The Ominous Parallels - Tranche VIII
Posted by mshupe 6 months ago to Philosophy
Chapter 4, Excerpt 2 of 3
The Ethics of Evil
It is not inner peace that Kant holds out to man, not otherworldly serenity, or ethereal tranquility, but war against passionate, indomitable temptation. The hallmark of the moral man is to suffer. Should the new man cry that he cannot understand how it is possible for him, without reward of any kind, he may read that “the very incomprehensibility of this” should be an inspiration to him. If men lived the sort of life Kant demands, who or what would gain from it? Nothing and no one.
The ethics of self-sacrifice, after two thousand years, come to full philosophical expression in the Western world; your interests, including the interest of being moral – are a mark of moral imperfection because they are interests. Your desires, regardless of their content, deserve no respect because they are desires. Most 19th century philosophers accepted every essential of Kant’s philosophy and morality, except the idea of an unknowable dimension. The result was a new moral creed.
The man who named the creed is the philosopher August Comte. The name he coined is altruism. The medieval adoration of God must now be transmuted into the adoration of a new divinity, the “goddess” Humanity. In short, Christianity is secularized. “Altruism” does not mean kindness, benevolence, sympathy, or the like, all of which are possible to egoists. It means the welfare of others must become the highest value and ruling purpose of every man’s existence.
The Ethics of Evil
It is not inner peace that Kant holds out to man, not otherworldly serenity, or ethereal tranquility, but war against passionate, indomitable temptation. The hallmark of the moral man is to suffer. Should the new man cry that he cannot understand how it is possible for him, without reward of any kind, he may read that “the very incomprehensibility of this” should be an inspiration to him. If men lived the sort of life Kant demands, who or what would gain from it? Nothing and no one.
The ethics of self-sacrifice, after two thousand years, come to full philosophical expression in the Western world; your interests, including the interest of being moral – are a mark of moral imperfection because they are interests. Your desires, regardless of their content, deserve no respect because they are desires. Most 19th century philosophers accepted every essential of Kant’s philosophy and morality, except the idea of an unknowable dimension. The result was a new moral creed.
The man who named the creed is the philosopher August Comte. The name he coined is altruism. The medieval adoration of God must now be transmuted into the adoration of a new divinity, the “goddess” Humanity. In short, Christianity is secularized. “Altruism” does not mean kindness, benevolence, sympathy, or the like, all of which are possible to egoists. It means the welfare of others must become the highest value and ruling purpose of every man’s existence.
Which leads, fictionally, to the demise of the Twentieth Century Motor Company, and must descend, in reality, to “Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes” The War of all against all. Thomas Hobbes Leviathan