On the Old Saw: That May be Right in Theory But It Won't Work in Practice

I. On the Relation of Theory to Practice in Morality in General (in reply to some exceptions taken by Professor Garve)

I. On the Relation of Theory to Practice in Morality in General (in reply to some exceptions taken by Professor Carve)>:> Before I come to the real point at issue-namely, what in the use of one and the same concept may be valid only in theory or only in practice-! must compare my theory, as set forth elsewhere, with Herr Carve's notion of it, to see beforehand whether we understand each other. A. Provisionally, by way of introduction, I had defined ethics as a science that teaches, not how we are to achieve happiness, but how we are to become worthy of happiness.u My definition, as I had not failed to note, does not mean that in matters of obeying duty a man should renounce his natural goal of happiness. He cannot do so, "Versuche iiber verschiedne Gegenstiinde aus der Moral und Literature (Essays on Several Subjects from the Realm of Ethics and Literature) by Ch. Carve, Part One, pp. 111-116. I call the denial of my theses "exceptions" taken by this worthy man to points on which (I hope) he wants to come to an understanding with me. I do not call them "attacks," derogatory statements designed to provoke a defense for which there is neither a place here nor an inclination on my part. ""Being worthy of happiness is a personal quality based on the subject's own will. Due to this quality, a generally legislative reason (one making laws for nature as well as for free will) would harmonize with all of a person's ends. Hence it is totally different from skill in the achievement of some kind of happiness . For a man is not worthy even of this skill, nor of the talent for it lent to him by nature, if his will does not conform to, and cannot be contained in, the only will fit for a universal legislation of reason (i.e., if it is a will that conflicts with morality). 278 45 46 THEORY AND PRACTICE nor can any other finite rational being. What I mean is that, when duty calls, he must completely abstract from this consideration. Under no circumstances must he turn it into a condition of obeying the law prescribed to him by reason; indeed, he must seek as best he can to be conscious that no motive derived from it has imperceptibly mingled with his definition of his duty, as will happen because we tend to conceive duty as linked with sacrifices exacted by its observance (by virtue) rather than with the benefits it confers. The point is to bring the call of duty to mind in its totality, as demanding unconditional obedience, as self-sufficient, and as requiring no other influence. a. Herr Carve puts my thesis as follows: "Kant maintained that observance of the moral law quite irrespective of happiness is man's sole ultimate end, that it must be viewed as the sole end of the Creator." (According to my theory, the sole end of the Creator is neither the morality of man alone nor happiness alone; instead, it is the highest good possible in the world: the union and concordance of the two.) B. I had further remarked that this concept of duty need not be based upon any particular end, but that, rather, it introduced another end for the human will: namely, to strive as best he can for the highest good that is possible in the world (universal happiness linked to and in accordance with the purest morality in the world as a whole). Since this is within our power on the one side, but not on both, its effect as a practical end is to constrain men of reason to believe in a moral world governor and in a life to comenot as if both had to be presumed in order to give the general concept of duty "support and firmness," i.e. a safe ground and the required strong motivating force, but only so that an object is provided for this ideal of pure reason."' For duty in itself is nothing " The need to assume a highest good in the world made possible with our cooperation, as the ultimate end of all things is due, not to a lack of moral motivations. It is due rather to external conditions in which alone, and in accordance with the motivating forces, an object can be brought forth as an end in itself (as the moral ultimate end). For...