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121

The universal quality of the action is the manifold content of the action in general, reduced to the simple form of universality. But the subject, as reflected into itself, and hence particular as against the objective particularity, has, in its purpose, its own particular content, which is the determining soul of the action. That this moment of the agent’s particularity is contained and carried out in the action constitutes subjective freedom in its more concrete determination — the right of the subject to find its satisfaction in the action.

DE

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  1. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    I, for myself, reflected into myself, am still something particular as against the externality of my action. My purpose constitutes the determining content of the latter. Murder and arson, for example, are as universals not yet the positive content of me, as the subject. If someone has committed a crime of this kind, one asks why he committed it. It did not happen for the sake of murder as such, but rather there was also present a particular positive purpose. If we were to say, however, that the murder occurred out of a lust for murder, then this lust would already be the positive content of the subject as such, and the deed is then the satisfaction of its own willing. The motive of a deed is thus, more precisely, what is called the moral [element], and this accordingly has the twofold sense of the universal in intent and of the particular in purpose. In more recent times it has come about above all that in the case of actions one always asks about the motives, whereas formerly one merely asked: is this man upright? does he do what his duty is? Now one wants to look into the heart, and in doing so presupposes a rupture between the objective [side] of actions and the inner, subjective [side] of motives. To be sure, the determination of the subject is to be considered: it wills something that is grounded in itself; it wills to satisfy its pleasure, to give satisfaction to its passion. But the good and the right is likewise such a content, not merely natural, but posited through my rationality; my freedom, made into the content of my will, is a pure determination of my freedom itself. The higher moral standpoint is therefore to find satisfaction in the action itself, and not to remain fixed at the rupture between the self-consciousness of the human being and the objectivity of the deed – a mode of conception which, however, has its epochs both in world history and in the history of individuals.

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