Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION LXXXIV.

The moral law as (by virtue of the particular form into which it is thrown by the peculiarity of the moral person) requiring its realization in a particular case, is moral duty; duty is, therefore, the law as coming to actual application in moral action through the moral life-rules into which it has been shaped by appropriation into the moral person,—that is, it is the law as realizing itself under the form of life-rules, in other words, it is the law as shaping itself in and for a particular person under particular circumstances, and as becoming in him a determining and actuating power. I fulfill the law in that I do my duty. The duties that spring from the same law are different for different men and for different circumstances.—As, therefore, duty is the product of two elements, the moral law and the peculiarity of the person, and as the moral laws collectively, though existing under the form of a plurality, must yet of necessity constitute a concordant whole, hence, if we leave out of view the actuality of sin, a conflict of different duties with each other (collision of duties) is utterly impossible. The distinction of conditional and unconditional duties is not correct, and rests on a confounding of the notions of law and duty.

The moral person does not directly and strictly fulfill the law, but simply his duty. Even ordinary speech indicates the difference; we do not say, “my law,” but always, “my duty.” The law per se is general and above man; duty is always special and personal. No one person can do the duty of another; and what is duty for me, may be a violation of duty for another. The law alone is directly prescribed; to what particular form of action this law, as appropriated into my personality, determines or obligates me, is not directly expressed in the law, but is the result of a moral judgment in view of my special moral peculiarity and circumstances. We cannot, therefore, with propriety institute a contrast between conditional and unconditional duties. The condition is already implied in the relation of the fulfillment of the law to the fulfillment of duty; what I may not or cannot now do, is simply not my duty; at another time, however, this same form of action may become my duty. Any and every duty may, with as much propriety, be called conditional as unconditional; in its becoming a duty it is always conditional; whenever, however, it actually presents itself, there can no longer be any question of conditionality. Whoever is in a condition to rescue a person from imminent life-peril, has the unconditional duty of doing so; whoever cannot do so, has no duty whatever in the matter; between these two positions there is no third one possible. With like propriety we may say also that the law is at the same time conditional and unconditional, but in a converse relation; in its essence it is unconditional, in the manner of its fulfillment it is always conditional. The law, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” is in its moral contents unconditional; every human being is an object of this love, but how this love is to be exercised, in what manner it is actually to manifest itself in actions, that is, to what definite duties it shall lead, this depends on manifold conditions not contained in the law itself; to one’s husband or wife, or to parents, one owes a very different love from that due to friends, and the very same sacrificing love will manifest itself very differently toward the moral and toward the immoral.

When the law is presented in the general form of command or prohibition, the manners in which the manifold relations of life make it the duty of different persons to fulfill it are so different, that there may even arise an appearance of contradiction. The fact is, however, that for a real conflict (collision) of duties (a subject which has from of old been a favorite and much discussed one among moralists) there is in a normal state of humanity no possible place. Moral laws cannot come into conflict with each other, otherwise the idea of the moral, and the moral order of the universe itself, would be undermined; and there is just as little ground for a conflict between duties, seeing that their conditionment is in fact based in part on the personal peculiarity and special circumstances of the subjects. The personal peculiarity of a sinful man may indeed come into conflict with the moral law; but in so far as this is the case it forms no legitimate element in the construction of the notion of duty; rather will it become our duty in many respects to counteract this element. But all legitimate personal peculiarity is itself formed in harmony with the moral idea, and hence cannot come into conflict therewith. For an irreconcilable collision of duties there is, therefore, nowhere any manner of possibility.

The idea of duty is often otherwise understood than as here presented. Duty is frequently declared to be the divine law itself. Now if by this is meant, that which God requires of us in each particular case, and that too of each individual in particular, then it would be correct,—this, however, is not expressed by the term “law;” but if it means, that duty and the divine law are identical, then it is incorrect. More definite is the statement, that duty is the manner of action which conforms to or harmonizes with the law. The Kantian school explains duty as that which, according to the law, should take place, or which, by virtue of a law, is practically necessary, or which answers to an obligation,—obligation being understood as the necessity of an action in consequence of a moral law. All these statements are inadequate, inasmuch as the personal peculiarity is left out of the account, so that consequently no difference whatever is made between duty and law; and as to how obligation differs from duty we are utterly unable to see. Schleiermacher in his System (§ 112 sqq.) defines duty as “the form of conduct in which the activity of the reason is at the same time special, as directed upon the particular, and also general, as directed upon the totality,” or, the law of the free self-determination of the individual in relation to the common moral life-task of the race, or, the formula for the guidance of rationality in single actions in the realizing of the highest good. That these, in the main, correct statements, are still too indefinite, is shown even by their numerousness. Similarly, but more definitely, Rothe explains duty as that definite form of action which is required by the moral law as under the form impressed upon it by the individual instance.