Early Ethical Writings of Aurel Kolnai

Francis Dunlop

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138733466
• eBook ISBN: 9781351740746
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This title was first published in 2002: Kolnai's later work in moral philosophy is well-known, and interest in it continues to grow, but his dissertation, Ethical Value and Reality, has received little attention - although Kolnai himself said that it contains the germs of nearly all his subsequent thought. This first English translation of the dissertation and of two related papers from the same period will enable the English-speaking reader to explore Kolnai's ethical work as a whole. In Ethical Value and Reality Kolnai proposes a 'completion' of phenomenological value-ethics which takes account of 'the embeddedness of ethical values in reality'. Kolnai explores moral psychology and offers important perspectives on political activity in its moral dimensions, on the relation between morality and religion, and on the relation between the moral point of view and the psycho-therapeutic. Dunlop's comprehensive introduction to the translation provides the reader with assistance in understanding the text, setting it in its contemporary context, and relating it to Kolnai's subsequent writings.

Chapter One
Ethical Value

Le réel se constate et ne se constant pas

(Edouard Le Roy)

Do not be absolutely set on anything outside you
... Every impulse could be misplaced

(J. F. Herbart)

1 Primary data of ethics

Ethics is founded on two ultimate data: the moral need and the moral intuitions actually current in society. On their basis we become familiar - at first and second hand respectively - with the assessment of human conduct as "good" and "evil"; such judgements being at least intended to denote objective, independently existing qualities of Good and Evil. Actually to assert this objective existence presupposes engagement with metaphysics; pure ethics must content itself with assuming it, just as logic refrains from asserting the existence of truth and falsity, let alone proving it, but simply sets forth what can be established on this assumption. It is hard to see how we can properly engage in ethics unless our experience of good and evil and the conflict between them is deeply felt and beyond doubt; if we are not prepared to affirm and vouch for the Good ourselves, we are scarcely going to be impressed by any justification of the ethical claim, however systematic it may be. Harking back to the moral need is essential so that we may keep ourselves continually in touch with the most fundamental ethical experience; and to ensure that all our ethical deliberation is pervaded by an awareness in ourselves of life-directing motives that are not "biological", or subservient to vital interests. We need also to keep our eyes fixed on the moral facts of society - which are neither derivable from a perfect moral consciousness nor identical with social "practices". This helps us to see the universality of the moral need, and its manifold relation to what actually exists. Every social reality is subject to moral evaluations, which are frequently hostile or condemnatory; nevertheless they always show a partial grasp of the phenomena of good and evil, one confined and distorted by the influence of other kinds of evaluation.

Moral experience requires in the first place a certain keenness in the experience of evil and resistance to it. Every lawbook tends to be filled with prohibitions. We should recall that, without moral "watchfulness", life can be impaired or even destroyed by something intolerable. Only then does the experience of the Good, a natural counterpoise to impairment and destruction, come distinctly into view. The Good as such also stands out from the "morally indifferent". A further fundamental postulate of the moral life requires morality to be "rewarding", or worth the trouble, and that a real difference can be made in the balance of good and evil. This feature seems to follow from the essence of good and evil conduct, which is pointless unless there is a prospect of "world-changing" results which outlast the immediate occasion.

It is no part of my purpose to set out any material moral principle. My decision in favour of a kind of "personalism" will emerge sufficiently clearly below. But if "good" and "evil" are to mean something to the moral philosopher at the outset of his enquiry, he must reflect in a general way on such well-established moral concepts as kindliness, justice, sacrifice, self-control, chastity, truthfulness and their opposites.

Notes

The moral need (for the expression see Reininger, p.26) is to be understood not so much as a "moral feeling" as a striving for ethical self-assertion and direction on the basis of habitual if unconscious thinking in ethical categories. Its frequency is enormously underestimated; there is hardly a criminal who has not applied some tiny fragment of moral justification to his deed; the foul-mouthed abuser piles moral reproaches on his opponent; all facial expressions betray something of moral relevance - pride, reproach, humility, and so on. See Brentano's theory of love and hate - though his formulations are rather too general. — Döring's stress (Phil. Güt.) on the need for objective value and self-esteem (which need not lead to Pharisaism) is worth noting.

On the primacy of evil cf. Ch.5, §1. On Good and the Indifferent cf. ibid, and Ch.3.

2 The phenomenological ethic of values

What criteria do we use to assess the goodness and badness of conduct? The contemporary "phenomenological" movement in ethics talks of properties which can be directly experienced and described, which are good or evil in themselves, and hence manifest (positive or negative) values. These autonomous qualities of value need no external validation and are subject to essential, quasi logical, laws with respect to their hierarchical rank and mutual relations. This claim marks an advance on the old and rather inflexible theory of "virtue", in that it also enables us to reclaim a sphere of subtler and more elusive elements of value, non-recurring dispositions of value, or valuable aspects of conduct which cannot be understood as expressions of a virtuous disposition. Virtues, and basic general motives for conduct such as "law-abidingness" or "sympathy", and so on, emerge on this view as more or less relevant established types of value.

I reject all attempts to evade the investigation of value by introducing "more manageable" concepts which are supposed to replace the direct grasp of genuine ethical values. This goes especially for the concepts of "law", "the law of conscience" (in nomism and formalism), "pleasure", and "utility" (as in all varieties of hedonism) - though I must here dispense with a thorough exposition and refutation of these approaches. The ethics of law is best opposed by considering the enormous range of ethical phenomena which have nothing to do with the observance or disregard of some specific, or indeed any, law (e.g. sacrifice or delight in creating things). The counter-argument that "laws" can be made to cover these things as well deprives "law" of any genuine meaning. (The real value of the idea of law in a more limited sense will be discussed later.) In similar fashion the welfare theme loses all definition when it is produced as the "explanation" apt or clearly forced - of all ethical pronouncements. However, the principle of social utility should be distinguished from that of maximum individual pleasure in that its employment as the fundamental ethical principle is much easier to reconcile with the immediate data of moral consciousness, which seem to emerge in an atmosphere precisely characterised by its opposition to pleasure and individual profit. The claims of the general interest present the very paradigm of an impersonal and removed, yet hallowed, power, which demands self-sacrifice. Ethical investigation can as little neglect this fundamental relation as Christian ethics the reference back to the divine will, which is naturally less accessible to systematic enquiry. But however close the correspondence between ethical values and social utilities may be, social utility is by no means directly intended in the ethical attitude as such, even "unconsciously" or "as a matter of course". Good conduct cannot be understood simply as a way of producing pleasurable states or objects of utility, or again as the way people thus "disposed" function, as though they were themselves "goods". Even the old idea that virtue produces the good of self-satisfaction and inner contentment, and thus prevents people from being dominated by external goods, is, for the same reasons, essentially unacceptable to the ethic of values. (Again the secondary value-significance and the morally edificatory role of this or that hedonic motive is another question.)

However, the Aristotelian-Thomist criterion of end requires separate consideration. An end, or goal, is to a much greater extent part of the essence of any conduct than consciousness of a law or the search for or securing of pleasure. An item of conduct is a directed, intended, movement rather than self-enclosed play - gunfire, as opposed to fireworks; thus its end-state, the issue to which its internal logic leads (something lying between the accidental consequences that may also result and the goal momentarily present to consciousness) is part of its total value. This "end-state" includes not only the person of the agent himself, but also those affected by his action, especially "society" - for there are, after all, types of conduct primarily directed to society, as well as varieties of communal action. Corresponding to the Aristotelian "perfect life-fashioning" of the individual there is an ideal - less clearly definable as to content but no less significant - of social "perfection" (Cf. also Ch.6, §3). My allegiance to the phenomenological ethic of values is therefore made with this reservation.

But certainly the phenomenological approach has proved the most fruitful, and it can hardly be doubted that the concept of moral value should be regarded as the currency unit of ethics. But I do question the version according to which the "realisation of values" consists in the agent's "grasping" now these, now those, members of the Platonically immovable sphere of moral values and "drawing them down" into reality. This conception of the realisation of values does not do justice to the fundamental principle of phenomenology, which has proved itself so fruitful in the creation of value-ethics. For values are only given to us as values when they are given as elements of reality. Not only is the existence of a value itself a value; it is only its existence that gives the value its validity, just as a counterfoil makes certain payment certificates valid. No values have value except as possibly existing. This means that the way a value is realised or encountered is not a circumstance of marginal importance for its nature, or "merely" the concern of the empirical disciplines, but inseparable from the phenomenon of the value itself. Likewise, ethical values cannot be added together or manufactured; they can neither be inserted into a "definitive" calculus of utility nor put aside like goods to be "applied" later. It is as though values chose their own ways and means of being realised and becoming effective. They can be truly appreciated only as formative entelechies. This is another reason why the ethic of values needs to be corrected by the ethic of ends. Value-ethics cannot be used to assess conduct if this is interpreted in terms of "relating to a value"; rather, we must think of it as "leading to a valuable state of things that suggests itself, in a manner in keeping with this state". The importance of this expansion for the problem of limitation at once springs to mind: the theoretical possibility of the creation and expectation of value, of the claims of value in the broadest sense, are thus seen to be - in some inexplicable way - dependent on reality. This marks an advance on the traditional ethic of "fulfilling the rational nature of things". For we have accepted the value-ethical insight that moral value is not merely found in certain uniformly conceived dispositions of natural and rational beings, and in types of conduct which produce them, but in all aspects and contact-points of such beings, which can only be rather loosely interconnected. Thus, for example, every person is an axiological "manifold", a point where various lines of value-unfolding coincide. The subtlety and heuristic importance of the concept of value must not be given up. But we shall soon have to return once more to the importance of the concept of end for ethical value itself.

The adoption of value-ethics implies the following methodological principle: if it is to be systematic, by which I mean fully influential, it must investigate and formulate the Good in all its varieties and individual manifestations. If ethics is to assume its proper place, the datum of the morally Good must be made out in its entirety and, as it were, made safe. The thinker who enters the holy ground of moral theory must lay aside all one-sidedness and distortion, all failure to acknowledge some moral values and all aesthetical over-inflation of others, all resentment and all passion for reduction. The only admissible partiality is for the Good as such, the only acceptable taste one that encompasses every variety of good. By the very nature of the case a keen eye for evil in all its many varieties is also needed. Once this attitude has been adopted, no other ethical approach can be taken completely seriously (though we may learn from them here and there).

But to regard all values as of equal rank would imply a crass misunderstanding of this principle of phenomenology. Indeed, hierarchical ordering - or rather a variety of orderings - is itself part of the phenomenological datum. This does not mean that the lower values disappear, but that they must - ideally and, in certain situations, as a matter of fact - give way to higher ones. Every evaluative point of view can sometimes be disregarded, but no value can be superfluous in the ethical permeation of life (Cf. Ch.3, §6). It needs to be emphasised even more strongly that the phenomenology of values must also concern itself with the form of their realisation, the general way they relate to reality; the forces that bring about the Good cannot be treated in abstraction from it - I say this without fear of being classed among empiricists or psychologists, since I have as little sympathy for their approach as I have for the pious abhorrence of it shown by the fanatics of purity and apriority. Nor is there the least trace of opportunism in my view, or any striving to see the Good in what already exists. Far from avoiding moral struggle, I positively revel in it; it is not the absence of the enemy's, but the presence of our own forces, that I wish to be sure of. It is indeed a peculiarity of ethics that the object of the struggle and the means of fighting it cannot be separated. In other words, it is not enough to affirm the Good in its entirety, yet want to reserve the way we relate to it and serve it for some extra-ethical choice; we must let the Good flow in upon us through the channels it has itself chosen. (This issue is closely connected with that of our material freedom, as we shall see.) So, for example, the attempt to bring all existing and recognised good under the common denominators of norm- or sympathy-guided action, of reason or feeling, may seem to succeed, but it will unfailingly bring about a distortion of the moral phenomena themselves. Even if all the virtues find their place in such systems, many values are left out. The ethical phenomenon comprises not only the material of all values, but also the ways in which they are realised.

Notes

On the characterisation of ethical value: we never experience this either in total isolation from its background, as though it were a good legitimately consumed or a value-object enjoyed (like a Spring evening), or as a mere transitional phase of an all-embracing world-calculation, in which all its antecedents and consequences have been included (as though it were a good in some global economy, something acquirable and convertible at will).

An ethics of values cannot of course be proved to be the only correct one. It starts as an assumption, which needs to be justified by its results. In my opinion the method receives solid backing from the material findings of contemporary phenomenological ethics.

It is out of the question to derive value from a sphere of "valid" obligation and only subsequently relate it to reality; the English neo-realist Alexander, cited by O. Kraus (against Rickert), is on the whole correct when he says: "Value is only a particular kind of fact, a fact of higher order".

For the foundation of value-ethics see Scheler, Formalism and the Non-Formal Ethics of Values, I, 1, i. Scheler's polemic is especially directed against any transformation of values into things or goods, and any supposed derivation of the same from other kinds of properties. (In his philosophy of religion even God is not the bestower of value, rather, he himself is value.) — Bergson, who often shares the same kind of significance as the phenomenologists, also suggests that the "feeling of obligation" is directly given (footnote in Leroy). Husserl himself (Logical Investigations, I) distinguishes in ethics, on the analogy of logic, pure theory from the theory of norms and their applications. However, in my view theory and practice are differently and much more inwardly related in ethics than in logic, since ethics is quite differently related to reality. There is a direct relation of "content" here, whereas logic is merely applicable to any kind of reality. See the following remarks for the indispensability of existence.

Becher also defends the "foundation of the good in itself, although he finally commits himself to an ethics of ends.

Even Fichte contains a hint of phenomenological ethics (Bestimmung, pp.59-60): "I am not concerned to deny any genuinely present impression".

I think I ought to stress that, as far as I am concerned, the phenomenological method is fruitful only in an intuitive-empirical, not in a "strictly a priori" sense. The objects of its research are not general concepts "accepted as valid", but the essences of things (including their "general properties"). But these cannot be known in a strained attempt to ignore their existential involvemen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Translator's Introduction
• Translator's Preface
• ETHICAL VALUE AND REALITY
• Preface
• List of Works Consulted
• Introduction: The Problem of a Completely Valid Ethics and the Limits of Morality
• Chapter One: Ethical Value
• Chapter Two: The Limits of the Ethical End
• Chapter Three: The Gradation of Ethical Value-Emphases
• Chapter Four: Some Criticisms of One-Sided Ethical Approaches
• Chapter Five: Gradation in the Types of Value-Experience
• Chapter Six: Persons and Responsibility
• Concluding Remarks: The Possibility of an Ethics Close to Reality
• THE STRUCTURE OF MORAL INTENTION
• DUTY, INCLINATION AND "MORAL-MINDEDNESS"
• Index