Chapter Summary Of The Philosophy Of Freedom
Eric Cunningham
Chapter 12 Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Ethics)
The need for moral imagination
As Steiner has indicated repeatedly throughout this book, the difference between a free spirit and an unfree spirit is the degree to which the spirit either authentically performs free moral actions, or merely performs actions according to existing moral laws and commandments. To state this in another way, the free spirit acts according to an ideal concept that will have a yet-unknown or unrealized perceptible outcome. The unfree spirit acts according to the image of a mental picture already in place. As an illustration, Steiner refers to the way Christians use Christ as a model, or an exemplar of moral conduct. Unfree spirits do better at following the concrete deeds of Christ than they do at acting upon the less concrete, conceptual teachings of Christ. It is also easier for the unfree spirit to avoid certain actions when the mental picture of punishment is vivid. In situations where positive action is to be encouraged (as opposed to the discouragement of negative actions in the form "thou shalt nots"), a mental picture has to be created of the concept that impels the positive action.
Thus, to act in a truly free, morally free manner, it is necessary to possess moral imagination, so that ideal concepts can become perceptual content (ie, so a high ideal can be realized in the world). A person with moral imagination is a "morally productive" person, as opposed to a mere "preacher of morality."
Moral Imagination: moral technique
In this section, Steiner discusses the "technique" of realizing the mental pictures that can be produced through the proper activity of the moral imagination. "Man's action," Steiner asserts, "does not create any perceptions, but rather reshapes the perceptions which are already present, imparts to them a new form (181)." What can this mean, other than that our mental images (which Steiner has earlier called "an intermediary between concept and perception") are actually the fruits of a creative activity, and have more authentic "realness" than even perceptions (which are in a sense predetermined according to sense function?--I don't know!)
It makes sense though, when we consider Steiner's next point, which is to say that the moral activity of making mental pictures demands a knowledge of natural law (scientific, not ethical). We can only influence the world of perceptions lawfully--i.e., "impart" a new form to them by understanding the natural laws that govern the world of perceptions. This knowledge is the basis of "moral technique," which can be learned.
Moral life vs. biological life
"Generally, people are in fact better able to find the concepts for the already existing world, than productively, out of their imagination, to determine not yet existing future actions (182)."
With this statement Steiner again draws a distinction between the person who is able to create a moral life for him or herself and the person who merely adopts or borrows established laws and norms, presumably from others who have, at some time in the past created them for themselves.
While it is probably better to adopt a good pre-existing moral code than to manufacture a false personal one, the truly evolved, morally free person cannot continue to live on a borrowed morality.
"Moral imagination and the capacity for moral ideas can become the object of knowing only afterthey have been produced by the individual (183)."
Any attempt to compare moral laws with natural laws will run into trouble (despite the best efforts of present day materialists to attribute moral behavior to natural selection). A biological organism operates in accordance with the natural laws of its species--the moral laws of the mind inhabiting, or perhaps, sharing space with the biological organism are created by the individual mind.
What's evolution?
Steiner observes that his view of self-created moral life seems to stand in opposition to the theory of Evolution, but it does so only superficially.
"By evolution is understood the real emerging of the later out of the earlier in ways corresponding to natural laws (184)."
In other words, (assuming that evolution can be thought of as progress), more perfect material forms descend from less perfect material forms. In order to make these judgments the evolutionary theorist has only the finished material product to work with. The only way the evolutionary connection between "amniotes" and "reptiles" can be applied is for the theorist to have already assigned categories of "lesser" and "greater" perfection to them.
In terms of non-material concepts though, we can't "draw" the moral concepts of a later age out of the moral concepts of an earlier one. Ideas do not operate in nature the way that matter operates in nature.
Ethical individualism and evolution
"Ethical individualism does not . . . stand at odds with a rightly understood theory of evolution, but rather follows directly from it (186)."
Moral ideas that spring from the imagination of any individual may derive from those held by his or her ancestors, Steiner maintains, but they are not valid unless the individual arrives at them independently. It is possible for entirely new moral ideas to emerge from the moral imagination of an "evolved" being, but, if we are consistent in our view of evolution, we should not think that these are introduced from outside by some external agent. "(T)his theory . . . should reject any influence from the beyond, any (metaphysical) influence which is merely inferred and not experienced in idea(187)." (Italics mine)
Steiner is arguing here that just as the causes of material evolution are found inside, not outside, material reality, so must the causes of moral evolution be found inside, not outside, mankind, which is the species that bears morality in the world. Thus, even an external moral code is not moral if it is not freely apprehended (and indeed, originally grasped) by each person.
While Steiner's logic seems to limit the scope of the supernatural by "slaving" morality to humanity and to a material process of evolution that produces the human, if we look at it closer, it actually does the opposite. It assigns to humanity the status of divine image that makes it the bearer of morality, and opens the possibility that there is much more to evolution than merely natural selection. Morality, spirit, and the human organism, are for Steiner all bound together in the idea of evolution.
As he puts it, the evolutionary theorist maintains "only that humans have evolved out of ancestors that were not yet human. How human beings are constituted must be determined through observation of humans themselves (189)." Which is to say, not through observation of their ancestors or of moral codes that exist in history. What all of this seems to lead to is the idea that human freedom, on an individual-by-individual basis is the true ground of moral ethics. Human beings are, in the exercise of authentic moral freedom, in touch with something authentically spiritual and ideal.
Back to the original question!
So, are our actions free or determined?
Steiner revisits proposals made earlier in the book
1) "we are free when we are able to do what we want" and
2) "we are free when we are able to want what we want"
He reminds us that the poet-philosopher Hamerling (Robert, 1830-89) believed the first of these statements and thought the second to be an absurdity. Yet, Hamerling, who believed that the will is determined by stimuli to actions, is essentially admitting the validity of the second statement.
Steiner argues that true freedom lies in the ability to determine for ourselves the ground of our willing, which means that we are free when we are able to will the conditions of the ideal to which we then direct our actions. Here he makes a distinction between a) the organism and its processes, and b) the will and its ideals, and relates the latter to spirit and soul activity.
"Man is free to the extent that he is able in his willing to realize the same mood of soul which lives in him when he is conscious of giving shape to purely ideal (spiritual) intuitions (192)."
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