PHIL 211 South University Online The Pagan Moral Orientation Discussion What is the “pagan” moral orientation, as Tolstoy sketches it? Why does he include

PHIL 211 South University Online The Pagan Moral Orientation Discussion What is the “pagan” moral orientation, as Tolstoy sketches it? Why does he include some very prominent and familiar religious moral systems (i.e. the “Mohammedan”, the “Church-Christian”, the Jewish, and the “crude Buddhist”) among the pagan?How is the Christian moral orientation supposed to be fundamentally different from the “Church-Christian” orientation? (And presumably the same difference would apply between “crude Buddhism” and Buddhism in its “highest manifestation” and so on.)Why can morality not be independent of religion, according to Tolstoy? Religion and Morality
himself and the endless and infinite universe, or its source and
first cause.
You ask me: (1) What I understand by the word religion, and, (2)
Is it possible to have a morality independent of religion in the
sense in which I understand that word?
From this answer to the first question the answer to the second
follows naturally.
I will do my best to answer these most important and excellentlyput questions.
Three different meanings are commonly given to the word
religion.
The first is, that religion is a special and true revelation given by
God to man, and is a worship of God in accord with that
revelation. This meaning is given to religion by people who
believe in one or other of the existing religions and who
consequently consider that particular religion to be the only true
one.
The second meaning is, that religion is a collection of certain
superstitious beliefs, as well as a superstitious form of worship
accordant with such beliefs. This is the meaning given to religion
by unbelievers in general, or by men who do not accept the
particular religion they are defining.
The third meaning is, that religion is a collection of propositions
and laws devised by wise men and needed to console the
common people, to restrain their passions, and to make the
masses manageable. This meaning is given to religion by those
who are indifferent to religion as religion but consider it a useful
instrument for Governments.
So to your first question, ‘What do I understand by the word
religion? I reply: Religion is a relation man sets up between
If religion is a relation man establishes towards the universe—a
relation which determines the meaning of life—then morality is
the indication and explanation of such human activity as
naturally results from men holding this or that relation towards
the universe. And as only two such fundamental relations are
known to us, if we consider the pagan, social relation as an
enlargement of the personal, or three if we count the social,
pagan relation separately—it follows that only three moral
teachings exist: the primitive, savage, personal; the pagan, family,
State, or social; and the Christian or divine teaching of service to
man or to God.
From the first of these relations of man to the universe flows the
teaching of morality common to all pagan religions that have at
their base the striving after welfare for the separate individual,
and that therefore define all the conditions yielding most welfare
to the individual and indicate means to obtain such welfare. From
this relation to the world flow the pagan teachings: the Epicurean
in its lowest form; the Mohammedan teaching of morality which
promises coarse personal welfare in this and the next world; the
Church-Christian teaching of morality aiming at salvation—that
is, at the welfare of one’s personality, especially in the other
world; and also the worldly utilitarian morality aiming at the
welfare of the individual only in this world.
From the same teaching, which places the aim of life in personal
welfare and therefore in freedom from personal suffering, flow
Tolstoy: “Morality and Religion” – page 1 of 7
the moral teaching of Buddhism in its crude form and the
worldly doctrine of the pessimist.
From the second, pagan relation of man to the universe, which
sees the aim of life in securing welfare for a group of individuals,
flow the moral teachings which demand that man should serve
the group whose welfare is regarded as the aim of life. According
to that teaching personal welfare is only allowable to the extent to
which it can be obtained for the whole group of people who form
the religious basis of life. From that relation to the universe flow
the well-known Roman and Greek moral teachings in which
personality always sacrifices itself for society, and also the
Chinese morality. From this relation flows also the Jewish
morality—the subordination of one’s own welfare to that of the
chosen people—and also the Church and State morality of our
own times, which demands the sacrifice of the individual for the
good of the State. From this relation to the universe flows also the
morality of most women, who sacrifice their whole personality
for the benefit of their family and especially for their children.
All ancient history, and to some extent medieval and modern
history, teems with descriptions of deeds of just this family, social,
or State morality. And the majority of people to-day—though
they think their morality is Christian because they profess
Christianity—really hold this family, State, pagan morality, and
hold it up as an ideal when educating the young generation.
From the third, the Christian, relation to the universe—which
consists in man’s considering himself to be an instrument of the
Supreme Will for the accomplishment of its ends—flow the
moral teachings which correspond to that understanding of life,
elucidating man’s dependence on the Supreme Will and defining
its demands. From that relation of man to the universe flow all
the highest moral teachings known to man: the Pythagorean, the
Stoic, the Buddhist, the Brahminical, and the Taoist, in their
highest manifestations, and the Christian teaching in its real
meaning, demanding renunciation of one’s personal will—and
not only of one’s own welfare, but even of that of one’s family,
society, and country—for the sake of fulfilling the will of him
who sent us into life: a will revealed by our conscience. From the
first, the second, or the third of these relations to the infinite
universe or to its source, flows each man’s real, unfeigned
morality, no matter what he may profess or preach as morality or
in what light he may wish to appear.
So that a man who considers the reality of his relation to the
universe to lie in obtaining the greatest welfare for himself—
however much he may say he considers it moral to live for his
family, for society, for the State, for humanity, or for the
performance of God’s will—and however artfully he may
pretend and may deceive men, will still always have as his real
motive of action simply his individual welfare; so that when a
choice has to be made he will not sacrifice his own personality for
his family or State, nor to do the will of God, but will sacrifice
them all for his own sake. Since he sees the meaning of life only
in personal welfare he cannot do otherwise until such time as he
alters his relation to the universe.
And similarly one whose relation to life consists in the service of
his own family (as is the case with most women), or of his clan or
nation (as among members of the oppressed nationalities and
among men politically active in times of strife)—no matter how
much he may declare himself to be a Christian, his morality will
always be family or national and not Christian, and when any
conflict arises between family or social welfare on one side, and
that of his personality or the fulfilment of the will of God on the
other, he will inevitably choose the service of the group for
Tolstoy: “Morality and Religion” – page 2 of 7
whom, in his view of life, he exists: for only in such service does
he see the meaning of his life. And in the same way a man who
regards his relation to the world as consisting in fulfilling the will
of Him who sent him hither—however much you may impress
upon him that he should (in accord with the demands of his
personality, or of his family, his nation, empire, or all humanity)
commit acts contrary to the Supreme Will of which the operation
of the reason and love wherewith he is endowed makes him
aware—will always sacrifice all human ties rather than fail to
comply with the Will that has sent him here: for only in such
compliance does he discern a meaning for his life.
Morality cannot be independent of religion, for not only is it a
consequence of religion—that is, a consequence of the relation
in which a man feels that he stands towards the universe—but it
is implicit…in religion. Every religion is an answer to the
question: ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ And the religious
answer involves a certain moral demand, which may follow or
may precede the explanation of the meaning of life. To the
question, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ the reply may be: The
meaning of life lies in the welfare of the individual, therefore
make use of all the advantages within your reach’; or, ‘The
meaning of life lies in the welfare of a certain group of people,
therefore serve that group with all your strength’; or, ‘The
meaning of life lies in fulfilling the will of Him that sent you,
therefore try with all your strength to know that will and to fulfill
it.’ Or the same question may be answered in this way: ‘The
meaning of your life lies in your personal enjoyment, for that is
the object of man’s existence’; or, ‘The meaning of your life lies
in serving the group of which you consider yourself a member,
for that is your destiny’; or, ‘The meaning of your life lies in the
service of God, for that is your destiny.’
Morality is included in the explanation of the meaning of life
that religion gives, and can therefore in no way be separated from
religion. This truth is particularly evident in the attempts of nonChristian philosophers to deduce a doctrine of the highest
morality from their philosophy. Such philosophers see that
Christian morality is indispensable, that we cannot live without it;
they even see that it is an already existing fact, and they want to
find some way to attach it to their non-Christian philosophy and
even to put things in such a way that Christian morality may
seem to result from their pagan social philosophy. That is what
they attempt, but their very efforts show more clearly than
anything else that Christian morality is not merely independent
of pagan philosophy, but that it stands in complete contradiction
to that philosophy of individual welfare, or of liberation from
individual suffering, or of social welfare.
The Christian ethics, which in accord with our religious
conception of life we acknowledge, demand not only the sacrifice
of one’s personality for the group, but the renunciation alike of
one’s personality and of one’s group for the service of God; but
pagan philosophy only investigates means of obtaining the
greatest welfare for the individual or for the group of individuals,
and therefore a contrast is inevitable. And there is only one way
of hiding this contrast —namely, by piling up abstract
conditional conceptions one on another, and keeping to the misty
domain of metaphysics.
That is what most of the post-Renaissance philosophers have
done, and to this circumstance—the impossibility of making the
demands of Christian morality (which have been admitted in
advance) accord with a philosophy built on pagan foundations—
must be attributed the terrible unreality, obscurity,
unintelligibility, and estrangement from life, that characterizes
Tolstoy: “Morality and Religion” – page 3 of 7
modern philosophy. With the exception of Spinoza (whose
philosophy develops from truly Christian roots in spite of the fact
that he did not consider himself a Christian) and Kant (a man of
genius, who admittedly treated his system of ethics as not
dependent on his metaphysics), all the philosophers, even the
brilliant Schopenhauer, evidently devised artificial connexions
between their ethics and their metaphysics.
It is felt that Christian ethics are something that must be accepted
in advance, standing quite firmly, not dependent on philosophy
and in no need of the fictitious props put to support them; and it
is felt that Philosophy merely devises certain propositions in order
that ethics may not contradict her but may rather be bound to
her and appear to flow from her. All such propositions, however,
only appear to justify Christian ethics while they are considered
in the abstract. As soon as they are applied to questions of
practical life, the non-correspondence, and more, the evident
contradiction between the philosophic basis and what we
consider to be morality, appears in full strength.
The unfortunate Nietzsche, who has latterly become so
celebrated, rendered a valuable service by his exposure of this
contradiction. He is incontrovertible when he says that all rules of
morality, from the point of view of the current non-Christian
philosophy, are mere lies and hypocrisy and that it is much more
profitable, pleasant and reasonable, for a man to devise his own
Supermen (Uebermenschen) and be one of them, than to be one of
the mass which has to serve as the scaffold for these Supermen.
No philosophical constructions founded on the pagan-religious
view of life can prove to anyone that it is more profitable or wiser
for him to live, not for a welfare he desires, comprehends, and
sees to be possible for himself or for his family or his society, but
for another’s welfare—undesired, not understood, and
unattainable by his puny human power. Philosophy founded on
an understanding of life limited to the welfare of man will never
be able to prove to a rational man, who knows that he may die at
any moment, that he ought, and that it is good for him to forgo
his own desired, understood, and undoubted welfare—not even
for any certain welfare to others (for he can never know what will
result from his sacrifices), but merely because it is right or good to
do so: that it is a categorical imperative.
To prove this from the point of view of pagan philosophy is
impossible. To prove that people are all equal—that it is better
for a man to sacrifice his life in the service of others than to
trample on the lives of others, making them serve him—one
must redefine one’s relation to the universe: one must prove that
man’s position is such that he has no option, since the meaning of
his life lies only in the execution of the will of Him that sent him,
and the will of Him that sent him is that he should give his life to
the service of men. And such a change in man’s relation to the
universe comes only from religion.
Thus it is with the attempts to deduce Christian morality from,
and to reconcile it with, the fundamental positions of pagan
science. No sophistries or subtleties of thought can destroy this
simple and clear position, that the law of evolution, which lies at
the base of all the science of to-day, is founded on a general,
eternal, and unalterable law—the law of the struggle for
existence and the survival of the fittest; and that therefore each
man, to attain his own and his group’s welfare, should try to be
that ‘fittest’ and to make his group such, in order that he and his
group should not perish, but some other man or group that is less
fit.
However much some naturalists, frightened by the logical
consequences of this law and by their application to human life,
Tolstoy: “Morality and Religion” – page 4 of 7
may try to perplex the matter with words and to exorcise this law
—their efforts only make still more evident the irresistibility of
that law, which rules the life of the whole organic world, and
therefore that of man regarded as an animal.
Since I began writing this article, a Russian translation has
appeared of an article by Mr. Huxley, composed of a speech on
Evolution and Ethics delivered by him to some English Society.
In this article the learned Professor—like our well-known
Professor Beketov and many others who have written on the
same subject, and with as little success as his predecessors—tries
to prove that the struggle for existence does not infringe morality,
and that side by side with the acknowledgement of the struggle
for existence as a fundamental law of life, morality may not
merely exist but even progress. Mr. Huxley’s article is full of all
kinds of jokes, verses, and general views on ancient religion and
philosophy, and is consequently so florid and complicated that it
is only with great effort that one is able to reach its fundamental
thought. That thought however is as follows: The law of
evolution runs counter to the moral law; this was known to the
ancient Greeks and Hindus. The philosophy and religion of both
those peoples brought them to the doctrine of self-renunciation.
That doctrine, the author thinks, is not correct; the correct one is
this: A law exists, which the author calls the cosmic law, in accord
with which all beings struggle against one another and only the
fittest survive. Man also is subject to this law; and thanks only to
it has man become what he now is. But this law runs counter to
morality. How then can it be reconciled with morality? That can
be accomplished in this way: A law of social progress exists which
seeks to check the cosmic process and to replace it by another, an
ethical, process, the object of which is the survival, not of the
fittest but of the best in an ethical sense. Where this ethical
process sprang from, Mr. Huxley does not explain, but in his
twentieth footnote he says that the basis of this process is, on the
one hand that people, like animals, prefer to be in company and
therefore suppress in themselves qualities harmful to society; and
on the other hand that the members of a society forcibly suppress
actions contrary to social welfare. It seems to Mr. Huxley that this
process, obliging men to curb their passions for the sake of
preserving the group of which they are members, and for fear of
being punished if they disturb the order of their group, supplies
that ethical law the existence of which he wishes to demonstrate.
It seems to Mr. Huxley in the naiveté of his soul, that in English
society as it exists to-day—with its Irish problem, the poverty of
its lowest classes, the insensate luxury of the rich, its trade in
opium and spirits, its executions, its slaughter or extermination of
tribes for the sake of trade and politics, its secret vice and its
hypocrisy—the man who does not infringe the police regulations
is a moral man guided by the ethical law. He forgets that the
qualities needful to maintain the society in which a man lives may
be useful for that society as the members of a band of robbers
may be useful to that band, and as in our own society we find a
use for the qualities of executioners, jailers, judges, soldiers, and
hypocrite-priests, etc.—but that these qualities have nothing in
common with morality.
Morality is something continually developing and growing, and
therefore conformity to the existing rules of a certain society and
their preservation by means of the axe or the scaffold (to which
Mr. Huxley alludes as to instruments of morality), will not only
not tend to the maintenance, but will be an infringement, of
morality. And on the contrary every infringement of the existing
order—such as were not only the infringements committed by
Jesus and his disciples of the regulations of a Roman province,
but the infringements of present-day regulations by one who
refuses to take part in legal proceedings, military service, or the
Tolstoy: “Morality and Religion” – page 5 of 7
payment of taxes levied for warlike preparations—will not only
not be an infringement of morality, but will be an inevitable
condition of its manifestation.
Every cannibal who perceives that he should not eat his fellow
men and who acts accordingly, infringes the order of his society.
And therefore though action infringing the order of any society
may be immoral, every truly moral action which pushes forward
the limits of morality is always sure to be an infringement of the
order of society. If therefore a law has appeared in society in
accord with which people sacrifice their personal advantages for
the preservation of the integrity of their group, that law is not the
ethical law, but on the contrary will generally be a law contrary to
all ethics—that same law of the struggle for existence, but in a
hidden latent form. It is the same struggle for existence, but
carried over from the individual to a group of individuals. It is
not th…
Purchase answer to see full
attachment