Moral law and nationality. N. Debolsky. On the content of the moral law

Paragraph I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII N. Debolsky. On the content of the moral law (Journal of Min. Nar. pr. 1908 – 1909) Issues of religion and morality are now attracting everyone's attention. Numerous essays and lectures are devoted to them, and they provoke lively debates. Through abstracts and lectures, some big names have been created in this field. Unfortunately, these popular speakers, these thinkers-publicists usually skim over the surface of the subject and do not reach its systematic discussion. Along with them, lonely thinkers, unknown to the general public, are working on the same issues. This is essentially a field in which the popularity of a name and the depth of research are in constant antagonism. The people's speakers, called "our prophets" and "modern spiritual leaders", are themselves in the "monkey's paws" of the crowd, in slavery to its tastes. Virtuosity of phrase, apocalyptic fog, beautiful pose - this is what they cannot do without. On the contrary, the methodical thinking, the clear consciousness of the limits of knowledge and the limits of the topic at hand, the elegant rigor of language that characterizes the thoughtful thinker, make him unpopular, and the general public is systematically kept from becoming acquainted with serious solutions to questions of religion and morality. Among such lonely thinkers is N. G. Debolsky, the author of philosophical works: Introduction to the doctrine of knowledge (1870), On the dialectical method (1872), Philosophical foundations of moral education (1880), Philosophy of the future. Considerations about its beginning, subject, method and system (1882), About the highest good or the supreme goal of moral activity. (1886). In recent days, he has published a number of articles in the Journal. min. adv. etc. (Dec. 1908, Apr., May, July and Aug. 1909) on the content of the moral law. He himself said this about the relationship of these articles to his previous works: “The thoughts expressed in this article constitute, in essence, an abbreviated and more popular repetition of those thoughts that were set forth in my essay “On the Highest Good”, published in 1886.” For our part, we can note that the author’s ethical theory is presented here in a convex, rounded and elegant manner. Be that as it may, this article deserves the full attention of all those interested in philosophical problems. The referent intends to familiarize readers of the Theological Bulletin with its contents. The author begins with an analysis of the moral teachings of Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Consideration of ethical teachings and representatives of German idealism leads him to the following conclusion. Kant and Fichte are right against Hegel, arguing that the unconditional command of duty has a basis transcendental to experience, and Hegel is right against Kant and Fichte, arguing that the goal of moral action must be drawn not from the concept of duty, but from experienced reality. There is no morality as long as a person recognizes himself as having the right to arbitrarily follow his experienced inclinations. He is obliged to limit his arbitrariness to a certain instruction, and this instruction, as primary in relation to all his actions, is an unconditional instruction, a categorical imperative. To justify the existence of morality, we must, therefore, admit that such a primary, unconditional injunction dominates the entire experimental field. This recognition necessarily leads us to well-known theoretical conclusions. Either the said injunction is powerless over the realm of experience, or there is a basis for this injunction in another, higher, super-experimental realm, to which the experimental realm is ultimately subjected. How to call this super-experienced source of the experimental field - God, the absolute, transcendental freedom, the thing in itself - is a question of ontology, the solution of which now there is no need to go into. But the existence of such a source is a necessary requirement of the teaching of morality, since it rises above the beginning of eudaimonism and at the same time does not recognize, as Hegel does, that the absolute resides in the very realm of experience. On the other hand, there is no doubt that an unconditional moral precept, as such, precisely due to its super-experiential nature, cannot contain an indication of any specific goal, for the goal, as the engine of the will, must always have a representability within it. An unconditional command requires the direction of the will towards good, but what good consists of can only be taught by experience. And since all experimental goals are eudaimonic, any attempt to free the concept of good from eudaimonic coloring is doomed in advance to failure. The super-experimental prescription does not serve to find in itself any special super-experiential goal, but to serve as a regulator for goals given in experience. In this case, the center of gravity shifts to the question: in what way can the regulating effect of an unconditional moral prescription be established? There seem to be four possibilities here. Since an unconditional moral precept is completely empty of content, it apparently cannot, as such, serve to select any of the experimental goals as higher. It would seem to indicate only that if such a choice is made, then the chosen goal must unconditionally subjugate the will of the person. A moral agent in this view is one who unconditionally follows his conviction, whatever that conviction may be. A sign of such unconditional adherence to conviction is the complete readiness to subordinate all other goals to the dominant goal; that is, accept all kinds of hardships for her, even sacrifice himself for her. Such an understanding of morality, therefore, reveals, on the one hand, complete arbitrariness to conviction, and on the other, complete subordination to it, and this is its internal contradiction, since it seems incomprehensible how a person can become a slave of something whose dominance is imposed on him only by his own arbitrariness. It remains, therefore, to admit that the arbitrariness in the choice of belief is only apparent, that in reality this belief is motivated by something with a force irresistible to a person. According to the character of a person, his upbringing, the influences of the situation and environment, one of the goals becomes unconditionally dominant in a person, and if such dominance is completely sincere and conscientious, then from this point of view it constitutes the morality of a person. But if a belief is formed on experimental grounds, then its very unconditionality is only apparent, that is, it is based only on some self-deception of a person. Its source is a random combination of conditions affecting a person. Why this accidental combination of conditions can claim any admiration for it remains unclear. As a result, fanaticism, that is, blind submission to given beliefs, if not always in an individual person, then always in society, is followed by moral skepticism, that is, the denial of any goal that would deserve submission to oneself. Such inevitable self-decomposition of belief, understood as a meaningless form of morality, must be led to the conclusion that the good quality of belief is determined by the content of the goals towards which it directs the human will, and this conclusion leads to the second way of establishing the regulatory action of an unconditional moral prescription. If the goodness of a belief is determined by the goals it indicates, then it follows that the goals themselves must be distinguished as good and evil; and an unconditional moral precept must protect the former and exclude the latter. This distinction between good and evil goals seems at first glance simple and understandable. But a closer examination of the matter reveals difficulties in it, since the main sign by which one goal is recognized as good and another as evil is not seen. All existing ends declare their equal rights by the very fact of their existence. It is possible to deny the right to any of these goals only in the name of an unconditional moral precept, but it, being completely meaningless, does not provide any guidance in this regard; or in the name of some other goal - but she can also refer only to the fact that she exists, i.e., her right is essentially no higher than the right that she denies. Thus, it seems impossible to distinguish a good goal from an evil one on purely formal grounds. The justification for the goal is that it is given as a fact; There can be no other excuse for her. Every goal, as such, is lawful or good. Evil arises not from the pursuit of a goal as such, but from a clash of goals, from the fact that one goal unnecessarily suppresses another, which in itself is equally legitimate. Theft, for example, is bad not because the thief wants to acquire the thing he needs, but because he violates someone else's right, that is, the rule that protects the equally legitimate desire of the owner of the thing to preserve it. But if goals, which are good in themselves, cause evil only through the incorrect expansion of their boundaries to the detriment of other goals that are also good in themselves, then the question comes down to what establishes the rule for the proper limitation of goals. This issue cannot be resolved by free competition, since with equal freedom, victory will remain with the stronger side - with the stronger person among other people and with the stronger passion among other passions: dominance would belong to the stronger passion of the strongest person. Therefore, the mutual limitation of goals necessarily requires the recognition that although all goals are legal or good, but that their rights are different, that is, that they contain goals that are more valuable and less valuable, and that the former must dominate the latter. Evil arises, therefore, not from the violation of mutual boundaries by equal goals, but from the rebellion of lower goals against higher ones or, conversely, from the fact that higher goals, not content with subordinating lower goals, deny their right to exist. All purposes are legitimate; but they must be subordinated according to their relative dignity. And the task now is to find the beginning of this subordination or, in other words, a sign that determines the relative dignity of the goals. You need to find a sign indicating which target is higher and which is lower. All experimental goals are conditional, but it does not follow from this that the degree of their conditionality is the same. The unconditional, as such, has no degrees; but the conditional, since it may depend on more or fewer conditions, varies in the degree of its conditionality. Among the goals, one can, therefore, distinguish those whose conventionality is less from those whose conventionality is greater, and the former should be placed above the latter. The first goals are more independent goals, and the second ones are more dependent and, therefore, in the final result, in general, the second ones are more dependent on the first ones than the first ones on the second ones. But this criterion can bring some order to our various goals. And most importantly, it is possible to establish a mutual relationship between subjective goals and objective goals - two broad categories that embrace the entire set of human goals. For the most part, both of these categories of goals participate together in motivating human action; So - food for me is both a means of taste pleasure (subjective goal) and a means of maintaining my body (objective goal). Which of these two categories of goals is higher or more valuable in principle can be decided only by comparing the degree of their conditionality; and there is no doubt that this comparison tips the scales in favor of objective ends. Suppose that I look at eating solely from the point of view of taste pleasure, without at all taking into account the benefits to my body. The result will be a complete breakdown of my health, even death, i.e. the impossibility of continuing this pleasure. Let us now assume that I mean only the maintenance of the body, without at all caring about palatability. It cannot be said that, by acting in this way, I completely respected the interests of my body, since eating with pleasure (with appetite) is healthier than eating without pleasure (without appetite). But still, my body can exist under this regime. Consequently, in this case, the subjective goal, in comparison with the objective one, is more dependent, more conditional, i.e. lower. And having come to this conclusion, I establish such a subordination of these two goals that best guarantees both subjective pleasure and benefits for the body. I say to myself: both goals are legitimate, but the first must be subordinated, and the second must dominate; I will enjoy taste pleasures within limits consistent with the needs of the body. The same reasoning will determine for a person the mutual relationship of subjective and objective goals in all other cases. Any subjective pleasure receives its correct limits only when subordinated to objective goals. And this is true regarding not only the lower, but also the highest spiritual pleasures found in science, art, friendship, love. And these pleasures must be indulged only within the limits set by objective personal or social goals. Just as the highest good, according to subjective assessment, is happiness, so the content of objective goals can be designated by the general name of self-preservation, personal or someone else’s, individual or public. From a subjective point of view, self-preservation is a means to happiness: from an objective point of view, happiness is a means to self-preservation. So, all goals are legitimate, but only in subordination to the supreme goal of self-preservation, that is, in limitation by it. Such an expression is obtained for an unconditional moral prescription when it is derived from its abstract detachment and filled with experimental content. Further, the author, using the same principle, brings into play objective goals and points to nationality as a subject of self-preservation, as the supreme goal. Before moving on to presenting these thoughts, we will discuss what has already been stated. This fundamental part, in terms of its subtlety of analysis and logical order of thought, represents the brightest pages of everything written recently on ethical issues. The author’s main idea must also be recognized as deeply correct: that an unconditional moral precept, as such, precisely because of its super-experiential nature, cannot contain an indication of any specific goal. The sun shining through tree foliage, no matter how varied the shapes of the holes, gives round spots, because it is too distant for its rays to indicate the shapes of the holes. Likewise, the moral absolute, directly applied to the forms and stages of life, gives them equal illumination. This is even especially obvious in those cases where the moral absolute is presented in the form of the will of God. That at every step one must obey the will of God is beyond doubt. But the question always arises, what is the will of God. And this is a question whose difficulty is not clearly understood. And when answering this question, there are two possible ways - the fantastic way and the real way. A person takes the first path when he imagines that he can extract the real content of the divine commandments from (his) idea of ​​the will of God. This is the limitless path of all fantasies. On the second path, the will of God always points a person to what is directly useful to him, outlines for him those tasks that reality suggests. “And Jacob heard the words of the sons of Laban, who said: Jacob took possession of all that our father had, and from that of our father he made all this wealth. And Jacob saw Laban's face, and behold, he was not the same with him as he was yesterday and the day before. And the Lord said to Jacob: return to the land of your fathers and to your homeland, and I will be with you” (Gen. 21.1-3). When Jacob noticed that it was no longer safe for him to stay with Laban, then God commanded him to leave Laban: this is the pattern of all the real commands of God. And this, of course, is how it should be. The entire life of a believer chosen by God, in all its forms and phases, is sanctified by the will of God. Even the believer eats and drinks for the glory of God. And Kant was right when he interpreted religious faith in the sense that a believer represents all the moral laws that he knows in the form of God’s commandments. The non-believer experiences the same phases of life solely for positive reasons, and the believer – as the commands of God. However, one cannot stop at this concept of faith as final. In addition to the formal meaning for man of the idea of ​​God's will, the divine is revealed to man as an absolute experience. This is what Kant called a “fact of reason,” “as if a fact of reason,” and which his rationalistic formalism could not sufficiently appreciate. And regarding this form of divine revelation, in other words, the absolute moral principle, what was said earlier about the will of God remains valid: and from the absolute moral principle, presented as not the external will of God, as was the case in ancient religions, but in the form of a “fact of reason,” it is impossible to extract a specific indication of any specific goal. In this, Mr. Debolsky is right with Kant and takes a step forward in moral philosophy in comparison with him. However, he is right only in words, not in deeds. While correcting Kant's mistake in words, he himself completely repeats it in the actual course of his reasoning, that is, he decisively contradicts himself. He begins his fundamental part with the statement that “an unconditional moral precept may contain indications of any specific goal,” and ends with the conclusion: “such an expression is obtained for an unconditional moral precept when it is derived from its abstract detachment and filled with experimental content.” At the beginning he says that an unconditional moral principle cannot have specific content, and at the end he claims that an absolute moral principle can be filled with specific content. It is easy to see that the entire course of reasoning leading from such a beginning to such an end is a Sisyphean work. In fact, he wants to show how a super-experiential prescription serves as a regulator for goals given in experience - and he successively considers four ways. It turns out that an unconditional moral principle cannot be revealed in psychological conviction: the first method is not suitable. It cannot be applied to distinguish between good and evil goals: the second method of connecting the absolute moral principle with specific content also turns out to be unsuitable. The third method is also not suitable - recognizing all goals as equal. There remains a fourth method - establishing the relative merits of goals, which the author assimilates. He applies an unconditional moral principle to build a system of goals, to bring them into order. And in the disclosure of precisely this method, the author’s internal self-contradiction is concentrated. Here he admits 1) that the unconditional has no degrees and 2) that everything conditional differs in the degree of its conditionality - and from here he concludes that the unconditional principle can be applied to establish the degree of conditionality of experimental goals. It is through this logical leap that the author connects the mutually contradictory beginning and end of his fundamental reasoning. And at this point he not only makes a logical error, but he is also wrong both factually and methodologically. In fact, it is certain that all experimental goals are conditional - and the author sins against this fact, since he makes attempts to go beyond the boundaries of convention in application to experimental goals. Well, let’s compare subjective and objective goals, pleasure and self-preservation. The dependence between these goals is mutual, and there is no way to decide which of these goals is absolutely superior. Enjoyment, generally speaking, is impossible without self-preservation, but life has no value without pleasure. The author reasons this way: if I live only for pleasure, then I will lose life itself and, along with it, the opportunity to continue enjoying it; if I only support the organism, then at least my organism will exist, although I will not enjoy; therefore, in this case, the subjective goal, compared to the objective one, is more dependent, more conditional, i.e., lower. But the author receives the apparent right to such a conclusion only because he tacitly gives preference to the objective point of view over the subjective one. From an objective point of view, of course, something is better than nothing - the most miserable existence is better than non-existence. But from a subjective point of view, just as pleasure is impossible without life, so life without pleasure has no value. What to choose, a hundred years of vegetation or one hour of bright life, bright burning, it depends on the character of the person, but this can hardly be decided in principle. Therefore, from a broad point of view, embracing both the subjective and objective sides of life, it is difficult to say what is higher and what is lower. And further, if we assume that one side is higher than the other, then in any case it will be “a little higher”, “a little lower”, but not “absolutely higher”, “absolutely lower”. Therefore, a scientific point of view is more appropriate here, which does not know such a sharp contrast between the subjective and objective assessment of life. Of course, excessive pleasure is evil - and this is not only from an objective point of view, since it leads to a shortening of life, but also from a subjective point of view, since excessive pleasure leads to suffering; Of course, sometimes you have to give up immediate pleasure for distant interests; with all this, there is a general proportionality between the fullness of pleasures and the fullness of life. It is from this very thought that scientific ethics comes, for example. in Spencer, who does not know the antagonism between subjective and objective goals. The good, in the end, is the pleasant. Life is good because it brings more pleasure than pain. This is its justification, but in the same way, for the fullness of life it is necessary to be guided by feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Neglect of this subjective side of life leads to harmful objective consequences. “Here we have a mother who, having been brought up in the crazy fashion so common among the educated classes, does not have a strong enough constitution to feed her child herself, but who, knowing that the natural food for the child is the best, and caring for his well-being, continues to breastfeed him longer than her organization allows her. In the end, the gradually accumulated reaction has a decisive effect. There is exhaustion, turning into illness, which sometimes ends in death, and most often in chronic weakness. As a result of this, she becomes temporarily, and perhaps forever, unable to do housework and other household chores; her other children suffer from a lack of maternal care, and if the spouses’ income is not great, then the payment to the doctor and nurse has a heavy impact on the whole family. Here is another example of how this often happens to the father of a family. Prompted in the same way by a high consciousness of his duties, and deluded by the current moral theories, which inspired him with the conviction that self-denial can be carried to any extent, he daily continues his work for long hours, regardless of the heat in his head and the cold in his feet, and deprives himself of all public pleasures, on which, in his opinion, he cannot spend either time or money. What comes out of such a completely unselfish course of action? In the end, there is a sudden loss of strength, insomnia and inability to work. That peace, which he did not want to give himself when sensations prompted him to do so, is now a violent necessity for him and he is forced to indulge in it for a long time. The excess earnings that he saved for the benefit of his family are quickly spent on expensive trips to improve his health and on many other expenses caused by illness. Instead of strengthening the ability to fulfill one’s duty towards children, there is a complete inability to do so. And the benefits expected for them are replaced by disasters for life. These are precisely the social consequences of insufficient egoism. All levels of society are equally replete with examples of negative and positive disasters inflicted on society by excessive self-neglect. In one case, we see a laborer who, conscientiously continuing his work under the scorching sun, to the evilly increased protest of his own feelings, dies of sunstroke and leaves behind him a family that becomes a burden on the parish. In another case, it is a clerk who finally destroys his vision by excessive strain, or who writes for whole hours every day after his fingers have begun to twitch painful spasms, and who as a result falls ill with the so-called “scribe's palsy” and, having lost the ability to write for a century, falls into poverty, together with his elderly parents, after which they are all forced to live on benefits from their friends. In the third case, this is a person who devotes himself to public affairs, who, having upset his health with excessive perseverance and diligence, loses the opportunity to achieve everything that he could have achieved with a more reasonable distribution of his time between work for the benefit of others and serving his own needs. “Suffering is necessarily correlated with actions harmful to the body; and pleasures are just as necessarily correlated with the actions leading to his well-being. Despite occasional intemperance and its consequences, the pleasure that accompanies eating food exists together with physical benefits, and this benefit is greater, the more acute the feeling of satisfaction of appetite. The instincts and feelings that so irresistibly impel one to marriage, as well as those that find satisfaction in the care of children, produce an enormous excess of good, even after deducting all the evils they bring. The pleasure derived from accumulated property leaves, after all due deductions, a large surplus of private and public benefit... The majority and the moralists, as the exponents of the convictions of this majority, recognize the evils caused by only certain kinds of behavior, and completely ignore the suffering and death daily caused around them by neglect of the guidance that has been established in the continuation of development. Starting from the silent assumption that we are organized in such a diabolical manner that pleasures do us harm, and pains benefit us, people on all sides present us with examples of systematic damage to their lives, due to persistence in such actions against which their senses are indignant... From a biological point of view, it is absolutely the same whether the motives that impel a person to these actions are high or low. The functions of life do not accept apologies on the grounds that the neglect was inevitable or that the reason for the neglect was noble. Direct and indirect suffering caused by inconsistency with the laws of life remain the same, whatever the reason for this inconsistency, and cannot be overlooked in any rational assessment of behavior. If the purpose of ethical inheritance is to establish the rules of good living, which, according to the totality of its consequences, both individual and general, both direct and indirect, leads best to human happiness, then in this case it is absurd to ignore the immediate results of behavior and pay attention only to its remote results. Let us now take another example, closer to the subsequent arguments of Mr. Debolsky - the relationship between the individual and society. How this relationship can be looked at from a religious-historical point of view (for example, Jewish folk religion) or religious-mystical (Christian individualism), we have no talk about this now. In any case, from an empirical point of view, within the limits of experimental purposes, the relationship between the individual and society must be represented in the form of mutual convention. Society is impossible without personality, and personality is impossible without society. There is positively no way to decide what is absolutely higher and absolutely lower here. “The human personality and, therefore, every individual person - according to V.S. Solovyov - is an opportunity for the realization of unlimited reality, or a special form of infinite content. In the human mind lies the infinite possibility of more and more true knowledge of the meaning of everything, and his will contains the same infinite possibility of more and more perfect implementation of this universal meaning in a given living environment. The human personality is infinite: this is an axiom of moral philosophy. But then abstract subjectivism draws its chalk line before the eyes of the unwary thinker, and the most fruitful axiom turns into hopeless absurdity. The human personality, as an infinite possibility, is separated from all actual conditions and actual results of its existence, represented through society, and is not only separated, but also opposed to them. An insoluble contradiction appears between the individual and society and the “fatal question” arises: which of the two principles should be sacrificed? On the one hand, the hypnotics of individualism, affirming the self-sufficiency of the individual personality, who determines all his relationships from himself, see in social connections and the collective order only an external boundary and arbitrary constraint, which must be abolished at all costs; and on the other hand, the hypnotics of collectivism, which, seeing in the life of mankind only the social masses, recognize the individual as a nonentity and a transitory element of society, which does not have any rights of its own and which can be ignored in the name of the so-called general interest. But what kind of society is this, consisting of powerless and impersonal creatures, of moral zeros? Will it be human society in any case? What will his dignity, the inner value of his existence, consist of and where will it come from, and by what force will it hold on? Isn’t it clear that this is a sad chimera, as impracticable as it is undesirable? And isn’t the opposite ideal of a self-sufficient personality just such a chimera? Take away from the actual human personality everything that is in one way or another conditioned by connections with social or collective wholes, and you get an animal individual with only pure possibility, or the empty form of a person, that is, something that does not really exist at all. Those who had to descend to hell or ascend to heaven did not find a solitary individual there, but saw only social groups and circles. Instead of an insoluble contradiction of two mutually exclusive principles, two abstract isms, we find in reality two correlative and logically and historically mutually presupposing and demanding terms. This is the actual error of Mr. Debolsky. But he makes a methodological error. He establishes a system of experimental goals, that is, he speaks of that virtue that classical philosophy called justice. Greek philosophy considered wisdom, courage, prudence and justice to be among the virtues. The latter did not stand on the same level as the others, but embraced the first three virtues. Wisdom, courage and prudence, according to Greek philosophy, were, as it were, elements of human life, the harmonious combination of which, both in personal and in public life, was considered justice. The main pathos of classical philosophy focused on this virtue. Justice, like the beauty and harmony of life, constituted in her eyes the highest perfection of life. Modern moral philosophy must restore this meaning of justice, for the disclosure of the idea of ​​justice must give the true content of moral philosophy. After all, the elements of spiritual life in themselves are not in the power of human reason and philosophy: they are given for it. Its task is to establish the proper relationship between the individual principles of human life, of which each strives to displace the others and fill the entire volume of human life with itself alone. However, in the very composition of the elements of moral life since the time of classical philosophy, some change has occurred, due mainly to Christianity: the absolute personal principle of morality has emerged. G. Debolsky seems to be restoring the task of classical moral philosophy, without ignoring this new element of spiritual life. All this is good. But he wants to determine the mutual relationship of the elements by the nature of one of them - the personal-absolute principle, which, of course, could not be successful, since the system of elements should be established not from within one of them, but from their external relations to each other. You need to look at how they fit together, fit together, and form a harmonious, harmonious system. There can be nothing absolute in the system of these relations, and Mr. Debolsky, trying to introduce absoluteness into it, suffers two damages. On the one hand, it abolishes the absoluteness of one of the elements of spiritual life. His entire fundamental part is precisely the systematic abolition of the absolute principle of human morality, since he tries to fill it with experiential content - and then, in further reasoning, he ignores this principle. On the other hand, he, as if introducing an element of absoluteness into the system of experimental goals, too decisively places some of them above others. We will now see how he does this. When I ask myself, continues Mr. Debolsky, who or what is for me the subject of self-preservation, as my supreme goal, then the closest and simplest answer to this question is: myself. Behind the egoism of self-preservation, all moral value cannot be denied. Even if it turns out that I myself cannot constitute the supreme goal for myself, then there are still such actions that must be subordinated to the goal of egoism, for, without preserving myself, I cannot serve anything or anyone else. But it is another thing to recognize the relative rights of egoism, and another thing to elevate it to a supreme principle. The latter is impossible, because the supreme goal is one that limits other goals, but does not destroy them. Meanwhile, egoism produces just such a destructive effect. Egoism consistently directed towards self-preservation must reject everything that directly or indirectly interferes with its goal. A life built from such a beginning will be meager in content. Selfishness of self-preservation is the voluntary transformation of oneself into a lifeless mummy. The subject of self-preservation, as the supreme goal, cannot be nature, although I am part of nature and preserving it, as it were, takes me beyond the limits of egoism. But I have nothing to worry about the self-preservation of nature as a whole in its basic forces, since these forces are preserved without me. As for art, religion and philosophy created by man from the material provided by nature, through which man rises above the sensory realm to the threshold of the intelligible, they serve precisely as a means for unity with the super-experienced and cannot be goals in themselves. In this connection of thoughts, the author once again repeats that super-experimental justification of morality introduces unconditionality into the system of experimental goals and therefore is necessary for the manifestation and sanctification of the principles of morality, but behind this the area of ​​goals remains experimental. Nature cannot give an indication of the supreme goal. The author makes another important point. The super-experimental justification of morality, insofar as it is achieved by means of nature, indicates that morality itself with its conscious goals is predetermined by the structure of the World, its transcendental goals that it serves. These goals are unknown to us, and therefore they are not included in our morality, but are its super-moral source and result. The supreme goal of morality is itself a means for achieving world goals unknown to us. In the recognition of this position lies the intelligible, otherwise religious in the broad sense of the word, sanctification of morality, sanctification, without which it turns into the arbitrariness of eudaimonism. For our part, we can once again notice that the author relates to the super-experiential principle in a purely external way. On the one hand, through it he tries to introduce absoluteness into the very system of experimental goals. This attempt cannot be completely successful, but practically it boils down to the fact that, referring to the super-experimental principle of morality, the author attaches the label of the supreme goal to the subject of self-preservation chosen by him (as we will see, arbitrarily) from among the experienced. We cannot forget that in the matter of this election there is no agreement between philosophers: some of them elevate each individual to this alien pedestal (Stirner), others opt for the family, others, among whom Mr. Debolsky belongs, for nationalities, and fourth, finally, profess the religion of humanity. And all these chosen objects are nothing more than idols to which a religious label has been artificially attached. Besides this (on the other hand) all such philosophers as Mr. Debolsky, do not have, or do not recognize, any knowledge of the absolute moral principle - they do not know it from the inside and do not significantly introduce it into the scope of morality. Natural goals unknown to us sanctify experimental goals, selected objects of preservation - this is their whole religion. And all that remains is an abstract idea of ​​the super-experienced principle of morality, which the philosopher did not know how to deal with and which he tolerates out of some kind of politeness, for the sake of Chinese ceremonies. For such a philosophy, it would be more consistent to openly declare that nothing unconditional can exist in the experienced World of Morality, the only one known to us, that everything here is conditional. Further, the author explains that the subject of self-preservation cannot be the entire World of sentient beings. The goal of self-preservation should not be the number of individual lives, but their quality or height, that is, its task should be to subordinate the interests of lower animal types to the interests of higher ones. There is, without a doubt, a transcendental reason for the fact that in nature animal types of different heights have arisen and are fighting for existence: and by contributing to the victory of the higher types, we thereby consciously participate in the plan for the development of nature pre-established from above. The highest animal type is man and therefore he is the subject of self-preservation as the supreme goal. But by this I recognize that every person has equal value with me in the sense of self-preservation. Thus, leaving the egoistic limitation, which believes that my goal is myself, leads to the recognition of every “I” as such a goal, caring for another as oneself. Egoism turns into altruism. I owe every person the same care with which I treat myself. Another person is not an indifferent and alien unit to me, but my neighbor, whom I am obliged to love as myself. The rule “love your neighbor as yourself” was rightly accepted as a great moral revelation, as the first teaching about morality given to people. Every other person, no matter how alien or distant he may be to me by nature, is my brother, my neighbor, and has the same right to self-preservation as me. This teaching, being new, at the same time found a deep echo in the hearts of all naturally good people, since it gave food to that vague inclination towards other people, for which the usual circle of everyday relationships is narrow, and which naturally strives to spread to all the weak, suffering and persecuted, in a word, to all those in need of help. Therefore, “love for one’s neighbor” has become a covenant, although not always strictly fulfilled, but always exciting the hearts of those people in whom good feelings are not drowned out by evil ones - and such people are the vast majority. But precisely because of the attractiveness of this covenant to the senses, people have always been little inclined to subject it to that critical analysis, which alone is able to establish its legitimate measure. Therefore, the principle of altruism acquired the character of uselessness, which brought harm to the moral development of mankind, since, thanks to it, some - a very small minority - under the guidance of this principle, strived for the unattainable, while others - the vast majority - recognizing this principle in theory, were practically powerless to follow it in all its immensity. On the one hand there were people who exuded their often great strength in artificial efforts of boundless philanthropy, and on the other hand there were sentimental reasoners who believed that they loved their neighbor very much if, sacrificing a penny for him, they shed tears over his suffering. And Christian morality has always had such an unhealthy character, proclaiming love for one’s neighbor as one of its two main commandments. “Love for one's neighbor” suffers from two shortcomings that prevent it from being the supreme norm of human activity. Firstly, by establishing equal concern for one's neighbor as oneself, when consistently carried out in practice, it must certainly change this equality in favor of the neighbor. For I am one, and there are an innumerable multitude of neighbors: therefore, if I love each of them as myself, then I condemn myself to innumerable sacrifices for them. Thus, loving your neighbor as yourself turns into self-sacrifice for your neighbor. But self-sacrifice for one’s neighbor, having become a constant norm of life, completely contradicts the goal of human self-preservation, not only egoistic, but also altruistic. For the best, that is, the most valuable people, will sacrifice themselves the most; Consequently, self-sacrifice, as a constant norm of life, is a constant premium in favor of the worst and to the detriment of the best, and therefore results in a deterioration of human qualities and strengths, which is contrary to the goal of self-preservation. Self-sacrifice is the complete eradication of egoism, and not bringing it within proper boundaries, and this is the mistake of self-sacrifice. Further, the neighbor to whom I give my love is, in essence, the first person I meet by chance. Consequently, the distribution of the good consequences of love for one's neighbor is a matter of chance. To take advantage of one or another of these benefits means for your neighbor to receive a random win in the lottery of life. Such a random distribution of assistance cannot properly be consistent with the degree of need and dignity of the person being helped. More urgent needs may be satisfied worse than less urgent ones; people who are less valuable may receive the advantage of assistance against those who are more valuable. The last circumstance is of particular importance. A person who is firmer, more restrained, stronger, more self-respecting, less willing to accept someone else's help than a weak-hearted, unstable, weak person who easily endures someone else's neglect. But which of these people is more valuable to humanity? Obviously the first one. Therefore, we constantly see that from this point of view, the excessive spread of philanthropy is a means of supporting the worst and an indulgence in human vices and negligence. Love for one's neighbor thus receives its due value, only brought within certain limits and devoid of the character of chance. And to say this means to say that it cannot have the character of a supreme goal. There is a higher purpose that it serves and that precisely creates its minimal boundaries. This higher character is acquired by altruism when it becomes so-called utilitarianism. Utilitarianism places the supreme goal in delivering the greatest good to the greatest number of people. In view of this benefit, he rejects the immeasurable and random scattering of gifts of mercy and thereby introduces love for one’s neighbor, for the latter’s own benefit, within certain boundaries. Utilitarianism sobers up love for one's neighbor by the fact that it does not give scope to the immediate attraction of feelings, but discusses the long-term results of certain actions. Utilitarianism understands that the ideal distribution of goods from its point of view is feasible not through random donations from some people to others, but through the dominance of certain general principles of behavior, the consequence of which is the greatest benefit of the majority. The consequences of Christian charity must also be calculated from the point of view of these principles and limited to the extent that they are harmful to the majority. It is good to improve the lot of the sick, the unemployed and those languishing in prison, but only to the extent that this improvement does not serve to encourage carelessness, idleness and crime. It is wonderful to sacrifice one’s own goods, but only so that the sacrificing person does not thereby become a burden for other people. This sober, judicious character of utilitarianism leads to the fact that, representing a higher degree of morality in comparison with “love of one’s neighbor,” it arouses the antipathy of those people for whom morality is a means of sentimental pleasure. Let us discuss, for our part, this criticism of Christian love and its humiliation before utilitarianism. This criticism cannot be considered valid. Christian love in its historical reality, of course, has shortcomings, but they are explained by circumstances that are accidental to it. Mr. Debolsky himself states below with complete certainty: “The covenant of love for one’s neighbor was given by Christ for guidance in relations between man and man, and not as a rule of social activity.” Then we must also keep in mind that Christian love is not a commandment, a commandment in the proper sense of the word: it is inspired creativity. Meanwhile, in historical reality, people tried to organize social relations according to this principle of personal life, or at least to replace socio-cultural work with it: at the same time, the inclination of the Christian people to accept this commandment as a command, for the fulfillment of which a reward awaits, is obvious, the consequence of which is the “unsystematic distribution” of small alms, breeding parasites. Here we must add the inclination of humanity towards sentimentality, which has no specific connection with Christianity, as a result of which conspicuous suffering and even feigned tears are more likely to meet with help than more serious, but distant or hidden suffering. All these circumstances, which are not significantly connected with Christian love, create certain characteristics of charity. In its essence, Christian love has inner beauty, by which it is justified. Christianity is a certain type of spiritual life, which must be valued by the scale of its height and dignity, by the brightness of its burning, and not by the amount of social benefit. The clash of these different assessments found its place already on the pages of the Gospel itself: this is exactly how the act of the wife who poured a pound of precious ointment on Christ’s feet was assessed differently, by Christ Himself, who pleased her, and by Judas, who reproached her extravagance under the pretext of caring for many beggars. G. Debolsky obviously wants to assimilate not the point of view of Christ (which would be so natural in a judgment about Christianity), but the point of view of Judas. But to his credit, he is inconsistent in this case. In fact, where did he get the right to “calculate the consequences of Christian charity from the point of view of the greatest benefit of the majority,” to apply a quantitative measure to Christianity, while he himself, shortly before, decisively declared that “the goal of self-preservation should not be the number of individual lives, but their quality or height, that is, its task should be to subordinate the interests of the lower animal types to the interests of the higher ones. The beauty of the wife who loved Christ, as a type, is higher and more beautiful than Judas’s caring for the poor. And without the need to aggravate the issue, contrasting one with the other, since the entire Gospel is filled with love for the poor and suffering, we can formulate our thought this way: the value of Christian love is not in the quantitative benefit that it brings, but in the very beauty of selfless and boundless service to one’s neighbor. And even this question about public benefit: it needs to be solved differently, whether we mean immediate and more tangible results, or more distant and more subtle ones. From these points of view, it is necessary to appreciate differently the historical benefit that the beauty of self-denial brings to the World. Somewhere in Dostoevsky, advice is given that a person, going out into the street and interfering with an indifferent crowd, should not have a stern face and a hard gaze, because some child might accidentally see him, whose stern gaze will sink into his soul, and lie down at the bottom of it, to be kept there, and poison it for life. If the look has such significance in the economy of the World, then shouldn’t the beauty of bright burning, the height of complete self-denial, make an impression on souls all the more powerfully? Who can calculate all the consequences of this impression? Aren't selfless acts doing the same thing in human history as the rays of the sun do in natural life? Are they not the ones who throw seeds into the field of humanity that ripen in souls and bear fruit, about which no one knows what its pedigree is? Can the author, who himself speaks of “transcendental goals unknown to us, which, although not included in our morality, nevertheless constitute its super-moral source and result,” be objected to these thoughts? And what do we even know about these kinds of issues? Let us repeat ignoramus et ignorabimus more often, let us more often pause silently before the abyss of mystery that envelops the whole world and all human life, let us treat with greater reverence what we do not understand, the “facts” of our mind and the “facts” of our heart. However, Mr. Debolsky does not stop at utilitarianism, he overcomes it too. He summarizes his objections to utilitarianism in the following conclusions: 1) proclaiming as its goal the greatest benefit of the greatest number of people, utilitarianism in practice always changes this goal, pursuing the benefit of only a limited circle of people, and can therefore consider its goal only an accidental, from a utilitarian point of view, the result of a combination of such limited aspirations; 2) in order for such a result not to require, however, those who disagree with the goal of self-preservation, unlimited donations from the minority, it is necessary to determine the boundary of such donations; 3) such a limit is the requirement of equal benefit for each person; 4) such equality can be established only in the field of material means of life, as a result of which utilitarianism, in the most favorable case for it, is limited only to the sphere of economic relations; 5) but equality of benefit should be understood not as equality of external goods of life, but as equality of relations between these goods and the needs for them; 6) therefore, and in view of the fact that the boundaries of needs are changeable, and the reproduction of people always directs the degree of satisfaction of these needs to a minimum, equal satisfaction of needs will certainly lower this minimum to the detriment of the weakest; 7) if such a decrease is covered by the benefits of the future, then since with the transformation of this future into the present the same sacrifice falls on him for the sake of the benefits of the new future, a decrease in the minimum of satisfaction to the detriment of the weakest is the constant fate of humanity. Thus, from the point of view of utilitarianism, one must either condemn the entire process of cultural development, or, if this process can be justified, then it is no longer from the point of view of the greatest benefit of the majority. But if the requirement for self-preservation is the requirement for the self-preservation of the human type in the fullness of its spiritual and physical functions, then the cultural process must be justified. Therefore, the goal of utilitarianism must be subordinate to and limited by another higher goal. Being the totality of everything that humanity has invented for the purpose of self-preservation, culture, as Mr. Debolsky argues, finds its engine in the inequality of people and in its results strengthens this inequality. The ability to invent, both quantitatively and qualitatively, is distributed unevenly among people, and this unevenness, in the interests of culture, should be given the widest possible scope. Therefore, culture is obliged to constantly fight against anti-cultural democracy, as it manifests itself in the attempts of socialism, aimed at ensuring that equal remuneration for all work radically undermines the energy and talents of outstanding individuals, and in preaching the unconditional dominance of “love for one’s neighbor,” which creates enhanced bonuses in favor of the incapable, the weak, the criminal, the vicious, and weakens personal and national courage with a call for forgiveness and eternal peace. This democracy is the worst enemy of culture and therefore, since cultural development in the broad sense of the word can be synonymous with morality, it is an immoral phenomenon. As a set of invented means of self-preservation, culture is not a supreme goal, but presupposes a higher goal to which it is subordinated. Since the ability to invent, of all animals, belongs only to man, and this ability is manifested in culture; since further, according to the testimony of experience, there are no parts of humanity that would be completely incapable of culture, that is, would be completely devoid of the gift of inventiveness; then the goal of culture is naturally defined as the self-preservation of humanity in general in the fullness of its strengths and abilities. But this goal in such an abstract expression suffers from uncertainty, since it is not yet clear from it in what concrete way the concept of “humanity” is realized. The collective understanding of humanity leads to the already rejected teachings of selfishness, love of neighbor and utilitarianism. Therefore, we must understand “human” not as a set of indivisibles, but as a type that is preserved when they change, and with this understanding, consider the indivisible only a means for the self-preservation of the type. Of course, a type cannot exist without implementation in indivisibles and, therefore, self-preservation of a type cannot exist if the self-preservation of indivisibles is completely neglected. But this last self-preservation is a goal subordinate to the goal of self-preservation of the type, so that in a collision of individual and typical goals, the latter must have an advantage. But in humanity we find not one, but many types, a multitude that is constantly increasing, and, therefore, regarding these very types, the question arises, which of them is higher and should dominate and which is lower and should serve as a means. The higher goal must dominate the lower, and the highest goal must dominate all other goals. Consequently, in the highest type, both the highest goal of self-preservation and the completeness of all others, all cultural goals, subordinate to the requirement of its self-preservation must be given simultaneously. Thus, the highest cultural type must be understood as a certain real unit, which, with sufficient force, subordinates the entirety of cultural functions to the goal of its self-preservation. Simply put, the highest type can be a self-sufficient cultural unit. This says, firstly, how height is assessed in each type of type, that is, those types that are obviously inferior to others in the completeness of cultural functions and their energetic subordination, but can be considered higher. This says, secondly, to what genus the highest type belongs. A self-sufficient cultural unit can only be a certain society of people, that is, a permanent union whose members act in the interests of its self-preservation. The highest type cannot be either humanity in general or an individual. Humanity, however, is often spoken of as a whole, the interests of which, even without organizing it into a social union, must dominate the interests of its parts. But it is not clear how such domination can be achieved without transforming humanity into society. In practice, the interests of those unions to which a given person belongs, the interests of his family, class, city, state, always dominate the interests of humanity as a whole. It cannot, of course, be denied that cultural inventions, arising initially as local products, can subsequently become universal property. But universal cultural benefits are the natural consequences of local cultural acquisitions, and in no way their supreme goal. The share of “humanity” is the remnants and surpluses of the fruits of the culture, and the main collection of these fruits goes to local benefit. Humanity can become that cultural type, the self-preservation of which is the highest goal, only when it forms a real unified society - otherwise the interests of all humanity, as the highest goal, are an impossible goal. Likewise, the individual - a man of genius, a superman - cannot be the supreme goal of self-preservation. If the highest goal is to produce people of genius or supermen, then, if this goal is possible, people must organize themselves into a society for this. And this very individual type, for its self-preservation, must turn into a social type. So, the subject of self-preservation, as the supreme goal, can only be society. But what kind of society exactly? This is not a family, not a church, not a state, it is a nation. Before moving on to presenting this thesis of the work under review, we will take a general look at the path traveled. Mr. Debolsky's work gives the impression of a strictly logical development of thoughts. He goes towards his goal, consolidating every step he takes, without making a single rash leap. Moving sequentially from one point to another, he forces the reader to follow him, forces him to agree with the course of reasoning. Despite all this, there are some links missing in this chain of reasoning. The author moves from egoistic self-preservation and comes to self-preservation of the social type. One of the stages in this movement of thought is the transition from egoism to altruism. “The selfishness of self-preservation is the voluntary transformation of oneself into a lifeless mummy... Having established that my supreme goal should be the self-preservation of the human type, I, since this self-preservation is the self-preservation of creatures of this type, thereby recognize every person as having equal value with me in the sense of self-preservation. Thus, the way out of the egoistic limitation, which believes that my goal is myself, leads to the recognition of every “I” as such a goal, caring for another as oneself. Egoism turns into altruism." But is this metamorphosis as easy to accomplish as Mr. Debolsky thinks? This transition is possible from two sides - subjective and objective. Consistent egoism leads to a dead end, and its boundaries must be broken in subjective interests. In order for a personality to reach full bloom, it is necessary that it embrace the whole world. This leads to Christian absolute love. Mr. Debolsky, as we have seen, rejects this subjective way of justifying altruism. Instead of the Christian relationship of man to man sub specie absoluti, he demands utilitarian service to the social type. He obviously takes the path of objective substantiation of altruism. But is everything going well on this path? “Consistently pursuing the goal of self-preservation in its real, full meaning does not allow us to dwell on egoistic self-preservation as the supreme goal, but requires going beyond the boundaries of egoism. That whole, the self-preservation of which is my supreme goal, is a whole wider than me, a whole in which I myself constitute only a part. If the transition from egoistic self-preservation to social self-preservation takes place objectively, then it will not be a transition from egoism to altruism: the self-preservation of the whole cannot be my supreme goal. Objectively, in logical thought, I can recognize the self-preservation of the whole as higher than the self-preservation of the egoistic, I can recognize the right of the whole to sacrifice itself to its constituent parts, but this right of the whole does not coincide with the obligation of the individual to sacrifice himself. We are no longer talking about the fact that this recognition is a recognition of a fact, since the whole to which I belong has both a real tendency and full force to limit my egoism. Recognition of this right for the whole eliminates only my aimless resistance: fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt. And even more than this can be said. A legal relationship to the whole protects my soul from the encroachments of the whole, protects my intimate shrine, since it places me only in an external relationship to the whole. The state has the right to force me to serve military service, but in order for me to love military affairs and give my soul to it, no one will force me to do this. Meanwhile, Mr. Debolsky demands exactly this. And he speaks not only about the individual’s attitude to society, to the whole, but also about the altruistic attitude towards other individuals - and has even less grounds for this. “I recognize that every person has equal value with me in the sense of self-preservation.” Let it be this way: I have the right to preserve myself, you also have the right to preserve yourself. But how does your self-preservation become my goal and where does my concern for another as for myself come from? Why do I owe every person the same care with which I treat myself? This point by Mr. Debolsky is not substantiated. From his objective point of view, it is only possible to assert that my individual egoism and the egoism of every other person, and the social egoism of the whole to which I belong, stand next to one another, limiting each other in a purely external way. Otherwise, there will inevitably be a sharp contradiction. Condemning the idea of ​​self-sacrifice, the author says: “self-sacrifice is the complete eradication of egoism, and not bringing it within proper boundaries, and this is its mistake, that is, self-sacrifice.” And below he writes: “we must consider the indivisible only as a means for preserving the type. Of course, a type cannot exist without implementation in indivisibles, and, therefore, self-preservation of a type cannot exist if the self-preservation of indivisibles is completely neglected. But this last self-preservation is a goal subordinate to the goal of self-preservation of the type, so that in a collision of individual and typical goals, the latter must gain the upper hand.” But bringing egoism within proper boundaries with the elimination of the idea of ​​self-sacrifice (harmony of egoisms) - on the one hand - and placing the indivisible on the level of only a means of preserving the type with the prohibition only of complete disregard for the self-preservation of the indivisible - on the other hand - these are two things that are radically different. It is not difficult to convince a person to put his egoism within certain external boundaries, but it is absolutely impossible to force him to consider himself only a means to the self-preservation of the type. Since the nature of human societies is different, Mr. Debolsky continues, then, defining the highest goal as the self-preservation of society, we must now find out which of the human societies constitutes the supreme object of self-preservation. To do this, the following consideration should be kept in mind. The desired society, if its self-preservation is the highest goal, must be self-sufficient, that is, not serve any goal that subordinates it. It must contain all the goals in their correct subordination, that is, justify them all by the very fact of its existence. Therefore, the following types of societies cannot be considered the original supreme object of self-preservation, but have only a conditional subordinate value: family, society in the proper sense of the word and, in particular, the church, the state. The objective result of a family union is the protection of offspring. This protection extends until the offspring reaches such a degree of maturity at which it no longer needs protection. Consequently, the family has a goal that subordinates it, with the achievement of which its task ceases. Society in the proper sense of the word is a voluntary union of people for some purpose. In order for a certain society (in this meaning of the word) to be the supreme object of self-preservation, its goal must be, on the one hand, constant and, on the other hand, subordinating the entirety of other goals. Of all types of societies in the proper sense of the word, only the church can have claims to such a supreme position. All other societies of this kind, no matter how lofty their goals, lay claim to only a part of human actions. One church claims to subjugate the whole person, his entire life, to completely convert him into its voluntary instrument. But to justify this claim, the church must be united. However, if by church we mean any religious society, then today the church itself is devoid of unity and, therefore, in its modern form cannot bring higher unification into human activity. Belonging to a particular church is determined either by the conditions of birth and upbringing, or by the free choice of a person. But the first conditions, in turn, are determined by the historical character of the folk culture to which a person belongs, so that under their leadership, under the guise of the beginning of churchliness, he submits, in essence, to the beginning of nationality, reveals himself as a Russian, an Englishman, an Ottoman, a Chinese, a Hindu. On the other hand, if a person freely chooses this or that church, then this freedom is a subjective arbitrariness not subject to any principle, since it is impossible to establish generally accepted, scientifically justified signs by which one church teaching should be given preference over others in the sense of truth. This difficulty could be eliminated to a certain extent if it turned out that despite all the disagreements in church dogma, church ethics is monotonous. But in fact, both the letter and the spirit of the moral teachings of various religious societies are very different. This consideration also applies to the differences between Christian churches. So, there seems to be no objective basis for a free choice between different church societies, and it turns out to be impossible to build church ethics independently of church dogma. Therefore, it remains for the defenders of the supremacy of the church to speak not about the modern church with its dogmatic and ethical divisions, but about the church of the future whose dogmas and ethics are generally accepted. But the church of the future is possible either through the emergence of a new higher church teaching, which must reconcile within itself the differences of other teachings, or through the final predominance of one of the existing teachings. The emergence of a new church teaching is possible either through a new revelation or through philosophies. But every new revelation will suffer the same fate, and every philosophical school is a bad substitute for the church. It remains to consider the last possible assumption, namely, that one of the existing churches will receive ultimate predominance over the others. Let's admit it. Taking the existing churches as they have historically developed, it is impossible to see the grounds on which any of them could lay claim to the significance of the highest object of self-preservation, since it is obvious that no matter which of the existing churches we take, it will be unable to embrace the fullness of cultural functions. Therefore, it will either modestly recognize itself as a society between societies, refusing primacy over them, or realize this primacy, to the detriment of developed culture. The church occupies the first position in the case when it separates into its jurisdiction only that part of human life that is encompassed by the concept of virtue; the second - in the case when it strives to be a regulator of all life, in the fullness of its state and social interests. The first position of the church is as cultural as the existing virtues contribute to, or at least do not hinder, the success of culture; its second position is certainly anti-cultural, since the church, in order to guide the state and social life of its flock, must draw rules from its teaching, which arose in the past and, therefore, constrains the freedom of the future. Therefore, such churches, which are inseparably inherent in the desire to completely own a person, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism or Mohammedanism, are certainly anti-cultural. The cultural or anti-cultural nature of Orthodoxy or Protestantism depends entirely on the extent to which they refrain from any interference in state, social and intellectual life... True, especially in relation to Christianity, the possibility of such a theocratization of its character is pointed out, in which it would renounce the desire for external domination over the state and society characteristic of Roman Catholicism. The subordination of the state to the Christian church is understood in this case as the internal penetration of state and generally all secular actions by the Christian spirit, that is, as Christian politics and the Christian social system. If, however, something specific should be understood by this term, then, obviously, nothing more than the subordination of all cultural functions to the principle of Christian love, the elevation to the supremacy of love for one's neighbor. But the covenant of love for one's neighbor was given by Christ for guidance in relationships between man and man, and not as a rule of social activity. Therefore, referring to the founder of Christianity in the form of transforming the beginning of love for one's neighbor into a political and social beginning is pure arbitrariness. For a Christian, the teaching of Christianity is mandatory within the limits that are indicated to him from above, but the possibility of spreading the principles of this teaching to areas lying outside the said limits depends on the properties of these areas. If the goal of culture is the self-preservation of society (in the broad sense of the word), then the possibility or impossibility of subordinating social life to the principle of love for one’s neighbor is determined by whether society can self-preserve under the dominance of such a principle, that is, by pledging in no case to sacrifice the life, freedom and property of individuals to its interests. Since there is no social system that does not, at least to some extent, require this donation, this question must be answered in the negative. There may be a state and social order among Christians, but there cannot be a Christian state and social order. The unconditional and completely consistent application of the requirement of love for one's neighbor to divine life should lead to chronic anarchy, or to active, in the sense of continuous revolution, or to that passive anarchy, the preacher of which is Tolstoy. But the revolutionary struggle against the existing order of life, of course, is completely contrary to the Christian principle. Passive anarchy is the negation of culture, that is, the diametric opposite of real morality. Thus, the result of the desire for Christian politics and social order is either the self-destruction of this desire, or renunciation from culture. We can agree with Mr. Debolsky’s latest conclusions on the church issue. That Christianity cannot provide rules for state and social order, theological science has recently come to this result. But if Christianity essentially cannot be a state and social principle, then, obviously, all the preliminary arguments of Mr. Debolsky should be noted; the arguments are very weak, causing many objections - about the division of the church and about the church of the future turn out to be completely unnecessary, which is why we refrain from considering them. The main idea of ​​the author, of course, is that the church has heavenly tasks, not earthly ones - and from the point of view of the latter tasks, a human state institution has an advantage over the divine institution of the church. It is in vain that the author talks about advantages in general, when he should talk about the limitations of the task that he sets for his scientific ethics. Then there would be no room for debate, otherwise it would be possible to raise the question of the comparative advantage of the very tasks of heaven or earth - a question that Mr. Debolsky’s entire system cannot withstand. Let us remember that - as has already been shown above - he does not have the right to introduce an absolute principle into his ethical judgments... The advantage of the state (the author continues) over the family lies in the constancy of the goal, and over the church - in the feasibility of this goal. The existence of a state is not conditioned by the existence of universal human unity: each of the individual state unions can strive for its own goal within the limits set for it by history. Another advantage of the state union is that its goal, while remaining constant, allows for much greater adaptability than the church to changing cultural demands, which depends precisely on the absence of a necessary connection between this goal and belief in the truth of a fixed dogma. The permanent goal of the state is to protect security, and this goal is achieved by creating and maintaining within the bowels of the state union such a force that is capable of resisting any violence from outside or from within. The author speaks out against the pure doctrine of liberalism, as expressed in the famous formula of laissez faire, which seeks to limit state intervention only to the area of ​​​​negative activities, leaving positive cultural work to public and personal initiative. In its extreme development, this doctrine tends to isolate all religious, educational and economic purposes from the jurisdiction of the state. But the full implementation of this trend faces significant practical and theoretical obstacles. The historical development of the vast majority of states was closely connected with certain trends in church life, as a result of which a complete renunciation of church interests could have a detrimental effect on the self-preservation of the state itself. The state also cannot completely abandon educational goals, simply because the various types of public service require education corresponding to them. Finally, the state necessarily becomes the owner, not only because state administration itself requires proper management of state-maintained institutions, but also because the state is almost always a large land owner. Moreover, there are economic enterprises that, by their very nature, have the character of monopolies, and therefore the question naturally arises, what is more preferable in relation to such enterprises - a selfish private monopoly or a disinterested monopoly of the state, or, if the latter is for some reason difficult to implement), then at least a decisive restriction by the state of a private monopoly. Such are, for example, railway enterprises, in which unconditional freedom of competition leads either to the complete subordination of the interests of private individuals to the arbitrariness of the railway owners, or to mutual interference with their establishment on the part of entrepreneurs - phenomena that have had ample place in the history of this business in England and America 1). So are all enterprises based on capturing data from a limited amount of nature's gifts (lands and waters). Complete freedom of competition in the matter of their acquisition and exploitation may ultimately lead to the complete subordination of the interests of national security to the interests of a few favorably placed persons; and therefore the state has the right, in the interests of private activity itself, to look at itself as the custodian of these gifts of nature, limiting private individuals in the acquisition, possession and use of them under certain conditions... G. Debolsky indicates higher tasks for the state. He notes a well-known fact: with cultural progress and the growth of national wealth, dissatisfaction with life increases, which is reflected especially clearly in the ever-increasing number of suicides. These sins of cultural development, the author says, depend precisely on the fact that it still lacks proper unity. Modern culture is great in many of its particulars, but, not united by a common principle, it does not educate a person as a single strong personality, but, on the contrary, acting on him with mutually opposite factors, decomposes his integrity. Such a unifying principle of culture cannot, as explained above, be found neither in egoism, nor in love of one’s neighbor, nor in utilitarianism, nor in the vague concept of humanity, nor in the church, since all of them do not point to a definite and constant unit of self-preservation. History creates this unit only in the form of a state union. If the state union has hitherto manifested itself mainly in a violent mode of action, then this depended on the need, first of all, to curb, at least by external force, personal willfulness that did not agree to a voluntary legal order. But as state authority more and more coincides with the free aspirations and inclinations of the person himself, this authority must become more and more an exponent of the general good and free will. Under this condition, the function of the state as the guardian and educator of the physical and spiritual forces of the population subordinate to it should become increasingly important. Proper regulation of the reproduction of this population, aimed at ensuring that the reduction in child mortality does not occur due to the survival of the weak and sick at the expense of public health, and the systematic, although free from barracks stereotypes, physical and spiritual education of the younger generations will then become the main concerns of the state. However, pointing out such high social and educational tasks of the state leads to the need to recognize the state union not as a goal, but as a means of self-preservation of a higher social type. Everything that the state does culturally, it does for the people. This is how Mr. Debolsky reaches the most important part of his work. The idea of ​​nationality or nationality has always participated as a factor in the development of the state, because with the complete spiritual separation of the people, state unity is impossible. The unifying activity of the government is always directly or indirectly rooted in the unifying action of the people's will. If we even imagine that the state relies exclusively on military force, then this very force arises because the army agrees to obey its military leader, since no single person is able to subjugate many people by his own force, since they do not want to obey him. Relying on a certain degree of unity of the people's will, the state has always contained and continues to contain an element of nationality. But the consciousness of the idea of ​​nationality as the dominant principle in the state develops only gradually. The beginning of nationality, without a doubt, is not an ancient pagan beginning, but the beginning of a new life, indirectly supported by Christianity against the mechanical statehood of Rome. Having spiritualized life, Christianity spiritualized the state and thereby contributed to the development of the nation, which consists of nothing else but the spiritualization of the state. But this influence of the church was only indirect, since the positive church ideal is a cosmopolitan ideal, and therefore, in its further flowering, the principle of nationality renounced the beginning of churchism and rose above it in order to bring about the dawn of a new life, surpassing both the mechanical statehood of paganism and the cosmopolitan ideal of theocracies. Nationality is the spiritualization of the state, that is, the replacement of its violent character with a free character, but this free union of nationality is a union not of all humanity, but of its part in its historical originality. It does not lead to the impersonal uncertainty of all humanity, but to a concrete society, to a society as indivisible in its living originality. The concept of nationality, as a cultural union that spiritualizes the state, is not limited to the characteristics of breed, language and religion. These are only conditions that contribute to (or hinder) the emergence of a nationality, but not conditions whose positive or negative influence on the process of its formation is necessary. Every nationality is something unique, some special social indivisible, the properties of which in their totality are characteristic only of it. In this respect, the concept of nationality is similar to the concept of species in the animal and plant kingdoms. The only reasons why these indivisibles belong to different species are, firstly, the absence or sterility of offspring when crossed, and secondly, that the differences of breeds, no matter how great, turn out to be unstable, so that the breed, left to itself, returns to the general species type. In the same way, the difference between nationalities is determined only by experience, expressed, on the one hand, in the actual impossibility of their spiritual fusion, and on the other, in the stability of their basic cultural type in spite of influences seeking to change it. This analogy between a nationality and a species should not, however, be carried further than is allowed by the essence of the matter. The relation of a nationality to humanity is not at all the relation of a species to a genus. The concepts of species and genus are concepts of classification groups that do not indicate any connection into society. A nationality is not a species within the race of humanity, but a society made up of a part of humanity. Its closest definitions are that it is a spiritualized state, that is, a permanent union of people connected not by violence, but by free spiritual attraction. An ideal nation is one in which the existence and performance of state functions is completely voluntary. Cultural development is necessarily directed towards such an ideal state, although at present the degree of approximation to this state, even in advanced countries, is very far from ideal. The ideal of nationality must therefore be thought of as a limit to which the development of culture is gradually approaching, even if the complete achievement of this limit was impossible. The limit of cultural development should be considered such a state of the people in which their state union will be welded not by violence, but by the spiritual bonds of nationality or nationality. The ideal of nationality does not lead to the transformation of the people's union into a universal one, which is both impossible and undesirable, but to the strengthening of social individualization. One can rather expect the disintegration of existing state units through their division into parts that turned out to be incapable of spiritual rapprochement than the merging of different nationalities into one. This will lead to the establishment of universal peace. If the highest good is the self-preservation of the people, then the highest evil is its destruction, violence against it: this is the highest evil both for the one committing violence and for the one experiencing it, since the life of both is deprived of free spirituality. Conquest is the greatest cultural harm for the conqueror himself, for it penetrates him with heterogeneous, forcibly connected with him and often culturally inferior impurities. Well, of course, not every separatist movement should be encouraged. In any case, a special language is not enough for this. Nationality or nationality is a term correlative to the state, for nationality is nothing more than the spiritualization of the state. Among the ways of this spiritualization, language is also important; therefore, although it is not always a sign of a nationality, in most cases history makes it such a sign - however, only under one condition: that the people who speak it have historical grounds to consider it the language of state culture. Therefore, if a foreigner makes national claims, then he must historically prove his ability to create an independent state culture. Applying these principles to the Russian case, the author denies national rights to the majority of our foreigners. He is only at a loss as to what to do with Finland and Poland. Ukrainophilia has no basis. Finally, Mr. Debolsky solves the Slavic question in the sense that for Russia, pursuing the goals of Pan-Slavism would be tantamount to the collapse of its own national goals. In conclusion, the author, as if summing up his research, raises the question of the relationship between morality in the broad sense of the word, i.e., culture, and morality, as a set of personal virtues, personal Christian morality. G. Debolsky considers morality a necessary condition and support for cultural development, but it is only a means - and morality-culture stands above it: in case of conflict, preference should be given to cultural tasks... The author's discussions about nationality in general and about the application of the idea of ​​nationality to the Russian cause in particular turn out to be extremely conditional. The question of Russia’s attitude towards Finland, towards Poland, the Ukrainophile question, the Slavic question cannot be resolved on the basis of general ethical principles, since these are the essence of questions of empirical relations. And this once again illustrates the point that the absolute principle has no place in the cultural and moral system of Mr. Debolsky. And if outside the absolute principle there can be no talk of morality, then Mr. Debolsky’s system is not an ethical system proper. Morality in the proper sense of the word is precisely the sphere of the personal-absolute principle. The negation of the latter is actually the abolition of the moral question, just as it is actually abolished in positive philosophy. Mr. Debolsky's system does not represent a doctrine of morality in the narrow, strict sense of the word. He examines the idea of ​​nationality not from a moral point of view, not in a moral light, but in relation to morality - and he resolves the question of the relationship of the idea of ​​nationality to ethics negatively. He shows that nationalities, as objects of self-preservation, cannot be laid on the Procrustean bed of ethics. And he would need to clearly and decisively declare that this is not a moral category, but an aesthetic one. It is complete self-delusion on his part if he tries to establish a person’s ethical duty to the people: there is no such duty, just as there is no duty of marital love. The folk principle and the erotic beginning are elemental principles, and their strength is neither supported nor weakened by the idea of ​​duty. And if Mr. Debolsky had spoken with such clarity and decisiveness, it would have been easier for him to resolve the question of what nationality is. Nationality exists where there is spontaneous folk creativity, which is revealed beyond any theoretical reasoning. And here all the power that must be taken into account, and which can produce historical miracles, is in this creativity, and not at all in “historical evidence”, not in academic theory. But while speaking so harshly about the work of Mr. Debolsky from an ethical-systematic point of view, I reserve the right to evaluate this work completely differently as a solution to the question of the relationship of the people to morality. Mr. Debolsky does not give moral philosophy, but he both poses and solves this question excellently. It is excellent that Mr. Debolsky raises the question of the idea of ​​nationality. The writer of these lines, who has thought a lot about this issue, thinks that the whole of world history comes down to the struggle between nations. The idea of ​​a mechanical state—Mr. Debolsky is absolutely right about this—is steadily giving way to the idea of ​​nationality, the idea of ​​a national state. And along with this “spiritualization” of the kingdoms of the earth, the question of the mutual relationship of people-kingdoms with each other is gradually becoming more acute. Let us not forget this prophecy: “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” And what pits the peoples against each other in the final battle will be the Tsar-Famine. Peoples will fight over every fertile piece of land, over every fish river, over every coal location, because the productive forces of the earth are being depleted. Do not believe sentimental speeches about universal peace. The time of fulfillment of the Gospel prophecy is approaching, and the nations must prepare for this struggle. Every nation must prepare for this struggle with all the means of culture - with all the forces of science, internal freedom, and economic well-being. At this moment we are talking about the fact that moral philosophy should not serve as an obstacle to the people in this regard. But it can, and in fact often does, serve as such an obstacle. We mean all these flabby speeches about the Christianization of the (Russian) people, all this Tolstoy preaching of popular quietism, all the sentimental play with great ideas. Time and urgent need will replace this Buddhist rubbish with a healthy call of the people to cultural work, to tireless self-preservation, powerful prosperity. There is an urgent need to preach about the morals of family and nationality, especially here in Russia, where the intelligentsia class is the most cosmopolitan and therefore more powerless and disconnected from the people than anywhere else. But, of course, the idea of ​​nationality is not a moral absolute. Therefore, not only is there no place for populist idolatry, for the dead idea of ​​popular philistinism, popular God-chosenness, for all kinds of harmful chauvinism, but the idea of ​​nationality cannot be all-consuming in its own (aesthetic) field. Next to the people stand on the one hand - the family and on the other hand - humanity. The idea of ​​humanity is equal in rights to the idea of ​​nationality - and in any case, it is so deeply rooted in the human mind and heart that it is no longer possible to ignore it. Let us remember the words of Condorcet: “Today, not a single educated person can think about the battles of Marathon and Salamis without at the same time recognizing their significance for the real fate of mankind.” Let us recall Comte's speeches about the unity of the human race. Even Nietzsche (in The Joyful Science) wrote the following: “When I look at our age with the refined eyes of the distant future, the most remarkable thing that I see in modern humanity is something new and great, called the historical sense. Here is the beginning of something completely new and unprecedented in history: if this grain is allowed to develop for several centuries, a wonderful plant with such an intoxicating and strange aroma may grow from it that life on earth will become much better than now. We, contemporaries, begin to forge the chain of a new powerful feeling, link by link, barely realizing what we are doing. It seems to us sometimes that it is not a matter of developing a new feeling at all, but of the atrophy of old ones: the historical meaning is so poor and cold for now that it affects many like a chill, it makes many colder and poorer than they were. To others, it seems to be a sign of approaching old age: our planet seems to them to be seriously ill, who is writing the history of his youth in order to forget his present. Indeed, there is also such a shade in this new feeling: whoever knows how to feel the entire past of humanity as his own past, he feels the terrible result of all the embitterment of the sick, because of lost health, old people thinking about their youthful dreams, lovers from whom their beloved was taken away, martyrs who died for their ideal, heroes on the evening of a battle that decided nothing, but was worth the wounds and loss of friends; but to bear the full weight of this varied malice, to be able to bear it and remain a hero, welcoming the dawn and his happiness with the beginning of a new day of battle, to be a man with a horizon of millennia before and behind him, to be the heir of all the nobility of the departed spirit, the responsible heir of the noblest of the ancient families that antiquity ever dreamed of, to absorb all this into his soul, ancient and new, disappointments, hopes, conquests, victories of mankind, to contain all this in one soul, into one feeling - this is a happiness that man has never known before, the happiness of a God full of strength and love, a God who, like the evening sun, continually gives from his inexhaustible treasury and throws gold into the sea, feeling rich only when even the poorest fisherman rows with golden oars. And this divine feeling is called humanity."... There is no reason to consider the idea of nationality as the highest ethical principle. This is not enough. And in its own (aesthetic) field, nationality is not the only value - and here there is no reason to limit ourselves to the idea of ​​nationality. But the nationality is in antagonism on the one hand - with the family and on the other hand with humanity? Yes, the family is in antagonism with the people, but this is a conditional antagonism; it is limited by a significant coincidence of the interests of the family and the people. This is the “dispute of the elements” in which the “seeds of true life” are hidden. Subject to certain conditions, the accumulation of family wealth is at the same time the accumulation of national wealth. As the family is to the people, so the people are to humanity. Antagonism exists, but not unconditional, but limited. The truly understood good of the people is also the good of humanity. You need to stand up for your people, you need to develop national culture, avoiding the enervating poison of cosmopolitanism; but, on the other hand, rejecting wild chauvinism, it is necessary to combine the idea of an original national culture with the idea of a single humanity... A healthy people is made up of strong families, not vagabonds. And humanity will be composed of peoples with a strong national feeling, and not of decrepit hypnotics of cosmopolitanism. ) The author's reasoning forces us to make some inquiries. We open the Fundamentals of Political Economy by Ed Seligman, a professor at Columbia University, and read § 223 about the conditions of public property. Three such conditions are indicated here: 1) the simplicity or complexity of the enterprise, 2) the amount of capital invested in the business, and 3) the validity or invalidity of public control. Based on all these conditions, the postal business, for example, should be in the hands of the state, and the socialization of the telegraph and telephone business is also necessary. But the same arguments, when applied to the railway industry, lead the author to the exact opposite conclusion. He puts forward three types of arguments against the transfer of railways into the hands of the state - economic, fiscal and political. 1) The railway industry is the largest in size among all branches of modern industry. In addition to enormous capital, the railway business requires especially skillful leadership, for which the price is far from cheap. The directors of single-track railroads are now receiving higher salaries than the President of the United States: the absence of a talented director is ruinous for the business. In the distant future there may perhaps come a time when democracy will be willing to pay higher salaries and the ablest men will be inclined to sacrifice their comfort and wealth for the ideal purpose of public service. But under present conditions in the United States, the transfer into the hands of the state of the most complex production, which is the cornerstone of all industry, would inevitably lead to an extreme decrease in the productivity and quality of the railway economy and to its final destruction. 2) The income and expenses of our (American) railways are almost three times the state budget. When the railways passed into the hands of the state, the entire budget would depend on the temporary prosperity or decline of the railway economy. During periods of disruption, railway revenues are reduced by tens and even hundreds of millions. Such a major shock to national budget revenues would inevitably cause revolutions not only in the tax system, but in the entire budget area. This consideration alone is absolutely enough to put an end to the idea of ​​state railways. 3) The political demoralization that is revealed when drawing up a new tariff is known to everyone. It is difficult to imagine into what condition the railroad business in the United States would have fallen if the making of railroad rates had been entrusted to legislation or to any administrative body under its direct control. “It goes without saying,” Seligman said in conclusion, “that in putting forward these arguments against state railroads in the United States, we do not mean by this that the railroads should be given complete, unrestricted freedom. But public control over private railways is still a new phenomenon, and until the inadequacy of this control is revealed, it would be extremely imprudent to rush into the abyss of socialization of the railways.” This is how the Americans and the British themselves think. You might be interested in: