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SECTION VIII Obligation, Responsibility, and Freedom 1. Tension and the Need for Harmony as a Common Principle in the Categories Already Discussed Lecture XXVI. December 12,1900 SO FAR AS possible I shall carryon in parallel the three subjects of freedom, obligation, and responsibility, comparing them with each other and with the ideal in order to illustrate the unity of principle which underlies all of these categories. And, at the same time, bring out the point mentioned before: That while there is a unity ofprinciples, these categories illustrate successive planes or depths ofconsciousness. The simplest point of approach is perhaps what, in speaking of the standard, I called tension. Or, in speaking ofthe ideal, the discriminating elements which need harmonizing and therefore the production of the ideal as means ofharmonizing them by bringing about transformation ofthe elements. When we do not get beyond stating an end or aim, the discrepancy is regarded as between the various elements in the situation rather than opposition ofdifferent situations. It is the opposition between the actual and the ideal. The standard is the principle of selection between competing ideals, the most comprehensive situation or ideal for purposes of comparison. Others are measured with it, and the resulting judgment is expressed in terms of right and wrong. In so far as harmony is arrived at and a single course of action emerges, we say that is the right. It is the course which is in the geometrical sense the straight course, the single course which unifies and brings together these discrepancies. The standard is the point of view used in order to define and layout 80 Logic of Ethics 81 this course of action. One who has been in doubt on any matter might, at last, after reflection, come to an ideal of what is the right; that [it] is the wise, effective course to pursue under the circumstances. While the wrong course would be that which is futile, unwise. He will say in the moral sense that a thing is right when he sees that taking a wrong course has a bearing upon his attitude and ideals in general and that, on the other hand, his attitude and ideals in general have a bearing on that course ofaction. He will say that a thing is right or wrong, effective or futile, in so far as he does not identify himself on the side of the attitude or the ideal, with himself as [having] experiences in the given condition, or so far as he does not identify the subject and predicate of the judgment. For example, a man thinks of leaving school for lack of means or mental talents. His efforts and talents are a part of his psychological self and are not dependent upon the attitude which he takes. They are simply given facts in his own make-up. So far as he looks at those circumstances as not merely his given self but as determinable and modifiable by the attitude which he may take (for example, holding himself responsible for previous lack of effort) would he bring these into the moral sphere. There is the self as constituted by existing conditions and habits. And there is the self as proposed, projected. In the degree to which he recognizes the difference between the given, per se, actual self and the projected possibilities, he is working consciously in the moral sphere. When he says a thing is morally right he simply means that the ideal self, as taken as an attitude, requires this particular adjustment of the given self. 2. The Category of Obligation The tension is developed further in the use of the standard than in the use of the ideal. When we come to the category of obligation the tension is developed to a high extent, and is consciously recognized as existing between the given self and the ideal self. It is the opposition which Kant makes so much of between the natural and the spiritual man, between the flesh and the law ofrighteousness. Simplyemphasizing the opposition between the two practically gives the Kantian ethics, beginning where Kant begins and ending where he ends. Instead ofbeginning with this conflict and treating it as antagonism which from the first (and under all circumstances) exists between the two, I have tried to show that there is a history back ofthis opposition, and that opposition comes to focus only at a certain stage of development . The English and the Boers are now at war, and there...

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