The thought, therefore, that an act is commanded by some one does not constitute a natural sanction. In the case of every command issued by an external will the question arises: Is such a command authorized or is it not? Neither is there any reference here to a command enforced by a still higher power enjoining obedience to the former. For then the question would again reappear, and we should proceed from one command to another enjoining obedience to the former, and from that to a third enjoining in like manner obedience to the second, and so on ad infin.
Just as in the case of the feeling of compulsion, and in that of the fear or hope of recompense, so also the thought of the command of an external will cannot possibly be the sanction for law and morality.
[11.] But there are also commands in an essentially different sense; commands in the sense in which we speak of the commands of logic respecting our judgments and conclusions. We are not here concerned with the will of logic, since a will logic manifestly has not, nor with the will of the logician, to which we have in no way sworn allegiance. The laws of logic are naturally valid rules of judging, that is to say, we are obliged to conform to them, since conformity to these rules ensures certainty in our judgments, whereas judgments diverging from these rules are liable to error. What we therefore mean is a natural superiority which thought-processes in conformity with law have over such as are contrary to law. So also in ethics, we are not concerned with the command of an external will but rather with a natural preference similar to that in logic, and the law founded on that preference. This has been emphasized not only by Kant but also by the majority of great thinkers before him. Nevertheless there are still many—unfortunately even among the adherents of the empirical school to which I myself belong—by whom this fact has neither been rightly understood nor appreciated.
[12.] In what then lies this special superiority which gives to morality its natural sanction? Some regarded it as, in a sense, external, they believed its superiority to consist in beauty of appearance. The Greeks called noble and virtuous conduct Τὀ καλὁν, the beautiful, and the perfect man of honour καλοκἀγαθός; though none of the philosophers of antiquity set up this aesthetic view as a criterion. On the other hand, David Hume[11], among modern thinkers, has spoken of a moral sense of the beautiful which acts as arbiter between the moral and the immoral, while still more recently the German philosopher, Herbart,[12] has subordinated ethics to aesthetics.
Now I do not deny that the aspect of virtue is more agreeable than that of moral perversity. But I cannot concede that in this consists the only and essential superiority of ethical conduct. It is rather an inner superiority which distinguishes the moral from the immoral will, in the same way that it is an inner superiority which distinguishes true and self evident judgments and conclusions from prejudices and fallacies. Here also it cannot be denied that a prejudice, a fallacy has in it something unbeautiful, often indeed something ridiculously narrow-minded, which makes the person so scantily favoured by Minerva appear in a most disadvantageous attitude; yet who, on this account, would class the rules of logic among those of aesthetics, or make logic a branch of aesthetics?[13] No, the real logical superiority is no mere aesthetic appearance but a certain inward rightness which then carries with it a certain superiority of appearance. It will, therefore, be also a certain inward rightness which constitutes the essential superiority of one particular act of will over another of an opposite character; in which consists the superiority of the moral over the immoral.
The belief in this superiority is an ethical motive; the knowledge of it is the right ethical motive, the sanction which gives to ethical law permanence and validity.
[13.] But are we capable of attaining to such knowledge? Here lies the difficulty which philosophers have for a long time sought in vain to solve. Even to Kant it seemed as though none had found the right end of the thread by means of which to unravel the skein. This the Categorical Imperative was to do. It resembled however, rather the sword drawn by Alexander to cut the Gordian knot. With such a palpable fiction the matter is not to be set right.[14]
[14.] In order to gain an insight into the true origin of ethical knowledge it will be necessary to take some account of the results of later researches in the sphere of descriptive psychology. The limited time at my disposal makes it necessary for me to set forth my views very briefly, and I have reason to fear that by its conciseness the completeness of the statement may suffer. Yet it is just here that I ask your special attention, in order that what is most essential to a right understanding of the problem be not overlooked.
[15.] The subject of the moral and immoral is termed the will. What we will is, in many cases, a means to an end. In that case we will this end also, and even in a higher degree than the means. The end itself may often be the means to a further end; in a far reaching plan there may often appear a whole series of ends, the one being always connected in subordination to the other as a means. There must be present, however, one end, which is desired above all others and for its own sake; without this essential and final end all incentive would be lacking, and this would involve the absurdity of aiming without a goal at which to aim.
[16.] The means we employ in order to gain an end may be manifold, may be right or wrong. They are right when they are really adapted to the attainment of the end.