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CHAPTER XIX - OUR MONISTIC ETHICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2011

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel
Translated by
Joseph McCabe
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Summary

Monistic and dualistic ethics. Contradiction of pure and practical reason in Kant. His categorical imperative. The neo-Kantians. Herbert Spencer. Egoism and altruism. Equivalence of the two instincts. The fundamental law of ethics: the Golden Rule. Its antiquity. Christian ethics. Contempt of self, the body, nature, civilization, the family, woman. Roman Catholic ethics. Immoral results of celibacy. Necessity for the abolition of the law of celibacy, oral confession, and indulgences. State and Church. Religion a private concern. Church and school. State and school. Need of school reform.

The practical conduct of life makes a number of definite ethical claims on a man which can only be duly and naturally satisfied when they are in complete harmony with his view of the world. In accordance with this fundamental principle of our monistic philosophy, our whole system of ethics must be rationally connected with the unified conception of the cosmos which we have formed by our advanced knowledge of the laws of nature. Just as the infinite universe is one great whole in the light of our monistic teaching, so the spiritual and moral life of man is a part of this cosmos, and our naturalistic ordering of it must also be monistic. There are not two different, separate worlds—the one physical and material, and the other moral and immaterial.

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The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century , pp. 355 - 372
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1900

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