And it is convenient to note here that many of the formulæ that we have criticized as belonging to material Ethic, have also been frequently-employed as tautological formulæ, that is to say, as symbols and metaphors of the ethical truth to be determined. The others, of which altruism speaks, are at bottom not others as physically distinct from us, but others in an ideal sense, that is, as duty surpassing the empirical ego; God, of which religious Ethic speaks, is that indeterminate concept, that logical exigency, which is also called the categoric imperative; the State or Life that one pledges oneself to serve is not this or that State, this or that particular form of life, but the symbol of the ideal; the nature to be followed is that nature, or ethical principle within us, which the speculative reason must determine. Thus do material principles often progress, ceasing to be such, in order to become tautological, that is, abandoning the possession of undue determination, owing to the consciousness of a want, of a lacuna to be filled.
Conversion of tautological Ethic into material and utilitarian Ethic.
The evil is that tautologism inevitably returns to that undue possession, because, imagining that it has established that ethical principle which it has not established at all, and that it has finally constructed Ethic, of which it has not even laid the foundations, it sets to work to explain moral and concrete facts by means of that empty form. The consequence of this is that utilitarian motives, as usual, fill the empty space. Why should we not violate a deposit that has been entrusted to us? Perhaps because (as they say) the moral law is a universal law? That does not suffice. Respect for the deposit cannot be deduced from this principle, for a universal law is equally thinkable, according to which is deduced in certain cases a respect for the deposit and in certain other cases the contrary. This then is the fact: that to restore a deposit confided to us may sometimes happen to be a bad action, as, for instance, to restore the weapon entrusted to us, when he who claims it intends to commit suicide or to assassinate. Thus it happens that not knowing how to put an end to the controversy in virtue of the true ethical principle, and wishing nevertheless in some way to use that empty formula, it comes to be filled with the only principle possessed, namely the utilitarian; and the reason given for respecting the deposit is said to be the desirability of respecting for engagements, for the ends of the individual, failing which (it will be said) no business would thenceforth be effected and the world of affairs would languish.
In what sense Ethic should be formal and in what other sense material.
Formal Ethic, in the new sense, or as it would be better called, tautological Ethic, might be called formalistic, owing to its thus falling back into material, heteronomous and utilitarian Ethic, since formalism here (as in Æsthetic and Logic) is the caricature of formality, and almost a sort of materiality. In maintaining formal Ethic we do not wish that it should be formalistic; that is, that it should be again covertly material. And we wish that formal Ethic should also be material, always understanding by this that it must give, not the mere logical condition of the ethical principle, but this ethical principle itself in its concreteness, determining what moral volition is in its reality.