Abstract
Bergson has described the closed society as static, circular, disciplined, caught up in automatism and organized for self-preservation. It represents a halt in the evolutionary process. The open society is dynamic, progressive, creative and characterized by freedom and universal charity. It represents a forward thrust. It is apparent that man has progressed beyond the state of the primitive closed society, and while he is still far from the ideal of the open society, morally he is advancing in that direction. How does this moral progress come about? Bergson answers the question in a remarkable analysis of the interacting relationship between the two moralities. The profound implications of his theory of knowledge are unfolded here, and perhaps nowhere else is the extraordinary originality and ingenuity of his moral doctrine, and the internal coherence of his whole philosophy, better revealed.
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References
The Two Sources, p. 55 (O. 1029).
Ibid., p. 76 (O. 1046–47). See Léon Husson, L’Intellectualisme de Bergson, pp. 194–207, especially p. 199, for a helpful discussion of the intellect’s function in morality.
Ibid., D. 57 (O. 1030 ).
Ibid., p. 57 (O. 1030 ). See also p. 87 (O. 1056–57): “… philosophers have misunderstood the compound nature of obligation in its present-day form: they have been led to attribute to this or that mental picture or operation the power of influencing the will: as if an idea could ever categorically demand its own realization! as if the idea were anything else, in this case, than an intellectual extract common to all, or, better still, the projection on to the intellectual plane of a whole set of tendencies and aspirations, some above, some beneath, pure intelligence!”
Ibid., O. 72 (O. 1043 ).
Ibid., P. 75 (O. 1046 ).
Ibid., p. 15 (O. 994): “Because in a reasonable being reason does indeed intervene as a regulator to assure this consistency between obligatory rules or maxims, philosophy has been led to look upon it as a principle of obligation.” See also p. 8o (O. 1050): “If certain really active forces, actually influencing our will, are already in possession, reason could and should intervene to co-ordinate their effects, but it could not contend with them, since one can always reason with reason, confront its arguments with others, or simply refuse all discussion…”
Ibid., p. 72 (O. 1043).
Ibid., p. 57 (O. to3o). See D. 41 (O. 1016–17): “These two moralities, placed side by side. appear now to be only one, the first having lent to the second something of its imperative character and having, on the other hand, received from it in exchange a connotation less strictly social, more broadly human.” And also pp. 42–43 (O. 1017–18): “Once again, there is some difficulty in comparing the two moralities because they are no longer to be found in a pure state. The first has handed on to the second something of its compulsive force; the second has diffused over the other something of its perfume.”
Ibid., p. 5o (O. 1024).
Ibid., pp. 50–51 (O. 1025).
Ibid., pp. 41–42 (O. 1016–17).
Ibid.. P. 75 (O. 1045–46).
Ibid., p. 256 (O. 1202).
Ibid.. pp. 60, 72, 73, 76 (O. 1033, 1043, 1044, 1047).
Ibid., pp. 60–76 (O. 1033–47).
Ibid., pp. 71–72 (O. 1043).
Ibid., p. 70 (O. 1041).
Ibid., p. 76 (O. 1047).
For Bergson’s critique of moral theories see ibid., pp. 86–99 (O. 1047–57).
Ibid., P. 77 (O. 2047 ).
Ibid., P. 78 (O. 2048–49).
Ibid., p. 82 (O. 1052).
Ibid., p. 8o (O. 1050–51).
Ibid.. pp. 85–86 (O. 1055).
In a painstaking study, E. Rolland attempts to demonstrate that each of the elements required for an authentic finalism is absent from Bergson’s moral philosophy. See La Finalité Morale dans le Bergsonisme (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne, 1937), especially chapters IV and V.
The Two Sources, pp. 45–46, 48, 300–01 (O. 1020, 1022, 1240–41).
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Gallagher, I.J. (1970). The Evolution of Morality. In: Morality in Evolution. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7573-7_8
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