Justification for good. Moral philosophy

Dedicated to my father, historian Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov, and grandfather, priest Mikhail Vasilyevich Solovyov, with a feeling of living gratitude and eternal connection Preface to the second edition Preface to the first edition Introduction. Moral philosophy as an independent science (The moral meaning of life in its preliminary concept) A general question about the meaning of life. I. Double negation of life's meaning. – Theoretical pessimism. – The internal inconsistency of people who talk about the advantages of non-existence, but in fact prefer being. – Their attachment to life testifies to its real, although not comprehended by them, meaning. – Practical pessimism, ultimately expressed in suicide. – Suicides also involuntarily testify to the meaning of life, since their despair in it comes from the fact that it does not fulfill their arbitrary and contradictory demands, the fulfillment of which, however, would be possible only if life is meaningless, and, therefore, non-fulfillment speaks for the presence of meaning in life, which these people do not want to know due to their own unreason (Examples: Romeo, Cleopatra) II. A view that recognizes meaning in life, but exclusively aesthetic, expressed in what is strong, majestic, beautiful - regardless of moral goodness. – The indisputable refutation of this view is the fact of death, which transforms all natural strength and greatness into insignificance and all natural beauty into extreme ugliness (Explanation: biblical words about Alexander the Great). – Nietzsche's pathetic attacks on Christianity. – Real strength, greatness and beauty are inseparable from absolute Good III. A view that recognizes that the meaning of life is in its goodness, but at the same time asserts that this goodness is given from above and realized in immutable life forms (family, fatherland, church), requires from a person only obedient acceptance, without any reasoning. – The insufficiency of such a view, which forgets that historical images of life’s goodness do not have external unity and completeness and therefore require from a person not formal submission, but recognition of them in essence and internal assistance in their continued growth IV. The opposite delusion (moral amorphism), which asserts that good exists only in the subjective mental states of each individual person and in the good relations between people that naturally flow from this, and that all collectively organized forms of society, through their artificial and violent action, produce only evil. – But the social organization created by the historical life of mankind is a necessary continuation of the physical organization created by world life, everything real is complex, nothing exists outside one or another form of collective organization, and the beginning of moral amorphism, consistently carried out, logically requires the denial of all reality in favor of emptiness or non-existence Both extreme moral errors: the doctrine of unconditional submission to historical forms of social life and the doctrine of their unconditional negation (moral amorphism) coincide in that they take good without its essence and attach the meaning of unconditionally obligatory or unconditionally undue to something that is conditional in nature (explanatory examples). – Man in his mind and conscience as an unconditional internal form for Good as unconditional content. – General internal signs of goodness as such: its purity, or self-legitimacy (autonomy), since it is not conditioned by anything (external); its completeness, or unity, since it determines everything, its strength, or effectiveness, since it is realized through everything. – The task of moral philosophy and the primary task of the proposed system INTRODUCTION (MORAL PHILOSOPHY AS A SCIENCE) I. The formal universality of the idea of ​​good at the lower levels of moral consciousness, regardless of the material content of this idea (examples and explanations). – The growth of moral consciousness, gradually introducing into the formal idea of good a content more corresponding to it and more internally connected with it, naturally passes into the science of morality, or moral philosophy II. Moral philosophy does not depend entirely on positive religion. - Testimony of Ap. Paul on the moral law “written in the hearts” of the Gentiles. – Given the existence of many religions and faiths, disputes between them presuppose a common moral ground (explanations and examples) and, therefore, moral norms, which are equally referred to by the disputing parties, cannot depend on their religious and religious differences III. Independence of moral philosophy from theoretical philosophy (from epistemology and metaphysics). – In moral philosophy, we study our internal attitude to our own actions (and what is logically connected with this), that is, something indisputably accessible to our knowledge, since we ourselves produce it, and the controversial issue of the theoretical reliability of another being, not morally connected with us, remains aside. – Philosophical criticism of knowledge cannot go beyond doubt in the objective existence of the cognizable, and such theoretical doubt is not enough to undermine the moral and practical confidence in the obligatory nature of certain states and actions of the subject himself, as internally worthy. – Moreover, the skepticism of theoretical philosophy is resolved within itself in one positive way or another. - Finally, even if it were possible to have firm confidence in the non-existence of the external world, this would not abolish the internal difference between good and evil, since if it is impermissible to be angry at a living person, then at an empty ghost - and even more so; If it is shameful to slavishly obey the impulses of real sensuality, then even more so is imaginary IV. Moral philosophy does not depend on a positive solution to the metaphysical question of “free will,” since morality is also possible under determinism, which affirms the necessity of human actions. – In philosophy one should distinguish between purely mechanical necessity, which in itself is incompatible with any moral act, from psychological necessity and from ethical or rational-ideological necessity. – There is an indisputable difference between mechanical movement and mental reaction, necessarily caused by motives, that is, ideas combined with feelings and desires. – By the quality of the overcoming life motivation, one can distinguish a good spiritual nature from an evil one, and since a good nature, as is known from experience, is subject to motivated strengthening and development, and an evil nature is subject to motivated correction and transformation, thus, on the basis of psychological necessity, certain conditions for ethical tasks and teachings are given V. In a person, the power of overcoming motivation can be obtained, over and above one or another psychological impulse, by the universal rational idea of ​​good itself, acting through the consciousness of the unconditional duty to be in conformity with it: a person can do good apart from any relationship to the pleasant and unpleasant, for the sake of the very essence of good as such, or as unconditionally excellent. – The concept of moral necessity, or – which is the same – rational freedom. – Just as psychological necessity (through mental stimulation) is an elevation above mechanical necessity and liberation from it, so moral necessity (through the overpowering idea of ​​good), while remaining completely necessary, is an elevation above psychological necessity of mental affects and freedom from this lower motivation. – In order for the unconditional idea of ​​good to be a sufficient basis for human actions, it is necessary on the part of the subject to combine sufficient moral sensitivity to it with sufficient knowledge about it (explanations and biblical examples). – An indication of the metaphysical possibility of arbitrary preference for unconditional evil over unconditional good. – Moral philosophy as complete knowledge of good is presupposed by a thorough formulation and solution of a metaphysical question (about the freedom of choice between good and evil), and does not depend in its content on the solution of this question PART ONE. GOOD IN HUMAN NATURE CHAPTER ONE. PRIMARY DATA OF MORALITY I. The feeling of shame (initially – sexual modesty) as the natural root of human morality. The real shamelessness of all animals and the imaginary shamelessness of some savage peoples: the latter concerns the difference in external relations, and not the feeling itself. – Darwin's erroneous reference to phallism II. The deepest meaning of shame: that which is ashamed, in the very mental act of shame, separates itself from that of which it is ashamed - a person who is ashamed of animal nature in its root process, thereby proves that he is not only a phenomenon or process of this nature, but has an independent, superanimal meaning (Confirmation and explanation from the Bible). – The feeling of shame is inexplicable from an externally utilitarian point of view III. The second moral datum of human nature is pity or a sympathetic feeling, which expresses a person’s ethical attitude not towards a lower nature (as in shame), but towards living beings similar to him. Pity cannot be the result of human progress, since it also exists in animals. – Pity is the individual spiritual root of proper social relations IV. The third moral datum of human nature is the feeling of reverence, or piety, which expresses a person’s proper attitude towards a higher principle and constitutes the individual spiritual root of religion. - Darwin's indication of the beginnings of religious feeling in domesticated animals V. Feelings of shame, pity and reverence basically exhaust the entire range of possible moral relations of a person: to what is below him, what is equal to him and what is above him. – These normal relationships are defined here as domination over material sensuality, as solidarity with living beings and as internal subordination to the superhuman principle. – Other definitions of moral life (all virtues) can be shown as modifications of these three principles, or as a result of the interaction between them and the mental side of man. – Example VI. Conscience as a modification of shame in a distinct and generalized form. – The imaginary conscience of animals VII. From actual moral foundations, human reason deduces universal and necessary principles and rules of moral life CHAPTER TWO. ASCETICIAN BEGINNING IN MORALITY I. The moral self-affirmation of man as a supermaterial being - semi-conscious and unstable in a simple feeling of shame - is elevated by the action of reason to the principle of asceticism. – The subject of a negative attitude in asceticism is not material nature in general: it cannot in itself be recognized as evil from any point of view (Proof from the essence of the main pessimistic teachings: Vedanta, Sankya, Buddhism, Egyptian Gnostics, Manichaeism) II. The opposition of the spiritual principle to material nature, expressed directly in shame and developing in asceticism, is caused not by this nature in itself, but by its capture by the lower life, which strives to make the rational being of man a suffering instrument, or a useless appendage of a blind physical process. – Understanding the fact of shame, the mind logically deduces from it a necessary, universal and morally binding norm: the spontaneous life in a person must be subordinated to the spiritual III. Moral concept of spirit and flesh. – The flesh, as animality or irrationality, excited and emerging from its essential definition, serves as matter, or the hidden (potential) basis of spiritual life. – The real meaning of the struggle between spirit and flesh IV. Three main points in the struggle of spirit with flesh: 1) internal self-difference of spirit from flesh; 2) the spirit truly defends its independence; 3) a clear predominance of the spirit over the flesh, or the abolition of the evil carnal principle. The practical significance of the second point, which determines certain and mandatory moral requirements, and above all the requirement of self-control V. Preliminary ascetic tasks: acquisition by rational will of the ability to control breathing and sleep VI. Ascetic requirements regarding the functions of nutrition and reproduction. – Misunderstanding regarding sexual relations. – Christian view of the matter VII. Various areas of struggle between the spirit and the flesh. – Psychological capture of the evil principle in three moments: thought, imagination, captivity. – Appropriate ascetic rules so that a bad state of mind does not turn into passion and vice: “breaking the Babylonian babies against a stone”; distracting thinking; restorative moral action VIII. Asceticism, or abstinence built on principle, is an undoubted element of good. – When this good element is taken in itself as a whole and unconditional good, evil asceticism appears according to the prototype of the devil, who does not eat at all, does not drink, does not sleep and remains in celibacy. – If an evil or ruthless ascetic, like an imitator of the devil, cannot be morally approved, then the very principle of asceticism has moral significance, or expresses goodness, only conditionally, precisely under the condition of its connection with the principle of altruism, rooted in pity CHAPTER THREE. PITY AND ALTRUISM I. The positive meaning of pity. – Just as shame distinguishes a person from the rest of nature and contrasts him with other animals, so pity internally connects him with the entire world of living II. The internal basis of a moral attitude towards other beings (regardless of any metaphysical theories) can only be pity or compassion, and not co-joy or co-pleasure. – Positive sympathy for someone else’s pleasure includes approval of this pleasure, which, however, can also be bad: therefore, participation in it can be good or bad, depending on the subject, but in itself in no case is the basis of moral relations (as it can also be immoral). – Elimination of some objections III. Pity as an incentive to altruistic actions and as a possible basis for altruistic rules IV. Schopenhauer's view of the irrational, or mysterious, nature of compassion, in which there seems to be a direct and complete identification of an individual with another, alien to it. - Refutation of this view. – In the main manifestation of compassion - the maternal instinct of animals - the closest real connection between the creature that pities and the one whom it pities is clear. – In general, the natural connection of all beings, given in experience and reason, as parts of one whole, sufficiently explains its psychological expression in pity, which thus fully corresponds to the obvious meaning of the universe, agrees with reason, or is rational. – False representation of pity as a direct and complete identification of two beings. – Explanations V. Boundless universal pity, described by St. Isaac the Syrian VI. Pity in itself is not yet a sufficient basis for all morality, as Schopenhauer erroneously argued. – Heartfelt kindness towards living beings is compatible with immorality in other respects. – Just as there are evil ascetics, so there are intemperate and dissolute good-natured people who, without doing direct and intentional evil, harm not only themselves, but also their neighbors with their shameful behavior VII. The true essence of pity is not a simple identification of oneself and another, but the recognition of another’s own (belonging to) value - the right to existence and greatest well-being. – This idea of ​​pity, taken in its universality and independently of the subjective mental states associated with it (that is, taken logically and not psychologically), is truth and justice: it is true that other beings are homogeneous and similar to me, and it is fair that I treat them as myself. Altruism as correspondence to the truth, or what is, and egoism as presupposing untruth, or what is not, since the individual self does not actually have that exclusive and central meaning that it acquires for itself in egoism. – The expansion of personal egoism into family, national, state, religious, although it expresses the historical successes of morality, does not, however, abolish the fundamental lie of egoism, which is rejected by the unconditional truth of the altruistic principle VIII. Two rules - justice (not to offend anyone) and mercy (to help everyone), arising from the principle of altruism. – Erroneous separation and opposition of justice and mercy, which in fact are only different sides or ways of manifesting one and the same ethical impulse. – The moral principle in the form of justice does not require material, or qualitative, equality of all subjects, individual and collective, but only that, despite all the necessary and desirable differences, something unconditional and uniform for everyone is preserved - the meaning of each as an end in itself, that is, as something that cannot be done only as a means for other people’s goals CHAPTER FOUR. RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE IN MORALITY I. Features of moral definitions of a religious nature. – Their core is in the normal attitude of children towards their parents, based on inequality, irreducible to justice and irreducible from pity: the child directly recognizes the superiority of his parents over himself, his dependence on them, feels reverence for them and the need for obedience. – Explanations II. The primary germ of religion is not fetishism (proof) and not naturalistic mythology (proof), but pietas erga parentes (love for parents (lat.)) - first in relation to the mother, then the father III. The religious attitude of children towards their parents as their direct providence naturally becomes complicated and spiritualized, turning into veneration for departed parents, elevated above everything around them and possessing mysterious power; During his lifetime, the father is only a candidate for god, but for now only an intermediary and priest of the real god - the deceased grandfather, or ancestor. – The nature and meaning of the religion of the ancestors (explanations from the beliefs of ancient peoples) IV. With all the differences in religious ideas and methods of worshiping God - from the primitive cult of ancestral ancestors to Christian worship in spirit and truth of the one universal Heavenly Father - the moral essence of religion remains the same: the wild cannibal and the perfect righteous man, since they are both religious, agree in their filial relationship to the highest and in the decision to do not their own will, but the will of the Father. – Such natural religion is an integral part of the law written in our hearts, and without it the meaningful fulfillment of other moral requirements is impossible V. Imaginary godlessness, or wickedness. – (Example). – Cases of actual wickedness, that is, failure to recognize anything higher than oneself, speak as little against the moral principle of piety and its obligation as the actual existence of shameless and ruthless people does not undermine the duties of abstinence and philanthropy. – Regardless of the presence or absence of any positive beliefs in us, we must, as rational beings, recognize that there is meaning in the life of the world and in our own, due to which everything depends on a higher rational principle, to which we must place ourselves in a filial relationship, subordinating all our actions to the “will of the Father”, which speaks to us through reason and conscience VI. In the field of piety, as in morality in general, higher requirements do not cancel lower ones, but presuppose them and include them. – (Examples). – Our real dependence on the one Father of the universe is not direct, since our existence is most closely determined by heredity, that is, by our ancestors and the environment created by them. – Since the highest will determined our existence through our ancestors, then, while bowing before its action, we cannot be indifferent to its tools. - (Explanations). – Morally obligatory veneration of providential people CHAPTER FIVE. ABOUT THE VIRTUES I. Three general aspects of morality: virtue (in the narrow sense - as a good natural quality), the norm, or rule, of good deeds and moral goodness, as their consequence. – An inextricable logical connection of three points, which allows us to consider the entire content of morality under the first term - as virtue (in the broad sense) II. Virtue as a person’s proper attitude towards everything. – The proper attitude is not the same attitude. - (Explanation). – Since each person does not find himself in relation to everything else either an unconditionally superior being, or an absolutely lower one, or, finally, the only one of his kind, but recognizes himself as an average being, and, moreover, one of many averages, then from here with logical necessity a trinity of moral norms is derived, or three fundamental and in the proper sense virtues, which are always and in all such, expressing a quality in essence and properly defined and defining. - All other so-called virtues are only qualities of the will and modes of action that do not have their own moral definition in themselves, or constant correspondence with a certain sphere of what should be, and therefore can be either virtues, or indifferent states, or even vices. – (Explanations and examples) III. Moral assessment is determined by one of the three norms of attitude towards an object, and not by the psychological quality of volitional and sensitive states. – Analysis from this point of view of the so-called “cardinal” (cornerstone) or “philosophical virtues”, and especially justice. – It is understood as rectitudo as aequitas, as justitia, as legalitas (justice; equality; justice; divine justice (Latin)). - In the first sense - correct in general - it goes beyond the boundaries of ethics, in the second - impartiality or impartiality - and in the third - “not to offend anyone” - justice will cope with the general principle of altruism (with the inseparability of the rules “not to offend anyone” and “to help everyone”); in the fourth sense - unconditional submission to existing laws - justice is not a virtue in itself, but may or may not become such, depending on the situation (classic examples: Socrates, Antigone) IV. The so-called “theological virtues” do not have moral dignity in themselves, unconditionally, but only depending on other data. – Faith is a virtue only under three conditions: 1) the reality of its object, 2) its dignity and 3) a worthy relationship of faith to a real and worthy object. - (Explanations). – Such faith coincides with true piety. – The same about hope. – The positive commandment of love is conditioned by the negative one: do not love the world, nor everything in the world (the requirement of abstinence, or the principle of asceticism). – Love for God coincides with true piety, and love for one’s neighbor with pity. – Thus, love is not a virtue, but the final expression of all the basic requirements of morality in three necessary spheres of relations: to a higher, lower and one being V. Generosity and selflessness as modifications of ascetic virtue. Generosity as a special manifestation of altruism. – Different moral meanings of patience and “tolerance”, depending on subjects and provisions VI. Truthfulness. – Since the word is an instrument of reason for expressing the truth, the abuse (in lies and deception) of this formal and universal instrument for material and selfish purposes, being shameful for the liar, offensive and harmful for those deceived, violates two basic moral requirements - respect for human dignity in oneself and justice for others. – According to the concept of truth, the reality of a single external fact should not be arbitrarily separated from the moral meaning of the whole given situation. – The difference between material falsity and moral falsity. – A detailed analysis of the issue of the permissibility of saving a person’s life through the verbal deception of a killer VII. The concept of truth, or what should be, unites in the highest generalization the three basic requirements of morality, since the same truth essentially requires a different attitude: ascetic - to the lower nature, altruistic - to our neighbors and religious - to the highest principle. – The contradiction between the unconditional internal necessity or obligatory nature of truth and its randomness and convention as a sufficient motive for human actions. – Hence the desire to replace the concept of moral good, or unconditionally-ought, with the concept of good, or unconditionally-desirable CHAPTER SIX. imaginary principles of practical philosophy (criticism of abstract eudaimonism in its various modifications) I. Since (moral) good is not at all desired by anyone and is not understood as desirable, it is not good for him; since, although it is understood as desirable, it does not act on the will in a decisive way, it is not a real good for it; since although it acts on the will of a given person, it does not impart to him the power to carry out what is due in the whole world, it is not a sufficient good. – As a result of such an empirical discrepancy, good is separated from good and in this separation is understood as well-being (eudaimonia). – The eudaimonic principle has this visible advantage over the purely moral one, that well-being by its very concept is desirable for everyone. – Well-being is most closely defined as pleasure and eudaimonism – as idonism II. The inconsistency of idolism: in the concept of pleasure, its universality is only formal-logical, or abstract, not expressing any definite and real unity and therefore not giving any general principle or rule of action. – A person can find real pleasure in something that obviously leads him to death, that is, to the most undesirable. – The transition of pure Idonism into extreme pessimism (Igesius of Cyrene - “instiller of death”) III. Analysis of pleasure. – Actually, what is desired (as a goal) are certain represented realities, and not the pleasant sensations caused by them. - (Proof). – The desirability of certain objects, or their value as goods, is determined not by subsequent subjective states of pleasure, but by the known or unknown objective relationships of these objects with our bodily or mental nature. – Pleasure as a sign of good. - From this point of view, the highest well-being consists in the possession of such goods, which in the aggregate, or in the final result, deliver maximum pleasure and minimum pain - here the main practical significance belongs not to pleasure as such, but to a calculated consideration of the consequences of this or that behavior; eudaimonism of prudence IV. If the ultimate goal is defined as actual well-being, then it is all about its actual achievement and lasting possession; but neither the one nor the other can be secured by any calculation of prudence (Proof). – Failure of ideal (mental and aesthetic) pleasures from the eudaimonic point of view. – Since pleasures are not permanent quantities that can be summed up, but only transitory subjective states, which, becoming past, cease to be pleasures, the advantage of prudent eudaimonism over the insane waste of life is only apparent V. Self-sufficient eudaimonism, which asserts as its principle internal freedom from those aspirations and attachments that make a person unhappy. – Due to its purely negative nature, such freedom can only be a condition for obtaining the highest good, and not this good itself VI. Utilitarianism, which affirms as the highest practical principle the service of the common good, or the benefit of mankind, as coinciding with a well-understood benefit. – Utilitarianism is mistaken not in its practical requirements, since they coincide with the requirements of altruistic morality, but in its desire to base these requirements on egoism, which supposedly has an initial meaning, which contradicts the data of experience (self-sacrifice of an individual to the species in animals and wild peoples; “struggle for the lives of others”) VII. The logical fallacy of the connection that utilitarianism wants to establish between benefit in the sense of personal gain and benefit in the sense of general well-being. – The general failure of utilitarianism and all eudaimonism. – Well-being remains only an uncertain and unfulfilled demand, over which the moral demand for goodness, as a due, has all the advantages. – Transition to the second part PART TWO. GOOD FROM GOD CHAPTER SEVEN. UNITY OF MORAL FOUNDATIONS II. The feeling of shame, with its primary and fundamental connection with the fact of the sexual sphere, intercepts, however, beyond the boundaries of material life and, as an expression of formal disapproval, accompanies any violation of a moral norm in any area of ​​​​relationships. III. For an animal individual, the infinity of life is given only in genitalibus (in procreation (lat.)), and here this individual feels and acts as a limited phenomenon, as a passive means or instrument of the generic process in its evil infinity; and here, in the center of natural life, man realizes the insufficiency of this generic infinity in which the animal finds its highest. – The fact that man is first and foremost ashamed of the very essence of natural life, or the fundamental manifestation of natural being, directly shows him as a superanimal and supernatural being: in sexual shame a man becomes a man in the full sense IV. The eternal life of the race through the eternal death of individuals is shameful and unsatisfactory for a person who feels both the need and the obligation to be not a tool, but the owner of eternal life. – True genius V. The path of animal birth or perpetuation of death, felt at first as shameful, then turns out to be both merciless and wicked: it is merciless, as the path of crowding out or displacing one generation by another, and wicked, since those being displaced are closest to our fathers VI. Childbirth as good and as evil. – Resolution of the antinomy: since the evil of procreation can be abolished by procreation itself, it becomes good (Explanation) VII. The positive meaning of human love pathos as an indication of the secret integrity of the individual person and the task of his obvious healing. – The uselessness of love pathos for animal procreation VIII. The fundamental, internal connection of shame and pity as reactions of the hidden integrity of the human being against 1) its individual division into sexes and 2) the further fragmentation of humanity resulting from that first division into many egoistic individuals opposing each other (Shame as individual and pity as social chastity) IX. The same connection regarding 3) piety as religious chastity, counteracting the separation of man from the absolute center of life X. The single being of morality is the integrity of man, inherent in his nature as an abiding norm and carried out in life (personal and historical) as a due task through the struggle with the centrifugal and crushing forces of existence. – The normative-conservative principle is in shame. – Modification of primary (genital) shame: conscience as predominantly interpersonal shame and fear of God as religious shame XI. In the achieved (in three directions) integrity of the human being, good coincides with good. – Since true good is determined by moral good, the ethics of pure duty cannot contradict eudaimonism in general, which is necessarily included in it. – Human goodness does not provide complete satisfaction and well-being only because it itself is never complete or is never fully fulfilled. - Explanations. XII. For its actual self-legitimacy (autonomy), good must be perfect, and such a thing must be good. – With a false understanding of the good and the good, empirical cases of discrepancy, as well as coincidence of virtue with well-being, have no moral interest. – Examples XIII. Criticisms about the inadequacy of Kant's ethics XIV. The groundlessness of Kant's religious postulates. – The reality of superhuman Good, proven by the moral growth of humanity CHAPTER EIGHT. THE UNCONDITIONAL BEGINNING OF MORALITY I. Morality and reality. – In shame, a person really stands out from material nature; in pity, he really shows his essential connection and homogeneity with other living beings. II. In religious feeling, the Divine is felt as the reality of perfect Good (Good), unconditionally and completely realized in itself. – The general basis of religion is a living feeling of the actual presence of the Divine, one, embracing everything within itself. - Explanations. III. The reality of the Divine is not a conclusion from religious sensation, but its immediate content - what is felt. – Analysis of this content as a given relationship of man to the Divine from the side of their 1) differences (“dust of the earth” in us), 2) their ideal connection (“image of God” in us) and 3) real connection (“likeness of God” in us). – A complete religious attitude as logically composed of three moral categories: 1) imperfection in us, 2) perfection in God and 3) perfection as our life task IV. Psychological confirmation: “joy in the Holy Spirit” as the highest expression of religion. – Formal and moral side of religious attitude. – The duty “be perfect”, its ideal scope and practical meaning: “become perfect.” V. Three types of perfection: 1) unconditionally existing (actus purus) (pure fulfillment (lat.)) - in God; 2) potential - in the soul; 3) actually becoming – in the world-historical process. – Evidence of the rational necessity of the process: just as a mollusk or a sponge cannot exhibit human thought and will, and a biological process was needed to create the most perfect organism, so the implementation of the highest thought and will (the Kingdom of God) cannot open among half-beasts, and a process of historical improvement of life forms is required VII. The necessity of a universal process arising from the unconditional principle of good. – The world as a system of preliminary material conditions for the implementation of the kingdom of goals. – Human moral freedom as the final condition for this implementation VII. Religious morality requirements: “have God in you” and “treat everything in God’s way.” - God's attitude towards evil. – Complete formula of the categorical imperative as an expression of the unconditional principle of morality VIII. The highest levels of morality do not deny or abolish the lower ones, but presuppose them and rely on them in their historical implementation. – Pedagogical side of the matter IX. Deepening, elevation and expansion of natural altruism due to the unconditional moral principle. – The determining force of this principle in relation to collective historical organizations appointed to serve Good: our highest duty is not to selflessly serve these organizations (which, after all, may evade their purpose), but to assist them in their service to Good when they are faithful to it, and to point out to them their true duties in cases of evasion X. When the connection between man and the deity rises to absolute consciousness, then the protective feeling of chastity (shame, conscience, fear of God) reveals its final meaning as protecting not the relative, but the unconditional dignity of man - his ideal perfection, as it should be realized. – Here ascetic morality receives its positive eschatological motive - the recreation of our physicality as the intended dwelling of the Holy Spirit CHAPTER NINE. THE REALITY OF MORAL ORDER I. Since the reality of spiritual and material existence are inseparable, the process of universal perfection, which is subject to consideration by moral philosophy, being divine-human, is also necessarily divine-material. – A number of the most firmly defined and characteristic concrete increases in being from the point of view of moral meaning realized in the universal process are the five “kingdoms”: mineral or inorganic, plant, animal, natural-human and spiritual-human, or the kingdom of God. – Descriptive definition of them. – External relationship – inorganic substances nourish plant life, animals exist at the expense of the plant kingdom, people exist at the expense of the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of God is made up of people (Explanations). – The general essence of increase: just as a living organism consists of a chemical substance that ceases to be only a substance, just as natural humanity consists of animals that cease to be only animals, so the kingdom of God is composed of people who cease to be only people, entering a new, higher plane of existence, where their purely human tasks become means and instruments of another, final goal II. A stone exists, a plant exists and lives, an animal, moreover, is separately aware of its life in its actual states and relationships, a natural man, existing, living and aware of his actual life, moreover, gradually understands its universal meaning through ideas, and the sons of God are called upon to actually realize this meaning, or the perfect moral order, in everything to the end. - Explanations. – Development of the human kingdom in the ancient world. – The real limit is the living man-god (the apotheosis of the Caesars). – Just as in the animal kingdom the pre-appearance of the ape refers to the real man, so in natural humanity the pre-appearance of the deified Caesar refers to the true God-man III. The God-Man as the first and main manifestation of the Kingdom of God. – Grounds for belief in the historical appearance of Christ (as the God-man) from the point of view of a rationally understood world evolution IV. The positive unity of the universal process from three sides: 1) the lower kingdoms are included in the moral order as necessary conditions for its implementation; 2) each lower shows a gravitation towards its higher; 3) each higher physically (and psychologically) absorbs the lower. – Collecting the universe. – The task of natural man and humanity is to collect the universe in an idea; the task of the God-man and God-manhood is to assemble the universe in reality V. The positive connection between spiritual and natural man, between grace and natural goodness. – Historical confirmation of basic Christian truth VI. Christ as perfect individuality. – Why did he first appear in the middle of history, and not right at the end of it? VII. A perfect moral order offers moral freedom to every person, and real freedom for the finite spirit is acquired only through experience: hence the necessity of history after Christ. – The final meaning of this story. – A real moral task inevitably takes us into the realm of conditions that determine the current historical existence of society, or collective man PART THREE. GOOD THROUGH HUMAN HISTORY CHAPTER TEN. PERSONALITY AND SOCIETY I. The gap between the individual and society as such is only a painful deception of consciousness. – Explanation II. The human personality as such is the opportunity given in the mind and will for the realization of unlimited reality, or a special form of infinite content. – The chimera of a self-sufficient personality and the chimera of an impersonal society. – Sociality is in the very definition of personality as a force of rational-cognitive and moral-acting, which is possible only in the way of being social. - Proof. - Society is the objectively realized content of a rational-moral personality - not its external limit, but its essential completion - the indivisible whole of a common life, partly already realized in the past (general tradition), partly realized in the present (social services) and, finally, anticipating the future perfect implementation (common ideal). – These permanent moments of personal and social life correspond to three main stages in historical development: tribal (past), national-state (present), universal (future). – (The clear difference between these sides and stages of life actually and historically manifests itself only as a consistent predominance, and not the exclusive presence of one or the other) III. Society is an augmented or expanded personality, and personality is a compressed or concentrated society. – The moral and historical task consists not in the creation, but in the consciousness of personal and social solidarity, in transforming it from involuntary to voluntary - so that everyone understands, accepts and carries out the common cause as their own IV. Real morality is the proper interaction between an individual person and his given environment (equal, lower and higher). – Man initially appears as a personal-social being, and all history is only a gradual deepening, elevation and expansion of two-sided, personal-social life. Of these two inseparable and correlative terms, personality is the mobile, dynamic, and society is the inertly protective, static principle in history. – There cannot be a fundamental confrontation between the individual and society, but there is only a clash on personal initiative between the new and previous stages of personal and social development V. Genus (in a broad sense) as the embryonic embodiment of a whole morality (religious, altruistic and ascetic) or the implementation of personal human dignity in the closest and most basic circle of society. – Explanations and confirmations VI. The moral content of tribal life is eternal; the form of tribal life is dissolved by the historical process. - The general course of this disintegration. – The transition from clan through tribe to people and state. – The significance of the word “fatherland” VII. With the creation of a new social whole (fatherland), broader than the clan, the clan turns into a family. - Explanations. – The importance of the personal principle in the transition from tribal life to state life VIII. Every social group has only relative and conditional rights over a person. – A social organization, even a relatively higher one (for example, a state), does not have any rights over that eternal moral content, which also lies in relatively lower forms of life (for example, tribal). – Detailed explanation from Sophocles Antigone CHAPTER ELEVEN. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN ITS MAIN ERAS I. Moral progress (on the religious and altruistic side), corresponding to social progress. – Explanatory Notes II. Cultural success is a condition for progress for ascetic morality, which is also not the work of an individual individual, taken separately, but can be manifested by a person only as a personal-social being. – Historical explanations and confirmations. – Conditions for the emergence of detached consciousness III. The recognition by the human personality of its purely negative, or formal, infinity without any definite content is the religion of awakening: “I am above all this; all this is empty.” – The Buddhist confession of the “three treasures”: “I resort to the Buddha, I resort to the teaching, I resort to the community,” that is, everything is deception, except for three things worthy of recognition: a spiritually awakened person, the word of awakening and the brotherhood of the awakened. – Buddhism as the first surviving stage of human universalism, rising above the exclusive national-political system of pagan religion and society. – The moral essence of Buddhist teachings: reverence for the ancestor of the awakened, the commandment of lack of will and the commandment of universal benevolence IV. Criticism of Buddhism its internal contradictions V. The final assessment of Buddhist teaching as religious and moral nihilism (in the precise sense), which fundamentally abolishes every subject and every motive for reverence, pity and spiritual struggle VI. A logical transition from Indian nihilism to Greek idealism. – The Greeks, no less than the Hindus, felt the emptiness of sensory existence: pessimism in Greek poetry and philosophy. – But from sensory emptiness the Greek moves on to the intelligible fullness of ideas. – Characteristics of idealism (historical explanations and examples) VII. The impossibility of a consistent opposition between the two worlds. – Three relative and similar untruths (anomalies) of the manifested world: psychological (subordination of the mind to passions), social (subordination of the sage to the crowd) and physical (subordination of the living organic form to the inorganic forces of matter in death). – Idealism tries to fight the first two anomalies, but is blind and dumb in the face of the third. – Our entire world inseparably (not only mental and political, but also physical) requires salvation, and the savior can be not an Indian ascetic or a Hellenic philosopher, but the Jewish Messiah - not a denier of life in the name of non-existence, or in the name of renounced ideas, but a healer and resurrector of life for eternity VIII. Comparative assessment of Buddhism, Platonism and Christianity; negative universalism, one-sided, or half, universalism, and positive, whole, or perfect universalism. – The failure of the Platonic worldview from a moral point of view. – The preparatory significance of Buddhism and Platonism and their sterility as complete teachings. – Characteristics of Christianity as an absolute event, as an absolute promise and as an absolute task CHAPTER TWELVE. DISTRACTED BY THE SUBJECTIVE IN MORALITY I. A false view that fundamentally denies morality as an objective task or the work of a collective person. – Statement of the question II. The insufficiency of morality as a purely subjective feeling. – Historical confirmation III. The insufficiency of morality as a personal sermon. – Historical evidence IV. The demand for organized morality. – Fundamental clarifications. – The degree of subordination of a person to society must correspond to the degree of subordination of society itself to moral goodness, without connection with which the social environment has no rights over a person CHAPTER THIRTEEN. MORAL STANDARD OF THE PUBLIC I. The lie of social realism, according to which certain social institutions and interests are of supreme, decisive importance in themselves. - Man is not only a social animal. – The concept of the public as such is poorer in content than the concept of a person, but broader in scope. – Description of the ant community II. The unconditional significance of a person for the human public. - No person, under any conditions and for any reason, can be considered as only a means or instrument - neither for the benefit of another person, nor for the benefit of a certain group of persons, nor for the so-called “common good”. - Explanations. – The relationship of religion, family, property to an unconditional moral norm III. Human full rights, falsely understood as a privilege: of the one (oriental despotisms), of the few (classical aristocracies), of the many (democracies). – Three main anomalies of ancient society: denial of human dignity among external enemies, among slaves, among criminals. – Advances in moral and social consciousness in the ancient world. – Unconditional affirmation of human dignity in Christianity IV. The real task: to conform all social institutions to an unconditional moral and social norm, in the fight against collective evil CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE NATIONAL QUESTION FROM A MORAL POINT OF VIEW Collective evil in the form of a threefold immoral relationship: between different peoples, between society and criminals, between different social classes I. Nationalism and cosmopolitanism. – The moral bankruptcy of nationalism II. Absence of strictly national divisions in the ancient world. – Eastern despotisms and Western polities do not coincide with nations. – Historical notes III. Jews have never been just a nation. – Christianity is not negative cosmopolitanism, but positive universalism, supra-national and all-national: it also cannot demand non-nationality, as well as impersonality. – Explanation and historical references IV. Universalism of the new European nations. – Historical overview: Italy, Spain, England, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Holland, Sweden V. Conclusion from the historical review: the meaning and inspiration of the people as a private being only in connection and in agreement with the universal. – The moral bankruptcy of cosmopolitanism. – Positive duty in relation to the national question: love (in an ethical sense) all other nationalities as your own. – Explanation CHAPTER FIFTEEN. CRIMINAL ISSUE FROM A MORAL POINT OF VIEW I. Proper counteraction to crimes requires moral assistance on both sides: the duty to protect the offended and bring the offender to reason. – The two prevailing false doctrines deny one side or the other of the matter, II. The idea of ​​punishment as revenge. – Its roots are in the custom of blood feud from the times of tribal life. – Transformation of this custom into criminal justice with the transfer of the duty of vengeance from the clan to the state III. The factual origin of criminal justice is mistakenly taken as the basis for its rule. – Ridiculous arguments in favor of the wild concept of punishment as vengeance or retribution IV. The immoral tendency to maintain cruel punishments. – The generally recognized absurdity of retribution forces this tendency to rely on the principle of intimidation. – This principle is essentially immoral. – The fatal inconsistency of his supporters V. The chaotic state of modern justice. – The doctrine of non-resistance to evil as applied to a criminal matter. – Detailed analysis and refutation of this doctrine VI. The moral principle, allowing neither punishment as a frightening retribution, nor an indifferent attitude towards crimes, or their unhinderedness, requires real counteraction to them, defining it as a fair means of active philanthropy, legally and forcibly limiting certain external manifestations of evil will not only for the sake of the safety of society and its peaceful members, but certainly also in the interests of the criminal himself. – Normal justice in the criminal field must implement, or at least have in mind, the equal implementation of three rights: the right of the offended to protection, the right of society to safety and the right of the offender to admonition and correction. – Temporary deprivation of liberty of the offender as a necessary precondition for the execution of this task. – The consequences of a crime for the criminal must be in a natural internal connection with his actual state. – The need for a corresponding transformation of criminal courts: “suspended sentences” as the first step towards such a transformation VII. Possibility of correction of criminals; the right and duty of society to take care of this. – Necessary transformation of penitentiary institutions CHAPTER SIXTEEN. THE ECONOMIC QUESTION FROM A MORAL POINT OF VIEW I. The development of crime and national hatred in connection with the abnormal economic situation. – The simple essence of the economic issue. – Fundamentally wrong decisions on the part of orthodox economists and socialists II. False and immoral isolation of the economic sphere of relations as if independent from the moral conditions of human activity in general. – Just as the free play of chemical processes can only occur in an organism that is dead and decaying, and in a living body these processes are connected and determined by biological goals, so the free play of economic factors and laws is possible only in a dead and decaying society, and in a living and having a future, economic elements are connected and determined by moral goals. – There is not and has not been such a low state in humanity when the material need to obtain the means of subsistence would not be complicated by a moral question. – Explanations III. And in its economic life, society must be an organized implementation of good. – the peculiarity and independence of the economic sphere lies not in the fact that it has its own fatal laws, but in the fact that, in essence, its relations represent a special, unique field for the application of a single moral law. – The ambiguous beginning and bad end of socialism. – Saint-Simonist principle: restoration of the rights of matter. – The true and important meaning of this principle: the material has the right to be spiritualized by man. – This meaning soon gave way to another: matter has the right to dominate in man. – The gradual degeneration of socialism into economic materialism, the essence of which is internally identical with the essence of plutocracy. – Explanation IV. The true solution to the economic issue is in the moral attitude of man to material nature (earth), conditioned by the moral attitude towards people and God. – The commandment of labor: to cultivate material nature with effort for yourself and yours, for all humanity and for itself. – Lack of “natural harmony” of personal interests. – Refutation of the Bastiat Doctrine V. The duty of society to recognize and ensure everyone’s right to a decent human existence. – Immorality of known working conditions. – Examples, confirmations and explanations VI. The main conditions under which human relations in the field of material labor become moral: 1) material wealth should not be recognized as an independent goal of human economic activity; 2) production should not be carried out as an act of human dignity of producers, and none of them should become only an instrument of production; 3) the responsibilities of man and the earth must be recognized; (material nature in general). - Explanations. - Land rights. – Assessment of man’s threefold relationship to material nature: 1) submission to it; 2) fight against it and exploit it; 3) caring for her for yourself and for her. – Without love for nature, it is impossible for nature to carry out the moral organization of material life. – The connection between the moral attitude towards external nature and the attitude towards one’s body VII. Insufficient study of the productive and material causes of labor. – A complete definition of labor from a moral point of view: labor is the interaction of people in the material field, which, in accordance with moral norms, should provide everyone with the necessary means for a decent existence and comprehensive improvement, and in its final purpose should transform and spiritualize material nature VIII. Analysis of the concept of property. – Relativity of its foundations IX. Everyone has the right to adequate income and savings. – Normal origin of capital. – The right and duty of society to limit the abuses of private owners of their property. – The desire of socialism to unjustifiably expand this social right and duty. – The moral meaning of successive, or hereditary (family) property. – The special importance of family succession regarding land ownership: it is required not to limit it, but, if possible, to provide it to each family. – Refutation of objections X. Exchange and deception. – Trade as a public service that cannot have private profit as its sole or even main goal. – The right and duty of society to forcibly limit abuses in this area. – Transition to the moral and legal issue CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. MORALITY AND LAW I. In the very essence of the unconditional moral principle as a commandment or requirement of perfection that has not yet been achieved, there already lies the recognition of a relative element in morality - namely, the necessary real conditions for achievement. – The comparative predominance of this relative side forms the legal area of relations, and the comparative predominance of the unconditional side forms the moral area proper II. The imaginary contradiction between law and morality. – Examples and explanation III. Various states of both moral and legal consciousness. – Unchangeable legal norms, or natural law. – Conservatism is right. – Progress in law, or the steady gravitational pull of legal provisions towards legal norms that are consistent, although not identical, with moral requirements IV. A close connection between morality and law, vital for both sides. – Its verbal and etymological confirmation V. Differences between morality and law: 1) the unlimitedness of purely moral and limited legal requirements - in this regard, law is the lowest limit, or a certain minimum of morality; 2) law requires mainly the objective realization of this minimal good, or the actual elimination of a certain amount of evil; 3) in this implementation, the law allows coercion VI. General definition: law is a compulsory requirement for the implementation of a certain minimum good, or order, which does not allow certain manifestations of evil. – The basis for this is morality: moral interest requires personal freedom as a condition for human dignity and moral improvement; but man cannot exist and, therefore, have the possibility of freedom and improvement except in society; So, moral interest requires that the external manifestations of personal freedom be consistent with the conditions of existence of society, that is, not with the ideal perfection of some, but with the real security of all. – This security, not ensured by an unconditional law, moral in itself, as not existing for immoral people, is protected by a compulsory legal law, which is valid for them as well VII. Positive law as a historically mobile definition of the necessary forced balance of two moral interests: personal freedom and the common good. – The moral requirement for everyone is the freedom to be immoral; this freedom is ensured by positive law. - Explanations. – The immutable limit of the compulsory action of any collective organization VIII. The nature of the legal assessment of atrocities IX. By the very definition of law, the interest of the common good can in each case only limit the interest of personal freedom, but in no case abolish it. – Hence the impermissibility of the death penalty and life imprisonment X. Positive law in its three essential features (publicity, specificity, real applicability). - Sanction of the law. – Public power. – About three different powers (legislative, judicial, executive). - Supreme power. – The state as embodied law. – Boundaries of the legal order in humanity. – Transition to the question of war CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. THE MEANING OF WAR I. The question of war consists of three questions: general moral, historical and personal moral. – An indisputable solution to the first question in the sense that war is an anomaly, or evil II. War is a relative evil. - Explanations. – Transition to the question of the historical meaning of the war III. Wars between clans naturally gave rise to treaties and rights as guarantees of peace. – Formation of the state. – The organization of war in the state as an important step towards the implementation of peace. - “World Monarchies.” – Their comparative characteristics. – Pax Romana. – Wars, which are full of ancient history, expanded the area of ​​the world. – The progress of military affairs in the ancient world was at the same time a great moral and social progress, reducing in huge proportion the number of human casualties of war IV. Christianity in principle abolished war; but as long as this principle is not internally mastered, wars remain inevitable and can, under certain conditions, be a lesser evil, that is, a relative good. - Middle Ages. – In the history of modern times, three general facts are important for the question of war: 1) the isolation of most nationalities into independent political wholes, or “perfect bodies”; 2) development of international relations of various kinds; 3) the real spread of cultural European unity throughout the globe. - Explanations. – The Coming World War V. The general historical meaning of all wars: the struggle of Europe with Asia - at first local and symbolic (Trojan War), in the end - in full real scope. – The end of external wars will reveal the great truth that the external world is not yet a real good in itself, but becomes a good only in connection with the internal (moral) rebirth of humanity VI. Subjective-moral attitude to war. – False identification of war and military service with personal murder. – War as a clash between collective organisms (states) and their collective bodies (troops) is not the work of individuals who passively participate in it, and on their part the possible murder here is only accidental. – Refusal of military service required by the state is, of necessity, a greater moral evil and therefore impermissible. – The moral obligation of an individual to participate in the defense of his fatherland. – Its foundations lie in an unconditional moral principle. – Explanatory examples. – The undoubted dangers of militarism say nothing against the need for armed forces. – Biblical illustration VII. Our positive duty is to contribute not only to the protection or protection of our fatherland, but also to its improvement, inseparable from the general improvement of humanity. – To approach a lasting and good peace, one must act against the evil root of war, namely against enmity and hatred between parts of separated humanity. – In history, war was a direct means: for the external and an indirect means for the internal unification of humanity; reason forbids throwing this weapon away while it is needed, and conscience obliges us to try so that it ceases to be necessary and so that the natural organization of humanity divided into warring parts actually transforms into the unity of its moral or spiritual organization CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE MORAL ORGANIZATION OF HUMANITY IN ITS WHOLE I. The differences between the natural and the moral solidarity of humanity, which is set by Christianity as the historical task of the conscious and free improvement of everyone in the one Good. – The real subject of improvement is an individual person together and inseparably with a collective person. – Three abiding incarnations of an improving subject, or three natural groups that truly replenish personal life: family, fatherland, humanity, to which in historical order the stages correspond: tribal, national-political and spiritual-universal; the latter can really be realized only under the condition of the spiritualization of the first two. – Real elements and forms of life as conditional data for solving an absolute problem. – This natural connection of three generations (grandfathers, parents, children) must be transformed into an unconditionally moral one through the spiritualization of family religion, marriage and education II. Honoring grandfathers. – Its eternal meaning, preserved in wild facts. – Christian transformation of the ancient cult in its main features III. Marriage. – It also connects a person with God through the present, just as the religion of our grandfathers - through the past. – In a true marriage, natural sexual relations are not destroyed, but transubstantiated. – For the moral task of this transubstantiation, the necessary data are the natural elements of the field relationship: 1) carnal attraction, 2) falling in love and 3) procreation. – Marriage remains the satisfaction of sexual need, but this need itself no longer relates to the replenishment of the animal organism, but to the healing of the image of God in man. – Marriage as a form of asceticism, as a feat and martyrdom. – External procreation, unnecessary and impossible in a perfect marriage, is necessary and desirable in an improving marriage - as a necessary consequence of perfection not achieved in the present and as a natural path for its future achievement IV. The purpose of education in a spiritually organized family is to connect the temporary life of the new generation with the eternal good, common to all generations and restoring their essential unity V. True education must be simultaneously and inseparably both traditional and progressive: passing on to the new generation the entire spiritual heritage of the past, it must at the same time develop in them the desire and ability to use this heritage as a living driving force for a new approach to the highest goal. – The harmful consequences of separating these two sides. – The moral basis of education is to instill in descendants a keen interest in the future of their ancestors. - Explanations. – Moral progress can only consist in the further and better fulfillment of those duties that follow from tradition. – The highest principle for pedagogy: the connection of generations, indissoluble by death, supporting each other in the progressive fulfillment of one common cause - preparation for the manifest kingdom of God and for the resurrection of all VI. A normal family is the closest restoration of a person’s moral integrity in one basic respect - the continuity of generations (the order of time sequence); this integrity must be restored in a broader order of coexistence - primarily within the people or fatherland. – According to the essence of moral organization, nationality does not absorb either families or individuals, but fills them with vital content in a certain national form, determined by language. – This form should be special, but should not be exclusive: the normal plurality of different languages ​​does not require their separation and alienation. – The Babylonian beginning of the disintegration of humanity through the unity of mixing and the Zionist beginning of gathering through unanimity in separateness. – True monolingualism is communication and intelligibility of many separate, separable, but not dividing languages VII. Unity of humanity. – All the grounds on which the unity of the people is affirmed have even greater force when applied to humanity. – Unity of origin; the unity of the word, not abolished by the multitude of languages; the unity of world history, outside of which there is no national history. – Evidence and explanations. – Indivisibility of moral goodness. – The evil of exclusive patriotism. – Humanity as a whole subject of moral organization. – Transition to the question of universal forms of moral order VIII. The Universal Church as an organization of piety. - Explanations. – The essence of the Church is the unity and holiness of the Divine, since it abides and acts in a positive way in the world through humanity (or – what is the same – the church is the creation gathered in God). – The unity and holiness of the church in the order of coexistence as its catholicity, or wholeness, and in the order of succession – as apostolic succession. – Catholicity abolishes all separations and divisions, preserving all differences and features IX. communion with the absolute content of life through the universal church, positively liberating and equalizing everyone, makes of them a perfect brotherhood, presupposing a perfect patronymic X. The religious principle of patronymic - the beginning of spiritual life is not from oneself. – Hence, messengership, or apostolate, as the opposite of imposture. – Christ, “sent from the Father” and doing the will of the Sender, and not his own, as the absolute prototype of the apostleship. - Its continuation in the church: “as the Father sent me, so am I sending you.” – Since the filial relationship is the prototype of piety, the only begotten Son of God - the Son par excellence - as embodied piety is the way, the truth and the life of his church as an organization of piety in the world. – The path of piety is a hierarchical path - from above (the meaning of ordination and priesthood). – Church truth in its basis and essence is neither scientific, nor philosophical, nor even theological, but contains the dogmas of piety; the general meaning of the seven ecumenical councils. – Life of piety; meaning of the seven sacraments XI. The question of the relationship of the church to the state, or the Christian state. – Important instruction in the New Testament (the story of the centurion Cornelius) XII. Moral necessity of the state. – Explanations regarding Christianity XIII. The state as a collectively organized pity. – Vladimir Monomakh and Dante. – Explanation XIV. Analysis of the general objection to the definition of a normal state XV. Analysis of legal misunderstandings XVI. Beyond the general conservative task of every state: to protect the foundations of community life, without which humanity could not exist. – The Christian state also has a progressive task: to improve the conditions of this existence, promoting the free development of all human forces that should become bearers of the coming Kingdom of God. – Explanations XVIII. Normal relationship between church and state. – From the Christian (theanthropic) point of view, both the independent activity of man and his complete devotion to the deity are equally necessary, but the combination of both positions is possible only through a clear distinction between two areas of life (religious and political) and its two immediate motives (piety and pity) - according to the difference in the immediate objects of action with the unity of the final goal. – The harmful consequences of disunity and mutual usurpations of church and state. – The Christian rule of social progress is that the state should constrain the inner, moral world of man as little as possible, leaving it to the free, spiritual action of the church, and at the same time, as accurately and broadly as possible, provide external conditions for the dignified existence and improvement of people XVIII. The proper moral task of economic life is to be a collectively organized abstinence from evil carnal immensity in order to transform material nature - individual and general - into the free form of the human spirit. – The existing alienation of economic life from its task and the historical explanation of this fact XIX. The moral meaning of the law of conservation of energy. – The expediency of collectively organized abstinence is due to the successes of collective organizations of pity and piety. – Unity of three tasks XX. Personal representatives of the moral organization of humanity. – The three highest ministries are high priestly, royal and prophetic. – Their distinctive features and mutual dependence Conclusion – The moral meaning of life in its final definition and the transition to theoretical philosophy. Application. The Formal Principle of Morality (Kant) – Presentation and Evaluation with Critical Comments on Empirical Ethics The purpose of this book is to show goodness as truth, that is, as the only right, true to oneself path of life in everything and to the end - for everyone who decides to prefer it. I mean Good essentially; it and only it justifies itself and justifies trust in it. And it is not in vain that before the open tomb, when everything else has obviously failed, we hear an appeal to this essential Good: “Blessed art thou, Lord, teach me by thy justification.” In personal, national-social and world-historical life, Good is justified by its own, that is, good and right ways. A moral philosophy faithful to Good, having understood these paths in the past, shows them to the present for the future. When, setting off on a journey, you take a book called a “Guide”, you are looking in it only for correct, complete and sensible instructions for your chosen path. This book will not persuade you to go to Italy or Switzerland when you have decided to go to Siberia, and will not provide you with the means to sail overseas if your money only lasts to the Black Sea. Moral philosophy is nothing more than a systematic pointer to the right path of life's wanderings for people and nations; The author is solely responsible for the accuracy, completeness and coherence of his instructions. But no presentation of moral norms, i.e., the conditions for achieving a true life goal, can make sense for a person who has consciously set himself not this, but a completely different goal. Indications of the necessary stations on the path to the better, when the worst has been deliberately chosen, are not only useless, but also annoying and downright offensive as reminders of a bad choice, precisely in those cases when, deep down in the soul, this choice is involuntarily and unconsciously felt both as irrevocable and as bad. I do not at all want to preach virtue and expose vice: I consider this for a mere mortal to be not only an idle, but also immoral activity, because it presupposes an unfair and proud claim to be better than others. What is important for us is not private, even the most severe deviations from the right path, but only the general, decisive and decisive choice between two moral roads, when it is made with full and clear consciousness. Does every person make such a choice? Without a doubt, it is not committed by people who die in infancy, and have most adults fallen far behind them in terms of distinctness of self-awareness? It should also be said that even if a conscious choice has been made, you will not notice it from the outside: the fundamental difference between the two paths does not yet have any empirical certainty and practical definability. I have seen a lot of strange and outlandish things, but I have never seen two things in nature: a truly complete righteous man, a truly complete villain. And all the pseudo-mystical rantings associated with some external and practically applied division of humanity into white and black, regenerated and unregenerate, saved and condemned, remind me only of the miller’s sincere statement: And at the same time, I remember the university lectures I heard long ago on the zoology of invertebrates and embryology, from which I took away, among other things, a certain form of representation for two well-known truths: that in the primitive lowlands of the organic world only a biologist, and sometimes with some difficulty, can distinguish plant forms from animals, and also that in the early stages of uterine development only a scientist-embryologist, and again with some difficulty, can distinguish the embryo of a person from the embryo of some other and even completely bad creature. Isn't it the same in history and in the moral world? And in its beginnings, the two paths of life are so essentially close and outwardly indistinguishable from each other! Why, however, when speaking about the moral world, do we point to a choice between only two paths? Yes, because with all the abundance of forms and manifestations of life, only one path leads to life itself, to its desired fulfillment and perpetuation, and all the others, initially so similar to it, lead, however, in the opposite direction, move away from it in an increasingly fatal way and merge with each other, finally turning into one path of perpetuated death. Between these two fundamental paths, others want to find another one - neither good nor evil, but natural or animal. The highest practical principle of this path is best expressed in a German aphorism, although unknown to either Kant or Hegel: Jedes Thierchen hat sein Pläsierchen. This formula represents an indisputable truth and only requires the addition of another, equally indisputable: Allen Thieren fatal ist zu krepieren 1. And with such a necessary addition, this pseudo-third path of fundamental animality is reduced to the same second path of death. In no case can a person get rid of this dilemma, the final choice between two paths - good and evil. We decided, let’s say, to choose the third path, the animal, which is neither good nor evil, but only natural. But it is only like this for animals, and precisely only because animals do not decide anything and do not choose for themselves between this path and some other, but walk passively along the only one on which they are placed by a force alien to them. And when a person actively decides to follow the path of moral passivity, then he clearly lies, commits untruth and lawlessness, and enters, obviously, not the animal path, but the one (one of the two human paths), which, if not at the beginning, then at the end turns out to be the path of eternal evil and death. But that it is worse than the animal way is easy to see even now. Although our younger brothers are deprived of real understanding, they undoubtedly have a spiritual instinct - and because of this instinct, although they cannot be ashamed of their nature and its evil mortal path with clear condemnation, they are clearly burdened by this, clearly yearning for something better, which they do not know, but feel. This truth, once expressed with the highest power by the Apostle Paul (Rom. VIII, 19-23) and then less strongly repeated by Schopenhauer, can be confirmed by any observer. You will never see on a human face that expression of deep, hopeless melancholy that sometimes, without any apparent reason, looks at us through some zoological physiognomy. This means that a person cannot stop at self-satisfied animality because animals are not at all self-satisfied. A conscious person cannot be an animal; willy-nilly he has to choose between two paths: either to become higher and better than his given material basis, or to become lower and worse than an animal. And what is actually human, inseparable from him, lies not in what he becomes, but in what he becomes. And what gain does a person have in slandering his smaller brothers, falsely calling his chosen anti-life and unnatural path of devilish self-affirmation in what is not supposed to be animal and natural? Most of all, I wanted in this book to explain how the single path of Good, while remaining true to itself and, therefore, justifying itself, becomes more defined and complete in accordance with the complications of the living environment, natural and historical. To establish, in an unconditional moral principle, an internal and comprehensive connection between true religion and sound politics - this is the main claim of this moral philosophy. The claim is completely harmless, since true religion cannot impose itself on anyone, and also all politics are allowed to be unrestricted and not to be sound - at their own risk, of course. At the same time, moral philosophy resolutely rejects any leadership of individuals through the establishment of any external and unconditionally defined rules of behavior. If the reader seemed in any place in this book something similar to such a “moral”, then let him know that either he misunderstood, or I did not express myself correctly. However, I tried to make the expression clear. Having begun to prepare this second edition, over the course of nine months I read the entire book five times, each time making new explanatory inserts, small and large. Although even after this there were many shortcomings in my presentation, I hope not such that would expose me to a threat: “Cursed is everyone who does the work of the Lord with negligence.” During the writing of this book I sometimes experienced moral benefit from it; perhaps this guarantees that my work will not remain completely useless for readers, which would be a sufficient justification for this “justification of the good.” The moral meaning of life in its preliminary concept Does our life have any meaning at all? If so, does it have a moral character, is it rooted in the moral realm? And if so, what does it consist of, what will be its true and complete definition? It is impossible to avoid these issues regarding which there is no agreement in modern consciousness. Some deny any meaning to life, others believe that the meaning of life has nothing to do with morality, that it does not at all depend on our proper or good relationships towards God, towards people and towards the whole world; still others, finally, recognizing the importance of moral norms for life, give them very different definitions, entering into a dispute among themselves that requires analysis and resolution. In no case should such an analysis be considered superfluous. In the present state of human consciousness, even those few who already have a firm and final solution to a life question for themselves must justify it for others: a mind that has overcome its own doubts does not make the heart indifferent to the errors of others. Among the deniers of life's meaning there are serious people; These are those who end their denial with action - suicide; and there are frivolous ones who deny the meaning of life only through reasoning and entire pseudo-philosophical systems. Of course, I am not an enemy of reasoning and systems; but I mean people who take their reasoning and systems as a matter of their own, not obliging them to any actions in life, to any practical implementation: these people and their mental exercises should be recognized as frivolous. Such truths as the fact that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles remain truths completely regardless of who pronounces them and what kind of life he leads; but a pessimistic assessment of life is not a mathematical truth - it necessarily includes a personal, subjective attitude towards life. When a theoretical pessimist asserts as a real objective truth that life is evil and suffering, then he expresses his conviction that life is like this for everyone, but if for everyone, then it means for himself, and if so, then on what basis does he live and use the evil of life, as if it were good? They refer to an instinct that forces one to live contrary to the reasonable belief that life is not worth living. The reference is useless, because instinct is not an external force that mechanically forces something: instinct manifests itself in the living being itself, prompting it to seek certain states that seem desirable or pleasant to it. And if, thanks to instinct, a pessimist finds pleasure in life, then doesn’t this undermine the very basis for his supposedly rational conviction that life is evil and suffering? But these pleasures, he objects, are deceptive. What do these words mean from his point of view? If we recognize the positive meaning of life, then, of course, a lot can be considered a deception, precisely in relation to this meaning: as trifles that distract from the main and important thing. The Apostle Paul could say that in comparison with the Kingdom of God, which is achieved through life’s struggle, all carnal affections and pleasures for him are rubbish and dung. But for a pessimist who does not believe in the Kingdom of God and does not recognize any positive meaning behind the feat of life, where is the criterion for distinguishing between deception and non-deception? Everything here comes down to a state of felt pleasure or pain, and therefore no pleasure, as soon as it is actually felt, can be recognized as fraud. To justify pessimism on this base soil, one can only childishly count the number of pleasures and sufferings in human life with the preconceived conclusion that there are fewer of the former than the latter, and that, therefore, life is not worth living. This account of everyday happiness made any sense only if the arithmetical sums of pleasures and sorrows really existed or if the arithmetical difference between them could itself become a real sensation; but since in real reality sensations exist only in the form of concrete states, then opposing them with abstract numbers is no more reasonable than shooting at a stone fortress with a cardboard cannon. If only the predominance of sensations of pleasure over sensations of pain is recognized as a possible decisive motivation for life, then for the vast majority of humanity such a preponderance turns out to be a fact: these people live, finding that it is worth living. Among them, undoubtedly, are those theorists of pessimism who, while talking about the advantages of non-existence, in fact give preference to any kind of existence. Their arithmetic of despair is only a game of the mind, which they themselves refute, in fact finding more pleasure in life than suffering, and recognizing that it is worth living to the end. Comparing their preaching with their actions, one can only come to the conclusion that there is a meaning in life, that they involuntarily submit to it, but that their mind is not able to master this meaning. Other pessimists—serious ones, that is, suicides—for their part also involuntarily prove the meaning of life. I'm talking about conscious suicides, who control themselves and end their lives out of disappointment or despair. They assumed that life has a meaning for which it is worth living, but, having become convinced of the inconsistency of what they accepted as the meaning of life, and at the same time not agreeing (like pessimistic theorists) to involuntarily and unconsciously submit to another, unknown to them, life meaning, they take their own lives. This shows, of course, that they have a stronger will than those; but what follows from this against the meaning of life? These people didn't find him, but where did they look for him? Here we have two types of passionate people: some have a purely personal, egoistic passion (Romeo, Werther), others connect their personal passion with one or another historical interest, which they, however, separate from the universal meaning - about this meaning of universal life, on which the meaning of their own existence depends, they, like those, do not want to know anything (Cleopatra, Cato Uticus). – Romeo kills himself because he cannot have Juliet. For him, the meaning of life is to possess this woman. But if this were really the meaning of life, then how would it differ from nonsense? Besides Romeo, forty thousand nobles could find the meaning of their lives in the possession of the same Juliet, so that this imaginary meaning of life would deny itself forty thousand times. With other details, we find the same thing in the essence of any suicide: what happens in life is not what, in my opinion, should happen in it, therefore, life has no meaning and is not worth living. The fact of the discrepancy between the arbitrary demand of a passionate person and reality is taken as an expression of some hostile fate, as something darkly meaningless, and, not wanting to obey this blind force, the person kills himself. The same is true for people of the second type. Defeated by world-power Rome, the Egyptian queen did not want to participate in the triumph of the winner and killed herself with snake venom. The Roman Horace called her a great wife for this, and no one will deny the greatness of this death. But if Cleopatra expected her victory as something for granted, and in the victory of Rome she saw only the meaningless triumph of dark power, then it means that she also accepted the darkness of her own view as a sufficient basis for denying universal truth. It is clear that the meaning of life cannot coincide with the arbitrary and changeable demands of each of the countless individuals of the human race. If it coincided, it would be nonsense, that is, it would not exist at all. Consequently, it turns out that the disappointed and despairing suicide was disappointed and despaired not of the meaning of life, but just the opposite - in his hope for the meaninglessness of life: he hoped that life would go as he wanted, would always and in everything be only the direct satisfaction of his blind passions and arbitrary whims, that is, it would be meaninglessness - in this he was disappointed and finds that it is not worth living. But if he became disillusioned with the meaninglessness of the world, he thereby recognized the meaning in it. If such an involuntarily recognized meaning is intolerable for this person, if instead of understanding, he only blames someone and gives the truth the punishment of “hostile fate,” then the essence of the matter does not change. The meaning of life is only confirmed by the fatal inconsistency of those who deny it: this denial forces some (pessimistic theorists) to live unworthily - in contradiction with their preaching, and for others (pessimistic practitioners or suicides) the denial of life's meaning coincides with the actual denial of their very existence. It is clear that there is meaning in life when those who deny it inevitably deny themselves: one by their unworthy existence, others by their violent death. “There is meaning in life, precisely in its aesthetic side, in what is strong, majestic, beautiful. To surrender to this side of life, to protect and strengthen it within oneself and outside oneself, to give it predominance and to develop it further until the creation of superhuman greatness and a new purest beauty - this is the task and meaning of our existence.” Such a view, associated with the name of the talented and ill-fated Nietzsche and which has now become a fashionable philosophy to replace the recently dominant pessimism, does not need, like that, any external refutations from the outside: it sufficiently refutes itself on its own soil. The meaning of life is strength and beauty - so be it; but, no matter how much we devote ourselves to their aesthetic cult, we will not find in it not only a defense, but not even the slightest indication of the possibility of any defense against that general and inevitable fact that internally abolishes this imaginary divinity of strength and beauty, their imaginary independence and unconditionality - I mean the fact that the end of all local strength is impotence and the end of all local beauty is ugliness. If we talk about strength, about greatness and beauty, then everyone, from the Russian district teacher (see Gogol’s “The Inspector General”) to Nietzsche himself, sees the same image as the most complete embodiment of these aesthetic properties taken together in world history. And this is enough: “And when Alexander the Great, the son of Philip, who came from the land of Hettiim, defeated Darius, king of Persia and Media, and reigned in his stead first in Hellas. And made many battles, and conquered many strongholds, and killed the kings of the earth. And he went even to the ends of the earth and took the gain of many tongues, and the earth was silent before him, and his heart was exalted and exalted. And he gathered strong strength, and commanded countries and languages, and torturers, and became his tributaries. And therefore he fell on his bed and knew that he was dying” (1 book of Macc.). Is a force that is powerless before death really a force? Is a decaying corpse beauty? The ancient representative of strength and beauty died and decayed only like the most powerless and ugliest creature, and the newest admirer of strength and beauty turned alive into a mental corpse. Why wasn’t the first saved by his beauty and strength, and the second by his cult of beauty and strength? And who would worship a deity who does not save his incarnations and his worshipers? Unhappy Nietzsche, in his last works, sharpened his views into a fierce polemic against Christianity, revealing at the same time such a low level of understanding, which is more reminiscent of the French freethinkers of the 18th century than of modern German scientists. Attributing Christianity exclusively to the lower social class, he fails to see even the simple fact that the gospel was from the first received, not as a preaching of dubious indignation, but as the joyful news of certain salvation; that the whole strength of the new religion lay in the fact that it was founded by the “firstborn from the dead” who rose again and secured eternal life for his followers, as they unshakably believed. What do slaves and pariahs have to do with it? What do social classes mean when it comes to death and resurrection? Don't "gentlemen" die? Were not the Roman aristocrat and dictator Sulla, the Syrian king Antiochus and the Jewish Herod eaten alive by worms? The religion of salvation cannot be the religion of slaves and “chandals” alone; it is the religion of everyone, since everyone needs salvation. Before preaching against equality with such vehemence, the main equalizer—death—should have been abolished. In his polemics against Christianity, Nietzsche is amazingly “shallow,” and his claim to the meaning of “Antichrist” would be highly comical if it did not end in such a tragedy. The cult of natural strength and beauty is not the direct opposite of Christianity, and it is not abolished by this religion, but by itself, by its obvious inconsistency. Christianity does not at all deny strength and beauty, it just does not agree to rest on the strength of a dying patient and on the beauty of a decomposing corpse. Christianity has never inspired enmity or contempt for strength, greatness and beauty as such, and all Christian souls, like the first of them, rejoiced only in the fact that an endless source of everything truly strong and beautiful was revealed to them, saving them from slavery to the imaginary strength and imaginary greatness of the weak and ugly elements of the world: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior... For the Mighty One, create greatness for me, and holy is His name... Create power with Your arm, scatter the proud thoughts of their hearts. Destroy the mighty from their thrones and lift up the humble, fill the hungry with blessings, and let go of the rich.” Obviously, here there is contempt only for imaginary, false power and wealth, and it is also clear that for those humble who must be exalted after the dethronement of the powerful, humility is not an unconditional ideal or final goal, but only a necessary and right path to heights inaccessible to the proud. Strength and beauty are divine, but not in themselves: there is a strong and beautiful Deity, whose strength does not weaken and whose beauty does not die, because with Him both strength and beauty are inseparable from goodness. No one worships powerlessness and ugliness; but some recognize the power and beauty caused by good, eternally abiding and truly liberating their carriers and worshipers from the power of death and decay, while others exalt the power and beauty, taken in the abstract and illusory. If the first teaching awaits its final victory only in the future, then this does not make it any easier for the second: it is already defeated - it is always defeated - it dies with every dead person and is buried in all cemeteries. The pessimism of false philosophers and truthful suicides involuntarily leads us to the fact that there is meaning in life; the cult of strength and beauty involuntarily shows us that this meaning does not lie in strength and beauty, taken in the abstract, but can belong to them only under the condition of triumphant good. So, the meaning of life lies in its goodness, but this opens up the possibility of new misconceptions - in determining what the actual goodness of life is. At first glance, it seems like a simple and sure way to avoid any misconceptions here: if there is a good meaning in life, then it itself has already affected itself and is expressing itself to us and does not wait for our definitions, you just need to humble yourself before it, lovingly accept it and subordinate your existence, your personality to it, in order to comprehend it. The universal meaning of life, or the internal connection of individual units with the great whole, cannot be invented by us; it has been given from time immemorial. From time immemorial strongholds and foundations of life have been given: the family, which connects our present with the past and the future with a living, personal relationship; the fatherland, expanding and filling our soul with the content of the people's soul with its glorious traditions and hopes; finally, the Church, which finally delivers us from all narrowness, connecting both personal and national life with that which is eternal and unconditional. So what should you think about? Live the life of the whole, push the boundaries of your little self in all directions, “take to heart” the work of others and the work of everyone, be a good family man, a zealous patriot, a devoted son of the church, and you will actually learn the good meaning of life, and you will not need to look for it and come up with definitions for it. In such a view there is the beginning of truth, but only the beginning, it is impossible to stop there - the matter is not at all as simple as it seems. If life, with its good meaning from time immemorial and all at once, poured out into one invariably abiding form, then, of course, there would be nothing to talk about, there would be no tasks for the mind, but there would be only one question for the will: to accept or reject unconditionally what is unconditionally given. This, as far as I understand, was the position of one luminous spirit in the first act of the universe. But our human condition is less fatal and more complex. We know that those historical images of the Good that are given to us do not represent such a unity in which we would only have to either accept everything or reject everything; In addition, we know that these vital foundations and formations did not fall from the sky at once in a ready-made form, that they were formed in time and on earth; and knowing that they became, we have no reasonable basis for asserting that they became final and in all respects, that what is given to us at this moment is completely completed. And if it is not finished, then who else, if not us, should work to continue the work, as before us, the highest forms of life - now for us the sacred heritage of centuries - were formed not by themselves, but through people, through their thoughts and works, in their mental and vital feats. In the absence of unity and immutability in the historical form of eternal good, one has to choose between many different things. This means you can’t do without testing thoughts. Apparently, it is so arranged by God himself that there is no external support for man, no pillow of peace for his mind and conscience: let him be eternally awake and stand in the midst of the world on his own two feet. “What is man, because you remember him, or the son of man, because you visit him?” And piety forbids us to despise in ourselves and others what is respected by God himself, because of which He remembers and visits us - the inner invaluable and irreplaceable dignity of a person in his mind and conscience. Alas, those guilty of this contempt, who strive to replace the internal measure of truth with an external one, suffer natural retribution in the fatal collapse of their attempts. It is those of them who are not content with vague phrases, minds that are real, clear and consistent, with amazing speed making their way here in a straight line down from the true to the doubtful, from the doubtful to the false and from the false to the meaningless. “God,” we are told, “expresses His will to man externally through the authority of the Church; the only true Church is ours, its voice is the voice of God; the real representation of our Church is our clergy, which means that their voice is the voice of God; the real representative of the clergy for each person is his confessor, therefore, all questions of faith and conscience for everyone must be ultimately decided by his confessor.” It seems clear and simple. It is only necessary to arrange for all confessors to say the same thing, or for there to be one confessor - omnipresent and immortal. Otherwise, with the disagreement of many changing confessors, a clearly ungodly opinion may arise that God’s voice contradicts itself. In fact, if this individual or collective bearer of external authority has its meaning only from its official position, then all persons of the same position have a single authority, which is abolished by their mutual contradiction; and if one or some of them receive their preferred authority for me from my trust in them, then it means that I myself am the source and creator of the highest authority for me, and, therefore, I humble myself only before my own arbitrariness and accept it as the meaning of life. This inevitably leads to the search for external support for the mind at all costs and the idea of ​​the unconditional meaning of life as something imposed on a person from the outside. Whoever wants to accept the meaning of life as an external authority ends up accepting the meaning of his own arbitrariness as the meaning of life. There should be no external, formal relationship between a person and what is the meaning of his life. External authority is necessary as a passing moment, but it cannot be perpetuated, recognized as a permanent and final norm. The human self can be expanded only by internal, heartfelt reciprocity with that which is greater than it, and not by formal subordination only to it, which in essence does not change anything. The good meaning of life, although it is greater and more important than each individual person, cannot, however, be accepted from the outside by trust in some external authority, as something ready-made: it must be understood and assimilated by the person himself, his faith, reason and experience. This is a necessary condition for a morally worthy existence. When this necessary subjective condition of a good and meaningful life is taken as its goal and essence, a new moral error occurs - the denial of all historical and collective manifestations and forms of good, everything except the internal, moral actions and states of an individual person. This moral amorphism, or subjectivism, is the direct opposite of the preaching of protective everyday humility that we just talked about. It was argued there that life and reality in their given form are smarter and better than man, that the historical forms in which this life has developed are in themselves wise and good, and that man only needs to bow before them with reverence and seek in them unconditional rules and authority for his personal existence. Moral amorphism, on the contrary, reduces everything to ourselves, to our self-awareness and self-activity. Life for us is only our mental life, and the good meaning of life lies only in the internal states of individual beings and in those actions and relationships that directly and immediately arise from here. This inner meaning and inner goodness are inherent in everyone by nature, but they are suppressed, distorted and turned into meaninglessness and evil thanks to various historical forms and institutions: the state, the church and culture in general. By opening everyone's eyes to this state of affairs, it is easy to convince them to abandon these disastrous perversions of human nature, which have their extreme expression in such coercive institutions as the court, the army, etc. All this is maintained by the malicious deception and violence of the minority, but mainly depends on the misunderstanding and self-delusion of the majority of people, who, moreover, use various artificial means to dull their minds and conscience, such as wine, tobacco, etc. But people are already beginning to understand the error of their views and actions, and when they decisively abandon them and change their behavior, all bad forms of human relations will fall by themselves, all evil will disappear as soon as people stop resisting it by coercion, and the good meaning of life will itself be revealed and realized among the shapeless mass of “wandering” righteous people. Denying various institutions, moral amorphism forgets about one rather important institution - death, and only this oblivion gives the doctrine the possibility of existence. For if the preachers of moral amorphism remember death, then they will have to assert one of two things: either that with the abolition of troops, courts, etc. people will stop dying, or that the good meaning of life, incompatible with the political kingdoms, is completely compatible with the kingdom of death. This dilemma is inevitable for the doctrine of amorphism, and both solutions are equally absurd. It is clear that this teaching, while silent about death, carries it within itself. It presents itself as the restoration of genuine Christianity. But it is too obvious, both psychologically and historically, that the preaching of the Gospel did not forget about death: first of all, this preaching was based on the resurrection of one, as an accomplished event, and on the future resurrection of all, as a secured promise. The general resurrection is the creation of a perfect form for everything that exists, the ultimate expression and realization of the good meaning of the universe and therefore the end and goal of history. Moral amorphism, recognizing the good meaning of life, but at the same time denying all its objective forms, must recognize as nonsense the entire history of the world and humanity, which consists entirely of the creation and improvement of life forms. There is meaning in denying one life form in the name of another, better or more perfect; but what does it mean to deny forms in general? Meanwhile, it is precisely this denial that an ahistorical view must logically arrive at. If we unconditionally reject life forms, social, political, religious, developed by the history of mankind, then on what is the recognition of organic forms developed by the history of nature, that world process, for which the historical process is a direct and inseparable continuation? Why is my animal body something more real, intelligent and sacred than the body of my people? They will say that there is no national body, just like a national soul, that the social, collective organism is only a metaphor for expressing the simple sum of individual people. But from such an exclusively mechanical point of view, it is necessary to go further: in reality, there is no individual organism and individual soul, but only various combinations of elementary material units, devoid of any qualitative content. Denying form in principle, it is logically necessary to abandon the understanding and recognition of not only historical and organic life, but also all existence, since only pure nothingness is completely formless and unconditionally simple. I pointed out two extreme moral errors, opposite to each other: the doctrine of self-denial of the human personality before historical forms of life accepted as external authority - the doctrine of passive submission, or everyday quietism - and the doctrine of self-affirmation of the human personality against all historical forms and authorities - the doctrine of formlessness and non-existence. What constitutes the common essence of these two extreme views, in which they converge, despite their opposition, will, without a doubt, reveal to us the source of moral errors in general and free us from the need to analyze the particular modifications of moral lies, of which there may be an indefinite number. Two opposing views can be combined in the fact that both take goodness not in essence, not in itself, but connect it with acts and relationships that can be both good and evil, depending on what they are inspired by, what they serve. In other words, something good, but which can also become evil, is put here in the place of Good itself, and the conditional is taken for the unconditional. So, for example, submission to folk and paternal traditions and institutions is a good deed, or a moral obligation, to the extent that these traditions and institutions themselves express goodness or give a certain form to my proper attitude towards God, towards people and towards the world. But if this condition is forgotten, a conditional duty is taken for an unconditional one, or “national interest” is put in the place of the Truth of God, then good can turn into evil and into a source of evil. Here it is easy to reach the monstrous proposition recently expressed by a French minister - that “it is better to execute twenty innocents than to encroach (porter atteinte) on the authority of some national institution.” Another example: instead of due respect for the council of bishops or other church authorities as the real body of that collective organization of piety, from which I do not separate myself, I submit to it unconditionally, without going into the essence of the matter, but in advance recognizing it in its individuality as an immutable authority for myself, therefore, in an external way - and it turns out that this council, to which I submitted, is the “Ephesian robbery” or something like that, and I myself, as a result excessive, displeasing obedience to God before the formal expression of His supposed will, he suddenly became a rebellious heretic. Again, out of good came evil. Third example: not relying on the purity of my conscience and the strength of my reason, I place both my conscience and my reason at the disposal of a person invested with sacred authority, abandoning my own reasoning and my own will - it seemed, what would be better? but this confessor, being a wolf in sheep's clothing, instills in me harmful thoughts and bad rules, and again the conditional good of humility, accepted unconditionally, turns into evil. This happens due to error, which confuses the Good itself with certain forms of its appearance; but it also leads to the opposite delusion, which limits the essence of goodness by simply denying the historical forms of its manifestation. There these forms or institutions are accepted as unconditional good, which does not correspond to the truth and leads to evil; here these forms and institutions are unconditionally denied, therefore, they are recognized in themselves as unconditional evil, which again does not correspond to the truth, and therefore cannot lead to anything good. Some argue, for example, that the will of God is revealed to us only through a priest, while others argue that this never happens under any circumstances, that the highest will cannot speak to us through a priest, but is revealed exclusively and entirely in our own consciousness. Is it not obvious, however, that the very will of God has disappeared in both views, that in the first it is replaced by a priest, and in the second by a self-affirming self? And it would seem easy to understand that since the will of God is allowed, then it should not be bound, limited and exhausted for us either by ourselves or by the priest; that it can be both in us and in him, but that it is unconditionally and certainly expressed for us only in our attitude towards everything, in agreement with itself, due or good, among other things - and above all else - towards the priest in the name of what he represents. In the same way, when some say that the practical good of life lies for us entirely in the nation and the state, and others assert that the nation and the state are lies and evil, is it not obvious that the former put in the place of the good itself, as unconditional, its relative embodiment in the people and the state, and the latter condition the unconditional good itself by their denials of its historical organization: for them only these denials are unconditional, and the good is already conditioned by them. And is it really difficult to understand that real good for us in this area can depend only on our fair and kind attitude towards the people and the state, on the consciousness of what we owe them, on the recognition of everything that was and is in them, and everything that they lack to complete their meaning as mediating embodiments of the good living in humanity? Why, if we can treat the church, the people, the state so fairly and with this fair attitude improve both ourselves and them - if we can know and love them in their true meaning, in God's way - why will we pervert this meaning accessible to us with unconditional admiration or - even worse - unconditional denial? Why, instead of proper veneration of sacred forms, which does not separate them from the content, but also does not confuse it with it, will we certainly move from idolatry to iconoclasm, and from it to a new, worse idolatry? Why these obvious perversions of the truth, these obvious deviations from the straight road? Isn’t it as clear as day that one should unconditionally accept only that which in itself, in essence is good, and that one should unconditionally deny only that which in itself, in essence is evil, and then everything else should be accepted or rejected according to its actual relationship to this inner being of good and evil? Isn’t it clear that if there is good, then it must have internal, own characteristics and definitions that do not ultimately depend on any historical forms and institutions, and even less on their negation? The moral meaning of life is initially and finally determined by the good itself, accessible to us internally through our conscience and reason, since these internal forms of good are freed by moral achievement from slavery to passions and from the limitations of personal and collective self-love. Here is the ultimate measure of all external forms and phenomena. “Don’t you know,” says the ap. Paul to the believers, why should we judge even the angels? - If we have jurisdiction over the heavenly things, then how much more so over all the earthly things. Man, in principle or by purpose, is the unconditional internal form for good as unconditional content; everything else is conditional and relative. Good in itself is not conditioned by anything; it determines everything by itself and is realized through everything. The fact that it is not conditioned by anything constitutes its purity; the fact that it determines everything by itself is its completeness, and the fact that it is realized through everything is its strength, or effectiveness. Without the purity of good, without the ability in every practical matter to distinguish good from evil unconditionally and in every single case to say yes or no, life would be completely devoid of moral character and dignity; without the fullness of good, without the possibility of connecting all real relationships with it, justifying good in everyone and correcting everything with good, life would be one-sided and meager; finally, without the power of good, without the possibility of its final triumph over everything, up to and including the “last enemy” - death - life would be fruitless. The internal properties of good determine a person’s life task; its moral meaning consists in serving the Good, pure, comprehensive and omnipotent. Such service, in order to be worthy of its object and the person himself, must become voluntary, and for this it needs to pass through human consciousness. To help him in this process, and partly to anticipate what he must come to, is the work of moral philosophy. The founder of it as a science, Kant, focused on the first essential sign of absolute good - its purity, which requires from a person a formally unconditional, or self-legal, will, free from any empirical impurities: pure good requires that it be chosen only for itself; any other motivation is unworthy of it. Without repeating what was well expounded by Kant on the question of the formal purity of good will, I turned in particular to the second essential feature of good - its unity, not separating it from the other two (as Kant did regarding the first), but directly developing the rationally conceivable content of the all-unity good from those actual moral data in which it is embedded. Thus, the result was not dialectical moments of an abstract idea (as in Hegel) and not empirical complications of natural facts (as in Herbert Spencer), but the completeness of moral norms for all the basic practical relations of individual and collective life. Only with such completeness is goodness justified in our consciousness; only under the condition of this completeness can it realize for us both its purity and its invincible power. The proper subject of moral philosophy is the concept of good; to find out everything that the mind, excited by experience, thinks in this concept, and thereby give a definite answer to the main question for us about the proper content or meaning of our life - such is the task of this philosophical science. The ability to rudimentarily evaluate things in a positive and negative sense is undoubted in higher animals, where, in addition to various sensations of pleasant and unpleasant, it is combined with a more or less complex representation of desirable or undesirable objects; In this assessment, a person moves beyond individual sensations and private ideas and rises to a general rational concept or idea of ​​good and evil. The universal nature of this idea is denied by many, but only due to misunderstanding. There is, however, no such abomination that would not be recognized somewhere and someday as good; but at the same time, there is not and has not been such a human tribe that would not attach to its concept of good (whatever it may be) the meaning of a constant and universal norm and ideal. 2 The red-skinned Indian, who made it a virtue to scalp as many human heads as possible, recognized this as goodness and valor not only for today, but for the rest of his life, and not for himself alone, but for every decent person. The Eskimo, who sees the highest good in the largest supply of rotten fat from seals and cod, undoubtedly gives his ideal the meaning of a universal one; he is sure that what he likes is also good for all times and people, and even for the afterlife; if he hears about such barbarians, for whom rotten fat is disgusting, he will either not believe their existence, or will deny them the dignity of normal people. In the same way, the famous Hottentot, who argued that good is when he steals many cows, and evil when they steal from him, appropriated such an ethical principle, of course, not to himself alone, but understood that for every person good consists in the successful theft of someone else’s property, and evil in the loss of one’s own. So, even with such an imperfect application of the idea of ​​good, its formal universality, i.e., its affirmation as an everlasting norm for everyone, is undoubtedly preserved, although the content of this supposed norm (i.e., the given answers to the question: what is good?) completely do not correspond to the formal requirement here, representing only a random, particular and grossly material character. Of course, even among the basest savages, moral ideas are not limited to flayed skulls and led away cows: the same Iroquois and the same Hottentot observe a certain modesty in sexual relations, know pity for close creatures, and know how to bow to the superiority of others. But as long as these rudimentary manifestations of true morality stand alongside some wild and inhuman demands or even recede into the background in front of them, while ferocity is valued above modesty and predation above compassion, we must admit that the idea of ​​good, while retaining the universality of its form, is devoid of the actual content corresponding to it. The activity of the mind, which forms ideas, is also inherent in man from the very beginning, just as any organic function is inherent in the body. It cannot be denied that the nutritional organs and their functions are innate to the animal, but no one understands this in the sense that the animal is born with ready-made food in its mouth; in the same way, a person is not born with ready-made ideas, but only with a ready-made ability to perceive them. But the same rational consciousness, thanks to which a person initially possesses the general idea of ​​good as an unconditional norm, in its further growth gradually imparts to this formal idea its worthy content, striving to establish such moral demands and ideals that would be essentially universal and necessary, would express their own development of the universal idea of ​​good, and would not represent only its external application to one or another material motive alien to it. With a certain degree of clarity, separation and systematicity, this process of human consciousness, which develops the true content of morality, becomes moral philosophy, or ethics, which in different systems and theories represents varying degrees of completeness and consistency. In essence, moral philosophy is in close connection with religion, and in its method of knowledge - with theoretical philosophy. We cannot explain in advance what this connection is, but we can and must already say what it is not. It should not be presented as a one-sided dependence of ethics on positive religion, or on speculative philosophy, a dependence that would deprive the moral area of ​​its own content and independent meaning. The view, which completely subordinates morality and moral philosophy to theoretical principles of a positively religious or philosophical nature, is very common in one form or another. Its inconsistency is all the more clear to me because I myself once, if I did not completely share it, was at least very close to it. Here are some of the considerations that forced me to abandon this point of view - I cite only those that can be understood even before the presentation of philosophy itself. “Only from true religion,” as opponents of independent morality say, “does a person receive strength to do good; but the whole value of good lies in its execution; This means that outside of true religion, ethics has no meaning.” That true religion gives strength to its true adherents to do good is beyond doubt; but so that only through it these powers are given and apart from it it is impossible to do any good - such an exclusive statement, supposedly required by the highest interests of faith, in fact directly contradicts the teaching of the greatest champion of the rights of faith - the Apostle Paul, who admits, as is known, that pagans, by natural law, can do good. “For,” he says, “when tongues, those who do not have the law, by nature do what is lawful, then they, who do not have the law, are a law unto themselves. They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, which is not evidenced by conscience and reasoning, accusing each other or defending each other.” 3 In order to receive strength from anywhere to do good, it is necessary to have a concept of good, otherwise its fulfillment will be only a mechanical action. And it is unfair that the entire value of good lies in the fact of its execution: the manner of execution is also important. Unconscious, automatic performance of good deeds does not correspond to human dignity, and therefore does not express human goodness. Its fulfillment is necessarily conditioned by consciousness, and the consciousness of good is possible even apart from true religion, as everyday and historical experience shows, confirmed by the cited testimony of such a zealot of the faith as St. Paul. 4 Further: if piety requires recognizing that the forces for doing good are given by God, then, on the contrary, it would be great wickedness to limit the Divinity in the ways of communicating these forces. And since, according to the consistent testimony of experience and Holy Scripture, the ways to obtain moral strength are not limited to positive religion, for even apart from it some people are aware of and do good, it means that from a religious point of view, all that remains is to accept this truth and, therefore, to recognize, in a certain sense, the independence of morality from positive religion and moral philosophy - from creed. 5 The third consideration also leads to the same thing. Whatever our confidence in the truth of our religion, it does not give us the right to close our eyes to the fact that there are many religions and that each of them ascribes to itself an exclusive truth. And this fact in every mind that is not indifferent to the truth creates the need for objective justification of our faith, that is, the presentation of such grounds in its favor that could be convincing not for us alone, but for others, and ultimately for everyone. But all common arguments in favor of religious truth come down to one main thing - ethical, asserting the moral superiority of our religion over others. This is essentially true even in cases where moral interest is completely obscured by other motives. Thus, in favor of your religion, you can point out the beauty of its worship. This argument should not be taken too lightly: if the beauty of the Greek worship in the St. Sophia Cathedral had not made such a strong impression on the ambassadors of the Kyiv prince Vladimir, then Russia probably would not now be Orthodox. But whatever the importance of this aspect in religion, the question is, what, in fact, can be the aesthetic merit of a certain worship service primarily over another? It is not, of course, that its forms and furnishings are distinguished by any kind of random beauty. The beauty of forms itself (i.e., the completeness of the sensual expression of anything) is characteristic of the most diverse objects: a ballet is beautiful, an opera is beautiful, a battle or erotic painting is beautiful, fireworks are beautiful. However, when such types of manifestations of beauty, even to a weak degree, are introduced into a religious cult, this is rightly condemned as a distortion of its true dignity. This means that the aesthetic value of worship does not lie in the fact that its sensual forms are beautiful, but in the fact that their beauty expresses and fully embodies the spiritual content of true religion as clearly as possible. The content is partly dogmatic, but mainly ethical (in a broad sense): the holiness of the Divine, His love for people, gratitude and devotion of people to the Heavenly Father and their brotherhood among themselves - this is the ideal essence which, having already been embodied in the persons and events of sacred history, through this sacred-historical environment is again artistically embodied in rituals, symbols, prayers and church chants. But if the spiritual essence of religion can act on some only through this embodiment in the cult, then others (and with the development of consciousness - an increasing number) are able to perceive it, in addition, directly as a teaching; and here again the moral side of religious doctrine has a decisive predominance over the dogmatic one. The metaphysical dogmas of true Christianity, with all their internal reliability, undoubtedly exceed the level of ordinary human reason and therefore cannot serve and have never served as the initial means of convincing people who are alien to it in the truth of our confession. In order to comprehend these dogmas by faith, one must already be a Christian, and in order to understand their meaning in the field of higher speculations of reason, one must be a philosopher of the Platonic or Schelling direction. This path, therefore, cannot be accepted as universal, and only an indication of the superiority of the moral side in our religion remains to convince a person of other faiths. 6 And indeed, people usually take the path of moral and practical justification of their faith in disputes not only between special religions, but also between divided branches of the same religion. Thus, Roman Catholics are most willing to cite in their favor the strong solidarity and energetic activity of their clergy, united by the religious and moral strength of the papal monarchy, they point out the irreplaceable moral influence of this clergy on the masses, they expose the role of the pope as a universal defender of justice, as the supreme judge and peacemaker, and they especially point to the abundance of works of mercy in their external and internal missions. In turn, Protestants, who initially separated from the Catholic Church precisely on the basis of moral theology, put as their main advantage the moral height and purity of their teaching, which frees personal conscience and the life of the community from slavery to external affairs and from various senseless, in their opinion, traditions and practical abuses. Finally, Orthodox apologists and polemicists most often use the weapon of moral accusations against Western Christianity: they reproach Catholicism for pride and lust for power, for the desire to appropriate to its hierarchical head both what belongs to God and also what belongs to Caesar, they reproach the Catholic hierarchy for fanaticism, for attachment to the world, for greed, making it responsible for the general sin of persecuting heretics and infidels, constantly return (in agreement with the Protestants) to the three main points of indictment: the Inquisition, indulgences and Jesuit morality, and finally (regardless of the Protestants), they introduce into this indictment the sin of moral fratricide, expressed in the autocratic legitimation (without the knowledge of the Eastern Church) of local Western traditions; less vivid, but equally serious ethical accusations are leveled by our polemicists against the Protestant confession: it is reproached for individualism, which abolishes the church as a real moral whole, it is accused of destroying the love union not only between the present and the past of the historical church (through the denial of traditions), but also between the visible and invisible church (through the rejection of prayers for the dead), etc. Without entering into the field of theology here and without deciding how fundamental and necessary all these disputes are, 7 I will only pay attention to the fact that each of the disputing parties does not reject the moral principles put forward by the other side, but only tries to turn them to its advantage. Thus, when Catholics boast of works of mercy, which especially distinguish their church, then neither Protestant nor Greek-Russian opponents will say that mercy is bad, but will only assert that Catholic charitable institutions, serving the goals of power-hungry politics, are distorted by foreign impurities and lose more or less their moral dignity. In response to this, Catholics, for their part, will not say that the love of power in itself is good and that Christian love should be subordinated to politics, but, on the contrary, they will reject the reproach made to them for the love of power and prove that power is not a goal for them, but only a necessary means for fulfilling a moral duty. In the same way, when the Orthodox (together with Catholics) reproach Protestantism for the lack of spiritual affiliation and for neglecting the traditions of the fathers, then no prudent Protestant will say that traditions should be despised, but, on the contrary, will begin to prove that Protestantism is a return to the most venerable and genuine traditions of Christianity, cleansed of false and harmful admixtures. It is clear, therefore, that the disputing parties here stand on the same moral ground (due to which only the dispute is possible), that they have the same ethical principles and standards, about which there is no dispute, and the dispute is only about their application. These principles do not belong in themselves to any one of the denominations, but form that common tribunal to which all apply equally. The representative of each side essentially says to his opponent only the following: “I apply more accurately and better than you the very moral principles that you also want to adhere to, so you must admit that I am right and renounce your errors.” So, ethical standards, equally presupposed by all religions, cannot themselves depend on religious differences. But ethics turns out to be just as independent from broader religious differences. When a missionary convinces a Muslim or a pagan of the superiority of Christian moral teaching, he obviously assumes in his listener the presence (at least in a potential, latent state) of the same moral standards as his own. This means that these norms, common to a Christian and a pagan and for the latter “written in his heart,” are independent of positive religion in general. Moreover, all positive religions, not excluding the absolutely true one, since in their mutual disputes they turn to general moral norms for confirmation of their rights or claims, thereby recognizing themselves in some sense as dependent on them, just as the litigants, both right and wrong, while they are suing, are equally subordinate to the legal court, and if they themselves turned to it, then, that means, they recognized such subordination. Having its own subject (moral norms), independent of positive religions (and even in a certain sense conditioning them), and thus being independent from this objective, or real, side, will not moral philosophy in a formal sense - like science - be subordinate to theoretical philosophy, especially that part of it that considers the rights and boundaries of our cognitive abilities? But in creating moral philosophy, reason only develops, on the basis of experience, the idea of ​​goodness inherent in it from the very beginning (or, what is the same, the initial fact of moral consciousness) and to that extent does not go beyond the limits of its internal domain, or, in school language, its use here is immanent and, therefore, not conditioned by one or another solution to the question of (transcendent) knowledge of things in themselves. To put it simply, in moral philosophy we study only our internal attitude to our own actions, i.e. something indisputably accessible to our knowledge, since we ourselves produce it, and the controversial question remains aside whether we can or not cognize what is in some other spheres of existence that do not depend on us. Morality in its ideological content is cognized by the same reason that (from this side) creates it; therefore, here knowledge coincides with its subject (adequate to it), leaving no room for critical doubts. The course and results of this mental process are responsible for themselves, not presupposing anything other than the general logical and psychological conditions of all mental activity. Having no claim to theoretical knowledge of any metaphysical essences, ethics itself remains indifferent to the dispute between dogmatic and critical philosophy, of which the first affirms reality, and therefore the possibility of such knowledge, and the second, on the contrary, denies its possibility, and therefore reality. Despite this general formal independence of ethics from theoretical philosophy, there are, however, two metaphysical questions, the known solution of which is apparently fatal for the very existence of morality. The first is as follows. The starting point of any serious speculation is doubt about the objective reliability of our knowledge, that is, are things really the way we know them? But this doubt in our knowledge consistently comes to doubt in the very existence of the knowable, that is, the world and everything in it. This world is created from our sensory perceptions, brought into a coherent whole by the mind. But aren’t these perceptions just our sensations, and isn’t this connection of things just our thought? And if so, if the whole world is only my idea, then all those beings with whom I am in a moral-practical relationship, all people except me, as inseparable parts of this world represented by me, given in the same knowledge as everything else, will also turn out to be only my ideas. Meanwhile, moral precepts (at least in a significant part) determine precisely my proper attitude towards other people, and if they do not exist, then don’t these moral precepts themselves turn into pointless and impracticable demands? This would be so if the non-existence of all beings could be the subject of reliable knowledge, causing (in its area) the same undoubted certainty that belongs to moral precepts (in their area). If, while conscience, with its inherent certainty, obliges me to moral actions regarding known objects, theoretical reason proved with equal certainty that these objects do not exist at all, and therefore, the instructions relating to them are meaningless - if, therefore, practical certainty was undermined by its equivalent theoretical and the certainty of the instruction was abolished by the undoubted knowledge of its impracticability, then the situation would be would be truly hopeless. But in fact, such a collision of two equal certainties does not and cannot exist. Doubt about the independent existence of external beings is in no way a certainty in their non-existence and can never turn into such. Let us even assume, as a completely proven proposition, that our feelings and reason are unreliable witnesses in favor of the existence of other beings - from the unreliability of witnesses, only the doubtfulness of their testimony logically follows, and not the certainty of the truth of the contrary. Even if it were positively proven that a given witness testified falsely about a fact which he did not actually witness, who would conclude from this that the fact itself could not have existed? Other witnesses may speak for it, and finally, it could have happened without any witnesses, but still be a fact. Feelings and reason tell us about the existence of other people besides ourselves; but upon examination, let us suppose, it turns out that this is a deception, that these methods of cognition actually vouch only for the existence of objects in our representation, and not for their independent existence, which we therefore begin to doubt. But in order to go further, in order to replace the previous confidence in the existence of external beings not only with doubt, but with the opposite confidence in their non-existence, it is necessary to assume that if something is not contained with certainty in our feelings and reason, then it means that it cannot exist at all. But this will be a completely arbitrary assumption, for which we have not only no logical basis, but also no reasonable reason. If we cannot go beyond doubt in our critical attitude towards the existence of other beings, then we can be calm about the fate of moral precepts; for theoretical doubt is obviously not sufficient to undermine moral and practical certainty. Moreover, we must remember that this critical doubt does not remain the final point of view in philosophy, but is resolved in one way or another: either by Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena (phenomena from things in themselves), and the objects of moral duty, deprived as phenomena of their own existence, more than receive it back as noumena; or new witnesses of external existence appear, more reliable than sensations and reason (Jacobi’s immediate faith, Schopenhauer’s will, which makes itself felt as the basis of our own, but by analogy, someone else’s reality); or new paths are found for a different, deeper speculative dogmatism that restores the objective meaning of everything that exists (in the philosophy of Schelling, Hegel, etc.). But whatever the strength and importance of critical doubt about the existence of external beings, this in any case applies only to one side of the moral sphere. Any ethical prescription, as such, only with its outer end, so to speak, concerns the object of action (other persons); its own basis always lies within the acting (subject) itself, where there is no access for any positive or negative theory of the external world. And that external side of moral precepts, which connects them with the object, constitutes the actual area of ​​law, and not morality in the narrow sense. Although, as will be demonstrated in due course, law depends on morality and cannot be separated from it, this does not interfere with the clear distinction between these two spheres. When the same act, for example. murder is equally condemned by a criminologist and a moralist, although both refer their judgment to the same set of psychological moments that culminate in the material fact of killing, and although their conclusions coincide with each other, their points of departure, and therefore their entire train of thought, are different and opposite to each other. From a criminal point of view, the main significance belongs to the objective fact of murder, that is, an act that violates someone else’s rights and characterizes the perpetrator as an abnormal member of society. For the thoroughness and completeness of this characteristic, internal, psychological aspects also become important, i.e., first of all, the presence of criminal intent, the so-called animus (spirit (Latin)) of the crime, and then all other subjective conditions of the case, but all this is exclusively in relation to the fact of murder or in a causal connection with it. Even if someone breathed malice and murder all his life, but if such a mood of spirit remained only the mental state of the subject, not expressed either in an actual murder or a real attempt on his life, or in mutilation, etc., this subject, with all his hellish malice, would not be subject to the investigation of a criminologist as such. Quite the opposite from a moral point of view: the most insignificant impulse of malice and anger, even if it is not expressed not only in deeds, but also in words, is in itself a direct subject for ethical judgment and condemnation, and the fact of murder, on the contrary, has significance here not at all from its objective side, but only as expressing the extreme degree of intensity of that evil feeling, which in itself at all its degrees was subject to condemnation. For a lawyer, deprivation of life is a violation of the law, or damage unlawfully caused to the victim of a crime and to public order, but from a purely moral point of view, deprivation of life is not yet a loss, but may even be a gain for the murdered person - murder is an undoubted loss only for the murderer - not as a fact, but as the last word of that malice, which itself is already a loss for a person, since it lowers his dignity as a rational being. Of course, from the ethical side, murder is worse (more sinful) than a simple outburst of anger, but only because the first requires a stronger degree of the same bad passion than the second, and not because one is a harmful fact, and the other is just a feeling. If someone with the firm intention of killing his enemy pierces a doll, then morally he is a complete murderer, although he has not killed anyone and has not violated anyone’s personal rights; and from a legal point of view, this is precisely why in such a crime against an unsuitable (for crime) object, nothing even in contact with murder happened, and only insignificant damage to someone else’s property occurred. Extreme idealism, which recognizes reality only in the internal, mental states of the subject, does not deny the differences in the dignity of these states themselves as expressing a greater or lesser degree of activity of our self. Consequently, from this point of view, our actions, despite the illusory nature of their objects, retain all their moral significance as indicators of spiritual states. If, for example, the feeling of malice or anger, like any passion, shows the passion of the spirit, or its internal subordination to a ghostly appearance, and in this sense is immoral, then it is clear that the degree of immorality here is directly proportional to the degree of development of this passion, or the degree of our passion. The stronger the passion, the greater the passivity of the spirit it shows. Therefore, the passion of anger, which has reached the point of deliberate murder, is more immoral than momentary irritation, completely regardless of the theoretical illusory nature of objects. And in general, bad actions are more immoral for subjective idealism than bad emotions that do not reach actions. The conclusion of our question is clear from here. If the whole world were only my dream, then it would be fatal only for the objective, outward-facing side of ethics (in the broad sense), and not for its own internal sphere; it would undermine my legal, political, social, philanthropic interest, but would leave in full force the individual-moral interest, or duties to oneself. I would stop caring about protecting the rights of others, but would continue to protect my inner dignity. Not feeling tender sympathy for the ghosts around me, I should all the more have to refrain from any evil or shameful passions towards these phantoms. If it is contrary to moral dignity to be angry at a living person, then at an empty ghost - even more so, if it is shameful to be afraid of what exists, then what does not exist is even more shameful; if striving for the material possession of real objects is shameful and contrary to reason, then such a desire for the ghosts of one’s own imagination is no less shameful and even more senseless. Indeed, in addition to dreaming idealism, when in an ordinary dream we see ourselves doing something immoral, this causes shame even upon awakening. Of course, if I had a dream that I killed someone, then when I wake up, I am not so much ashamed of this act as I am glad that it was only a dream, but I am ashamed of the evil feeling that I experienced in the dream in reality. Combining these instructions with what was said above, we come to the following general conclusion. In theoretical philosophy (namely, in the criticism of knowledge), only doubt about their actual existence can be raised regarding objects of morality, and not certainty about their non-existence; this doubt (resolved, however, one way or another in the same philosophy) cannot outweigh the confidence inherent in the testimony of conscience; but even if confidence in the non-existence of other beings (as objects of moral action) were possible, then this would only matter for the objective side of ethics, leaving its own, fundamental area intact. This sufficiently ensures the internal independence of moral philosophy in the first point - from the side of criticism of knowledge, the second point relates to the metaphysical question of free will. A very common view is that the fate of moral consciousness depends on one or another solution to the question of free will. The question is reduced to an alternative: either our actions are free, or they are necessary - and then they claim that the second of these two solutions, namely determinism, or the doctrine that all our actions and states occur with necessity, makes human morality impossible, and thus takes away all meaning from moral philosophy. If, they say, a person is only a wheel in the world machine, then what kind of moral actions can we talk about? But the whole strength of such an argument lies in the incorrect confusion of mechanical determinism with determinism in general - an error from which Kant himself is not free. Determinism in general only asserts that everything that happens, and therefore every human action, is determined (determinatur - hence the name of this doctrine) by sufficient reasons, without which it cannot happen, but with which it occurs with necessity. But this necessity, always equal to itself in its general concept, is modified, however, in various areas of its manifestation, and according to the three main types of necessity (relative to phenomena and actions), we distinguish three types of determinism: 1) mechanical, which, if it were the only one, would really exclude morality as such; 2) psychological, allowing for some moral elements, but poorly compatible with others, and 3) rational-ideological, giving room to all moral requirements in all their strength and in full. Mechanical necessity undoubtedly exists in phenomena, but the assertion that it exists exclusively is only a consequence of that materialist metaphysics, which would like to reduce everything that exists to the sum of the mechanical movements of matter. But what does such a view have in common with the conviction that everything that happens has sufficient grounds that are necessarily determined? – In order to see in a person the wheel of a world machine, one must at least recognize the existence of such a machine, and not all deterministic philosophers agree on this: many of them consider the material world, as such, only a representation in the mind of spiritual beings, and these beings are not mechanically determined by real things, but only apparent things are mentally determined according to the laws of the internal existence of spiritual beings, to which we ourselves belong. Leaving aside such a metaphysical point of view for now and limiting ourselves to the limits of general experience, already in the animal world we undoubtedly find an internal, psychological necessity, essentially irreducible to any mechanism. Animals 8 are determined to action not only from the outside, but also from themselves, not by the pushes and blows of things, but by driving motives, that is, by their own ideas, which, although caused (let us assume) by external objects, are nevertheless formed and act in the mind of the animal only according to its own nature. There is, of course, no freedom here, but when Kant wants to identify this psychological necessity with a mechanical one, the infidelity of his thought is treacherously emphasized by his strikingly unsuccessful comparison. According to him, the ability to be determined to act by one’s own ideas “is essentially no better than the freedom of a spit, which, once released, produces its own movements.” Not only Kant, to whom any hylozoism (animation of matter) was so disgusted, but even the most poetically minded natural philosopher will not, of course, attribute to such an object as a spit the ability to produce its own movements, and when we say that it rotates on its own, it only goes without saying that it continues alone to be in motion by the force of the previous push; the word “self” here means “without the help of a new incoming engine” - the same as the French. “tout seul”, 9 does not at all imply any internal participation in the movement on the part of the mover. But when we say about an animal that it moves on its own, we mean precisely its own, internal participation in the production of its movements. It runs from the enemy or rushes at food not at all because such movements are communicated to it from the outside in advance, but because at that moment it experiences fear of the enemy and a desire for food. Of course, these psychological states are not free acts of will, and in turn they do not create bodily movements directly from themselves, but only activate mechanisms that already exist and are adapted to certain movements; but an essential feature that does not allow this life to be reduced to just one mechanism is that for normal interaction of the animal organization with the external environment, this latter must be represented in the animal itself in the form of motives that determine its movements according to its own feelings of pleasant and unpleasant; the presence or absence of this ability of feeling, inextricably linked with two other abilities - desire and representation, i.e. the presence or absence of one's own, inner life, is the most significant difference that can be thought, and if we recognize this animation for an animal, and deny it for a mechanical automaton, then we no longer have the right to identify them in the sense that Kant does. 10 Mental life, as it appears in animals (and continues in humans), has different qualities in different genera and individuals, by which we distinguish, for example, animals between fierce and meek, brave and cowardly, etc., and although these qualities are not recognized by the animals themselves as good or evil, in people the same qualities are already assessed as a good or bad nature. Thus, already here we have a certain moral element, and since from experience there is no doubt that a good nature can develop, and an evil nature can be weakened or corrected, then here is already a certain subject for moral philosophy and a task for its practical application, although there is no talk of free will here. But, of course, the decisive independence of ethics from this metaphysical question should be found not in the sphere of mental life, common to man and animals, but in the sphere of proper human morality. Just as in the animal world a psychological necessity is added to the mechanical one, which does not abolish the first, but is also irreducible to it, so in man these two are also joined by an ideological-reasonable, or moral, necessity. Its essence lies in the fact that the motive or sufficient basis for human actions, in addition to particular and concrete ideas acting on the ability to want through feelings of pleasant and unpleasant, can also be a universal rational idea of ​​good, acting on the conscious will in the form of an unconditional duty or a categorical imperative (in Kant’s terminology). To put it simply, a person can do good, apart from and despite any selfish considerations, for the sake of the very idea of ​​good, out of sheer respect for duty or moral law. This is the culmination of morality, and yet it is completely compatible with determinism and does not at all require so-called free will. Those who claim the opposite should first of all banish the very term “moral necessity” from human minds and languages, for it is a contradition in adjecto (contradiction in definition (Latin)), if morality is possible only under the condition of free choice. Meanwhile, the thought expressed by this term is not only understandable to everyone, but also follows from the essence of the matter. Necessity in general is the complete dependence of an action (in the broad sense - effectus) on the basis that determines it, which is therefore called sufficient. When this foundation is a physical blow or push, then the necessity is mechanical; when there is emotional excitement, it is psychological, and when the idea is good, then it is a moral necessity. Just as there were vain attempts to reduce psychology to mechanics, so there is an equally vain desire to reduce morality to psychology, that is, to prove that the real motives of human actions can only be mental affects, and not the consciousness of duty, that is, that a person never acts out of conscience alone. It is, of course, impossible to prove this; it is only true that a moral idea is a sufficient basis for action only in comparatively rare cases; but what follows from this? Plants and animals represent only an insignificant amount compared to the inorganic mass of the globe; but from this no one will conclude that there is no flora and fauna on earth. Moral necessity is only the highest color on the psychological soil of humanity - the more important it is for philosophy. Everything higher or more perfect by its very existence presupposes some liberation from the lower, or, more precisely, from the exclusive domination of the lower. Thus, the ability to be determined to act through ideas or motives is liberation from exclusive subordination to material shocks and impacts, that is, psychological necessity is freedom from mechanical necessity. In the same sense, moral necessity, while remaining completely necessary, is freedom from lower psychological necessity. If someone is able to be determined to act by virtue of the pure idea of ​​good, or according to the unconditional requirement of moral duty, then this means that such a person is free from the overpowering power of mental affects and can successfully fight against the most powerful of them. But this rational freedom has nothing in common with the so-called free will, the precise meaning of which is that the will is not determined by anything other than itself, or, according to the impeccable formula of Duns Scotus, “nothing except the will itself causes the act of volition in the will” (nihil aliud a voluntate causat actum volendi in voluntate). I am not saying that there is no such free will; I am only saying that it does not exist in moral actions. In these actions, the will is only what is determined, and what determines is the idea of ​​good, or the moral law - universal, necessary and independent of the will neither in content nor in origin. Perhaps, however, the very act of accepting or not accepting the moral law as a basis for one’s will depends only on this will, which explains that the same idea of ​​good is accepted by some as a sufficient incentive for action, and rejected by others? But, firstly, the same idea has different degrees of clarity and completeness for different individuals, which partly explains the difference in the effect it produces, and secondly, this difference follows from the unequal susceptibility of these natures to moral motivation in general. But after all, every causality and every necessity presupposes a special susceptibility of given objects to engines or impulses of a certain kind. The same blow of a cue that sets a billiard ball in motion produces no effect on a sunbeam; the same juicy grass that excites an irresistible attraction in a deer usually does not serve as any motive of desire for a cat, etc. If the indifference of a sunbeam to the blows of a stick, or the aversion of a carnivorous animal from plant food, is considered to be a manifestation of free will, then, of course, the good or evil actions of a person will also have to be recognized as voluntary, but this will only be a vain introduction of confusing terminology and nothing more. In order for the idea of ​​good in the form of what is due to receive the force of a sufficient reason or motive, a combination of two factors is necessary: ​​sufficient clarity and completeness of this idea itself in the mind and sufficient moral sensitivity in the nature of the subject. It is clear, contrary to the opinions of one-sided schools of ethics, that the presence of one of these factors in the absence of the other is not sufficient to produce a moral action. Thus, using biblical examples, with the greatest moral sensitivity, but with an insufficient understanding of what is contained in the idea of ​​​​good, the forefather Abraham decided to slaughter his son; the imperative form of the moral law, as an expression of the highest will, was fully recognized by him and accepted unconditionally, and only the concept of what can and cannot be good, or the subject of will for God, was lacking - clear proof that moral philosophy is not useless for the righteous. In the biblical text itself, Abraham’s decision is assessed in two ways: 1) from the side of religious self-sacrifice, the boundlessness of which brought the greatest blessing to the patriarch and his descendants, and 2) from the side of the idea of ​​​​the qualitative indifference of God’s will - an idea so erroneous and dangerous that intervention from above was required so that the decision was not fulfilled (neither the historical connection of the event with pagan darkness, nor its mysterious relationship to the Christian light I have to touch here). – In contrast to Abraham, a corrupt heart and with full knowledge of what was due forced the prophet Balaam to prefer royal gifts to the instructions of the higher will in order to decide to curse the people of God. When a moral motive from one or the other of these aspects is insufficient, then it does not act; when it is sufficient for both, it acts with necessity, like any other cause. Suppose I accept the moral law for execution without any admixture of extraneous motives, solely for its own sake, out of respect for it, but this very ability to respect the moral law so highly and disinterestedly, preferring it to everything else, is already my quality, and not arbitrariness, and the activity that follows from this, as rationally free, is entirely subject to moral necessity and cannot in any way be arbitrary or accidental. It is free in a relative sense - free from the lower necessity, mechanical and psychological, but not from the internal, highest necessity of absolute Good. Morality and moral philosophy rest entirely on rational freedom, or moral necessity, and completely exclude from their sphere irrational, unconditional freedom, or arbitrary choice. In order for the idea of ​​good to be able, with complete internal necessity, to determine (determine) a person’s conscious choice in its favor, in order for this choice to be sufficiently motivated, it is necessary that the content of this idea be properly developed, so that the mind presents this idea to the will in its entirety, which is accomplished by moral philosophy. Thus, ethics is not only compatible with determinism, but even determines the highest manifestation of necessity. When a person of high moral development with full consciousness subordinates his will to the idea of ​​good, which he has fully known and thought out to the end, then it is already clear to everyone that there is no arbitrariness in this subordination to the moral law, that it is absolutely necessary. And yet, unconditional freedom of choice exists, but not in moral self-determination, not in acts of practical reason, where Kant sought it, but precisely at the opposite end of the inner world. For now, I can only give a hint to explain in part what the matter is. As noted, good cannot be the subject of arbitrary choice. Its own superiority (with appropriate knowledge and receptivity on the part of the subject) is a completely sufficient basis for preferring its opposite principle, and there is no place for arbitrariness here. When I choose good, it is not at all because I want to, but because it is good, that it is positive and that I am able to appreciate its significance. But what determines the opposite act, when I reject good and choose evil? Is it only because, as a well-known school of ethics thinks, that I do not know evil and mistake it for good? It is impossible to prove that this has always been the case. If sufficient knowledge of good, coupled with sufficient receptivity to it, necessarily determines our will in a moral sense, then the question remains: insufficient receptivity to good and receptivity to evil, whether it is necessarily a fact of nature only, - whether it cannot tactically depend on the will, which in this case, not having rational grounds determining it in this bad direction (for to submit to evil instead of good is contrary to reason), can actually be his own and final cause of his self-determination. Since there is no objective reason to love evil as such (for a rational being), the will can only choose it arbitrarily - of course, under the condition of clear and full consciousness, for in a semi-conscious state the matter is sufficiently explained by an error of judgment. Good determines my choice in its favor by the entire infinity of its positive content and existence, therefore, this choice is infinitely determined, its necessity was absolute, and there was no arbitrariness in it; on the contrary, when choosing evil there is no determining basis, no necessity, and, therefore, endless arbitrariness. But the question is posed precisely this way: with complete and distinct knowledge of good, can a given rational being, however, be so immune to it as to unconditionally and decisively reject it and accept evil? Such insensitivity to a completely known good will be something absolutely irrational, and only such an irrational act satisfies the precise concept of unconditional free will, or arbitrariness. We have no right to deny its possibility in advance. One can only look for positive reasons “for” or “against” in the darkest depths of metaphysics. But in any case, before asking the question whether there is a being who, even with full knowledge of good, can arbitrarily reject it and prefer evil, we should give ourselves a clear account of everything that is contained in the idea of ​​good and what follows from it. This is the task of moral philosophy, which, even from this point of view, is presupposed by the metaphysical question of free will (if it is seriously resolved), and does not depend on it in any way. 11 Before any metaphysics, we can and must learn what our reason finds as good in human nature and how it develops and expands this natural good, elevating it to the meaning of complete moral perfection. Each animal has its own toys. Every beast is destined to die (German). In these preliminary remarks, just introducing the subject, I deliberately take the idea of ​​good first in its original unity, that is, not only in the sense of the dignity of our actions, but also in the sense of objects that it is generally desirable to use or possess (“all your goods,” etc.). Some doctrines essentially deny this difference, and I cannot immediately assume it before philosophical clarification. Οταυ γαρ εθνη τα μη νόμον εχοντα φύσει τα του νόμου ποιωσιν ουτοι νόμον μη εχοντες εαυτοις εισιν νόμος οιτινες ενδείκνυνται τò εργον του νόμου γραπτòν εν ταις καρδίαις αυτων συμμαρτυρούσης αυτων της συνειδήσεως και μεταξυ αλλήλων των λογισμων κατηγορούντων η και απολογουμένων (Rom. 2:14–15). What the apostle says about the pagans of his time applies, without a doubt, to those people who, after the advent of Christianity, could not understand it either because they had not heard of it, or because it was presented to them in a perverted form. And when they do good, they do it according to the natural law “written in their hearts.” Here, of course, dependence in the strict sense is denied, that is, such a relationship between two objects, by virtue of which one of them is completely dependent on the other and cannot exist without it. Ethics is not in such a general dependence on positive religion - that’s all I’m asserting for now, without in any way prejudging the question of their actual connection, or mutual dependence in concrete. As for the so-called natural or rational religion, the very concept of it grew on the soil of moral philosophy and outside of ethics has no meaning, as will be shown in its place; now I mean only that view, quite widespread among us in recent times, that moral life is entirely determined by the dogmas and institutions of positive religion and must be in unconditional subordination to them. One critic - God be his judge! - I understood this as if I were claiming that the religion to which more good people belong is true. If only he had hinted at some method for such moral statistics! Regarding the reproach of “moral fratricide,” see my article “Dogmatic Development of the Church” in the Orthodox Review of 1885. One can, of course, say the same in a certain sense about plants and even further, about various parts of the inorganic world, for a pure mechanism, or absolute soullessness, does not exist in nature, but in these preliminary considerations I try to stick to what is indisputable and generally understandable. —On the various kinds of causality or necessity in connection with the question of free will, see especially Schopenhauer's "Grundprobl [emen] der Ethik" and "Wille in der Natur." The essence of his reasoning was reproduced by me in “Critique of Abstracts.” beginning." Chapter IX. In Polish behind the word “sam” only this negative meaning has been preserved - one without the others (arbitrary samotny - lonely). In Russian and Germanic languages. Both meanings are possible, and if a positive one is given (own, internal causality), then a negative one (the absence of another) is assumed, but not vice versa. Thus, the word “self-taught” denotes a person who was the cause of his own education and studied alone, without the help of others (both meanings are combined here, as in similar words in German, for example, Selbsterziehung, or in English, for example, selfhelp). But when we say that the spit moves by itself (selbst, by itself alone), then only the negative meaning is given here, that at the present moment nothing extraneous is pushing this object, and it is not at all clear that it is its own cause of its movement - on the contrary, this cause is given entirely in the previous push, which does not depend on it. The logical right to doubt the animation of animals can only rest on the same grounds on which I can doubt the animation of all other people except myself (see above). An exact resolution of this purely theoretical doubt is impossible in the field of ethics, and is not necessary for it: this is the task of epistemology and metaphysics. A significant part of my theoretical philosophy will be devoted to a special study of the question of free will. For now, it was enough for me to show that moral philosophy, as a doctrine of good, has its own content, for good remains good, whether viewed as an object of arbitrary choice or as a motive that necessarily determines the activity of rational-moral beings. – Further in this book, when speaking about human freedom, about freedom of the individual, etc., I will always mean either moral freedom, which is an ethical fact, or civil freedom, which is an ethical postulate, without returning to the unconditional freedom of choice, which is only a metaphysical question.