Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG

THE ORIGIN
OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF
RIGHT AND WRONG

BY FRANZ BRENTANO

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
BY CECIL HAGUE

FORMERLY LECTOR AT
PRAGUE UNIVERSITY

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD
2 WHITEHALL GARDENS
1902

BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.

The present translation owes its origin to a desire on the part of the translator of bringing to the wider notice of his fellow-countrymen a work which has proved beneficial and stimulating to himself. Written during short intervals of leisure while studying with Professor Anton Marty of Prague University, it has had the advantage of his careful and constant supervision. Without his aid it would scarcely have seen the light. The translator has especially to thank Professor S. A. Alexander, of Owens College, Manchester, for his valuable help in the general revision and the translation of several difficult passages. It is now, alas, too late to do more than record the translator’s debt to the late Professor Adamson, of Glasgow University, whose revision and correction of this essay was one of the last services rendered to the cause of truth by a life-long disciple.

_West Dulwich, 1902._

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

This lecture, which I now bring before the notice of a larger public, was delivered by me before the Vienna Law Society on January 23, 1889. It then bore the title: “Of the Natural Sanction for Law and Morality.” This title I have changed in order to bring its general purport more clearly into prominence; otherwise I have made scarcely any further alteration. Numerous notes have been added, and an already published essay: “Miklosich on Subjectless Propositions” appended. In what way it bears upon inquiries apparently so remote will be evident in the sequel.

The occasion of the lecture was an invitation extended to me by Baron Von Hye, President of the Society. It was his wish that what had been said here a few years ago by Ihering, as jurist, in his address, _Über die Entstehung des Rechtsgefühls_, might in the same Society be illustrated by me from the philosophic point of view. It would be a mistake to assume from the incidental nature of the circumstances to which it owed its first appearance that the Essay was only a fugitive, occasional study. It embraces the fruits of many years’ reflection. The discussions it contains form the ripest product of all that I have hitherto published.

These thoughts form a fragment of a Descriptive Psychology, which, as I now venture to hope, I may be enabled in the near future to publish in its complete form. In its wide divergence from all that has hitherto been put forward, and especially by reason of its being an essential stage in the further development of some of the views advocated in my _Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_ it will be sufficiently evident that during the period of my long literary retirement I have not been idle.

Specialists in philosophy will find also in this lecture what will be at once recognized as new. As regards the general reader, the rapidity with which I pass from one question to another might at first completely conceal many a sunken reef which required to be circumnavigated, many a precipice which had to be avoided. Surely I, if any one, have reason, owing to the conciseness of statement employed, to remember the saying of Leibnitz and pay little attention to refutation and much to demonstration. A glance at the notes--which, were they to do full justice to the subject, would need to be multiplied an hundredfold--will give him a further idea of those bye-paths which have misled so many, and prevented their finding an issue to the labyrinth. Meantime I would be well content--nay, I would regard it as the crown to all my efforts--should all that has been said appear so self-evident to him that he does not deem himself bound to thank me once in return.

No one has determined the principles of ethics as, on the basis of new analyses, I have found it necessary to determine them, no one, especially among those who hold that in the foundation of those principles the feelings must find a place, have so radically and completely broken with the subjective view of ethics. I except only Herbart. But he lost himself in the sphere of aesthetic feeling, until at last we find him so far from the track that he, who in the theoretical philosophy is the irreconcilable enemy of contradiction, nevertheless in practical philosophy (i.e. ethics) tolerates it when his principles--the highest universally valid ideas--rush into conflict with one another. Still his teaching remains in a certain aspect truly related with mine, while, on other sides, other celebrated attempts to discover a basis for ethics find in it points of contact.

In the notes, individual points are more sharply defined, a very detailed examination of which would have been too prolix in the lecture. Many an objection already urged has been met, many an expected rejoinder anticipated. I also hope that some will be interested in the several historical contributions, especially in the inquiries concerning Descartes, where I trace back the doctrine of evidence to its causes and point out two further thoughts, one of which has been misunderstood, the other scarcely noticed, neither treated with the consideration they deserve. I refer to his fundamental classification of mental states and to his doctrine of the relation of love to joy, and of hate to sadness.

With several highly honoured investigators of the present--assuredly not least honoured by myself--I have entered into a polemical debate, and indeed most vigorously with those whose previous attack has compelled me to a defence. I hope that they do not regard it as a violation of _their_ claims, when I seek, to the utmost of my power, to help the truth, which we in common serve, to her rights, and I assure them in turn, that as I myself speak frankly, so also none the less do I welcome with all my heart every sincere word of my opponent.

FRANZ BRENTANO.

CONTENTS

THE ORIGIN OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF RIGHT AND WRONG

A LECTURE

PAGE

1. Value of History and Philosophy for Jurisprudence; the new proposals for the reform of legal studies in Austria 1

2. Our theme; Relation to Ihering’s lecture before the Vienna Law Society 2

3. Twofold meaning of the expression “natural right” 2

4. Points of agreement with Ihering; rejection of the “jus naturae” and “jus gentium”; pre-ethical political statutes 3

5. Opposition to Ihering; There exists a universally valid naturally recognizable moral law. Relative independence of the question 4

6. The notion “natural sanction” 4

7. Manifold misconception of the same by philosophers 6

8. Habitually developed feeling of compulsion as such is no sanction 6

9. Motives of hope and fear as such not yet sanction 6

10. The thought of the arbitrary command of a higher power is not the natural sanction 7

11. The ethical sanction is a command similar to the logical rule 8

12. The aesthetic point of view; as little in ethics as in logic the right one 9

13. Kant’s Categorical Imperative an impracticable fiction 10

14. Necessity for preliminary psychological inquiries 10

15. No willing without a final end 10

16. The problem: which end is right? the chief problem of ethics 11

17. The right end is the best among attainable ends; obscureness of this definition 11

18. Of the origin of the conception of the good; it has not its origin in the sphere of the so-called external impression 12

19. The common characteristic of everything psychical 12

20. The three fundamental classes of psychical phenomena; idea (Vorstellung), judgment, feeling (Gemütsbewegung) 13

21. The contrasts, belief and denial, love and hate 15

22. Of these opposed modes of relation one is always right, one wrong 15

23. The conception of the good 15

24. Distinction of the good in the narrow sense from what is good for the sake of some other good 16

25. Love is not always a proof that an object is worthy to be loved 16

26. “Blind” and “self-evident” judgment 17

27. Analogous distinction in the sphere of pleasure and displeasure; criterion of the good 18

28. Plurality of the good; problems associated therewith 21

29. Whether by “the better” is to be understood that which deserves to be loved with more intensity 21

30. Right determination of the conception 22

31. When and how do we recognize that anything is in itself preferable? The case of the opposite, of absence, of the addition of like to like 23

32. Cases where the problem is insoluble 25

33. Whether the Hedonists in this respect would have the advantage 26

34. Why these failures prove less disadvantageous than might be feared 27

35. The sphere of the highest practical good 28

36. The harmonious development 28

37. The natural sanction respecting the limits of right 29

38. The natural sanction for positive ethical laws 29

39. The power of the natural sanction 30

40. True and false relativity respecting ethical rules 30

41. Derivation of well known special enactments 32

42. Why other philosophers, by other ways, arrive at the same goal 32

43. Whence arise the universally extended ethical truths? Unclearness concerning processes in one’s own consciousness 33

44. Trace of the influence of the moments severally mentioned 35

45. Lower currents exercising an influence 37

46. Necessity of guarding against overlooking the distinction between ethical and pseudo-ethical development 39

47. Value of such developments in the pre-ethical time; establishment of the social order; formation of dispositions; outlines of laws at the disposal of legislative ethical authority; security against doctrinaire tendencies 39

48. Beneficent influences which still operate continually from this side 41

49. A further word on the reform of politico-legal studies 42

NOTES.

PAGE

13. In defence of my characterization of Herbart’s ethical criterion 44

14. Of Kant’s Categorical Imperative 44

16. The Nicomachean Ethics and Ihering’s “fundamental idea” in his work; _Der Zweck im Recht_ 46

17. Of the cases of smaller chances in the effort after higher ends 46

18. Of the dependence of the conceptions upon concrete perceptions 46

19. The term “intentional” 47

21. The fundamental classification of mental states in Descartes 47

22. Windelband’s error in respect of the fundamental classification of mental states; short defence of various attacks upon my _Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint_; Land, on a supposed improvement on formal logic; Steinthal’s criticism of my doctrine of judgment 50

23. In criticism of Sigwart’s theories of the existential and negative judgments 55

24. Descartes on the relation of “love” to “joy” and of “hate” to “sadness” 69

25. Of the notions of truth and existence 69

26. Of the unity of the notion of the good 71

27. Of “evidence.” Descartes “Clara et distincta perceptio.” Sigwart’s doctrine of “evidence” and his “postulates” 71

28. Of ethical subjectivism. Aristotle’s oversight in respect of the source of our knowledge of the good. Parallels between his error in respect of the feelings (Gemütsthätigkeit), and Descartes’ doctrine of the “Clara et distincta perceptio” as a pre-condition of the logically justified judgment; modern views which approach to this doctrine 78

29. Of the expressions “gut gefallen” and “schlecht gefallen” 84

31. Typical case of a constant geometrical relation of mental values 85

32. Cases in which something at the same time both pleases and displeases 85

33. Establishment of universal laws of valuation on the basis of a single experience 86

34. Certain moments in the theory of ethical knowledge are of more importance for the theodicy than for ethics itself 87

35. Explanation of the manner in which anything in certain cases is recognized as preferable 87

36. The two cases, unique in their kind, in which preferability becomes clear for us from a certain character in the act of preference 87

39. Gauss on the measurement of intensities 89

40. Against exaggerated expectations from the so-called psycho-physical law 89

40. Defence against the objection of a too great ethical rigour 90

41. Love of neighbour in harmony with greater care of one’s own good 91

43. Why the narrowness of human foresight should not do injury to moral courage 92

44. In criticism of Ihering’s view of the notion of right and of his criticism of older views 93

45. Of the provisional ethical sanction of objectionable laws 96

60. Self-contradiction of Epicurus 97

64-65. Proof for the law of addition of like to like; testimony for it in the teaching of the Stoa, of the theistic Hedonists, and in the demand for immortality; Helmholtz 98

67. The great theologians are opponents of the arbitrary character of the divine law of morals 99

68. John Stuart Mill on the doctrine of the distinction between “blind” and “self-evident judgments” 99

(The numbers missing in the index contain only literary references.)

MIKLOSICH ON SUBJECTLESS PROPOSITIONS

(Appendix to pages 14 and 55).

I. Short sketch of the essential features treated in Miklosich’s article 105

II. Critical remarks 110

Biographical Note 119

A LECTURE

1. The invitation to lecture extended to me by the Law Society was the more binding as it gave expression in strong terms to a conviction which, unfortunately, seems on the point of falling into abeyance. Proposals for a reform of legal studies have been heard (and they are even said to have proceeded from university circles) which can only mean that the roots of jurisprudence deeply implanted as they are in the spheres of ethics and national history may be severed, without the organism itself suffering any vital injury.

As regards history, this counsel is to me, I confess, utterly inexplicable; in respect of philosophy, I can excuse it only on the ground that the men who at present occupy the chairs in the legal faculty have taken a deep and gloomy impression of the mistakes of a period which has lately passed away. A personal reproach may therefore well be spared them. Yet indeed such suggestions were every bit as wise as would be the case if a medical faculty were to propose to erase from their plan of obligatory studies zoology, physics and chemistry.

If Leibnitz in his _Vita a se ipso lineata_, speaking of himself, says: “I found that my earlier studies in history and philosophy lightened materially my study of law,” and if, as in his _Specimen difficultatis in jure_, deploring the prejudices of contemporary jurists, he exclaims: “Oh! that those who busy themselves with the study of law would throw aside their contempt of philosophy and see that without philosophy most of the questions of their jus form a labyrinth without issue!” what indeed would he say were he to rise again to-day, to these retrograde reform movements?

2. The worthy President of the Society, who has retained such a lively and wide sense of the real scientific needs of his profession, expressed to me his own special wishes respecting the theme to be chosen. The question as to the existence of a natural right was, he said, a subject which enjoyed an exceptional interest with the members of the Law Society; and he himself was anxious to learn what attitude I would adopt with regard to the views there expressed by Ihering some years ago.[1]

I consented gladly, and have therefore designated as the subject of my lecture the natural sanction for law and morality, wishing thereby, at the same time, to indicate in what sense alone I believe in a natural right.

3. For a two-fold meaning may be associated with the term “natural”:--

(1) It may mean as much as “given by nature,” “innate,” in
contradistinction to what has been acquired during historical
development either by deduction or by experience.

(2) It may mean, in contradistinction to what is determined by the
arbitrary will of a dictator, the rules which, in and for
themselves and in virtue of their nature are recognized as right
and binding.

Ihering rejects natural right in either of these meanings.[2] I, for my part, agree as thoroughly with him regarding the one meaning as I differ from him regarding the other.

4. I agree completely with Ihering when, following the example of John Locke, he denies all innate moral principles.

Further, like him, I believe neither in the grotesque _jus naturae_, i.e. _quod natura ipsa omnia animalia docuit_, nor in a _jus gentium_, in a right which, as the Roman jurists defined it, is recognized as a natural law of reason by the universal agreement of all nations.

It is not necessary to have gone deeply into zoology and physiology in order to see that we can no longer use the animal world as a criterion for the setting up of ethical standards, even if one is not disposed to go so far as Rokitansky in pronouncing protoplasma, with its aggressive character, an unrighteous and evil principle.

As to a common code of right for all nations, such a belief was a delusion which might hold good in the antique world; in modern times when the ethnographical horizon has been extended, and the customs of barbarous races drawn upon for comparison, these laws can no longer be recognized as a product of nature, but only as a product of culture common to the more advanced nations.

As regards all this, therefore, I am in agreement with Ihering; I am also substantially in agreement with him when he asserts that there have been times without any trace of ethical knowledge and ethical feeling; at any rate without anything of the kind that was commonly accepted.

Indeed I acknowledge unhesitatingly that this state of things continued even when larger communities under state government had been constituted. When Ihering, in support of this view, points to Greek mythology with its gods and goddesses destitute of moral thought and feeling, and maintains that, by the lives of the gods, the life of mankind in the period in which these myths took shape may be interpreted,[3] he does but use a method of proof which Aristotle has already employed in a similar manner in his _Politics_.[4] This also must therefore be conceded him, and we shall, on this ground, no longer deny that the earliest political laws supported by penal sanction were established without the help of any feeling of right founded upon moral insight. There are, therefore, no natural moral laws and legal precepts in the sense that they are given by nature herself, that they are innate; in this respect, Ihering’s views have our entire approval.

5. We have now to meet the second and far more important question: Do there exist truths concerning morality, taught by nature herself, and is there moral truth, independent of all ecclesiastical, political, in fact every kind of social authority? Is there a natural moral law which, in its nature, is universally and incontestably valid for men of every place and time, valid indeed for every kind of thinking and sentient being; and does the knowledge of it lie within the realm of our mental faculties? Here we are at the point where I join issue with Ihering. To this question, which Ihering answers in the negative, I return a decided affirmative. Which of us is here in the right our present inquiry into the natural sanction for law and morality will, I hope, make clear.

At any rate, the decision as to the former question, whatever Ihering[5] himself may think to the contrary, does not in any way prejudge the latter. Innate prejudices do exist; these are natural in the former sense, but they lack natural sanction; whether true or false, they possess no immediate validity. On the other hand, there are many propositions recognized after a natural manner, which are incontestably certain and have universal validity for all thinking beings, which, however, as, for example, the Pythagorean theorem are anything but innate, else the blissful first discoverer had never offered his hecatomb to the god.

6. In what has been said I have made it sufficiently evident how, when I speak of natural sanction, I understand the notion of sanction. Yet it will be well to linger a moment in order to exclude another inadequate view.

“Sanction” signifies “making fast.” Now a law may be fixed in a double sense:

(1) It may be fixed in the sense of becoming law, as when a
proposed law receives validity by ratification on the part of the
highest legislative authority.

(2) In the sense of being rendered more effectual by attaching to
it positive punishments, perhaps also rewards.

It is in this latter sense that sanction was spoken of by writers of antiquity, as when Cicero[6] says of the leges Porciae: “Neque quicquam praeter sanctionem attulerunt novi”; and Ulpian:[7] “Interdum in sanctionibus adijicitur, ut qui ibi aliquid commisit, capite puniatur.” It is in the former sense that the expression is more usual in modern times; a law is said to be “sanctioned” when it secures validity by receiving confirmation at the hands of the highest authority.

Manifestly sanction in the second sense presupposes sanction in the first, which sanction is the more essential, since, without it, the law would not truly be law at all. Such a natural sanction therefore is of the last necessity if anything whatever is to bear by nature the stamp of law or morality.

7. If we now compare with such a view what has been said by philosophers concerning the natural sanction for morality, it will be easily seen how often they have overlooked its essential character.

8. Many think that they have discovered a natural sanction in respect of a certain line of conduct when they have shown that a certain feeling of compulsion so to act is developed within the individual. Since every one, for example, renders services to others in order to receive similar services in return, there at last arises a habit of performing such services even in cases where there has been no thought of recompense.[8] This it is which is thought to constitute the sanction for love of our neighbour.

But this view is entirely erroneous. Such a feeling of compulsion is certainly a force driving to action, but it is assuredly not a sanction conferring validity. Besides, the inclination to vice develops according to the same law of habit, and exercises, as an impulse, the most unbounded sway. The miser’s passion which leads him, in his desire of amassing riches, to submit to the heaviest sacrifices and to commit the most extreme cruelties, certainly constitutes no sanction for his conduct.

9. Again, motives of hope or fear that a certain manner of behaviour, as, for example, regard for the general good, will render us agreeable or disagreeable to other and more powerful beings, these it has often been sought to regard as a sanction for such conduct.[9] But it is manifest that the most cringing cowardice, the most servile flattery might then boast a natural sanction. As a matter of fact virtue shines out most brightly where neither threats nor entreaties are able to divert her from the right path.

10. Some speak of an education in which man, as belonging to an order of living beings accustomed to live in society, receives from those by whom he is surrounded. An injunction is repeatedly laid upon him, the command: “You ought.” It lies in the nature of things that certain actions are very frequently and generally required of him. There is thus formed an association between his mode of action and the thought: “You ought.” And so it may happen that he may come to regard, as the source of this command, the society in which he lives, or even something vaguely conceived to be higher than an individual, that is to say, something regarded in a way as superhuman. The “ought” associated by him with such a being would then constitute the sanction of conscience.[10]

In this case the natural sanction would then consist in the naturally developed belief in the command of a more powerful will.

But it is manifest that such a belief in the command of a more powerful being contains, as yet, nothing which deserves the name of a sanction. Such a conviction is shared by one who knows himself to be at the mercy of a tyrant or of a robber horde. Whether he obey, or bid defiance, the command itself contains nothing able to give to the required act a sanction similar to that of the conscience. Even if he obey he does so through fear, not because he regards the command as one based on right.

The thought, therefore, that an act is commanded by some one does not constitute a natural sanction. In the case of every command issued by an external will the question arises: Is such a command authorized or is it not? Neither is there any reference here to a command enforced by a still higher power enjoining obedience to the former. For then the question would again reappear, and we should proceed from one command to another enjoining obedience to the former, and from that to a third enjoining in like manner obedience to the second, and so on _ad infin_.

Just as in the case of the feeling of compulsion, and in that of the fear or hope of recompense, so also the thought of the command of an external will cannot possibly be the sanction for law and morality.

11. But there are also commands in an essentially different sense; commands in the sense in which we speak of the commands of logic respecting our judgments and conclusions. We are not here concerned with the will of logic, since a will logic manifestly has not, nor with the will of the logician, to which we have in no way sworn allegiance. The laws of logic are naturally valid rules of judging, that is to say, we are obliged to conform to them, since conformity to these rules ensures certainty in our judgments, whereas judgments diverging from these rules are liable to error. What we therefore mean is a natural superiority which thought-processes in conformity with law have over such as are contrary to law. So also in ethics, we are not concerned with the command of an external will but rather with a natural preference similar to that in logic, and the law founded on that preference. This has been emphasized not only by Kant but also by the majority of great thinkers before him. Nevertheless there are still many--unfortunately even among the adherents of the empirical school to which I myself belong--by whom this fact has neither been rightly understood nor appreciated.

12. In what then lies this special superiority which gives to morality its natural sanction? Some regarded it as, in a sense, external, they believed its superiority to consist in beauty of appearance. The Greeks called noble and virtuous conduct Τὀ καλὁν, the beautiful, and the perfect man of honour καλοκἀγαθός; though none of the philosophers of antiquity set up this aesthetic view as a criterion. On the other hand, David Hume[11], among modern thinkers, has spoken of a moral sense of the beautiful which acts as arbiter between the moral and the immoral, while still more recently the German philosopher, Herbart,[12] has subordinated ethics to aesthetics.

Now I do not deny that the aspect of virtue is more agreeable than that of moral perversity. But I cannot concede that in this consists the only and essential superiority of ethical conduct. It is rather an inner superiority which distinguishes the moral from the immoral will, in the same way that it is an inner superiority which distinguishes true and self evident judgments and conclusions from prejudices and fallacies. Here also it cannot be denied that a prejudice, a fallacy has in it something unbeautiful, often indeed something ridiculously narrow-minded, which makes the person so scantily favoured by Minerva appear in a most disadvantageous attitude; yet who, on this account, would class the rules of logic among those of aesthetics, or make logic a branch of aesthetics?[13] No, the real logical superiority is no mere aesthetic appearance but a certain inward rightness which then carries with it a certain superiority of appearance. It will, therefore, be also a certain inward rightness which constitutes the essential superiority of one particular act of will over another of an opposite character; in which consists the superiority of the moral over the immoral.

The belief in this superiority is an ethical motive; the knowledge of it is the right ethical motive, the sanction which gives to ethical law permanence and validity.

13. But are we capable of attaining to such knowledge? Here lies the difficulty which philosophers have for a long time sought in vain to solve. Even to Kant it seemed as though none had found the right end of the thread by means of which to unravel the skein. This the Categorical Imperative was to do. It resembled however, rather the sword drawn by Alexander to cut the Gordian knot. With such a palpable fiction the matter is not to be set right.[14]

14. In order to gain an insight into the true origin of ethical knowledge it will be necessary to take some account of the results of later researches in the sphere of descriptive psychology. The limited time at my disposal makes it necessary for me to set forth my views very briefly, and I have reason to fear that by its conciseness the completeness of the statement may suffer. Yet it is just here that I ask your special attention, in order that what is most essential to a right understanding of the problem be not overlooked.

15. The subject of the moral and immoral is termed the will. What we will is, in many cases, a means to an end. In that case we will this end also, and even in a higher degree than the means. The end itself may often be the means to a further end; in a far reaching plan there may often appear a whole series of ends, the one being always connected in subordination to the other as a means. There must be present, however, one end, which is desired above all others and for its own sake; without this essential and final end all incentive would be lacking, and this would involve the absurdity of aiming without a goal at which to aim.

16. The means we employ in order to gain an end may be manifold, may be right or wrong. They are right when they are really adapted to the attainment of the end.

The ends, also, even the most essential and final ends, may be manifold. It is a mistake which appeared especially in the eighteenth century, nowadays the tendency is more and more to abandon it, that every one seeks the same end, namely, his own highest possible pleasure.[15] Whoever can believe that the martyr facing with full consciousness the most terrible tortures for the sake of his conviction--and there were some who had no hope of recompense hereafter--was thus inspired by a desire after the greatest possible pleasure, such a man must have either a very defective sense of the facts of the case, or, indeed, have lost all measure of the intensities of pleasure and pain.

This, therefore, is certain: even final ends are manifold, between them hovers the choice, which, since the final end is for everything the determining principle, is of the most importance. What ought I to strive after? Which end is the right one, which wrong? This, as Aristotle long ago declared, is the essential, the cardinal question in ethics.[16]

17. Which end is right, for which should our choice declare itself?

Where the end is fixed and it is merely a question as to the choice of means, we reply: Choose means which will certainly attain the end. Where it is a question as to the choice of ends we would say: Choose an end which reason regards as really attainable. This answer is, however, insufficient, many a thing attainable is rather to be shunned than sought after; choose the best among attainable ends, this alone is the adequate answer.[17]

But the answer is obscure; what do we mean by “the best”? what can be called “good” at all? and how can we attain to the knowledge that one thing is good and better than another?

18. In order to answer this question satisfactorily, we must, above all, inquire into the origin of the conception of the good, which lies, like the origin of all our conceptions, in certain concrete impressions.[18]

We possess impressions with _physical_ content. These exhibit to us sensuous qualities localized in space. Out of this sphere arise the conceptions of colour, sound, space and many others. The conception of the good, however, has not here its origin. It is easily recognizable that the conception of the good like that of the true, which, as having affinity, is rightly placed side by side with it, derives its origin from concrete impressions with _psychical_ content.

19. The common feature of everything psychical consists in what has been called by a very unfortunate and ambiguous term, consciousness; i.e. in a subject-attitude; in what has been termed an _intentional_ relation to something which, though perhaps not real, is none the less an inner object of perception[19] No hearing without the heard, no believing without the believed, no hoping without the hoped for, no striving without the striven for, no joy without the enjoyed, and so with other mental phenomena.

20. The sensuous qualities which are given in our impressions with physical content exhibit manifold differences. So also do the intentional relations given in our impressions with psychical content. And, as in the former case, the number of the senses is determined by reference to those distinctions between sensuous qualities which are most fundamental (called by Helmholtz distinctions of modality), so in the latter case the number of fundamental classes of mental phenomena is fixed by reference to the most fundamental distinctions of intentional relation.[20]

In this way we distinguish three fundamental classes. Descartes in his _Meditations_[21] was the first to exhibit these rightly and completely; but sufficient attention has not been paid to his observations, and they were soon quite forgotten, until in recent times, and independently of him, these were again discovered. Nowadays they may lay claim to sufficient verification.[22]

The first fundamental class is that of ideas (Vorstellungen) in the widest sense of the term (Descartes’ ideae). This class embraces concrete impressions, those for example which are given to us through the senses, as well as every abstract conception.

The second fundamental class is judgment (Descartes’ judicia). Previous to Descartes these were thought of as forming, along with ideas, _one_ fundamental class, and since Descartes’ time philosophy has fallen once more into this error. This view regarded judgment as consisting essentially in a combination or relation of ideas to one another. This was a gross misconception of its true nature. We may combine or relate ideas as we please, as in speaking of a golden mountain, the father of a hundred children, a friend of science; but as long as nothing further takes place there can be no judgment. Equally true is it that an idea always forms the basis of a judgment, as also of a desire; but it is not true that, in a judgment, there are always several ideas related to one another as subject and predicate. This is certainly the case when I say: “God is just,” though not when I say: “There is a God.”

What, therefore, distinguishes those cases where I have not only an idea but also a judgment? There is here added to the act of presentation a second intentional relation to the object given in presentation, a relation either of recognition or rejection. Whoever says: “God,” gives expression to the idea of God; whoever says: “There is a God,” gives expression to a belief in him.

I must not linger here, and can only assure you that this, if anything, admits to-day of no denial. From the philological standpoint Miklosich confirms the results of psychological analysis.[23]

The third fundamental class consists of the emotions in the widest sense of the term, from the simple forms of inclination or disinclination in respect of the mere idea, to joy and sadness arising from conviction and to the most complicated phenomena as to the choice of ends and means. Aristotle long since included these under the term Ὄρεζις. Descartes says this class embraces the _voluntates sive affectus_. As in the second fundamental class the intentional relation was one of recognition or rejection, so in the third class it is one of love or hate, (or, as it might be equally well expressed,) a form of pleasing or displeasing. Loving, pleasing, hating, displeasing, these are given in the simplest forms of inclination or disinclination, in victorious joy as well as in despairing sorrow, in hope and fear, and in every form of voluntary activity. “Plait-il?” asks the Frenchman; “es hat Gott gefallen,” one reads in (German) announcements of a death; while the “Placet,” written when confirming an act, is the expression of the determining fiat of will.[24]

21. In comparing these three classes of phenomena it is found that the two last mentioned show an analogy which, in the first, is absent. There exists, that is, an opposition of intentional relation; in the case of judgment, recognition or rejection, in the case of the emotions, love or hate, pleasure or displeasure. The idea shows nothing of a similar nature. I can, it is true, conceive of opposites, as for example white and black, but whether I believe in this black or deny it, I can only represent it to myself in one way; the representation does not alter with the opposite act of judgment; nor again, in the case of the feelings, when I change my attitude towards it according as it pleases or displeases me.

22. From this fact follows an important conclusion. Concerning acts of the first class none can be called either right or wrong. In the case of the second class on the other hand, one of the two opposed modes of relation, affirmation and rejection, is right the other wrong, as logic has long affirmed. The same naturally holds good of the third class. Of the two opposed modes of relation, love and hate, pleasure and displeasure, in each case one is right the other wrong.

23. We have now reached the place where the notions of good and bad, along with the notions of the true and the false which we have been seeking, have their source. We call anything true when the recognition related to it is right.[25] We call something good when the love relating to it is right. That which can be loved with a right love, that which is worthy of love, is good in the widest sense of the term.

24. Since everything which pleases does so, either for its own sake, or for the sake of something else which is thereby produced, conserved or rendered probable, we must distinguish between a primary and a secondary good, i.e. what is good in itself, and what is good on account of something else, as is specially the case in the sphere of the useful.

What is good in itself is the good in the narrower sense. It alone can stand side by side with the true. For everything which is true is true in itself, even when only mediately known. When we speak of good later we shall therefore mean, whenever the contrary is not expressly asserted, that which is good in itself.

In this way we have, I hope, made clear the notion of good.[26]

25. There follows now the still more important question: How are we to know that anything is good? Ought we to say that whatever is loved and is capable of being loved is worthy of love and is good? This is manifestly untrue, and it is almost inconceivable that some have fallen into this error. One loves what another hates, and, in accordance with a well known psychological law already previously referred to it often happens that what at first was desired merely as a means to something else, comes at last from habit to be desired for its own sake. In such a way the miser is irrationally led to heap up riches and even to sacrifice himself for their sake. The actual presence of love, therefore, by no means testifies unconditionally to the worthiness of the object to be loved, just as affirmation is no unconditional proof of what is true.

It might even be said that the first statement is even more _evident_ than the second, since it can hardly happen that he who affirms anything at the same time holds it to be false, whereas it frequently happens that a person, even while loving something, confesses himself that it is unworthy of his love:

“Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.”

How then are we to know that anything is good?

26. The matter appears enigmatical, but the enigma finds a very easy solution.

As a preliminary step to answering the question, let us turn our glance from the good to the true.

Not everything which we affirm is on this account true. Our judgments are frequently quite blind. Many a prejudice which we drank in, as it were, with our mother’s milk presents to us the appearance of an irrefutable principle. To other equally blind judgments all men have, by nature, a kind of instinctive impulsion, as, for example, in trusting blindly to the so-called external impression, or to a recent remembrance. What is so recognized may often be true, but it may equally well be false since the affirming judgment contains nothing which gives to it the character of rightness.

Such, however, is the case in certain other judgments, which in contradistinction to these blind judgments may be termed “obvious,” “self-evident” judgments; as, for example, the Principle of Contradiction, and every so-called inner perception which informs me that I am now experiencing sensations of sound or colour, or think and will this or that.

In what, then, does the distinction between these lower and higher forms of judgment essentially consist? Is it a distinction in the degree of belief, or is it something else? It is not a distinction in the degree of belief; the instinctive blind assumptions arising from habit are often not in the slightest degree weakened by doubts, and we are unable to get rid of some even when we have already seen their logical falsity. But such assumptions are the results of blind impulse, they have nothing of the clearness peculiar to the higher forms of judgment. Were the question to be raised: “What is then your reason for believing that?” no rational answer would be forthcoming. It is quite true that if the same inquiry were to be made respecting the immediately evident judgment here also no reason could be given, but in face of the clearness of the judgment the inquiry would appear utterly beside the point, in fact ridiculous. Every one experiences for himself the difference between these two classes of judgment, and in the reference to this experience, consists, as in the case of every conception, the final explanation.

27. All this is, in its essentials, universally known,[27] and is contested only by a few, and then not without great inconsistency. Far fewer have noticed an analogous distinction between the higher and lower forms of the feelings of pleasure and displeasure.

Our pleasure or displeasure is often quite like blind judgment, only an instinctive or habitual impulse. This is so in the case of the miser’s pleasure in piling up, in those powerful feelings of pleasure and pain connected in men and animals alike with the appearance of certain sensuous qualities, moreover, as is especially noticeable in tastes, different species and even different individuals, are affected in a quite contrary manner.

Many philosophers, and among them very considerable thinkers, have regarded only that mode of pleasure which is peculiar to the lower phenomena of the class, and have entirely overlooked the fact that there exists a pleasure and a displeasure of a higher kind. David Hume, for example, betrays almost in every word that he has absolutely no idea of the existence of this higher class.[28] How general this oversight has been may be judged from the fact that language has no common name for it.[29] Yet the fact is undeniable and we propose now to elucidate it by a few examples.

We have already said that we are endowed by nature with a pleasure for some tastes and an antipathy for others, both of which are purely instinctive. We also naturally take pleasure in clear insight, displeasure in error or ignorance. “All men,” says Aristotle in the beautiful introductory words of his _Metaphysics_,[30] “naturally desire knowledge.” This desire is an example which will serve our purpose. It is a pleasure of that higher form which is analogous to _self-evidence_ in the sphere of judgment. In our species it is universal. Were there another species which, while having different preferences from us in respect of sensible qualities, were opposed to us in loving error for its own sake and hating insight, then assuredly we should not in the latter as in the former case say: that it was a matter of taste, “de gustibus non est disputandum”; rather we should here answer decisively that such love and hatred were fundamentally absurd, that such a species hated what was undeniably good, and loved what was undeniably bad in itself. Now why, where the feeling of compulsion is equally strong, do we answer differently in the one case than in the other? The answer is simple. In the former case the feeling of compulsion was an instinctive impulse; in the latter the natural feeling of pleasure is a higher love, having the character of rightness.[31] We therefore notice when we ourselves have such a feeling, that its object is not merely loved and lovable, its opposite hated and unlovable, but also that the one is worthy of love, the other worthy of hatred, and therefore that one is good, the other bad.

Another example. As we prefer insight to error, so also, generally speaking, we prefer joy (unless indeed it be joy in what is bad) to sadness. Were there beings among whom the reverse held good, we should regard such conduct as perverse, and rightly so. Here too it is because our love and our hatred are qualified as right.

A third example is found in feeling itself so far as it is right and has the character of rightness. As was the case with the rightness and evidence of the judgment, so also the rightness and higher character of the feelings are also reckoned as good, while love of the bad is itself bad.[32]

In order that, in the sphere of ideas, we may not leave the corresponding experiences unmentioned: here in the same way every idea is found to be something good in itself, and that with every enlargement in the realm of our ideas, quite apart from what of good or bad may result therefrom, the good within us is increased.[33]

Here then, and from such experiences of love qualified as right, arises within us the knowledge that anything is truly and unmistakably good in the full extent to which we are capable of such knowledge.[34]

This last clause is added advisedly; for we must not, of course, conceal from ourselves the fact that we have no guarantee that everything which is good will arouse within us a love with the character of rightness. Wherever this is not the case our criterion fails, and the good then, so far as our knowledge and practical account of it are concerned, is as much as non-existent.[35]

28. It is, however, not _one_ but many things which we thus recognize as good. And so the questions remain: In that which is good, and especially in what, as good, is attainable, which is the better? and further, which is the highest practical good? so that it may become the standard for our actions.

29. We must first inquire: When is anything better than anything else and recognized by us as better? and what is meant by “the better” at all?

The answer now lies ready to hand though not in such a way as to render it unnecessary to exclude a very possible error. If by “good” is meant that which is worthy of being loved for its own sake, then by “better” appears to be meant that which is worthy of being loved with a greater love. But is this really so? What is meant by “with greater love”? Is it spatial magnitude? Hardly; no one would propose to measure pleasure or displeasure in feet and inches. “The intensity of the pleasure,” some will perhaps say, “is what is meant in speaking of love as great.” According to this “better” would mean that which pleases with a more intense pleasure. But such a definition closely examined would involve the greatest absurdities. According to this view, each single case in which joy is felt in anything would seem only to admit of a certain measure of joy, whereas one would naturally think that it could not possibly be reprehensible to rejoice in what is really good to the fullest extent possible. Or, as we say, “with all one’s heart.” Descartes has already observed that the act of loving (when directed towards what is good at all) can never be too intense.[36] And he is manifestly right. Were it otherwise what cautiousness should we not be called upon to exercise considering the limits of our mental strength! Every time one wished to rejoice over something good, an anxious survey would be necessary respecting other existing goods in order that the measure of proportion to our total strength might in no way be exceeded. And if one believes in a God, understanding thereby the Infinite Good, the Ideal of all ideals, then, since a man, even with his whole soul and strength can only love God with an act of love of finite intensity he will therefore be compelled to love every other good with an infinitely small degree of intensity, and, since this is impossible, must cease as a matter of fact to love it at all.

All this is manifestly absurd.

30. And yet it must be said that the better is that which is rightly loved with a greater love, which is rightly more pleasing, though in quite another sense. The “more” refers not to the relation of intensity between the two acts, but rather to a peculiar species of phenomena belonging to the general class of pleasure and displeasure, i.e., to the phenomena of choice. Thereby are meant relating acts which in their peculiar nature are known to every one in experience. In the province of ideas there is nothing analogous. In the province of judgment there are, it is true, alongside the simple, subjectless propositions, predicative judgments which are acts of a relative character, but this resemblance is very imperfect. The case here which has most similarity is that of a decision respecting a dialectically propounded question: “Is this true or false?” in which a sort of preference is given to one above the other. But even here it is always something true which is, so to speak, preferred to something false, never something more true over something less true. Whatever is true is true in a like degree, but whatever is good is not good in equal degree, and by “better” nothing else is meant than what, when compared with another good, is preferable, i.e. something which for its own sake, is preferred with a right preference. For the rest a somewhat wider usage of language allows us also to speak of a good as “better” over against a bad or purely indifferent, or even to call something bad over against something still worse “the better.” We then say not of course that it is good, but still better than the other.

This shortly in explanation of the notion of the better.

31. Next the question: How do we know that anything is really the better? Assuming the existence of simple knowledge of things as good and bad, we appear, so analogy suggests, to derive this insight from certain acts of preferring which have the character of rightness. For, like the simple exercise of pleasure, so also the act of preferring is sometimes of a lower or impulsive, and sometimes of a higher kind, and like the evident judgment, is qualified as right. The cases in point are, however, of such a nature that many might say, and perhaps with a better right, that it is analytical judgments which furnish us here with the means of progress, and that instead of our learning the preferability from the actual preferences, the preferences have the qualification of rightness because they already presume the recognition of the standard of preferability.[37]

Chiefly belonging to this class are obviously (1) the case where we prefer something good, and recognized as good, to something bad, and recognized as bad. Also (2) the case where we prefer the existence of something recognized as good to its non-existence, or the non-existence of something recognized as bad to its existence.