Abstract
After having made explicit and analyzed the utilitarian assumptions present in economic science, Chap. 4 presents Rosmini’s critical arguments on the former and, at the same time, tries to show the author’s own positive formulation of human action. Rosmini’s main criticism aims at the anthropological core of utilitarianism, which conceives human action as a behavior always oriented towards some kind of ‘maximization of utility.’ According to our author, the problem of this utilitarian formulation lies on it being based on a partial and distorted observation of human condition. In order to refute it, Rosmini adopts a fundamentally phenomenological point of view that leads him to carry out a meticulous observation of the phenomena observable in the different stages of human development from childhood to adulthood. The chapter presents part of this phenomenological description and the different arguments raised by Rosmini to support his conviction of the existence in human beings of ‘personal’ capacities for free objective value judgments, moral recognition and happiness different from ‘natural’ capacities limited to satisfy physical or psychical subjective and utilitarian needs or pleasures.
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Notes
- 1.
“We live in a century in which the only scientific method worth-considering is that recognized by Galileo, a method principally aimed at firmly establishing observed facts. Any hypothesis whose avowed aim is to destroy undeniable facts is out of place” (Rosmini 1991, n. 242).
- 2.
“We understand physical necessity as a real force, which we are unable to conquer and overcome” (Rosmini 1993a, 80, n. 134).
- 3.
“At this level of development, the baby’s evaluative volitions completely agree with his affective volitions, just as these harmonize perfectly with his animal instincts, which they strengthen and assist. At this age, the baby’s powers are in complete peace and concord” (Rosmini 1991, 546).
- 4.
“Dynamic is the word I have used to describe the connection between the judgement (first effect of the volitive force) and the affections of the spirit, between the affections of the spirit (second effect) and the corporeal feelings, between the corporeal feelings (third effect) and external operations (fourth effect of the same volitive force). This connection is, in fact, a real force by means of which the volitive judgement effectively arouses the power of spiritual affections. These in turn move to corporeal feelings which then generates instincts, movements and actions” (Rosmini 1993a, 70, n. 110).
- 5.
“The foundations of all certainty are built on a tiny and discrete part of the knowledge which, despite its size and it being almost imperceptible, is firm and solid as a rock and it is the place where all the operations of reason rest. This is the idea of being from which the source and being of all human ideas originate” (Rosmini 1987, 1068).
- 6.
“The analysis of any knowledge we may have will always result in the same conclusion: ‘Nothing can be conceived without the idea of being.’ In fact, our knowledge or thoughts cannot be dissociated from the idea of being. Existence is the most common and universal of all qualities” (Rosmini 1987, 411).
- 7.
“The intimate nature of every intellective being is formed, as we said so often, by the idea of universal being which enables us to know every being and every good” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 63). We shall remember that the idea of being makes us participate, according to Rosmini, only in the idea of being but not in its reality. However, it is precisely the idea of being which enables us to grasp any reality objectively, independently from our subjective interests.
- 8.
In effect, according to the Roveretan, the idea of being is “the notion we use to produce all moral judgments” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 4) “We can know, through possession of such a faculty, everything to which the notion of good extends (…) Because our understanding conceives every species of good, every good can be considered by us objectively” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 74).
- 9.
“The moral system that I have proposed requires first of all the existence in the human being of a faculty of judgment which can be exercised freely” (Rosmini 1993a, 49).
- 10.
There is a multiplicity of texts and places in which Rosmini reassures the thesis on value judgments or voluntary intellectual recognition as the key to moral life: “The will then prompts reflection on what is known. This reflection is either morally good or bad in so far as the worth of these things are impartially acknowledged, or disavowed and distorted” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 144). “Our free will is evil if, seduced by self-love, it lays siege to our knowledge with the aim of falsifying it, or attempts to corrupt the natural judgments of our understanding” (Rosmini 1994b, 74). “The will, if it remains firm and unassailable against the attractions of subjective love, is good. It lends the practical support of its power to the law of our understanding by permitting our intelligence to judge according to the truth it perceives, and by taking pleasure in the understanding’s right judgments” (Rosmini 1994b, 74). “If the will is good, that is, free from self-interest, secondary end and perverse instinct, its sole end is to acknowledge known things for what they actually are (…) In this case, the will moves naturally towards the truth (…) What is known is loved in all its parts, as it is; no wrong is done to it because all the being found in it is loved without exaggeration or diminution” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 145). In this way, “the will, harmonizing with the law by an act of voluntary reflection, acknowledges things exactly as they are in direct knowledge” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 193).
- 11.
Rosmini uses similar formulations several times: “The first law, therefore, is made by the being itself of things, independently of us, and is promulgated by the simple presence of beings to our understanding. In presenting themselves to us they show us that it is not within our power to destroy, change or alter them in accordance with what is useful or pleasurable to us” (Rosmini 1993a, 79, n.131). “Truth, as we have already pointed out, demands our assent with a force totally independent of ourselves. This force is eternal, proper to truth itself, and we in our insignificance are nothing compared with it. We cannot change anything in it, no matter how much pleasure or pain urges us to do so. We can know what is painful, but things do not cease to be true simply because they are painful, nor do they diminish our obligation to acknowledge them for what they are” (Rosmini 1993a, 85, n. 148). Rosmini believes that “moral necessity exists in the objective, absolute world; the human being shares in moral necessity in so far as he shares in this objective, absolute world. Such necessity is of its nature invincible and insuperable precisely because the nature of beings which form the objective, absolute world is invincible and insuperable” (Rosmini 1991, n. 562).
- 12.
“Objective good, therefore, is moral good, but becomes such only when desired by will.” (Rosmini 1988a, n. 89).
- 13.
The ultimate anthropological foundation of the possibility of these eudaimonological goods consists in the relative autonomy inherent to the natural or subjective faculties in which they lie. In effect, “the fact that we cannot move our lower powers directly, and indeed are obliged to move and control them by means of their link with the neighbouring powers, reveals a related truth: the lower powers are not, properly speaking, ourselves (our person) although they are so closely bound with us that they form a single individual” (Rosmini 1991, n. 840). In this way, “different principles of action can be joined together in one individual, as in the case of the human being. But, although joined together and subordinated to a supreme activity, they do not cease to have an activity of their own” (Rosmini 1991, n. 841).
- 14.
This need to make a eudaimonological judgment of oneself has its ultimate anthropological cause in the fact that “in any particular act whatsoever, person always uses the noblest activity it can dispose of at the time (…) Because the faculty of judgment is more noble than that of sense, he is forced to judge himself and his own well-being” (Rosmini 1994b, 254).
- 15.
Indeed, according to Rosmini, besides the acts of adherence and approval of the objective truth “the other two elements are eudaimonological, that is, components of happiness necessarily joined with virtue” (Rosmini 1994b, 75), as their subjective effects. These are, on the one hand, “delight [or pleasure] from its adherence” and, on the other hand, “the approval [made] by the intellect” (Rosmini 1994b, 76). Therefore, for Rosmini, “happiness must result from two elements, delight and approval” (Rosmini 1994b, 75).
- 16.
“The very origin of virtue, therefore, contains an intimate bond joining it with happiness”(Rosmini 1994b, 75–76). This affirmation, repeatedly stated by Rosmini in several of his texts (See especially Rosmini 1991, ns. 890–895), reveals his essential discrepancy with Kantian moral rigorism. Besides, according to the Roveretan, full coincidence between virtue and happiness does not take place until the next life, since virtue attains an extremely imperfect adherence to good and truth in this life and, consequently, the degree of enjoyment and internal approval are also imperfect. This is also why, when referring to happiness attainable in this life, Rosmini prefers call it “appagamento” or “contentment” rather than happiness.
- 17.
It does not follow, though, that to Rosmini a purely childish use of the will cannot be actually observed in the actions of one or more adults.
- 18.
Rosmini makes a distinction between actions which are driven by feeling and those driven by interest, which he defines as “la disposizione dell’uomo, che pone le sue azioni colla mira agli effetti delle medesime.”
- 19.
“Adamo Smith si è fermato a considerare esclusivamente la tendenza simpatica di un uomo verso l’altro. Sebbene nel fenomeno della simpatia vi abbia l’intervento, e non in picciola parte, delle leggi dell’animalità; tuttavia, com’egli si manifesta nell’uomo, non si può dubitare, che nello stesso fenomeno giuchino assai le potenze intellettive…” (Rosmini 1941, 160).
- 20.
Besides, Rosmini also develops an extended argument to criticize other sentimentalists’ appeal to a special moral faculty (Rosmini 1941, 171). Rosmini recognizes in sentimentalists such as Douglas Stewart or James Mackintosch the merit of being “rings” of communication between sentimentalist “material ethical theories” and “formal” ones, and gives them credit for trying to overcome pure feeling as the principle of action; still, he criticizes them for “focusing their attention on the matter of virtue without expressing its form (…) which takes place only when intelligence gets involved in morality” (Rosmini 1941, 188).
- 21.
“Whichever kind the will chooses, therefore, its volition always has a cause, or better, a reason. It depends on the opinative good present to the spirit, and upon the spontaneity aroused by this good. The act of volition does not lack a suitable reason; the problem lies in knowing how the spirit determines itself to choose one of the volitions rather than the other (…) We have to distinguish that which moves a person to make a choice from the choice itself. Although the human being is moved spontaneously to choose, this spontaneity does not determine the way in which he must choose. (…) It is this act of choice which determines one of the possible volitions, and which therefore must precede all.(…) This act, therefore, does not lack a cause; its cause is a special activity of the spirit, aroused to operation by the presence of several different kinds of opinative good” (Rosmini 1991, n. 639).
- 22.
However, Rosmini explains that even though every act of moral perfection is personal, since only the faculties coming from the personal principle enable it to happen, not every personal action is moral. This is the case of, for instance, the non-active aspects of personal life such as the field of personal experiences, which do not imply morality (see Rosmini 1991, n. 854–864).
- 23.
In Rosmini’s opinion, happiness is a personal phenomenon: “A pleasant state pertains to nature; contentment properly speaking concerns person.” “The human person, when judging internally that he is content, is different from the proximate principle of simple feeling.” “If the proximate principle of feeling is in a pleasant state, it does not follow that the other, higher principle, which understands, judges, and properly speaking, constitutes human personship and ‘myself’ (the word usually expresses a person aware of himself) is content and happy” (Rosmini 1994b, 253).
- 24.
“Objective powers [however] always precede subjective powers in their development so that the human spirit always puts forth some new kind of activity after new kinds of objects have been revealed to it” (Rosmini 1991, n. 566).
References
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Rosmini, Antonio. 1987. New Essay Concerning the Origin of Ideas. Trans. from the Nuovo Saggio sull’Origine delle Idee. Durham: Rosmini House.
Rosmini, Antonio. 1988a. Principles of Ethics. Trans. from Principi della Scienza Morale. Durham: Rosmini House.
Rosmini, Antonio. 1991. Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science. Trans. Denis Cleary and Terence Watson. Durham: Rosmini House.
Rosmini, Antonio. 1993a. The philosophy of right, vol 1: The essence of right. Durham: Rosmini House.
Rosmini, Antonio. 1993b. The philosophy of right, vol 2: Rights of the individual. Durham: Rosmini House.
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Rosmini, Antonio. 2001. Grande dizionario antologico del pensiero di Antonio Rosmini. A cura di Cirillo Bergamaschi. Roma, Centro Internazionale di Studi Rosminiani: Città Nuova, Edizioni Rosminiani.
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Hoevel, C. (2013). Recognizing the Truth: Human Action Beyond Utilitarianism. In: The Economy of Recognition. Ethical Economy, vol 42. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6058-5_4
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