BOOKS.
DR. PORTER ON KANT'S ETHICS,
IT need scarcely be said that Dr. Porter's exposition of Kant's ethical theory is very accurate and able, and forms a valuable addition to Griggs's series of philosophical classics. Dr. Porter writes with all the facility and exactness which a lifetime devoted to philosophical teaching and thought is calculated to ensure ; and the qualifications he brings to his task—per- spicuity of style allied to unfailing accuracy—have an especial value in the present case. Kant was, if any man ever was, a deep and real thinker, and, on the other hand, he was, if any man ever was, an obscure writer. Consequently, there is a double snare to which his commentators are exposed,—lucidity at the cost of accuracy, and accuracy with the sacrifice of lucidity. To say that Dr. Porter steers clear of both dangers— of Scylla and Charybdis—is to give him high praise.
With such an estimate of the ability displayed in the ex- pository part of Dr. Portes work, it may seem somewhat presumptuous to hold with insistance an opposite view from his on any salient point in the Kantian scheme. Still, we cannot but think his criticism of Kant's doetrine of the categorical imperative, which occupies a prominent place in the critical portion of the work, in several respects unsatisfactory, and to some extent really mischievous, as exhibiting inaccurate thinking on a very fundamental question of ethical theory, and one which lies at the root of that aspect of ethics which most clearly connects it with the foundations of Theism itself.
Students of Kant are sufficiently familiar with the general distinction between the categorical and the hypothetical im- peratives. The latter have relation to particular aims, and the precepts necessary for their attainment ; the former is absolute, and gives in the very form of it the idea " ought " or "right," the key-stone to the conception of morality. The hypothetical imperatives—of skill or of prudence—say, "If you would be a good artist, follow these rules ;" or, "If you would avoid this or that danger, act thus." The categorical imperative assumes authority without reserve, and says, "Do this or that," and in the saying of it implies the conception of the good-will which obeys the imperative, and the perverse will which disobeys. Further explanation as to the origin of the categorical imperative, Kant does not supply. He leaves the conception a mysterious one, and yet one borne in unmistakeably upon our minds as a valid one. He states that "the difficulty of discerning the possibility of the categorical imperative is a very profound one," but adds that "it is an a priori synthetical practical proposition, and as there is so much difficulty in discerning the possibility of speculative pro- positions of this kind, it may readily be supposed that the difficulty will be no less with the practical." • He proceeds, how- ever, one step forward in his explanation, declaring that though the possibility of the categorical imperative remains a mystery, its import can be defined, and runs as follows :—" Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Or it may be thus expressed : —" Act as if the maxims of thy action were to become by thy will a law of Nature."
Our limits will not admit of our following Mr. Porter through all the details of his criticism ; but in one shape or another, he persistently finds fault with the fundamental contrast between the categorical and hypothetical imperatives. He will not allow of the unique commanding voice sanctioning its own com-
• Kant's Ethics: a Critical Exposition. By Noah Porter, President of Yale College. Chicago : S. O. Griggs. 11388.
mand in the giving of it, but prefers to substitute a new hypo- thetical imperative, depending on the nature of man and the end of his creation by God. Obligation is not, in Mr. Porter's view, logically the first conception, but is dependent for its value on a previous intellectual appreciation of the nature and end of man. According to Kant, "Thou shalt not kill" is a concrete application of the categorical imperative, leading the mind, by the very unexplained authoritativeness of its voice, to consider the prior and transcendental truth of an all-holy per- sonal obliger. According to Mr. Porter, on the contrary, we have first to study the constitution of man and the end for which he is intended, before we can know whether or not murder be right. Its wrongness is an intellectual conclusion from its conflict with specified ends, and the authority of the precept a mere deduction, and not an immediately evident truth. The conception first in order is, thus, not "Thou shall not kill," coming upon the consciousness as the concrete enforcement in a particular case of the general authoritative prohibition to act on such maxims as could not be general laws, bat, on the contrary, an intellectual analysis of the nature and end of man. And this issues in a hypothetical imperative, "If you would fulfil the natural end, do not murder." The sense of obligation on this theory would depend on no immediate intellectual in- tuition into the reality and uniqueness of moral duty, applicable truly to all possible moral beings, but rather upon an idee fire of the end and nature of man in particular, which gives a certain itch to follow the course of conduct which will attain to the desired end. The struggle becomes not one between propensions and a higher authority, but between the itch to gain a fuller and greater end, and the itch to gain, perhaps, more immediate though smaller, but essentially similar ends.
We cite as one of many passages in which Dr. Portee indicates his view of the matter, one in which he seems to some extent to claim Butler's sanction for his own opinion, though we doubt whether, even in the degree to which he does so, be has rightly apprehended that weighty writer :—
"[Butler] as against Kant founded the authority of conscience on the matter of its commands, as contrasted with their mere form. Butler explains and enforces this authority as an interpretation of the ends of reason, as manifested in the constitution of the soul and the universe of God, and enforced by their ultimate authority. Instead of a categorical imperative, Butler furnishes an imperative that is hypothetical, enforcing its dicta with the implicit condition, If you would act according to the nature of things, or the ends for which you exist, you will do or avoid so-and-so. It is true he assumes the nature of man to be so-and-so. Every occasion of doubt will bring up the question,—Is this nature such as you assume it to be ? By what methods or tests we are to discover or determine this nature with its subordinate or supreme ends Butler does not explain.
The very elaborate preface to his sermons is instructive and suggestive in respect to all the points to which we have referred, and particularly the general truth that he relies on the analysis of man's nature for the determination of the purposes for which it exists, and the normal uses to which it should be applied. It is particularly worthy of notice that the authority of this superior principle of reflection' is partially explained by its being other than a propen- sion ' or impulse. It is true that Butler, like Kant, in words attaches to a simple thought object a law-giving power over an impulse, and there leaves the analysis of obligation ; but he does not, like Kant, exalt a metaphor into a theory, and bypostasize an abstraction into a fancied personality called the categorical imperative. In this he may have been Kant's inferior as a poet, but he was his superior as a philosopher."
Waiving the question as to how far Butler consistently adapts Mr. Porter's view (and we think the last paragraph of our quotation leaves it open to question), we would point out that the point at issue is really a very fundamental one, and one involving the whole principle of necessary truth. Without denying that Dr. Porter guards himself from the criticism we would pass, by occasional admissions which we find it hard to reconcile with his general theory, we would submit to him the following remarks. As there is a pure geometry and an applied geometry, so there is a pure ethics and an applied ethics. Pure geometry is based upon intuitions of the reason brought to bear on the necessary properties of space, perceived by the mind on occasion of its perception of extended objects actually existing in space, but perceived as necessarily true d priori, and independently of application to concrete objects.
Pure geometry gives the form, actual extended objedts supply the matter. The truths established in pure geometry apply whether they be used in reference to the lines, curves, surfaces, on a coat, or a table, or a book. But the necessity of these truths depends on the necessary pro- perties of space, and not on those special exhibitions which the table or the book contributes to the problem. Thus, logically,
pure geometry must come first, and its application to those extended objects with which we happen to come in contact is a later step. Similarly, too, in looking at the a priori truths of ethics, that quality in such truths which corresponds to the necessity of geometrical truth is the element of obligation. Ought in ethics is parallel to must in mathematics, and the intuitively seen obligation in possible relations of possible moral beings is the science of pure ethics parallel to pure geometry. Thus the practical application of the rules to the circumstances of human nature must succeed logically, rather than precede, the pure a priori conception " ought " which is conveyed in the categorical imperative and its correlative ideal applications. The question is one of logical order, and of what is fundamental; and it seems to us that just as the a priori character of geometrical truths—truths intuitively known as existing throughout infinite space—is lost sight of if we regard them as matters of practical measurement, so too moral truth—of which, so far as we know, but a small fraction has connection with our planet—has its essence confused and destroyed if we bring into its funda- mental theory the circumstances of its application to the inhabitants of the earth. As to Mr. Porter's second criticism, we reply that, if Kant's conception is that of a poet, it is so in the sense in which a poet—and a poet only— can convey those higher -intuitions which baffle full logical expression, as being glimpses of a truth above us, caught only in exalted moods, and conveyed only by the imaginative present- ment of those moods themselves. In this sense, the poet is the true sage and seer. We say this with reference only to the personality which he detects behind the categorical imperative. But so far as the simple conception of that imperative in the reason being really at the root of ethical science goes, we are convinced that his logical insight, no less than his imaginative instinct, is far truer than Mr. Porter's. And if the maxim which he gives as representative of the categorical imperative seems to Mr. Porter vague, he should remember that, as pure ethical princi- ples apply throughout the universe, under conditions of which we are quite ignorant,—nay, guide the action of God himself, a plainer indication is impossible, as the terms in which such an indication must be made are not within the sphere of our know- ledge. Existing geometrical principles will quite meet the requirements of measuring a table of shapes yet unseen ; but the table must be seen before we can say which rules apply, or can bring the simple and eternal intuitive root-doctrines to bear upon hitherto unconsidered combinations. And the form "Thou shalt" will instinctively find its natural application to all moral beings. But the matter of its precepts can only be known when the nature and circumstances of such beings become known. The end of man and his circumstances in Kant's view, no less than in Mr. Porter's, have a large share in determining the precepts of morality in detail, just as the shape of the coat determines what those necessary geometrical relations are which apply to its surface. But the idea ought comes in the general categorical imperative, and precedes all knowledge of the special nature of man, just as the idea must is contained in the necessary geometrical relations whose existence is entirely independent of coat, book, or table.
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