[p. 229]
|229| right the disposition to respect right for the sake of right. Morality itself demands that right be observed first, and where it ceases, moral determinations enter.
In order that an action have moral worth, insight is necessary as to whether it is right or wrong, good or evil. What is called the innocence of children or of uncivilised nations is not yet morality. Children or such nations refrain from a multitude of evil actions, because they have as yet no representation of them, because in general the relations under which alone such actions become possible are not yet present; such refraining from evil actions has no moral worth. They also do, however, actions that are in accordance with morality and are nevertheless not precisely moral on that account, in so far as they have no insight into the nature of the action, whether it is good or evil.
Opposed to one’s own conviction is mere belief on the authority of others. If my action is to have moral worth, then my conviction must be bound up with it. The action must in the whole sense be my own. If, however, I act on the authority of others, it is not wholly my own; a foreign conviction acts out of me.
There are, however, also relations in which it is the moral side to act precisely out of obedience and according to the authority of others. Originally the human being follows his natural inclinations without deliberation, or with reflections that are still one-sided, distorted and incorrect, themselves standing under the dominion of sensuousness. In this condition he must learn to obey, because his will is not yet the rational one. Through this obeying the negative comes about, that he learns to renounce sensuous desire, and only through this obedience does the human being arrive at independence. He follows in this sphere always an other, just as much when he obeys his own will, which is on the whole still sensuous, as when he obeys the will of another.
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