The text is from my copy of Peter Kropotkin, Ethics:
Origins and Development, London: George E. Harrap & Cop., LTD.
Ethics: Origin and Development
By Peter Kropotkin
CHAPTER II
The Gradually Evolving Bases of the New Ethics
If the empirical. philosophers have hitherto failed to prove the progress of
moral conceptions (which may be inciple of evolution), the fault lies to a great
extent with the speculative, i.e., the . non-scientific philosophers. They have
so strongly denied the empirical origin of man's moral feelings; they have gone
to such subtle reasoning in order to assign a supernatural origin to the moral
sense; and they have spoken so much about "the destination of man," the "way of
his existence," and "the aim of Nature," that a reaction against the mythological
and metaphysical conceptions which had risen round this question was unavoidable.
Moreover, the modern evolutionists, having established the presence in the animal
world of a keen struggle for life among different species, could not accept such
a brutal process, which entails so much suffering upon sentient beings, as the
expression of a Supreme Being; and they consequently denied that any ethical
principle could be discovered in it. Only now that the evolution of species,
races of men, human institutions, and of ethical ideas themselves, has been
proved to be the result of natural forces, has it become possible to study all
the factors of this evolution, including the ethical factor of mutual support and
growing sympathy, without the risk of falling back into a supra-natural
philosophy. But,this being so, we reach a point of considerable philosophical
importance.
We are enabled to conclude that the lesson which man derives from
the study of Nature and his own history is the permanent presence of a double
tendency--towards a greater development, on the one side of sociality,
and, on the other side, of a consequent increase of the intensity of life, which
results in an increase of happiness for the individuals, and in
progress,--physical, intellectual, and moral.
This double tendency is a distinctive characteristic of life in general. It
is always present, and belongs to life, as one of its attributes, whatever
apsects life may take on our planet or elsewhere. And this is not a metaphysical
assertion of the "universality of the moral law," or a mere supposition. Without
the continual growth of sociality, and consequently of the intensity and variety
of sensations, life is impossible. Therein lies its essence. If that element is
lacking life tends to ebb, to disintegrate, to cease. This may be recognized as
an empirically discovered law of Nature.
It thus appears that; science, far from destroying the foundations of ethics
gives, on the contrary, a concrete content to the nebulous metaphysical
presumptions which are current in transcendental extra-natural ethics. As science
goes deeper into the life of Nature, it gives to the evolution ethics a
philosophical certitude, where the transcendental thinker had only a vague
intuition to rely on.
There is still less foundation for another continually repeated reproach to
empirical thought,--namely the study of Nature can only lead us to knowledge of
some cold and mathematical truth, but that such truths have little effect upon
our actions. The study of Nature, we are told, can at best inspire us with the
love of truth; but the inspiration for higher emotions, such as that of
"infinite goodness," can be given only by religion. It can be easily shown that
this contention is not based on any facts and is, therefore, utterly, fallacious.
To begin with, love of truth is already one half--the better half--of all ethical
teaching. Intelligent religious people understand this very well. As to the
conception of "good" and striving for it, the "truth" which we have just
men-tioned, i. e., the recognition of mutual aid as the fundamental feature of
life is certainly an inspiring truth, which surely will some day find its
expression in the poetry of Nature, for it imparts to our conception of Nature an
additional humanitarian touch.
Goethe, with the insight of his pantheistic genius, at once understood all
the philosophical significance of this truth, upon the very first hint of it
that he heard from Eckermann, the zoölogist.1 Moreover, the deeper we go into the study of primitive
man, the more we realize that it was from the life of animals with whom he stood
in close contact that he learned the first lessons of valorous defence of
fellow-creatures, self-sacrifice for the welfare of the group, unlimited parental
love, and the advantages of sociality in general. The conceptions of "virtue"
and "wickedness" are zoölogical, not merely human conceptions.
As to the powers which ideas and intellectually conceived ideals exercise upon
current moral conceptions, and how these conceptions influence in their turn the
intellectual aspect of an epoch, this subject hardly need be insisted upon. The
intellectual evolution of a given society may take at times, under the influence
of all sorts of circumstances, a totally wrong turn, or it may take, on the
contrary, a high flight. But in both cases the leading ideas of the time will
never fail deeply to influence the ethical life. The same applies also to the
individual.
Most certainly, ideas are forces as Fouillée puts it;2 and they are ethical
forces, if the ideas are correct and wide enough to represent the real life of
nature in its entirety,--not one of its sides only. The first step, therefore,
towards the elaboration of a morality which should exerrcise a lasting influence
upon society, is to base this morality upon firmly established truths. And
indeed, one of the main obstacles to the working out of a complete ethical
system, corresponding to the present needs, is the fact that the science of
society is still in its infancy. Having just completed its storing of materials,
sociology is only beginning to investigate them with the view to ascertaining the
probable lines of a future development. But it continually meets in this field
with a great number of deeply rooted prejudices.
The chief demand which is now addressed to ethics is to do its
best to find through the philosophical study of the subject the cornmon element
in the two sets of diametrically opposed feelings which exist in man, and thus to
help mankind find a synthesis, and not a compromise between the two. ln one set
are the feelings which induce man to subdue other men in order to utilize them
for his individual ends, while those in the other set induce human beings to
unite for attaining common ends by common effort: the first answering to that
fundamental need of human nature--struggle, and the second representing another
equally fundamental tendency---the desire of unity and mutual sympathy. These
two sets of feelings must, of course, struggle between themselves, but it is
absolutely essential to discover their synthesis whatever form it takes. Such a
synthesis is so much more necessary because the civilized man of to-day, having
no settled conviction on this point, is paralyzed in his powers of action. He
cannot admit that a struggle to the knife for supremacy, carried on between
individuals and nations, should be the last word of science; he does not believe,
at the same time, in solving the problem through the gospel of brotherhood and
self-abnegation which Christianity has been preaching for so many centuries
without ever being able to attain the brotherhood of men and nations nor even
tolerance among the various Christian sects. As regards the teaching of the
Communists, the vast majority of men, for the same reason, have no faith in
communism.
Thus the principal problem of ethics at present is to help mankind to find
the solution for this fundamental contradiction. For this purpose we must
earnestly study what were the means resorted to by men at different periods of
their evolution, in order so to direct the individual forces as to get from them
the greatest benefit for the welfare of all, without at the same time paralyzing
personal en-ergies. And we have to study the tendencies in this direction which
exist at the present moment--in the form of the timid attempts which are being
made, as well as in the form of the potentialities concealed in modern society,
which may be utilized for finding that synthesis. And then, as no new move in
civilization has ever been made without a certain enthusiasm being evoked in
order to overcome the first difficulties of inertia and opposition, it is the
duty of the new ethics to infuse in men those ideals which would provoke
their enthusiasm, and give them the necessary forces for building a form of life
which would combine individual energy with work for the good of all.
The need of a realistic ideal brings us to the chief reproach which has always
been made to all non-religious systems of ethics. Their conclusions, we are
told, will never have the necessary authority for influencing the actions of men,
because they cannot be invested with the sense of duty, of
obligation. It is perfectly true that empirical ethics has never claimed
to possess the imperative character, such as belongs, for example, to the Mosaic
Decalogue. True, that when Kant advanced as the"categorical imperative" of all
morality the rule: "So act that the maxim of thy will may serve at the same time
as a principle of universal legislation,"3 it required no sanction whatever, for being
universally recognized as obligatory. It was, he maintained, a necessary
form of reasoning, a "category" of our intellect, and it was deduced from no
utilitarian considerations.
However, modern criticism, beginning with Schopenhauer, has shown
that Kant was mistaken. He has certainly failed to prove why it should
be a duty to act according to his "imperative." And, strange to say, it
follows from Kant's own reasoning that the only ground upon which his
"imperative" might recommend itself to general acceptance is its social
utility, although some of the best pages which Kant wrote were precisely
those in which he strongly objected to any considerations of utility
being taken as the foundation of morality. After all, he produced a
beautiful panegyric on the sense of duty, but he failed to give to this
sense any other foundation than the inner conscience of man and his
desire of retaining a harmony between his intellectual conceptions and
his actions.4
Empirical morality does not in the least pretend to find a substitute for the
religious imperative expressed in the words, "I am the Lord," but the painful
discrepancy which exists between the ethical prescriptions of the Christian
religion and the life of societies calling themselves Christian, deprives the
above reproach of its value. However, even empirical morality is not entirely
devoid of a sense of conditional obligation. l he different feelings and
actions which are usually described since the times of Auguste Comte as
"altruistic" can easily be classed under two different headings. There are
actions which may be considered as absolutely necessary, once we choose to live
in society, and to which, therefore, the name of "altruistic" ought never to be
applied: they bear the character of reciprocity, and they are as much in the
interest of the individual as any act of self-preservation.
And there are, on the other hand, those actions which bear no character of
reciprocity. One who performs such acts gives his powers, his energy, his
enthusiasm, expecting no compensation in return, and although such acts are the
real mainsprings of moral progress, they certainly can have no character of
obligation attached to them. And yet, these two classes of acts are continually
confused by writers on morality, and as a result many contradictions arise in
dealing with ethical questions.
This confusion, however, can be easily avoided. (First of all it is
evident that it is preferable to keep ethical problems distinct from the
problems of law. Moral science does not even settle the question whether
legislation is necessary or not. ) It stands above that. We know,
indeed, ethical writers-and these were not the least influential in the
early beginnings of the Reformation-who denied the necessity of any
legislation and appealed directly to human conscience. The function of
ethics is not even so much to insist upon the defects of man, and to
reproach him with his "sins,'' as to act in the positive direction, by
appealing to man's best instincts. It determines, and explains, the few
fundamental principles without which neither animals nor men could live
in societies: but then it appeals to something superior to that to love,
courage, fraternity, self-respect, accord with one's ideal. It tells man
that if he desires to have a life in which all his forces, physical,
inter lectual,, and emotional, may find a full exercise, he must once
and for ever abandon the idea that such a life is attainable on the path
of disregard for others.
It is only through establishing a certain harmony between the individual
and all others that an approach to such complete life will be possible,
says Ethics, and then adds: "Look at Nature itself! Study the past of
mankind! They will prove to you that so it is in reality." And when the
individual, for this or that reason, hesitates in some special case as
to the best course to follow, ethics comes to his aid and indicates how
he would like others to act with respect to him, in a similar case.5 But
even then true ethics does not trace a stiff line of conduct, because it
is the individual himself who must weigh the relative value of the
different motives affecting him. There is no use to recommend risk to
one who can stand no reverse, or to speak of an old man's prudence to
the young man full of energy. He would give the reply-the profoundly
true and beautiful reply which Egmont gives to old Count Oliva's advice
in Goethe's drama-and he would be quite right: "As if spurred by unseen
spirits, the sun-horses of time run with the light cart of our fate; and
there remains to us only boldly to hold the reins and lead the wheels
away-here, from a stone on our left, there from upsetting the cart on
our right. Whereto does it run? Who knows? Can we only remember
wherefrom we came?" "The flower must bloom," as Guyau says,6 even though
its blooming meant death.
And yet the main purpose of ethics is not to advise men separately. It is
rather to set before them, as a whole, a higher purpose, an ideal which, better
than any advice, would make them act instinctively in the proper direction.
Just as the aim of mental training is to accustom us to perform an enormous
number of mental operations almost unconsciously, so is the aim of ethics to
create such an atmosphere in society as would produce in the great number,
entirely by impulse, those actions which best lead to the welfare of all and
the fullest happiness of every separate being.
Such is the final aim of morality; but to reach it we must free our
moral teachings from the self-contradictions which they contain. A
morality, for example, which preaches "charity," out of compassion and
pity, necessarily contains a deadly contradiction. It starts with the
assertion of full equity and justice, or of full brotherhood, but then
it hastens to add that we need not worry our minds with either. The one
is unattainable. As to the brotherhood of men, which is the fundamental
principle of all religions, it must not be taken literally; that was a
mere poetical phrase of enthusiastic preachers. "Inequality is the rule
of Nature," we are told by religious preachers, who in this can call
Nature to their aid; in this respect, they teach us, we should take
lessons from Nature, not from religion, which has always quarreled with
Nature. But when the inequalities in the modes of living of men become
too striking, and the sum total of produced wealth is so divided as to
result in the most abject misery for a very great number, then sharing
with the poor "what can be shared" without parting with one's privileged
position, becomes a holy duty.
Such a morality may certainly be prevalent in a society for a time, or even for
a long time, if it has the sanction of religion interpreted by the reigning
Church. But the moment man begins to consider the prescriptions of religion
with a critical eye, and requires a reasoned conviction instead of mere
obedience and fear, an inner contradiction of this sort cannot be retained much
longer. It must be abandoned-the sooner the better. Inner contradiction is the
death-sentence of all ethics and a worm undermining human energy.
A most important condition which a modern ethical system is bound to
satisfy is that it must not fetter individual initiative, be it for so
high a purpose as the welfare of the commonwealth or the species. Wundt,
in his excellent review of the ethical systems. makes the remark that
beginning with the eighteenth-century period of enlightenment, nearly
all of them became individualistic. I his, however, is only partly true,
because the rights of the individual were asserted with great energy in
one domain only-in economics. And even here individual freedom remained,
both in theory and in practice, more illusory than real. As to the other
domains-political, intellectual, artistic-it may be said that in
proportion as economic individualism was asserted with more emphasis,
the subjection of the individual-to the war machinery of the State, the
system of education, the mental discipline required for the support of
the existing institutions, and so on-was steadily growing. Even most of
the advanced reformers of the present clay in their forecasts of the
future, reason under the presumption of a still greater absorption of
the individual by society.
This tendency necessarily provoked a protest, voiced by Godwin at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, and by Spencer towards its end, and
it brought Nietzsche to conclude that all morality must be thrown
overboard if it can find no better foundation than the sacrifice of the
individual in the interests of the human race. This critique of the
current ethical systems is perhaps the most characteristic feature of
our epoch, the more so as its mainspring is not so much in an egoistic
striving after economical independence (as was the case with the
eighteenth-century individualists, with the exception of Godwin) as in a
passionate desire of personal independence for working out a new, better
form of society, in which the welfare of all would' become a groundwork
for the fullest development of the personality.7
The want of development of the personality (leading to herd-psychology)
and the lack of individual creative power and initiative are certainly one of
the chief defects of our time. Economical individualism has not kept its
promise: it diet not result in any striking development of individuality. As of
yore, creative work in the field of sociology is extremely slow, and imitation
remains the chief means for spreading progressive innovations in mankind.
Modern nations repeat the history of the barbarian tribes and the medieval
cities when they copied from one another the same political, religious, and
economic movements, and the "charters of freedom." Whole nations have
appropriated to themselves lately, with astounding rapidity, the results of the
west European industrial and military civilization; and in these unrevised new
editions of old types we see best how superficial is that which is called
culture, how much of it is mere imitation.
It is only natural, therefore, to ask ourselves whether the current
moral teachings are not instrumental in maintaining that imitative
submission. Did they not aim too much at converting man into the
"ideational automaton" of Herbert, who is absorbed in contemplation, and
fears above all the storms of passion? Is it not time to rise in defense
of the rights of the real man, full of vigor, who is capable of really
loving what is worth being loved and hating what deserves hatred,-the
man who is always ready to fight for an ideal which ennobles his love
and justifies his antipathies? From the times of the philosophers of
antiquity there was a tendency to represent "virtue" as a sort of
"wisdom" which induces man to "cultivate the beauty of his soul," rather
than to join "the unwise" in their struggles against the evils of the
day. Later on that virtue became "non-resistance to evil," and for many
centuries in succession individual personal "salvation," coupled with
resignation and a passive attitude towards evil, was the essence of
Christian ethics; the result being the culture of a monastic
indifference to social good and evil, and the elaboration of an
argumentation in defence of "virtuous individualism." Fortunately, a
reaction against such egoistic virtue is already under way, and the
question is asked whether a passive attitude in the presence of evil
does not merely mean moral cowardice,-whether, as was taught by the
Zend-Avesta, an active struggle against the evil Ahriman is not the
first condition of virtue?8 We need moral progress, but without moral
courage no moral progress is possible.
Such are some of the demands presented to ethics which can be discerned amid
the present confusion. All of them converge towards one leading idea. What is
wanted now is a new conception of morality,-in its fundamental principles,
which must be bread enough to infuse new life in our civilization, and in its
applications, which must be freed both from the survivals of transcendental
thinking, as well as from the narrow conceptions of philistine utilitarianism.
The elements for such a new conception of morality are already at hand.
The importance of sociality, of mutual aid, in the
evolution of the animal world and human history may be taken, I believe,
as a positively established scientific truth, free of any hypothetical
assumptions. We may also take next, as granted, that in proportion as
mutual aid becomes an established custom in a human community, and so to
say instinctive, it leads to a parallel development of the sense of
justice, with its necessary accompaniment of the sense of
equity and equalitarian self-restraint. The idea that the
personal rights of every individual are as unassailable as the same
rights of every other individual, grows in proportion as class
distinctions facie away; and this thought becomes a current conception
when the institutions of a given community have been altered permanently
in this sense. A certain degree of identification of the individual with
the interests of the group to which it belongs has necessarily existed
since the very beginning of social life, and it manifests itself even
among the lowest animals. But in proportion as relations of equity and
justice are solidly established in the human community, the ground is
prepared for the further and the more general development of more
refined relations, under which man understands and feels so well the
bearing of his action on the whole of society that he refrains from
offending others, even though he may have to renounce on that account
the gratification of some of his own desires, anti when he so fully
identifies his feelings with those of others that he is ready to
sacrifice his powers for their benefit without expecting anything in
return. These unselfish feelings and habits, usually called by the
somewhat inaccurate names of altruism and self-sacrifice, alone deserve,
in my opinion, the name of morality, properly speaking, although most
writers confound them, under the name of altruism, with the mere sense
of justice.
Mutual Aid-Justice-Morality are thus the consecutive steps
of an ascending series, revealed to us by the study of the animal world
and man. They constitute an organic necessity which carries in itself
its own justification, confirmed by the whole of the evolution of the
animal kingdom, beginning with its earliest stages, (in the form of
colonies of the most primitive organisms), and gradually rising to our
civilized human communities. Figuratively speaking, it is a universal
law of organic evolution, and this is why the sense of Mutual Aid,
Justice, and Morality are rooted in man's mind with all the force of an
inborn instinct-the first instinct, that of Mutual Aid, being evidently
the strongest, while the third, developed later than the others, is an
unstable feeling and the least imperative of the three.
Like the need of food, shelter, or sleep, these instincts are self-preservation
instincts. Of course, they may sometimes be weakened under the influence of certain
circumstances, and we know many cases when the power of these instincts is
relaxed, for one reason or another, in some animal group, or in a human
community; but shell the group necessarily begins to fail in the struggle for
life: it moves towards its decay. And if this group does not revert to the
necessary conditions of survival anti of progressive development Mutual Aid,
Justice, and Morality-then the group, the race, or the species dies out and
disappears. Since it did not fulfil the necessary condition of evolution-it
must inevitably decline and disappear.
Such is the solid foundation which science gives us for the elaboration of a
new system of ethics and its justification; and, therefore, instead of
proclaiming "the bankruptcy of science," what we have now to do is to examine
how scientific ethics can be built from the materials which modern research,
stimulated by the idea of evolution, has accumulated for that purpose.
1See Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, Leipzig
1848, vol. III; 219, 221. When Eckermann told Goethe that a fledging, which fell
out of the nest after Eckermann had shot its mother, was picked up by a mother of
another species, Goethe was deeply moved. "If," said he, "this will prove to be
a widespread fact, it will explain the 'divine in nature.'" The zoöligists
of the early nineteenth century, who studied animal life on the still-unpopulated
parts of the American continent, and such a naturalist as Brehm, have shown that
the fact noted by Eckerman is fairly common in the animal world. [There are
several English translations of Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe. In
his Mutual Aid Kropotkin gives a slightly different version of this
"conversation."]--Trans. Note.
2[Alfred
Fouillée, La psychologie des idées-forces, Paris, 1893, 2
vols.; 3d ed., enlarged, Paris, 1912.]--Trans. Note.
3[Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. See Abbot's trans,
Kant's Theory of Ethics, page 39; also pp. 18, 41.]--Trans. Note.
4Later, however, he went further. It follows from his Philosophical Theory of Faith, published in 1792, that if he began by setting rational ethics over against the anti-Christian teachings of that time, he ended by recognizing the "ionconceivability of the moral faculty, pointing to its divine origin." (Kant's Works, Hartenstein's Edition, vol. VI, pp. 143-144). [Leipzig, 1867-8, 8 vols. Kropotkin refers here to Kant's Vorlesugne über die philosphesche Religionslehre, --a series of articles, the first of which appeared in a German magazine in 1792. They were editied, Leipzig, 1817, by Pölitz. See also, J. W. Semple's Kant's Theory of Religion, Lond. 1838; 1848.]--Trans. Note.
5"Ethics will not tell him, 'This you must do,' but inquire with him, 'What is it that you will, in reality and definitively--not only in a momentary mood?'" (F. Paulsen, System der Ethik, 2 vols,. Berlin, 1896, vol. I, p. 20.)
6M. Guyau, A Sketch of Morality independent of Obligation or Sanction, trans. by Gertrude Kapeteyn, London (Watts), 1898.
7Wundt makes a very interesting remark:--"For, unless all signs fail, a revolution of opinion is at present going on, in which the extreme individualism of the enlightenment is giving place to a revival of the universalism of antiquity, supplemented by a better notion of th eliberty of human personality--an improvement that we owe to individualism." (Ethics, III, p. 34 of the English translation; p. 459 of German original.) [Eng. tr. by Titchener, Julia Gulliver, and Margaret Washburn, N.Y. & Lond., 1897-1901, 3 vols. German original, Ethik, Stuttgart, 1903 (3rd ed.), 2 fols.]--Trans. Note.
8 C.P. Tiele, Geschichte der Religion in Altertum, German translation by G. Gehrich. Gotha, 1903, vol. II pp. 163 sq. [Trans from the Dutch of Cornelius Petrus Tiele, Gotha, 3 vols., 1896-1903.]--Trans. Note.
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