Humanism - Kant, Comte, Feuerbach and Russell

Epicurean Focus

By the nineteenth century many educated Europeans had given up belief in the Christian God, but very few were willing to give up Christian morality. The four writers below show how the gap was filled. Kant grounded duty and human dignity on reason alone. Comte made Humanity the object of a new worship. Feuerbach declared that God had always been man’s own nature. Russell accepted a world of atoms with no life after death, and built on it a “temple” of ideals. Each excerpt has its own link target and a link to the printed page.

Kant: Dignity, Duty and the Rejection of Happiness

Kant supplied modern Humanism with its two key ideas. The first is that humanity must always be treated “as an end withal, never as means only.” The second is that human beings have a “dignity,” a worth “above all value” that “admits of no equivalent.” Both rest on a view of reason that Epicurus rejected. Reason, Kant says, was given to us for “a different and far nobler end” than happiness. Feelings “cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil,” and “The majesty of duty has nothing to do with enjoyment of life.” Kant names Epicurus as the author of the opposite error: the Epicureans chose “a wholly false” principle, happiness, and put “a maxim of arbitrary choice according to every man’s inclination” in place of a law.

For Epicurus the feelings of pleasure and pain are the standard by which every good is judged (DL X.129). There is no worth “above all value.” Every good is weighed against other goods “by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages” (DL X.130).

Comte: The Religion of Humanity

Comte’s Positivism claimed to rest on science alone, but it ended in a religion with Humanity as “the only true Great Being,” to which “every aspect of our life, individual or collective” is to be directed. “The calculations of self-interest can never be substituted” for “the sympathetic instincts.” Comte’s motto was “Live for Others.” Epicurus valued friendship above almost everything, but as a bond among particular people for their mutual pleasure and security, not as service to an abstract Great Being.

Feuerbach: Man Made Sacred

Feuerbach argued that “the consciousness of God is nothing else than the consciousness of the species.” He did not conclude that nothing is sacred. He moved the sacred from God to man: “Homo homini Deus est,” man is a god to man, and “Let friendship be sacred to thee, property sacred, marriage sacred.” George Eliot translated this book in 1854. Nietzsche’s remark that the English “are rid of the Christian God and therefore think it all the more incumbent upon them to hold tight to Christian morality” was aimed at her.

Russell: Atoms and Despair

Russell accepted that man’s life is “the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms” and that nothing “can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.” These are Epicurean conclusions. But where Lucretius found in them freedom from fear, Russell found “unyielding despair,” and he answered it with worship: “to worship only the God created by our own love of the good.” The way to the “temple” of ideals runs through a cavern where “Self must die” and desire is “slain.” Fifteen years later Russell admitted that he was “less convinced” of “the objectivity of good and evil,” which is the characteristic Humanist uncertainty about first principles.

Contents

• Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)
  • Reason Is Not Meant for Happiness
  • Humanity as an End in Itself
  • Value and Dignity
  • Against Happiness and Feeling as the Standard
  • A Wholly False Principle
  • The Majesty of Duty
• Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism (1848)
  • Love, Order and Progress
  • Humanity, the Great Being
  • Live for Others
• Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (1841)
  • The Secret of Theology Is Anthropology
  • Man Is a God to Man
• Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship” (1903)
  • Unyielding Despair
  • The Worship of Goodness
  • There Self Must Die
  • Russell’s Later Doubt

The Passages

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

Reason Is Not Meant for Happiness

Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, First Section (tr. T. K. Abbott) · pp. 11–12

And this we must admit, that the judgement of those who would very much lower the lofty eulogies of the advantages which reason gives us in regard to the happiness and satisfaction of life, or who would even reduce them below zero, is by no means morose or ungrateful to the goodness with which the world is governed, but that there lies at the root of these judgements the idea that our existence has a different and far nobler end, for which, and not for happiness, reason is properly intended, and which must, therefore, be regarded as the supreme condition to which the private ends of man must, for the most part, be postponed.

Humanity as an End in Itself

Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Second Section (tr. T. K. Abbott) · p. 47

The foundation of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself. Man necessarily conceives his own existence as being so; so far then this is a subjective principle of human actions. But every other rational being regards its existence similarly, just on the same rational principle that holds for me: so that it is at the same time an objective principle, from which as a supreme practical law all laws of the will must be capable of being deduced. Accordingly the practical imperative will be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.

Value and Dignity

Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Second Section (tr. T. K. Abbott) · p. 53

In the kingdom of ends everything has either value or dignity. Whatever has a value can be replaced by something else which is equivalent; whatever, on the other hand, is above all value, and therefore admits of no equivalent, has a dignity.

Whatever has reference to the general inclinations and wants of mankind has a market value; whatever, without presupposing a want, corresponds to a certain taste, that is to a satisfaction in the mere purposeless play of our faculties, has a fancy value; but that which constitutes the condition under which alone anything can be an end in itself, this has not merely a relative worth, i.e., value, but an intrinsic worth, that is, dignity.

Against Happiness and Feeling as the Standard

Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Second Section (tr. T. K. Abbott) · p. 61

The principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable, not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct, nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment of morality- since it is quite a different thing to make a prosperous man and a good man, or to make one prudent and sharp-sighted for his own interests and to make him virtuous- but because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives to virtue and to vice in the same class and only teach us to make a better calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice being entirely extinguished. […] feelings, which naturally differ infinitely in degree, cannot furnish a uniform standard of good and evil, nor has anyone a right to form judgements for others by his own feelings […]

”A Wholly False” Principle

Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (tr. T. K. Abbott), Book II, Chapter II · p. 223

The Epicureans had indeed assumed as the supreme principle of morality a wholly false one, namely that of happiness, and had substituted for a law a maxim of arbitrary choice according to every man’s inclination; they proceeded, however, consistently enough in this, that they degraded their summum bonum likewise, just in proportion to the meanness of their fundamental principle, and looked for no greater happiness than can be attained by human prudence (including temperance and moderation of the inclinations), and this as we know would be scanty enough and would be very different according to circumstances; not to mention the exceptions that their maxims must perpetually admit and which make them incapable of being laws.

The Majesty of Duty

Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (tr. T. K. Abbott), Book I, Chapter III · p. 182

The majesty of duty has nothing to do with enjoyment of life; it has its special law and its special tribunal, and though the two should be never so well shaken together to be given well mixed, like medicine, to the sick soul, yet they will soon separate of themselves; and if they do not, the former will not act; and although physical life might gain somewhat in force, the moral life would fade away irrecoverably.

Auguste Comte, A General View of Positivism (1848)

Love, Order and Progress

Comte, A General View of Positivism, Conclusion: “The Religion of Humanity” (tr. J. H. Bridges) · p. 354

Love, then, is our principle; Order our basis; and Progress our end. Such, as the preceding chapters have shown, is the essential character of the system of life which Positivism offers for the definite acceptance of society; a system which regulates the whole course of our private and public existence, by bringing Feeling, Reason, and Activity into permanent harmony. In this final synthesis, all essential conditions are far more perfectly fulfilled than in any other. Each special element of our nature is more fully developed, and at the same time the general working of the whole is more coherent. Greater distinctness is given to the truth that the affective element predominates in our nature. Life in all its actions and thoughts is brought under the control and inspiring charm of Social Sympathy.

Humanity, the Great Being

Comte, A General View of Positivism, Conclusion: “The Religion of Humanity” (tr. J. H. Bridges) · pp. 363–364

This central point of Positivism is even more moral than intellectual in character: it represents the principle of Love upon which the whole system rests. It is the peculiar characteristic of the Great Being who is here set forth, to be compounded of separable elements. Its existence depends therefore entirely upon mutual Love knitting together its various parts. The calculations of self-interest can never be substituted as a combining influence for the sympathetic instincts.

[…]

Thus, in the conception of Humanity, the three essential aspects of Positivism, its subjective principle, its objective dogma, and its practical object, are united. Towards Humanity, who is for us the only true Great Being, we, the conscious elements of whom she is composed, shall henceforth direct every aspect of our life, individual or collective. Our thoughts will be devoted to the knowledge of Humanity, our affections to her love, our actions to her service.

Positivists then may, more truly than theological believers of whatever creed, regard life as a continuous and earnest act of worship; worship which will elevate and purify our feelings, enlarge and enlighten our thoughts, ennoble and invigorate our actions.

”Live for Others”

Comte designs the flag of the future Western republic.

Comte, A General View of Positivism, Conclusion (tr. J. H. Bridges) · p. 430

The principal motto of Positivism will, in this case, be divided into two, both alike significant. One side of the flag will have the political and scientific motto, Order and Progress: the other, the moral and esthetic motto, Live for Others. The first will be preferred by men; the other is more especially adapted to women, who are thus invited to participate in these public manifestations of social feeling.

Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (1841)

The Secret of Theology Is Anthropology

Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, Chapter XXVII (tr. Marian Evans [George Eliot], 1854) · p. 267

We have shown that the substance and object of religion is altogether human; we have shown that divine wisdom is human wisdom; that the secret of theology is anthropology; that the absolute mind is the so-called finite subjective mind. But religion is not conscious that its elements are human; on the contrary, it places itself in opposition to the human, or at least it does not admit that its elements are human. The necessary turning-point of history is therefore the open confession, that the consciousness of God is nothing else than the consciousness of the species; that man can and should raise himself only above the limits of his individuality, and not above the laws, the positive essential conditions of his species; that there is no other essence which man can think, dream of, imagine, feel, believe in, wish for, love and adore as the absolute, than the essence of human nature itself.

”Man Is a God to Man”

Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity, Chapter XXVII (tr. Marian Evans [George Eliot], 1854) · p. 268

If human nature is the highest nature to man, then practically also the highest and first law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus est:—this is the great practical principle:—this is the axis on which revolves the history of the world.

[…]

Let friendship be sacred to thee, property sacred, marriage sacred,—sacred the well-being of every man; but let them be sacred in and by themselves.

Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship” (1903)

“Unyielding Despair”

Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918) · pp. 46–47

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.

The Worship of Goodness

Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918) · p. 49

The worship of Force, to which Carlyle and Nietzsche and the creed of Militarism have accustomed us, is the result of failure to maintain our own ideals against a hostile universe: it is itself a prostrate submission to evil, a sacrifice of our best to Moloch. If strength indeed is to be respected, let us respect rather the strength of those who refuse that false “recognition of facts” which fails to recognise that facts are often bad. Let us admit that, in the world we know, there are many things that would be better otherwise, and that the ideals to which we do and must adhere are not realised in the realm of matter. Let us preserve our respect for truth, for beauty, for the ideal of perfection which life does not permit us to attain, though none of these things meet with the approval of the unconscious universe. If Power is bad, as it seems to be, let us reject it from our hearts. In this lies Man’s true freedom: in determination to worship only the God created by our own love of the good, to respect only the heaven which inspires the insight of our best moments. In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in aspiration, we are free, free from our fellow-men, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even, while we live, from the tyranny of death.

”There Self Must Die”

Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918) · pp. 51–52

Except for those rare spirits that are born without sin, there is a cavern of darkness to be traversed before that temple can be entered. The gate of the cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the gravestones of abandoned hopes. There Self must die; there the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from the empire of Fate.

Russell’s Later Doubt

Russell, Preface to Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918) · scan

In theoretical Ethics, the position advocated in “The Free Man’s Worship” is not quite identical with that which I hold now: I feel less convinced than I did then of the objectivity of good and evil.

About These Translations

• Kant: Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, 5th edition (London: Longmans, Green, 1898), which includes the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Scan. Texts from Project Gutenberg (Fundamental Principles; Critique of Practical Reason).
• Comte: A General View of Positivism, translated by J. H. Bridges (1865), new edition with an introduction by Frederic Harrison (London: Routledge, 1908). Scan. Text from Project Gutenberg.
• Feuerbach: The Essence of Christianity, translated from the second German edition by Marian Evans [George Eliot] (London: John Chapman, 1854). Scan. Text from Project Gutenberg (the 1881 reprint of the 1854 translation).
• Russell: “A Free Man’s Worship” (first published in the Independent Review, 1903), in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (London: Longmans, Green, 1918). Scan. Text from Project Gutenberg.