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Morality and the philosophy of life in Guyau and Bergson

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Abstract

In this essay I examine the contribution a philosophy of life is able to make to our understanding of morality, including our appreciation of its evolution or development and its future. I focus on two contributions, namely, those of Jean-Marie Guyau and Henri Bergson. In the case of Guyau I show that he pioneers the naturalistic study of morality through a conception of life; for him the moral progress of humanity is bound up with an increasing sociability, involving both the intensification of life and its expansion. In the case of Bergson I show that he also pioneers a novel naturalistic appreciation of morality, one that is keen to demonstrate morality’s two sources and so as to give us a firm grasp of the chances of a moral progress on the part of humanity. I suggest that of the two appreciations of morality Bergson’s is the richer since it contains a set of critical reflections on humanity’s condition that is lacking in Guyau. I conclude by suggesting that Bergson’s idea that modern humanity is confronted with the decision whether it wishes to continue living or not has lost none of its relevance today.

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Notes

  1. A notable exception is an essay by a young Vladimir Jankélévitch from 1924, that is, prior to the publication of Bergson’s Two Sources of Morality and Religion in 1932. In it he brings Bergson and Guyau into rapport with respect to the notions of life and duration, aesthetics, and the method of intuition. See Jankélévitch (1994). For recent appreciation of Bergson and morality see Lawlor (2003), Lefebvre and White (2012) and Lefebvre (2013).

  2. Nietzsche (1987, 35 [34], p. 525).

  3. Subsequently, and as a result of the contribution of Bergson and Alfred Fouillée, he was to become known misleadingly as ‘the French Nietzsche’. For a correctly critical consideration of this issue, including an instructive comparison of Guyau and Nietzsche, see Onfray (2011, pp. 107–111). Onfray interprets Guyau as a ‘republican vitalist’ of the left (2011, p. 118).

  4. Orru (1983, pp. 503–504).

  5. Guyau (1896, p. 6, 1898, p. 4). In the French original Guyau employs the Greek for both terms. Guyau’s conception of ‘anomos’ was of course taken up by Emile Durkheim and put to quite different ends in his well-known theory of ‘pathological anomie’. For further insight see Miller (1996).

  6. Guyau (pp. 54, 63). The first page reference given is to the French edition (2006, based on the edition of 1896), the second is to the English translation.

  7. Guyau (pp. 48, 57).

  8. Kant (1964, p. 128).

  9. Guyau (pp. 198, 232–233).

  10. Guyau (pp. 50, 59).

  11. Guyau (pp. 50, 59).

  12. Guyau (pp. 57, 67).

  13. Guyau (pp. 98, 117).

  14. Guyau (pp. 101, 121).

  15. Guyau (pp. 74, 87).

  16. Guyau (pp. 211, 247).

  17. Guyau (pp. 75, 88).

  18. Guyau (pp. 75, 88).

  19. There is an extended treatment on pessimism by Guyau in his Non Religion of the Future, first published in 1887, where he treats the same figures that occupy Nietzsche’s attention: Leopardi, Schopenhauer, and von Hartmann (Guyau 1962, pp. 457–466).

  20. Guyau (pp. 35, 42).

  21. Guyau (pp. 211, 248).

  22. Guyau (pp. 94–95, 113).

  23. Guyau (pp. 95, 114).

  24. Guyau (pp. 95, 114).

  25. Guyau (pp. 96, 115).

  26. Guyau (pp. 86–87, 101).

  27. Guyau (pp. 84, 98).

  28. Guyau (pp. 84, 98).

  29. Guyau (pp. 85, 99).

  30. Guyau (pp. 65, 76).

  31. Guyau (pp. 70, 81).

  32. Guyau (pp. 70, 81).

  33. Guyau (pp. 76, 89).

  34. Guyau (pp. 77, 90).

  35. Guyau (pp. 77, 90).

  36. Guyau (pp. 77, 90).

  37. Guyau (pp. 78, 91).

  38. Guyau (pp. 79, 92).

  39. Guyau (pp. 79, 92).

  40. Guyau (pp. 114, 135).

  41. Guyau (pp. 114, 135).

  42. In The Gay Science (1882) Nietzsche recommends the following to his readers: ‘Live in seclusion so that you can live for yourself. Live in ignorance about what seems most important to your age…the clamor of today, the noise of wars and revolutions should be a mere murmur for you. You will also wish to help—but only those whose distress you understand entirely because they share with you one suffering and one hope—your friends—and only in the manner in which you help yourself. I want to make them bolder, more persevering, simpler, gayer.’ He praises Epicurus for his teaching of ethical egoism as early as his ‘untimely meditations’ from the period 1873–1875 and continues to extol the virtues of Epicurean-style egoism well into his middle period and later writings.

  43. Guyau (pp. 210, 247).

  44. Guyau (pp. 210, 247).

  45. Guyau (pp. 212, 249).

  46. Guyau (1878, p. 283).

  47. Guyau (pp. 87, 101).

  48. For insight into the relation between Guyau and Nietzsche see Ansell-Pearson (2009).

  49. Maritain (1943, p. 76).

  50. Maritain (1943, p. 80).

  51. Worms (2004, p. 84).

  52. Although the issue of ‘biologism’ is associated with Heidegger and his ‘confrontation’ with Nietzsche in the 1930s, it is a prominent feature of Jankélévitch’s interpretation of Guyau and Bergson as philosophers of life in the 1920s. See Jankélévitch (1994, pp. 17, 22).

  53. Bergson (1959, p. 983, 1977, p. 11).

  54. Bergson (1959, p. 983, 1977, p. 11).

  55. Bergson (1959, p. 987, 1977, p. 15).

  56. Bergson (1959, p. 991, 1977, p. 20).

  57. Bergson (1959, p. 991, 1977, p. 20).

  58. Bergson (1959, p. 991, 1977, p. 20).

  59. Bergson (1959: p. 992, 1977, p. 21).

  60. Bergson (1959, p. 992, 1977, p. 22).

  61. Bergson (1959, pp. 993–994, 1977, p. 23).

  62. Bergson (1959, pp. 993–994, 1977, p. 23).

  63. Bergson (1959, p. 996, 1977, p. 26).

  64. Bergson (1959, pp. 996–997, 1977, pp. 26–27).

  65. For excellent insight into Bergson on this point see Lefebvre (2013), especially chapter two.

  66. Bergson (1959 p. 1001, 1977, p. 32).

  67. Bergson (1959, p. 1002, 1977, p. 33).

  68. See Peter Singer (1981).

  69. Bergson (1959, p. 1021, 1977, p. 55).

  70. Bergson (1959, p. 1007, 1977, p. 38).

  71. Bergson (1959, p. 1008, 1977, p. 40).

  72. Bergson (1959, p. 1008, 1977, p. 40).

  73. Bergson (1959, p. 1008, 1977, p. 40).

  74. Bergson (1959, p. 1022–1023, 1977, pp. 56–57).

  75. Bergson (1959, p. 1024, 1977, p. 58).

  76. Deleuze (1991, p. 111).

  77. Bergson (1959, p. 1061, 1977, p. 101).

  78. Worms (2004, p. 84).

  79. Worms (2004, p. 84).

  80. Worms (2004, p. 86).

  81. Worms (2004, p. 87).

  82. Bergson (1959, p. 1029, 1977, p. 64).

  83. Bergson (1959, p. 1076, 1977, p. 119).

  84. See Gunter (1993, p. 146). Mullarkey (1999) is especially good on the kind of socio-biology we find at work in Bergson’s text. As he ably puts it, Bergson’s socio-biology is not conformist: it does not seek to legitimise natural essences but rather aims at the continual creation of new social forms (p. 89). Nevertheless, I think Bergson’s neglected text can connect in pertinent ways with work in this field. Consider Bergson’s key claim that morality has two sources and then consider the following from an essay entitled “Darwinian Evolutionary Ethics: Between Patriotism and Sympathy” by Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd: ‘The great moral problem of our time is how to grow larger-scale loyalties to fit the fact that the world is now so famously a global village, while at the same time creating tribal-scale units that reassure us that we belong to a social system with a human face. The existence of weapons of mass destruction and the need to manage important aspects of the environment as a global commons threaten catastrophe if we fail in this project’ (Richerson and Boyd 2004, p. 71).

  85. Bergson (1959, p. 983, 1977, p. 11). My emphasis.

  86. Bergson (1959, p. 1023, 1977, p. 57). My emphasis.

  87. Bergson (1959, p. 1023, 1977, p. 58).

  88. Bergson argues: ‘…if there were really a pre-existent direction along which man had simply to advance, moral renovation would be foreseeable; there would be no need, on each occasion, for a creative effort’ (1959, p. 1202, 1977, p. 267).

  89. Bergson (1959, p. 1127, 1977, p. 179).

  90. Bergson (1959, p. 1238, 1977, p. 310).

  91. Emmet makes this criticism of Bergson (1972, p. 151).

  92. Bergson (1959, p. 1094, 1977, p. 140; see also pp. 260–261 on ‘empirical optimism’).

  93. Bergson (1959, p. 1069, 1977, p. 111).

  94. As John Mullarkey has noted, ‘From hermeneutical thesis to epistemological corrective to poetic expression: in such ways one can read Bergsonian vitalism as a philosophy concerning the representation of life as much as being one directly about life’ (Mullarkey 2007, p. 54).

  95. Bergson (1959, p. 1093, 1977, p. 139).

  96. Bergson (1959, p. 1206, 1977, p. 271).

  97. Bergson (1959, p. 1220, 1977, p. 288).

  98. Bergson (1959, p. 1220, 1977, p. 288).

  99. See Lefebvre and White (2012, p. 5).

  100. Bergson (1959, p. 1207, 1977, p. 272).

  101. Bergson (1959, p. 1245, 1977, p. 317).

  102. Bergson (1959, p. 1211, 1977, p. 277).

  103. Bergson (1959, p. 1221, 1977, p. 289).

  104. Bergson (1959, p. 1225, 1977, p. 293).

  105. Bergson (1959, p. 1237, 1977, p. 307).

  106. Bergson (1959, p. 1236, 1977, p. 306).

  107. Bergson (1959, p. 1231, 1977, p. 300).

  108. Emmet makes this criticism of Bergson (1972, p. 151).

  109. Naas (2011, p. 316).

  110. Soulez (2012, p. 110).

  111. On this point see Soulez (2012, pp. 110–111).

  112. Naas (2011, p. 318).

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    Keith Ansell-Pearson

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Ansell-Pearson, K. Morality and the philosophy of life in Guyau and Bergson. Cont Philos Rev 47, 59–85 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-014-9288-y

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