Conscience and Awareness By Timo Schmitz, Philosopher Conscience and awareness always played a role in human history, mostly through religion, mythology, fairytales or aphorisms. A new side and especially a philosophical aspect of modern times concerning conscience and awareness arised with Immanuel Kant who taught to use rationality ( Vernunft ) and reason ( Verstand ). He thought that it s comfortable for human-beings not to think and not to question, but therefore being domineered is his own fault ( selbstverschuldete Unmündigkeit ) as long as he does not start to think and make a change. One of the most important German philosophers, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, argued that Kant didn t finish his thesis and therefore modeled rationality in a new way, creating absolute idealism ( Absoluter Idealismus ). He arised the question: Ist ein so verstandener Gegenstand wirklich ein Objekt? 1 2 Hegel stated that Kant s ideas is only a subjective Idealism, that does not engage with content, denn wenn es nach einem alten Glauben der Menschen die Bestimmung des Geistes sei, die Wahrheit zu wissen, so liege darin weiter dieses, daß die Gegenstände, die äußere und innere Natur, überhaupt das Objektive, was es an sich ist, so sei, wie es als Gedachtes ist, daß also das Denken die Wahrheit der Gegenstände sei. 3 4 Hegel therefore analyses Thinking ( Denken ), Being ( Sein ) and Truth ( Wahrheit ) and comes to the conclusion that Denken, Sein, Wahrheit ist alles identisch mit dem Geist. Darum [ ] ist alles Vernünftige wirklich und alles Wirkliche vernünftig. 5 6 Hegel s core statement is the Contradiction of Dialectic. This famous thesis consists of thesis antithesis synthesis. To explain it in short, if there is a thesis, then there will also be an antithesis. Thesis and antithesis are contradictory, but they have to find an accord to live together which will lead to a synthesis. The synthesis is a higher state and at the same time a new thesis. Let s imagine it like this: I make a statement, therefore I give a thesis. You also make a statement to it, so we have an antithesis. This will lead to a higher state, since thesis and antitheses must find a way together (the synthesis). The synthesis however is a new thesis to which somebody else can give an antithesis. This means that the world is always renewing. Something can exist ( the thesis ), as long as it s not contradictory. As soon as a contradiction appears ( the antithesis ), there will be the need for a change ( the synthesis ). If a monarch says that his reign is absolute ( the thesis ), it will only work until no one disagrees with him. As soon as his subject says we want freedom ( the antithesis ), the status quo can t be preserved. A synthesis could be a constitutional monarchy, where the king
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 3) -2- still exists, but where he has to obey laws. Just as an example! I think the basic concept is clear now. Since the world always tries to get into a higher state and people always move on for harmony, everything that is real must be reasonable. In theory this would mean, a monarchy that is real would be reasonable, because the people accept their fate. But if the people goes on the streets to fight for freedom, then it s also reasonable, since the people realized that the old status is not reasonable anymore and go for a change to make a new world being reality that is reasonable. This theory shows huge problems. If everything which is real is also reasonable, it would also legitimate injustice and cruels in this world. How can we legitimate wars where innocent people die? How can we legitimate hate and prosecution? How can we legitimate Islamist terrorism? Should we tell the victims that it s reasonable? No! No terror is reasonable! But terror is real. People being gassed or burnt that was or is real in this world, but it is far not reasonable. Reality is not reasonable! We can t accept injustice and violence and hide ourselves by claiming that if it is not reasonable then people will change it themselves and if no change is made then it s reasonable. Although it is right of course that when injustice appears in a place, there are also often people standing against it, but this can only apply if the era where it appears already has an awareness of this problem. In the Middle Ages, many people were burnt as witches and their so called crime was proved just by being denounced and tortured. Even after the Middle Ages ended in about 1500, the burning of assumed sorcerers and witches went on and many people believed in the existence of witches and the right to prosecute them, until Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld anonymously published his work Cautio Criminalis in 1631 in which he gave testimony that none of the assumed witches he dealt with were guilty, although he did not deny that sorcerers or witches exist in general. Nowadays, we have the knowledge that sorcerers and witches are completely nonexistent. Friedrich Spee could not make this conclusion in his period of time. While many philosophers of Enlightment denied the existence of God in a world where injustice and despair is tolerated by someone who is refered to as almighty, after Hegel Gott ist es, der im Philosophen philosophiert. 7 8, ergo God made them become atheists. So I think, we should consider who is creating our mind. Are the things we can see just a creation of the mind, or can we say that because we can see them they must be centered in our mind? But if they come from our mind, which role has to play God? And are the things from our mind really true? After Hegel, it might all be identical to the mind, but however, I think we cannot justify reason and rationality with reality. Every human-being has its own thinking
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 3) -3- and therefore its own conscience and own rationality. This does not mean in conclusion that his reality has to be reasonable. Injustice and violence probably arise because a human-being who violates others thinks he has the right to do so, so in his subjective view it s reason, so now we have a conflict. We can say because everyone has a subjective view, his own action based on his reality must be reasonable, because it s in his subjective world. But the outstanding world, other individuals probably see an action as unreasonable. But is there real objectiveness? Is there a conscience unlimited of those things that restrict us, such as our environmental morality that tries to interfere in our Complete Freedom, or the Believe in God or a religious community that gives them the insurance that they are the ones acting right, while the we are wrong (which in fact is an unreasonable blindness! 9 )? Conscience and awareness, rationality and reason caused a lot of conflicts in the past but also avoided some even worse conflicts. It was due to the new thoughts that people started to question and criticize absolutist-totalitarian systems, most notably the French Revolution, but also in other countries such as in Great Britain, as well as in Germany 1848 and in Russia in the beginning of the 20 th century in fact everywhere in the world people started revolutions. In the end however, modern thinking stopped in some way as it is today. Why? Why do we accept injustice nowadays? Why do we accept state systems exploiting its people? Why do we accept it when our governments start wars instead of kicking them away to keep peace and stability? Such a phenomena is not that new. We know it already from early Christian church history. There were four majour movements during the time of the pères de l eglise 10 that were regarded as heresy ( les hérésies ) 11. The gnosis thought le Christianisme est une cosmologie mystique 11 12 while after arianism le christ est créé, il n est ni eternel, ni égal au Père 11 13. As a response to these views the Christian conciles took place to find a consent. The first concile in Nice in 315 clearified le Christ est de la même nature que le Père 11 14. The next major disputes and splits in Christian church took place when Orthodoxy was proclaimed (988, Vladimir I.), when Martin Luther questioned Catholicism in 1517 which led to the split between Catholics and Protestants in Germany and the dispute between the Reformed Orthodox Church of Russia and the Old Believers. However, these events took place after many centuries since Christianity was institutionalized and reforms within the church was that rare that we see Christianity being caught in a new crisis in Europe, as many people do not only not believe in God, but also believe that churches are not working for the one s in need and the poor anymore, but only for their own egoism. Therefore, many people around the world regard the church being a hypocritical institution. Of course, other religions have several problems nowadays, too, but we should face them later.
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 3) -4- Talking about hypocrisy and its opposite rationality, reason and awareness (the latter three altogether I want to call la raison ), I want to introduce a scene from a very well known German play by Goethe called Faust. During the play, Faust seduces Magarete and both plan to sleep together. As she is a dignified virgin and her mother would prevent the night, Magarete gives her three drops of a liquid made by a devilish person, to make her mother asleep, however, she dies from it. When her brother Valentin finds out about her night, he denounces his sister publicly and requests a duel to reestablish the family s honour, where he (the brother) dies. What do we learn from this scene? At first, although the devilish person helps the both to couple each other, they are still free in their action and they are free to decide what they do. Magarete and Faust act within Complete Freedom 15 when they slept together and therefore it is not wrong and not a shame. So when Valentin denounces Magarete, he is suppressing her individual freedom and he even acts inappropriate, by denouncing her as a prostitute. He, therefore can be seen as symbol for Wordly Chaos (le chaos du monde) 16, someone who feels free to hurt another one by judging a person in a way he is not allowed to do and by interfering in the person s freedom. But he acts even worse, by regarding his sister s action as honorless. This is the peak of inhumanity! At first he denounces her, interfering in her Complete Freedom, evoking Wordly Chaos and then seeing himself as a victim! What does he think of himself? But can we convict Magarete of killing her mother accidentally? No, in this case it s an accident that was risked, because otherwise her mother would have interfered in her Complete Freedom, so she had to give her sleeping medicine to be free for a night. But remember, this is only a modern interpretation of a scene in a play and not an invitation to kill others or convict violence justifying that you did it to achieve Complete Freedom. During the time when the play was published, these concepts of society understanding existed, but by knowing the Principle of Individualism, we can clearly judge from a modern standpoint. This also teaches us that beyond la raison, morality and values within society are of importance when people are judged or denounced and in most cases this applies on an irrational level. In most cases, the judgment is justified by cultural values or present moral values existing in that culture. So we can see that morality differs not only from culture, but that it also changes from time to time. But since morality is arbitrary and not on a rational level, we can say that it is constructed by a society. And if something is constructed by society, it is constructed by man. So it is not a law of nature (loi de la nature) and even less something that we need to follow not to harm others and therefore not part of the base de l humanité 17. However, people try to justify their morality with their conscience. This means that our thinking of right and wrong can be manipulated by the society. At the same time, we
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 3) -5- are free to think which means we can reject the ideas and live our live in individuality. We don t have to accept the standpoints of a society, we can live within Complete Freedom. Therefore our conscience is subjective, and so is our judgment. Therefore, we can t say that we judge things right or that we have found the one truth and even less we are to interfere in Complete Freedom by justifying it with any rightness of a conscience. We have to have a conscience to help those who live in Wordly Chaos, we have to prevent people hurting the helpless or weak. However, within Complete Freedom we have the right to think freely. And here comes Kant again, we should use our rationality and reason ourselves. So we shouldn t listen to what we are told how we have to act in daily life, but instead we should use our own rationality and be brave enough to go our own way. At the same time we have to be aware that because except basic ethics all kind of morality varies and changes and because it is constructed by the society, that they are not real. They are not only constructed by the society, but when we accept them ourselves, we even construct them in our own mind. But since they finally go on growing in our own mind they are only a product of our own mind. This means that our role in society, the role of men and women, the meaning of authorities,... everything is constructed and does not really exist. In nature there is no rule how men and women have to behave, in nature they are equal. Nature does not have any expectation towards them! In nature, there is no authority. The reason why we have authoritarian systems is as Nietzsche described the will of power ( Wille zur Macht ). However, people want to be in power because they are egoistic. But what makes them being egoists? It s capitalism! Those who have a lot of money also have a lot of power! We have to deal this question later. As result, we can say that conscience and awareness can be manipulated by the hypocrisy of a society, a religion or other institutions (such as governments). We can avoid or restrict manipulation by living our life within Complete Freedom and encouraging peacefully that the enslaved can live within Complete Freedom, too. We can only use our conscience and awareness on a rational level ( la raison ) when we realize that all moral rules are constructed and that we are free not to follow them (except basic ethics ). We have to realize that no one can expect anything from us and we have no natural duties (things we have to do because of our skin colour or sex). Capitalism teaches egoism and leads us to act against humanity, therefore we have to find ways out of Capitalism, since it steals our rationality! The dissatisfaction of Capitalism and the impact of injustice such as terror and exploitation that is caused or financed by Capitalism leads either to Utopism 18 or to a vacuum which causes dispair and a nihilistic worldview.
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 3) -6- Notes: 1. Hirschberger, Johannes: Geschichte der Philosophie, Band 2: Neuzeit und Gegenwart, 9. Auflage, Freiburg im Breisgau 1976, S. 410 2. passage translated in English by the author : Is a such-understood item really an object? 3. Hirschberger, S. 410 f. 4. passage translated in English by the author : because if after an old believe of human-beings it s the determination of the mind to know the truth, so lies in it [the awareness], that the items, [of] outer and inner nature, the objective in general, what it is in itself, so to be, as it is something that is thought, so that Thinking [itself] is the Truth of all items 5. Hirschberger, S. 411 6. passage translated in English by the author : Thinking, Being and truth all are identical with the mind. Therefore, everything that is reasonable is also real, and everthing that is real is also reasonable. 7. Hirschberger, S. 411 8. passage translated in English by the author : It is God, philosophizing in the philosopher 9. Religion itself is not a problem, but legitimizing one s own action with a religious view or legitimizing violence by refering to God, so to say all kind of fanatism, is a huge problem. However, not all kind of fanatism is extremism, but all kind of fanatism is blindness and dazzlement! 10. French meaning the Church Fathers 11. Cours d histoire de la philosophie africaine, Notes de cours Faculté de philosophie Saint Pierre Canisins, Kimwenza (RDC), inédit 12. passage translated in English by the author : Christianity is a mystical cosmology 13. passage translated in English by the author: Christ is created, he is neither eternal nor equal with the Father. 14. passage translated in English by the author: Christ is of the same nature than the Father 15. For the Concept of Complete Freedom see Part 2 Problems of Individualism 16. For the Concept of Worldly Chaos see Part 2 Problems of Individualism 17. French meaning basics of humanity ; also see Part 2 Problems of Individualism
Timo Schmitz: Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion (Part 3) -7-18. Concerning Utopism, you might also see my article What is Utopia? (24.11.2014) Timo Schmitz, 07 February 2015 This article is Part 3 of the series Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and Religion. Reprinting for one s own personal non-commercial use is allowed. http://schmitztimo.wordpress.com