Section 20
Original German
Vom ethischen Unterschiede der Charaktere.
Die letzte Frage, deren Beantwortung zur Vollständigkeit des dargelegten Fundaments der Ethik gehört, ist diese: Worauf beruht der so große Unterschied im moralischen Verhalten der Menschen? Wenn Mitleid die Grundtriebfeder aller ächten, d. h. uneigennützigen Gerechtigkeit und Menschenliebe ist; warum wird der Eine, der Andere aber nicht dadurch bewogen? — Vermag vielleicht die Ethik, indem sie die moralische Triebfeder aufdeckt, auch sie in Thätigkeit zu versetzen? Kann sie den hartherzigen Menschen in einen mitleidigen und dadurch in einen gerechten und menschenfreundlichen umschaffen? — Gewiß nicht: der Unterschied der Charaktere ist angeboren und unvertilgbar. Dem Boshaften ist seine Bosheit so angeboren, wie der Schlange ihre Giftzähne und Giftblase; und so wenig wie sie kann er es ändern. Velle non discitur, hat der Erzieher des Nero gesagt. Plato untersucht im Meno ausführlich, ob die Tugend sich lehren lasse, oder nicht: er führt eine Stelle des Theognis an:
ἀλλὰ διδάσκωνΟὔποτε ποιήσεις τὸν κακὸν ἄνδρ’ ἀγαθόν.
(sed docendo nunquam ex malo bonum hominem facies)
und gelangt zu dem Resultate: ἀρετὴ ἂν εἴη οὔτε φύσει, οὔτε διδακτόν· ἀλλὰ θείᾳ μοίρᾳ παραγιγνομένη, ἄνευ νοῦ, οἷς ἂν παραγίγνηται (virtus utique nec doctrina, neque natura nobis aderit; verum divina sorte, absque mente, in eum, qui illam sortitus fuerit, influet); wobei mir der Unterschied zwischen φύσει und θείᾳ μοίρᾳ ungefähr den zwischen Physisch und Metaphysisch zu bezeichnen scheint. Schon der Vater der Ethik, Sokrates, hat, nach Angabe des Aristoteles, behauptet: οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν γενέσθαι τὸ σπουδαίους εἶναι, ἢ φαύλους (in nostra potestate non est, bonos, aut malos esse). (Eth. magna, I, 9.) Aristoteles selbst äußert sich in gleichem Sinn: πᾶσι γὰρ δοκεῖ ἕκαστα τῶν ἠθῶν ὑπάρχειν φύσει πως· καὶ γὰρ δίκαιοι, καὶ σωφρονικοὶ, καὶ τ’ ἄλλα ἔχομεν εὐθὺς ἐκ γενετῆς (singuli enim mores in omnibus hominibus quodammodo videntur inesse natura: namque ad justitiam, temperantiam, fortitudinem, ceterasque virtutes apti atque habiles sumus, cum primum nascimur). (Eth. Nicom., VI, 13.) Desgleichen finden wir diese Ueberzeugung sehr entschieden ausgesprochen in den jedenfalls sehr alten, wenn auch vielleicht nicht ächten Fragmenten des Pythagoreers Archytas, welche uns Stobäos aufbehalten hat im Florilegio, Tit. I, §. 77. Sie sind auch abgedruckt in den Opusculis Graecorum sententiosis et moralibus, edente Orellio, Vol. 2, p. 240. Daselbst also heißt es, im Dorischen Dialekt: Τὰς γὰρ λόγοις καὶ ἀποδείξεσιν ποτιχρωμένας ἀρετὰς δέον ἐπιστάμας ποταγορεύεν, ἀρετὰν δέ, τὰν ἠθικὰν καὶ βελτίσταν ἕξιν τῶ ἀλόγω μέρεος τᾶς ψυχᾶς, καθ’ ἃν καὶ ποιοί τινες ἦμεν λεγόμεθα κατὰ τὸ ἦθος, οἷον ἐλευθέριοι, δίκαιοι καὶ σώφρονες. (Eas enim, quae ratione et demonstratione utuntur, virtutes fas est, scientias appellare; virtutis autem nomine intelligemus moralem et optimum animi partis ratione carentis habitum, secundum quem qualitatem aliquam moralem habere dicimur, vocamurque v. c. liberales, justi et temperantes.) Wenn man die sämmtlichen Tugenden und Laster, welche Aristoteles im Buche de virtutibus et vitiis zu kurzer Uebersicht zusammengestellt hat, überblickt; so wird man finden, daß sie alle sich nur denken lassen als angeborene Eigenschaften, ja, nur als solche ächt seyn können; hingegen wenn sie, in Folge vernünftiger Ueberlegung, willkührlich angenommen wären, eigentlich auf Verstellung hinauslaufen und unächt seyn würden: daher alsdann auf ihren Fortbestand und Bewährung im Drange der Umstände durchaus nicht zu rechnen wäre. Nicht anders verhält es sich auch mit der Tugend der Menschenliebe, die bei Aristoteles, wie bei allen Alten, fehlt. In gleichem Sinne daher, wenn auch seinen skeptischen Ton beibehaltend, sagt Montaigne: Seroit-il vrai, que pour être bon tout-à-fait, il nous le faille être par occulte, naturelle et universelle propriété, sans loi, sans raison, sans exemple? (L. II, c. 11.) Lichtenberg aber sagt geradezu: „Alle Tugend aus Vorsatz taugt nicht viel. Gefühl, oder Gewohnheit ist das Ding.“ (Vermischte Schriften, „Moralische Bemerkungen“.) Aber sogar die ursprüngliche Lehre des Christenthums stimmt dieser Ansicht bei, indem es, in der Bergpredigt selbst, bei Lukas, Kap. 6, V. 45, heißt: ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ θησαυροῦ τῆς καρδίας αὐτοῦ προφέρει τὸ ἀγαθὸν, καὶ ὁ πονηρὸς ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ θησαυροῦ τῆς καρδίας αὐτοῦ προφέρει τὸ πονηρόν (homo bonus ex bono animi sui thesauro profert bonum, malusque ex malo animi sui thesauro profert malum), nachdem, in den beiden vorhergehenden Versen, die bildliche Erläuterung der Sache, durch die Frucht, welche stets dem Baum gemäß ausfällt, vorangeschickt war.
Kant aber ist es, der zuerst diesen wichtigen Punkt vollkommen aufgeklärt hat, durch seine große Lehre, daß dem empirischen Charakter, der, als eine Erscheinung, sich in der Zeit und in einer Vielheit von Handlungen darstellt, der intelligibele Charakter zum Grunde liegt, welcher die Beschaffenheit des Dinges an sich jener Erscheinung und daher von Raum und Zeit, Vielheit und Veränderung, unabhängig ist. Hieraus allein wird die jedem Erfahrenen bekannte, so erstaunliche, starre Unveränderlichkeit der Charaktere erklärlich, welche die Wirklichkeit und Erfahrung den Versprechungen einer den Menschen moralisch bessern wollenden und von Fortschritten in der Tugend redenden Ethik allezeit siegreich entgegengehalten und dadurch bewiesen hat, daß die Tugend angeboren und nicht angepredigt wird. Wenn nicht der Charakter, als Ursprüngliches, unveränderlich und daher aller Besserung, mittelst Berichtigung der Erkenntniß, unzugänglich wäre; wenn vielmehr, wie jene platte Ethik es behauptet, eine Besserung des Charakters mittelst der Moral und demnach „ein stetiger Fortschritt zum Guten“ möglich wäre; — so müßte, sollen nicht alle die vielen religiösen Anstalten und moralisirenden Bemühungen ihren Zweck verfehlt haben, wenigstens im Durchschnitt, die ältere Hälfte der Menschen bedeutend besser als die jüngere seyn. Davon ist aber so wenig eine Spur, daß wir umgekehrt eher von jungen Leuten etwas Gutes hoffen, als von alten, als welche durch die Erfahrung schlimmer geworden sind. Es kann zwar kommen, daß ein Mensch im Alter etwas besser, ein anderer wiederum schlechter erscheint, als er in der Jugend war: Dies liegt aber bloß daran, daß im Alter, in Folge der reifern und vielfach berichtigten Erkenntniß, der Charakter reiner und deutlicher hervortritt; während in der Jugend Unwissenheit, Irrthümer und Chimären bald falsche Motive vorschoben, bald wirkliche verdeckten; — wie dies folgt aus dem in der vorhergehenden Abhandlung S. 50 ff. unter 3 Gesagten. — Daß unter den bestraften Verbrechern sich viel mehr junge als alte befinden, kommt daher, daß, wo Anlage zu dergleichen Thaten im Charakter liegt, sie auch bald den Anlaß findet, als That hervorzutreten, und ihr Ziel, Galeere oder Galgen, erreicht: und umgekehrt, wen die Anlässe eines langen Lebens nicht zu Verbrechen haben bewegen können, der wird auch späterhin nicht leicht auf Motive dazu stoßen. Daher scheint mir der wahre Grund der dem Alter gezollten Achtung darin zu liegen, daß ein Alter die Prüfung eines langen Lebens bestanden und seine Unbescholtenheit bewahrt hat: denn dies ist die Bedingung jener Achtung. — Dieser Ansicht gemäß hat man, im wirklichen Leben, sich durch jene Verheißungen der Moralisten auch niemals irre machen lassen; sondern hat Dem, der ein Mal sich schlecht erwiesen, nie mehr getraut, und auf den Edelmuth Dessen, der ein Mal Proben davon abgelegt, nach Allem, was sich auch verändert haben mochte, stets mit Zuversicht hingeblickt. Operari sequitur Esse, ist ein fruchtbarer Satz der Scholastik: jedes Ding in der Welt wirkt nach seiner unveränderlichen Beschaffenheit, die sein Wesen, seine Essentia ausmacht; so auch der Mensch. Wie Einer ist, so wird, so muß er handeln, und das liberum arbitrium indifferentiae ist eine längst explodirte Erfindung aus der Kindheit der Philosophie, mit welcher immerhin sich einige alte Weiber im Doktorhute noch schleppen mögen.
Die drei ethischen Grundtriebfedern des Menschen, Egoismus, Bosheit, Mitleid, sind in Jedem in einem andern und unglaublich verschiedenen Verhältnisse vorhanden. Je nachdem dieses ist, werden die Motive auf ihn wirken und die Handlungen ausfallen. Ueber einen egoistischen Charakter werden nur egoistische Motive Gewalt haben, und die zum Mitleid, wie die zur Bosheit redenden werden nicht dagegen aufkommen: er wird so wenig sein Interesse opfern, um an seinem Feinde Rache zu nehmen, als um seinem Freunde zu helfen. Ein Anderer, der für boshafte Motive stark empfänglich ist, wird oft, um Andern zu schaden, großen eigenen Nachtheil nicht scheuen. Denn es giebt Charaktere, die im Verursachen des fremden Leidens einen Genuß finden, der das eigene eben so große überwiegt: dum alteri noceat sui negligens (Sen., De ira, I, 1). Diese gehen mit leidenschaftlicher Wonne in den Kampf, in welchem sie eben so große Verletzungen zu empfangen, als auszutheilen erwarten: ja, sie werden, mit Vorbedacht, Den, der ihnen ein Uebel verursacht hat, morden und gleich darauf, um der Strafe zu entgehen, sich selbst; wie dies die Erfahrung sehr oft gezeigt hat. Hingegen besteht die Güte des Herzens in einem tief gefühlten, universellen Mitleid mit Allem was Leben hat, zunächst aber mit dem Menschen; weil mit der Steigerung der Intelligenz die Empfänglichkeit für das Leiden gleichen Schritt hält: daher die unzähligen, geistigen und körperlichen Leiden des Menschen das Mitleid viel stärker in Anspruch nehmen, als der allein körperliche und selbst da dumpfere Schmerz des Thieres. Die Güte des Charakters wird demnach zunächst abhalten von jeder Verletzung des Andern, worin es auch sei, sodann aber auch zur Hülfe auffordern, wo immer ein fremdes Leiden sich darbietet. Und auch hiemit kann es eben so weit gehen, wie in umgekehrter Richtung mit der Bosheit, nämlich bis dahin, daß Charaktere von seltener Güte sich fremdes Leiden mehr zu Herzen nehmen, als eigenes, und daher für Andere Opfer bringen, durch welche sie selbst mehr leiden, als vorhin Der, dem sie geholfen. Wo Mehreren oder gar Vielen zugleich dadurch zu helfen ist, werden sie erforderlichenfalls sich ganz aufopfern: so Arnold von Winkelried. Vom Paulinus, Bischofe zu Nola, im 5. Jahrhundert, während des Einfalls der Vandalen aus Afrika in Italien, erzählt Joh. v. Müller (Weltgeschichte, Buch 10, Kap. 10): „Nachdem er, zum Lösegeld für Gefangene, alle Schätze der Kirche, sein und seiner Freunde eigenes Vermögen dargebracht, und er den Jammer einer Wittwe sah, deren einziger Sohn fortgeführt wurde, bot er für diesen sich selber zur Dienstbarkeit. Denn wer von gutem Alter war und nicht vom Schwerdte fiel, wurde gefangen nach Karthago geführt.“
Dieser unglaublich großen, angeborenen und ursprünglichen Verschiedenheit gemäß, werden Jeden nur die Motive vorwaltend anregen, für welche er überwiegende Empfänglichkeit hat; so wie der eine Körper nur auf Säuren, der andere nur auf Alkalien reagirt: und wie Dieses, so ist auch Jenes nicht zu ändern. Die menschenfreundlichen Motive, welche für den guten Charakter so mächtige Antriebe sind, vermögen als solche nichts über Den, der allein für egoistische Motive empfänglich ist. Will man nun diesen dennoch zu menschenfreundlichen Handlungen bringen; so kann es nur geschehen durch die Vorspiegelung, daß die Milderung der fremden Leiden mittelbar, auf irgend einem Wege, zu seinem eigenen Vortheil gereicht (wie denn auch die meisten Sittenlehren eigentlich verschiedenartige Versuche in diesem Sinne sind). Dadurch wird aber sein Wille bloß irre geleitet, nicht gebessert. Zu wirklicher Besserung wäre erfordert, daß man die ganze Art seiner Empfänglichkeit für Motive umwandelte, also z. B. machte, daß dem Einen fremdes Leiden als solches nicht mehr gleichgültig, dem Andern die Verursachung desselben nicht mehr Genuß wäre, oder einem Dritten nicht jede, selbst die geringste Vermehrung des eigenen Wohlseyns alle Motive anderer Art weit überwöge und unwirksam machte. Dies aber ist viel gewisser unmöglich, als daß man Blei in Gold umwandeln könnte. Denn es würde erfordern, daß man dem Menschen gleichsam das Herz im Leibe umkehrte, sein tief Innerstes umschüfe. Hingegen ist Alles, was man zu thun vermag, daß man den Kopf aufhellt, die Einsicht berichtigt, den Menschen zu einer richtigern Auffassung des objektiv Vorhandenen, der wahren Verhältnisse des Lebens bringt. Hiedurch aber wird nichts weiter erreicht, als daß die Beschaffenheit seines Willens sich konsequenter, deutlicher und entschiedener an den Tag legt, sich unverfälscht ausspricht. Denn, wie manche gute Handlungen im Grunde auf falschen Motiven, auf wohlgemeinten Vorspiegelungen eines dadurch in dieser, oder jener Welt zu erlangenden eigenen Vortheils beruhen; so beruhen auch manche Missethaten bloß auf falscher Erkenntniß der menschlichen Lebensverhältnisse. Hierauf gründet sich das Amerikanische Pönitentiarsystem: es beabsichtigt nicht, das Herz des Verbrechers zu bessern, sondern bloß, ihm den Kopf zurechtzusetzen, damit er zu der Einsicht gelange, daß Arbeit und Ehrlichkeit ein sichererer, ja leichterer Weg zum eigenen Wohle sind, als Spitzbüberei.
Durch Motive läßt sich Legalität erzwingen, nicht Moralität: man kann das Handeln umgestalten, nicht aber das eigentliche Wollen, welchem allein moralischer Werth zusteht. Man kann nicht das Ziel verändern, dem der Wille zustrebt, sondern nur den Weg, den er dahin einschlägt. Belehrung kann die Wahl der Mittel ändern, nicht aber die der letzten allgemeinen Zwecke: diese setzt jeder Wille sich, seiner ursprünglichen Natur gemäß. Man kann dem Egoisten zeigen, daß er durch Aufgeben kleiner Vortheile größere erlangen wird; dem Boshaften, daß die Verursachung fremder Leiden größere auf ihn selbst bringen wird. Aber den Egoismus selbst, die Bosheit selbst wird man Keinem ausreden; so wenig, wie der Katze ihre Neigung zum Mausen. Sogar auch die Güte des Charakters kann, durch Vermehrung der Einsicht, durch Belehrung über die Verhältnisse des Lebens, also durch Aufhellung des Kopfes, zu einer folgerechtern und vollkommenern Aeußerung ihres Wesens gebracht werden, z. B. mittelst Nachweisung der entfernteren Folgen, welche unser Thun für Andere hat, wie etwan der Leiden, welche ihnen, mittelbar und erst im Laufe der Zeit, aus dieser oder jener Handlung, die wir für so schlimm nicht hielten, erwachsen; desgleichen durch Belehrung über die nachtheiligen Folgen mancher gutherzigen Handlung, z. B. der Verschonung eines Verbrechers; besonders auch über den Vorrang, welcher dem Neminem laede durchgängig vor dem Omnes juva zusteht u. s. f. In dieser Hinsicht giebt es allerdings eine moralische Bildung und eine bessernde Ethik: aber darüber hinaus geht sie nicht, und die Schranke ist leicht abzusehen. Der Kopf wird aufgehellt; das Herz bleibt ungebessert. Das Grundwesentliche, das Entschiedene, im Moralischen, wie im Intellektuellen und wie im Physischen, ist das Angeborene: die Kunst kann überall nur nachhelfen. Jeder ist, was er ist, gleichsam „von Gottes Gnaden“, jure divino, θείᾳ μοίρᾳ.
„Du bist am Ende — was du bist.Setz’ dir Perrücken auf von Millionen Locken,Setz’ deinen Fuß auf ellenhohe Socken:Du bleibst doch immer was du bist.“
Aber schon lange höre ich den Leser die Frage aufwerfen: wo bleibt Schuld und Verdienst? — Zur Antwort hierauf verweise ich auf §. 10. Daselbst hat, was sonst hier vorzutragen wäre, schon seine Stelle gefunden, weil es in enger Verbindung mit Kants Lehre vom Zusammenbestehen der Freiheit mit der Nothwendigkeit steht. Das dort Gesagte also bitte ich hier nochmals zu lesen. In Gemäßheit desselben ist das Operari, beim Eintritt der Motive, durchweg nothwendig: daher kann die Freiheit, welche sich allein durch die Verantwortlichkeit ankündigt, nur im Esse liegen. Die Vorwürfe des Gewissens betreffen zwar zunächst und ostensibel Das, was wir gethan haben, eigentlich und im Grunde aber Das, was wir sind, als worüber unsere Thaten allein vollgültiges Zeugniß ablegen, indem sie zu unserm Charakter sich verhalten wie die Symptome zur Krankheit. In diesem Esse also, in dem was wir sind, muß auch Schuld und Verdienst liegen. Was wir an Andern entweder hochachten und lieben, oder verachten und hassen, ist nicht ein Wandelbares und Veränderliches, sondern ein Bleibendes, ein für alle Mal Bestehendes: das was sie sind: und kommen wir etwan von ihnen zurück; so sagen wir nicht, daß sie sich geändert, sondern daß wir uns in ihnen geirrt haben. Eben so ist der Gegenstand unserer Zufriedenheit und Unzufriedenheit mit uns selbst Das, was wir sind, unwiderruflich sind und bleiben: dies erstreckt sich sogar auf die intellektuellen, ja auf die physiognomischen Eigenschaften. Wie sollte also nicht in Dem, was wir sind, Schuld und Verdienst liegen? — Die immer vollständiger werdende Bekanntschaft mit uns selbst, das immer mehr sich füllende Protokoll der Thaten, ist das Gewissen. Das Thema des Gewissens sind zunächst unsere Handlungen, und zwar sind es diejenigen, in welchen wir dem Mitleid, das uns aufforderte, Andere wenigstens nicht zu verletzen, ja sogar ihnen Hülfe und Beistand zu leisten, entweder kein Gehör gegeben haben, weil Egoismus, oder gar Bosheit uns leitete; oder aber, mit Verleugnung dieser beiden, jenem Rufe gefolgt sind. Beide Fälle zeigen die Größe des Unterschiedes an, den wir zwischen uns und Andern machen. Auf diesem Unterschiede beruhen zuletzt die Grade der Moralität, oder Immoralität, d. h. der Gerechtigkeit und Menschenliebe, wie auch ihres Gegentheils. Die immer reicher werdende Erinnerung der in dieser Hinsicht bedeutsamen Handlungen vollendet mehr und mehr das Bild unsers Charakters, die wahre Bekanntschaft mit uns selbst. Aus dieser aber erwächst Zufriedenheit, oder Unzufriedenheit mit uns, mit dem, was wir sind, je nachdem Egoismus, Bosheit, oder Mitleid vorgewaltet haben, d. h. je nachdem der Unterschied, den wir zwischen unserer Person und dem übrigen gemacht haben, größer, oder kleiner gewesen ist. Nach dem selben Maaßstabe beurtheilen wir ebenfalls die Andern, deren Charakter wir eben so empirisch, wie den eigenen, nur unvollkommener, kennen lernen: hier tritt als Lob, Beifall, Hochachtung, oder Tadel, Unwille und Verachtung auf, was bei der Selbstbeurtheilung sich als Zufriedenheit, oder Unzufriedenheit, die bis zur Gewissensangst gehen kann, kund gab. Daß auch die Vorwürfe, welche wir Andern machen, nur zunächst auf die Thaten, eigentlich aber auf den unveränderlichen Charakter derselben gerichtet sind, und Tugend oder Laster als inhärirende, bleibende Eigenschaften angesehen werden, bezeugen manche sehr häufig vorkommende Redensarten, z. B. „Jetzt sehe ich, wie du bist!“ — „In dir habe ich mich geirrt.“ — Now I see what You are! — Voilà donc, comme tu es! — „So bin ich nicht!“ — „Ich bin nicht der Mann, der fähig wäre, Sie zu hintergehen“ u. dgl. m.; ferner auch: les ames bien nées; auch im Spanischen, bien nacido; εὐγενής, εὐγένεια, für tugendhaft, Tugend; generosioris animi amicus, u. s. w.
Durch Vernunft ist das Gewissen bloß deshalb bedingt, weil nur vermöge ihrer eine deutliche und zusammenhängende Rückerinnerung möglich ist. Es liegt in der Natur der Sache, daß das Gewissen erst hinterher spricht; weshalb es auch das richtende Gewissen heißt. Vorher sprechen kann es nur im uneigentlichen Sinn, nämlich indirekt, indem die Reflexion aus der Erinnerung ähnlicher Fälle auf die künftige Mißbilligung einer erst projektirten That schließt. — So weit geht die ethische Thatsache des Bewußtseyns: sie selbst bleibt als metaphysisches Problem stehen, welches nicht unmittelbar zu unserer Aufgabe gehört, jedoch im letzten Abschnitt berührt werden wird. — Zu der Erkenntniß, daß das Gewissen nur die mittelst der Thaten entstehende Bekanntschaft mit dem eigenen unveränderlichen Charakter ist, stimmt es vollkommen, daß die in den verschiedenen Menschen so höchst verschiedene Empfänglichkeit für die Motive des Eigennutzes, der Bosheit und des Mitleids, worauf der ganze moralische Werth des Menschen beruht, nicht etwas aus einem Andern Erklärliches, noch durch Belehrung zu Erlangendes und daher in der Zeit Entstehendes und Veränderliches, ja, vom Zufall Abhängiges, sondern angeboren, unveränderlich und nicht weiter erklärlich ist. Demgemäß ist der Lebenslauf selbst, mit allem seinem vielgestalteten Treiben, nichts weiter, als das äußere Zifferblatt jenes innern, ursprünglichen Getriebes, oder der Spiegel, in welchem allein dem Intellekt eines Jeden die Beschaffenheit seines eigenen Willens, der sein Kern ist, offenbar werden kann.
Wer sich die Mühe giebt, das hier und im erwähnten §. 10 Gesagte recht zu durchdenken, wird in meiner Begründung der Ethik eine Konsequenz und abgerundete Ganzheit entdecken, welche allen andern abgeht, und andererseits eine Uebereinstimmung mit den Thatsachen der Erfahrung, welche jene noch weniger haben. Denn nur die Wahrheit kann durchgängig mit sich und mit der Natur übereinstimmen: hingegen streiten alle falsche Grundansichten innerlich mit sich selbst und nach Außen mit der Erfahrung, welche bei jedem Schritte ihren stillen Protest einlegt.
Daß jedoch besonders die hier am Schlusse dargelegten Wahrheiten vielen festgewurzelten Vorurtheilen und Irrthümern, namentlich einer gewissen gangbaren Kinderschulen-Moral geradezu vor den Kopf stoßen, ist mir gar wohl, jedoch ohne Reue und Bedauern, bewußt. Denn erstlich spreche ich hier nicht zu Kindern, noch zum Volke, sondern zu einer erleuchteten Akademie, deren rein theoretische Frage auf die letzten Grundwahrheiten der Ethik gerichtet ist, und die auf eine höchst ernsthafte Frage auch eine ernste Antwort erwartet: und zweitens halte ich dafür, daß es weder privilegirte, noch nützliche, noch selbst unschädliche Irrthümer geben kann, sondern jeder Irrthum unendlich mehr Schaden als Nutzen stiftet. — Wollte man hingegen bestehende Vorurtheile zum Maaßstabe der Wahrheit, oder zum Gränzstein machen, den ihre Darlegung nicht überschreiten darf, so würde es redlicher seyn, philosophische Fakultäten und Akademien ganz eingehen zu lassen: denn was nicht ist, soll auch nicht scheinen.
Musean translation
Machine-assisted Musean translation made directly from the complete 1860 German edition, including its quotations, author’s notes, prize question and judgment. Source-language reviewed.
On the Ethical Difference between Characters.
The last question that must be answered to complete the foundation of ethics set out here is this: What accounts for the vast difference in people’s moral conduct? If compassion is the fundamental incentive of all genuine—that is, unselfish—justice and love of humanity, why does it move one person but not another?—Can ethics, perhaps, not only uncover the moral incentive but also set it to work? Can it turn a hard-hearted person into a compassionate one, and so into someone just and benevolent?—Certainly not: differences of character are innate and ineradicable. A malicious person’s malice is as inborn as a snake’s fangs and venom sac; and he can change it no more than the snake can. “Willing cannot be learned,” said Nero’s tutor. In the Meno, Plato examines at length whether virtue can be taught. He quotes a passage from Theognis:
But by teachingYou will never make a bad man good.
(But by teaching you will never make a good man out of a bad one.)
And he reaches this conclusion: “Virtue, then, would come neither by nature nor through teaching, but by divine allotment, without understanding, to those who receive it” (“Virtue will come to us neither by instruction nor by nature; rather, by divine allotment, without the mind’s participation, it will flow into whoever has been granted it”); here the difference between φύσει, “by nature,” and θείᾳ μοίρᾳ, “by divine allotment,” seems to me roughly to mark the difference between the physical and the metaphysical. According to Aristotle, even the father of ethics, Socrates, maintained: “It is not in our power to become good or bad” (“It is not within our power to be good or bad”). (Eth. magna, I, 9.) Aristotle himself speaks in the same sense: “For everyone seems to possess each trait of character in some way by nature: from birth we are just, temperate, and so on” (“For individual traits seem in some way to belong by nature to all people: as soon as we are born, we are fitted and disposed for justice, temperance, courage, and the other virtues”). (Eth. Nicom., VI, 13.) We find the same conviction very firmly expressed in the fragments of the Pythagorean Archytas, which are certainly very old, even if they may not be authentic, and which Stobaeus preserved for us in his Anthology, Tit. I, §. 77. They are also printed in the Short Greek Works of Maxims and Morals, edited by Orelli, Vol. 2, p. 240. There, in the Doric dialect, we read: “Those virtues that employ reasoning and demonstration should be called branches of knowledge; but virtue is the moral and best disposition of the irrational part of the soul, by which we are said to be people of a certain character—for example, generous, just, and temperate.” (“Those virtues that employ reason and demonstration may properly be called branches of knowledge; but by the name of virtue we shall understand the moral and best disposition of the part of the soul that lacks reason, according to which we are said to have a certain moral quality, and are called, for example, generous, just, and temperate.”) If we survey all the virtues and vices that Aristotle brought together in a brief overview in his book On Virtues and Vices, we will find that they can all be conceived only as innate qualities, and indeed can be genuine only as such. If, on the other hand, they had been deliberately adopted through rational reflection, they would really amount to pretense and would be counterfeit; we could then place no reliance whatever on their lasting or proving themselves under the pressure of circumstances. The same holds for the virtue of love of humanity, which is absent from Aristotle, as from all the ancients. In the same spirit, though retaining his skeptical tone, Montaigne therefore asks: “Could it be true that to be altogether good we must be so through some hidden, natural, and universal quality, without law, without reason, without example?” (L. II, c. 11.) Lichtenberg says outright: “All virtue that comes from deliberate resolve is worth little. Feeling or habit is what matters.” (Miscellaneous Writings, “Moral Observations.”) Even the original teaching of Christianity agrees with this view, for in the Sermon on the Mount itself, in Luke, Kap. 6, V. 45, we read: “The good person brings forth good from the good treasure of his heart, and the evil person brings forth evil from the evil treasure of his heart” (“The good person brings forth good from the good treasure of his soul, and the evil person brings forth evil from the evil treasure of his soul”); the two preceding verses have already offered an illustration in the fruit, which always accords with the tree.
But it was Kant who first brought complete clarity to this important point, through his great doctrine that the empirical character, which as an appearance unfolds in time and in a multiplicity of actions, rests on the intelligible character: the constitution of the thing in itself underlying that appearance, and therefore independent of space and time, multiplicity and change. This alone explains the astonishing, rigid unchangeability of character, familiar to everyone with experience of life. Reality and experience have always triumphantly set it against the promises of an ethics that proposes to improve people morally and speaks of advances in virtue, thereby proving that virtue is inborn, not preached into us. If character, as something original, were not unchangeable and therefore inaccessible to any improvement through the correction of knowledge; if, instead, as that shallow ethics maintains, an improvement of character through morality, and thus “a steady progress toward the good,” were possible—then, unless all the many religious institutions and moralizing efforts had failed in their purpose, at least on average the older half of humanity would have to be considerably better than the younger. Yet there is so little sign of this that, on the contrary, we are more inclined to hope for something good from the young than from the old, who have been made worse by experience. It may indeed happen that one person seems somewhat better in old age, another worse, than in youth. But this is only because, as knowledge matures and is corrected in many ways, character emerges more purely and distinctly in old age; whereas in youth ignorance, errors, and fantasies sometimes put forward false motives and sometimes concealed real ones—as follows from what was said under 3 in the preceding essay, S. 50 ff.—The fact that there are far more young than old among convicted criminals arises because, wherever a disposition to such deeds lies in the character, it soon finds an occasion to emerge in action and reaches its destination, the galley or the gallows. Conversely, someone whom the occasions of a long life have been unable to move to crime will not easily meet with motives for it later. The true reason for the respect paid to age thus seems to me to be that an old person has passed the test of a long life and kept an unblemished name: for that is the condition of this respect.—In keeping with this view, people in actual life have never let those promises of the moralists mislead them. They have never again trusted someone who once proved himself bad, and, whatever else may have changed, have always looked with confidence to the noble-mindedness of someone who once gave proof of it. “Action follows being” is a fruitful proposition of Scholasticism: everything in the world acts according to its unchangeable constitution, which makes up its being, its essence; so does the human being. As a person is, so he will, so he must act; and free choice indifferent between alternatives is a long-exploded invention from philosophy’s childhood, with which a few old women in doctoral caps may still go lumbering along.
The three fundamental ethical incentives in human beings—egoism, malice, compassion—are present in everyone in a different and astonishingly varied proportion. According to that proportion, motives will work on a person and actions will turn out. Only egoistic motives will have power over an egoistic character; those that appeal to compassion, like those that appeal to malice, will not prevail against them. He will no more sacrifice his own interest to take revenge on an enemy than to help a friend. Another person, strongly receptive to malicious motives, will often shrink from no great loss of his own in order to harm others. For there are characters who find in causing another’s suffering a pleasure that outweighs equally great suffering of their own: “Heedless of himself, so long as he harms another” (Sen., On Anger, I, 1). They enter battle with passionate delight, expecting to receive injuries as great as those they inflict. Indeed, they will deliberately murder someone who has done them harm and immediately afterward kill themselves to escape punishment, as experience has very often shown. By contrast, goodness of heart consists in a deeply felt, universal compassion for everything that lives, but above all for human beings; for susceptibility to suffering keeps pace with the growth of intelligence. Hence the countless mental and bodily sufferings of human beings make a much stronger claim on compassion than an animal’s pain, which is bodily alone and, even as such, less keenly felt. Goodness of character will therefore first restrain us from injuring another in any way, and then urge us to help wherever another’s suffering presents itself. It can go just as far in this direction as malice can in the opposite: characters of rare goodness take another’s suffering more to heart than their own, and therefore make sacrifices for others that cause them more suffering than the person they helped had endured before. Where several, or even many, can be helped at once, they will, if necessary, sacrifice themselves entirely: so Arnold von Winkelried. Of Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in the 5th century, during the Vandals’ invasion of Italy from Africa, Joh. v. Müller relates (World History, Book 10, Kap. 10): “After giving all the church’s treasures, his own wealth, and that of his friends to ransom prisoners, he saw the grief of a widow whose only son was being carried away, and offered himself into servitude in the son’s place. For whoever was of serviceable age and did not fall by the sword was taken captive to Carthage.”
In keeping with this astonishingly great, innate, and original diversity, each person will be stirred chiefly by the motives to which he is predominantly receptive, just as one substance reacts only to acids, another only to alkalis; and neither can be changed. Benevolent motives, such powerful incentives to a good character, have as such no power over someone receptive only to egoistic motives. If we nevertheless wish to bring him to benevolent actions, this can happen only by holding out the prospect that relieving another’s suffering will somehow, indirectly, serve his own advantage—as most systems of morals are, in fact, various attempts of this kind. But this merely misleads his will; it does not improve it. Real improvement would require transforming the whole nature of his receptivity to motives: making one person no longer indifferent to another’s suffering as such; another no longer find pleasure in causing it; or a third no longer let every increase in his own well-being, however slight, far outweigh and render powerless all motives of any other kind. But this is far more certainly impossible than turning lead into gold. For it would require, as it were, turning a person’s heart around within his body, remaking his deepest inner being. All we can do, by contrast, is enlighten the head, correct the understanding, and bring a person to a truer grasp of what is objectively there, of the real circumstances of life. Yet this achieves nothing beyond making the constitution of his will reveal itself more consistently, distinctly, and decisively, express itself without falsification. For just as many good actions rest at bottom on false motives, on well-meant promises of personal advantage to be gained through them in this world or the next, so many misdeeds rest only on a false understanding of the circumstances of human life. This is the basis of the American penitentiary system: it aims not to improve the criminal’s heart, but merely to set his head straight, so that he comes to see that work and honesty are a surer, indeed an easier, road to his own welfare than roguery.
Motives can compel lawfulness, not morality: we can reshape action, but not willing itself, to which alone moral worth belongs. We cannot change the goal toward which the will strives, only the road it takes to reach it. Instruction can change the choice of means, but not of ultimate, general ends: each will sets these for itself according to its original nature. We can show the egoist that by giving up small advantages he will gain greater ones; the malicious person, that causing others to suffer will bring greater suffering on himself. But we will talk no one out of egoism itself or malice itself, any more than we will talk a cat out of its taste for catching mice. Even goodness of character can be brought to express its nature more consistently and fully through greater understanding, through instruction in the circumstances of life—in short, by enlightening the head. We can, for example, point out the more remote consequences our actions have for others: the sufferings that indirectly, and only over time, arise for them from some action we did not consider so bad. We can likewise explain the harmful consequences of many a kind-hearted action—for example, sparing a criminal—and especially the precedence that “Harm no one” everywhere takes over “Help everyone,” and so on. In this respect there certainly is moral education and an ethics that brings improvement: but it goes no further, and its boundary is easy to see. The head is enlightened; the heart remains unimproved. In moral matters, as in intellectual and physical ones, what is fundamental and decisive is what is inborn: art can only lend assistance everywhere. Each person is what he is, as it were, “by the grace of God,” by divine right, by divine allotment.
“In the end, you are—what you are.Put on a wig with millions of curls,Raise your foot on ell-high socks:You still remain forever what you are.”
But I have long heard the reader asking: What becomes of guilt and merit?—For the answer I refer to §. 10. What would otherwise have had to be presented here has already found its place there, because it is closely connected with Kant’s doctrine of the coexistence of freedom and necessity. I therefore ask that what was said there be read once more. In accordance with it, action, once motives appear, is necessary throughout; hence freedom, which announces itself only through responsibility, can lie only in being. The reproaches of conscience do indeed concern, immediately and ostensibly, what we have done, but truly and fundamentally they concern what we are. Our deeds alone bear fully valid witness to this, standing to our character as symptoms do to a disease. In this being, then, in what we are, guilt and merit must also lie. What we either esteem and love in others, or despise and hate, is not something mutable and changeable, but something enduring, established once and for all: what they are. And if we happen to revise our opinion of them, we do not say they have changed, but that we were mistaken about them. Likewise, the object of our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with ourselves is what we are, what we irrevocably are and remain; this extends even to intellectual, indeed to physiognomic, qualities. How, then, could guilt and merit fail to lie in what we are?—Our ever fuller acquaintance with ourselves, the record of deeds that fills up more and more, is conscience. Its immediate subject is our actions: specifically, those in which we either refused to heed compassion, which urged us at least not to injure others, and even to give them help and support, because egoism or outright malice guided us; or, renouncing both, followed that call. Both cases show the magnitude of the difference we make between ourselves and others. On this difference, ultimately, rest the degrees of morality or immorality—that is, of justice and love of humanity, as well as their opposites. The ever richer recollection of actions significant in this respect completes more and more the picture of our character, our true acquaintance with ourselves. From this arises satisfaction or dissatisfaction with ourselves, with what we are, according to whether egoism, malice, or compassion has predominated—that is, whether the difference we made between our own person and everyone else was greater or smaller. By the same measure we judge others, whose characters we come to know empirically, like our own, though less perfectly. Here what revealed itself in self-judgment as satisfaction or dissatisfaction—which can reach the anguish of conscience—appears as praise, approval, esteem, or blame, indignation, and contempt. Many very common expressions bear witness that even our reproaches against others concern their deeds only immediately, but actually concern their unchangeable character, and that virtue and vice are regarded as inherent, enduring qualities. For example: “Now I see what you are like!”—“I was mistaken about you.”—“Now I see what you are!”—“So that is what you are like!”—“I’m not like that!”—“I’m not the sort of man who would be capable of deceiving you,” and the like; also, “well-born souls”; in Spanish too, bien nacido, “well born”; εὐγενής, “noble,” and εὐγένεια, “nobility,” used to mean virtuous and virtue; “a friend of nobler spirit,” and so on.
Conscience depends on reason only because reason alone makes a clear and connected recollection possible. It lies in the nature of the matter that conscience speaks only afterward, which is why it is also called the judging conscience. It can speak beforehand only in an improper sense, namely indirectly, when reflection infers from the recollection of similar cases the future disapproval of a deed still only contemplated.—This is as far as the ethical fact of consciousness extends. It itself remains a metaphysical problem, not directly part of our task, though it will be touched on in the final part.—It accords perfectly with the insight that conscience is simply the acquaintance we gain, through our deeds, with our own unchangeable character that people’s vastly differing receptivity to the motives of self-interest, malice, and compassion—on which their whole moral worth rests—is not something explicable through something else, or obtainable through instruction, and thus arising and changing in time, indeed dependent on chance; rather, it is innate, unchangeable, and admits of no further explanation. Accordingly, the course of life itself, with all its varied activity, is nothing more than the outer dial of that inner, original mechanism, or the mirror in which alone each person’s intellect can discover the constitution of his own will, which is his core.
Anyone who takes the trouble to think through carefully what has been said here and in the §. 10 already mentioned will discover in my foundation of ethics a consistency and rounded completeness lacking in all others, and, on the other hand, an agreement with the facts of experience that those others possess still less. For truth alone can agree throughout with itself and with nature; all false fundamental views, by contrast, are inwardly at odds with themselves and outwardly at odds with experience, which lodges its silent protest at every step.
I am very well aware, though without remorse or regret, that the truths set out here at the end, in particular, directly offend many deeply rooted prejudices and errors, especially a certain current nursery morality. For, first, I am speaking here neither to children nor to the people, but to an enlightened academy whose purely theoretical question concerns the ultimate fundamental truths of ethics, and which expects a serious answer to a most serious question. And second, I hold that there can be no privileged errors, no useful errors, not even harmless errors, but that every error does infinitely more harm than good.—If, on the other hand, existing prejudices are to be made the measure of truth, or the boundary stone beyond which its exposition may not pass, it would be more honest to abolish philosophical faculties and academies altogether: for what does not exist should not pretend to exist.
Plain English translation
Independent, machine-assisted Plain English translation made directly from the complete 1860 German edition and its embedded passages. Source-language reviewed.
On the ethical difference between characters.
The last question, whose answer is needed to complete the foundation of ethics I have set out, is this: What is the reason for the great difference in the moral conduct of people? If compassion is the basic motive of all genuine, that is, unselfish, justice and love of humanity, why is one person moved by it and another not?—Perhaps ethics, by uncovering the moral motive, can also set it in action? Can it remake a hard-hearted person into a compassionate one, and so into a just and kind one?—Certainly not. The difference between characters is inborn and cannot be wiped out. A malicious person's malice is as inborn in him as the snake's fangs and venom sac are in the snake. And he can no more change it than the snake can. “Willing cannot be learned,” said Nero's teacher. Plato examines at length in the Meno whether virtue can be taught or not. He cites a passage from Theognis:
Yet by teachingYou will never turn a bad man into a good one.
(By teaching you will never produce a good man from a bad one.)
and he arrives at the result: “Virtue would be neither natural nor teachable, but would come by divine fate, without understanding, to those it comes to” (“Virtue will be present in us neither through teaching nor through nature, but by a divine lot, without the mind, it will flow into whoever has received that lot”). In this, the difference between “by nature” and “by divine fate” seems to me to mark roughly the difference between the physical and the metaphysical. Already the father of ethics, Socrates, according to Aristotle, asserted: “It does not depend on us to be good or bad” (“It is not in our power to be good or bad”). (Eth. magna, I, 9.) Aristotle himself speaks in the same sense: “For everyone thinks that each kind of character belongs to us somehow by nature. We have justice, self-control and the rest right from birth” (“For each single character trait seems to be present in all people somehow by nature: as soon as we are born, we are suited and ready for justice, self-control, courage and the other virtues”). (Eth. Nicom., VI, 13.) We also find this conviction stated very decidedly in the fragments of the Pythagorean Archytas, which are in any case very old, even if perhaps not genuine. Stobaeus has preserved them for us in the Anthology, Tit. I, section 77. They are also printed in the Short Greek Works of Maxims and Morals, edited by Orelli, Vol. 2, p. 240. There, in the Doric dialect, it says: “The virtues that make use of reasons and proofs ought to be called forms of knowledge. Virtue, however, is the moral and best state of the unreasoning part of the soul, by which we are said to be of a certain character, for example generous, just and self-controlled.” (“The virtues that use reason and proof may rightly be called forms of knowledge; but by the word virtue we mean the moral and best condition of the part of the soul without reason, by which we are said to have some moral quality and are called, for instance, generous, just and temperate.”) Suppose one surveys all the virtues and vices that Aristotle put together for a short overview in the book On Virtues and Vices. One will find that all of them can be thought of only as inborn qualities. Indeed, they can be genuine only as such. If, on the other hand, they were taken up arbitrarily as a result of rational reflection, they would really come down to pretense and would not be genuine. Then there would be no reckoning at all on their lasting or proving true under the pressure of circumstances. It is no different with the virtue of love of humanity, which is missing in Aristotle, as in all the ancients. In the same sense, then, though keeping his skeptical tone, Montaigne says: “Would it be true that, to be entirely good, we must be so by a hidden, natural and universal property, without law, without reason, without example?” (Book II, chapter 11.) Lichtenberg says outright: “All virtue out of intention is not worth much. Feeling or habit is the thing.” (Miscellaneous Writings, “Moral Remarks”.) But even the original teaching of Christianity agrees with this view. In the Sermon on the Mount itself, in Luke, chapter 6, verse 45, it says: “The good man brings out what is good from the good treasure of his heart, and the wicked man brings out what is wicked from the wicked treasure of his heart” (“A good man brings forth good from the good treasure of his mind, and a bad man brings forth evil from the bad treasure of his mind”). In the two verses before it, the figurative illustration of the matter had been given first, through the fruit, which always turns out according to the tree.
It is Kant, however, who first made this important point completely clear. He did it through his great teaching that the empirical character has the intelligible character as its ground. The empirical character is an appearance. It presents itself in time and in a multitude of actions. The intelligible character is the nature of the thing in itself behind that appearance. So it is independent of space and time, of multiplicity and of change. Only from this can we explain the rigid unchangeableness of characters. It is known to everyone with experience, and it is astonishing. Reality and experience have always held it up victoriously against the promises of an ethics that wants to make people morally better and talks about progress in virtue. In this way they have proved that virtue is inborn and is not preached into people. Suppose character were not something original, unchangeable, and so closed to all improvement through the correction of knowledge. Suppose instead, as that shallow ethics claims, that improving character by means of morality were possible, and so “a steady progress toward the good.” Then, unless all the many religious institutions and moralizing efforts have failed in their purpose, the older half of humankind would have to be considerably better than the younger half, at least on average. But there is so little trace of this that, on the contrary, we hope for something good more readily from young people than from old ones, who have become worse through experience. It can happen, to be sure, that one person seems somewhat better in old age and another worse than he was in youth. But this is only because in old age, thanks to more mature knowledge that has been corrected many times, the character shows itself more purely and clearly. In youth, ignorance, errors and fantasies sometimes put forward false motives and sometimes covered up real ones.—This follows from what was said in the preceding essay, p. 50 and following pages, under 3. Among punished criminals there are many more young people than old. The reason is that where a disposition to such deeds lies in the character, it soon finds the occasion to come out as an act, and it reaches its goal, the galleys or the gallows. And the other way around: someone whom the occasions of a long life have not been able to move to crimes will not easily run into motives for them later either. So the true ground of the respect paid to old age seems to me to lie in this: an old person has passed the test of a long life and has kept a spotless name. For that is the condition of this respect.—In keeping with this view, people in real life have never let those promises of the moralists confuse them. They have never again trusted someone who once proved himself bad. And they have always looked with confidence to the nobility of someone who once gave proof of it, whatever else may have changed. “Acting follows being” is a fruitful principle of Scholasticism. Every thing in the world acts according to its unchangeable nature, which makes up its being, its essence. So does the human being. As someone is, so he will act, so he must act. The free choice of indifference is an invention from the childhood of philosophy, long since exploded. Some old women in doctors' hats may by all means still drag it around with them.
The three basic ethical motives of the human being are egoism, malice and compassion. They are present in everyone in a different and incredibly varied proportion. Depending on that proportion, motives will work on the person and actions will turn out. Over an egoistic character only egoistic motives will have power. Those that speak to compassion, and those that speak to malice, will not prevail against them. Such a person will give up his interest as little to take revenge on his enemy as to help his friend. Another person is strongly receptive to malicious motives. He will often not shrink from great harm to himself in order to harm others. For there are characters who find so much enjoyment in causing another's suffering that it outweighs their own suffering, even when that is just as great: “heedless of himself, so long as he harms another” (Sen., De ira, I, 1). These people go into a fight with passionate delight. In that fight they expect to receive as great injuries as they hand out. Indeed, they will deliberately murder someone who has done them harm, and right afterward kill themselves to escape punishment. Experience has shown this very often. Goodness of heart, by contrast, consists in a deeply felt, universal compassion with everything that lives, but first of all with human beings. This is because sensitivity to suffering keeps pace with the growth of intelligence. So the countless mental and bodily sufferings of humans make a much stronger claim on compassion than the animal's pain, which is only bodily and even then duller. Goodness of character will therefore first hold a person back from injuring another in any respect whatever. Then it will also call him to help wherever someone else's suffering presents itself. And here too it can go just as far as malice does in the opposite direction. Characters of rare goodness take another's suffering more to heart than their own. So they make sacrifices for others by which they themselves suffer more than the person they helped had suffered before. Where several, or even many, can be helped at the same time by it, they will if necessary sacrifice themselves completely. Arnold von Winkelried did so. Johannes von Müller (Universal History, Book 10, chapter 10) tells this about Paulinus, bishop of Nola, in the 5th century, during the invasion of Italy by the Vandals from Africa: “After he had given up, as ransom money for prisoners, all the treasures of the church and his own and his friends' property, he saw the misery of a widow whose only son was being carried off. For this son he offered himself into servitude. For whoever was of a fit age and did not fall by the sword was taken prisoner to Carthage.”
Because of this incredibly great, inborn and original difference, in each person the motives that mainly stir him will be only those for which he has predominant receptivity. In the same way one body reacts only to acids and another only to alkalis. As with the one, so with the other: neither can be changed. Motives of kindness to people are such powerful drives for a good character. As such, they can do nothing over someone who is receptive only to egoistic motives. Suppose one still wants to bring such a person to kind actions. That can be done only by holding up the illusion that easing other people's suffering will, indirectly and in some way, work out to his own advantage. (Most moral teachings are in fact various kinds of attempts in just this direction.) But this only misleads his will. It does not improve it. Real improvement would require changing the whole manner of his receptivity to motives. For example, one would have to bring it about that another's suffering, as such, was no longer a matter of indifference to the first person; that causing it was no longer a pleasure to the second; or that, for a third, every increase of his own well-being, even the smallest, no longer far outweighed all motives of any other kind and made them ineffective. But this is far more certainly impossible than turning lead into gold. For it would require turning a person's heart around inside his body, so to speak, and recreating his deepest inner being. All one is able to do, in contrast, is to brighten the head, correct the insight, and bring the person to a more correct grasp of what objectively exists, of the true conditions of life. But this achieves nothing more than that the nature of his will shows itself more consistently, more clearly and more decisively, and expresses itself without falsification. For some good actions are at bottom based on false motives, on well-meant illusions of an advantage of one's own to be gained thereby in this world or in another. In the same way, some misdeeds are based merely on false knowledge of the conditions of human life. The American penitentiary system is built on this. It does not aim to improve the criminal's heart. It aims only to set his head straight, so that he comes to see that work and honesty are a surer, indeed easier, road to his own welfare than roguery.
Motives can force legality, not morality. One can reshape acting, but not the actual willing, which alone has moral worth. One cannot change the goal the will strives toward, only the path it takes to get there. Instruction can change the choice of means, but not the choice of the final, general ends. Every will sets those for itself, in keeping with its original nature. One can show the egoist that by giving up small advantages he will gain larger ones. One can show the malicious person that causing others' suffering will bring greater suffering on himself. But nobody can talk anyone out of egoism itself or malice itself, any more than a cat out of its inclination to catch mice. Even goodness of character can be brought to a more consistent and more complete expression of its nature by increasing insight, by instruction about the conditions of life, that is, by brightening the head. One example is pointing out the more remote consequences that our actions have for others. These include, for instance, the sufferings that grow out of this or that action for them, indirectly and only in the course of time, when we had not thought it so bad. Another example is instruction about the harmful consequences of many a kind-hearted action, such as sparing a criminal. Especially there is instruction about the priority that “Harm no one” always has over “Help everyone,” and so on. In this respect there is indeed a moral education and an improving ethics. But it goes no further than this, and the limit is easy to see. The head is brightened. The heart stays unimproved. What is basic and decisive, in the moral as in the intellectual and the physical, is what is inborn. Human skill can only help things along. Everyone is what he is, so to speak “by the grace of God,” by divine right, by divine fate.
“In the end you are—what you are.Put on wigs of millions of curls,Put your foot on platform shoes a yard high:You still remain always what you are.”
But for a long time now I have heard the reader raise the question: what becomes of guilt and merit?—In answer I refer to section 10. There, what would otherwise have to be presented here has already found its place, because it stands in close connection with Kant's doctrine of how freedom and necessity exist together. So I ask the reader to read again here what was said there. According to it, acting is entirely necessary once motives arise. So freedom, which announces itself only through responsibility, can lie only in being. The reproaches of conscience concern, first and apparently, what we have done. Really and at bottom, though, they concern what we are. Our deeds are the only fully valid evidence about that, since they stand to our character as symptoms stand to a disease. So in this being, in what we are, guilt and merit must lie as well. What we either esteem and love or despise and hate in others is not something fickle and changeable. It is something lasting, something that exists once and for all: what they are. If we ever go back on our opinion of them, we do not say that they have changed. We say that we were mistaken about them. In the same way, the object of our satisfaction and dissatisfaction with ourselves is what we are, what we irrevocably are and remain. This extends even to our intellectual qualities, and even to the traits of our faces. How could guilt and merit not lie, then, in what we are?—The ever more complete acquaintance with ourselves, the ever fuller record of our deeds, is conscience. The subject matter of conscience is first of all our actions. It is those actions in which we either gave no hearing to compassion, which called on us at least not to hurt others, or even to give them help and support, because egoism or even malice led us; or else, rejecting both of these, we followed that call. Both cases show how great the difference is that we make between ourselves and others. In the end the degrees of morality or immorality rest on this difference. That is, the degrees of justice and love of humanity, as well as of their opposite. The ever richer memory of the actions that matter in this respect completes more and more the picture of our character, the true acquaintance with ourselves. From this acquaintance grows satisfaction or dissatisfaction with ourselves, with what we are. Which one it is depends on whether egoism, malice or compassion has prevailed. That is, it depends on whether the difference we have made between our own person and the rest has been greater or smaller. By the same standard we also judge others. We get to know their character empirically, just like our own, only less perfectly. Here what appears as praise, approval and esteem, or as blame, indignation and contempt, is what showed itself in self-judgment as satisfaction or dissatisfaction, which can go as far as the anguish of conscience. Many very common sayings show that the reproaches we make to others, too, are aimed only first at the deeds, but really at their unchangeable character, and that virtue or vice is seen as an inherent, lasting quality. Examples: “Now I see what you are like!”—“I was wrong about you.”—Now I see what You are!—“So that is how you are!”—“That is not how I am!”—“I am not the man who would be capable of deceiving you,” and the like. Also: “well-born souls”; in Spanish too, “well-born”; the Greek words for “well-born” and “good birth” used to mean virtuous and virtue; “a friend of a more noble mind,” and so on.
Conscience depends on reason only because a clear and connected recollection is possible only by means of reason. It lies in the nature of the matter that conscience speaks only afterward. That is why it is also called the judging conscience. It can speak beforehand only in an improper sense, namely indirectly: reflection concludes, from the memory of similar cases, that a deed that is only planned will be disapproved of in the future.—So far goes the ethical fact of consciousness. It itself remains as a metaphysical problem. That problem does not belong directly to our task, but it will be touched on in the last section.—The insight that conscience is only the acquaintance, arising through deeds, with one's own unchangeable character fits perfectly with the following fact. In different people the receptivity to the motives of self-interest, of malice and of compassion is extremely different. On it the whole moral worth of a person rests. This receptivity is not something explainable from something else. Nor is it something to be gained by instruction, and so arising in time and changeable, or dependent on chance. It is inborn, unchangeable and not explainable any further. Accordingly the course of life itself, with all its many-sided activity, is nothing more than the outer dial of that inner, original clockwork, or the mirror in which alone the nature of one's own will, which is one's core, can become evident to each person's intellect.
Whoever takes the trouble to think through properly what was said here and in the mentioned section 10 will discover in my foundation of ethics a consistency and rounded wholeness that all the others lack. On the other side, he will discover an agreement with the facts of experience, which those others have even less. For only truth can agree throughout with itself and with nature. All false basic views, by contrast, are in conflict inwardly with themselves and outwardly with experience, which files its silent protest at every step.
I am well aware, though without regret or remorse, that the truths set out here at the end in particular clash head-on with many deeply rooted prejudices and errors. They especially offend a certain current infant-school morality. For first, I am not speaking here to children, nor to the common people, but to an enlightened academy. Its purely theoretical question is directed to the ultimate basic truths of ethics, and to a most serious question it also expects a serious answer. Second, I hold that there can be no privileged errors, no useful ones, and not even harmless ones. Every error does infinitely more harm than good.—If, on the other hand, one wanted to make existing prejudices the measure of truth, or a boundary stone that its presentation must not cross, it would be more honest to let philosophical faculties and academies die out altogether. For what is not should not seem to be either.
About this section
Section 20 is part of On the Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 21 of 24 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
Open the work page for the full contents, every edition, and the download links, or go back to Explore to browse other complete works in the European tradition. The reader keeps your place when you are signed in and lets you compare the original with each translation, one edition at a time.