Rosmini’s Theory
of Ethics:
Some Considerations
6 Truth — the Principle of Morality
Truth is an exemplar or type, a norm or rule of the mind, a standard for that which must conform to it. Being is the first universal exemplar and the supreme rule of every judgement. It is the first universal truth. The thing is true if it corresponds to its idea.
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Truth The most extensive use of meaning of ‘truth’ is that of exemplar. Truth is the idea considered as the exemplar of things. The concept of exemplar involves a relationship with that which is drawn from it, namely, the copy. When a copy is perfectly similar to its exemplar we say that it is true. Things are true or partake of truth in proportion to their conformity to the exemplar. The exemplar is an idea with which things can be compared. The one universal absolute truth by means of which we know all things is the idea of being. It is this idea which is the universal exempla |
Direct knowledge is simply the idea of something and hence truth. Reflective judgements are true if they conform with their truth or direct knowledge. They are false if they disagree with it. If I do not faithfully acknowledge the worth of something known to me but invent something to replace my knowledge of this worth, I lie to myself.
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Truth therefore is the principle of morality, and acknowledgement of the truth (that is, acknowledgement of direct knowledge) is the supreme duty and the proper, essential act of morality. |
In scripture truth and moral good go together, and lying and sin go together. Every sin is, in the last resort, a way of lying to ourselves. A false lying interior word is the foundation of all our exterior misdemeanours. Upright persons, ‘speak truth from their heart’ (Ps. 14: 2). When we do not acknowledge the truth we feel remorse and we become aware of impropriety. This makes known the force of obligation. It is clearly fitting that I should both affirm to myself what I know exactly as I know it, and witness to my knowledge without changing or deforming it. It is clearly unfitting that I should do the opposite. The fittingness that I feel about acting in this way is the first moral obligation. It is the reason and source of all other obligations. It is the form of what is upright just as unfittingness forms moral impropriety. The obligation of acknowledging what one knows is per se in my first reflective operation. This does not need proof. I cannot know a thing and at the same time tell myself I do not know it; this precipitates an internal contradiction from which the unfittingness comes. I become the author of evil within me. I make myself morally bad. The principle of morality is fully evident. The principle of contradiction states ‘that which is, cannot not be and that which is not cannot be’. We must affirm what we know in direct knowledge otherwise we attempt to destroy truth and being and this is the essence of immorality. We can see, in passing, the inherent immorality of lying, because we present a travesty of the truth to someone for their acceptance by deceiving them.
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The Supreme Principle of Morality In the last analysis, this principle consists in the voluntary ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of our first, necessary knowledge, that is, in not denying what we know and in voluntarily admitting the good present in what we have perceived.(58) |
Notes
(58) Op. cit., n. 167.