes Ziel erreicht, so entsteht ein neues Bedürfnis und so weiter. Die Befriedigung kann immer nur von verschwindend kleiner Dauer sein. Der ganze übrige Inhalt unseres Lebens ist unbefriedigtes Drängen, das ist Unzufriedenheit, Leiden. Stumpft sich der blinde Drang endlich ab, so fehlt uns jeglicher Inhalt; eine unendliche Langeweile erfüllt unser Dasein. Daher ist das relativ Beste, Wünsche und Bedürfnisse in sich zu ersticken, das Wollen zu ertöten. Der Schopenhauersche Pessimismus führt zur Tatenlosigkeit, sein sittliches Ziel ist Universalfaulheit

In wesentlich anderer Art sucht Hartmann den Pessimismus zu begründen und für die Ethik auszunutzen. Hartmann sucht, einem Lieblingsstreben unserer Zeit folgend, seine Weltanschauung auf Erfahrung zu begründen. Aus der Beobachtung des Lebens will er Aufschluß darüber gewinnen, ob die Lust oder die Unlust in der Welt überwiege. Er läßt, was den Menschen als Gut und Glück erscheint, vor der Vernunft Revue passieren, um zu zeigen, daß alle vermeintliche Befriedigung bei genauerem Zusehen sich als Illusion erweist. Illusion ist es, wenn wir glauben, in Gesundheit, Jugend, Freiheit, auskömmlicher Existenz, Liebe (Geschlechtsgenuß), Mitleid, Freundschaft und Familienleben, Ehrgefühl, Ehre, Ruhm, Herrschaft, religiöser Erbauung, Wissenschaftsund Kunstbetrieb, Hoffnung auf jenseitiges Leben, Beteiligung am Kulturfortschritt – Quellen des Glückes und der Befriedigung zu haben. Vor einer nüchternen Betrachtung bringt jeder Genuß viel mehr Übel und Elend als Lust in die Welt. Die Unbehaglicbkeit des Katzenjammers ist stets größer als die Behaglichkeit des Rausches. Die Unlust überwiegt bei weitem in der Welt. Kein Mensch, auch der relativ glücklichste, würde, gefragt, das elende Leben ein zweites Mal durchmachen wollen. Da nun aber Hartmann die Anwesenheit des Ideellen (der Weisheit) in der Welt nicht leugnet, ihm vielmehr eine gleiche Berechtigung neben dem blinden Drange (Willen) zugesteht, so kann er seinem Urwesen die Schöpfung der Welt nur zumuten, wenn er den Schmerz der Welt in einen weisen Weltzweck auslaufen läßt. Der Schmerz der Weltwesen sei aber kein anderer als der Gottesschmerz selbst, denn das Leben der Welt als Ganzes ist identisch mit dem Leben Gottes. Ein allweises Wesen kann aber sein Ziel nur in der Befreiung vom Leid sehen, und da alles Dasein Leid ist, in der Befreiung vom Dasein. Das Sein in das weit bessere Nichtsein überzuführen, ist der Zweck der Weltschöpfung. Der Weltprozeß ist ein fortwährendes Ankämpfen gegen den Gottesschmerz, das zuletzt mit der Vernichtung alles Daseins endet. Das sittliche Leben der Menschen wird also sein: Teilnahme an der Vernichtung des Daseins. Gott hat die Welt erschaffen, damit er sich durch dieselbe von seinem unendlichen Schmerze befreie. Diese ist «gewissermaßen wie ein juckender Ausschlag am Absoluten zu betrachten», durch den dessen unbewußte Heilkraft sich von einer innern Krankheit befreit, «oder auch als ein schmerzhaftes Zugpflaster, welches das all-eine Wesen sich selbst appliziert, um einen innern Schmerz zunächst nach außen abzulenken und für die Folge zu beseitigen». Die Menschen sind Glieder der Welt. In ihnen leidet Gott. Er hat sie geschaffen, um seinen unendlichen Schmerz zu zersplittern. Der Schmerz, den jeder einzelne von uns leidet, ist nur ein Tropfen in dem unendlichen Meere des Gottesschmerzes (Hartmann, Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewußtseins, S. 866 ff.).

Der Mensch hat sich mit der Erkenntnis zu durchdringen, daß das Jagen nach individueller Befriedigung (der Egoismus) eine Torheit ist, und hat sich einzig von der Aufgabe leiten zu lassen, durch selbstlose Hingabe an den Weltprozeß der Erlösung Gottes sich zu widmen. Im Gegensatz zu dem Schopenhauers führt uns Hartmanns Pessimismus zu einer hingebenden Tätigkeit für eine erhabene Aufgabe.

Wie steht es aber mit der Begründung auf Erfahrung?

Streben nach Befriedigung ist Hinausgreifen der Lebenstätigkeit über den Lebensinhalt. Ein Wesen ist hungrig, das heißt, es strebt nach Sättigung, wenn seine organischen Funktionen zu ihrem weiteren Verlauf Zuführung neuen Lebensinhaltes in Form von Nahrungsmitteln verlangen. Das Streben nach Ehre besteht darin, daß der Mensch sein persönliches Tun und Lassen erst dann für wertvoll ansieht, wenn zu seiner Betätigung die Anerkennung von außen kommt. Das Streben nach Erkenntnis entsteht, wenn dem Menschen zu der Welt, die er sehen, hören usw. kann, solange etwas fehlt, als er sie nicht begriffen hat. Die Erfüllung des Strebens erzeugt in dem strebenden Individuum Lust, die Nichtbefriedigung Unlust. Es ist dabei wichtig zu beobachten, daß Lust oder Unlust erst von der Erfüllung oder Nichterfüllung meines Strebens abhängt. Das Streben selbst kann keineswegs als Unlust gelten. Wenn es sich also herausstellt, daß in dem Momente des Erfüllens einer Bestrebung sich sogleich wieder eine neue einstellt, so darf ich nicht sagen, die Lust hat für mich Unlust geboren, weil unter allen Umständen der Genuß das Begehren nach seiner Wiederholung oder nach einer neuen Lust erzeugt. Erst wenn dieses Begehren auf die Unmöglichkeit seiner Erfüllung stößt, kann ich von Unlust sprechen. Selbst dann, wenn ein erlebter Genuß in mir das Verlangen nach einem größeren oder raffinierteren Lusterlebnis erzeugt, kann ich von einer durch die erste Lust erzeugten Unlust erst in dem Augenblicke sprechen, wenn mir die Mittel versagt sind, die größere oder raffiniertere Lust zu erleben. Nur dann, wenn als naturgesetzliche Folge des Genusses Unlust eintritt, wie etwa beim Geschlechtsgenuß des Weibes durch die Leiden des Wochenbettes und die Mühen der Kinderpflege, kann ich in dem Genuß den Schöpfer des Schmerzes finden. Wenn Streben als solches Unlust hervorriefe, so müßte jede Beseitigung des Strebens von Lust begleitet sein. Es ist aber das Gegenteil der Fall. Der Mangel an Streben in unserem Lebensinhalte erzeugt Langeweile, und diese ist mit Unlust verbunden. Da aber das Streben naturgemäß lange Zeit dauern kann, bevor ihm die Erfüllung zuteil wird und sich dann vorläufig mit der Hoffnung auf dieselbe zufrieden- gibt, so muß anerkannt werden, daß die Unlust mit dem Streben als solchem gar nichts zu tun hat, sondern lediglich an der Nichterfüllung desselben hängt. Schopenhauer hat also unter allen Umständen unrecht, wenn er das Begehren oder Streben (den Willen) an sich für den Quell des Schmerzes hält.

In Wahrheit ist sogar das Gegenteil richtig. Streben (Begehren) an sich macht Freude. Wer kennt nicht den Genuß, den die Hoffnung auf ein entferntes, aber stark begehrtes Ziel bereitet? Diese Freude ist die Begleiterin der Arbeit, deren Früchte uns in Zukunft erst zuteil werden sollen. Diese Lust ist ganz unabhängig von der Erreichung des Zieles.

Wenn dann das Ziel erreicht ist, dann kommt zu der Lust des Strebens die der Erfüllung als etwas Neues hinzu. Wer aber sagen wollte: zur Unlust durch ein nichtbefriedigtes Ziel kommt auch noch die über die getäuschte Hoffnung und mache zuletzt die Unlust an der Nichterfüllung doch größer, als die etwaige Lust an der Erfüllung, dem ist zu erwidern: es kann auch das Gegenteil der Fall sein; der Rückblick auf den Genuß in der Zeit des unerfüllten Begehrens wird ebenso oft lindernd auf die Unlust durch Nichterfüllung wirken. Wer im Anblicke gescheiterter Hoffnungen ausruft: Ich habe das Meinige getan! der ist ein Beweisobjekt für diese Behauptung. Das beseligende Gefühl, nach Kräften das Beste gewollt zu haben, übersehen diejenigen, welche an jedes nichterfüllte Begehren die Behauptung knüpfen, daß nicht nur allein die Freude an der Erfüllung ausgeblieben, sondern auch der Genuß des Begehrens selbst zerstört ist.

Erfüllung eines Begehrens ruft Lust und Nichterfüllung eines solchen Unlust hervor. Daraus darf nicht geschlossen werden: Lust ist Befriedigung eines Begehrens, Unlust Nichtbefriedigung. Sowohl Lust wie Unlust können sich in einem Wesen einstellen, auch ohne daß sie Folgen eines Begehrens sind. Krankheit ist Unlust, der kein Begehren vorausgeht. Wer behaupten wollte: Krankheit sei unbefriedigtes Begehren nach Gesundheit, der beginge den Fehler, daß er den selbstverständlichen und nicht zum Bewußtsein gebrachten Wunsch, nicht krank zu werden, für ein positives Begehren hielte. Wenn jemand von einem reichen Verwandten; von dessen Existenz er nicht die geringste Ahnung hatte, eine Erbschaft macht, so erfüllt ihn diese Tatsache ohne vorangegangenes Begehren mit Lust.

Wer also untersuchen will, ob auf Seite der Lust oder der Unlust ein Überschuß zu finden ist, der muß in Rechnung bringen: die Lust am Begehren, die an der Erfüllung des Begehrens, und diejenige, die uns unerstrebt zuteil wird. Auf die andere Seite des Kontobuches wird zu stehen kommen: Unlust aus Langeweile, solche aus nicht erfülltem Streben, und endlich solche, die ohne unser Begehren an uns herantritt. Zu der letzteren Gattung gehört auch die Unlust, die uns aufgedrängte, nicht selbst gewählte Arbeit verursacht.

Nun entsteht die Frage: welches ist das rechte Mittel, um aus diesem Soll und Haben die Bilanz zu erhalten? Eduard von Hartmann ist der Meinung, daß es die abwägende Vernunft ist. Er sagt zwar (Philosophie des Unbewußten, 7. Auflage 11. Band, S. 290): «Schmerz und Lust sind nur, insofern sie empfunden werden.» Hieraus folgt, daß es für die Lust keinen andern Maßstab gibt als den subjektiven des Gefühles. Ich muß empfinden, ob die Summe meiner Unlustgefühle zusammengestellt mit meinen Lustgefühlen in mir einen Überschuß von Freude oder Schmerz ergibt. Dessen ungeachtet behauptet Hartmann: «Wenn …der Lebenswert jedes Wesens nur nach seinem eigenen subjektiven Maßstäbe in Anschlag gebracht werden kann …, so ist doch damit keineswegs gesagt, daß jedes Wesen aus den sämtlichen Affektionen seines Lebens die richtige algebraische Summe ziehe, oder mit anderen Worten, daß sein Gesamturteil über sein eigenes Leben ein in bezug auf seine subjektiven Erlebnisse richtiges sei.» Damit wird doch wieder die vernunftgemäße Beurteilung des Gefühles zum Wertschätzer gemacht. (1)

Wer sich der Vorstellungsrichtung solcher Denker wie Eduard von Hartmann mehr oder weniger genau anschließt, der kann glauben, er müsse, um zu einer richtigen Bewertung des Lebens zu kommen, die Faktoren aus dem Wege räumen, die unser Urteil über die Lust- und Unlustbilanz verfälschen. Er kann das auf zwei Wegen zu erreichen suchen. Erstens indem er nachweist, daß unser Begehren (Trieb, Wille) sich störend in unsere nüchterne Beurteilung des Gefühlswertes einmischt. Während wir uns zum Beispiel sagen müßten, daß der Geschlechtsgenuß eine Quelle des Übels ist, verführt uns der Umstand, daß der Geschlechtstrieb in uns mächtig ist, dazu, uns eine Lust vorzugaukeln, die in dem Maße gar nicht da ist. Wir wollen genießen; deshalb gestehen wir uns nicht, daß wir unter dem Genusse leiden. Zweitens indem er die Gefühle einer Kritik unterwirft und nachzuweisen sucht, daß die Gegenstände, an die sich die Gefühle knüpfen, vor der Vernunfterkenntnis sich als Illusionen erweisen, und daß sie in dem Augenblicke zerstört werden, wenn unsere stets wachsende Intelligenz die Illusionen durchschaut.

Er kann sich die Sache folgendermaßen denken. Wenn ein Ehrgeiziger sich darüber klar werden will, ob bis zu dem Augenblicke, in dem er seine Betrachtung anstellt, die Lust oder die Unlust den überwiegenden Anteil an seinem Leben gehabt hat, dann muß er sich von zwei Fehlerquellen bei seiner Beurteilung frei machen. Da er ehrgeizig ist, wird dieser Grundzug seines Charakters ihm die Freuden über Anerkennung seiner Leistungen durch ein Vergrößerungsglas, die Kränkungen durch Zurücksetzungen aber durch ein Verkleinerungsglas zeigen. Damals, als er die Zurücksetzungen erfuhr, fühlte er die Kränkungen, gerade weil er ehrgeizig ist; in der Erinnerung erscheinen sie in milderem Lichte, während sich die Freuden über Anerkennungen, für die er so zugänglich ist, um so tiefer einprägen. Nun ist es zwar für den Ehrgeizigen eine wahre Wohltat, daß es so ist. Die Täuschung vermindert sein Unlustgefühl in dem Augenblicke der Selbstbeobachtung. Dennoch ist seine Beurteilung eine falsche. Die Leiden, über die sich ihm ein Schleier breitet, hat er wirklich durchmachen müssen in ihrer ganzen Stärke, und er setzt sie somit in das Kontobuch seines Lebens tatsächlich falsch ein. Um zu einem richtigen Urteile zu kommen, müßte der Ehrgeizige für den Moment seiner Betrachtung sich seines Ehrgeizes entledigen. Er müßte ohne Gläser vor seinem geistigen Auge sein bisher abgelaufenes Leben betrachten. Er gleicht sonst dem Kaufmanne, der beim Abschluß seiner Bücher seinen Geschäftseifer mit auf die Einnahmeseite setzt.

Er kann aber noch weiter gehen. Er kann sagen: Der Ehrgeizige wird sich auch klarmachen, daß die Anerkennungen, nach denen er jagt, wertlose Dinge sind. Er wird selbst zur Einsicht kommen, oder von andern dazu gebracht werden, daß einem vernünftigen Menschen an der Anerkennung von seiten der Menschen nichts liegen könne, da man ja «in allen solchen Sachen, die nicht Lebensfragen der Entwicklung, oder gar von der Wissenschaft schon endgültig gelöst sind», immer darauf schwören kann, «daß die Majoritäten unrecht und die Minoritäten recht haben». «Einem solchen Urteile gibt derjenige sein Lebensglück in die Hände, welcher den Ehrgeiz zu seinem Leitstern macht.» (Philosophie des Unbewußten, 11. Band, S. 332.) Wenn sich der Ehrgeizige das alles sagt, dann muß er als eine Illusion bezeichnen, was ihm sein Ehrgeiz als Wirklichkeit vorgestellt hat, folglich auch die Gefühle, die sich an die entsprechenden Illusionen seines Ehrgeizes knüpfen. Aus diesem Grunde könnte dann gesagt werden: es muß auch noch das aus dem Konto der Lebenswerte gestrichen werden, was sich an Lustgefühlen aus Illusionen ergibt; was dann übrig bleibt, stelle die illusionsfreie

Lustsumme des Lebens dar, und diese sei gegen die Unlustsumme so klein, daß das Leben kein Genuß, und Nichtsein dem Sein vorzuziehen sei.

Aber während es unmittelbar einleuchtend ist, daß die durch Einmischung des ehrgeizigen Triebes bewirkte Täuschung bei Aufstellung der Lustbilanz ein falsches Resultat bewirkt, muß das von der Erkenntnis des illusorischen Charakters der Gegenstände der Lust Gesagte jedoch bestritten werden. Ein Ausscheiden aller an wirkliche oder vermeintliche Illusionen sich knüpfenden Lustgefühle von der Lustbilanz des Lebens würde die letztere geradezu verfälschen. Denn der Ehrgeizige hat über die Anerkennung der Menge wirklich seine Freude gehabt, ganz gleichgültig, ob er selbst später, oder ein anderer diese Anerkennung als Illusion erkennt. Damit wird die genossene freudige Empfindung nicht um das geringste kleiner gemacht. Die Ausscheidung aller solche «illusorischen» Gefühle aus der Lebensbilanz stellt nicht etwa unser Urteil über die Gefühle richtig, sondern löscht wirklich vorhandene Gefühle aus dem Leben aus.

Und warum sollen diese Gefühle ausgeschieden werden? Wer sie hat, bei dem sind sie eben lustbereitend; wer sie überwunden hat, bei dem tritt durch das Erlebnis der Überwindung (nicht durch die selbstgefällige Empfindung: Was bin ich doch für ein Mensch! – sondern durch die objektiven Lustquellen, die in der Überwindung liegen) eine allerdings vergeistigte, aber darum nicht minder bedeutsame Lust ein. Wenn Gefühle aus der Lustbilanz gestrichen werden, weil sie sich an Gegenstände heften, die sich als Illusionen entpuppen, so wird der Wert des Lebens nicht von der Menge der Lust, sondern von der Qualität der Lust und diese von dem Werte der die Lust verursachenden Dinge abhängig gemacht. Wenn ich den Wert des Lebens aber erst aus der Menge der Lust oder Unlust bestimmen will, das es mir bringt, dann darf ich nicht etwas anderes voraussetzen, wodurch ich erst wieder den Wert oder Unwert der Lust bestimme. Wenn ich sage: ich will die Lustmenge mit der Unlustmenge vergleichen und sehen, welche größer ist, dann muß ich auch alle Lust und Unlust in ihren wirklichen Größen in Rechnung bringen, ganz abgesehen davon, ob ihnen eine Illusion zugrunde liegt oder nicht. Wer einer auf Illusion beruhenden Lust einen geringeren Wert für das Leben zuschreibt, als einer solchen, die sich vor der Vernunft rechtfertigen läßt, der macht eben den Wert des Lebens noch von anderen Faktoren abhängig als von der Lust.

Wer die Lust deshalb geringer veranschlägt, weil sie sich an einen eitlen Gegenstand knüpft, der gleicht einem Kaufmanne, der das bedeutende Erträgnis einer Spielwarenfabrik deshalb mit dem Viertel des Betrages in sein Konto einsetzt, weil in derselben Gegenstände zur Tändelei für Kinder produziert werden.

Wenn es sich bloß darum handelt, die Lust- und Unlustmenge gegeneinander abzuwägen, dann ist also der illusorische Charakter der Gegenstände gewisser Lustempfindungen völlig aus dem Spiele zu lassen.

Der von Hartmann empfohlene Weg vernünftiger Betrachtung der vom Leben erzeugten Lust- und Unlustmenge hat uns also bisher so weit geführt, daß wir wissen, wie wir die Rechnung aufzustellen haben, was wir auf die eine, was auf die andere Seite unseres Kontobuches zu setzen haben. Wie soll aber nun die Rechnung gemacht werden? Ist die Vernunft auch geeignet, die Bilanz zu bestimmen?

Der Kaufmann hat in seiner Rechnung einen Fehler gemacht, wenn der berechnete Gewinn sich mit den durch das Geschäft nachweislich genossenen oder noch zu genießenden Gütern nicht deckt. Auch der Philosoph wird unbedingt einen Fehler in seiner Beurteilung gemacht haben, wenn er den etwa ausgeklügelten Überschuß an Lust beziehungsweise Unlust in der Empfindung nicht nachweisen kann. Ich will vorläufig die Rechnung der auf vernunftgemäße Weltbetrachtung sich stützenden Pessimisten nicht kontrollieren; wer aber sich entscheiden soll, ob er das Lebensgeschäft weiterführen soll oder nicht, der wird erst den Nachweis verlangen, wo der berechnete Überschuß an Unlust steckt.

Hiermit haben wir den Punkt berührt, wo die Vernunft nicht in der Lage ist, den Überschuß an Lust oder Unlust allein von sich aus zu bestimmen, sondern wo sie diesen Überschuß im Leben als Wahrnehmung zeigen muß. Nicht in dem Begriff allein, sondern in dem durch das Denken vermittelten Ineinandergreifen von Begriff und Wahrnehmung (und Gefühl ist Wahrnehmung) ist dem Menschen das Wirkliche erreichbar. Der Kaufmann wird ja auch sein Geschäft erst dann aufgeben, wenn der von seinem Buchhalter berechnete Verlust an Gütern sich durch die Tatsachen bestätigt. Wenn das nicht der Fall ist, dann läßt er den Buchhalter die Rechnung nochmals machen. Genau in derselben Weise wird es der im Leben stehende Mensch machen. Wenn der Philosoph ihm beweisen will, daß die Unlust weit größer ist als die Lust, er jedoch das nicht empfindet, dann wird er sagen: du hast dich in deinem Grübeln geirrt, denke die Sache nochmals durch. Sind aber in einem Geschäfte zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte wirklich solche Verluste vorhanden, daß kein Kredit mehr ausreicht, um die Gläubiger zu befriedigen, so tritt auch dann der Bankerott ein, wenn der Kaufmann es vermeidet, durch Führung der Bücher Klarheit über seine Angelegenheiten zu haben. Ebenso müßte es, wenn das Unlustquantum bei einem Menschen in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte so groß würde, daß keine Hoffnung (Kredit) auf künftige Lust ihn über den Schmerz hinwegsetzen könnte, zum Bankerott des Lebensgeschäftes führen.

Nun ist aber die Zahl der Selbstmörder doch eine relativ geringe im Verhältnis zu der Menge derjenigen, die mutig weiterleben. Die wenigsten Menschen stellen das Lebensgeschäft der vorhandenen Unlust willen ein. Was folgt daraus? Entweder, daß es nicht richtig ist, zu sagen, die Unlustmenge sei größer als die Lustmenge, oder daß wir unser Weiterleben gar nicht von der empfundenen Lust- oder Unlustmenge abhängig machen.

Auf eine ganz eigenartige Weise kommt der Pessimismus Eduard von Hartmanns dazu, das Leben wertlos zu erklären, weil darinnen der Schmerz überwiegt, und doch die Notwendigkeit zu behaupten, es durchzumachen. Diese Notwendigkeit liegt darin, daß der oben (S. 207 f.) angegebene Weltzweck nur durch rastlose, hingebungsvolle Arbeit der Menschen erreicht werden kann. Solange aber die Menschen noch ihren egoistischen Gelüsten nachgehen, sind sie zu solcher selbstlosen Arbeit untauglich. Erst wenn sie sich durch Erfahrung und Vernunft überzeugt haben, daß die vom Egoismus erstrebten Lebensgenüsse nicht erlangt werden können, widmen sie sich ihrer eigentlichen Aufgabe. Auf diese Weise soll die pessimistische Überzeugung der Quell der Selbstlosigkeit sein. Eine Erziehung auf Grund des Pessimismus soll den Egoismus dadurch ausrotten, daß sie ihm seine Aussichtslosigkeit vor Augen stellt.

Nach dieser Ansicht liegt also das Streben nach Lust ursprünglich in der Menschennatur begründet. Nur aus Einsicht in die Unmöglichkeit der Erfüllung dankt dieses Streben zugunsten höherer Menschheitsaufgaben ab.

Von der sittlichen Weltanschauung, die von der Anerkennung des Pessimismus die Hingabe an unegoistische Lebensziele erhofft, kann nicht gesagt werden, daß sie den Egoismus im wahren Sinne des Wortes überwinde. Die sittlichen Ideale sollen erst dann stark genug sein, sich des Willens zu mächtigen, wenn der Mensch eingesehen hat, daß das selbstsüchtige Streben nach Lust zu keiner Befriedigung führen kann. Der Mensch, dessen Selbstsucht nach den Trauben der Lust begehrt, findet sie sauer, weil er sie nicht er- reichen kann: er geht von ihnen und widmet sich einem selbstlosen Lebenswandel. Die sittlichen Ideale sind, nach der Meinung der Pessimisten, nicht stark genug, den Egoismus zu überwinden; aber sie errichten ihre Herrschaft auf dem Boden, den ihnen vorher die Erkenntnis von der Aussichtslosigkeit der Selbstsucht frei gemacht hat.

Wenn die Menschen ihrer Naturanlage nach die Lust erstrebten, sie aber unmöglich erreichen können, dann wäre Vernichtung des Daseins und Erlösung durch das Nichtsein das einzig vernünftige Ziel. Und wenn man der Ansicht ist, daß der eigentliche Träger des Weltschmerzes Gott sei, so müßten die Menschen es sich zur Aufgabe machen, die Erlösung Gottes herbeizuführen. Durch den Selbstmord des einzelnen wird die Erreichung dieses Zieles nicht gefördert, sondern beeinträchtigt. Gott kann vernünftigerweise die Menschen nur geschaffen haben, damit sie durch ihr Handeln seine Erlösung herbeiführen. Sonst wäre die Schöpfung zwecklos. Und an außermenschliche Zwecke denkt eine solche Weltansicht. Jeder muß in dem allgemeinen Erlösungswerke seine bestimmte Arbeit verrichten. Entzieht er sich derselben durch den Selbstmord, so muß die ihm zugedachte Arbeit von einem andern verrichtet werden. Dieser muß statt ihm die Daseinsqual ertragen. Und da in jedem Wesen Gott steckt als der eigentliche Schmerzträger, so hat der Selbstmörder die Menge des Gottesschmerzes nicht im geringsten vermindert, vielmehr Gott die neue Schwierigkeit auferlegt, für ihn einen Ersatzmann zu schaffen.

Dies alles setzt voraus, daß die Lust ein Wertmaßstab für das Leben sei. Das Leben äußert sich durch eine Summe von Trieben (Bedürfnissen). Wenn der Wert des Lebens davon abhinge, ob es mehr Lust oder Unlust bringt, dann ist der Trieb als wertlos zu bezeichnen, der seinem Träger einen Überschuß der letzteren einträgt. Wir wollen einmal Trieb und Lust daraufhin ansehen, ob der erste durch die zweite gemessen werden kann. Um nicht den Verdacht zu erwecken, das Leben erst mit der Sphäre der «Geistesaristokratie» anfangen zu lassen, beginnen wir mit einem «rein tierischen» Bedürfnis, dem Hunger.

Der Hunger entsteht, wenn unsere Organe ohne neue Stoffzufuhr nicht weiter ihrem Wesen gemäß funktionieren können. Was der Hungrige zunächst erstrebt, ist die Sättigung. Sobald die Nahrungszufuhr in dem Maße erfolgt ist, daß der Hunger aufhört, ist alles erreicht, was der Ernährungstrieb erstrebt. Der Genuß, der sich an die Sättigung knüpft, besteht fürs erste in der Beseitigung des Schmerzes, den der Hunger bereitet. Zu dem bloßen Ernährungstriebe tritt ein anderes Bedürfnis. Der Mensch will durch die Nahrungsaufnahme nicht bloß seine gestörten Organfunktionen wieder in Ordnung bringen, beziehungsweise den Schinerz des Hungers überwinden: er sucht dies auch unter Begleitung angenehmer Geschmacksempfindungen zu bewerkstelligen. Er kann sogar, wenn er Hunger hat und eine halbe Stunde vor einer genußreichen Mahlzeit steht, es vermeiden, durch minderwertige Kost, die ihn früher befriedigen könnte, sich die Lust für das Bessere zu verderben. Er braucht den Hunger, um von seiner Mahlzeit den vollen Genuß zu haben. Dadurch wird ihm der Hunger zugleich zum Veranlasser der Lust. Wenn nun aller in der Welt vorhandene Hunger gestillt werden könnte, dann ergäbe sich die volle Genußmenge, die dem Vorhandensein des Nahrungsbedürfnisses zu verdanken ist. Hinzuzurechnen wäre noch der besondere Genuß, den Leckermäuler durch eine über das Gewöhnliche hinausgehende Kultur ihrer Geschmacksnerven erzielen.

Den denkbar größten Wert hätte diese Genußmenge, wenn kein auf die in Betracht kommende Genußart hinzielendes Bedürfnis unbefriedigt bliebe, und wenn mit dem Genuß nicht zugleich eine gewisse Menge Unlust in den Kauf genommen werden müßte.

Die moderne Naturwissenschaft ist der Ansicht, daß die Natur mehr Leben erzeugt, als sie erhalten kann, das heißt, auch mehr Hunger hervorbringt, als sie zu befriedigen in der Lage ist. Der Überschuß an Leben, der erzeugt wird, muß unter Schmerzen im Kampf ums Dasein zugrunde gehen. Zugegeben: die Lebensbedürfnisse seien in jedem Augenblicke des Weltgeschehens größer, als den vorhandenen Befriedigungsmitteln entspricht, und der Lebensgenuß werde dadurch beeinträchtigt. Der wirklich vorhandene einzelne Lebensgenuß wird aber nicht um das geringste kleiner gemacht. Wo Befriedigung des Begehrens eintritt, da ist die entsprechende Genußmenge vorhanden, auch wenn es in dem begehrenden Wesen selbst oder in andern daneben eine reiche Zahl unbefriedigter Triebe gibt. Was aber dadurch vermindert wird, ist der Wert des Lebensgenusses. Wenn nur ein Teil der Bedürfnisse eines Lebewesens Befriedigung findet, so hat dieses einen dementsprechenden Genuß. Dieser hat einen um so geringeren Wert, je kleiner er ist im Verhältnis zur Gesamtforderung des Lebens im Gebiete der in Frage kommenden Begierden. Man kann sich diesen Wert durch einen Bruch dargestellt denken, dessen Zähler der wirklich vorhandene Genuß und dessen Nenner die Bedürfnissumme ist. Der Bruch hat den Wert 1, wenn Zähler und Nenner gleich sind, das heißt, wenn alle Bedürfnisse auch befriedigt werden. Er wird größer als 1, wenn in einem Lebewesen mehr Lust vorhanden ist, als seine Begierden fordern; und er ist kleiner als 1, wenn die Genußmenge hinter der Summe der Begierden zurückbleibt. Der Bruch kann aber nie Null werden, solange der Zähler auch nur den geringsten Wert hat. Wenn ein Mensch vor seinem Tode den Rechnungsabschluß machte, und die auf einen bestimmten Trieb (zum Beispiel den Hunger) kommende Menge des Genusses sich über das ganze Leben mit allen Forderungen dieses Triebes verteilt dächte, so hätte die erlebte Lust vielleicht nur einen geringen Wert; wertlos aber kann sie nie werden. Bei gleichbleibender Genußmenge nimmt mit der Vermehrung der Bedürfnisse eines Lebewesens der Wert der Lebenslust ab. Ein gleiches gilt für die Summe alles Lebens in der Natur. Je größer die Zahl der Lebewesen ist im Verhältnis zu der Zahl derer, die volle Befriedigung ihrer Triebe finden können, desto geringer ist der durchschnittliche Lustwert des Lebens. Die Wechsel auf den Lebensgenuß, die uns in unseren Trieben ausgestellt sind, werden eben billiger, wenn man nicht hoffen kann, sie für den vollen Betrag einzulösen. Wenn ich drei Tage lang genug zu essen habe und dafür dann weitere drei Tage hungern muß, so wird der Genuß an den drei Eßtagen dadurch nicht geringer. Aber ich muß mir ihn dann auf sechs Tage verteilt denken, wodurch sein Wert für meinen Ernährungstrieb auf die Hälfte herabgemindert wird. Ebenso verhält es sich mit der Größe der Lust im Verhältnis zum Grade meines Bedürfnisses. denn ich Hunger für zwei Butterbrote habe, und nur eines bekommen kann, so hat der aus dem einen gezogene Genuß nur die Hälfte des Wertes, den er haben würde, wenn ich nach der Aufzehrung satt wäre. Dies ist die Art, wie im geben der Wert einer Lust bestimmt wird. Sie wird bemessen an den Bedürfnissen des Lebens. Unsere Begierden sind der Maßstab; die Lust ist das Gemessene. Der Sättigungsgenuß erhält nur dadurch einen Wert, daß Hunger vorhanden ist; und er erhält einen Wert von bestimmter Größe durch das Verhältnis, in dem er zu der Größe des vorhandenen Hungers steht.

Unerfüllte Forderungen unseres Lebens werfen ihre Schatten auch auf die befriedigten Begierden und beeinträchtigen den Wert genußreicher Stunden. Man kann aber auch von dem gegenwärtigen Wert eines Lustgefühles sprechen. Dieser Wert ist um so geringer, je kleiner die Lust im Verhältnis zur Dauer und Stärke unserer Begierde ist.

Vollen Wert hat für uns eine Lustmenge, die an Dauer und Grad genau mit unserer Begierde übereinstimmt. Eine genuiner unserem Begehren kleinere Lustmenge vermindert den Lustwert; eine größere erzeugt einen nicht verlangten Überschuß, der nur so lange als Lust empfunden wird, als wir während des Genießens unsere Begierde zu steigern vermögen. Sind wir nicht imstande, in der Steigerung unseres Verlangens mit der zunehmenden Lust gleichen Schritt zu halten, so verwandelt sich die Lust in Unlust. Der Gegenstand, der uns sonst befriedigen würde, stürmt auf uns ein, ohne daß wir es wollen, und wir leiden darunter. Dies ist ein Beweis dafür, daß die Lust nur so lange für uns einen Wert hat, als wir sie an unserer Begierde messen können. Ein Übermaß von angenehmem Gefühl schlägt in Schmerz um. Wir können das besonders bei Menschen beobachten, deren Verlangen nach irgendeiner Art von Lust sehr gering ist. Leuten, deren Nahrungstrieb abgestumpft ist, wird das Essen leicht zum Ekel. Auch daraus geht hervor, daß die Begierde der Wertmesser der Lust ist.

Nun kann der Pessimismus sagen: der unbefriedigte Nahrungstrieb bringe nicht nur die Unlust über den entbehrten Genuß, sondern positive Schmerzen, Qual und Elend in die Welt. Er kann sich hierbei berufen auf das namenlose Elend der von Nahrungssorgen heimgesuchten Menschen; auf die Summe von Unlust, die solchen Menschen mittelbar aus dem Nahrungsmangel erwächst. Und wenn er seine Behauptung auch auf die außermenschliche Natur anwenden will, kann er hinweisen auf die Qualen der Tiere, die in gewissen Jahreszeiten aus Nahrungsmangel verhungern. Von diesen Übeln behauptet der Pessimist, daß sie die durch den Nahrungstrieb in die Welt gesetzte Genußmenge reichlich überwiegen.

Es ist ja zweifellos, daß man Lust und Unlust miteinander vergleichen und den Überschuß der einen oder der andern bestimmen kann, wie das bei Gewinn und Verlust geschieht. Wenn aber der Pessimismus glaubt, daß auf Seite der Unlust sich ein Überschuß ergibt, und er daraus auf die Wertlosigkeit des Lebens schließen zu können meint, so ist er schon insofern im Irrtum, als er eine Rechnung macht, die im wirklichen Leben nicht ausgeführt wird.

Unsere Begierde richtet sich im einzelnen Falle auf einen bestimmten Gegenstand. Der Lustwert der Befriedigung wird, wie wir gesehen haben, um so größer sein, je größer die Lustmenge im Verhältnis zur Größe unseres Begehrens ist. (2) Von der Größe unseres Begehrens hängt es aber auch ab, wie groß die Menge der Unlust ist, die wir mit in Kauf nehmen wollen, um die Lust zu erreichen. Wir vergleichen die Menge der Unlust nicht mit der der Lust, sondern mit der Größe unserer Begierde. Wer große Freude am Essen hat, der wird wegen des Genusses in besseren Zeiten sich leichter über eine Periode des Hungers hinweghelfen, als ein anderer, dem diese Freude an der Befriedigung des Nahrungstriebes fehlt. Das Weib, das ein Kind haben will, vergleicht nicht die Lust, die ihm aus dessen Besitz erwächst, mit den Unlustmengen, die aus Schwangerschaft, Kindbett, Kinderpflege und so weiter sich ergeben, sondern mit seiner Begierde nach dem Besitz des Kindes.

Wir erstreben niemals eine abstrakte Lust von bestimmter Größe, sondern die konkrete Befriedigung in einer ganz bestimmten Weise. Wenn wir nach einer Lust streben, die durch einen bestimmten Gegenstand oder eine bestimmte Empfindung befriedigt werden muß, so können wir nicht dadurch befriedigt werden, daß uns ein anderer Gegenstand oder eine andere Empfindung zuteil wird, die uns eine Lust von gleicher Größe bereitet. Wer nach Sättigung strebt, dem kann man die Lust an derselben nicht durch eine gleich große, aber durch einen Spaziergang erzeugte ersetzen. Nur wenn unsere Begierde ganz allgemein nach einem bestimmten Lustquantum strebte, dann müßte sie sofort verstummen, wenn diese Lust nicht ohne ein sie an Größe überragendes Unlustquantum zu erreichen wäre. Da aber die Befriedigung auf eine bestimmte Art erstrebt wird, so tritt die Lust mit der Erfüllung auch dann ein, wenn mit ihr eine sie überwiegende Unlust in Kauf genommen werden muß. Dadurch, daß sich die Triebe der Lebewesen in einer bestimmten Richtung bewegen und auf ein konkretes Ziel losgehen, hört die Möglichkeit auf, die auf dem Wege zu diesem Ziele sich entgegenstellende Unlustmenge als gleichgeltenden Faktor mit in Rechnung zu bringen. Wenn die Begierde nur stark genug ist, um nach Überwindung der Unlust – und sei sie absolut genommen noch so groß – noch in irgendeinem Grade vorhanden zu sein, so kann die Lust an der Befriedigung doch noch in voller Größe durchgerostet werden. Die Begierde bringt also die Unlust nicht direkt in Beziehung zu der erreichten Lust, sondern indirekt, indem sie ihre eigene Größe (im Verhältnis) zu der der Unlust in eine Beziehung bringt. Nicht darum handelt es sich, ob die zu erreichende Lust oder Unlust größer ist, sondern darum, ob die Begierde nach dem erstrebten Ziele oder der Widerstand der entgegentretenden Unlust größer ist. Ist dieser Widerstand größer als die Begierde, dann ergibt sich die letztere in das Unvermeidliche, erlahmt und strebt nicht weiter. Dadurch, daß Befriedigung in einer bestimmten Art verlangt wird, gewinnt die mit ihr zusammenhängende Lust eine Bedeutung, die es ermöglicht, nach eingetretener Befriedigung das notwendige Unlustquantum nur insofern in die Rechnung einzustellen, als es das Maß unserer Begierde verringert hat. Wenn ich ein leidenschaftlicher Freund von Fernsichten bin, so berechne ich niemals: wieviel Lust macht mir der Blick von dem Berggipfel aus, direkt verglichen mit der Unlust des mühseligen Auf- und Abstiegs. Ich überlege aber: ob nach Überwindung der Schwierigkeiten meine Begierde nach der Fernsicht noch lebhaft genug sein wird. Nur mittelbar durch die Größe der Begierde können Lust und Unlust zusammen ein Ergebnis liefern. Es fragt sich also gar nicht, ob Lust oder Unlust im Übermaße vorhanden ist, sondern ob das Wollen der Lust stark genug ist, die Unlust zu überwinden.

Ein Beweis für die Richtigkeit dieser Behauptung ist der Umstand, daß der Wert der Lust höher angeschlagen wird, wenn sie durch große Unlust erkauft werden muß, als dann, wenn sie uns gleichsam wie ein Geschenk des Himmels in den Schoß fällt. Wenn Leiden und Qualen unsere Begierde herabgestimmt haben, und dann das Ziel doch noch erreicht wird, dann ist eben die Lust im Verhältnis zu dem noch übriggebliebenen Quantum der Begierde um so größer. Dieses Verhältnis stellt aber, wie ich gezeigt habe, den Wert der Lust dar. Ein weiterer Beweis ist dadurch gegeben, daß die Lebewesen (einschließlich des Menschen) ihre Triebe so lange zur Entfaltung bringen, als sie imstande sind, die entgegenstehenden Schmerzen und Qualen zu er- tragen. Und der Kampf ums Dasein ist nur die Folge dieser Tatsache. Das vorhandene Leben strebt nach Entfaltung, und nur derjenige Teil gibt den Kampf auf, dessen Begierden durch die Gewalt der sich auftürmenden Schwierigkeiten erstickt werden. Jedes Lebewesen sucht so lange nach Nahrung, bis der Nahrungsmangel sein Leben zerstört. Und auch der Mensch legt erst Hand an sich selber, wenn er (mit Recht oder Unrecht) glaubt, die ihm erstrebenswerten Lebensziele nicht erreichen zu können. Solange er aber noch an die Möglichkeit glaubt, das nach seiner Ansicht Erstrebenswerte zu erreichen, kämpft er gegen alle Qualen und Schmerzen an. Die Philosophie müßte dem Menschen erst

die Meinung beibringen, daß Wollen nur dann einen Sinn hat, wenn die Lust größer als die Unlust ist; seiner Natur nach will er die Gegenstände seines Begehrens erreichen, wenn er die dabei notwendig werdende Unlust ertragen kann, sei sie dann auch noch so groß. Eine solche Philosophie wäre aber irrtümlich, weil sie das menschliche Wollen von einem Umstande abhängig macht (Überschuß der Lust über die Unlust), der dem Menschen ursprünglich fremd ist. Der ursprüngliche Maßstab des Wollens ist die Begierde, und diese setzt sich durch, solange sie kann. Man kann die Rechnung, welche das Leben, nicht eine verstandesmäßige Philosophie, anstellt, wenn Lust und Unlust bei Befriedigung eines Begehrens in Frage kommen, mit dem folgenden vergleichen. Wenn ich gezwungen bin, beim Einkaufe eines bestimmten Quantums Apfel doppelt so viele schlechte als gute mitzunehmen – weil der Verkäufer seinen Platz frei bekommen will – so werde ich mich keinen Moment besinnen, die schlechten Apfel mitzunehmen, wenn ich den Wert der geringeren Menge guter für mich so hoch veranschlagen darf, daß ich zu dem Kaufpreis auch noch die Auslagen für Hinwegschaffung der schlechten Ware auf mich nehmen will. Dies Beispiel veranschaulicht die Beziehung zwischen den durch einen Trieb bereiteten Lust- und Unlustmengen. Ich bestimme den Wert der guten Apfel nicht dadurch, daß ich ihre Summe von der der schlechten subtrahiere, sondern danach, ob die ersteren trotz des Vorhandenseins der letzteren noch einen Wert behalten.

Ebenso wie ich bei dem Genuß der guten Apfel die schlechten unberücksichtigt lasse, so gebe ich mich der Befriedigung einer Begierde hin, nachdem ich die notwendigen Qualen abgeschüttelt habe.

Wenn der Pessimismus auch recht hätte mit seiner Behauptung, daß in der Welt mehr Unlust als Lust vorhanden ist: auf das Wollen wäre das ohne Einfluß, denn die Lebewesen streben nach der übrigbleibenden Lust doch. Der empirische Nachweis, daß der Schmerz die Freude überwiegt, wäre, wenn er gelänge, zwar geeignet, die Aussichtslosigkeit jener philosophischen Richtung zu zeigen, die den Wert des Lebens in dem Überschuß der Lust sieht (Eudämonismus), nicht aber das Wollen überhaupt als unvernünftig hinzustellen; denn dieses geht nicht auf einen Überschuß von Lust, sondern auf die nach Abzug der Unlust noch übrigbleibende Lustmenge. Diese erscheint noch immer als ein erstrebenswertes Ziel.

Man hat den Pessimismus dadurch zu widerlegen versucht, daß man behauptete, es sei unmöglich, den Überschuß von Lust oder Unlust in der Welt auszurechnen. Die Möglichkeit einer jeden Berechnung beruht darauf, daß die in Rechnung zu stellenden Dinge ihrer Größe nach miteinander verglichen werden können. Nun hat jede Unlust und jede Lust eine bestimmte Größe (Stärke und Dauer). Auch Lustempfindungen verschiedener Art können wir ihrer Größe nach wenigstens schätzungsweise vergleichen. Wir wissen, ob uns eine gute Zigarre oder ein guter Witz mehr Vergnügen macht Gegen die Vergleichbarkeit verschiedener Lust- und Unlustsorten, ihrer Größe nach, läßt sich somit nichts einwenden. Und der Forscher, der es sich zur Aufgabe macht, den Lust- oder Unlustüberschuß in der Welt zu bestimmen, geht von durchaus berechtigten Voraussetzungen aus. Man kann die Irrtümlichkeit der pessimistischen Resultate behaupten, aber man darf die Möglichkeit einer wissenschaftlichen Abschätzung der Lust- und Unlustmengen und damit die Bestimmung der Lustbilanz nicht anzweifeln. Unrichtig aber ist es, wenn behauptet wird, daß aus dem Ergebnisse dieser Rechnung für das menschliche Wollen etwas folge. Die Fälle, wo wir den Wert unserer Betätigung wirklich davon abhängig machen, ob die Lust oder die Unlust einen Überschuß zeigt, sind die, in denen uns die Gegenstände, auf die unser Tun sich richtet, gleichgültig sind. Wenn es sich mir darum handelt, nach meiner Arbeit mir ein Vergnügen durch ein Spiel oder eine leichte Unterhaltung zu bereiten, und es mir völlig gleichgültig ist, was ich zu diesem Zwecke tue, so frage ich mich: was bringt mir den größten Überschuß an Lust? Und ich unterlasse eine Betätigung unbedingt, wenn sich die Waage nach der Unlustseite hin neigt. Bei einem Kinde, dem wir ein Spielzeug kaufen wollen, denken wir bei der Wahl nach, was ihm die meiste Freude bereitet. In allen anderen Fällen bestimmen wir uns nicht ausschließlich nach der Lustbilanz.

13. The Value of Life (Optimism and Pessimism) – 2

Therefore, if the pessimists believe that by showing pain to be present in greater quantity than pleasure they are preparing the ground for unselfish devotion to the work of civilisation, they forget that the human will, by its very nature, does not allow itself to be influenced by this knowledge. Human striving is directed towards the measure of satisfaction that is possible after all difficulties are overcome. Hope of such satisfaction is the foundation of all human activity. The work of every individual and of the whole of civilisation springs from this hope. Pessimistic ethics believes that it must present the pursuit of happiness as an impossibility for man in order that he may devote himself to his proper moral tasks. But these moral tasks are nothing but the concrete natural and spiritual instincts; and man strives to satisfy them in spite of the incidental pain.

The pursuit of happiness which the pessimist would eradicate is therefore nowhere to be found. But the tasks which man has to fulfill, he does fulfill, because from the very nature of his being he wants to fulfill them, once he has properly recognised their nature. Pessimistic ethics declares that only when a man has given up the quest for pleasure can he devote himself to what he recognises as his task in life. But no system of ethics can ever invent any life tasks other than the realisation of the satisfactions that human desires demand and the fulfillment of man’s moral ideals. No ethics can deprive man of the pleasure he experiences in the fulfillment of his desires.

When the pessimist says, “Do not strive for pleasure, for you can never attain it; strive rather for what you recognise to be your task,” we must reply, “But this is just what man does, and the notion that he strives merely for happiness is no more than the invention of an errant philosophy.” He aims at the satisfaction of what he himself desires, and he has in view the concrete objects of his striving, not “happiness” in the abstract; and fulfillment is for him a pleasure. When pessimistic ethics demands, “Strive not for pleasure, but for the attainment of what you see as your life’s task,” it hits on the very thing that man, in his own being, wants.

Man does not need to be turned inside out by philosophy, he does not need to discard his human nature, before he can be moral. Morality lies in striving for a goal that one recognises as justified; it is human nature to pursue it as long as the pain incurred does not inhibit the desire for it altogether. This is the essence of all genuine will. Ethical behaviour is not based upon the eradication of all striving for pleasure to the end that bloodless abstract ideas may establish their dominion unopposed by any strong yearnings for the enjoyment of life, but rather upon a strong will sustained by ideal intuitions, a will that reaches its goal even though the path be thorny.

Moral ideals spring from the moral imagination of man. Their realisation depends on his desire for them being intense enough to overcome pain and misery. They are his intuitions, the driving forces which his spirit harnesses; he wants them, because their realisation is his highest pleasure. He needs no ethics to forbid him to strive for pleasure and then to tell him what he shall strive for. He will strive for moral ideals if his moral imagination is sufficiently active to provide him with intuitions that give his will the strength to make its way against all the obstacles inherent in his constitution, including the pain that is necessarily involved.

If a man strives for sublimely great ideals, it is because they are the content of his own being, and their realisation will bring him a joy compared to which the pleasure that a limited outlook gets from the gratification of commonplace desires is a mere triviality. Idealists revel, spiritually, in the translation of their ideals into reality.

Anyone who would eradicate the pleasure brought by the fulfillment of human desires will first have to make man a slave who acts not because he wants to but only because he must. For the achievement of what one wanted to do gives pleasure. What we call good is not what a man must do but what he will want to do if he develops the true nature of man to the full. Anyone who does not acknowledge this must first drive out of man all that man himself wants to do, and then, from outside, prescribe the content he is to give to his will.

Man values the fulfillment of a desire because the desire springs from his own being. What is achieved has its value because it has been wanted. If we deny any value to what man himself wants, then aims that do have value will have to be found in something that man does not want.

An ethics built on pessimism arises from the disregard of moral imagination. Only if one considers that the individual human spirit is itself incapable of giving content to its striving can one expect the craving for pleasure to account fully for all acts of will. A man without imagination creates no moral ideas. They must be given to him. Physical nature sees to it that he strives to satisfy his lower desires. But the development of the whole man also includes those desires that originate in the spirit.

Only if one believes that man has no such spiritual desires can one declare that he must receive them from without. Then one would also be entitled to say that it is man’s duty to do what he does not want. Every ethical system that demands of man that he should suppress his own will in order to fulfill tasks that he does not want, reckons not with the whole man but with one in which the faculty of spiritual desire is lacking. For a man who is harmoniously developed, the so-called ideals of virtue lie, not without, but within the sphere of his own being. Moral action consists not in the eradication of a one-sided personal will but in the full development of human nature. Those who hold that moral ideals are attainable only if man destroys his own personal will, are not aware that these ideals are wanted by man just as he wants the satisfaction of the so-called animal instincts.

It cannot be denied that the views here outlined may easily be misunderstood. Immature people without moral imagination like to look upon the instincts of their half-developed natures as the fullest expression of the human race, and reject all moral ideas which they have not themselves produced, in order that they may “live themselves out” undisturbed. But it goes without saying that what is right for a fully developed human being does not hold good for half-developed human natures. Anyone who still needs to be educated to the point where his moral nature breaks through the husk of his lower passions, will not have the same things expected of him as of a mature person. However, it was not my intention to show what needs to be impressed upon an undeveloped person, but what lies within the essential nature of a mature human being. My intention was to demonstrate the possibility of freedom, and freedom is manifested not in actions performed under constraint of sense or soul but in actions sustained by spiritual intuitions.

The mature man gives himself his own value. He does not aim at pleasure, which comes to him as a gift of grace on the part of Nature or of the Creator; nor does he fulfill an abstract duty which he recognises as such after he has renounced the striving for pleasure. He acts as he wants to act, that is, in accordance with the standard of his ethical intuitions; and he finds in the achievement of what he wants the true enjoyment of life. He determines the value of life by measuring achievements against aims. An ethics which replaces “would” with mere “should”, inclination with mere duty, will consequently determine the value of man by measuring his fulfillment of duty against the demands that it makes. It measures man with a yardstick external to his own being.

The view which I have here developed refers man back to himself. It recognises as the true value of life only what each individual regards as such, according to the standard of his own will. It no more acknowledges a value of life that is not recognised by the individual than it does a purpose of life that has not originated in him. It sees in the individual who knows himself through and through, his own master and his own assessor.

Author’s addition, 1918
The argument of this chapter will be misunderstood if one is caught by the apparent objection that the will, as such, is the irrational factor in man and that once this irrationality is made clear to him he will see that the goal of his ethical striving must lie in ultimate emancipation from the will. An apparent objection of exactly this kind was brought against me from a reputable quarter in that I was told that it is the business of the philosopher to make good just what lack of thought leads animals and most men to neglect, namely, to strike a proper balance of life’s account. But this objection just misses the main point.

If freedom is to be realised, the will in human nature must be sustained by intuitive thinking; at the same time, however, we find that an act of will may also be determined by factors other than intuition, though only in the free realisation of intuitions issuing from man’s essential nature do we find morality and its value. Ethical individualism is well able to present morality in its full dignity, for it sees true morality not in what brings about the agreement of an act of will with a standard of behaviour in an external way, but in what arises in man when he develops his moral will as an integral part of his whole being so that to do what is not moral appears to him as a stunting and crippling of his nature.

13. The Value of Life (Optimism and Pessimism) – 1

A Counterpart to the question concerning the purpose of life, or the ordering of its destiny (see Chapter 11), is the question concerning its value. We meet here with two mutually opposed views, and between them all conceivable attempts at compromise. One view says that this world is the best that could conceivably exist, and that to live and to act in it is a blessing of untold value. Everything that exists displays harmonious and purposeful co-operation and is worthy of admiration.

Even what is apparently bad and evil may, from a higher point of view, be seen to be good, for it represents an agreeable contrast with the good; we are the more able to appreciate the good when it is clearly contrasted with evil. Moreover, evil is not genuinely real; what we feel as evil is only a lesser degree of good. Evil is the absence of good; it has no significance in itself.

The other view maintains that life is full of misery and want; everywhere pain outweighs pleasure, sorrow outweighs joy. Existence is a burden, and non-existence would in all circumstances be preferable to existence.

The chief representatives of the former view, optimism, are Shaftesbury and Leibnitz; those of the latter, pessimism, are Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann.

Leibnitz believes the world is the best of all possible worlds. A better one is impossible. For God is good and wise. A good God wants to create the best possible world; a wise God knows which is the best possible — He is able to distinguish the best from all other possible worse ones. Only an evil or an unwise God would be able to create a world worse than the best possible.

Whoever starts from this point of view will find it easy to lay down the direction that human action must follow in order to make its contribution to the greatest good of the world. All that man need do is to find out the counsels of God and to behave in accordance with them. If he knows what God’s intentions are concerning the world and mankind, he will be able to do what is right. And he will be happy in the feeling that he is adding his share to the other good in the world. From this optimistic standpoint, then, life is worth living. It must stimulate us to co-operative participation.

Schopenhauer pictures things quite differently. He thinks of the foundation of the world not as an all-wise and all-beneficent being, but as blind urge or will. Eternal striving, ceaseless craving for satisfaction which is ever beyond reach, this is the fundamental characteristic of all active will. For no sooner is one goal attained, than a fresh need springs up, and so on. Satisfaction, when it occurs, lasts only for an infinitesimal time.

The entire remaining content of our life is unsatisfied craving, that is, dissatisfaction and suffering. If at last blind craving is dulled, then all content is gone from our lives; an infinite boredom pervades our existence. Hence the best we can do is to stifle all wishes and needs within us and exterminate the will. Schopenhauer’s pessimism leads to complete inactivity; his moral aim is universal idleness.

By a very different argument von Hartmann attempts to establish pessimism and to make use of it for ethics. He attempts, in keeping with a favourite tendency of our times, to base his world view on experience. From the observation of life he hopes to discover whether pleasure or pain outweighs the other in the world. He parades whatever appears to men as blessing and fortune before the tribunal of reason, in order to show that all alleged satisfaction turns out on closer inspection to be illusion.

It is illusion when we believe that in health, youth, freedom, sufficient income, love (sexual satisfaction), pity, friendship and family life, self-respect, honour, fame, power, religious edification, pursuit of science and of art, hope of a life hereafter, participation in the progress of civilisation — that in all these we have sources of happiness and satisfaction. Soberly considered, every enjoyment brings much more evil and misery into the world than pleasure. The disagreeableness of the hangover is always greater than the agreeableness of getting drunk. Pain far outweighs pleasure in the world. No man, even though relatively the happiest, would, if asked, wish to live through this miserable life a second time. Now, since Hartmann does not deny the presence of an ideal factor (wisdom) in the world, but rather gives it equal standing with blind urge (will), he can credit his primal Being with the creation of the world only if he allows the pain in the world to serve a wise world-purpose.

The pain of created beings is, however, nothing but God’s pain itself, for the life of the world as a whole is identical with the life of God. An all-wise Being can, however, see his goal only in release from suffering, and, since all existence is suffering, in release from existence. To transform existence into the far better state of non-existence is the purpose of all creation. The course of the world is a continuous battle against God’s pain, which ends at last with the annihilation of all existence.

The moral life of men, therefore, will consist in taking part in the annihilation of existence. God has created the world so that through it He may free Himself from His infinite pain. The world is “to be regarded, more or less, as an itching eruption upon the Absolute,” by means of which the unconscious healing power of the Absolute rids itself of an inward disease, “or even as a painful poultice which the All-One applies to himself in order first to divert the inner pain outwards, and then to get rid of it altogether.” Human beings are integral parts of the world. In them God suffers. He has created them in order to disperse His infinite pain. The pain which each one of us suffers is but a drop in the infinite ocean of God’s pain.

Man has to permeate his whole being with the recognition that the pursuit of individual satisfaction (egoism) is a folly, and that he ought to be guided solely by the task of dedicating himself to the redemption of God by unselfish devotion to the progress of the world. Thus, in contrast to Schopenhauer’s, von Hartmann’s pessimism leads us to activity devoted to a sublime task.

But is it really based on experience?

To strive for satisfaction means that our activity reaches out beyond the actual content of our lives. A creature is hungry, that is, it strives for repletion, when its organic functions, if they are to continue, demand the supply of fresh means of life in the form of nourishment. The striving for honour means that a man only regards what he personally does or leaves undone as valuable when his activity is approved by others.

The striving for knowledge arises when a man finds that something is missing from the world that he sees, hears, and so on, as long as he has not understood it. The fulfillment of the striving creates pleasure in the striving individual, failure creates pain. It is important here to observe that pleasure and pain are dependent only upon the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of my striving.

The striving itself can by no means be counted as pain. Hence, if it happens that in the very moment in which a striving is fulfilled a new striving at once arises, this is no ground for saying that, because in every ease enjoyment gives rise to a desire for its repetition or for a fresh pleasure, my pleasure has given birth to pain. I can speak of pain only when desire runs up against the impossibility of fulfillment.

Even when an enjoyment that I have had creates in me the desire for the experience of greater or more refined pleasure, I cannot speak of this desire as a pain created by the previous pleasure until the means of experiencing the greater or more refined pleasure fail me. Only when pain appears as a natural consequence of pleasure, as for instance when a woman’s sexual pleasure is followed by the suffering of childbirth and the cares of a family, can I find in the enjoyment the originator of the pain. If striving by itself called forth pain, then each reduction of striving would have to be accompanied by pleasure. But the opposite is the case. To have no striving in one’s life creates boredom, and this is connected with displeasure.

Now, since it may be a long time before striving meets with fulfillment, and since, in the interval, it is content with the hope of fulfillment, we must acknowledge that the pain has nothing whatever to do with the striving as such, but depends solely on the non-fulfillment of the striving. Schopenhauer, then, is in any case wrong to take desiring or striving (will) as being in itself the source of pain.

In fact, just the opposite is correct. Striving (desiring) in itself gives pleasure. Who does not know the enjoyment given by the hope of a remote but intensely desired goal? This joy is the companion of all labour that gives us its fruits only in the future. It is a pleasure quite independent of the attainment of the goal. For when the goal has been reached, the pleasure of fulfillment is added as something new to the pleasure of striving.

If anyone were to argue that the pain caused by an unsatisfied aim is increased by the pain of disappointed hope, and that thus, in the end, the pain of non-fulfillment will eventually outweigh the possible pleasure of fulfillment, we shall have to reply that the reverse may be the case, and that the recollection of past enjoyment at a time of unfulfilled desire will just as often mitigate the pain of non-fulfillment. Whoever exclaims in the face of shattered hopes, “I have done my part,” is a proof of this assertion. The blissful feeling of having tried one’s best is overlooked by those who say of every unsatisfied desire that not only is the joy of fulfillment absent but the enjoyment of the desiring itself has been destroyed.

The fulfillment of a desire brings pleasure and its non-fulfillment brings pain. But from this we must not conclude that pleasure is the satisfaction of a desire, and pain its non-satisfaction. Both pleasure and pain can be experienced without being the consequence of desire. Illness is pain not preceded by desire. If anyone were to maintain that illness is unsatisfied desire for health, he would be making the mistake of regarding the unconscious wish not to fall ill, which we all take for granted, as a positive desire. When someone receives a legacy from a rich relative of whose existence he had not the faintest idea, this fills him with pleasure without any preceding desire.

Hence, if we set out to enquire whether the balance is on the side of pleasure or of pain, we must take into account the pleasure of desiring, the pleasure at the fulfillment of a desire, and the pleasure which comes to us without any striving. On the other side of the account we shall have to enter the displeasure of boredom, the pain of unfulfilled striving, and lastly the pain which comes to us without any desiring on our part. Under this last heading we shall have to put also the displeasure caused by work, not chosen by ourselves, that has been forced upon us.

This leads to the question: What is the right method for striking the balance between these credit and debit columns? Eduard von Hartmann believes that it is reason that holds the scales. It is true that he says, “Pain and pleasure exist only in so far as they are actually felt.” It follows that there can be no yardstick for pleasure other than the subjective one of feeling.

I must feel whether the sum of my disagreeable feelings together with my agreeable feelings leaves me with a balance of pleasure or of pain. But for all that, von Hartmann maintains that, “though the value of the life of every person can be set down only according to his own subjective measure, yet it by no means follows that every person is able to arrive at the correct algebraic sum from all the collected emotions in his life — or, in other words, that his total estimate of his own life, with regard to his subjective experiences, would be correct.” With this, the rational estimation of feeling is once more made the evaluator (see fn 3).

Anyone who follows fairly closely the line of thought of such thinkers as Eduard von Hartmann may believe it necessity, in order to arrive at a correct valuation of life, to clear out of the way those factors which falsify our judgement about the balance of pleasure and pain. He can try to do this in two ways. Firstly, by showing that our desire (instinct, will) interferes with our sober estimation of feeling values in a disturbing way. Whereas, for instance, we ought to say to ourselves that sexual enjoyment is a source of evil, we are misled by the fact that the sexual instinct is very strong in us into conjuring up the prospect of a pleasure which just is not there in that degree at all.

We want to enjoy ourselves; hence we do not admit to ourselves that we suffer under the enjoyment. Secondly, he can do it by subjecting feelings to a critical examination and attempting to prove that the objects to which our feelings attach themselves are revealed as illusions by the light of reason, and that they are destroyed from the moment that our ever growing intelligence sees through the illusions.

He can think of the matter in the following way. If an ambitious man wants to determine clearly whether, up to the moment of his enquiry, there has been a surplus of pleasure or of pain in his life, then he has to free himself from two sources of error that may affect his judgment. Being ambitious, this fundamental feature of his character will make him see the joys due to the recognition of his achievements through a magnifying glass, and the humiliations due to his rebuffs through a diminishing glass. At the time when he suffered the rebuffs he felt the humiliations just because he was ambitious; in recollection they appear to him in a milder light, whereas the joys of recognition to which he is so susceptible leave a far deeper impression.

Now, for an ambitious man it is an undeniable blessing that it should be so. The deception diminishes his pain in the moment of self-analysis. None the less, his judgment is wrong. The sufferings over which a veil is now drawn were actually experienced by him in all their intensity, and hence he enters them at a wrong valuation in his life’s account book. In order to arrive at a correct estimate, an ambitious man would have to lay aside his ambition for the time of his enquiry. He would have to review his past life without any distorting glasses before his mind’s eye. Otherwise he would resemble a merchant who, in making up his books, enters among the items on the credit side his own zeal in business.

But the holder of this view can go even further. He can say: The ambitious man will even make clear to himself that the recognition he pursues is a worthless thing. Either by himself, or through the influence of others, he will come to see that for an intelligent man recognition by others counts for very little, seeing that “in all such matters, other than those that are questions of sheer existence or that are already finally settled by science,” one can be quite sure “that the majority is wrong and the minority right…. Whoever makes ambition the lode-star of his life puts his life’s happiness at the mercy of such a judgment.”

If the ambitious man admits all this to himself, then he must regard as illusion what his ambition had pictured as reality, and thus also the feelings attached to these illusions of his ambition. On this basis it could then be said that such feelings of pleasure as are produced by illusion must also be struck out of the balance sheet of life’s values; what then remains represents the sum total of life’s pleasures stripped of all illusion, and this is so small compared with the sum total of pain that life is no joy and non-existence preferable to existence.

But while it is immediately evident that the deception produced by the instinct of ambition leads to a false result when striking the balance of pleasure, we must none the less challenge what has been said about the recognition of the illusory character of the objects of pleasure. The elimination from the credit side of life of all pleasurable feelings which accompany actual or supposed illusions would positively falsify the balance of pleasure and pain. For an ambitious man has genuinely enjoyed the acclamations of the multitude, irrespective of whether subsequently he himself, or some other person, recognises that this acclamation is an illusion.

The pleasant sensation he has had is not in the least diminished by this recognition. The elimination of all such “illusory” feelings from life’s balance does not make our judgment about our feelings more correct, but rather obliterates from life feelings which were actually there.

And why should these feelings be eliminated? For whoever has them, they are certainly pleasuregiving; for whoever has conquered them, a purely mental but none the less significant pleasure arises through the experience of self-conquest (not through the vain emotion: What a noble fellow I am! but through the objective sources of pleasure which lie in the self-conquest).

If we strike out feelings from the pleasure side of the balance on the ground that they are attached to objects which turn out to have been illusory, we make the value of life dependent not on the quantity but on the quality of pleasure, and this, in turn, on the value of the objects which cause the pleasure. But if I want to determine the value of life in the first place by the quantity of pleasure or pain which it brings, I may nor presuppose something else which already determines the positive or negative value of the pleasure.

If I say I want to compare the quantity of pleasure with the quantity of pain in order to see which is greater, I am bound to bring into my account all pleasures and pains in their actual intensities, whether they are based on illusions or not. Whoever ascribes a lesser value for life to a pleasure which is based on an illusion than to one which can justify itself before the tribunal of reason, makes the value of life dependent on factors other than pleasure.

Whoever puts down pleasure as less valuable when it is attached to a worthless object, resembles a merchant who enters the considerable profits of a toy factory in his account at a quarter of their actual amount on the ground that the factory produces nothing but playthings for children.

If the point is simply to weigh quantity of pleasure against quantity of pain, then the illusory character of the objects causing certain feelings of pleasure must be left right out of the question.

The method recommended by von Hartmann, that is, rational consideration of the quantities of pleasure and pain produced by life, has thus led us to the point where we know how we are to set out our accounts, what we are to put down on the one side of our book and what on the other. But how is the calculation now to be made? Is reason actually capable of striking the balance?

A merchant has made a mistake in his reckoning if his calculated profit does not agree with the demonstrable results or expectations of his business. Similarly, the philosopher will undoubtedly have made a mistake in his estimate if he cannot demonstrate in actual feeling the surplus of pleasure, or pain, that he has somehow extracted from his accounts.

For the present I shall not look into the calculations of those pessimists whose opinion of the world is measured by reason; but if one is to decide whether to carry on the business of life or not, one will first demand to be shown where the alleged surplus of pain is to be found.

Here we touch the point where reason is not in a position to determine by itself the surplus of pleasure or of pain, but where it must demonstrate this surplus as a percept in life. For man reaches reality not through concepts alone but through the interpenetration of concepts and percepts (and feelings are percepts) which thinking brings about. A merchant, after all, will give up his business only when the losses calculated by his accountant are confirmed by the facts. If this does not happen, he gets his accountant to make the calculation over again. That is exactly what a man will do in the business of life.

If a philosopher wants to prove to him that the pain is far greater than the pleasure, but he himself does not feel it to be so, then he will reply, “You have gone astray in your reckoning; think it all out again.” But should there come a time in a business when the losses are really so great that the firm’s credit no longer suffices to satisfy the creditors, then bankruptcy will result if the merchant fails to keep himself informed about the state of his affairs by careful accounting. Similarly, if the quantity of pain in a man’s life became at any time so great that no hope of future pleasure (credit) could help him to get over the pain, then the bankruptcy of life’s business would inevitably follow.

Now the number of those who kill themselves is relatively unimportant when compared with the multitude of those who live bravely on. Only very few men give up the business of life because of the pain involved. What follows from this? Either that it is untrue to say that the quantity of pain is greater than the quantity of pleasure, or that we do not at all make the continuation of life dependent on the quantity of pleasure or pain that is felt.

In a very curious way, Eduard von Hartmann’s pessimism comes to the conclusion that life is valueless because it contains a surplus of pain and yet affirms the necessity of going on with it. This necessity lies in the fact that the world purpose mentioned above (page 177) can be achieved only by the ceaseless, devoted labour of human beings. But as long as men still pursue their egotistical cravings they are unfit for such selfless labour. Not until they have convinced themselves through experience and reason that the pleasures of life pursued by egoism cannot be attained, do they devote themselves to their proper tasks. In this way the pessimistic conviction is supposed to be the source of unselfishness. An education based on pessimism should exterminate egoism by making it see the hopelessness of its case.

According to this view, then, the striving for pleasure is inherent in human nature from the outset. Only when fulfillment is seen to be impossible does this striving retire in favour of higher tasks for mankind.

It cannot be said that egoism is overcome in the true sense of the word by an ethical world conception that expects a devotion to unselfish aims in life through the acceptance of pessimism. The moral ideals are said not to be strong enough to dominate the will until man has learnt that selfish striving after pleasure cannot lead to any satisfaction. Man, whose selfishness desires the grapes of pleasure, finds them sour because he cannot reach them, and so he turns his back on them and devotes himself to an unselfish way of life. Moral ideals, then, according to the opinion of pessimists, are not strong enough to overcome egoism; but they establish their dominion on the ground previously cleared for them by the recognition of the hopelessness of egoism.

If men by nature were to strive after pleasure but were unable to reach it, then annihilation of existence, and salvation through non-existence, would be the only rational goal. And if one holds the view that the real bearer of the pain of the world is God, then man’s task would consist in bringing about the salvation of God. Through the suicide of the individual, the realisation of this aim is not advanced, but hindered. Rationally, God can only have created men in order to bring about his salvation through their actions.

Otherwise creation would be purposeless. And it is extra-human purposes that such a world conception has in mind. Each one of us has to perform his own particular task in the general work of salvation. If he withdraws from the task by suicide, then the work which was intended for him must be done by another. Somebody else must bear the torment of existence in his stead. And since within every being it is God who actually bears all pain, the suicide does not in the least diminish the quantity of God’s pain, but rather imposes upon God the additional difficulty of providing a substitute.

All this presupposes that pleasure is the yardstick for the value of life. Now life manifests itself through a number of instinctive desires (needs). If the value of life depended on its producing more pleasure than pain, an instinct which brought to its owner a balance of pain would have to be called valueless. Let us, therefore, examine instinct and pleasure to see whether the former can be measured by the latter. In order not to arouse the suspicion that we consider life to begin only at the level of “aristocracy of the intellect”, we shall begin with the “purely animal” need, hunger.

Hunger arises when our organs are unable to continue their proper function without a fresh supply of food. What a hungry man wants first of all is to satisfy his hunger. As soon as the supply of nourishment has reached the point where hunger ceases, everything that the instinct for food craves has been attained. The enjoyment that comes with being satisfied consists primarily in putting an end to the pain caused by hunger. But to the mere instinct for food a further need is added. For man does not merely desire to repair the disturbance in the functioning of his organs by the consumption of food, or to overcome the pain of hunger; he seeks to effect this to the accompaniment of pleasurable sensations of taste.

If he feels hungry and is within half an hour of an appetising meal, he may even refuse inferior food, which could satisfy him sooner, so as not to spoil his appetite for the better fare to come. He needs hunger in order to get the full enjoyment from his meal. Thus for him hunger becomes at the same time a cause of pleasure. Now if all the existing hunger in the world could be satisfied, we should then have the total quantity of enjoyment attributable to the presence of the need for nourishment. To this would still have to be added the special pleasure which the gourmet achieves by cultivating his palate beyond the common measure.

This quantity of pleasure would reach the highest conceivable value if no need aiming at the kind of enjoyment under consideration remained unsatisfied, and if with the enjoyment we had not to accept a certain amount of pain into the bargain.

Modern science holds the view that nature produces more life than it can sustain, that is to say, more hunger than it is able to satisfy. The surplus of life thus produced must perish in pain in the struggle for existence. Admittedly the needs of life at every moment in the course of the world are greater than the available means of satisfaction, and that the enjoyment of life is affected as a result.

Such enjoyment as actually does occur, however, is not in the least reduced. Wherever a desire is satisfied, the corresponding quantity of pleasure exists, even though in the desiring creature itself or in its fellows there are plenty of unsatisfied instincts. What is, however, diminished by all this is the value of the enjoyment of life. If only a part of the needs of a living creature finds satisfaction, it experiences a corresponding degree of enjoyment. This pleasure has a lower value, the smaller it is in proportion to the total demands of life in the field of the desires in question. One can represent this value by a fraction, of which the numerator is the pleasure actually experienced while the denominator is the sum total of needs.

This fraction has the value 1 when the numerator and the denominator are equal, that is, when all needs are fully satisfied. The fraction becomes greater than 1 when a creature experiences more pleasure than its desires demand; and it becomes smaller than 1 when the quantity of pleasure falls short of the sum total of desires. But the fraction can never become zero as long as the numerator has any value at all, however small. If a man were to make up a final account before his death, and were to think of the quantity of enjoyment connected with a particular instinct (for example, hunger) as being distributed over the whole of his life together with all the demands made by this instinct, then the pleasure experienced might perhaps have a very small value, but it could never become valueless. If the quantity of pleasure remains constant, then, with an increase in the needs of the creature, the value of the pleasure diminishes. The same is true for the sum of life in nature.

The greater the number of creatures in proportion to those which are able to satisfy their instincts fully, the smaller is the average value of pleasure in life. The cheques on life’s pleasure which are drawn in our favour in the form of our instincts, become less valuable if we cannot expect to cash them for the full amount. If I get enough to eat for three days and as a result must then go hungry for another three days, the actual pleasure on the three days of eating is not thereby diminished. But I have now to think of it as distributed over six days, and thus its value for my food-instinct is reduced by half. In just the same way the magnitude of pleasure is related to the degree of my need. If I am hungry enough for two pieces of bread and can only get one, the pleasure I derive from it had only half the value it would have had if the eating of it has satisfied my hunger.

This is the way that the value of a pleasure is determined in life. It is measured by the needs of life. Our desires are the yardstick; pleasure is the thing that is measured. The enjoyment of satisfying hunger has a value only because hunger exists; and it has a value of a definite magnitude through the proportion it bears to the magnitude of the existing hunger.

Unfulfilled demands of our life throw their shadow even upon satisfied desires, and thus detract from the value of pleasurable hours. But we can also speak of the present value of a feeling of pleasure. This value is the lower, the smaller the pleasure is in proportion to the duration and intensity of our desire.

A quantity of pleasure has its full value for us when in duration and degree it exactly coincides with our desire. A quantity of pleasure which is smaller than our desire diminishes the value of the pleasure; a quantity which is greater produces a surplus which has not been demanded and which is felt as pleasure only so long as, whilst enjoying the pleasure, we can increase the intensity of our desire. If the increase in our desire is unable to keep pace with the increase in pleasure, then pleasure turns into displeasure.

The thing that would otherwise satisfy us now assails us without our wanting it and makes us suffer. This proves that pleasure has value for us only to the extent that we can measure it against our desires. An excess of pleasurable feeling turns into pain. This may be observed especially in people whose desire for a particular kind of pleasure is very small. In people whose instinct for food is stunted, eating readily becomes nauseating. This again shows that desire is the standard by which we measure the value of pleasure.

Now the pessimist might say that an unsatisfied instinct for food brings into the world not only displeasure at the lost enjoyment, but also positive pain, misery and want. He can base this statement upon the untold misery of starving people and upon the vast amount of suffering which arises indirectly for such people from their lack of food. And if he wants to extend his assertion to nature outside man as well, he can point to the suffering of animals that die of starvation at certain times of the year. The pessimist maintains that these evils far outweigh the amount of pleasure that the instinct for food brings into the world.

There is indeed no doubt that one can compare pleasure and pain and can estimate the surplus of one or the other much as we do in the case of profit and loss. But if the pessimist believes that because there is a surplus of pain he can conclude that life is valueless, he falls into the error of making a calculation that in real life is never made.

Our desire, in any given case, is directed to a particular object. As we have seen, the value of the pleasure of satisfaction will be the greater, the greater is the amount of pleasure in relation to the intensity of our desire (see fn 5). On this intensity of desire also will depend how much pain we are willing to bear as part of the price of achieving the pleasure. We compare the quantity of pain not with the quantity of pleasure but with the intensity of our desire. If someone takes great delight in eating, he will, by reason of his enjoyment in better times, find it easier to bear a period of hunger than will someone for whom eating is no pleasure. A woman who wants to have a child compares the pleasure that would come from possessing it not with the amount of pain due to pregnancy, childbirth, nursing and so on, but with her desire to possess the child.

We never aim at a certain quantity of pleasure in the abstract, but at concrete satisfaction in a perfectly definite way. If we are aiming at a pleasure which must be satisfied by a particular object or a particular sensation, we shall not be satisfied with some other object or some other sensation that gives us an equal amount of pleasure. If we are aiming at satisfying our hunger, we cannot replace the pleasure this would give us by a pleasure equally great, but produced by going for a walk.

Only if our desire were, quite generally, for a certain fixed quantity of pleasure as such, would it disappear as soon as the price of achieving it were seen to be a still greater quantity of pain. But since satisfaction of a particular kind is being aimed at, fulfillment brings the pleasure even when, along with it, a still greater pain has to be taken into the bargain. But because the instincts of living creatures move in definite directions and go after concrete goals, the quantity of pain endured on the way to the goal cannot be set down as an equivalent factor in our calculations. Provided the desire is sufficiently intense to be present in some degree after having overcome the pain — however great that pain in itself may be — then the pleasure of satisfaction can still be tasted to the full.

The desire, therefore, does not compare the pain directly to the pleasure achieved, but compares it indirectly by relating its own intensity to that of the pain. The question is not whether the pleasure to be gained is greater than the pain, but whether the desire for the goal is greater than the hindering effect of the pain involved. If the hindrance is greater than the desire, then the desire gives way to the inevitable, weakens and strives no further. Since our demand is for satisfaction in a particular way, the pleasure connected with it acquires a significance such that, once we have achieved satisfaction, we need take the quantity of pain into account only to the extent that it has reduced the intensity of our desire.

If I am a passionate admirer of beautiful views, I never calculate the amount of pleasure which the view from the mountain top gives me as compared directly with the pain of the toilsome ascent and descent; but I reflect whether, after having overcome all difficulties, my desire for the view will still be sufficiently intense. Only indirectly, through the intensity of the desire, can pleasure and pain together lead to a result. Therefore the question is not at all whether there is a surplus of pleasure or of pain, but whether the will for pleasure is strong enough to overcome the pain.

A proof for the correctness of this statement is the fact that we put a higher value on pleasure when it has to be purchased at the price of great pain than when it falls into our lap like a gift from heaven. When suffering and misery have toned down our desire and yet after all our goal is reached, then the pleasure, in proportion to the amount of desire still left, is all the greater. Now, as I have shown, this proportion represents the value of the pleasure. A further proof is given through the fact that living creatures (including man) give expression to their instincts as long as they are able to bear the pain and misery involved.

The struggle for existence is but a consequence of this fact. All existing life strives to express itself, and only that part of it whose desires are smothered by the overwhelming weight of difficulties abandons the struggle. Every living creature seeks food until lack of food destroys its life. Man, too, does not turn his hand against himself until he believes, rightly or wrongly, that those aims in life that are worth his striving are beyond his reach. So long as he still believes in the possibility of reaching what, in his view, is worth striving for, he will battle against all misery and pain. Philosophy would first have to convince him that an act of will makes sense only when the pleasure is greater than the pain; for by nature he will strive for the objects of his desire if he can bear the necessary pain, however great it may be. But such a philosophy would be mistaken because it would make the human will dependent on a circumstance (the surplus of pleasure over pain) which is originally foreign to man. The original measure of his will is desire, and desire asserts itself as long as it can.

When it is a question of pleasure and pain in the satisfaction of a desire, the calculation that is made, not in philosophical theory, but in life, can be compared with the following. If in buying a certain quantity of apples I am obliged to take twice as many rotten ones as sound ones — because the seller wants to clear his stock — I shall not hesitate for one moment to accept the bad apples as well, if the smaller quantity of good ones are worth so much to me that in addition to their purchase price I am also prepared to bear the expense of disposing of the bad ones. This example illustrates the relation between the quantities of pleasure and pain resulting from an instinct. I determine the value of the good apples not by subtracting the total number of the good ones from that of the bad ones but by assessing whether the good ones still have value for me in spite of the presence of the bad ones.

Just as I leave the bad apples out of account in the enjoyment of the good ones, so I give myself up to the satisfaction of a desire after having shaken off the unavoidable pain.

Even if pessimism were right in its assertion that there is more pain then pleasure in the world, this would have no influence on the will, since living creatures would still strive after the pleasure that remains. The empirical proof that pain outweighs joy (if such proof could be given) would certainly be effective for showing up the futility of the school of philosophy that sees the value of life in a surplus of pleasure (eudaemonism) but not for showing that the will, as such, is irrational; for the will is not set upon a surplus of pleasure, but upon the amount of pleasure that remains after getting over the pain. This still appears as a goal worth striving for.

Some have tried to refute pessimism by stating that it is impossible to calculate the surplus of pleasure or of pain in the world. That any calculation can be done at all depends on whether the things to be calculated can be compared in respect of their magnitudes. Every pain and every pleasure has a definite magnitude (intensity and duration). Further, we can compare pleasurable feelings of different kinds one with another, at least approximately, with regard to their magnitudes. We know whether we derive more entertainment from a good cigar or from a good joke.

Therefore there can be no objection to comparing different sorts of pleasure and pain in respect of their magnitudes. And the investigator who sets himself the task of determining the surplus of pleasure or pain in the world starts from fully justified assumptions. One may declare the conclusions of pessimism to be false, but one cannot doubt that quantities of pleasure and pain can be scientifically estimated, and the balance of pleasure thereby determined. It is, however, quite wrong to claim that the result of this calculation has any consequences for the human will. The cases where we really make the value of our activity dependent on whether pleasure or pain shows a surplus are those where the objects towards which our activity is directed are all the same to us.

If it is only a question whether, after the day’s work, I am to amuse myself by a game or by light conversation, and if I am totally indifferent to what I do as long as it serves the purpose, then I simply ask myself: What gives me the greatest surplus of pleasure? And I shall most certainly abandon the activity if the scales incline towards the side of displeasure. If we are buying a toy for a child we consider, in selecting, what will give him the greatest happiness. In all other cases we do not base our decision exclusively on the balance of pleasure.

XIV. Individualität und Gattung

Der Ansicht, daß der Mensch zu einer vollständigen in sich geschlossenen, freien Individualität veranlagt ist, stehen scheinbar die Tatsachen entgegen, daß er als Glied innerhalb eines natürlichen Ganzen auftritt (Rasse, Stamm, Volk, Familie, männliches und weibliches Geschlecht), und daß er innerhalb eines Ganzen wirkt (Staat, Kirche und so weiter). Er trägt die allgemeinen Charaktereigentümlichkeiten der Gemeinschaft, der er angehört, und gibt seinem Handeln einen Inhalt, der durch den Platz, den er innerhalb einer Mehrheit einnimmt, bestimmt ist.

Ist dabei überhaupt noch Individualität möglich? Kann man den Menschen selbst als ein Ganzes für sich ansehen, wenn er aus einem Ganzen herauswächst, und in ein Ganzes sich eingliedert?

Das Glied eines Ganzen wird seinen Eigenschaften und Funktionen nach durch das Ganze bestimmt. Ein Volksstamm ist ein Ganzes, und alle zu ihm gehörigen Menschen tragen die Eigentümlichkeiten an sich, die im Wesen des Stammes bedingt sind. Wie der einzelne beschaffen ist und wie er sich betätigt, ist durch den Stammescharakter bedingt. Dadurch erhält die Physiognomie und das Tun des einzelnen etwas Gattungsmäßiges. Wenn wir nach dem Grunde fragen, warum dies und jenes an dem Menschen so oder so ist, so werden wir aus dem Einzelwesen hinaus auf die Gattung verwiesen. Diese erklärt es uns, warum etwas an ihm in der von uns beobachteten Form auftritt.

Von diesem Gattungsmäßigen macht sich aber der Mensch frei. Denn das menschlich Gattungsmäßige ist, vom Menschen richtig erlebt, nichts seine Freiheit Einschränkendes, und soll es auch nicht durch künstliche Veranstaltungen sein. Der Mensch entwickelt Eigenschaften und Funktionen an sich, deren Bestimmungsgrund wir nur in ihm selbst suchen können. Das Gattungsmäßige dient ihm dabei nur als Mittel, um seine besondere Wesenheit in ihm auszudrücken. Er gebraucht die ihm von der Natur mitgegebenen Eigentümlichkeiten als Grundlage und gibt ihm die seinem eigenen Wesen gemäße Form. Wir suchen nun vergebens den Grund für eine Äußerung dieses Wesens in den Gesetzen der Gattung. Wir haben es mit einem Individuum zu tun, das nur durch sich selbst erklärt werden kann. Ist ein Mensch bis zu dieser Loslösung von dem Gattungsmäßigen durchgedrungen, und wir wollen alles, was an ihm ist, auch dann noch aus dem Charakter der Gattung erklären, so haben wir für das Individuelle kein Organ.

Es ist unmöglich, einen Menschen ganz zu verstehen, wenn man seiner Beurteilung einen Gattungsbegriff zugrunde legt. Am hartnäckigsten im Beurteilen nach der Gattung ist man da, wo es sich um das Geschlecht des Menschen handelt. Der Mann sieht im Weibe, das Weib in dem Manne fast immer zuviel von dem allgemeinen Charakter des anderen Geschlechtes und zu wenig von dem Individuellen. Im praktischen Leben schadet das den Männern weniger als den Frauen. Die soziale Stellung der Frau ist zumeist deshalb eine so unwürdige, weil sie in vielen Punkten, wo sie es sein sollte, nicht bedingt ist durch die individuellen Eigentümlichkeiten der einzelnen Frau, sondern durch die allgemeinen Vorstellungen, die man sich von der natürlichen Aufgabe und den Bedürfnissen des Weibes macht. Die Betätigung des Mannes im Leben richtet sich nach dessen individuellen Fähigkeiten und Neigungen, die des Weibes soll ausschließlich durch den Umstand bedingt sein, daß es eben Weib ist. Das Weib soll der Sklave des Gattungsmäßigen, des Allgemein-Weiblichen sein. Solange von Männern darüber debattiert wird, ob die Frau «ihrer Naturanlage nach» zu diesem oder jenem Beruf tauge, solange kann die sogenannte Frauenfrage aus ihrem elementarsten Stadium nicht herauskommen. Was die Frau ihrer Natur nach wollen kann, das überlasse man der Frau zu beurteilen. Wenn es wahr ist, daß die Frauen nur zu dem Berufe taugen, der ihnen jetzt zukommt, dann werden sie aus sich selbst heraus kaum einen anderen erreichen. Sie müssen es aber selbst entscheiden können, was ihrer Natur gemäß ist. Wer eine Erschütterung unserer sozialen Zustände davon befürchtet, daß die Frauen nicht als Gattungsmenschen, sondern als Individuen genommen werden, dem muß entgegnet werden, daß soziale Zustände, innerhalb welcher die Hälfte der Menschheit ein menschenunwürdiges Dasein hat, eben der Verbesserung gar sehr bedürftig sind.

Wer die Menschen nach Gattungscharakteren beurteilt, der kommt eben gerade bis zu der Grenze, über welcher sie anfangen, Wesen zu sein, deren Betätigung auf freier Selbstbestimmung beruht. Was unterhalb dieser Grenze liegt, das kann natürlich Gegenstand wissenschaftlicher Betrachtung sein. Die Rassen-, Stammes-, Volks- und Geschlechtseigentümlichkeiten sind der Inhalt besonderer Wissenschaften.

Nur Menschen, die allein als Exemplare der Gattung leben wollten, könnten sich mit einem allgemeinen Bilde decken, das durch solche wissenschaftliche Betrachtung zustande kommt. Aber alle diese Wissenschaften können nicht vordringen bis zu dem besonderen Inhalt des einzelnen Individuums. Da, wo das Gebiet der Freiheit (des Denkens und Handelns) beginnt, hört das Bestimmen des Individuums nach Gesetzen der Gattung auf. Den begrifflichen Inhalt, den der Mensch durch das Denken mit der Wahrnehmung in Verbindung bringen muß, um der vollen Wirklichkeit sich zu bemächtigen, kann niemand ein für allemal festsetzen und der Menschheit fertig hinterlassen. Das Individuum muß seine Begriffe durch eigene Intuition gewinnen. Wie der einzelne zu denken hat, läßt sich nicht aus irgendeinem Gattungsbegriffe ableiten. Dafür ist einzig und allein das Individuum maßgebend. Ebensowenig ist aus allgemeinen Menschencharakteren zu bestimmen, welche konkrete Ziele das Individuum seinem Wollen vorsetzen will. Wer das einzelne Individuum verstehen will, muß bis in dessen besondere Wesenheit dringen, und nicht bei typischen Eigentümlichkeiten stehen bleiben. In diesem Sinne ist jeder einzelne Mensch ein Problem. Und alle Wissenschaft, die sich mit abstrakten Gedanken und Gattungsbegriffen befaßt, ist nur eine Vorbereitung zu jener Erkenntnis, die uns zuteil wird, wenn uns eine menschliche Individualität ihre Art, die Welt anzuschauen, mitteilt, und zu der anderen, die wir aus dem Inhalt ihres Wollens gewinnen. Wo wir die Empfindung haben: hier haben wir es mit demjenigen an einem Menschen zu tun, das frei ist von typischer Denkungsart und gattungsmäßigem Wollen, da müssen wir aufhören, irgendwelche Begriffe aus unserem Geiste zu Hilfe zu nehmen, wenn wir sein Wesen verstehen wollen. Das Erkennen besteht in der Verbindung des Begriffes mit der Wahrnehmung durch das Denken. Bei allen anderen Objekten muß der Beobachter die Begriffe durch seine Intuition gewinnen; beim Verstehen einer freien Individualität handelt es sich nur darum, deren Begriffe, nach denen sie sich ja selbst bestimmt, rein (ohne Vermischung mit eigenem Begriffsinhalt) herüberzunehmen in unseren Geist. Menschen, die in jede Beurteilung eines anderen sofort ihre eigenen Begriffe einmischen, können nie zu dem Verständnisse einer Individualität gelangen. So wie die freie Individualität sich frei macht von den Eigentümlichkeiten der Gattung, so muß das Erkennen sich frei machen von der Art, wie das Gattungsmäßige verstanden wird.

Nur in dem Grade, in dem der Mensch sich in der gekennzeichneten Weise frei gemacht hat vom Gattungsmäßigen, kommt er als freier Geist innerhalb eines menschlichen Gemeinwesens in Betracht. Kein Mensch ist vollständig Gattung, keiner ganz Individualität. Aber eine größere oder geringere Sphäre seines Wesens löst jeder Mensch allmählich ab, ebenso von dem Gattungsmäßigen des animalischen Lebens, wie von den ihn beherrschenden Geboten menschlicher Autoritäten.

Für den Teil, für den sich der Mensch aber eine solche Freiheit nicht erobern kann, bildet er ein Glied innerhalb des Natur- und Geistesorganismus. Er lebt in dieser Hinsicht, wie er es andern abguckt, oder wie sie es ihm befehlen. Einen im wahren Sinne ethischen Wert hat nur der Teil seines Handelns, der aus seinen Intuitionen entspringt. Und was er an moralischen Instinkten durch Vererbung sozialer Instinkte an sich hat, wird ein Ethisches dadurch, daß er es in seine Intuitionen aufnimmt. Aus individuellen ethischen Intuitionen und deren Aufnahme in Menschengemeinschaften entspringt alle sittliche Betätigung der Menschheit. Man kann auch sagen: das sittliche Leben der Menschheit ist die Gesamtsumme der moralischen Phantasieerzeugnisse der freien menschlichen Individuen. Dies ist das Ergebnis des Monismus.

XII. Die moralische Phantasie (Darwinismus und Sittlichkeit) – 2

Die hier vertretene Ansicht scheint in Widerspruch zustehen mit jener Grundlehre der modernen Naturwissenschaft, die man als Entwicklungstheorie bezeichnet. Aber sie scheint es nur. Unter Entwicklung wird verstanden das reale Hervorgehen des Späteren aus dem Früheren auf naturgesetzlichem Wege. Unter Entwicklung in der organischen Welt versteht man den Umstand, daß die späteren (vollkommeneren) organischen Formen reale Abkömmlinge der früheren (unvollkommenen) sind und auf naturgesetzliche Weise aus ihnen hervorgegangen sind. Die Bekenner der organischen Entwicklungstheorie müßten sich eigentlich vorstellen, daß es auf der Erde einmal eine Zeitepoche gegeben hat, wo ein Wesen das allmähliche Hervorgehen der Reptilien aus den Uramnioten mit Augen hätte verfolgen können, wenn es damals als Beobachter hätte dabei sein können und mit entsprechend langer Lebensdauer ausgestattet gewesen wäre. Ebenso müßten sich die Entwicklungstheoretiker vorstellen, daß ein Wesen das Hervorgehen des Sonnensystems aus dem Kant-Laplaceschen Urnebel hätte beobachten können, wenn es während der unendlich langen Zeit frei im Gebiet des Weltäthers sich an einem entsprechenden Orte hätte aufhalten können. Daß bei solcher Vorstellung sowohl die Wesenheit der Uramnioten wie auch die des Kant-Laplaceschen Weltnebels anders gedacht werden müßte als die materialistischen Denker dies tun, kommt hier nicht in Betracht. Keinem Entwicklungstheoretiker sollte es aber einfallen, zu behaupten, daß er aus seinem Begriffe des Uramniontieres den des Reptils mit allen seinen Eigenschaften herausholen kann, auch wenn er nie ein Reptil gesehen hat Ebensowenig sollte aus dem Begriff des Kant-Laplaceschen Urnebels das Sonnensystem abgeleitet werden, wenn dieser Begriff des Urnebels direkt nur an der Wahrnehmung des Urnebels bestimmt gedacht ist. Das heißt mit anderen Worten: der Entwicklungstheoretiker muß, wenn er konsequent denkt, behaupten, daß aus früheren Entwicklungsphasen spätere sich real ergeben, daß wir, wenn wir den Begriff des Unvollkommenen und den des Vollkommenen gegeben haben, den Zusammenhang einsehen können; keineswegs aber sollte er zugeben, daß der an dem Früheren erlangte Begriff hinreicht, um das Spätere daraus zu entwickeln. Daraus folgt für den Ethiker, daß er zwar den Zusammenhang späterer moralischer Begriffe mit früheren einsehen kann; aber nicht, daß auch nur eine einzige neue moralische Idee aus früheren geholt werden kann. Als moralisches Wesen produziert das Individuum seinen Inhalt. Dieser produzierte Inhalt ist für den Ethiker gerade so ein Gegebenes, wie für den Naturforscher die Reptilien ein Gegebenes sind. Die Reptilien sind aus den Uramnioten hervorgegangen; aber der Naturforscher kann aus dem Begriff der Uramnioten den der Reptilien nicht herausholen. Spätere moralische Ideen entwickeln sich aus früheren; der Ethiker kann aber aus den sittlichen Begriffen einer früheren Kulturperiode die der späteren nicht herausholen. Die Verwirrung wird dadurch hervorgerufen, daß wir als Naturforscher die Tatsachen bereits vor uns haben und hinterher sie erst erkennend betrachten; während wir beim sittlichen Handeln selbst erst die Tatsachen schaffen, die wir hinterher erkennen. Beim Entwicklungsprozeß der sittlichen Weltordnung verrichten wir das, was die Natur auf niedrigerer Stufe verrichtet: wir verändern ein Wahrnehmbares. Die ethische Norm kann also zunächst nicht wie ein Naturgesetz erkannt, sondern sie muß geschaffen werden. Erst wenn sie da ist, kann sie Gegenstand des Erkennens werden.

Aber können wir denn nicht das Neue an dem Alten messen? Wird nicht jeder Mensch gezwungen sein, das durch seine moralische Phantasie Produzierte an den hergebrachten sittlichen Lehren zu bemessen? Für dasjenige, was als sittlich Produktives sich offenbaren soll, ist das ein ebensolches Unding, wie es das andere wäre, wenn man eine neue Naturform an der alten bemessen wollte und sagte: weil die Reptilien mit den Uramnioten nicht übereinstimmen, sind sie eine unberechtigte (krankhafte) Form.

Der ethische Individualismus steht also nicht im Gegensatz zu einer recht verstandenen Entwickelungstheorie, sondern folgt direkt aus ihr. Der Haeckelsche Stammbaum von den Urtieren bis hinauf zum Menschen als organischem Wesen müßte sich ohne Unterbrechung der natürlichen Gesetzlichkeit und ohne eine Durchbrechung der einheitlichen Entwicklung heraufverfolgen lassen bis zu dem Individuum als einem im bestimmten Sinne sittlichen Wesen. Nirgends aber würde aus dem Wesen einer Vorfahrenart das Wesen einer nachfolgenden Art sich ableiten lassen. So wahr es aber ist, daß die sittlichen Ideen des Individuums wahrnehmbar aus denen seiner Vorfahren hervorgegangen sind, so wahr ist es auch, daß dasselbe sittlich unfruchtbar ist, wenn es nicht selbst moralische Ideen hat.

Derselbe ethische Individualismus, den ich auf Grund der vorangehenden Anschauungen entwickelt habe, würde sich auch aus der Entwicklungstheorie ableiten lassen. Die schließliche Überzeugung wäre dieselbe; nur der Weg ein anderer, auf dem sie erlangt ist.

Das Hervortreten völlig neuer sittlicher Ideen aus der moralischen Phantasie ist für die Entwickelungstheorie gerade so wenig wunderbar, wie das Hervorgehen einer neuen Tierart aus einer andern. Nur muß diese Theorie als monistische Weltanschauung im sittlichen Leben ebenso wie im natürlichen jeden bloß erschlossenen, nicht ideell erlebbaren jenseitigen (metaphysischen) Einfluß abweisen. Sie folgt dabei demselben Prinzip, das sie antreibt, wenn sie die Ursachen neuer organischer Formen sucht und dabei nicht auf das Eingreifen eines außerweltlichen Wesens sich beruft, das jede neue Art nach einem neuen Schöpfungsgedanken durch übernatürlichen Einfluß hervorruft. So wie der Monismus zur Erklärung des Lebewesens keinen übernatürlichen Schöpfungsgedanken brauchen kann, so ist es ihm auch unmöglich, die sittliche Weltordnung von Ursachen abzuleiten, die nicht innerhalb der erlebbaren Welt liegen. Er kann das Wesen eines Wollens als eines sittlichen nicht damit erschöpft finden, daß er es auf einen fortdauernden übernatürlichen Einfluß auf das sittliche Leben (göttliche Weltregierung von außen) zurückführt, oder auf eine zeitliche besondere Offenbarung (Erteilung der zehn Gebote) oder auf die Erscheinung Gottes auf der Erde (Christi). Was durch alles dieses geschieht an und in dem Menschen, wird erst zum Sittlichen, wenn es im menschlichen Erlebnis zu einem individuellen Eigenen wird. Die sittlichen Prozesse sind dem Monismus Weltprodukte wie alles andere Bestehende, und ihre Ursachen müssen in der Welt, das heißt, weil der Mensch der Träger der Sittlichkeit ist, im Menschen gesucht werden.

Der ethische Individualismus ist somit die Krönung des Gebäudes, das Darwin und Haeckel für die Naturwissenschaft erstrebt haben. Er ist vergeistigte Entwicklungslehre auf das sittliche Leben übertragen.

Wer dem Begriff des Natürlichen von vornherein in engherziger Weise ein willkürlich begrenztes Gebiet anweist, der kann dann leicht dazu kommen, für die freie individuelle Handlung keinen Raum darin zu finden. Der konsequent verfahrende Entwicklungstheoretiker kann in solche Engherzigkeit nicht verfallen. Er kann die natürliche Entwickelungsweise beim Affen nicht abschließen und dem Menschen einen «übernatürlichen» Ursprung zugestehen; er muß, auch indem er die natürlichen Vorfahren des Menschen sucht, in der Natur schon den Geist suchen; er kann auch bei den organischen Verrichtungen des Menschen nicht stehen bleiben und nur diese natürlich finden, sondern er muß auch das sittlich-freie Leben als geistige Fortsetzung des organischen ansehen.

Der Entwicklungstheoretiker kann, seiner Grundauffassung gemäß, nur behaupten, daß das gegenwärtige sittliche Handeln aus anderen Arten des Weltgeschehens hervorgeht; die Charakteristik des Handelns, das ist seine Bestimmung als eines freien, muß er der unmittelbaren Beobachtung des Handelns überlassen. Er behauptet ja auch nur, daß Menschen aus noch nicht menschlichen Vorfahren sich entwickelt haben. Wie die Menschen beschaffen sind, das muß durch Beobachtung dieser selbst festgestellt werden. Die Ergebnisse dieser Beobachtung können nicht in Widerspruch geraten mit einer richtig angesehenen Entwicklungsgeschichte. Nur die Behauptung, daß die Ergebnisse solche sind, die eine natürliche Weltordnung ausschließen, könnte nicht in Übereinstimmung mit der neueren Richtung der Naturwissenschaft gebracht werden.

Von einer sich selbst verstehenden Naturwissenschaft hat der ethische Individualismus nichts zu fürchten: die Beobachtung ergibt als Charakteristikum der vollkommenen Form des menschlichen Handelns die Freiheit. Diese Freiheit muß dem menschlichen Wollen zugesprochen werden, insoferne dieses rein ideelle Intuitionen verwirklicht. Denn diese sind nicht Ergebnisse einer von außen auf sie wirkenden Notwendigkeit, sondern ein auf sich selbst Stehendes. Findet der Mensch, daß eine Handlung das Abbild einer solchen ideellen Intuition ist, so empfindet er sie als eine freie. In diesem Kennzeichen einer Handlung liegt die Freiheit.

Wie steht es nun, von diesem Standpunkte aus, mit der bereits oben erwähnten Unterscheidung zwischen den beiden Sätzen: «Frei sein heißt tun können, was man will, und dem andern: «nach Belieben begehren können und nicht begehren können sei der eigentliche Sinn des Dogmas vom freien Willen»? Hamerling begründet gerade seine Ansicht vom freien Willen auf diese Unterscheidung, indem er das erste für richtig, das zweite für eine absurde Tautologie erklärt. Er sagt «Ich kann tun, was ich will. Aber zu sagen: ich kann wollen, was ich will, ist eine leere Tautologie, Ob ich tun, das heißt, in Wirklichkeit umsetzen kann, was ich will, was ich mir also als Idee meines Tuns vorgesetzt habe, das hängt von äußeren Umständen und von meiner technischen Geschicklichkeit ab. Frei sein heißt die dem Handeln zugrunde liegenden Vorstellungen (Beweggründe) durch die moralische Phantasie von sich aus bestimmen können. Freiheit ist unmöglich, wenn etwas außer mir (mechanischer Prozeß oder nur erschlossener außerweltlicher Gott) meine moralischen Vorstellungen bestimmt. Ich bin also nur dann frei, wenn ich selbst diese Vorstellungen produziere, nicht, wenn ich die Beweggründe, die ein anderes Wesen in mich gesetzt hat, ausführen kann. Ein freies Wesen ist dasjenige, welches wollen kann, was es selbst für richtig hält. Wer etwas anderes tut, als er will, der muß zu diesem anderen durch Motive getrieben werden, die nicht in ihm liegen. Ein solcher handelt unfrei. Nach Belieben wollen können, was man für richtig oder nicht richtig hält, heißt also: nach Belieben frei oder unfrei sein können. Das ist natürlich ebenso absurd, wie die Freiheit in dem Vermögen zu sehen, tun zu können, was man wollen muß. Das letztere aber behauptet Hamerling, wenn er sagt Es ist vollkommen wahr, daß der Wille immer durch Beweggründe bestimmt wird, aber es ist absurd zu sagen, daß er deshalb unfrei sei; denn eine größere Freiheit läßt sich für ihn weder wünschen noch denken, als die, sich nach Maßgabe seiner eigenen Stärke und Entschiedenheit zu verwirklichen. – Jawohl: es läßt sich eine größere Freiheit wünschen, und das ist erst die wahre. Nämlich die: sich die Gründe seines Wollens selbst zu bestimmen. Von der Ausführung dessen abzusehen, was er will, dazu läßt sich der Mensch unter Umständen bewegen. Sich vorschreiben zu lassen, was er tun soll, das ist, zu wollen, was ein andrer und nicht er für richtig hält, dazu ist er nur zu haben, insofern er sich nicht frei fühlt.

Die äußeren Gewalten können mich hindern, zu tun, was ich will. Dann verdammen sie mich einfach zum Nichtstun oder zur Unfreiheit. Erst wenn sie meinen Geist knechten und mir meine Beweggründe aus dem Kopfe jagen und an deren Stelle die ihrigen setzen wollen, dann beabsichtigen sie meine Unfreiheit. Die Kirche wendet sich daher nicht bloß gegen das Tu, sondern namentlich gegen die unreinen Gedanken, das ist: die Beweggründe meines Handelns. Unfrei macht sie mich, wenn ihr alle Beweggründe, die sie nicht angibt, als unrein erscheinen. Eine Kirche oder eine andere Gemeinschaft erzeugt dann Unfreiheit, wenn ihre Priester oder Lehrer sich zu Gewissensgebietern machen, das ist, wenn die Gläubigen sich von ihnen (aus dem Beichtstuhle) die Beweggründe ihres Handelns holen müssen.

Zusatz zur Neuausgabe (1918):
In diesen Ausführungen über das menschliche Wollen ist dargestellt, was der Mensch an seinen Handlungen erleben kann, um durch dieses Erlebnis zu dem Bewußtsein zu kommen: mein Wollen ist frei. Von besonderer Bedeutung ist, daß die Berechtigung, ein Wollen als frei zu bezeichnen, durch das Erlebnis erreicht wird: in dem Wollen verwirklicht sich eine ideelle Intuition. Dies kann nur Beobachtungsresultat sein, ist es aber in dem Sinne, in dem das menschliche Wollen sich in einer Entwickelungsströmung beobachtet, deren Ziel darin liegt, solche von rein ideeller Intuition getragene Möglichkeit des Wollens zu erreichen. Sie kann erreicht werden, weil in der ideellen Intuition nichts als deren eigene auf sich gebaute Wesenheit wirkt. Ist eine solche

Intuition im menschlichen Bewußtsein anwesend, dann ist sie nicht aus den Vorgängen des Organismus heraus entwickelt, sondern die organische Tätigkeit hat sich zurückgezogen, um der ideellen Platz zu machen. Beobachte ich ein Wollen, das Abbild der Intuition ist, dann ist auch aus diesem Wollen die organisch notwendige Tätigkeit zurückgezogen. Das Wollen ist frei. Diese Freiheit des Wollens wird der nicht beobachten können, der nicht zu schauen vermag, wie das freie Wollen darin besteht, daß erst durch das intuitive Element das notwendige Wirken des menschlichen Organismus abgelähmt, zurückgedrängt, und an seine stelle die geistige Tätigkeit des idee-erfüllten Willens gesetzt wird. Nur wer diese Beobachtung der Zweigliedrigkeit eines freien Wollens nicht machen kann, glaubt an die Unfreiheit jedes Wollens. Wer sie machen kann, ringt sich zu der Einsicht durch, daß der Mensch, insofern er den Zurückdämmungsvorgang der organischen Tätigkeit nicht zu Ende führen kann, unfrei ist; daß aber diese Unfreiheit der Freiheit zustrebt, und diese Freiheit keineswegs ein abstraktes Ideal ist, sondern eine in der menschlichen Wesenheit liegende Richtkraft. Frei ist der Mensch in dem Maße, als er in seinem Wollen dieselbe Seelenstimmung verwirklichen kann, die in ihm lebt, wenn er sich der Ausgestaltung rein ideeller (geistiger) Intuitionen bewußt ist.

Anmerkungen:
(1) Nur Oberflächlichkeit könnte im Gebrauch des Wortes Vermögen an dieser und andern Stellen dieser Schrift einen Rückfall in die Lehre der alten Psychologie von den Seelenvermögen erblicken. Der Zusammenhang mit dem S. 95 f. Gesagten ergibt genau die Bedeutung des Wortes. (2) Wenn Paulsen (S. 15 des angeführten Buches) sagt «Verschiedene Naturanlagen und Lebensbedingungen erfordern wie eine verschiedene leibliche so auch eine verschiedene geistigmoralische Diät», so ist er der richtigen Erkenntnis ganz nahe, trifft aber den entscheidenden Punkt doch nicht. Insofern ich Individuum bin, brauche ich keine Diät. Diätetik heißt die Kunst, das besondere Exemplar mit den allgemeinen Gesetzen der Gattung in Einklang zu bringen. Als Individuum bin ich aber kein Exemplar der Gattung.

Daß wir Gedanken (ethische Ideen) als Objekte der Beobachtung bezeichnen, geschieht mit Recht. Denn wenn auch die Gebilde des Denkens während der gedanklichen Tätigkeit nicht mit ins Beobachtungsfeld eintreten, so können sie doch nachher Gegenstand der Beobachtung werden. Und auf diesem Wege haben wir unsere Charakteristik des Handelns gewonnen.

XII. Die moralische Phantasie (Darwinismus und Sittlichkeit) – 1

Der freie Geist handelt nach seinen Impulsen, das sind Intuitionen, die aus dem Ganzen seiner Ideenwelt durch das Denken ausgewählt sind. Für den unfreien Geist liegt der Grund, warum er aus seiner Ideenwelt eine bestimmte Intuition aussondert, um sie einer Handlung zugrunde zu legen, in der ihm gegebenen Wahrnehmungswelt, das heißt in seinen bisherigen Erlebnissen. Er erinnert sich, bevor er zu einem Entschluß kommt, daran, was jemand in einem dem seinigen analogen Falle getan oder zu tun für gut geheißen hat, oder was Gott für diesen Fall befohlen hat und so weiter, und danach handelt er. Dem freien Geist sind diese Vorbedingungen nicht einzige Antriebe des Handelns. Er faßt einen schlechthin ersten Entschluß. Es kümmert ihn dabei ebensowenig, was andere in diesem Falle getan, noch was sie dafür befohlen haben. Er hat rein ideelle Gründe, die ihn bewegen, aus der Summe seiner Begriffe gerade einen bestimmten herauszuheben und ihn in Handlung umzusetzen. Seine Handlung wird aber der wahrnehmbaren Wirklichkeit angehören. Was er vollbringt, wird also mit einem ganz bestimmten Wahrnehmungsinhalte identisch sein. Der Begriff wird sich in einem konkreten Einzelgeschehnis zu verwirklichen haben. Er wird als Begriff diesen Einzelfall nicht enthalten können. Er wird sich darauf nur in der Art beziehen können, wie überhaupt ein Begriff sich auf eine Wahrnehmung bezieht, zum Beispiel wie der Begriff des Löwen auf einen einzelnen Löwen. Das Mittelglied zwischen Begriff und Wahrnehmung ist die Vorstellung. Dem unfreien Geist ist dieses Mittelglied von vornherein gegeben. Die Motive sind von vornherein als Vorstellungen in seinem Bewußtsein vorhanden. Wenn er etwas ausführen will, so macht er das so, wie er es gesehen hat, oder wie es ihm für den einzelnen Fall befohlen wird. Die Autorität wirkt daher am besten durch Beispiele, das heißt durch Überlieferung ganz bestimmter Einzelhandlungen an das Bewußtsein des unfreien Geistes. Der Christ handelt weniger nach den Lehren als nach dem Vorbilde des Erlösers. Regeln haben für das positive Handeln weniger Wert als für das Unterlassen bestimmter Handlungen. Gesetze treten nur dann in die allgemeine Begriffsform, wenn sie Handlungen verbieten, nicht aber wenn sie sie zu tun gebieten. Gesetze über das, was er tun soll, müssen dem unfreien Geiste in ganz konkreter Form gegeben werden: Reinige die Straße vor deinem Haustore! Zahle deine Steuern in dieser bestimmten Höhe bei dem Steueramte X! und so weiter. Begriffsform haben die Gesetze zur Verhinderung von Handlungen: Du sollst nicht stehlen! Du sollst nicht ehebrechen! Diese Gesetze wirken auf den unfreien Geist aber auch nur durch den Hinweis auf eine konkrete Vorstellung, zum Beispiel die der entsprechenden zeitlichen Strafen, oder der Gewissensqual, oder der ewigen Verdammnis, und so weiter.

Sobald der Antrieb zu einer Handlung in der allgemein-begrifflichen Form vorhanden ist (zum Beispiel: du sollst deinen Mitmenschen Gutes tun! du sollst so leben, daß du dein Wohlsein am besten beförderst!), dann muß in jedem einzelnen Fall die konkrete Vorstellung des Handelns (die Beziehung des Begriffes auf einen Wahrnehmungsinhalt) erst gefunden werden. Bei dem freien Geiste, den kein Vorbild und keine Furcht vor Strafe usw. treibt, ist diese Umsetzung des Begriffes in die Vorstellung immer notwendig.

Konkrete Vorstellungen aus der Summe seiner Ideen heraus produziert der Mensch zunächst durch die Phantasie. Was der freie Geist nötig hat, um seine Ideen zu verwirklichen, um sich durchzusetzen, ist also die moralische Phantasie. Sie ist die Quelle für das Handeln des freien Geistes. Deshalb sind auch nur Menschen mit moralischer Phantasie eigentlich sittlich produktiv. Die bloßen Moralprediger, das ist: die Leute, die sittliche Regeln ausspinnen, ohne sie zu konkreten Vorstellungen verdichten zu können, sind moralisch unproduktiv. Sie gleichen den Kritikern, die verständig auseinanderzusetzen wissen, wie ein Kunstwerk beschaffen sein soll, selbst aber auch nicht das geringste zustande bringen können.

Die moralische Phantasie muß, um ihre Vorstellung zu verwirklichen, in ein bestimmtes Gebiet von Wahrnehmungen eingreifen. Die Handlung des Menschen schafft keine Wahrnehmungen, sondern prägt die Wahrnehmungen, die bereits vorhanden sind, um, erteilt ihnen eine neue Gestalt. Um ein bestimmtes Wahrnehmungsobjekt oder eine Summe von solchen, einer moralischen Vorstellung gemäß, umbilden zu können, muß man den gesetzmäßigen Inhalt (die bisherige Wirkungsweise, die man neu gestalten oder der man eine neue Richtung geben will) dieses Wahrnehmungsbildes begriffen haben.

Man muß ferner den Modus finden, nach dem sich diese Gesetzmäßigkeit in eine neue verwandeln läßt. Dieser Teil der moralischen Wirksamkeit beruht auf Kenntnis der Erscheinungswelt, mit der man es zu tun hat. Er ist also zu suchen in einem Zweige der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis überhaupt. Das moralische Handeln setzt also voraus neben dem moralischen Ideenvermögen (1) und der moralischen Phantasie die Fähigkeit, die Welt der Wahrnehmungen umzuformen, ohne ihren naturgesetzlichen Zusammenhang zu durchbrechen. Diese Fähigkeit ist moralische Technik. Sie ist in dem Sinne lernbar, wie Wissenschaft überhaupt lernbar ist. Im allgemeinen sind Menschen nämlich geeigneter, die Begriffe für die schon fertige Welt zu finden, als produktiv aus der Phantasie die noch nicht vorhandenen zukünftigen Handlungen zu bestimmen. Deshalb ist es sehr wohl möglich, daß Menschen ohne moralische Phantasie die moralischen Vorstellungen von andern empfangen und diese geschickt der Wirklichkeit einprägen. Auch der umgekehrte Fall kann vorkommen, daß Menschen mit moralischer Phantasie ohne die technische Geschicklichkeit sind und sich dann anderer Menschen zur Verwirklichung ihrer Vorstellungen bedienen müssen.

Insofern zum moralischen Handeln die Kenntnis der Objekte unseres Handelnsgebietes notwendig ist, beruht unser Handeln auf dieser Kenntnis. Was hier in Betracht kommt, sind Naturgesetze. Wir haben es mit Naturwissenschaft zu tun, nicht mit Ethik.

Die moralische Phantasie und das moralische Ideenvermögen können erst Gegenstand des Wissens werden, nachdem sie vom Individuum produziert sind. Dann aber regeln sie nicht mehr das Leben, sondern haben es bereits geregelt. Sie sind als wirkende Ursachen wie alle andern aufzufassen (Zwecke sind sie bloß für das Subjekt). Wir beschäftigen uns mit ihnen als mit einer Naturlehre der moralischen Vorstellungen.

Eine Ethik als Normwissenschaft kann es daneben nicht geben.

Man hat den normativen Charakter der moralischen Gesetze wenigstens insofern halten wollen, daß man die Ethik im Sinne der Diätetik auffaßte, welche aus den Lebensbedingungen des Organismus allgemeine Regeln ableitet, um auf Grund derselben dann den Körper im besonderen zu beeinflussen (Paulsen, System der Ethik). Dieser Vergleich ist falsch, weil unser moralisches Leben sich nicht mit dem Leben des Organismus vergleichen läßt. Die Wirksamkeit des Organismus ist ohne unser Zutun da; wir finden dessen Gesetze in der Welt fertig vor, können sie also suchen, und dann die gefundenen anwenden. Die moralischen Gesetze werden aber von uns erst geschaffen. Wir können sie nicht anwenden, bevor sie geschaffen sind. Der Irrtum entsteht dadurch, daß die moralischen Gesetze nicht in jedem Momente inhaltlich neu geschaffen werden, sondern sich forterben. Die von den Vorfahren übernommenen erscheinen dann gegeben wie die Naturgesetze des Organismus. Sie werden aber durchaus nicht mit demselben Rechte von einer späteren Generation wie diätetische Regeln angewendet. Denn sie gehen auf das Individuum und nicht wie das Naturgesetz auf das Exemplar einer Gattung. Als Organismus bin ich ein solches Gattungsexemplar, und ich werde naturgemäß leben, wenn ich die Naturgesetze der Gattung in meinem besonderen Falle anwende; als sittliches Wesen bin ich Individuum und habe meine ganz eigenen Gesetze.

12 – Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Morality) – 1

A free spirit acts according to his impulses, that is, according to intuitions selected from the totality of his world of ideas by thinking. For an unfree spirit, the reason why he singles out a particular intuition from his world of ideas in order to make it the basis of an action, lies in the world of percepts given to him, that is, in his past experiences. He recalls, before coming to a decision, what someone else has done or recommended as suitable in a comparable case, or what God has commanded to be done in such a case, and so on, and he acts accordingly.

For a free spirit, these prior conditions are not the only impulses to action. He makes a completely firsthand decision. What others have done in such a case worries him as little as what they have decreed. He has purely ideal reasons which lead him to select from the sum of his concepts just one in particular, and then to translate it into action. But his action will belong to perceptible reality.

What he achieves will thus be identical with a quite definite content of perception. The concept will have to realise itself in a single concrete occurrence. As a concept it will not be able to contain this particular event. It will refer to the event only in the same way as a concept is in general related to a percept, for example, the concept of the lion to a particular lion. The link between concept and percept is the mental picture (see Chapter 6). For the unfree spirit, this link is given from the outset.

Motives are present in his consciousness from the outset in the form of mental pictures. Whenever there is something he wants to carry out, he does it as he has seen it done, or as he has been told to do it in the particular case. Hence authority works best through examples, that is, through providing quite definite particular actions for the consciousness of the unfree spirit. A Christian acts not so much according to the teaching as according to the example of the Saviour. Rules have less value for acting positively than for refraining from certain actions. Laws take on the form of general concepts only when they forbid actions, but not when they prescribe them.

Laws concerning what he ought to do must be given to the unfree spirit in quite concrete form: Clean the street in front of your door! Pay your taxes, amounting to the sum here given, to the Tax Office at X! and so on. Conceptual form belongs to laws for inhibiting actions: Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not commit adultery! These laws, too, influence the unfree spirit only by means of a concrete mental picture, for example, that of the appropriate secular punishment, or the pangs of conscience, or eternal damnation, and so on.

Whenever the impulse for an action is present in a general conceptual form (for example, Thou shalt do good to thy fellow men! Thou shalt live so that thou best promotest thy welfare!) then for each particular case the concrete mental picture of the action (the relation of the concept to a content of perception) must first be found. For the free spirit who is impelled by no example, nor fear of punishment or the like, this translation of the concept into a mental picture is always necessary.

Man produces concrete mental pictures from the sum of his ideas chiefly by means of the imagination. Therefore what the free spirit needs in order to realise his ideas, in order to be effective, is moral imagination. This is the source of the free spirit’s action. Therefore it is only men with moral imagination who are, strictly speaking, morally productive. Those who merely preach morality, that is, people who merely spin out moral rules without being able to condense them into concrete mental pictures, are morally unproductive. They are like those critics who can explain very intelligibly what a work of art ought to be like, but who are themselves incapable of even the slightest productive effort.

Moral imagination, in order to realise its mental picture, must set to work in a definite sphere of percepts. Human action does not create percepts, but transforms already existing percepts and gives them a new form. In order to be able to transform a definite object of perception, or a sum of such objects, in accordance with a moral mental picture, one must have grasped the principle at work within the percept picture, that is, the way it has hitherto worked, to which one wants to give a new form or a new direction. Further, it is necessary to discover the procedure by which it is possible to change the given principle into a new one.

This part of effective moral activity depends on knowledge of the particular world of phenomena with which one is concerned. We shall, therefore, look for it in some branch of learning in general. Moral action, then, presupposes, in addition to the faculty of having moral ideas (moral intuition) and moral imagination, the ability to transform the world of percepts without violating the natural laws by which these are connected. This ability is moral technique. It can be learnt in the same sense in which any kind of knowledge can be learnt. Generally speaking, men are better able to find concepts for the existing world than to evolve productively, out of their imagination, the not-yet-existing actions of the future. Hence it is perfectly possible for men without moral imagination to receive such mental pictures from others, and to embody them skillfully into the actual world. Conversely, it may happen that men with moral imagination lack technical skill, and must make use of other men for the realisation of their mental pictures.

In so far as knowledge of the objects within our sphere of action is necessary for acting morally, our action depends upon such knowledge. What we are concerned with here are laws of nature. We are dealing with natural science, not ethics.

Moral imagination and the faculty of having moral ideas can become objects of knowledge only after they have been produced by the individual. By then, however, they no longer regulate life, for they have already regulated it. They must now be regarded as effective causes, like all others (they are purposes only for the subject). We therefore deal with them as with a natural history of moral ideas.

Ethics as a science that sets standards, in addition to this, cannot exist.

Some people have wanted to maintain the standard-setting character of moral laws, at least in so far as they have understood ethics in the sense of dietetics, which deduces general rules from the organism’s requirements in life as a basis for influencing the body in a particular way (e.g., Paulsen, in his System der Ethik). This comparison is false, because our moral life is not comparable with the life of the organism.

The functioning of the organism occurs without any action on our part; we come upon its laws in the world ready-made and can therefore seek them and apply them when found. Moral laws, on the other hand, are first created by us. We cannot apply them until we have created them. The error arises through the fact that, as regards their content, moral laws are not newly created at every moment, but are inherited.

Those that we have taken over from our ancestors appear to be given, like the natural laws of the organism. But a later generation will certainly not be justified in applying them as if they were dietetic rules. For they apply to individuals and not, as natural laws do, to specimens of a general type. Considered as an organism, I am such a generic specimen and I shall live in accordance with nature if I apply the natural laws of my general type to my particular case; as a moral being, I am an individual and have laws of my very own.

12. Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Ethics) – 2

The view presented here seems to contradict the fundamental teaching of modern natural science known as the theory of evolution. But it only seems to be so. People understand evolution to mean the real development, according to natural laws, of what is later from what was earlier. People understand evolution in the organic world to mean that later (more perfect) organic forms are real descendants of earlier (more imperfect) forms and developed from them according to natural laws. Adherents of the theory of organic evolution must actually imagine that there was once a time on earth when a being—if it were present as an observer endowed with a sufficiently long lifespan—could have followed with its own eyes the gradual development of reptiles from proto-amniotes. In the same way, evolutionists imagine that a being—if it could have remained in an appropriate spot in the world ether during that infinitely long time—could have observed the development of the solar system out of the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula. In order to picture things in this way, however, the nature of the proto-amniotes, like the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula, would have to be thought of differently than materialists think of them. But that is irrelevant here.

Evolutionists could never claim that, without having ever seen a reptile, they could derive the concept of reptiles, with all of their features, from the concept of proto amniotes. Nor can the solar system be derived from the concept of the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula, if that concept is understood to be directly determined only by the percept of the primordial nebula. In other words, if they think consistently, evolutionists must assert that later phases of evolution really follow from earlier ones, and that if we have the concept of the imperfect and that of the perfect given to us, we will be able to see the connection. But on no account can evolutionists affirm that the concept attained from the earlier is sufficient to develop the concept of the later from it. It follows that, while ethicists can certainly see the connection between earlier and later moral concepts, not even a single new moral idea can be drawn forth from earlier ones. As moral beings, individuals produce their own content. For an ethicist, this content is just as much a given as reptiles are a given for the natural scientist. Reptiles developed from proto-amniotes, but natural scientists cannot get the concept of reptiles from out of the concept of proto-amniotes. Later moral ideas develop from earlier ones, but ethicists cannot draw forth the ethical concepts of later cultural epochs from those of earlier epochs.

The confusion arises because as natural scientists we already have the facts before us and afterward investigate them cognitively, while for ethical action we must ourselves first create the facts that we cognize afterward. In the evolutionary process of the ethical world order, we accomplish something that, on a lower level, is accomplished by nature: we alter something perceptible. Thus, initially, the ethical norm cannot be cognized like a natural law; rather, it must be created. Only once it is present can it become the object of cognition.

But can we not measure the new against the old? Are not all of us forced to measure what we produce by our moral imagination against received ethical teachings? If we are to be ethically productive, this is as absurd as if we were to measure a new natural form against an old one and say: reptiles are an unjustifiable (pathological) form because they do not match proto-amniotes.

Thus, ethical individualism does not contradict a theory of evolution when it is properly understood, but follows directly from it. Haeckel’s genealogical tree, running from protozoa to human beings as organic beings, ought to be traceable—without interrupting natural law or breaking the uniformity of evolution—right up to the individual as an ethical being in a specific sense.

But nowhere could we derive the nature of a subsequent species from the nature of an ancestral species. It is true that an individual’s ethical ideas evolve from those of his or her predecessors, but it is equally true that individuals are ethically sterile if they lack moral ideas of their own.

The same ethical individualism that I have developed on the basis of the preceding views could also be derived from the theory of evolution. The final conviction would be the same. Only the path by which it was attained would be different.

To the theory of evolution, the emergence of completely new ethical ideas from moral imagination is no more amazing than the development of a new animal species from an old one. But, as a monistic worldview, evolutionary theory must reject—in ethics, as in science—every merely inferred, otherworldly (metaphysical) influence that cannot be experienced conceptually. In so doing, it is following the same principle as when it seeks causes of new organic forms without appeal to the interference of an otherworldly being who—by supernatural influence— summons each new species according to a new creative thought. Just as monism cannot employ supernatural creative thoughts to explain living creatures, so likewise it cannot derive the ethical order of the world from causes lying outside the experienceable world. For monism, the moral essence of someone’s will is never fully explained

Out of this he formulated a philosophy of monism. In the early twentieth century, this monism took a quasi-religious form in Germany and meetings of monists were held throughout the country. by tracing it back to some continuous supernatural influence on ethical life (divine world rule from without), to a specific temporal revelation (transmission of the ten commandments), or to the appearance of God on earth (Christ). What happens in a human being and to a human being by means of these becomes ethical only if is appropriated in human experience by individuals who make it their own. For monism, ethical processes are products of the world like everything else that exists, and their causes must be sought in the world—that is to say, in human beings, because humans are the bearers of morality.

Thus, ethical individualism becomes the pinnacle of the edifice that Darwin and Haeckel sought to build for natural science. It is spiritualized evolutionary theory, transferred to moral life.

Those who narrow-mindedly confine the concept of what is natural to an arbitrarily limited region easily reach the point of not being able to find any room there for free individual action. Consistent, systematic evolutionists cannot fall into any such narrowmindedness. They cannot close the natural path of evolution with the apes, and then give humanity a “supernatural” origin. Evolutionists must seek the spirit, too, in nature, even in the search for natural human ancestors. They cannot stop at human organic processes, finding those alone to be natural. They must also regard the morally free life as a spiritual continuation of organic life.

According to their fundamental principles, theorists of evolution can claim only that present ethical behavior follows from other kinds of occurrences in the world. To characterize an action—for instance, to define it as free— must be left to immediate observation of the action itself. After all, evolutionists also claim only that humans evolved from nonhuman ancestors. What humans are actually like must be ascertained through observation of human beings themselves. The results of such observation cannot come into conflict with a properly understood history of evolution. Only the claim that these results were such as to preclude a natural world order could not be aligned with the current trend of natural science.

Ethical individualism has nothing to fear from a natural science that understands itself: observation shows that freedom is characteristic of the perfected form of human action. This freedom must be ascribed to the human will insofar as the will realizes pure conceptual intuitions. For these intuitions do not result from necessity working upon them from without; they are self-sustaining. We feel the action to be free when we find that it is the image of such an ideal intuition. The freedom of an action lies in this characteristic.

From this standpoint, what can be said about the distinction made in Chapter One between the two sentences “To be free means to be able to do what one wills” and “The real meaning of the dogma of free will is to be able to desire or not desire as one pleases”? Hamerling based his view of free will precisely on this distinction, describing the first of these as correct and the second as an absurd tautology. He says, “I can do what I will. But to say that I can will what I will is an empty tautology.” Whether I do—transform into reality—what I will—that is, what I have intended as the idea of my action—depends on outer circumstances and on my technical skill (cf. p.182). To be free means: to be able—on my own, through moral imagination—to determine the mental pictures (motives) underlying an action. Freedom is impossible if something outside myself (whether a mechanical process or a merely inferred, otherworldly God) determines my moral mental pictures. Therefore, I am free only when I produce these mental pictures myself, not merely when I can carry out motives that another has placed within me. Free beings are those who can will what they themselves hold to be right. Those who do something other than what they want must be driven to it through motives that do not lie within them. They are acting unfreely. To choose to will or want what I consider right or not right therefore means to choose to be free or unfree. But this, naturally, is just as absurd as to see freedom in the capacity to do what one has to will. Yet this is exactly what Hamerling claims when he says that it is perfectly clear that the will is always determined by motives, but it is absurd to say that it is therefore unfree; for we can neither wish for, nor think of, a greater freedom of the will than for it to realize itself according to its own strength and determination.

But we can wish for a greater freedom, and only then is it true freedom: namely, to determine for ourselves the motive of our will.

Under certain circumstances, we can be induced to refrain from what we want to do. To allow ourselves to be told what we ought to do, that is, to want what others, and not we ourselves, consider to be right—to this we submit only to the extent that we do not feel free.

Outer forces can prevent me from doing what I will. In that case, they simply condemn me to inaction or to unfreedom. Only if they subjugate my spirit, drive my motives from my head, and replace them with their own— only then do they really intend to make me unfree. This is why the Church is not merely against actions, but particularly against impure thoughts, the motives for my actions. The Church makes me unfree when it sees as impure all motives it has not itself decreed. A church or any other community creates unfreedom when its priests or teachers turn themselves into keepers of conscience, so that the faithful (in the confessional) must take the motives for their actions from them.

Addendum to the new edition (1918)
This discussion of human will shows what human beings can experience in their actions so that, through this experience, they arrive at the awareness: “My will is free.” It is especially significant that the justification for calling a will “free” comes from the experience that a conceptual intuition realizes itself in the will. This can result only from observation; and it does so only when human willing observes itself in a stream of development whose aim is precisely to make possible willing carried by purely conceptual intuition. This is achievable because in conceptual intuition nothing but its own self-based essence is at work. Whenever such an intuition is present in human consciousness, it has not developed from the processes of the organism. Rather, organic activity has withdrawn to make room for conceptual activity. If I observe willing that is the image of an intuition, then all organically necessary activity has withdrawn from that willing. The will is free. Such freedom of will cannot be observed by someone unable to see that free willing consists in the fact that the necessary activity of the human organism is first numbed and suppressed by the intuitive element, and then replaced by the spiritual activity of the idea-filled will. Only someone who cannot make this observation of the twofold nature of a free act of will believes that all willing is unfree. Anyone who can make the observation struggles through to the insight that human beings are unfree to the extent that they cannot complete the process of restraining the organic activity; but that such unfreedom strives toward freedom, which is in no way an abstract ideal, but a guiding power inherent in human nature. Human beings are free to the extent that they can realize, in their willing, the same mood of soul that lives in them when they are conscious of forming purely conceptual (spiritual) intuitions.

12. Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Ethics) – 1

Free spirits act out of their impulses – that is, from intuitions chosen by thinking from the totality of their world of ideas. The reason that unfree spirits separate particular intuitions from their world of ideas, to make them the basis of an action, lies in what the perceptual world has given them—that is, in their previous experiences. Before coming to a decision, unfree spirits remember what someone did, or recommended, or what God commanded in such a case, and so forth. Then they act accordingly. Free spirits have other sources of action than these preconditions. They make absolutely original decisions. They worry neither about what others have done in their situation, nor about what they have been commanded to do. Purely conceptual reasons move them to select a particular concept from the sum of their concepts and translate it into action. Their action, however, belongs to perceptible reality. What they perform there will thus be identical to a quite specific perceptual content. The concept will have to realize itself in a concrete, individual event. But, as a concept, it cannot contain that event. It can relate to it only as any concept relates to a percept— for example, as the concept of “lion” relates to an individual lion.

The link mediating between a concept and a percept is the mental picture. For an unfree spirit, this link is given in advance—motives are present in advance as mental pictures in consciousness. When unfree spirits want to do something, they do it as they have seen it done, or as they have been told to do in this particular case. Authority, therefore, works best through examples, that is, through the transmission of quite specific, individual acts to the consciousness of unfree spirits. A Christian acts less in accordance with the teachings than with the model of the Redeemer. With regard to positive action, rules have less value than they do for the restraint of particular actions. Only when they forbid actions, and not when they command them to be done, do laws take on universal conceptual form. Laws concerning what unfree spirits should do must be given to them in quite concrete form: Clean the street in front of your doorway! Pay your taxes at just this rate at tax office X! and so forth. The laws forbidding actions take the conceptual form: Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not commit adultery! But these laws, too, affect unfree spirits only by their appeal to concrete mental pictures, such as that of the corresponding secular punishment, torments of conscience, eternal damnation, and so forth.

As soon as an impulse to action is present in the form of a general concept—for example, thou shalt do good to thy neighbor, or thou shalt live so as best to further thy wellbeing – then a concrete mental picture of the action (the relation of the concept to a perceptual content) must first be found in each individual case. This translation of concept into mental picture is always necessary for a free spirit, who is driven neither by a model nor by fear of punishment.

Imagination is the chief means by which human beings produce concrete mental pictures from the sum of their ideas. Free spirits need moral imagination to realize their ideas and make them effective. Moral imagination is the source of a free spirit’s actions. Therefore, only people who have moral imagination are really morally productive. Simple moral preachers—that is, people who spin out codes of ethics without being able to condense them into concrete mental pictures—are morally unproductive. They are like critics who can rationally discuss what works of art should be like, but cannot themselves produce anything at all.

To turn a mental picture into a reality, moral imagination must set to work in a specific field of percepts. Human action does not create percepts, it recasts already existing percepts and gives them a new form. To be able to transform a specific perceptual object or group of objects in accordance with a moral mental picture, one must have understood the laws of the perceptual picture to which one wants to give new form or new direction— that is, one must have understood how it has worked until now. Further, one must find the method by which those laws can be transformed. This part of moral efficacy depends on knowledge of the phenomenal world with which one is dealing. This knowledge must therefore be sought in a branch of general scientific knowledge. Hence, along with the faculty for moral ideas and imagination, moral action presupposes the capacity to transform the world of percepts without interrupting its coherence in natural law.

The capacity to transform the world of percepts is moral technique. It is learnable in the sense that any knowledge is learnable. Generally, people are better equipped to find concepts for the world that is already finished than to determine productively, out of their imagination, future, not yet-existent actions. Therefore, those without moral imagination may well receive the moral mental pictures of other people and skillfully work them into reality. The reverse can also occur: people with moral imagination can lack technical skill and may have to make use of others to realize their mental pictures.

Insofar as knowledge of the objects within our field of action is necessary for moral action, our actions are based upon this kind of knowledge. What is relevant here are natural laws. We are dealing with natural science, not with ethics.

Moral imagination and the moral capacity for ideas can become objects of knowledge only after an individual has produced them. By then, they no longer regulate life; they have already regulated it. They can be regarded as effective causes like any others—they are purposes only for the subject. Hence, we deal with them as with a natural history of moral ideas.

Apart from this, there can be no science of ethical norms.

Some people have tried to retain the normative character of moral laws—at least, to the extent that they have understood ethics as if it were analogous to dietetics. Dietetics derives general rules from the organism’s requirements for life, so as then to affect the body on the basis of these rules. But the comparison between ethics and dietetics is false because our moral life cannot be compared with the life of the organism. The organism’s activity exists without any contribution on our part. We find its laws already present in the world. Hence we can seek the laws and apply those that we have found. But moral laws are first created by us. Before they are created, we cannot apply them. The error arises because moral laws are not created at each moment with a new content, but are inherited. Thus moral laws, inherited from one’s ancestors, appear to be given, like the natural laws of the organism. But they are in no way applied by a later generation with the same legitimacy as the rules of diet. For moral laws deal with the individual and not, like natural law, with an example of a species. I, as an organism, am just such an example of a species; I will live according to nature if I apply the natural laws of the species to my particular case. But, as a moral being, I am an individual and have laws of my very own.

12. Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Ethics) – 2

The view presented here seems to contradict the fundamental teaching of modern natural science known as the theory of evolution. But it only seems to be so. People understand evolution to mean the real development, according to natural laws, of what is later from what was earlier. People understand evolution in the organic world to mean that later (more perfect) organic forms are real descendants of earlier (more imperfect) forms and developed from them according to natural laws. Adherents of the theory of organic evolution must actually imagine that there was once a time on earth when a being—if it were present as an observer endowed with a sufficiently long lifespan—could have followed with its own eyes the gradual development of reptiles from proto-amniotes. In the same way, evolutionists imagine that a being—if it could have remained in an appropriate spot in the world ether during that infinitely long time—could have observed the development of the solar system out of the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula. In order to picture things in this way, however, the nature of the proto-amniotes, like the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula, would have to be thought of differently than materialists think of them. But that is irrelevant here.

Evolutionists could never claim that, without having ever seen a reptile, they could derive the concept of reptiles, with all of their features, from the concept of proto-amniotes. Nor can the solar system be derived from the concept of the Kant-Laplace primordial nebula, if that concept is understood to be directly determined only by the percept of the primordial nebula. In other words, if they think consistently, evolutionists must assert that later phases of evolution really follow from earlier ones, and that if we have the concept of the imperfect and that of the perfect given to us, we will be able to see the connection. But on no account can evolutionists affirm that the concept attained from the earlier is sufficient to develop the concept of the later from it. It follows that, while ethicists can certainly see the connection between earlier and later moral concepts, not even a single new moral idea can be drawn forth from earlier ones. As moral beings, individuals produce their own content. For an ethicist, this content is just as much a given as reptiles are a given for the natural scientist. Reptiles developed from proto-amniotes, but natural scientists cannot get the concept of reptiles from out of the concept of proto-amniotes. Later moral ideas develop from earlier ones, but ethicists cannot draw forth the ethical concepts of later cultural epochs from those of earlier epochs.