Chapter 28 (b) Legislative rationality

The essence of spirit, in its simple existence, is pure consciousness and a certain sense of self.The original specific nature of the individual has lost its positive significance, is no longer potentially the element and end of individual activity; it is only a sublated moment, and the individual is a self (Selbst), a universal self.Conversely, the formal thing itself finds its full realization in the acting self-differentiated individuality; for the differences of this individuality constitute the content of the universal self.The category is in itself, because it is the universal of pure consciousness; it is for itself, because the ego of consciousness is likewise its moment.The category is absolute being, because its universality is the simple self-identity of being.

Thus, whatever is an object for consciousness means the real, which exists and is valid, in the sense that it exists and is valid in and for itself; it is an absolute thing. , which is no longer bewildered by the oppositions of certainty and its truth, of the universal and the particular, of purpose and its reality, etc., its actual existence is the reality and action of self-consciousness; thus this thing is the ethical substance; The consciousness of this matter is the consciousness of ethics.For ethical consciousness, its object is likewise real, because it unites self-consciousness and being in a unity; it becomes absolute, because self-consciousness cannot and does not want to go beyond this object. , for in the object self-consciousness is in itself.Self-consciousness cannot because the object is all beings and all powers; it does not want to because the object is the ego, or the will of the ego, and the object is the real object in itself as object, because it contains The distinction of consciousness; it divides itself into groups which are definite laws of the Absolute Essence.But these groups do not obscure the concept, because the moments of being, pure consciousness, and the self continue to be contained in the concept-the concept is a unity, which constitutes the essence of these groups, and in this distinction Don't let these links be separated again.

These laws or groups of ethical entities are immediately recognized; one cannot question their origin and justification, nor can one seek another origin and justification, for a different kind exists in itself and for itself. What is the essence of nature can only be self-consciousness itself; but self-consciousness is nothing but this essence, because it is itself the being-for-itself of this essence, and this being-for-itself is truth precisely because it is the self-consciousness. Again the in-itself or pure consciousness of consciousness. Since self-consciousness knows itself to be the moment of this entity's being-for-itself, it expresses the actual existence of laws in itself as: healthy reason knows directly what is right and what is good.Healthy rationality is knowing the law directly, and the law is also directly valid for healthy rationality. Reason directly says: This is right and good.And what it emphatically says is: this;

This refers to those particular laws, this refers to the thing itself that is full of content. What is thus directly given must be received and examined equally directly.With regard to the sensuous certainty, we have examined the nature of what it directly expresses as beings; now, with respect to this ethical certainty, it is also necessary to examine the existence it directly expresses, that is, the immediate existence of the ethical entity. What is the nature of each group.In order to understand this, we need only analyze a few examples of such laws.As to the necessary moments for them to be immediate moral laws, since we admit that they are the precepts which healthy reason knows for itself, we need not discuss them here first.

"Everyone should tell the truth."—In this unconditionally declared obligation, we must immediately admit the condition: if the person knows what the truth is.So the commandment now reads: "Every man should speak the truth according to his knowledge and confidence in the truth at the time".Healthy reason, that is, this ethical consciousness, knowing immediately what is right and what is good, will declare that this condition is inherently bound up with its universal law, and that the commandment it has in mind In fact, it has always been like what I said later. But in doing so, it would rather admit in fact that it had directly broken the commandment when it proclaimed it; it said that everyone should tell the truth; but it had in mind that everyone He should speak the truth according to his knowledge and confidence in the truth; that is, he speaks differently from what he thinks; and speaking differently from what he thinks is called not telling the truth.This false or stupid statement should be improved, and now it has to be said as follows: Everyone should speak the truth according to his knowledge and confidence in the truth at that time. —But in this way, that which the proposition intends to express is valid in itself, the universal necessity, is transformed into a pure accident.For whether I speak the truth or not depends entirely on the accidental fact of whether I have knowledge of the truth and whether I can believe it beyond doubt; Whether it is unclear, true or false depends on the person's knowledge, perception and understanding of it.This contingency in content is universal only in the form of the proposition which expresses contingent content; but, as an ethical precept, a proposition must have a universal and necessary content, and because of the contingency of its content it is therefore contradicts itself. ——Finally, if we improve the proposition again: remove the two contingency conditions of knowledge and confidence from the proposition, and add words such as those who tell the truth should know it to be true; It has become a commandment that directly contradicts the original starting point.To say that healthy reason should first be able to tell the truth directly, but now to say that healthy reason should know the truth is to say that it cannot tell the truth directly. ——If we look at the content, then the content has been left out in the requirement "one should know the truth"; because the knowing in the truth is the general knowledge: one should know; therefore what is required here, Rather, it is something freed from all determinate content with which we were discussing a definite content, a difference in ethical substance.But this immediate determination of the ethical substance is a content which is originally purely accidental, but when we elevate it to universality and necessity, that is, when we base it on knowledge [knowledge of content] ] came to create the law, it had rather disappeared altogether.

Another well-known commandment is "Love your neighbor as yourself."This commandment is addressed to the individual in relation to another, and this relationship is understood as an individual to individual relationship, or an emotional relationship.A love that does something—for a love that does nothing does not exist, and therefore is not here in question—is nothing but to reduce man's pain and increase his comfort.For this it is necessary to discern what is his pain, what is its opposite, his comfort, and what is his general well-being; that is to say, I must love him rationally; irrational love Perhaps more harmful to him than hate.But the intellectual, essential good, in its richest and most important form, is the intelligent general good of the state; compared with this general action of the state, the individual action of an individual man is nothing at all. It's so small, so insignificant.However, the actions of the state are extremely powerful. Once an individual's actions conflict with it, whether it is outright violation of the law and discipline because of his own greed, or thinking about the universality of legal power in order to favor someone and the duty imposed on that person by the right to deceive, the action must be useless and irresistibly destroyed by it.Therefore, all good deeds belonging to emotional relations still have only the meaning of a purely individual action or a temporary assistance, which is both accidental and temporary.Not only the timing of this good deed depends on chance, but also whether this good deed is a cause, and whether it does not immediately return to dissolution or even become too evil, also depends on chance.Thus this act of benefit to others, though said to be necessary, is in fact: it may be possible, but just as likely not; and if it happens by chance, it may be a cause, it may be good , but again maybe not.This law is therefore not as universal in content as the first article discussed above, nor does it express a thing-for-itself, as an absolute moral law should do.Or to put it another way, such a law rests on the ought, not the reality; they are not laws, but mere commandments or precepts.

In fact, however, the very nature of the matter makes it evident that we must renounce its claim to a universal and absolute content.For a simple substance--which is precisely the essence of being simple--no determinateness imposed on it is suitable.The law itself, in its simple absoluteness, expresses an immediate ethical existence; the difference present in this existence is a determination and therefore a content; but this content is concealed in this underlying the absolute universality of simple existence.And since we have to renounce all absolute content, all that the precept can have is formal universality, that is, it is only incompatible with itself, since universality without content is universality of form, and An absolute content is equal to a difference without difference, or to no content.

After all the content has been taken away, there remains nothing but the pure form of the universal, or conscious tautology, to create the law.The tautology of consciousness is opposed to the content, it is a kind of knowing, but not knowing the existing or real content, but only knowing the essence of the content or the self-identity of the content. Therefore, the essence of ethics itself is not directly a kind of content, but only a measure, which judges whether a kind of content can become a law or law according to whether it is self-contradictory.The reason that creates laws then descends to a reason that merely examines laws.