Chapter 2.
3. Person and morality (1)
Morality
For Rosmini, the human being is a knowing and feeling subject whose will, as supreme principle of activity, provides the basis of the incommunicable individuality that constitutes each human creature as a person. Morality is concerned with personal activity.
This sets morality aside from all lesser human activities which, although capable of perfecting human beings in particular ways, do not touch their inner core as persons. A good pianist, for example, is not necessarily a good person; a good linguist is not necessarily a good person. Perfection at the level of music or languages is quite different from the perfection that lies within the capacities of persons as persons. What human beings do as pianists or linguists may well be efficacious in the limited spheres of music and linguistics; but what they do as 'person' affects their whole being - and it is here that morality holds sway.
Morality possesses a second characteristic which further sets it apart from other human activities. It commands and obliges without compromise or promise. Although it brings human beings to perfection as persons, it does not present this perfection in the guise of something subjectively beneficial (although morality in one sense will always be beneficial); it offers only obligation which binds the person irrespective of any effect it may produce in him. Morality, therefore, determines human actions with the force of obligation.
The first moral law
Ethics, the branch of knowledge dealing with morality, is as different from other branches of knowledge as its subject, morality, is different from other human activities:
| ... ethics, with its absolute exigency, has its own place superior to every other branch of philosophy. Its object is not humanity or some other finite nature, but eternal, unshakeable truths requiring unconditional respect and obedience. Such truths are independent of reasons extrinsic to themselves; the respect we owe them is based upon a simple, irrefutable, evident reason shining in them and impervious to exceptions, ignorance, contradiction and violence of any sort (2). |
The purpose of ethics, therefore, is in the first place to indicate a law that self-evidently imposes its obligation upon willed human actions. For Rosmini, this law is the ultimate expression to which all obligatory laws can be reduced, namely, 'acknowledge (recognise) what you know for what you know it to be'. Not to acknowledge what is known for what it is known to be is self-evidently contradictory and an interior lie. Such an action denies the known truth, sets the lying subject against the order of being, and overthrows the internal harmony of which the human subject is capable.
It is clear that this final expression of moral law is itself dependent solely upon the notion of being, which is present to the human mind that it forms. The innate light of the intellect becomes, from this point of view, the notion which we use to produce all moral judgments. As such this light is itself the first moral law. Relative to the light of being, the law states: 'In what you do, follow the light of reason'. The command is not concerned with reason in the first place, but with the light of reason. Only the light itself is objective and immune from error; reason, a subjective activity, can and does err.
Important consequences result from the relationship between morality and the first moral law and the light of being. Because the light of being is innate, human beings begin their existence rooted in morality and in potential moral obligation. This obligation may later be denied at the subjective level through refusal to acknowledge what is known for what it is, but it cannot be manipulated objectively: what is, cannot not be. In addition the law, which is common to all individuals irrespective of their race, sex, nation, culture or religion, binds everyone without exception.
Rosmini's clear distinction between the knowing subject and the known object opens a way between the present extremes of ethical theory. The limitation and mutability of the human subject provide for the possibility of moral error on the part of the subject; the necessity and immutability of the idea of being furnish morality with its undeniable sense of obligation. Obscuring this distinction has led on the one hand to theories of human autonomy in which attributes proper to the object have been predicated of the subject; and on the other, to theories of mutability in the moral law because attributes of the subject have been predicated about the object.
Moral good
That which is, is good, that is to say, it is desirable. But it may be desirable in itself according to its place in the whole economy of being or it may be desirable for me, the subject, because of the satisfaction it brings me when I possess it. In order to conform with the moral law, I must acknowledge things not in so far as they are good for me, the human subject, but in so far as they take their place in the order of being. In this way, I bring myself to harmonise with objective being as such; I do not bring being to harmonise with me, and thus set myself up as the arbiter of being. My final good, the moral good springing from the first moral law, comes about through the acknowledgement of what is. By this acknowledgement, I take my place willingly in the order of being. Acknowledging in practice what is for what I know it to be, I become one, by my own action, with all that is. As 'person', the human subject is the power for affirming the whole of being as the subject apprehends it (3).
Such practical acknowledgement does not and cannot depend upon our capacity for recognising the place of every individual entity in the order of being. But a distinction can and is made easily as we develop and come to see that a major difference exists between persons and things. This difference depends on what I come to know about myself first of all, and the things that surround me. Knowing what I am, I then come to know other persons as possessing the same grade of being as myself, and thus as worthy of the same respect as myself. In particular, I see that every person is to be treated as an end, not as a means. The innate dignity conferred on human beings by their very existence as intelligent beings becomes an absolute, inviolable right to be recognised wherever I find it.
What is said about human beings is a fortiori true of the Absolute which confers upon them the light of being. All moral good is found in the acknowledgement of the classes of intelligent beings at their level of relationship with Absolute Being; no moral good can be found outside the ranks of intelligent beings.
The practical acknowledgement of moral good
The practical acknowledgement of moral good depends upon an act of will by which we esteem beings for what they are. This esteem lies at the root of every other action that I posit relative to what I know. If, for example, I accept in practice my parents for what they are, I will be grateful for the life they have given me. I will esteem them as my lifegivers, irrespective of other relationships they may have with me. On the other hand, I may refuse to recognise in practice that another man or woman is my friend's husband/wife, and consider myself entitled to establish an intimate relationship with him or her. Through my esteem or lack of it, I engender within myself the act of love or hatred that turns me towards or against what I know. When I do this freely, I decide of my own accord to place myself in a moral or immoral state; I do good or I do evil.
Conscience (4)
'Conscience is a judgment by which we come to know the moral value of our action'. Rosmini's definition shows immediately the nature and place of conscience in the moral sphere. Conscience, although it may be occasioned by a feeling of guilt, is not itself a feeling, but a reflection upon the moral worth of our action or actions. As a reflection, conscience does not cause but evaluates the morality of what we have done or are about to do. Consequently, it is not and cannot be the fundamental source of morality in our lives. It is at most a secondary source and as such is itself subject to the first moral law. In other words, my evaluation of the moral worth of my actions must be governed by the need to recognise those actions for what they are. If I willingly blind myself to their morality or immorality by making a false judgment about them, my conscience itself is flawed and therefore immoral.
The clarity of such fundamental statements throws brilliant light upon moral problems connected with conscience. In particular it shows that conscience cannot be given an absolute place in morality. It is not correct to say that we must always follow our conscience. If the judgment by which conscience comes about is itself deliberately misleading and immoral, it cannot be a safe guide to the moral worth of my action: I end by telling myself that what is right is wrong, or that what is wrong is right. In either case I will be deceiving myself. Conscience is an adequate guide only when it informs me uprightly of the morality of an action by judging according to the objective order of being.
On the other hand, I cannot disregard the judgment of conscience by acting contrary to conscience. In this sense, conscience is a negative absolute and I may never act against it. The dilemma in such a case is resolved only by a decision to correct the conscience which, as false, always betrays itself through the inevitable unease provoked interiorly as conscience clashes with the light of being.
| There is a light in the human being, and a light that is the human being: the light in the human being is ... the law of truth; the light that is the human being is an upright conscience ... we become light when we share in the law of truth by means of an upright conscience in conformity with truth (5). |
Rosmini's definition of conscience opens the way to resolving other problems in this field. First, it allows us to see clearly that it is possible for morality and immorality to exist in the human subject irrespective of reflection. Although knowledge is indeed required by a subject for moral action, this knowledge is concerned essentially with the object I must acknowledge; it is not necessarily knowledge of my state as the person positing the moral action. In other words, morality is present in the subject by means of an act of will which acknowledges or recognises what is known directly without any reflection; only then can our conscience, that is, our judgment about the moral state resulting from our action, come into play.
Second, we can reject all pseudo-problems connected with what is erroneously called 'doubtful' conscience. Doubt about the morality of an action shows that in fact conscience has not yet been formed; in the case of doubt, our judgment remains suspended. Problems arise, but they are concerned with the formation of conscience, not with difficulties about whether we should follow conscience. In other words, we need to know how to reach conclusions of conscience in cases of doubt. Rosmini deals at length with the laws governing such matters.
Third, Rosmini's definition offers a platform from which to view the varying development of conscience in different people, at different ages in the same person, in nations at different stages of growth, and in the light provided by new problems arising from the advance of science and technology.
| . |
No modern teaching about morals ... can be accepted unless it is a legitimate conclusion from earlier principles as old as ... reason. The conclusion must be tied to these eternal principles ... What matters is the final connection with the irrefutable principles. Granted this connection, the conclusion, resulting from new circumstances, new positive laws, and new relationships discovered by the mind, can be as new as we wish. In short, it is drawn from a new level of reflection (6) |
Notes
(1). Cf. especially Principi della scienza morale [1831], EN, Milan, 1941, translated as Principles of Ethics, Durham 1988, and Storia comparativa e critica dei sistemi intorno al principio della Morale [1837], EN, Milan 1941.
(2). Preface to the works of moral philosophy, in PE, 9.
(3). Cf. The Essence of Right, 143, Durham 1993, vol. 1 of The Philosophy of Right (Filosofia del diritto, Intra 1865).
(4). Cf. especially Trattato della coscienza morale [1839], EN, 1954, translated under the title: Conscience, Durham 1990.
(5). Conscience, 427.
(6). Conscience, 213.