The Phenomenology
| Author | Judith N. Shklar |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297402700404 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
597
THE
PHENOMENOLOGY:
BEYOND
MORALITY
JUDITH
N.
SHKLAR
Harvard
University
ROM
his
earliest
to
his
last
years
Hegel
looked
upon
Kant’s moral
philosophy
as
&dquo;the
autocracy
of
the
subjective.&dquo;’
Both
terms
of
this
indictment
are
im-
portant.
The
Kantian
moral
law
is
seen
as
both
too
repressive
and
too
private.
Its
rigor
sets
it
apart
from
all
the
less
rational
forms
of
moral
individual-
ism.
These
might
be
self-centered
and
self-deluding,
but
not
oppressive.
That
is
why
they
must
be
summoned
to
social
order.
The
discussion
of
Kant,
however,
ends
with
a
plea
for
tolerance.
Nevertheless,
though
there
is
some
unfairness
and
much
severity
in
Hegel’s
criticisms
of
Kant,
he
never
heaped
upon
him
the
con-
tempt
with
which
he
treated
the
great
man’s
various
self-appointed
disciples.2
2
Deplorable
as
much
of
Kant’s
practical
philosophy
might
be,
it
was
clearly
not
a
trivial
episode
in
our
moral
history.
On
the
contrary,
it
was
the
most
important
of the
phenomena
of
the
human
spirit.
It
was
also
the
spirit
of
the
age.
THE
VAGARIES
OF
DISSOCIATED
REASON
In
the
Phenomenology
Kant
is
mentioned
by
name
only
rarely,
although
there
are
many
references
to
specific,
and
often
familiar,
passages
from
his
work.
In
keeping
with
its
entire
design
it
presents
a
general
state
of
mind,
an
outlook,
rather
than
an
account
of
a
discrete
system
of
thought.
&dquo;The
moral
point
of
view&dquo;
is
a
&dquo;Kantism,&dquo;
not
directly
Kant’s
ideas.
It
includes
the
psychological
implica-
tions,
the
possible
tendencies
and
the
known
effects,
not
only
the
original
argu-
ments.
The
boldness
of
Hegel’s
enterprise
emerges
from
this
approach.
It
allowed
him
to
represent
Kant
as
the
final
culmination
of
a
moral
attitude
that
had
Socrates
as
its
author.
It
also
reveals
that
Hegel’s
real
quarrel
was
with
the
entire
tradition
of
morality
that
had
turned
away
from
ethics
to
an
inner
voice,
that
had
separated
reason
from
and
raised
it
above
the
passions
and
that,
finally,
renounced
action
in
favor
of
the
contemplative
life.
This
tradition
was
far
too
well
established
to
be
simply
rejected,
but
it
might
be
modified.
Hegel
put
his
mind
to
that
task,
partly
because
he
thought
this
morality
to
be
asocial
and
partly
because
he
saw
it
as
a
source
of
individual
hypocrisy
and
needless
misery.
With
this
in
mind
it
is
not
surprising
to
find
that
Kantian
moralism
appears
in
two
places
in
the
Phenomenology,
just
before
the
drama
of
Athens’
ethical
spirit
and
right
after
the
farce
of
the
French
Revolution.
The
reader
is
made
to
see
it
as
a
social
debacle.3
Yet
though
Hegel
was
never
effusive
in
those
tributes
to
Kant
that
honesty
seemed
to
wring
from
him,
he
never
wavered
in
his
recognition
of
NOTE:
In
these
footnotes
B.
refers
to
The
Phenomenology
of
the
Spirit,
J.
B.
Baillie
(Lon-
don :
Allen
&
Unwin,
1949) ;
H.
to
Phänomenologie
des
Geistes,
ed.
J.
Hoffmeister
(Hamburg:
Felix
Meiner,
1952).
1
"The
Spirit
of
Christianity
and
its
Fate,"
Early
Theological
Writings,
ed.
and
tr.
T.
M.
Knox
and
R.
Kroner
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1948),
p.
211.
2
B.
107;
H.
41.
3
B.
479-80;
H.
328-29.
598
the
necessity
of
this
morality.
It
was
the
only
outlook
conceivable
in
the
age
of
the
French
Revolution
and
more
generally,
its
doctrines
of
autonomy
and
personal
duty
had
to
be
realized
fully
if
mankind
was
to
rise
to
perfect
self-knowledge.4
4
Unless
it is
recognized
that
men
as
men
are
free
and
that
they
must
be
seen
as
such
in
their
ability
to
choose
or
reject
their
duties,
it
would
be
impossible
even
to
imagine
a
world
in
which
mankind
understood
its
own
development
and
freely
accepted
the
limits
and
necessities
that
were
implicit,
for
each
one,
in
it.
One
must
be
free
first
in
order
to
know
what
freedom
is
and
is
not.
The
inadequacy
of
the
moral
point
of
view
is
in
just
this,
that
its
view
of
freedom
is
erroneous,
because
like
the
crudest
egotism,
it
has
no
sense
of
man
as
a
social
being.
As
such
it
severs
the
individual
from
the actual
structure
of
his
moral
being.
The
earliest
and
most
common
form
of
moral
rationalism
is
hardly
peculiar
to
Kant.
It
emerged
as
soon
as
the
&dquo;natural&dquo;
ethical
order
dissolved
and
reason
began
to
build
its
empire
in
&dquo;a
plurality
of
separate
points,&dquo;
in
each
individual
5
If
Socrates
presided
over
this
dissolution
of
the
old
spontaneous,
and
therefore
still
unconscious,
ethical
order,
it
is
in
Roman
Stoicism
that
we
really
see
the
out-
come.
The
new
morality
is
one
that
holds
right
and
wrong
to
be
self-evident
truths.
That
was
Cicero’s
message
no
less
than
that
of
all
those
modern
philosophers
who
took
their
cue
from
healthy
common
sense.6
Now
Hegel
had
no
objections
at
all
to
the
sort
of
common
sense
that
simply
accepts
the
prevailing
conventions
without
much
ado.
What
he
did
find
objectionable
was
that
this
common
sense,
a
mere
intuitive
certainty,
had
been
presented
as
the
best
master
of
philosophy.
Since
Cicero’s
day
there
were
always
pseudo-philosophers
who
confused
common
sense
with
reason.
Such
thinkers
are
ever
ready
to
demonstrate
to
any
sane
person
what
is
universally
right
and
wrong
on
all
occasions.7
All
mistook
it
for
a
self-legislating,
rational
faculty,
capable
by
the
use
of
simple
logic
of
deriving
specific
rules
from
a
set
of
universal
laws
that
were
simply
obvious.
Rules
of
conduct
were
thus
only
a
matter
of
elementary
arithmetic
-
and
as
Hegel
was
quick
to
observe,
just
as
tautological.
Two
plus
two
is
four,
and
you
ought
to
do
what
you
ought
to
do.
It
is
certain,
edifying
and
convincing,
since
both
sides
of
the
equation
are
identical.
It
is
a
pointless
exercise
that
hides
the
actual
sources
of
human
laws.
You
ought
to
give
a
man
his
due,
but
due
is
only
what
you
ought
to
give
him.
What
that
involves
actually
can
only
be
determined
by
specific,
recognized
standards.
Their
rationality
is
social
and
not
mathematically
self-evident
at
all.
Hegel
saw,
in
short,
what
Bentham
also
had
noticed
in
observing
the
Americans:
all
measures
seemed
4
B.
609-10,
613-14;
H.
421-24.
Moral
individualism
was
an
eccentricity
on
Socrates’
part.
Now
it
is
"part
and
parcel
of
the
self-consciousness
of
everyone,"
but
historical
timeli-
ness
is
not
all.
Kant’s
philosophy
of
duty
has
"a
loftiness
of
outlook"
that
gives
it
a
merit
in
its
own
right.
Philosophy
of
Right,
tr.
T.
M. Knox
(Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1942),
274,
254
(Addition
to
§ 274
and
133) ;
Lectures
on
the
History
of
Philosophy,
ed.
and
tr.
E.
S.
Haldane
and
F.
H.
Simpson
(London:
Routledge
and
Kegan
Paul,
1894),
III,
458.
5
B.
498-99:
H.
342.
6
Cicero’s
most
obvious
modern
heirs
were
Kant’s
Scottish
contemporaries
who
also
took
their
cue
from
healthy
common
sense.
Lectures
on
the
History
of
Philosophy,
I,
92-93,
II,
257-76;
III,
361-63,
375-79.
7
B.
441-45;
H.
302-6.
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