A Handbook of Ethical Theory

by George Stuart Fullerton

137. HEGEL.—In strongest contrast to the individualism of Kant stands the doctrine of Hegel. To the latter, duty consists in the realization of the free reasonable will—but this will is identical in all individuals, [Footnote: The Philosophy of Right, Sec 209] and its realization reveals itself in the customs, laws and institutions of the state. From this point of view the individual is an accidental thing; the ethical order revealed in society is permanent, and has absolute authority. It is true, however, that it is not something foreign to the individual; he is conscious of it as his own being. In duty he finds his liberation. [Footnote: Ibid., Sec Sec 145-149]

But what is a man's duty? "What a man ought to do," says Hegel, [Footnote: Ibid., Sec 150] "what duties he should fulfill in order to be virtuous, is in an ethical community easy to say—the man has only to do what is presented, expressed and recognized in the established relations in which he finds himself."

In other words, he ought to do just what his community prescribes! This seems, taken quite literally, a startling doctrine.

It would be a wrong to Hegel to take him quite literally, for he elsewhere [Footnote: Ibid., Introduction.] makes it plain that he by no means approves of all the laws and customs that have obtained in various societies. Still, he exalts the law of the state and regards any opposition to it on the authority of private conviction as "stupendous presumption." [Footnote: Op. cit., Sec 138.] This is a serious rebuke to the reformer. The individual must, according to Hegel, look for the moral law outside of himself—of himself as an individual, at least. He must find it in the State.

138. NIETZSCHE.—Again a startling contrast: after Hegel, Nietzsche—the voice of one crying in the wilderness, exquisitely, passionately, but scarcely with articulate scientific utterance. A prophet of revolt and emancipation; a cave-dweller, who would flee organized society and the refinements of civilization; the rabid individualist, to whom the community is the "herd," and common notions of right and wrong are absurdities to be visited with scorn and denunciation. He makes a strong appeal to young men, even after the years during which the carrying of one's own latch-key is a source of elation. He appeals also to those perennially young persons who never attain to the stature which befits those who are to take a responsible share in the organized efforts of communities of men.

With Nietzsche the man, his suffering life, and the melancholy eclipse of his brilliant intellect, ethics as science is little concerned. In Nietzsche the marvellous literary artist it can have no interest. These things are the affair of literature and biography.

Here we are concerned only with his contribution to ethics. Just what that has been it is more difficult to determine than would be the case in a writer more systematic and scientific. But he makes it very clear that he repudiates the morals which have been accepted heretofore by moralists and communities of men generally.

He confesses himself an "immoralist." He despises man as he is, and hails the "Superman," a creature inspired by the "will to have power" and free from all moral prejudices, including that of sympathy with the weak and the helpless.

"Full is the world of the superfluous," he sings in his famous dithyramb, [Footnote: Thus Spake Zarathustra, I, xi. It is a pity to read NIETZSCHE in any translation. His diction is exquisite. But those who can only read him in English may be referred to the translations of his works edited by LEVY. New York, 1911.] "marred is life by the many-too- many."… "Many too many are born; for the superfluous ones was the State devised."…"There, where the State ceaseth—there only commenceth the man who is not superfluous."

Man, says Nietzsche, should regard himself as a "bridge" over which he can pass to something higher. [Footnote: Ibid., Prologue, and I, IV, XI, et passim.] Upon the fact that the Superman may have the same reason for regarding himself as a "bridge" as the most commonplace of mortals, and may begin anew with loathing and self-contempt, he does not dwell. Yet, as long as progress is possible, man may always be regarded as a "bridge." The reader of Nietzsche is tempted to believe that hatred and contempt must always be the predominant emotions in the mind of the "superior" man. Darwin, who knew much more about man and nature than did our passionate poet, was still able to regard man as "the crown and glory of the universe." Not so, Nietzsche.