Abstract
The rigorous employment of his empirical method led Bergson to the discovery that there are two distinct and irreducible moralities in the life of man — the closed or static, and the open or dynamic These two are not merely different aspects of a single morality since there is a difference of kind between them and not merely one of degree. Bergson traced each of the two moralities to a separate cause: the closed morality to social pressure, the open morality to aspiration. He found the first to be rooted in instinct and habit, and the second in the experience of moral heroes and mystics. Human beings behave as they do morally (I) because nature, acting through society, constrains them to do so, and (2) because certain heroic souls have had visions of a spiritual destiny for man and have inspired them with these visions. Social pressure and aspiration — these are the facts that must be taken into account in any inquiry into the nature and evolution of morality.
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References
The Two Sources, p. 55 (O. 1029).
Ibid., p. 14 (O. 992). In criticizing the moral philosophies of the past Bergson ignores the significant differences existing between them with respect to the role played by intellect. He seems to lump together and reject all moral theories from the Greek period on since all of them represent in his opinion an excessive intellectualism. See ibid., pp. 13–14. 56–57, 80–87 (O. 992–93. 1029–30, 1050–57).
Ibid., p. 15 (O. 994).
Ibid., D. 15 (O. 994).
Ibid., D. 16 (O. 994–95): “We find in primitive races many prohibitions and prescriptions explicable at most by vague associations of ideas, by superstition, by automatism. Nor are they without their use, since the obedience of everyone to laws, even absurd ones, assures greater cohesion to the community. But in that case the usefulness of the rule accrues, by a kind of reverse action, solely from the fact of our submission to it. Prescriptions or prohibitions which are intrinsically useful are those that are explicitly designed for the preservation or well-being of society.”
Ibid., p. 16 (O. 994–95).
Ibid., pp. 17–18 (O. 995). Bergson draws attention to the fact that his use of the term “categorical imperative” bears little resemblance to that of Kant who defined the categorical imperative as a command of reason necessarily obligating the will, and obligation as the necessity of a free action when viewed in relation to the categorical imperative of reason. See Immanuel Kant, General Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals, IV, “General Preliminary Conceptions Defined and Explained,” (Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler, published by Encyclopaedia Brittannica, Inc., Chicago, 1952 ). vol. 42, pp. 390–94; also Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, section III, “How is a categorical imperative possible?” Ibid., pp. 282–83; and Critique of Practical Reason, Part I, Book I, Chapter I, ibid., pp. 297–98.
Ibid.. p. i8 (O. 996).
Ibid., pp. 49–60 (O. 1032–33).
Ibid., pp. 83–84 (O. 1053–54). See also p. iii (O. 1077–78).
Ibid., p. 84 (O. 1054).
Ibid., D. 85 (O. 2054 ).
Ibid., D. 85 (O. 2054 ).
Ibid., D. 151 (O. 1112 ).
Ibid.. D. 85 (O. 2055 ).
Ibid.. p. 151 (O. 1112).
Ibid., p. 112 (O. 1078).
Ibid., p. 154 (O. i ii5).
See ibid., pp. 109–97 (O. 1076–1152) for an extended discussion of the various myths and their purposes.
Ibid., pp. III-112 (O. 2078).
Ibid., p. 121 (O. 2086).
Ibid., D. 194 (O. 1150 ).
Ibid., pp. 31–32 (O. ioo8).
Ibid., p. 35 (O. I o t t).
Ibid.; “In the first case the emotion is the consequence of an idea, or of a mental picture; the `feeling’ is indeed the result of an intellectual state which owes nothing to it, which is self-sufficient, and which, if it does experience a certain reaction from the feeling, loses more than it gains.”
Ibid p. 35 (O. 1012).
Ibid., p. 39 (O. 1015).
Ibid., p. 39 (O. 1015).
Ibid., p. 40 (O. 1016).
Ibid., p. 40 (O. (o16).
Ibid., 013. 40–41 (O. 1016).
Ibid., pp. 52–55 (O. ioz5–28). It was not Socrates, the founder of moral science, who was the moral hero, but Socrates bouleversant les âmes par sa vie et par sa mort.’ See Henri Gouhier, Bergson et le Christ des Évangiles, p. 337.
Ibid., p. 55 (O. 3029).
Ibid., pp. 52–54 (O. 3026–27).
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Gallagher, I.J. (1970). The Rationality of Morality. In: Morality in Evolution. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7573-7_7
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