Morality and hypermorality

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Moral and Hypermoral is a work published in 1969 by the philosopher Arnold Gehlen . With the title, Gehlen indicates a twofold task. Firstly, he establishes a pluralistic ethic and secondly, critically examines contemporary social tendencies, which he describes as hyper-moral .

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Gehlen distinguishes between four forms of ethos : 1. The principle of reciprocity . 2. Instinctive regulations that are to be recorded from a behavior-physiological perspective. 3. Family-related ethical behavior including derivable extensions up to humanitarianism . 4. The ethos of the institutions . Gehlen admits that he uses a schematic process; however, this is necessary because of the accuracy of the analysis.

With the subdivision into several forms, Gehlen breaks away from the idea that moral behavior can be traced back to just one principle and thus outlines a pluralistic ethic:

“The assumption arises that there is a majority of moral authorities in man, the development of which, according to the obvious assumption, is decided by the sum of the objective circumstances. In doing so, we contradict the abstract ethics of the Enlightenment , such as Voltaire's words (...) 'There is only one morality as there is only one geometry.' Rather, there may very well be several independent ultimate roots of ethical behavior. "

For Gehlen, the effectiveness of one of these four forms of ethos is linked to the rule of an elite . Since this no longer exists in the present, a pluralism can be assumed.

  1. Gehlen justifies the principle of reciprocity with social anthropological studies by Claude Lévi-Strauss and other authors, which work out the interculturally effective mutual structures. Gehlen, however, interprets these as instincts to which the actually obligatory moment can be ascribed.
  2. In order to illustrate the physiological virtues of social regulation, Gehlen refers to the results of the behavioral scientist Konrad Lorenz . He had worked out protective and caring responses for young children that were triggered by their soft and cute shapes. These are responses of clear closeness: the most reliable social regulations move “within the radius of our senses.” In the following, he discusses how and under what conditions these feelings of obligation can expand and emphasizes the cosmopolitan nature of social regulations; they are expandable and tend to be overstretched. The open-mindedness of the deficient human being, already formulated in his anthropological study Der Mensch , could lead to instinctive uncertainty. Gehlen again refers to Konrad Lorenz: The abstract principles, which necessitate the ethical impulses beyond the vividly present and also link feelings to invisible partners, lead to an expansion of the feelings of obligation as do the social imperatives . The impulse to help others runs inwardly and without the awareness of an ought. The compassionate response to physical misery can be evaluated politically and be a means of nonviolent insurrection. Gehlen explicitly refers to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi .
  3. For the third principle, the family or clan is the starting point. The sympathetic impulses become a solidarity complex of the community. If the ethical drives now extend beyond this area, the obligation content is extended to any other person. This description already starts with Gehlen's criticism, who describes human love, made an ethical duty, an exaggerated form of humanitarianism . The natural ethos of power has not disappeared with humanitarianism.
  4. Institutional ethos. According to Gehlen, human life is stabilized in orders and rules that “coagulate by themselves, and whose control mechanism is to be found in the instinctive area.” Gehlen again refers to behavioral research , which knows factors in animals and humans, bring about order and regulation and neutralize individual aggressions by accepting a hierarchy. Institutions serve the behavioral security of humans, who, in contrast to animals, do not live in any structure stabilized by the environment, which determines their world of experience. “The institutional ethos of the state is able to curb and even exploit aggression.” Institutions have an anthropologically founded, normative character, a status of non-questionable validity. As in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes they get their legitimacy by the functional success. Proceeding from this premise, conflicts with educational efforts can be understood, as these critically reflect the duty of loyalty and institutional ties. This contrast explains part of Gehlen's polemics against the intellectuals.

Humanitarianism

Gehlen takes a critical turn against the humanitarianism he describes , which he characterizes as human love made an ethical duty. If humanitarianism stood above the ethos of the institutions, social contradictions would no longer be resolved in a regulated manner, which would spread aggression and assert power as the right of the strongest. Humanitarianism is explained by the overstretching of the family ethos. It is combined with an exaggerated subjectivism , which ultimately remains inactive as the institution's relieving function ceases to exist.

Because of his lack of instinct and physiological insecurity, people need fixed patterns of action. These would serve security and orientation and ensure his survival. For Gehlen, the institutions are an expression of necessary structures of action and forms of coping that serve to relieve the burden and thus receive their own ought-to-be claim.

The emergence of humanitarianism can already be observed in late antiquity . After the many cruel battles, the rise and fall of new empires and the mutual mass killings, in the 4th century BC A yearning for peace spread. The Alexander empire strived for an equalization of Hellenes and barbarians ; the new kings and rulers were said to have liked an apolitical, pacifist and “ideology that can be used everywhere”. This process was repeated later in the Roman Empire , when the Stoa took influence on the political leadership with the aim of "spreading the light of Hellenistic civilization over the whole earth." In Gehlen's view, warfare became more humane, massacre and City demolitions were less common and prisoners were released without ransom. In the sphere of influence of the Hellenistic culture, later of the Roman Empire, the ideal of philanthropy remained as public opinion, philanthropic tendencies spread to protect the life and honor of the slaves ; the state began to be socially active.

Moral hypertrophy

Where the humanitarian ethos is combined with the eudaimonistic ethos of general well-being, as has been the case since the Enlightenment, there is a hypertrophy of morality, because the ethos has broken away from its natural soil and does not do justice to the real dispositions of man. Hypertrophy is a result of the expanded physiological virtues leading to mass neo-demonism . On the other hand, the institutions would be degraded to apparatuses of prosperity. The actual task of the state to secure the community is not being fulfilled. The forms of hypertrophic private and pacifist attitudes criticized in this way ultimately supplanted the political virtue of institutional ethos. In the end, the overriding unity of meaning only consists of the privatized interests, private subjectivity. "Since humanity no longer sees anything greater than itself, it has to embrace itself and expect its always delusional desire for happiness from itself."

After the decline of religion and the ethos of the state, after the replacement of God by history , the demands of mankind lay heavy weight on the soul of the individual, who takes account of everything that happens in the world without being able to clearly recognize it . While the old still with the workings of the random goddess Tyche , the Christians could apologize to the counsel of God, today was no relief more. Since morality does not tolerate a vacuum, one feels complicit in crimes that have happened, not just liable. However, it is not necessary "to participate in the cult of humanity under the name of humanitarianism."

According to Gehlen, the interplay of humanitarianism and moral hypertrophy leads to serious social consequences. Individuals have fallen back on private interests and find there “a sense of prosperity and feminism that are even originally identical to the morality of humanitarianism.” Mass neo-demonism leads to the unlimited affirmation of what is present . Violations of the law and crimes would thus be "probed into" what is available by declaring them to be marginal and suspending the sentence on probation . In this way, society, illness or an unrestrained childhood are blamed.

In art and literature, the right to exist is accepted, and critics would be careful not to protest against the development of the visual arts in farce and gag. "To make this ethos of acceptance cash-wise was a significant discovery, and since then the word progress has allowed the straight, shortest connection between the moralizing argument and one's own pocket [...] because the public has a duty to accept."

Gehlen's criticism of the intellectuals

In a sometimes polemical form, Gehlen criticizes the intellectuals who have worked in different epochs, whose ethical claims cannot be met and are responsibly verifiable and who lack a reference to reality. They are propagandists of humanitarianism. Moral hypertrophy is the ideology of rule of the "mouth-watering boys" who "hold themselves harmless for their lack of access to things through humanitarianism."

He also denied journalists the right to pass off their statements based on “intellectual morality” as truths ; ultimately they would only express group-specific interests.

reception

When the book was received, a 40-year friendship between Gehlen and his student Helmut Schelsky broke up . Gehlen's institutional theory was a central element in Schelsky's sociology . In contrast to Gehlen, who viewed institutions more statically, he developed a dynamic institutional doctrine according to which existing institutions can change and new ones can be added. Schelsky was disappointed and appalled by “morality and hypermorality”. He denied the existence of a general "institutional ethos" and accused Gehlen of not having provided a scientific analysis, but a philosophy of rule for the strong and conquerors. 25 years after the end of National Socialism, however, a West German professor could not afford to transpose power. With the book Gehlen had discredited a politically realistic conservatism based on order, legal rigor and dignity.

With this, Schelsky had partly endorsed the objections of Jürgen Habermas , who in April 1970 had formulated a detailed criticism of "morality and hypermorality" in Merkur . Gehlen viewed this as personal treason and ended the friendship. There was also no reconciliation when Schelsky a few years later with “The work is done by the others. Class struggle and priestly rule of the intellectuals ”and other writings exercised a similarly aggressive criticism of the zeitgeist. Habermas had described Gehlen's enthusiasm for the “institutional ethos” in the Merkur article as a deliberate step backwards in humanity and also said that right-wing revolutions were illusory. He postulated: Humanity is the boldness that remains for us in the end.

The book was received favorably by conservatives such as Odo Marquard . It is currently experiencing a new reception. The term “hypermorality”, which goes back to Gehlen's book, is now part of the vocabulary of the “newest right”. Alexander Grau refers in his essay “Hypermoral. The new lust for indignation ”is also based on Gehlen's writing.

literature

  • Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermorality. A pluralistic ethics , ed. by Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, Frankfurt am Main 2004 (6), ISBN 978-3-465-03303-5 . (Frankfurt am Main 1969).
  • Jürgen Habermas : Imitated substantiality. A discussion of Arnold Gehlen's ethics. In: Merkur Volume 24, Issue 264, (1970) pp. 313–327.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 6, Arnold Gehlen, Moral and Hypermoral , p. 178, Munich 1991
  2. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A pluralistic ethics , chapter 4, disposition. Ethos der Gerechtigkeit, p. 47, Athenäum Verlag, Frankfurt, 1969.
  3. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A pluralistic ethic , Chapter 3, Pluralism, p. 38
  4. ↑ a b c Philosophy of the Present, Arnold Gehlen , Pluralist Ethics, p. 248, Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart, 1999
  5. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A Pluralistic Ethics , Chapter 5, Physiological Virtues, p. 55
  6. ↑ Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 6, Arnold Gehlen, Moral und Hypermoral , p. 178
  7. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A pluralistic ethics , Chapter 7, Institutions, p. 95
  8. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A pluralistic ethics , Chapter 8, State, p. 107
  9. ↑ Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 6, Arnold Gehlen, Moral and Hypermoral , p. 179
  10. ↑ Historical Dictionary of Philosophy Hypermoral, Vol. 3, p. 1238
  11. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A Pluralist Ethics , Chapter 6, Humanitarianism, p. 80
  12. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A Pluralist Ethics , Chapter 10, Moral Hypertrophy, p. 141
  13. ^ A b Arnold Gehlen: Moral and Hypermoral. A Pluralist Ethics , Chapter 10, Moral Hypertrophy, p. 142
  14. ^ Arnold Gehlen: Morality and Hypermoral. A Pluralist Ethics , Chapter 10, Moral Hypertrophy, p. 142.
  15. ↑ Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 6, Arnold Gehlen, Moral and Hypermoral , p. 179, Munich 1991
  16. ^ Karl-Siegbert Rehberg , Hans Freyer, Arnold Gehlen, Helmut Schelsky . In: Dirk Kaesler (Ed.), Classics of Sociology . Volume II: From Talcott Parsons to Anthony Giddens . 5th, revised, updated and expanded edition 2007, pp. 72-104, here p. 89.
  17. ↑ Patrick Wöhrle: On the topicality of Helmut Schelsky. Introduction to his work . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2015, pp. 17–25.
  18. ↑ a b Wolf Lepenies , On the summits, behind the scenes . In: Die Welt , February 24, 2009 ( online version , accessed March 16, 2019).
  19. ↑ Jürgen Habermas , Imitated Substantiality. A discussion of Arnold Gehlen's ethics . In: Merkur , No. 264, April 1970.
  20. ↑ Helmut Schelsky: The work is done by the others. Class struggle and priestly rule of the intellectuals . Unabridged edition, dtv, Munich 1977, ISBN 978-3-423-01276-8 (first edition: Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1975, ISBN 978-3-531-11300-5 ).
  21. ^ The Dictionary of the Latest Right , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 6, 2016.
  22. ↑ Alexander Grau: Hypermoral. The new pleasure in indignation . Claudius Verlag, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-532-62803-4 .
  23. ^ "Moralism with totalitarian features". Alexander Grau in conversation with Andreas Main . Deutschlandfunk , November 30, 2017 ( online version , accessed March 16, 2019).