The Philosophy of the Practical: Economic and Ethic

by Benedetto Croce

Material religious principles. Critique of them.

A third group of material principles, called religious, which make morality to consist of conforming to the will of God and of the gods, is not intrinsically different from these. Where the idea of the transcendental and of religious mystery is introduced, there is darkness; and anything can be put into darkness. In the first place, nothing but darkness itself can be put there, and in this case the religious solution is agnosticism, confession of ignorance, such as we have hitherto treated, in criticizing theological utilitarianism or abstract ethical rigorism, which, by means of its insoluble contradictions, also leads to the idea of God and of mystery. But one's own will, caprice and individual interests can also be put there; and then religion becomes attachment to a being or to an order of beings, which, though they be imaginary, are not for that reason less individual; attachment to them is love or fear, sympathy or fear of the evil they can do, and tendency to avoid it by propitiation with prayers, adulation, gifts, services, worship. Religious principles, then, understood as material principles, also become converted, as all know, and we may add, know all too well, into utilitarian principles; because, through intently fixing the gaze upon this aspect of religion, they have forgotten to look at others more important and certainly more noble.

Formal principle as affirmation of a merely logical exigency.

The ethical principle is not adequately expressed, either by the altruistic concept, or by that of natural formations and of institutions, or by that of the gods; because all of these are general concepts, or sometimes merely individual representations; they are certainly not universal concepts. And by the necessity of the universal and the insufficiency of the merely general and individual, the ethical principle must be formal and not material. However (and here we enter into the new meaning of this word and into the new debate announced), the formal ethical principle has likewise been understood as not susceptible of extension beyond the enunciation of the character of universality, which the principle itself should possess. Its formula has seemed to be nothing but that of a universal law, to which all men can conform in complete harmony among themselves; of respect towards all beings, in the degree that appertains to each, of that which satisfies the exigencies of reason and of conscience, and so on. Now the formality claimed by this and similar formulæ has nothing to do with the formality first claimed; and since in the preceding debate we took the side of those who maintain formal as against material Ethic, so here we must defend material against formal Ethic; or better, an Ethic that is not material against an Ethic that is not formal, save in the pretentions of those who thus baptize it.

Critique of a formal ethic in this sense: tautologism.

What does the formality of Ethic mean in the new sense? Nothing but this: that it is not necessary to inquire what is the ethical principle, but that we must be satisfied with saying that whatever it be, it must be universal. But that it must be universal is a proposition which belongs, not to Ethic, but to Logic; the principles of all philosophical sciences must possess the character of universality, the logical as the æsthetic, the principle of Ethic as that of Economic, the moral categoric imperative as the utilitarian categoric. Thus the thesis of formality in the new meaning is reduced to placing at the head of Ethic, not the ethical principle, but the logical exigency of the ethical principle, in the same way that a similar claim in Æsthetic would result in placing at the head of that science, not the formal æsthetic principle, as for example, Intuition-expression, but a formal æsthetic principle, the claim for a law, so made that no form of beauty could ever be excluded from it. Instead of constructing the science, the affirmation of logical necessity, which that construction must obey, is infinitely repeated; but the thesis of formality in the new sense would be better called the thesis of tautologism.

Tautological principles: ideal, chief good, duty, etc., and critique of them.

Besides the formulæ to which we have referred, namely those of the categoric imperative, of the universal law, of the respect for being, of the rational and of conscience, the formulæ of the chief good, of duty (or of law), of the ideal, of true pleasure, of constant pleasure, of spiritual pleasure, of personal dignity, of self-esteem, of the just mean, of harmony, of proportion, of justice, of perfection, of following nature, and so on, also belong to the tautological principles of Ethic; they are all tautologies, because they do not determine to what object those logical claims are applicable. To ask what is the form of will that produces a constant, spiritual and true pleasure, which makes perfect, gives self-esteem, satisfies our conscience, strikes the just mean, answers to what ought to be done, attains to the supreme good, and so on, is tantamount to asking, What is the ethical form? This is precisely what must be answered, if we do not wish to fall into tautology, and the reply cannot be the question itself.

Tautological meaning of certain formulæ, material in appearance.