I have divided this introduction into 4 sections, so that the reader may have a better understanding on what I shall attempt to do in this book through seeing the problem from 4 different viewpoints.

1

Kantian Ethics can also be called the ethics of the metaphysical i.e. with its metaphysical moral will, metaphysical freedom of the will, metaphysical responsibility, metaphysical punishment and justice. Is there really a metaphysical world, or is it merely in one’s drunken mind, who is, according to Wittgenstein, bewitched by his language.

Let’s take a look at the belief in the existence of metaphysical justice. (Note that I’m not in anyway denying the importance of social justice, but only the metaphysical one.) Should the first in a competition be rewarded or should the person who could derive the greatest joy from the award itself be rewarded instead? It seems that the first deserve or ought to be rewarded, just as the moral man seems to deserve happiness more than the sinner. And this oughtness must be metaphysical in nature i.e. divine and absolute. In the words of the Christian, it is the law of God, which our conscience must obey without choice, with the conscience as a special faculty to perceive such divine laws. Yet what if I ask now, how much should he (the first) then be rewarded? Do the second and third need to be rewarded too, and if so how much percentage of the total reward should the first take? If you cannot give me a precise amount or percentage, then surely the concept of metaphysical fairness is chimerical. (Luckily, Christ shared my sentiments when He talked of the parable of the gardener who goes about seeking workers to tend his garden, yet giving the same amount of money to all, even to those who come late.) Our present concept of fairness in rewarding the first is but a business deal in the hope of making the competition more exciting. It is only because you have initially chosen to call the money a reward, with the intention of making the competition more exciting, which confuses you eventually. For the definition of reward means analytically and thus emptily that it is something awarded to the first. If you have not done this, but have merely said that the reward of being first is none other than being first itself, then there will be no confusion. There is nothing logically inconsistent with having a competition where there will be a lucky draw in the end so long as you do not call the prize of the lucky draw a reward, which is by an analytical definition given to the first, except of course the competition will be less exciting. And instead of giving the prize randomly through a lucky draw, why not give the money to the one who will be the happiest, for he will also be the one who has worked the hardest for it, since it is irrational for a man to wish for something yet not put in a correspond effort towards working for it.

There is absolutely no logical necessity between the concept of deserve and happiness. We feel that the first deserves the reward, and the moral man deserves happiness, solely because we were taught so, for the sake of a more prosperous society. Similarly, we feel that the sinner deserves punishment solely because of both social reasons and our revengeful nature. Remember, Christ says, "Ask and it will be given", not "Do and you shall deserve" i.e. Christ is not a Kantian. For God is not a business-man nor a politician. This book is an attempt to show that there is absolutely no metaphysical world of morality, or anything, as the Kantian believes, with help from the philosophy of Christ.

2

Kant believes that the word ‘ought’ has different senses when it is used in daily prudence and morality. In daily prudence, we say something like this: you ought to study hard if you want to pass the exam, whereas in morality, we say: you ought to be honest (period), not for any future prudent interest, but simply because being honest is right in itself.

Now I would want to comment on such a way of saying, for it has the great danger of bewitching one to say something like this: If there are two different senses of ‘ought’, doesn’t this prove that there must be two different worlds, one guided by the physical laws, and the other metaphysical one guided by the moral laws? Does the existence of two different senses of ‘ought’ imply that there must be another metaphysical world of morality besides the physical one? If this is so, surely there must also be a mathematical world, since there is also the analytical imperative i.e. if you want to draw a square, you ought to draw a line then followed by another at right angle etc… And if there are three worlds instead of one, isn’t there a possibility of an infinite of them previously undiscovered? Surely not. Isn’t it merely the use of the same word ‘ought’ in three different ways (in the same single physical world), and thus isn’t it better to say that the word ‘ought’ may be previously unused, or unremembered, instead of undiscovered?

When we use the phrase "moral obligation", it creates in us an impression that there is really something called morality that we have a special obligation to. We should say instead it has always been the same obligation to Reason itself, which is merely used in a different way of life, in the same physical world. And if it is merely a different way of life yet still in the same physical world, shouldn’t the motivation for such a moral way of life be the same i.e. happiness, as the prudent way of life, instead of the respect for a nobler metaphysical world? Of course, the difficulty is to see how happiness must be a motivation for Kantian disinterested or non-prudent moral acts.

To answer this, we must first ask, must all reasoning concerned with happiness be prudent in nature? I believe not. Ask yourself, have you ever said something like this, "Life is like a painting consisting of both black and white in order to create a beautiful picture." Such reasoning is surely non-prudent, yet isn’t it nevertheless fully concerned with happiness? In fact, it is in times of suffering that we need to philosophize in such a way to calm the pain we feel about the meaningless of suffering. I can think of no better name to call such a non-prudent reasoning which is still fully concerned with happiness, with due respect to Kant, transcendental reasoning. When such a transcendental reasoning is applied in pure speculation, it becomes transcendental philosophical reasoning e.g. "Life is like a painting..." as above, and when it is applied in practicality, instead of mere speculation, it becomes transcendental ethical reasoning. Such ethical reasoning is the true reasoning in our moral lives, for the principle of universalizability of Kant merely (even if it is right, which I believe not as I shall try to show later) shows why a particular categorical imperative is right, not why should one obey it even if it is right, for I can surely choose to lie even if lying is wrong? Yes, it may be irrational for me to will all to be liars, but why shouldn’t I choose to be irrational so long as it brings me happiness? Please do not say that it is the respect for the principle itself that motivates, for how can respect itself motivates, since if I respect the moral act equally before and after the act, why then should I act? The true moral reasoning must not only show what the right acts are, but also why we should do it. This book answers this question i.e. what is moral reasoning?

3

Kantian Ethics does focus on trying to find out what the right moral acts are, yet it does not really know who is a moral man. Of course, the Kantian will simply say that the moral man is one who possesses a good moral will. Yet isn’t this merely an empty analytical definition? Isn’t this tantamount to saying that the moral man is none other than one who possesses the ability to do moral acts, and thus defining a moral man in terms of his behavior again, for in what way can you say that a man possesses the ability to do good, except for the fact that he acts morally? This argument applies similarly to defining the moral man in terms of say, the sincerity or intention towards doing moral acts.

Now, I need you to recall the words of Christ i.e. first clean the inside of the dishes (or yourself), and then your outside will be clean too. Clearly, Christ feels that it is entirely possible for an evil man (with an evil inside) to be dutiful nevertheless towards external moral acts (i.e. with a Kantian moral outside). To Christ, there is a distinction between a good man and merely a man who does the good. The inside and the outside may not have any direct relation at all, in the way Kantians believe i.e. that the inside is none other than the will (or sincerity) to do moral acts on the outside. In other words, if Christ is right, the inside should not be defined in terms of the outside. For if the inside is defined in terms of the outside (e.g. as the moral will or sincerity towards outside moral acts, such that you can say that he is moral only because he does moral acts), then the evil man who does good dutifully at every opportunity cannot be said to be evil at all in any sense. Yet this is exactly what Christ denies. Therefore, it is not enough to define a moral man with any outside criterion, for this is just an empty analytical truism.

Ask yourself, isn’t it logically possible to imagine a man possessing a perfect moral will or sincerity yet refusing to commit moral acts on every occasion, if the moral will or sincerity is really something real and independent of the moral act itself? If it is in the mere possession of the good will, then he must presumably be good all the time, even when there is no good deeds to be done. Yet if he can be good when he is not doing good deeds, why can’t he be equally good when he is doing evil deeds instead, for there is no reason why couldn’t he also posses the good will (and thus be good) even while acting in an evil way? If I ask you, why should the man with the good moral will on the inside be prompted to act morally on the outside, you can reply to me in no other way but only that it is, by definition which is analytical and thus empty, that the moral will must prompt moral acts. To say that the inside of a man is the moral will is tantamount to saying nothing at all, unless you can give me a rational proof on how the inside moral will is able to prompt outside moral acts, which is a task impossible if you merely define the inside analytically in terms of the outside. What is inside of a man must firstly be something intuitive, yet has absolutely no analytical relation with the outside i.e. it must be something qualitatively different, and finally, it must also be capable of prompting a man to act Kantian morally on the outside through a rational proof. What this inside is, only the philosophy of Christ is able to provide.

And because Kantian Ethics lacks the description of this particular inside, it is merely the correct description of ethics, not the correct explanation. A moral man must do what Kantian Ethics describes, for Kantian Ethics is the correct description of ethics, but a man who does his duty disinterestedly and dutifully every time may not be a moral man at all. Thus, Kantian Ethics can only be half-completed in answering the question, What is a moral act? The other half i.e. the question on, Who is a moral man? (or Why be moral?) is still unanswered. For as a human being, one needs not only to know, but also to be inspired. If the task of describing ethics is more important than inspiring man to be moral, Christ would have chosen to be a philosopher. This book attempts to complete Kantian Ethics with the philosophy of Christ, in the sense of trying to explain how a moral man with a good inside must live morally on the outside too, instead of merely to describe the outside.

4

Lastly, I want to talk about the problem of dualism in Kantian Ethics. Kant’s contribution to ethical philosophy is as monumental as the contribution of Newton in natural philosophy, for he has seen rightly that there is indeed a vast difference between a happy man and a moral man. Yet in making this distinction, he has also created a problem of dualism on happiness and virtuousness to arise, just as Descartes has caused the dualism of the mind and body.

The central question I would pose to the reader is this, in a religious tone, Why would God ever create two goals for a man to attain, instead of merely just one? Why is that we need to be both happy men and yet also moral men, instead of merely being just one? Why didn’t God create three goals instead, if two is better than one? Has God been drinking, since only a drunken will see one as two? In a more philosophical tone, the question becomes, is it more important to be moral or to be happy, and why? How could one ever compare two distinct qualities i.e. the quality of happiness with the quality of morality? On what scale can they be measured in order to know their relative importance for sure? And therefore, if there are two goals that I need to attain, how should I then organize my time in order to attain these two? How would I ever know how am I to live today i.e. to listen to music or to spend the day helping in an old folk’s home? Who can give me the exact number of times I should practice virtue for this week? If I have just one dollar, should I buy my favorite book or donate the money away? Which is right, and how could I know for sure? Should I throw a coin to decide? (The usual answer to this question is, you need only to do the right some of the time. Or that you need to do charity till you have to sacrifice some of your personal happiness. Unfortunately, though such answers may be good enough for the layman, to give such an answer to a philosopher is tantamount to saying nothing at all. Of course, Kant is clever enough to use the term ‘imperfect duty’ in place of the word ‘some’, but if duty can be imperfect, then the circle can look like a square.) Only in seeing two as one, can the true philosopher rest his mind.

Note that I’m not trying to discuss the importance of happiness in Kantian Ethics, although many writers have tried to do so. In other words, they have largely accepted the dualism, though they still hope that happiness can be of some value at least. Whereas not only do I reject the dualism, I also believe that the dualism can be resolved completely. For as philosophers, we are not so interested in knowing what is happiness than answering to the question, why is there something other than happiness? We are not so interested in the importance of happiness but rather in proving that there is only happiness. I believe the resolving of this dualism in ethical philosophy is as monumental as the resolving of the body-mind dualism in metaphysics. I also believe that Christ has a perfect solution to this problem, and this book can thus be also seen as an attempt in applying the philosophy of Christ to this most important and interesting problem in both ethical philosophy and our lives.

The ethical theory proposed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant is the greatest contribution to the philosophy of Western ethics in the history of mankind. In this chapter, I shall attempt to discuss the beauty of Kantian Ethics, including all its philosophical limitations and logical inconsistencies. I shall also attempt to show how the philosophy of Christ can help Kantian philosophers in seeing that such philosophical limitations can be resolved.

In Kantian Ethics, morality has absolutely nothing to do with happiness and compassion. This may sound incredible to some, especially to beginners, but consider this example. Imagine you are walking back home after a hard day work, tired and hungry. You know that you will be welcomed when you get home, with a bowl of hot soup ready for you and sleep. You therefore choose to take the shortcut hoping to reach home sooner. But as you quicken your pace, you suddenly notice a fainted old lady on the road. Your first reaction would probably be, "How I wish I have never taken this shortcut!" But nevertheless, you will help her by bringing her to the nearest hospital, knowing fully that by the time you get home the hot soup would have already turned cold, and you would probably lose precious hours of sleep. So the question arises, why do you help the old lady? Out of the wish to see the old lady free from suffering, that she is well on her feet again? If you have really wished to see her well again, and thus would feel delight and happy in seeing that, why won’t you wait in the hospital for her recovery? Or why won’t you continue to visit her everyday, instead of going to movies, since seeing her well again is one of the greatest delights in your life? Ask yourself will you be disappointed even for a bit if you have never met the old lady, and thus have never thought that she existed? Surely not! And if you will never be disappointed by the fact that she does not exist, why would you be disappointed for being unable to see her well on her feet? You know that the happiness on seeing the old lady well again can never compensate your own loss of happiness on getting enough food and rest. This is Kantian Ethics i.e. that a moral action has nothing to do with the goal (or the intention) of the action. Surely your sole intention is to get home as fast as possible, rather than to see the old lady well again. I doubt you will even bother to call up the hospital to check on her the next morning. You certainly do not feel like saving the old lady, or else why would you regret choosing the short cut home in the first place? Yet you nevertheless feel obliged to save her. Kant therefore believes that man has a moral nature different from his prudent nature (in search of happiness), which is the source for such a dutiful and disinterested action of helping someone, even if you do not feel like helping her.

"But you do not like to see her suffering." Yes, no one likes to see another suffering, since there is compassion in everyone. But why is there a need to sacrifice your own time since all you need to do is to turn your head away, just as you turn off the television set when you see children suffering? Why choose the more troublesome way of bringing her to a hospital when you could have pretended not to see it, just as you turn off the television? You surely can continue with your life happily after turning off the television, yet why not in this case? No you cannot, for in the case of switching off the television, you know that you cannot do anything about the suffering of others, but here you know you have the power to help the old lady. This is the sense of responsibility or duty. The determining factor in doing a moral act is the sense of duty, rather than compassion or the happiness in seeing the old lady well again. And Kantian Ethics says that therefore, only actions done out of the sense of duty can be considered moral in nature. One does a moral act solely because he ought to do it, regardless of whether he likes it or not.

Thus, one can see that there are actually two types of action a man can perform. The first is concerned with happiness i.e. acts done for or out of happiness. Acts done for prudent happiness include working for your pay, and acts done out of happiness include going for a walk, or listening to your favorite music. Yet both forms of act, though in different ways, are concerned solely with happiness. But now we know that there is another type concerned not with happiness at all i.e. an act of nobility done not to see the old lady well again or to ease the pain of seeing the old lady suffering, but solely out of the sense of duty i.e. solely because it is the right thing to do. If there are ever only acts concerned with happiness, then there will never be a problem. For we can say that there is ever only one goal to attain in life i.e. the goal of happiness. But as Kant has rightly shown, there are acts totally unconcerned with happiness but only with the sense of duty. Thus, besides the goal of happiness, there seems to be an additional goal in life i.e. the goal of virtuousness. Not only do we naturally want to be happy men, we must also be moral men dutifully, even if it incurs the loss of happiness at times.

Philosophically, we can express the problem in this way, is it enough just to attain either one? If it is a must to be moral, is it then enough just to be moral? Surely not, for not only is happiness something positively good in itself, it is quite strange to say that Socrates would not mind whether is he in Hell or Heaven. Surely there is still a difference even if you are already perfectly virtuous whether you are in pain or happiness. If that is so, then there must be some value in happiness, even if virtuousness is more important to attain. Yet how can two entirely different qualities be compared? In what scale can you measure the importance of virtuousness and happiness? If happiness is less important, how much less? In Kant’s view since one must always choose virtuousness before happiness, therefore virtuousness must be something more important than happiness. Yet although we would surely choose to eat first before we enjoy, that does not mean that we live merely to eat. In fact, if virtuousness is more important than happiness, why shouldn’t we all work continuously throughout our lives performing our moral duties, instead of spending our time with our loved ones? For if no one can claim that he could attain perfect virtuousness in this life, then it would simply be irrational and irresponsible for him to spend even a single moment in the pursuit of happiness even if happiness has some value. Any moment spent in the happiness of friendship and love, though there is still a value in it, is still nevertheless a moment wasted because you could have spent it in a better way by performing your duty, which is of a higher value comparatively.

2

Basically, a Kantian has two ways to handle this problem on happiness. Firstly, he believes that happiness can make someone more eager to be good, and secondly, happiness can provide more opportunities for one to practice moral actions. We shall see how all these will fail.

i

"Happiness is a mean to morality, for though it is good to be virtuous, by our human nature, we are sensuous beings who inevitably and naturally need happiness to promote our morality."

Is this really so? If happiness can help one to be moral, then I can always say that it is because I’m not fortunate enough to be happy that I’m not morally good. Yet this is contrary to our common experience on moral goodness. We know intuitively that one does not have an excuse to be evil, no matter what. We know that it is equally possible for one to be morally good whether is he happy or not. Isn’t this why Kant postulated the existence of the unconditional and autonomous free moral will in the first place? Yet now, he seeks this futile way. If the moral will is truly unconditional and autonomous, then strictly speaking, no happiness (or suffering) could and should prompt (or deter) it. So long as there are two distinct qualities instead of one, none should affect the other in anyway, for it is beyond our reason to see how different qualities, for example the mind and the body, could affect each other.

Now, the beauty of Kantian Ethics lies precisely in the fact that Kant recognizes that a man is free in his ability to be moral, whether is he rich or poor, happy or unhappy. There is an unconditional worth in man, for he possesses an unconditional free moral will, which enables him to be free from any empirical influence, making it possible for him to choose freely to be morally good, no matter in Hell or Heaven. Yet Kant now says that happiness can help one to be moral through increasing his probability to choose the good. If happiness can increase the probability of choosing the good, then all we need to do is to increase our own happiness infinitely and we shall all be as good as Christ. Kantians may say that it is not happiness that prompts directly a man to do good, but that happiness is only an incentive in encouraging and supporting him indirectly to do good. Yet the point is, no matter how you play with words, if any change in the external can increase a man’s probability to do good, whether directly or indirectly, then there is no reason why can’t a man progress towards moral perfection simply through concentrating his efforts on the external, rather than on his own inner spirituality?

And therefore, if happiness cannot and should not affect the moral development of a person, and since it is merely a mean instead of a goal, why should you then make the hungry beggar full and happy, for surely you are depriving him of a greater duty in refraining from theft out of hunger, since it is in hard times that there are more and greater duties to be performed? (Here, I must remind you that because the mere possession of the moral will cannot be the criterion, for it is logically possible to imagine a man with a good moral will yet doing evil acts, a man can only be good when he is acting morally.) Of course, Kantians will say that there are other duties that could be performed even when one is free from hunger. But the point is, how do you ever know that duties, which can only be performed when one is rich, are of greater value than those that need to be performed when one is poor? For it is quite difficult to see how can there be greater duties than those need to be performed in times of difficulties. I mean, although the learning of the Arts in good times may be a duty, is it really greater than that performed by Christ in enduring the pain of crucification for a just cause? Surely we respect Christ more than a diligent artist. And if the endurance of hardships, be it in crucification or hunger, is of the greater value, why should we then help the beggar to be full, or save someone from the cross, since we will be depriving him of the chance to be truly great, if happiness is only a mean instead of a goal? (And please don’t say that there is a time to be rich and a time to be poor, for you surely will not give up any slightest chance of progress towards happiness. No sane man would purposely starve himself in order to satisfy the principle that there are times to be full, and times to be hungry. Similarly, only an insane man would look forward towards the day of crucification as he looks forward towards Christmas. No sane man will stay on the cross purposely if given the chance to be free, without betraying justice.) A Kantian may say that one needs to rest, by choosing happiness, from imperfect duties, yet if one can be tired of performing imperfect duties, why can’t he be tired of perfect ones? And if one can carry on performing perfect duties no matter how tired he is, why can’t he do so for imperfect ones?

ii

"Happiness is a way to morality, for although riches may not be a mean to inducing moral willing, it nevertheless provides opportunities to allow a man to exercise his moral willing."

This means that if you help others to become richer, then they will be able to help you in return (if you ever become bankrupt sometime later in your life). In this way, you give others more opportunities to exercise their virtuousness in helping others. It is not that being rich is good in itself, but that being rich can increase the number of charitable acts performed (since in Kantian Ethics, only the act of helping or better, the will to helping, is good in itself, not the consequence of making someone rich). It is because riches provide one more opportunities to perform charity that riches are good (for you cannot practice the act of charity if you have nothing to give at all), not that it is good in itself.

Yes, I would agree that the above argument is valid, if you mean by being rich the possession of the ability to do charity. Yet surely the question still exists, for even if it is right for one to be rich in order to practice more charity, it still doesn’t mean that one should be rich in order to be happy. The question on whether is there a value in being rich, so that you may be happy in going to the movies, rather than only being able to practice more charity, is still unanswered. Yes, increased wealth would allow someone to practice more charity, yet this also means that one should only spend his money practicing charity. For if you spend your money going to your favorite movie, instead of practicing charity with the money, you will still not be developing your virtuousness at all. The point is, even if it is allowed for a man to possess wealth, he still cannot go to the movie for the happiness of watching a movie cannot and should not help him attain virtuousness.

iii

A moral man will tell himself that happiness can wait, duty first. To a common man, this is all right i.e. virtue first, happiness later. He will be contented with such an arrangement from God. But to a philosopher, a man who specializes in asking the question what if, a man who prides himself in seeing further than any common man, this becomes a real headache. For he can ask himself this terrible question which threatens his very mental health, if happiness can wait, why shouldn’t it be indefinitely delayed? If virtuousness is more valuable than happiness, and since you can only enjoy either happiness or virtuousness at any single moment of time (since they are distinct to any honest man who doesn’t play with words), why should there be a change in experiencing living virtuously to happily? Why shouldn’t we spend eternity only in the performance of duty, say in the endurance of the pain of crucification? Just imagine, requesting God to grant you an eternal life of crucification in order for you to experience your own virtuousness. Or if you feel that it is the helping of others that is truly virtuous, then you would need to request God to make others poor forever so that you can help them for eternity, if helping others is good in itself. For this is surely what we mean when we say that happiness is good in itself i.e. we will ask God to grant us an eternal life of happiness if we see Him. And even if you do not agree that one needs to be in actual suffering, or others in actual poverty, in order to better appreciate his virtuousness, still the question remains that if one can find contentment in virtuousness, then one could very well spend eternity shut up in a coffin appreciating and enjoying his virtuousness quietly forever, rather than committing other acts of happiness e.g. playing with loved ones, listening to great music etc. Please do not ask me how one could derive joy from appreciating his virtuousness, for I am no moral or religious fanatic myself. Such philosophical problems arise from the failure to see that there is no morality at all, though there are of course moral acts, or there would be nothing worth to explain (and you will be wasting your money in buying this book). In other words, we must see how happiness is also a motivation for Kantian morality, as I shall show in my explanation of ethics later.

3

Kant believes that there is a form of imperative categorical in nature i.e. one ought to carry out a moral act solely for the sake of doing it, rather than for any prudent reason. One ought to speak the truth simply because truth-speaking is a virtue in itself, rather than because it helps to bring you future rewards.

First I want to remind the reader, contrary to common belief, the truth of the principle of universalizability does not really have much to do with ethics. So what if there are indeed maxims that cannot be universalized? For even if it is impossible to universalize lying, there is still the question on whether the truly moral man is one who obeys the principle or one who disobeys it. Why should the moral man be the one who refuses to act on maxims that cannot be universalized, instead of the one who acts with all his efforts on non-universalizable maxims? Yes, it may be irrational to will all to be liars, but what does this got to do with being a liar, for being is not willing, and thus there is nothing irrational about being a liar even if you cannot will all to be so i.e. it may indeed be irrational to universalize lying, but that does not mean that it is irrational to lie, for the act of lying is not the act of universalizing. Yes, lying may not be universalizable, but why should the refrain from it be moral or right, unless of course you define this analytically based simply on your intuition. How do you know that God wants us to refrain from lying, instead of trying our best to lie? In fact, if one cannot find a reason to why must one refrain from non-universalizable maxims, instead of acting on them, you must believe that God had somehow thrown a coin to decide the definition of what a moral man should do i.e. should a moral man lie or not, at the moment when He created morality? The principle has nothing to do with ethics, for it shows only what can be universalized and what cannot, not what is the right thing to do, for it is surely logically possible that it is actually right to do the non-universalizable act instead of the commonly believed. Now, please do not think that I’m asking you to start lying now, for I’m not doing anything more than to inform you that it is possible to find such a reason (as I shall do later in my explanation of ethics), and thus there is no need for you to explain ethics based on your intuition that the moral man should obey the principle instead of disobeying it.

ii

Now, it seems quite possible to describe an act as being done solely for it’s own sake, but are you so sure that it is possible to explain so? It is easy to say words like, "He jumped down from the building although he is sane and happy," but it is not so easy to believe that such an event is possible. (As I have said, the reason provided by the principle of universalizability has nothing to do with ethics.) There must be a rational explanation for everything that happens. Remember, nothing ever happens without a reason. This is the supreme principle in our thinking that even in the realm of ethics one must obey. The only possible way that a person could carry out an act solely for the sake of doing it is for him to be programmed like a robot. Only the robot can fulfill our understanding of what it means by carrying out an act solely for the sake of doing it. (The explanation is of course that the robot is programmed to do so.) Yet why don’t we say that a robot is morally great?

The first answer may be this, that the robot doesn’t need to put in any effort in obeying the moral laws, but a man on the other hand has to try his very best. Yet does Christ need to put in effort in obeying the moral laws? Does he obey the moral laws effortlessly like the robot, or does he need to put in an immense amount of effort in obeying the moral laws like the villain? The Kantian may say that it is not that Christ does not face the same difficulty in obeying the moral laws, but rather He is strong enough to overcome the difficulty i.e. that He has a greater moral will which allows Him to overcome His equally strong physical will to, say, steal. Yet surely a robot can also be programmed with two levels of power that resemble the physical will and the moral will, with the moral will stronger (and thus overwriting) the physical will. No matter how you play with words, you can never deny that it is still nevertheless an easier position to be in to possess enough moral will power (i.e. to be Christ-like). The distinctive feature in ethics lies in that a man needs to struggle hard to become good. If you want to say that being good should need no struggle, then your ethics is only suitable for the robot. Yes, you may not be a robot now, but in working hard to become a morally better man with a perfect moral will capable of obeying the moral laws effortlessly, you are also at the same time trying hard to be a robot. What I want to say is that the concept of a noble man being one who possesses a perfect moral will is inconsistent, for the perfect moral will belongs only to the robot. Contrary to common belief, there is nothing great in owning a perfect moral will at all.

"But a man appreciates the value of a moral act, unlike a robot." True, a man is different from a robot in that he is able to appreciate the beauty of morality. Yet, isn’t it also logically possible to conceive a man who appreciates morality, yet nevertheless fails to perform morally on every occasion? There is nothing irrational about this, for if one is able to appreciate the value of the moral act equally before and after committing it, there is absolutely no reason why should he then carry out the act at all. Yes it may be strange, but it is still conceivable. Thus the ability to appreciate morality, being logically independent of moral acts, cannot in any way contribute to the being of a moral man. He must still be judged through his moral will alone i.e. that he performs moral acts, and thus his greatness is still no different from the robot.

In other words, there cannot be such a thing as a pure categorical imperative i.e. some acts that one needs to do simply because he feels that he is constrained to do so, rather than for any other purpose. If you ever feel constrained to do something solely for its own sake, you are merely behaving like a robot. There must always be some objective that one will be able to achieve through (or in) doing the act. It is only the question on whether the objective is temporal or immanent to the act itself. Your pay is an objective temporal to your act of working, whereas the enjoyment of music is an objective immanent to your act of listening to music. Obviously the objective must be immanent in a moral act. What could such an objective be?

Kant attempts to solve this problem by believing that duty can be done with joy i.e. by putting joy into the performance of one’s moral duty. Kant hopes to make joy an immanent objective in a moral act, so that a categorical imperative (though it now has an objective) would still be different from a hypothetical one, whose objective is temporal in the future. Yet the question arises, if joy can be placed into a moral act that is joyless initially, why couldn’t joy be placed into an act of suffering too? Joy is not an object, but rather a quality exhibited by a certain way of life or act. If the quality of joy can be anyhow placed into whatever we feel fit, then surely the quality of beauty can also be taken away from the painting of Mona Lisa and be placed into the splashing of paint. (Joy is, as beauty, a quality rather than a quantity. It is a way of life that is lived, just as beauty is a way the painting is painted i.e. life can be lived joyously, just as the painting can be painted beautifully. Thus you cannot own joy just as you cannot own beauty, but only to live in it. If it is possible to own joy as something, why can’t we then own beauty as something private too, such that in owning beauty privately you will now see everything as equally beautiful?) As far as I can see, the joy of being able to do a moral act is none other than the joy of pride. The Kantian scholar Tearle, in his book Kantian Ethics, attempts to help Kant with this problem. Instead of making a moral act as joyous as a happy act (which is a logical impossibility, except only in the form of the joy of pride), one should rather think of the quality of a moral act, not in terms of joyousness, but rather in terms of a new quality called moral perfection (ness). In other words, by substituting the word perfection (ness) in place of joyousness, Tearle hopes to avoid the above problem I posed, yet still be able to provide an immanent objective for a moral act. Yes, it is not possible to experience joyousness in acting morally, but we can still be experiencing perfection (ness) through acting morally, Tearle says. If one could be motivated to play games i.e. to carry out happy acts, in order to experience joyousness immanent in the happy act itself, one can also be motivated to carry out moral acts to experience perfection (ness) immanent in the moral act itself.

Now, is such a play of words enough to solve this problem? Yes, I would agree with Tearle that it may be true that moral acts contain the quality of perfection (ness), just as happy acts contain the quality of joyousness immanent in themselves (for you do not play in order to be happy, but rather you are happy to play). But the point is, do we look forward to the experiencing of perfection (ness) as we look forward to the experiencing of joyousness? We look forward to experiencing the greatest joyousness every moment, yet we surely don’t look forward to experiencing the greatest perfection (ness) through performing the greatest moral act of all time i.e. enduring the pain of crucification. You may deny that the enduring of crucification is the greatest moral act. You may say instead that it is the act of helping others that is the greatest, but in this case, you would have to wish that there will always be enough needy around begging on the streets in order for you to experience the perfection (ness) in helping others. Is it a sane man to wish for this, instead that all would be free from poverty if one is to meet God one day and be granted a wish? Yet if you look forward towards experiencing perfection (ness) as I look forward towards experiencing joyousness, you should by right hope for a world filled with needy, just as I hope for a world where everyday is Christmas. For this is what we mean when we say that happiness is good in itself, that we look forward towards it.

Yes, we have a certain respect for Christ (i.e. wanting to be like Him) when we see Him enduring the pain of crucification, yet this does not mean that we want to be crucified like Him. We do look forward to possessing great courage that makes us strong enough to endure suffering, yet we only want to possess courage, rather than to use it to endure actual suffering. All men would want to be courageous and noble, yet no sane man would look forward to the day when he is required to use his courage. All true heroes are reluctant heroes. Only a moral fanatic would look forward to the day and thus would wish for an eternal life of crucification, if he sees God one day, in order to show off how courageous he is.

iii

Kantians pride themselves in discovering the flaw in the argument of the Utilitarian that the sacrifice of personal happiness for the greater happiness of all is inconsistent, that how can it be a sacrifice at all if one nevertheless feels happy in the end for the happiness of all? Yet they have never noticed that they themselves are arguing exactly in the same way. Of course, they are clever enough to change the word happiness to goodness (or the mere performance of duty), but if it is better to choose goodness (or the performance of duty) than happiness, why wouldn’t someone do so? The Kantian would hardly be sacrificing his own interest too if he has chosen something, though not happiness, yet better than happiness. If you have chosen morality, then you must have loved morality more than happiness, and how could you be sacrificing anything if you have chosen that which you love more?

The persistent Kantian may then say, it is not about gaining interest when it comes to acting morally, but rather about doing that which ought to be done i.e. it is absolutely not about any form of interest but only in the mere performance of duty. Well, I will simply ask then, is it nevertheless better to be doing that which ought to be done (i.e. performing one’s duty) than enjoying happiness? Surely if it is better to be performing one’s duty doing that which ought to be done than merely enjoying happiness, why wouldn’t then someone choose doing that which is better? If it is better to obey the moral laws than enjoying of happiness, why wouldn’t someone choose it? The Kantian may reply, "You are always free to choose." But if I have the free will to choose that which is better, why on earth won’t I choose it? "Because you are evil." But if it is better to be morally good than to be evil, why wouldn’t I choose the better? "Because you are weak." If I am weak through chance, then I cannot be blamed. And if I have the freedom to be strong, which is of course better, then again, why won’t I choose that which is better? The Socratic truth that one will love the good naturally if he sees it, is logically irrefutable.

4

In Kantian Ethics, a moral man is one who respects the moral laws, and acts not because of any future empirical purpose, or out of the liking for the content of the law (for there are those by nature kind and generous), but solely because it is a law. Because it is a law, and as a rational being, a man must thus respect the logical concept of a law i.e. that he has to obey it no matter what. Thus because a man must respect his own rationality, his own understanding of the concept of a law, he must thus obey the moral law simply because it is a law. One must be honest, not because honesty brings rewards, neither because one likes to be honest, but because being honest is a law.

Can the respect for the concept of a law motivates one to act? Is respect a motivation or is it merely just a description? Fear is a motivation for a cowardly act because you need to commit the act, say hiding, in order to secure your physical safety and thus calm your fear. Desire can be a motivation too because you need to commit the act, say smoking, in order to satisfy your psychological craving. But need one commits the moral act itself in order to better respect the concept of a law? Surely not, just as one need not sacrifice himself in order to better understand and respect the notion of self-sacrifice. (Even if you believe that one can somehow mysteriously increase his understanding and respect for morality through acting morally, it is still only a superstitious faith and thus you cannot expect everyone to believe in it.) And if one can respect the moral act equally with or without ever been through the act itself, why should he then go through the act since nothing would have been changed any way? Isn’t it logically possible to imagine a person who although possesses this inner sense of respect, yet nevertheless carries out evil acts on every occasion? The inner sense of respect in a man is logically independent of external moral acts, and thus it cannot be related to morality at all.

ii

The Kantian Tearle, in his book Kantian Ethics, attempts to help Kant answer this question, what motivates a man to act morally? In his opinion, he believes that a moral man, like an artist, will carry out moral acts willingly in order to learn from it, so that he can be a morally better man. This is like an artist wanting to practice his drawing in order to become a better painter. Yes, I would agree totally that this might be true i.e. the wish to be a morally better man could be a motivation for one to act morally. Yet the problem still nevertheless remains i.e. what then motivates a man to be a moral person? Yes, if I want to be a moral man, I would try to live morally, but why would I ever want to be a moral man? Remember, the motivation for becoming an artist is simply happiness, but what is the motivation for me to become a moral person? Similarly, it may be true that freedom consist of both knowing and acting from the moral law i.e. to act morally is to be free, yet why on earth would I want to be morally free? Yes, I want to be free in the physical sense, but that is because I want to experience the happiness of flying like an eagle. So long as I cannot see how morality can bring me happiness, why should I choose it? Isn’t it entirely possible for me to live happily free from morality, moral freedom or the respect for the moral law, with no one can being able to do anything to me at all? Of course I will be good if I believe that God may have the power to punish me, but that is already to be good for a prudent purpose.

Yes, Kant may blame and reproach me, but so what? He can at most nag at me, begging me to change for the better. I may be evil, but so long as I’m powerful enough to secure my happiness, why should I bother whether am I evil or not? And in fact, why should I be bothered by your name-calling? Why can’t I believe that I’m the one who is truly strong in resisting the blind obedience to the sense of duty, and believing that the sense of happiness is the only right one? Why can’t I believe that it is the moralist who is a coward, not daring to seek for what he wishes, due to his fear of the sting of remorse? Why shouldn’t I be brave enough to seek that which I truly and honestly like, instead of being a coward paying obedience to a mysterious conscience that I do not like? Why should I let the past affect the quality of my present happiness, in the form of remorse? If I can be brave being fearless of pain, why can’t I be brave being fearless of the sting of remorse? The Kantian may even say that the denial of remorse is a sign of weakness rather than strength as I have believed, yet if I insist that I’m the strong one, you can do nothing to show that I’m wrong either! And even if you can prove to me that I’m the weak one, so what, for why can’t I love weakness, so long as it brings me happiness? There can be no motivation except happiness. For it is impossible for me to say that I do not love happiness, since I would not put my hand into the fire purposely. Yet if I say that I can live without remorse, there is absolutely no criterion to prove that I’m lying.

5

Here, I shall attempt to refute the famous proof by Kant in trying to show that giving lying promises is a morally wrong thing to do. Although I believe that this refutation is correct, the philosophy of this book is unaffected even if my refutation here is wrong. For as I have said, the principle has nothing much to do with ethics. Thus this section is written solely for intellectual fun. It is possible to skip this section without affecting your reading.

Basically, because Kant believes that one ought to be honest not for any prudent interest, though being honest may indeed bring you greater interest, thus he has to find another reason to explain why should it be right or good to be honest for its own sake, in addition to the usual reason that experience teaches us that honesty is the best policy in securing a good reputation which in turn helps one towards gaining more interest. And he believes that his principle of Universalizability can provide him with the precise reason that one ought to be honest solely for its own sake.

Kant deduces that one should not give lying promises because one cannot will that all men should be liars intending to give lying promises too at the same time. Since if all men are liars such that no one will be keeping his promises, no one would also trust anyone anymore. Thus it becomes logically impossible for me to give any promise to anyone at all (for to give a promise implies logically that you expect another to trust you, yet no one would trust you in such a world where none will trust any other), let alone lying ones. Thus the act of giving lying promises cannot satisfy the principle of Universalizability, which says that any act that cannot be universalized i.e. willing that all should do it at the same time, is immoral or wrong. Now, is this really true? Is the conclusion that no one will trust you, logically derivable from the premise that all are liars?

Imagine now that you are going to make a lying promise, yet knowing fully that all men are great liars. Why should it then be impossible for you to give the lying promise, since it is only you yourself who know that it will be a lying promise, not your friend (although he is as lying as you are)? How on earth is it possible for him to know that you are also giving a lying promise? Yes, you know that he is a liar, but that doesn’t mean in the least that he knows you as a liar too. He may be a liar, but that does not mean at all that he is smart enough to know you as a liar too. He could still believe you if he is gullible enough, and therefore you can still give promises to him, including lying ones. With God’s omnipotence, you could now turn all men into liars instantly, and thus know fully that you cannot trust anyone of them. But that doesn’t mean at all that they would not trust you. It is you yourself who wills all to be liars, not them. You can give lying promises so long as they continue to trust you, though of course they will be dead wrong! There is absolutely nothing logically inconsistent about giving promises in a land where no one gives true promises. It is only logically inconsistent if you are giving promises in a land where people do not know how to give promises i.e. do not know the concept of promise, not that they do not practice keeping promises.

Of course, the persistent Kantian will want to try this, "Couldn’t I will, not that all are liars, but all men shall will what I will. Thus giving lying promises is not right, for if I will that all men shall will that all others are liars too (instead of the original willing by me alone that all are liars), then none can give promises." This solution looks promising, but it is only chimerical. Yes, of course you can will in this way, yet why should the liar be willing to use this new principle than the original one? To will in this new way is actually doing nothing more than this: I will that all are liars with the extra condition that all are also distrustful men by nature. The point is, although it is possible that you are living in a situation where all are liars distrusting each other, there is still nevertheless the possibility that you may live in a situation where all are liars, yet being gullible by nature, they still trust each other. Both situations are equally possible, for there is no logical contradiction in yourself being a liar and yet with others still trusting you (though it may be strange empirically), and thus why can’t the liar choose to believe that he is living in a gullible world?

Why couldn’t an evil man delight in being more crafty (and thus superior) than his evil contemporaries? Does Kant think that there is really a so call ‘evil man’ who carries out maxims that he finds impossible to universalize? Doesn’t the liar believe that all men will equally lie if they are in his situation? Does he really think that Hitler believes himself to be evil, that he carries out what he cannot universalize? In fact, Hitler probably believes himself to be the most righteous man ever lived, believing that all should be as impartial as him in carrying out his ‘artificial selection’ of human beings. Isn’t it true that an evil man always believes that all are as evil, or even more evil than him? No maxim cannot be universalized, and therefore no man would need to choose believing himself as evil (in the Kantian way). (Actually the principle of Universalizability is not entirely unrelated to ethics, although not in the way Kant believes, as I shall show later in my explanation of ethics.)

6

Yes, Kant says that there is also a value in happiness. He claims that happiness is intrinsically good in itself, though not unconditionally good. But he feels that the moral will is, however, unconditional good in itself. An intrinsic good is something that is good in itself only under certain circumstances e.g. health may be good in itself under certain circumstances, but it may also make the evil man more successful in killing others if he is healthy. Yet an unconditional good is something good in itself under all circumstances and Kant believes that only the moral will is something unconditionally good. Frankly, I must confess that I do not have the slightest idea on what Kant is trying to say here. If Kant has merely said that to own health, instead of the happiness of health, may not be unconditionally good since one may then be better equipped to commit murder with a good health, he would be totally right. Yet surely the happiness of good health does not really mean merely the owning of a good health. For surely we own a good health in order to carry out happy activities like playing, jogging and sex, rather than just to own good health alone. What good is there if you have good health, yet are trapped eternally in the coffin? Surely it is the activity which requires a good health that is intrinsically good in itself rather than simply the owning of a good health.

And how can a good activity be only intrinsically good i.e. that there may be times that such a good activity may be bad? Yes, the owning of good health may be a logical constitute of an evil act, for in chasing after an innocent child, the evil killer demonstrates good health. Yet a happy activity, say sex, which demonstrates good health cannot be a constitute of any other act but is wholly complete in itself too, as complete as the evil act itself. Sex is good, as all happy activities are, in themselves at all times i.e. unconditionally good. Do not say that sex is not unconditionally good in itself just because it may lead to future temporal contingent harms, for surely noble acts of the moral will, even if it is right, could equally lead to great harms both unknowingly and knowingly (e.g. getting hurt by the fire when one is trying to save a child in the burning house). Kant gives the example that happiness may make someone proud, but why wouldn’t the success in carrying out moral acts make someone proud too? "But others may be jealous of your happiness in sex." Well, the Romans were angry with Christ when He was trying his best to exercise His moral will. There is absolutely no difference between the intrinsic and the unconditional good. Whatever that is intrinsically good is also unconditionally good.

What I want to say is, happiness is not a quantity that can be owned, like sensual pleasures, but is rather a quality to be lived in. We can see this better by comparing the way of a happy life with the way a beautiful painting is painted, for beauty as happiness is not a quantity but rather a quality. And since the beauty of a certain way of painting is surely unconditional, then happiness must also be unconditional.

There is thus only the unconditional good. The difference is only in that the unconditional good in man is intrinsic to himself, and the unconditional good in happiness is extrinsic to himself. The persistent Kantian may still say that happiness, although as unconditional, is not as good as the moral will, since the moral will is something we have on our own, whereas the attainment of happiness is often left to chance. Yet, a true philosopher will know immediately that there is a flaw is such an argument. For why should the value of happiness depend on whether does it come from oneself or not? If dependency is the criteria of worthiness, then surely even the moral will itself must not be good, for isn’t it given to us too by God, as all things are? For isn’t it also conceivable that God has created men without any free moral will? Kantian, you are merely reasoning in this way, because I like owning something as mine, there must thus be something that is mine. And if one is to become omnipotent (say, through the grace of God), such that happiness comes to him no longer through chance but rather through his own omnipotence, will happiness then become as valuable as free-will? Surely the value of happiness remains the same, whether you are God or not. And if only whatever that comes from us is important, then isn’t the wish for happiness (instead of the moral will) also inherent in us? Surely you wish for happiness as unconditionally as you can try to be morally good.

Kant believes that we do not have a duty towards happiness, but rather only an inclination. For to obey one’s duty always implies difficulty and reluctance, and surely no one has reluctance towards enjoying happiness. Yet, although we have only an inclination to enjoy happiness, do we also have an inclination to hope for it (even when it seems completely hopeless)? If so, why are there people who commit suicide out of hopelessness? And do we have an inclination to believe that perfect happiness is attainable and also eternal? Surely not, or else why do Christians search futilely for historical evidences on the miracles performed by Christ in order to strengthen their faith? If it is easy to hope and believe, then it should be easy to move mountains. (Ask yourself, is it rational for you to choose believing in God if it is of 90% certainty? If one can only believe with 100% certainty, then to believe is already to know, yet this is not so? And if it is rational to believe in 90% certainty, why then should it be irrational to believe if the certainty becomes lesser say, 80%, or 70% and even 10%? Why should there be a strange preference over the number ‘9’? Faith is not concerned with numbers but rather with the person.)

It is common to say that there is no evidence for the existence of God. Yet is there evidence for His absence? Please do not say that the probability of the existence of God is small, for if you think that it is so, then you would need to tell me what is the precise probability rate, or to give me a rational proof that deduces mathematically that the probability is lesser than 50%. Yes, the probability of God interfering with the world presently is small, as seen from history, but that does not mean that the probability of God interfering with the world on Judgement Day will be equally small. The probability of the dead being resurrected is zero if we judge according to history, but Christianity says that the dead will only be resurrected on the Judgement Day, not before. The probability for the existence of God is always 50%, and nothing empirical can change this in any way.

The reason why I believe in God is not based on something empirical, but rather based on an argument with regard to the conscience. Ask yourself, is it right for God to exist, just as is it right for justice to prevail? For surely even if the probability of justice prevailing in our world is much lesser than 50%, we would still nevertheless feel that justice should prevail, or else we would not be supporting the existence of a law system in our country. If that is so, why shouldn’t God exist? Thus God should exist, just as justice should prevail. In ethics, we should believe that God exists no matter what is the probability for it, just as we should believe that justice would prevail no matter how difficult it is to achieve it or that life must have a meaning no matter how it appears, even if the probability for its existence is astronomically small. (Of course, the proud atheist will say something like this, wouldn’t it be wise for one to remain neutral if the probability is merely 50%? The atheist says this because he does not understand that the word belief is used differently in religion as in science. I shall explain this later. For the moment, consider this, can a person remain neutral to hope? Surely you can either hope or not, instead of remaining neutral. The word belief is used in a way similarly to the word hope in religion.)

To hope and believe in the what should be rather than the what is, this is the most difficult of tasks. There is no other duty except this one i.e. the never giving up of hope and faith. (Of course I would need to prove rationally how the will of never giving up hope and faith leads to Kantian moral acts, as I shall show in my explanation of ethics.) What marks a moral man is that he believes in God, or in optimism towards the attainment of unconditional and eternal happiness, regardless of how difficult it is to choose this way in face of mockery and disappointment. When we respect a person, we respect him for his courageous will for not giving up hope no matter how hopeless it seems, for the persistent trying and thus believing, rather than his cowardly obedience to some mysterious metaphysical laws, which a robot can perform ten times better. It is not really the act of speaking truth that commands respect, but rather the possession of the courage to speak the truth (at certain, instead of all times) even if one has to suffer for it. Despicable acts i.e. acts done for the sake of selfishness, are always done out of despair. So long as a person continues to hope and believe courageously, then he can never do despicable acts, for he believes that whatever he loses today he will own them for eternity one day.

ii

Is the moral man merely one who does the good? Surely not, for it is strange to say that a man is good only when he is actually doing the moral act itself. Surely the good man is equally good even when there is no duty to be done, such that he has no choice but to live happily. If man is good only when he is acting morally, then there shall be no reason to save Christ from the cross, for this will make Him a lesser man. Thus Kant says that the good man is one who possesses the good moral will. Yet, as what I have said, this is to say nothing. The inside of a man cannot be any of these, moral will, respect, sense of duty, appreciation, or even sincerity in acting morally. For it is impossible to give any rational proof on how these objects may be able to prompt someone to act morally, because they cannot be defined in another way except in an empty analytical way i.e. you cannot say that a man possesses the moral will, or that he respects morality etc, except through the fact that he acts morally. For surely it is logically possible to imagine a man possessing a hidden object of sincerity, yet failing to act morally every time.

There is something unconditional in man, which makes him valuable even in times of suffering. It is the possession of this particular unconditional quality that makes life meaningful even when there is no external contingent happiness. If there is no such an unconditional quality that a man can possess, then life would lose its meaning upon the first occurrence of suffering. It is in the possession of this quality that differentiates a happy man from a moral man. We do not respect a happy man as we respect a moral man, for we know that even though a man may be happy, he may still lack this particular quality which truly makes him great and noble, capable of enduring great suffering. Kant is by far right, until he postulates this unconditional quality as the moral will (to external moral acts). And since it is entirely logically impossible to see how such a moral will is dependent on happiness or suffering, Kant deduces that it must not be related to them in anyway, except only that a man who possesses this quality is more deserved of happiness or less deserved of suffering.

What this intuitive inside of a truly moral person is not some metaphysical moral will, but rather the down to earth will-to-hope and believe in happiness. (Concerning the proof on how this will-to-hope and believe can lead to outside Kantian moral acts, I shall discuss it in the explanation of ethics. Note that the inside does not imply any hidden object but only a way of life (which is still outside) independent from the outside performance of duties. ) Note that I’m not saying, like Kant, that the moral man may be justified to hope, but rather that the man who hopes and believe is exactly the moral man i.e. the word ‘moral’ is but a word to describe how the man who hopes and believe lives his life. How can such a common thing as ethics get itself involved with a metaphysical entity? No, there is no such a thing as a metaphysical moral will but only the will-to-hope and the will-to-believe in happiness. Surely the hope-for-happiness or the faith-in-God is just as unconditional as the moral will (which the Kantian believes in), for an unhappy man could still have this burning hope to be happy or the faith that it will be so one day, even if he is suffering now. Similarly a happy man, though he may be happy now, may nevertheless choose to be faithless in believing that there is eternal happiness or a good God (due of course to the evil of pride). Therefore, as far as I can see, the postulation of a metaphysical moral will is unnecessary, and leads only to a confusion which results in the problem on happiness in Kantian ethics.

Remember, Christ says that with faith you can move mountains. Clearly, Christ feels that faith is one of the most important inner qualities a man should possess, if not the most important, and any ethical theory which does not discuss this is simply incomplete. In what sense can you say that a Kantian moral man needs faith strong enough to move mountains to commit moral acts? So long as you believe that you can achieve anything through your own free will, then there is absolutely no need to believe in God. For the original intention in believing that there is something worthy that can be achieved through your own will alone is precisely to place that which you can achieve through your own will as of a higher value than that which you can achieve only through faith. If you also place equal value in that which is impossible to be achieved through your own will, then there is no longer any point in believing that you can achieve anything through your own will. Similarly, Kantian Ethics does not study the problem of pride i.e. the greatest evil, as faith is the greatest virtue. For in what sense can you say in Kantian Ethics that a man is prideful by failing to act morally? How can a fearful coward who surrender miserably and shamefully to pain and suffering be prideful in any sense? If it is better and more difficult to obey the conscience than not to obey it, then he can at most only be pitiful in lacking moral power, rather than prideful. (Please do not say that the defining criterion for pride is in the disobedience of the conscience, for if disobedience is the criterion, isn’t the Kantian also prideful in disobeying his inclination and desire for happiness if he chooses morality instead? On what is the defining criterion of pride, I shall discuss in my explanation of ethics.)

The moral man is one with unshakable faith strong enough to move mountains, thus his will-to-believe becomes Neitzsche’s will to power (for moving mountains), not that he possesses some mysterious metaphysical entities.

iii

Kant is right in believing that one has a duty towards preserving his life, for if one has only an inclination to enjoy life rather than a duty to preserve it, then he would choose suicide whenever he faces difficulties. Yet if one has the duty to try living no matter what, doesn’t he also have the duty to try living happily no matter what? Why should he be contented with mere living, rather than living happily? Surely it is more difficult to live happily than merely to live. One answer to this is that he cannot choose to be happy but he can always choose to refrain from committing suicide. This is of course based on the belief that there is free will in man, which is not really obvious. But let’s grant the Kantian this. Yes, this may be true, but surely he can still try to live happily (through hoping and believing that he will be happy one day), even if he cannot succeed in living happily now. For surely, the effort to try (or the will-to-hope and believe) is also as unconditional as the effort to refrain from committing suicide.

Let’s take another example on marriage. When one promises to God that he will love his wife forever, it means that he will at least try to love her (through hoping and believing) even at times when he has stopped loving her. Merely staying physically together in suffering doesn’t fulfill your promise to God at all. You stay together in order to become loving again, not just for the sake of keeping your promise. If you should try staying together, why shouldn’t you try loving (through hoping and believing) her again? The point is therefore, not only do we have a duty to live, we also have a duty to try living happily, through hoping and believing. Not only do we have a duty to keep our marriage, we also have a duty to try keeping a loving and happy marriage, through hoping and believing. Yes, we may not be able to succeed in doing so, but that does not in any sense mean that we should not try to do so, through hoping and believing.

iv

Kant believes that happiness must be deserved. Of course he would be tongue-tied if I were to question him why? For how much of virtuousness must one attain in order to qualify himself for a certain amount of happiness? And when we see a beggar on the street, do we ask ourselves does he deserve to be helped? Only a judgmental person would feel so. If happiness must be deserved, then God cannot be fully compassionate. Yet Christ says, "Ask and it will be given" not "Do and you shall deserve". (There is absolutely no logical relationship between the concept of a morally good man with the concept of happiness. Just because you were brought up in a land where only those who work get paid doesn’t mean in the least that Heaven is also such a place.)

Kantians will of course say that only the combination of virtuousness and happiness is the Highest Good. Yet if the Highest Good is the combination of two distinct qualities, why couldn’t there exist a third quality previously undiscovered which can be further combined with the present Highest Good to attain an even higher good? In fact, we can never reach the Highest Good, for isn’t it possible that there may be an infinite amount of qualities waiting to be combined? Clearly such questions are absurd, for the Highest Good must be something pure in itself, rather than an awkward combination.

Kant is right when he sees that the mere attainment of external happiness cannot be the Highest Good. But what is lacking in the mere attainment of external happiness is not some metaphysical quality called virtuousness (as the Kantain believes) but rather the hope-for-happiness and the faith-in-the-attainment of eternal happiness. For only when a person, who has wished truly (and thus hoped for so much) that he believes in attaining it permanently i.e. thus believing in God, will be able to attain the Highest Good upon the attainment of external happiness. There is nothing mysterious about the hope-for-happiness combining with the attainment of external happiness in constituting the Highest Good. Ask yourself, if the swine is to be surrounded by beautiful music, would it be able to enjoy it? No, for it is incapable of understanding and thus wishing truly and hoping for such artistic happiness. Therefore, the Highest Good is not merely the attainment of external happiness, but rather the attainment of what one has wished truly and (thus hoped for so much) that he believes in it. For, together with the hope-for-happiness, the faith that there will be eternal happiness is also a logical constitute of the Highest Good. Ask yourself, do you ever encourage a friend by saying, "Keep on trying, don’t give up hope, but please try not to expect too much from your effort"? The belief that one can wish for something, yet not believe in it, is caused by a confusion in our language, as I shall show later. For to wish truly is also to hope and thus to believe.

Only by seeing that the Highest Good means nothing but the attainment of happiness accompanied by the true wish (and thus hope-for-it) leading to the faith in the permanence of it can we explain why the mere attainment of external happiness is not yet the Highest Good. Only in this way can the philosophical puzzle be solved satisfactorily, for the Highest Good is not happiness alone, nor happiness deserved, but rather happiness hoped for.

v

Now, I want to discuss the concept of hope. Basically, I wish to show that our common understanding of this very important concept is deeply mistaken. This is caused by a certain bewitchment by our language. In clearing such confusions, I want to arrive at the correct understanding of the ethical concept of hope.

Now, one may wonder why is it that one has a duty to hope. For duty implies difficulty, yet in what sense can we say that one has a duty to hope i.e. that it is difficult to be hopeful? This is an interesting question and we need to consider what the great philosopher Wittgenstein has said on the topic on what exactly is hope.

For isn’t the man who carries on his life with no hope of happiness a greater man than one who can live on only because he has hope? Your reasoning is probably like this: if we compare a man who can run even without wearing a pair of shoes with one who can run only if he has a pair of good shoes, we would want to say that the first man is more courageous, for he is able to do the more difficult i.e. he can run under all circumstances, with or without his shoes. The man who is without hope (as the man without his shoes) is thus a greater man than the man with hope (as the man with his shoes). Although we all have an inclination to be weak i.e. to depend on hope as we depend on our shoes, it is nevertheless our duty to be strong i.e. to live without depending on hope as on our shoes. Thus we only have a duty to live in spite of hopelessness, rather than a duty to live hopefully.

Now, such a way of thinking is right only if hope is really something i.e. an object like the psychological feeling of pleasure. But is this really so? Is hope really some object? Although we use the phrase "to have hope", that doesn’t mean in any way that there is something really called hope that one can depend on, anymore than saying, "There is nothing here" means that there is an object called ‘nothing’ somewhere here. Hope is not an object at all, but is rather only a word used for the description of a certain way of life, and although there may be usual psychological objects accompanying such a way of life, it doesn’t mean at all that any of these objects must be hope itself. The feeling of hopefulness is not hope itself. Any psychological feeling can be induced by drugs, but hope cannot be induced. In other words, the correct way of using the word hope is only in an adjective way i.e. hopeful, hopefully. What misleads us is that we often use the word ‘hope’ in various ways i.e. "to hope" (thinking that hoping is an action like swimming), or "has hope" (thinking that hope is ‘something’ probably mental that can be owned at some point in time), but actually one should use only "hopefully" (describing, or better, indicating your way of life). The persistent atheist may say, Couldn’t one depend on the picture of success in his mind, even if one cannot depend on hope? Yet, doesn’t the hopeless believing that he can never attain what he want also have this picture in his mind?

And if we can say that a man is courageous and dutiful by living on his life willingly and cheerfully (rather than sulkingly) despite of difficulties, why shouldn’t he live on hopefully (rather than despairingly) despite of disappointment? The noblest man should reasonably exhibit the most active positive traits i.e. in the most desperate moments, he would still carry on living cheerfully, willingly and also hopefully. (If someone wants to say that "being hopeful" is a negative trait, then he shouldn’t step out of his house, for no one can ever guarantee that he could reach his destination safely 100%.) It is not that hope gives courage, but that a courageous man is one who dares to hope (i.e. to live hopefully) just as he dares to act (i.e. to live courageously). In short, "to have hope" is not to walk with a pair of shoes, but rather to walk meaningfully i.e. with a destination in mind. Only an insane man walks with no destination in his mind. If it is wrong to try living meaningfully (and thus hopefully), then it will also be wrong to try walking meaningfully (with a destination in mind).

When you live hopefully, you are not depending on anything, but rather you are choosing a certain way of life, just as the atheist chooses the courageous way of life of independency (from hope as an object, though wrongly). If you still insist that a hopeful way of life, although not an object, is still something one can depend on, then consider this reasoning: If a certain way of life is something one can depend on, then one can also lose it. Ask yourself, is the coward losing something when he refuses to live a courageous way of life? No, he is not losing anything by being a coward. In fact it is because he fears losing his life that he chooses to be a coward. He is not losing anything but rather he is failing to attain a certain way of life. Therefore, if it is in our duty to carry on living willingly and cheerfully despite of all problems, then it is also our duty to carry on living hopefully despite of how slim is the chance (as shown by science) for the ultimate happiness.

Here, I also need to remind you that hope is not expectation. Expectation means "it will come soon" but hope means rather "it will come when it comes". Thus only a coward expects, for he is unable to accept the contingency of life and thus he will expect his present suffering to end soon. Yet only a courageous man dares to hope, in believing that life has a meaning towards eventual happiness, no matter how it appears to him and thus he will endure his suffering willingly, in the hope that it has a meaning in bringing him to perfection one day. Hope is a way of life i.e. you can live hopefully, but you cannot live expectedly, since you can never know the future. But isn’t it a fact that atheists can live happily without being hopeful about the future? Of course you can live happily without being hopeful, but as what I have said, one hopes not for the sake of living happily now, but solely for the sake of attaining what he wants to attain in the future. Being hopeful is all about reaching a certain destination, just as the atheist wanting to attain a certain wisdom, rather than about curbing one’s present sadness. Yes, being hopeful does make your present life happier, but it does not affect it like a drug-effect, but rather it helps you see a meaning in the present suffering. If it is right for the atheist to hope that he will be wise one day, it is also right for the theist to hope that he will be happy one day.

There is a certain modern wisdom believing that it is enough just to try one’s best, that the wise man doesn’t hope for any result. Yet if I’m to run a race without aiming for anything, how am I going to run? Why don’t I simply take my own sweet time, completing 100m in 10 mins instead of 10s? Surely I need to have a goal in my mind in order for me to even try my best? And such wise men will say, you can have a goal in mind, just that you should not hope to reach the goal. But if I am to aim yet without hoping to reach it, why should I then aim for just this particular goal? If I aim to jump 2m far in long jump without the intention to reach it, why shouldn’t I aim to jump 2 km far instead, for I surely do not hope to reach 2km either? If you should try, then you must aim, and if you must aim, then you must hope. Even if your aim is "as far as you can", you must also hope to reach "as far as you can", or else why don’t you aim for "as far as you can’t"? To aim "as far as you can" means nothing more than to aim at that which is potentially possible for you to reach, although you do not know your potential yet. But you will nevertheless still hope to reach what you could reach i.e. fulfill your potential, or else why don’t you aim at that which is potentially impossible to reach instead. The clever atheist may also reply, it is because I know, from experience, that it is physically possible to reach 2m but impossible to reach 2km that I aim for 2m instead of 2km. But surely you hope to reach that which is possible to reach too, or else why won’t you aim for that which is impossible to reach from previous experience?

Do you really reason out to yourself before you jump, that you should aim but not hope, according to the above reasoning? Surely not! It is only a play with words to say that you can aim without hoping to reach, just as saying "a circle with four sides" or that you can wish without believing i.e. play of words that you do only in philosophy classes. No abstract reasoning or play of words can ever be true wisdom, for wisdom is a way of life, something you live in, rather than merely something you acquire. And since you must hope in one way or another, be it the distance, your potential or energy, why shouldn’t you hope for the best? In other words, the problem is never on whether should one hope or not, but rather on whether should one aim or not. (Here, I'm trying again to show you that to aim (or wish) is also to hope and believe, as I shall show in more detail later.)

"But it is irrational to hope!" But to hope means exactly to trust irrationally. "But it is not good to be irrational!" Such a person is like one who believes that somehow the concept of ‘big’ must always be better than the concept of ‘small’, and as a result he would choose to buy the biggest shirt for his little son.

vi

I’ve discussed the concept of hope. Now, I want to discuss another ethical concept i.e. the concept of faith, which is greatly mistaken due to the bewitchment by our language. This is necessary in order to understand that, to wish truly is also to believe.

Ask yourself, how is it possible to believe that you will definitely die (say if you are about to give up your last place in the saving boat when the ship is sinking) if it is already logically impossible to know the future? We have this strange idea that through believing in a certain possible fact (though it is still in the future), we have somehow metaphysically and telepathically connected ourselves with this future possible fact i.e. this future fact which we believe in will be now sort of closer to us metaphysically than the other facts that we do not believe in i.e. there are still lying in the sea of possibilities whereas the believed fact has become metaphysically more real. Is this right? Don’t you find it strange that the power of belief in a man’s head could somehow metaphysically and telepathically connect itself with the unknown future? How could we have such mysterious telepathic power, undiscovered by science? Isn’t the future (i.e. the probability of your death or survival) the same, whether you believe in it or not? How can a mere belief in your head change the future, and if the future is not affected in anyway, how could it make sense to say that one of the possible future facts has become more real for you? It is Wittgenstein who has shown me that this is indeed a wrong way to think of the concept of belief and faith.

You are not actually pointing metaphysically to a future possible fact when you say that you believe in it, but are rather only expressing your attitude towards the whole of the unknown future (rather than pointing towards one particular possible fact in the future.) The word ‘believe’ is really just a word or a sound, on par with a shout of determination or a mutter of anxiety, used for expressing an attitude towards the whole unknown future, rather than one particular possible future fact. A person who says that he believe that he will survive is merely expressing his determination in doing it despite of the unknown future, whereas a person who believes that he will die is merely expressing his anxiety. "I believe I will survive" is only a more cultured substitute for shouting determinedly, "I shall do it!" and "I believe I will die" is a more cunning substitute for muttering anxiously, "I ..er.. don’t really feel like doing it". (Of course it is possible for a man to say that he believes that he will die, yet chooses to do it nevertheless, but in that case he will be muttering something like this, "I ..er.. will not do it, unless I can become a Kantian hero through it.") So, when one says that he believe that he will die, he is merely expressing his anxiety about the future. And how can it be right to develop an anxious attitude towards the future? In other words, one should always believe that he will survive, rather than to disbelieve, since there is nothing heroic about being pessimistic (i.e. anxious) about the future. One should always be optimistic (i.e. determined) to do the right.

If you still have doubt about what I have said concerning the concept of belief, try to explain to yourself what you mean precisely by the concept itself. No, you cannot, just as you cannot give any definition to shouts of determination and cries of anxiety. The word ‘believe’ does not have any fixed meaning, exactly like ‘bye’ and ‘hi’, unlike the word ‘apple’ which does represent something fixed. Its meaning varies in different situations. In the realm of science, when one says that he believe that the theory of Relativity is right, he means nothing more but that the theory is irrefutable by empirical evidences so far, or that he would be happy (or that it will be marvelous) if nature could behave in such an aesthetically beautiful way. Now, what can the word ‘believe’ mean in a life-threatening situation. The concept of belief in such a desperate situation can mean only as a more specialized form of hope. Whereas to hope means: I will be very happy if this is to happen, to believe means: I will only be happy, if and only if this is to happen. Thus one can only say with sense that he believes that he will live (if he has truly wished to live), rather than that he will die, for to believe that one will die is saying nothing more but this: I will only be happy, if and only if I will die, which is merely a logical impossibility, if you have wished truly to live.

Of course, he can, if he is cool minded enough, mean that the probability of death is very great, when he believes that he will die. But that is irrelevant to our problem here, for he is also required to act, besides merely to think. For whenever we act, we do not think of probability but only live in actuality i.e. we ask the question: how long will it take for me to succeed, not how much chance do I have in succeeding? The probability rate only tells us which path to choose, but once we are on the path, we no longer think of probability, but only when will success come. And in a life threatening situation when one is required to act, it is logically impossible to believe that one will die, for no man can wish for death, unless he is motivated by a force more powerful than his present wish for life, which is of course pride itself. Thus, when one says that he believe that he will die, he means nothing more but that he can gain prideful honor through dying i.e. in other words he values pride more than his life. If you wish truly to live, then you will believe it to be so, unless you can gain something else, such as honor, from dying, but in that case, you would not have wished to live more than to gain honor, and thus you would not have wished truly to live.

You may ask, "Isn’t it an obvious fact that one may feel sad about the fact that he is going to die? If it is logically impossible to believe that one will die, so long as he wishes to live, why would anyone truly feel sad about dying?" Yes, it is possible to feel sad, for you may not be aware of the fact that what you fear is only a possibility, at that moment when you feel sad. You feel sad on thinking about the possible fact that you may die, but if you would realize that you may also live on the other hand, then you would become a believer, if you really want to live. What I want to say is simply this: A believer is not one who has no sadness but is rather one who can overcome his sadness, just as the saint is not one who has no evil but is rather one who can conquer his evil.

Now, it is common to hear words from atheists like, "I do wish for perfect happiness, just that I do not believe in it", or "I do hope that the world will be a better place, just that I do not believe that it will be so one day." It seems possible to say such words, but are such words really meaningful? The phrase "to wish (truly) yet does not believe that it will come true" is but a language hoax i.e. cunning play of words for the purpose of instilling pride in man. If one really wishes to live, then he must believe that it will be so. If you love life enough, more than even pride, then you will believe in God.

Do you ever encourage a friend by saying, "Keep on trying, don’t give up hope, but please try not to expect too much from your effort"? Or try asking any simple folk, say your uneducated grumbling grandfather whether does he believe in God, and if he does not and you progress further to ask him whether does he however wish for the existence of God, what would he reply? I believe that he will give you the blank look meaning, "Haven’t I already given you the answer?" i.e. to non-thinkers, they have known intuitively that to wish is to believe. It is precisely because one is educated that he feels superior to the common uneducated folks in being able to analyze language and thinking deeper than the common folks that he becomes bewitched by his own language, thus forsaking simple honesty in exchange for academic hypocrisy. In possessing a language, we become as "wise as the serpent", yet at the same time we risk ourselves becoming as "deadly as the serpent" too. We become academic hypocrites, disbelieving in God and the virtues of hope and faith, thinking that one is being great and noble by denouncing them as stuffs for cowards. Yet we have never realized that we ourselves are the ones who are actually ‘tricked’ into this precisely by our own language. We are the slaves of our language without the slightest aware of it. Only through philosophy, the task of fighting against the bewitchment of our language, can we again become as "simple as doves", yet still nevertheless as "wise as the serpent". (Not sophisticated language, but only simple logic and honesty are needed for one to know how to act and believe in order to satisfy the conscience. That is why the Bible says that to know God is the simplest of all tasks.)

There are actually three different types of morality, for there are, as the Danish existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard has said, actually three types of man namely the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. You need only to see the difference in the ethics of Spinoza and Kant to see how ethics is differently conceived by different men. The Kantian way of perceiving ethics belongs to the secondary ethical man, whereas the ethics of Spinoza belongs to the higher religious man. Each type, due to their different ways in conceiving what happiness is, will see morality differently. I will therefore need to explain the essential difference between the three types of men. (Since no man is purely an aesthetic man, it is also possible to replace the phrase "aesthetic man" by "aesthetic attitude".)

i

The essential difference lies in the way happiness is conceived by them. The aesthetic man knows only the meaning of happiness in a negative way i.e. the absence of suffering (of pain and boredom). His religion is often nihilist in nature. Of course the aesthetic man may fear death initially, if he thinks of being dead as something like being trapped eternally in a coffin, thus suffering the pain of boredom. But once he has understood the philosophy of the passive Stoic i.e. that there is nothing to fear in death since how could one fear if he is already non-existent, they would welcome it, probably treating such play of words with some respect too. And because he cannot see happiness in a positive way, the aesthetic man doesn’t wish and hope for future artistic and thus positive happiness. Only if the future promises greater suffering than the present will it make sense for him to endure the lesser present suffering in order to avoid a future greater one. He is a man who enjoys only the present i.e. in the happiness of the sensual which is already strong enough to ease his present suffering of boredom. In short, he knows only fun of the moment, instead of happiness that could be hoped for in the future.

The aesthetic man is a fearful man, and he knows only the sense of guilt (rather than remorse) in morality.

ii

Whereas the aesthetic man is a fearful man, the ethical man is braver than him. The ethical man, unlike the aesthetic man, knows that it is shameful and wrong to be fearful of suffering. And that is why he despises the aesthetic man, instead of pitying him. (Only when you have become a religious man like Christ would you be capable of pitying others, instead of judging and blaming them.) The only thing the ethical man fears is, in a way, fear itself i.e. he hates being fearful. He is fearful of not suffering but only failure. He is the proud atheist who says, "Well, God may be able to send me to Hell, but He cannot make me afraid of Hell." Because he is fearless of suffering, he is fully capable of enduring the present suffering. He knows that happiness could be something positive in nature, not merely the absence of suffering, but the true nature of happiness is still not fully known to him yet. He is the ambitious businessman or conqueror who seeks hard to win riches and wars, yet eventually to discover that somehow this is not really what he wants either. He is, of course, a prideful man in wanting to become the richest (i.e. through owning money), or the most powerful (i.e. through owning armies). For pride is nothing but the will-to-be someone, through owning something. He wants to be rich through owning money, to be powerful through owning status. And that is why pride is always competitive in nature, for the joy of owning something is dependent on the possibility of losing or the devoid of it, and what can please a prideful man more than to see others devoid of it, so that the perverted joy of personal ownership can be felt deeper. Yet, he somewhat also needs others to agree with him, in order to ascertain to himself that what he owns is valuable. Such is the contradictory nature of the perverted joy of ownership i.e. pride. He needs others to be like him through agreeing with him, yet he fears others to be like him too. And the way out of this is to believe that one can never own (or be) fully what he wants to own (or be) i.e. that there is no limit to owning (and thus being), so that he will always be capable of surpassing others in owning (or being) more of that which he wants to own (or be). (I must remind you that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be rich solely for the sake of happiness. Pride lies in wanting to be rich solely for its own sake.)

This is not something new. Everyone knows that the will-to-be rich is an ambitious and prideful will. What is new is that not only is the will-to-be rich prideful in nature, but in fact any form of will-to-be, including the will-to-be moral (of the Kantians, through owning virtuousness), or the will-to-be wise (of the philosophers, through owning wisdom) and even the will-to-be happy (of the Utilitarians, through owning happiness) are all as prideful as the will-to-be rich. (Happiness is not something that can be owned, but is rather a way of life to be lived in. Happiness is the way a life is lived, just as beauty is the way a painting painted, not any object like a state of mind. You cannot be happy, but only to live happily.) The goals may be different for a businessman, a tyrant, a moralist, or even a Utilitarian, but their psychology is the same. The prideful ethical man knows the sense of remorse in morality. (Now, I know this may sound strange to many, for we were taught from youth that only in wanting to be rich is one prideful i.e. there is nothing wrong in wanting to be moral but only in wanting to be rich. But as a philosopher, you should know that there is absolutely no rational reason in believing that the will to be moral is different from the will to be rich except in a cultural way. Morality is no more or less useful than money and power, and it is merely cultural to feel them as different. ) (Also, do not mistake pride for arrogance, for in wanting to be humble, a humble man is already prideful. It is merely stupid to be arrogant, for arrogance is nothing but over-confidence with an inferior complex, not evil. Is Darth Vader in Star Wars merely arrogant? Neither is the need for fame pride, for it is exactly the child’s need for attention from his parents. )

iii

The final evolution in the spirituality of man is the religious man. Unlike the ethical man who professes that it is good to be free, that it is great to be noble, he could no longer live his life in this way, for he has seen with his own eyes something truly wonderful i.e. the happiness of love. He has come to understand the one and only meaning in life is to live happily in love, neither to be free, nor to be noble. Thus he can no longer live in search of other naïve satisfactions, like the possession of free will, or moral greatness of the ethical man. Similarly, he is different from the aesthetic man who knows not happiness but only fun. He has come to know what true happiness is, and thus is capable of wishing truly for it with the deepest commitment (for in knowing the true happiness of love, he also knows its absolute value which is infinitely higher than pride), and consequently he becomes a believer, for to wish truly is to believe. Only the understanding of love can motivate one to choose life over the pride of atheism.

And to such a man, there is no sense of guilt, neither a sense of remorse. He has gone, in a sense, beyond guilt and remorse, as he has gone beyond good and evil. He knows only the sense of tragic, if there is to be no God. And unlike an ethical man, who hates to be fearful, the religious man has also gone absolutely beyond fear and fearlessness, to realize that true courage is not being fearless, but rather in the willingness to endure fear i.e. to be fearful yet never giving up hope and faith. In short, whereas the aesthetic man is fearful, and the ethical man prideful, the religious man is faithful (and thus powerful) enough to move mountains.

iv

An ethical man, being only at the second stage of spiritual development, may deny the existence of a third stage of development. But if you do not believe that there is a third stage of development, just take a look at the classification of men in terms of their talents. There are the fool, the normal, and also the genius. There are also the coward, the normal, and the heroic. And doesn’t the genius appear to be like the fool to the normal because of his eccentricity, as the most heroic often appears to be like the coward because of his gentleness? And therefore, the religious man will appear to be similar to the aesthetic man in believing God. (The difference is of course, that the aesthetic man does a moral act because he wants to be saved, but the religious man does it because he knows that he is already saved.)

And the ethical man would mostly believe in the existence of free-will, though they know that it is a concept logically impossible to understand or think of. (They need to believe in free-will for it only makes sense to own something as truly his if he has the power and thus the freedom to own it. If all is given out of grace, then nothing can be said to be truly his, and this is something disappointing to the prideful man, who wills to be through owning.) The aesthetic man, on the other hand, is one who blames others for whatever that happens to them. They do not believe in free-will, but rather that they are driven by their circumstances. And since the religious man is often a Stoic who denies the existence of free-will too, thus sharing the same appearance as the aesthetic man, he will appear to be inferior to the ethical man. But like what I have said, the similarity between an aesthetic and a religious man is only in the appearance. Yes, the religious man believes himself to be determined, but unlike the aesthetic man who is a fatalist, he believes himself to be determined only by, in a sense, the will of God. That is why Christ says, only God is great, not me. (Here, I must make clear that to be determined by God does not mean that there is really a second determining law other than the law of Physics. To be determined by God simply means to believe that one is determined to live this life for a future transcendental or teleological purpose, as compared to the aesthetic man who believes that he is determined not for any future purpose but solely out of fatalism.)

The aesthetic man, fearful of suffering, is always eager to acknowledge God as his master, or the savoir. He believes in the living God, but when asked in what way will he be happy in Heaven, he gives uncertain answers. In fact his answer on what happiness is will be so mysterious that he himself has probably never understood it too. The happiness of Nirvana (in Buddhism) and the Union with God (in Christianity) are exactly such answers. Yet one needs only to ask him how does he know that the mysterious Nirvana is true happiness since he has never experienced it before, and he can only answer that it is because the saint has said it. And he will back up his argument using the fact that the saint does great and noble deeds, and the aesthetic man believes that this is enough to justify the truth of his (the saint’s) words. Yet the aesthetic man has never asked himself this question i.e. what if another saint, who does deeds as great as the previous, is to appear tomorrow and out rightly deny that Nirvana is happiness? Who will the aesthetic man now believe? In other words, the faith of an aesthetic man is blind. (A word against mysticism. Mysticism can be defined as the doctrine which believes that happiness is an experience, instead of an appreciation. Thus, such mystical happiness includes the experience of Nirvana in Buddhism or the Union with God in Christianity. Yet I want to ask, is happiness more concerned with the appreciation of beauty or is it more concerned with the experiencing of drug-pleasure? And if happiness is not the experiencing of drug-pleasure, but is rather the appreciation of beauty, then the final happiness must be something describable with a language, just as the most beautiful painting is describable. Thus the happiness of mysticism cannot be true happiness, for it is indescribable, just as the pleasure of drug. You feel that the mystical experience is good only because others have said so. A poem is beautiful because we can imagine its ugly opposite with the words being jumbled up to constitute a piece of nonsense, without the need of previous empirical experience of having read the piece of nonsense. Does the mystical experience have an opposite experience that gives meaning to it as being good? You may say that the opposite of the experience of pleasure is pain, but is it so? In the case of a poem, there is no need for any previous empirical experience to know what we mean by a piece of nonsense, for we can simply imagine it to be. But in the case of pain, we will still need to have empirically experienced pain before in order to know it i.e. we cannot simply deduce rationally from pleasure what pain is. Pain is related to pleasure as its opposite only physically and culturally, not logically. With due respect to mystics, I must say that it is even senseless to believe the experience of mysticism is something good, just as the experience of drug pleasure.) The ethical man despises such cowardice of the aesthetic man. And he would rather be eternally dead than to be the servants, or slaves of God i.e. he chooses to disbelieve in the living God. Yet in order to appear religious, he would substitute Truth or Morality for the living God, or the love of truth or morality for the love of the living God. The ethical man is prideful, as the aesthetic man is fearful. Only the religious man is truly courageous in freeing himself from any empirical influence in order to believe strongly that God is good (and living), no matter what. To an aesthetic man, the living God is The Judge, though it is fashionable to call Him The Friend in our modern age. To an ethical man, He is The Enemy. Only to a courageous religious man, will the living God cease being The Enemy. Neither is He The Master, nor the Judge, nor The Friend, but rather a friend, though the most powerful one. Again, the religious man loves the living God as the aesthetic man, though not as a servant such that He is The Friend, but rather as a friend.

What does it mean by to love God? There are three possible answers to this. Firstly, to the ethical man, to love God means to love truth or morality i.e. metaphysical objects. An ethical man, because of his competitive prideful nature, cannot tolerate the idea of another being possessing or owning real omnipotent power that he can never possess (unlike self-constructed metaphysical objects), and thus he chooses to believe that there is no such an omnipotent being. Yet, if it is good for one is to love the metaphysical, why then should he continue to love his neighbors? For surely it is qualitatively different in loving the metaphysical as compared to loving one’s neighbors, and hence by right, one would not need to love his neighbors anymore since he is already loving something greater. (If you say that it is not enough just to love the metaphysical, but that one must also love the humane, then why shouldn’t one love the dead (or money) as well? Surely to love in three qualitatively different ways must be better than to love in only just two ways, if the love of the metaphysical alone is not enough. Similarly, if the loving of man is but a way to learn about loving God, why couldn’t I learn to love God through loving money? I mean, if the love of God can be learnt in a qualitatively different way i.e. through loving neighbors, why couldn’t it be learnt through loving money? ) Secondly, to love God means to the aesthetic man, to love a particular being, say Christ as the Christian believes. Yet what if one day Christ were to lose all His Godly powers, such that He can no longer secure your place in Heaven, and thus you may have to give up your last place for Him forever. Would you be willing to do so? If not, then I cannot see in what sense do you love Him. For it is impossible that one could love others more than himself, though the true saint could love all others as himself. (For love is a quality instead of a quantity i.e. you can only choose either to love or not i.e. you can never choose to love 50% or 70%.) Therefore, to love God cannot mean to love any particular being, for a true man loves all friends (including God) equally. Therefore the only possible answer is this i.e. to love God means to love the humanity (or compassion) of the living God (say Christ), for it is necessary that you are wise in the understanding of compassion as God, in order for you to be able to appreciate the happiness of love, since it is impossible to conceive of a loving man yet cruel in nature. In short, to love God means to love being like God. For only when one has become Godly can he know how to love, and thus capable of experiencing the happiness of love. And again, the religious man loves the living God as the aesthetic man, but in a drastically different way.

And there is one more important difference between them i.e. their conception of happiness and perfection. To an aesthetic man, he sees only two, suffering and the absence of it. To an ethical man, because he sees happiness as something that can be owned i.e. thus quantitatively in nature, he will believe that various forms of happiness can be ranked i.e. there is such a thing as a 50% happiness, or 70% happiness. Of course the intensity of pain and pleasure can be ranked, for pain and pleasure are mental objects. But pain is not suffering, or the Buddhists would not have said that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. (In fact, because the ethical man also believes that virtuousness is something that one can own, he probably feels that there is a difference between a complete villain and a 99% good man i.e. one who is contented with being good only 99% of his time is still somewhat better than a complete villain. Yet is the man who finds it all right to commit an evil after doing 99 good actions really better than the complete villain? Isn’t virtuousness a quality instead, taking only two values, for surely one can only either repent or not?) In fact, such an ethical man believes that although death is not good, it is still somewhat better than to be burnt and tortured alive in Hell i.e. though it is not all right to suffer for eternity, it is still quite all right to die for eternity. Yet it has never occurred to him that if it is possible to be fearless of suffering, then wouldn’t it be also possible to see all sufferings as equally trivial, and thus shouldn’t it be the same to the truly fearless man whether is he in death or in Hell? Only a religious man can really see all sufferings as trivial, for in seeing the infinite happiness of love, he becomes truly unconditionally courageous. It is love that makes him truly free from all fears of suffering. A religious man is able to understand that happiness is a quality, rather than a quantity, and can thus take only two values, either perfection or imperfection. (For example, the quality of the painting of a perfectly beautiful face can be destroyed by just a single extra stroke. Please do not say that the painting of a monster’s face with a pair of beautiful eyes is 50% perfect, for I can always choose to consider the pair of eyes alone.) Various forms of imperfection, be it comfortably in death or torturously in Hell are all the same if perfect happiness can never be attained. He has come to understand that, as Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein believe, a man can only be either happy or not, contented or not. All imperfections become similar to such a man. Thus, to him, there is ever only one difference i.e. the difference between perfection and imperfection, nothing more. And in morality, to a religious man, one can only either be virtuous or evil i.e. either he repents or not, instead of becoming better through accumulating more virtuousness like the business man gaining more money. (Now, we are able to explain the problem of suffering, for to God who is a fully religious being, knows only perfection and imperfection, not suffering and the absence of it. I must apologize to the aesthetic man for telling him this terrifying truth that God is really blind to all his suffering. The only salvation for the fearful aesthetic man is to become like God, and his suffering will then disappear, for as the Buddhists say, pain is inevitable, but suffering is always optional. Though of course the absence of suffering does not mean happiness in any sense. Ask yourself, if you are troubled by suffering, shouldn’t you challenge God for an answer? Yet in becoming courageous enough to challenge God, why would you still be afraid of suffering?)

Generally, the aesthetic man lives in the sensual, the ethical man in the ideal, yet the religious man lives again in the sensual but inspired by the ideal. (Remember Nietzsche’s words, superficial are those who do not judge by appearance.) The aesthetic man does not know good and evil. The ethical man knows both good and evil, yet believes that there are real. Only the religious man knows that good and evil, although they exists, are not real as happiness and suffering, for they are merely concepts and words. (Note that the religious man is not a moral skeptic i.e. one who believes that the committing of Kantian disinterested and dutiful moral acts is the sign of a confused mind.)

v

I have covered the essential difference between the three types of man in the way they conceive happiness. I will here need to focus further on the difference between an ethical man and a religious man in the way they conceive of the concept of truth. Basically, to the ethical man, the concept of truth means nothing more but what is. Whereas, to the religious man, truth means rather what should be. Thus, when the ethical man says that one should live in the truth that all will die one day, he means nothing more than that one should be aware of this true fact, just as he is aware that the sun comes out every day. Whereas to the religious man, death cannot be a truth i.e. what should be, and thus to live in the truth that all will die one day means to him believing that all would go into a new life after death. And the reason which causes this difference in the way the concept of truth is perceived lies with the fact that the ethical man has not yet the courage and honesty to carry out his reasoning to the limit.

Let’s take the example on the faith in God and thus the eternal life. Although the ethical man believes that life must have a meaning, he does not believe that God exists and that there is eternal life. He would of course say that there is no empirical reason for believing in God and the eternal life, but the point is, there is also no reason to believe that life has a meaning, which is incapable of proof, just as the existence of God. And please don’t say that you somehow mysteriously feel that life has a meaning, for the Christian can say the same about God too. The ethical man says words like this, although life is not eternal, but nevertheless life can still be perfectly meaningful. And they can even become quite pleased at themselves, believing that this is the wisdom of acceptance and that they are wise in accepting this fact. Bertrand Russell once said, "Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting." Of course they will not lose their value, just as the $100 note I lost yesterday will not lose its value either. Yet there is surely nothing good in losing the $100 note. Pride i.e. the will-to-be, in this case, the will-to-be wise, is the defining criterion for an ethical man. Of course the atheist also loves his life, for even the rat in the sewage loves its life too. For the point is whether you love life more than the prideful will to be wise or not.

I would simply ask them this Socratic question, if a finite life can be meaningful, then how finite should it be? If it is all right to live for 80 years, how about 60, or 40, and why not 10? And if you feel that the meaningful life must be long enough to allow you to cultivate the perfect wisdom, then how long should it be? Is 100 years enough? If it is enough, then can a man be justified to commit suicide once he has reached 100 years old? And if it is all right for one to die when he reaches 100 years old, won’t it be all right also for the doctor to spend a lesser effort in trying to save him? Yet surely this is absurd. It is both impossible and meaningless to state any particular value as the number of years one should live, and thus the only possible meaningful way to live is to live forever. Please do not say that to die naturally is the definite criterion, for to philosophers, it is just ambiguous to differentiate the natural and the artificial. How can you ever define what it means by to die naturally or artificially? If to die naturally means to die of old age, then it is always conceivable that in the future, there may be ways to prolong a man’s life indefinitely, and thus should one choose to die of old age or to prolong his life? And in refusing to live on through technology, isn’t this man already committing suicide, just as a man chooses to give up food and water? And even if you believe that it is all right to die once you have attained perfect wisdom, the question will still persist. For instead of choosing eternal death, why couldn’t you choose to live your whole life again in an eternally recurring way, as conceived by Nietzsche? If it is meaningful to live life once in search for the perfect wisdom you are devoid of, why couldn’t it be meaningful to repeat the whole search again? Surely to attain perfect wisdom periodically is still somewhat better than to lose perfect wisdom for eternity, and the rational ethical man should by right hope for a recurrence existence, and thus an eternal one too.

And if it is right for this man to choose prolonging his life forever, then how could it ever be meaningful to live finitely? If it is meaningful to live eternally, then it cannot also be meaningful to live finitely. I mean, the word ‘meaningful’ will lose its very meaning, if both qualities of life i.e. finite and infinite, are equally meaningful, just as the word ‘beautiful’ will lose its meaning if the splashing of paint is said to be also as beautiful as the painting of Mona Lisa. I’m not a mystic and I am not saying that God does exist, but rather that even if one believes that God doesn’t exist, he must nevertheless be honest and courageous enough to say that life will never be perfectly happy and meaningful if God does not exist. For there can only be one perfection, and if it is better for God to exist than not to (which must be or else you would not have supported your government), then the situation where there is no God cannot also be perfect, or else the word perfection is simply meaningless. Thus the question is only on whether should one hope for perfection, and surely it is not wrong to be a perfectionist, unless you can say that it is alright for you to commit one evil after being good for 99 times. Similarly, if you say you love life, may I ask you what proof do you have? There surely has to be some reason or criterion that makes you say so. And the only reason I can think of is that you will want life as long as possible and thus you must agree that it is surely better to live eternally than not to. I mean, if the one who believes that life can nevertheless be perfect even if it is not eternal, calls himself a lover of life, then what is the theist? A super-lover?

In short, the ethical man confuses the ‘true or false’ i.e. the facts, with the ‘right or wrong’ (i.e. the ‘should be or should not be’) i.e. the truths. He sees that death is inevitable, and he concludes that this is therefore right. But luckily, he is sane enough to see that even if evil is prevailing, it does not mean in the least that evil is right (in itself), or else he should not be supporting the police force in his country. Yet he is not keen enough to face the fact that the what should be can never be deduced from any empirical observation, but must be deduced only through Logic and Rationality. It is indeed always right to accept facts (for that is exactly what your eyes are for) but to reject truths just because the probability of it coming true is slim? Even if the chance of life having a meaning is slim, does that mean that therefore it is right for life to have no meaning? Even if we will never win the war against evil, does that mean that evil must somehow be right? If no one accepts that the earth is round, does that mean the rejection of it is right? If everything that is true should be right, then the sighted coward would be nobler than the blinded Christ. Not only ethics i.e. what should do i.e. the moral truths, must be deduced through Logic itself, even the what should be i.e. the existential truths must be deduced solely from Logic. Should there be God, or should there be a meaning in life, or should there be free-will (or determinism), should there be eternal life, should the good be rewarded etc. (For example, regarding the question on whether should there be God, you would just need to ask yourself is it good to have a powerful police force in you country to combat the ever-increasing crimes. If it is right to have a police force, then it must be right to have a God.) The difficulty in philosophy is precisely to explain facts without giving up truths i.e. why is there suffering when there is God? I mean, how easy it would be to explain suffering if we simply abandon the truth that there should be God, yet philosophy will no longer be challenging in this case.

Please do not say that the existence of God is beyond our control, and thus there is no need to speculate on it, for isn’t the question on whether man has free-will or not, or that whether life has a meaning or not, also totally beyond our control? For if it is true that man does not really possess free-will, or that life does not really have a meaning, what can then the proud atheist do about it, except of course to pray and believe in it? Please do not say that you do possess the ability to inject meaning into your life, for don’t you also need to hope that you will never lose this ability? The only true power in man is his ability to hope and believe. Atheists who despise the virtue of hope and faith are simply not facing the fact that man alone is really nothing, absolutely powerless. Even if you say that suicide is the best way out, you must also hope and believe that death is really the best way out. And since one can choose to hope and believe that he is free, or that he can attain wisdom, or that life is meaningful, why shouldn’t he hope and believe in God?

"But I find it hard to believe as a scientist." Do you think it is ever easy for the brave man to be courageous? This I must say, is a personal problem, just as the coward who dares not stand up for justice in front of evil. God would probably forgive you for that, just as He forgives the coward, yet He cannot forgive one who says that evil is right just because he is too weak to fight against it. If you ever feel angry with God for making your loved ones suffer, such that you choose not to believe in Him any more, ask yourself will your anger and disbelief help your loved ones in any way? It is precisely because your loved ones are suffering that you need to believe that they can be saved, and thus in God, no matter what. Man seeks pride in many ways, and one of them is through justified hatred.

"Philosophy should become more scientific," says the academic philosopher.

Academic philosophers would like to make their speculations more empirical and scientific in nature. Of course this is good, just as when photography had been developed to replace traditional painting to capture landscapes. Yet this surely does not mean that one should not paint anymore, for he can still continue to paint imaginary landscapes. If there comes a day when academic philosophy has become scientific, it would be a good thing, just as the invention of photography. And we could call such a study that speculates on empirical discoveries ‘Philosophical Science’ rather than ‘Pure Philosophy’; for it is really still a form of science, though more philosophical and speculative in nature. Yet why must one give up non-empirical speculation? Why couldn’t we develop both at the same time, just as photography and imaginary painting? Perhaps there should indeed exist such a branch of study called ‘Philosophical Science’, yet why should there no longer be a study of ‘Pure Philosophy’. If the academic philosopher becomes the king of the country, we may all need to go for a brain surgery to cut off the part of our brain that involves ethical, imaginative and speculative thinking. (Schopenhuar once said, "Philosophy starts from a sense of wonder." Yet doesn’t science already start from the sense of wonder too? That which Schopenhuar speaks about should be better called ‘Philosophical Science’ i.e. still a form of science, though different from ‘Empirical and Experimental Science’ in its method for it involves more philosophical speculations. True, pure philosophy must start from the sense of tragic.)

Kant’s great discovery in ethical philosophy is to see clearly that the empiricist and the rationalist are both wrong in explaining ethics. Ethics is not dependent on experience, as the empiricist believes. You want to be helpful, not because you have successfully recalled the benefits you have made from the previous experience on being helpful. In fact, it is because you have the intuitive moral desire to be helpful, that you are reminded of the harm brought to yourself last time, causing you to take more precautions in helping strangers. Similarly, ethics is neither dependent on intelligence i.e. the mathematical ability to deduce what the good is from basic principles like mathematics i.e. virtue is not simply (mathematical) knowledge. For surely you do not help because you are able to prove intellectually that helping is good, but rather you simply feel the urge to help. In other words, the conscience is independent from both experience and intelligence. In the words of the Bible, to know God is the simplest of all tasks.

How then could reason be used, if it cannot be used inductively or deductively? Kant believes that his principle of universalizability is the way Reason should be used i.e. in the hope of arriving at a logical contradiction, as in Mathematics where we attempt to prove by contradiction that there is an infinite number of prime. But as I have said, firstly, the principle even if it is right, cannot answer the question why should a moral man do that which cannot be willed universally instead of the opposite, and secondly, this principle does not consider the importance of happiness, and thus causes the dilemma on the value of happiness to arise (as if the perfect God has actually created two things, instead of only one, in a state not unlike the drunken man seeing two when there is only one.) Furthermore, is it really intuitive to use the principle of universalizability to decide whether an action is good or not? Isn’t it just as difficult intellectually to derive a contradiction as to deduce what the good is as the rationalist? This is surely not the common moral experience. We know that we have sinned as intuitive as we have erred in disobeying a hypothetical imperative. In other words, the intuition we have in ethical reasoning must be on the same level as in a hypothetical reasoning. And since ethical reasoning must be as intuitive as hypothetical reasoning, it must be concerned with the way we live, rather with only the way we think. No contradiction in abstract thinking (done in classrooms) can ever be powerful enough to motivate or prohibit practical actions. The contradiction one experiences in committing wrong must be related to reasoning used, not abstractly, but practically i.e. concerned with only happiness, just as in contradicting a hypothetical reasoning.

If you do not believe that there are such reasoning concerned with happiness, yet not prudent (or hypothetical) in nature, ask yourself philosophers, why does a man have the need to philosophize? Why does a man philosophize on the problem of suffering, or on the existence of a meaning in life? In fact, it is in suffering that a man becomes a true philosopher. One philosophizes for the simple reason because one is unable to live happily without understanding that the suffering of this life has a meaning. We need to believe that there is a meaning in suffering, in order to carry on our life happily. We reason philosophically like: life is like a painting which needs both the colors of white and black in order to constitute a beautiful painting. Or that evil is prevailing not because that God is evil, but rather it is man himself in possessing free-will, who is responsible for the evil. Such philosophical reasoning is non-prudent in nature i.e. transcendental, yet they are needed for a person to carry on his life happily. Although they are not prudent in nature concerned with experience in search for particular happiness (like hypothetical reasoning), yet they are nevertheless fully concerned with the search of a happy life as a whole i.e. general Happiness which provides a possibility for the seek of particular happiness. General Happiness is that which a man needs before attaining any particular happiness. The general Happiness of the aesthetic man is the absence and thus security from suffering. Only in securing this could he carry on with his life with a peace of mind towards attaining other particular happiness. Such reasoning I shall call it transcendental philosophical reasoning i.e. transcendental reasoning used in pure speculation. And when transcendental reasoning is used in practicality, it becomes transcendental ethical reasoning.

We do not feel an obligation to particular happiness because there are always other particular happiness to choose from. But we do want general Happiness itself, even if we do not like this particular happiness. An aesthetic man may hate the particular happiness of eating apples, but he would never hate the general Happiness to be safe and sound. That’s why we feel specially obliged to Rationality used in ethical reasoning, for even if we are not obliged to particular happiness, we are nevertheless always obliged to general Happiness itself. Yes, conscience is not a guardian of happiness, yet it is a requirement for happiness. (I believe that you may be confused about what I’m trying to say here. Rest assured that you will understand this fully after reading the following sections on how different men reason ethically and thus transcendentally.)

2

The only moral law that an aesthetic man recognizes is this: Do (or don’t do) to others if you want (or don’t want) others to do to you. I shall now explain how the existence of such a moral law is needed for the general Happiness of an aesthetic man. Now, you will probably think that what I’m saying here is merely what the Utilitarian believes in i.e. that such a moral law is nothing but a more personalized form of social law, obeyed for a prudent use. I’m doing nothing of this sort, as you will see.

To the Utilitarian, this particular moral law i.e. Do (or don’t do) to others … is merely a personalized form of social law, with the aim of helping the person to secure prudent happiness. A person should be honest, not because honesty is good in itself, but rather because honesty is conducive in pleasing others, as one learnt from experience, which increases one’s chance of social success. Such a naïve conception of the status of the moral law cannot withstand the following two attacks from the Kantian. Firstly, if such a moral law is merely a tool, like social laws that aim to bring the society into prosperity, then it is quite conceivable that the status of such a moral law will be as relative as social laws. But this is not how we view this moral law at all. We believe that it is something absolute, independent of races and societies. Secondly, from a personal view, the experience of obligation to such a moral law is totally unlike that to social laws. In obeying social laws, we always have a goal in our mind, knowing that by obeying the social laws, we would be safe from the police. Yet, in paying our obligation to such a moral law, not only do we not usually have any goal in our minds, we feel the constrain to act morally even if we know that there may be harm awaiting for us in the future if we do it. We could only pray that God may take pity on us and guide us miraculously into safety. Thus, such a moral law cannot be of the same status as social laws. Therefore, the Utilitarian is totally wrong in the way he sees the nature of such a moral law. Of course the Kantian, who believes that it is because that such a moral law is aesthetically beautiful that one will pay respect to it, is neither right.

ii

The transcendental ethical reasoning of a fearful moral aesthetic man is something like this: If I want to live in general Happiness i.e. security from suffering with a peace of mind, I would need to live in an ordered and lawful world. For it is a logical impossibility for me to know and control the wills of others, and if there is no law to prohibit others from harming me, or prompting them to help me, then I cannot hope to live in a world as free from suffering as possible. And since the prohibition from harming others and the helping of others in need is to be a law for all, then I myself must also obey it (out of the fear of punishment, for the existence of a law implies punishment). (This explains why the law takes the form: Do (or don’t do) to others if you want (or don’t want) others to do to you.) And I would choose to believe that this moral law itself is not only social, but divine as well, for only in believing this can I gain the greatest peace of mind. Yes, it may be true that living in an unlawful world may bring me greater prudent positive happiness, but because as an aesthetic man, what I desire most is merely the absence of suffering, I would choose to give up future positive happiness to opt for a world of law and order which provides the greatest possibility of freedom from suffering, allowing me to secure the greatest peace of mind. I need to believe that such a moral law is divine, just as I need to believe that life is meaningful or that there is God, in order for me to live happily. It is impossible for me to believe that the moral law is only a clever invention by man, for in this way, there would be few who would want to obey it sincerely and unconditionally, and such a world would be chaotic as I fear. To believe that the moral law is divine is the closest way I could solve this problem. Although men may break the moral law at times, it is to my peace of mind to believe that at least men ought to obey such a moral law.

Now, the aesthetic man believes in the divinity of the moral law: Do (or don’t do) …, because he needs it, rather than that he wants to use it as a social tool. It is because he needs it as divine psychologically that he chooses to believe it as divine, rather than that he is hearing some mysterious inner voice of God. Unlike the Utilitarian who, in thinking of the moral law as a social tool to be used, would be prepared to bend the moral law in favor of other worldly gains, the moral aesthetic man would not change his belief in the existence of such a divine moral law (and thus divine punishment), for he believes in its divinity not to use it, but rather it is in his fearful nature that he needs it. He has to believe its existence (as divine) first in order for him to live his daily life happily through securing his own psychological fear. Thus morality, to the aesthetic man, serves as a mean for him to secure his fear in order to attain the general Happiness of security. Yet in believing it as divine, he has no choice but to accept that there is also divine punishment i.e. he needs it, yet he fears it. He reasons in this way, if it is alright for me to kill someone so long as I like it, won’t it also be possible for others to kill me so long as they like it. Since I do not wish to live in such an unsafe world, my only choice is to believe that no man should kill another just because he likes it i.e. that there must exist such a divine moral law to prohibit such actions.

So what motivates an aesthetic man to obey the moral law? Yes, he needs to believe in the existence of the divine moral law, as he needs to believe that life is meaningful, but why should he obey the moral law, even if he believes that it exists divinely? The motivation is of course the fear of divine punishment. Yet, there is a difference between being motivated by the fear of worldly punishment and a divine one. For the fear of worldly punishment is based on experience and induction, but the fear of divine punishment is somewhat a choice i.e. one could always choose to be a moral skeptic or an atheist, and he would have immediately free himself from such a fear of divine punishment, unlike the fear of worldly punishment. That is why the existence of divine punishment can only motivate him indirectly, for the fear of divine punishment is conditioned only on his conception of happiness (i.e. that happiness is the absence of suffering and thus a peaceful mind). If he would choose happiness as the gaining of prudent profits, then he would become an atheist thus freeing himself from such a fear of divine punishment. And that is why, because the fear of divine punishment motivates an aesthetic man differently from the fear of worldly ones, he feels a different obligation to the divine moral law, unlike that he feels to the social laws. And he would feel that he is committing a moral act in the Kantian way i.e. disinterestedly and dutifully. Such a man knows no sense of remorse, but rather only a sense of guilt arising from an indirect fear of divine punishment.

Because a transcendental reasoning is purely logical i.e. the necessary obedience towards a mysterious metaphysical moral law is nothing but the necessary obedience to the logical impossibility of knowing and controlling the wills of others, we would expect such a reasoning to be universally binding, and thus it must be true that all morally conscious aesthetic men will agree on the divinity of the moral law. It is because of the logical impossibility of knowing and controlling the will of others that you find all aesthetic men across all races and cultures believing the moral law as divine, for no man can hope to overcome the logical impossibility of knowing and controlling the wills of others. And when a person argues with another making use of the moral law itself, isn’t he trying to mould the other into a believer as himself, in order to reach a higher sense of security?

3

In morality, the ethical man, in despising fear yet unable to fully transcend it, for although he is fearless of suffering he is still fearful of failure i.e. the losing of what he wants to own, develops a certain form of psychology of the self in hoping to become or acquire a better self. He needs to be stronger, to be nobler, to be more compassionate, to be more courageous i.e. he seeks metaphysical ownership. And he may give it a respectable name i.e. the evolution towards a better moral self, which is only a more subtle form of pride seeking. Because he cannot own the unknown world, he chooses to believe that he can own himself through having a free-will for only if he is free to own can he say proudly that what he owns is truly his i.e. that there is another meaning in life besides attaining uncertain empirical happiness, which is something he has power over, hopefully. He therefore seeks to own metaphysical virtuousness, compassion, courage etc. For in believing that he can own such metaphysical entities, which are unconditional and thus indestructible, he can at the same time satisfy his need in owning things, yet freed himself from the fear of losing them, for the metaphysical cannot be lost if he has the free-will, hopefully, to own them. He is more interested in the owning of an ability rather than in the use of the ability, even if he knows that an ability is always meant to be used, and thus it is meaningless to own an usable ability like virtuousness, since if virtuousness is a worthwhile ability to own, then it must be used in eternity, yet that would mean asking God to create a land of poor and suffering people so that you could practice your virtue of generosity forever. As much as you may not want to see it, it is the same whether you need to be rich, or to be capable, or to be wise, or to be moral, or even to be happy (happiness cannot be owned but only lived in).

Why does an athlete train himself to break (or maintain) the world record? If he runs to gain a prudent profit, wouldn’t it be better to learn doing business instead, for the chance of success in business is definitely greater than to break the world record? Yes, it is possible that he is doing it for the mere sake of gaining fame, but nevertheless it is also possible to imagine him trying to break the world record simply for the sake of breaking it, in order to prove to himself that he is strong and able. For in ascertaining that he is able, he feels that he is in possession of something valuable, called athletic talent. He did it as disinterested as any Kantian moral act, simply for the sake of wanting to be strong, as the moralist wants to be moral. (It is commonly thought that the need of fame is a form of pride. This view is mistaken, for the need of fame is similar to the need of attention from one’s parent when he was a child, and surely such a need of attention, and thus love, cannot be prideful in nature. What is truly prideful is the will to be, in this case, the will to be talented or to own talent.)

Why does the son of a rich man insist to set up his own business, instead of inheriting his career directly from his father? Of course he may want to gain praise for doing so, but it is still possible to imagine that he wants to do it simply for the sake of doing it, in order to prove to himself that he is a capable man. He is not after prudent riches, for he can gain them easier from his father. Neither is he doing it for the sake of happiness, for he would not have wanted to go bankrupt to start all over again in his business. He did it for the mere sake of ascertaining the fact that he is a capable man, for it gives him a certain joy in knowing that he is a capable man i.e. that he possesses the talent of capability. The joy of possession (be it talent or virtuousness), or the joy of being (whether is it to be capable or moral) is none other than the perverted joy of pride i.e. the perverted joy of mere ownership. Although the goals are different, the motivation is the same i.e. the need to own something valuable. The Kantian moralist is thus prompted by pride, not in the sense of trying to gain fame through acting morally, but in the sense of wanting to ascertain that he himself is a moral man.

Yes, a moralist may be reluctant in carrying out moral acts, but doesn’t the athlete also hope that the world record may be of a lower standard so that it will be easier for him to break it while he is suffering during the training? Similarly, the prideful teenager who gets into fights over the slightest matter does not look forward towards fights too, but is ‘pushed’ unwillingly into it because he needs to keep his pride. The urgency in acting to ascertain that one is not a failure or coward is exactly the same as one feels in needing to act morally. The Kantian moralist may not look eagerly forward towards the performance of moral acts, yet he can still nevertheless be prompted by his pride to carry out moral acts reluctantly, for fear of losing what he owns or be devoid of it. For man is by nature dependent on empirical occurrences i.e. every successful act of virtuousness reminds him that he is virtuous, and every failure reminds him that he does not possess what he needs. Why does the teenager get into fights so often, even though he has absolutely no intention of becoming a boxer? Isn’t it an attempt to prove to himself that he is courageous, even though he knows that there is absolutely no need to fight in order to ascertain that he is courageous, for surely it is because one is courageous that he dares to fight, not the other way round? The moralist is thus prompted by the fear of not owning what he believes to be valuable i.e. virtuousness, just as the teenager is prompted by the fear of not owning courage. Hence, he does the moral act disinterestedly and dutifully, with the sole intention of increasing his faith and ascertaining to himself that he owns virtuousness, just as the rich man needs to spend money in order to ascertain to himself that he is rich. (Similarly, the aesthetic man, in addition to doing a moral act out of the fear of divine punishment, may also do it disinterestedly in ascertaining to himself that the moral law truly exists as divine, for every empirical failure will remind him of the fact that the existence of a divine moral law may be only in his mind.)

Such an ethical man knows remorse i.e. disappointment with oneself in failing to be a moral person. He feels ashamed of himself in failing to be moral, yet isn’t shame concerned exactly with pride? Of course, the Kantian may say that not all pride is evil. Well, the devil can say this to himself too. Kantians have always attempted to prove that there is something special and metaphysical about ethics through the feeling of remorse which is unlike the feeling of regret. Because the feeling of regret is already concerned with worldly prudent gain, the feeling of remorse must therefore be concerned with the metaphysical, and thus the metaphysical must exist, since conscience exists undoubtedly. Yet they have never thought that it is only because of their perverted need to own indestructible metaphysical things that they are forced to believe in the existence of the metaphysical in the first place, which eventually leads to the feeling of remorse (or shame and disappointment) as a result indirectly. Yes, the feeling of remorse is about the metaphysical, but it is only because you have chosen to believe in the existence of the metaphysical in the first place that the feeling of remorse arises.

The ethical man reasons ethically and thus transcendentally: If I want to own the virtue of honesty permanently, not only must I be prepared to speak the truth, I must also believe that there is a duty for me to speak the truth, for how can the virtue of honesty be absolutely valuable to own if there are cases where I need not speak the truth? (This is how the concept of duty arises for an ethical man, for he needs to believe in it in order to make what he owns absolutely valuable, for surely something that is absolutely valuable to own permanently must be applicable at all times, under all circumstances. The general Happiness of an ethical man is the perverted joy of pride i.e. in owning. Only when he has secured his pride can he continue on his life. Similarly, the metaphysical concept of moral truth and respect arises in this way i.e. out of the psychological need of pride in man.)

Ask yourself, will Christ be angry if you throw stones at Him? Surely not, for He doesn’t need others to respect Him, unlike the prideful Kantian who demands others to respect the virtuousness he owns. Respect and honor, these are all prideful concepts. There is nothing good in respecting anything, or being honorable at all. Is the child capable of respecting Christ more than the Kantian? No, yet it is the child who will go Heaven. Christ asks you to love your neighbors, not merely to respect or honor them. We are told to love them, instead of merely to love morality i.e. to love "trying to love your neighbors". And please do not say that to love morality is to love God, just as the scientist who says that to love truth is to love God, for isn’t this is a mere play of words, since the concept of a living God has absolutely no logical relation with morality, for surely it is enough to define God as "Power towards Happiness" without the need of Kantian morality, which one cannot even define with sense, since why should the good man obey instead of disobey the principle of universalizability? The moral man is one who believes, even if he does not have compassion for his neighbors, that he will be so one day i.e. he never gives up the faith that life must be meaningful and thus he will attain compassion and thus happiness one day, for it is necessary to become compassionate in order for him to appreciate the happiness of love, since it is inconceivable that a man who loves be cruel in nature.

When the ethical man first realizes that he couldn’t move mountains, he immediately directs his attention to some metaphysical realm hoping to gain absolute security, yet what he should have done instead is to hope and believe that he can move them. Instead of choosing to believe that man is only free in his own pathetic metaphysical free will, he should have chosen to believe that he is capable of being perfectly and unconditionally powerful i.e. as powerful as God, and thus capable of moving mountains like God, through his will to hope and believe. Yet the ethical man is incapable of believing in this way, for in order to believe, he would first need to accept the fact that he is totally deficient i.e. that he cannot achieve anything of significance through himself at all, and this is something very intolerable to the prideful ethical man. For in wanting to own things, he must thus at the same time believe that he himself is fully capable and free to own that which he wants, since a thing cannot be said to be truly yours if you can only obtain it through chance as the grace of God (or are being determined and thus forced to own by external factors), rather than by your own power and freedom. The concept of trying one’s best is the most prideful and evil concept in our times. What I’m trying to say here is expressed brilliantly in the movie The Matrix, where Fishburne tells Keanu, Don’t try to hit me, just hit me! You are not to try, but rather to believe unconditionally that you can do it. And when the aesthetic man believes that all is fated and one cannot move mountains, and the ethical man believes that he is free only in his own will and thus should try only to change himself, the religious man on the other hand believes that he need not move mountains for if he is already as omnipotent as God through His grace, then whatever that happens to him must be predetermined and thus meaningful. Thus whereas the aesthetic man seeks resignation, and the ethical man seeks the metaphysical, the religious man seeks unconditional power.

The remorseful man is thus the selfish man, for he worries more about himself (i.e. whether does he own virtuousness) than others. In Asia, there is a certain philosophy called Buddhism, and the Buddha believes that the conception of the Self is the greatest hindrance to the attainment of wisdom. In Christianity, instead of the foolishness in believing the existence of the Self, we talk rather about the evil of succumbing to pride i.e. the will-to-be. The Self and the Pride, they mean the same.

4

Now, a religious man does not see ethics in the same way as an ethical man sees it. An ethical man seeks for a description and he is contented with it, which would tell him how to act, so that he may now have a way in ascertaining to himself that he is moral, which he needs in order to enjoy the prideful ownership of virtuousness. Just as the rich man needs to know what is the most expensive hobby he could play in order to ascertain to himself that he is rich, the moralist needs to know what he should do in order to ascertain to himself that he is moral. An explanation does not appeal to an ethical man as much as a description, for an explanation is like the untying of the knot of a string, which results finally in merely an untied string i.e. nothingness, and the prideful man cannot see how nothingness can ever bring him anything, for he wants to own rather than to live. The religious man does not believe in free-will, and thus there is no need for him to know what actions are right or wrong, for in believing that he is determined by God, he believes that he will always act rightly. He is, in a sense, interested only in living, not thinking i.e. he lives in the present to the fullest, instead of worrying about the future although he is still hopeful unlike the aesthetic man, like a child or sparrow, as if today is the last day. (Of course, I mean only that he does not think morally i.e. what he should do solely to ascertain his own pride of morality, for he must think pragmatically too, since it is impossible to act in anyway without being aware of one’s present situation and his intended goal.)

Yet, although he does not need to know what he ought to do morally, he would still need to know the reason for a possible occurrence, besides pragmatic thinking. In other words, as an example, besides thinking pragmatically on what and where he should take his lunch, he needs also to know why must he take his lunch, in a subconscious manner. The reason or explanation is of course that he needs to eat in order to be healthy so that he may carry on his life. This is because he needs to see rationality in everything in order for him to believe that life has a meaning as a whole, or that there is God, so that his sense of tragic may be curbed. Now, if one is acting compassionately merely towards his loved ones, there is no mystery in that, for the affair of seeing his loved ones happy is a meaningful affair, and thus provides a reason for acting compassionately towards his loved ones. The mystery comes only when he discovers that he may also perform compassionate acts towards his enemies. And the mystery arises, why do I need to act compassionately towards my enemies as well? Why do I feel the need to perform in such a disinterested and dutiful way, obeying only the sense of duty instead of prudence? Can I prove that disinterested Kantian actions also have a reason behind it, just as every action I have ever committed? I need to see a reason in even disinterested Kantian actions in order to account for the meaningfulness of life as a whole.

The moral religious man reasons ethically and thus transcendentally: If life is to be perfectly happy and meaningful, there must be God and I must also be living in an unconditional realm. Yet this is not so. This present life in a conditional realm must thus be only a preparation for an eternal life of happiness in an unconditional realm. Since if there is God, which I need to believe in, then there must be a meaning in this present life too, for how can an omnipotent God create a conditional realm without meaning and purpose? I mean, this life must be led meaningfully in order for there to be at least a possibility for it to be a preparation for a transcendental purpose. This life must thus be led, not with the goal of attaining worldly conditional happiness, but rather with the intention of preparing oneself for transcendental unconditional happiness. And thus I need not be determined solely by my prudent experience and desire, for life cannot have a transcendental meaning if I’m determined solely by prudent experience. I must also be determined to act disinterestedly because life is not about worldly gain, but rather about a future transcendental happiness. I must thus be determined by the unconditional will of God, which is a compassionate and courageous will, and thus this explains why I sometimes try to act courageously and compassionately in order to create an aesthetically meaningful life even if I’m not courageous or compassionate. (Note that the general Happiness of the religious man is the meaningfulness of the whole of Existence i.e. the existence of God. Only in faith can he carry on his life.) In short, moral acts are acts done to show the nature and existence of God.

Such a man is thus motivated by a transcendental purpose of happiness, rather than by a prudent purpose of happiness of the Utilitarian or a metaphysical purpose of pride of the Kantian. Now, you may ask how such a mysterious transcendental purpose may be able to motivate, for isn’t it mere superstitious to believe in a transcendental purpose? Yes, it is indeed not clear how moral acts could be responsible for eventual happiness, since it is not within man’s ability to understand the intention of God. One of the possible reason is something like this, though of course this is mere speculation: If God is to create a perfect Heaven, He would also need time and possibly knowledge on what true happiness is in order to create it. For although God must be Power, He needs not be Knowledge (anymore than He needs to be Matter, or else there will be something above Him), for you can conceive of God creating something new even to Himself such that He does not know what this new thing is until He experiences and learns it. Thus He needs to experience life itself through us, such that His knowledge in the happiness of love may grow into perfection. And thus, in a way, we are His servants with the task of experiencing life in the most aesthetically meaningful way so that His knowledge on the happiness of love can grow into perfection. We are determined to read books (in order for Him to know what beauty i.e. self-love, is) and determined to perform compassionate acts like actors in a show (in order for Him to learn what compassion i.e. the love of others is). Ask yourself, if you are watching a drama show where a man meets an unconscious old lady, is the drama more touching, interesting and artistically meaningful for the man to rescue her or to desert her in order to get home for sleep? Thus you rescue (or better, are determined to rescue) the old woman in order for God to learn what compassion is, just as you watch such a drama yourself to learn of compassion, for the knowledge of compassion is needed for the sake of happiness, since it is inconceivable that a man happy in love be a cruel and insensitive in nature. God needs the knowledge of both beauty and compassion in order to create a perfectly happy Heaven with the happiness of love. (Here, you may ask this question, why does God need to learn compassion when He is already compassionate, since He must already be compassionate in order to determine the religious man to act compassionately? Now, I must apologize for my use of words, though I would not change them. What I mean when I say that one is determined by the compassionate will of God is nothing but that one is determined by the law of Physics to exhibit a compassionate act. It is always the same old law of Physics that determines, just that it may determine one in such an unconventional way of exhibiting disinterested compassion at times that it appears to the man that he is determined by God. God is Power yet He is not Happiness, though He creates it. And thus, since compassion is a constitute of the happiness of love which He creates, He has to learn it just as He learns the Arts in order to know what the happiness of love is.)

ii

Now the question arises, what is a meaningful life, for the religious man needs to know that in order to complete his transcendental ethical reasoning?

Kant believes that it is the sense of duty that is involved in moral acts. Yet have you ever asked how this mysterious sense of duty arises? In our daily affairs, the sense of duty arises out of the fear of contempt by the law. But in the case of the metaphysical sense of duty in Kantian Ethics, where does it come from? To the aesthetic man, the sense of duty arises out of the fear of divine punishment, as opposed to the fear of worldly social laws. To the ethical man, it arises out of the need of pride to own something permanently (here virtuousness i.e. the ability to carry out moral acts unconditionally), and thus the idea of duty arises i.e. that one who possesses this ability permanently must consequently be obliged to act under all circumstances, or else there cannot be a sense in saying that one can own such an ability permanently.

To the religious man, a person who is free from all fears including even the fear of fear itself, he is not bounded by a mere sense of duty for he knows that all obedience are cowardice. Instead he acts, not according to a sense of duty, but rather according to a sense of destiny i.e. he believes that he is destined to act (through carrying out the will of God) for a transcendental purpose. If there is only a sense of duty towards moral acts, why then does the doctor feel that it is more wrong for him not to help when he encounters a car accident than the common man? Remember in Kantian Ethics, the helping of others can only be an imperfect duty. Thus if man is prompted only by a sense of imperfect duty, it will not be a surprise if the doctor feels the same sense of imperfect duty as the common man, yet any man knows that a doctor is more obliged to help than the common man. It is because he feels that if life is to be rational and meaningful (for a transcendental purpose), he should help (or be determined or destined to help by God) since there must be a reason for God to make him a doctor first and then guiding him here. For this life must be led in an artistically meaningful way in order for there to be at least a possibility of a transcendental purpose in this life. I mean, life would truly be meaningless if a doctor refuses to help if he can, although there is nothing meaningless about a common man refusing to help since there is nothing he can do anyway. Failing to do so will threaten the very meaningfulness of this life. It is such an artistic sense of destiny that the doctor feels which prompts him to carry out moral acts, not just an abstract sense of duty.

This is just one way the religious man decides what a meaningful life is i.e. doing the best he could to help a patient if he is a doctor. Similarly, the hero may choose death over cowardly surrender, for he reasons that a meaningful life must concern itself with the quality of his days, instead of the quantity i.e. the span of his life. I mean, if the meaningful life is simply the longest, then there is no longer a need to believe in an afterlife i.e. a transcendental purpose. Another good example lies in asking why the saint would never harm another for his own gain? As what I have said, even if the saint is compassionate, he would just need to close his eyes to free himself from the pain of compassion on seeing suffering. The aesthetic man would of course choose not to harm another for he fears divine punishment. The ethical man needs to "keep a clean record" for him to continue believing that he is moral. Whereas the religious man sees that this cannot be a meaningful life, for he asks himself, what if I were to harm him to gain money today, yet to strike lottery tomorrow? Won’t I be wasting today, since I surely could perceive a more meaningful life with me winning the lottery tomorrow, yet without harming and sacrificing another today?

Thus ethics is not about the passive refrain from acts which needs only the prideful sense of duty. Rather it is about active acts towards carrying out the compassionate and courageous will of God, prompted by a transcendental purpose, guided by his understanding of what a meaningful life must be like. It is not about the mere refrain from physical stealing, but rather about believing oneself to be determined by the courageous will of God to endure the pain of hunger for a transcendental purpose through faith and his sense of destiny, with the understanding that if this life is to be meaningful, there must be times for suffering too, for life is like a painting needing both black and white colors to constitute a meaningful painting. Similarly, the perverted killer must fight his anger and killing instinct through believing that God is determining him in a courageous way. And if he succeeds, then he will naturally opt not to kill, for he has no more reason to do so.

The prideful ethical man, upon sacrificing the innocent Jews to the Nazi in order to refrain from lying will say, "This I do, only God can judge me, not men." Whereas the religious, fighting courageously with all his might against the cowardice in him will cry out, "Please God, be with me through my darkest hour." Notice that the cry of a religious man is more similar to that of the fearful aesthetic man which is, "Please God, save me from darkness." There is something very special and also personal about ethics, something about the courage to face suffering through believing in its meaningfulness rather than mere obedience (to mysterious moral laws), something about one’s destiny rather than mere duty.

iii

I want to ask the Kantian, how do you know that you have the duty to give money to the beggar instead of the duty to be a compassionate person i.e. how do know that you have a duty to do rather than a duty to be? What sign from your conscience tells you to do (through pretending), rather than to be? If you feel that all you need is to do, rather than to be, is it then all right to laugh at the suffering children on television, since you can’t do anything about it? You feel that you should be kind, not only that your face should not be twisted to giggle. You feel that you ought to be kind, not merely to pretend so. In fact, what is the use of knowing what you ought to do, if you really reach out to your pocket to discover that there is actually no money in there i.e. what is the use of knowing what you ought to do, if you can never anticipate the immediate future and thus could only do what you ought to do probably, instead of certainly. It is meaningless to feel that you ought to give money to the beggar since it is never a certainty that you have money, for you are trying to give money to the beggar, not merely to put your hand into your pockets.

The first answer by a Kantian is this, so long as one has the intention to give charity, then he has fulfilled his responsibility. Yet surely you can logically imagine someone possessing such an intention, yet failing to do charity on every occasion, if you believe that intention is some private mental state that one can own. The second answer is more ingenious i.e. although one cannot give money if he does not have any, he can nevertheless still try his best to do so. I want to ask, can you really try to give money when you do not have any to give? Is it possible to try lifting the chair that is non-existing? Of course it is possible to imagine yourself trying to lift an imagined chair, but not only can you not lift the non-existing chair, you cannot even try to, for you simply do not know where the chair is. And similarly, if you also can never know what the next moment or the immediate future holds, why should you be able to try doing anything at all? Not only is it impossible to give money if you do not have money, it is also impossible to try giving if you do not have anything to give. You are merely bewitched by the way you use the word ‘try’ in philosophy and your daily life. Remember, the word ‘try’ has a very different meaning when it is used in philosophy as compared to its daily use. Whenever we try to do an act in our daily lives, say trying to run a marathon race, we do not really mean lifting our legs physically and thrusting them forward. Rather we mean that we should be persistent in our hope to attain the final goal we have in mind i.e. the completion of the race or the gaining of a prize etc. When we try doing something in our daily lives, we always have a temporal future goal in mind, which is not the immediate act itself, for it is logically pointless to have any immediate act in mind since it is logically impossible to know the immediate future. What I want to say is that the word ‘try’ is used differently in real life and in philosophy, and to say something like "You should try your best in acting Kantianly moral," is nonsensical in Kantian ethical philosophy. You feel that such a phrase means something noble simply because you are using a wrong analogy taken from your daily life. Yes, to try doing something is a noble affair in our daily lives, for we mean by trying in our daily lives really the persistence of hope and faith, but in ethical philosophy, we mean something entirely different and senseless.

We feel that we ought to be a compassionate person who will help the poor, not merely that we ought to help the poor. We ought to be a compassionate man, not that we ought to pretend to be one through acting. Why do we feel that it is wrong to kick the beggar, yet has never felt that it is wrong to kick the sandbag? This is because we are causing suffering to someone that we feel that it wrong to kick the beggar, not simply because of the action of kicking itself. Kicking the beggar portraits the cruelty in us, though kicking the sandbag won’t. It is not the mere act of kicking that we feel to be wrong, but rather that it is wrong to be a cruel man. Yes, we may not really feel sad if the beggar is suffering, but we feel that we ought to feel sad for the beggar i.e. we ought to be a compassionate person, one who delights in the happiness and feels sad for the suffering of others, and thus will try our best in helping others, rather than a cruel man who wishes for and delights in the suffering of others. What we feel in our conscience is only an urgency to be a certain type of person, just as we also feel that there ought to be no beggars, or that everyone ought to be happy, or that there ought to be God i.e. the ought we feel has always been an existential ought to be (a state which we can only look forward to, hope for and believe in) instead of a moral ought to do. In fact, it doesn’t even tell you that you can be a compassionate person through your own will, though you ought to be so. Yes, you may not be a compassionate person though you feel that you ought to be so, just as the world need not be a happy place though you feel that it ought to be so, or that there may not be God though you feel that it ought to be so.

The belief that one could always do what one feels that he ought to do arises out of pride. While the prideful man sees only that one ought to be compassionate, rather than to act compassionately, for the concept of free-will is an unintelligible one, he would nevertheless choose to believe that there is a need to act compassionately. For only in this way can he develop an empirical way that would allow him to ascertain to himself that he owns virtuousness. He needs a way to ascertain to himself that he is moral, just as the rich man needs a way to spend his money in order to ascertain to himself that he is rich. It is only because our culture is more interested in efficiency than truth, in pride than love, such that it believes in the freedom of physical limbs rather than the freedom of being, that we were taught the doctrine that although one cannot be kind, one can still pretend to be kind with his limbs. If man really possesses a free-will, why shouldn’t he be able to will himself into a kind person, instead of merely willing his limbs to pretend that he is a kind person? If you truly believe that man is free with his limbs, then why shouldn’t he be free in his being too? Surely if life is meaningful with the freedom of limbs, then it should even be more meaningful with the freedom of being. The reason for Kantians to choose believing only in the freedom of the limbs is a cultural one founded on pride, not a rational one. It is because we tend to feel that a description is more important than an explanation i.e. the question on what is more important than the question on why, for knowing the what can help us secure our pride better than knowing the why. It is because of our prideful culture in believing free-will that the concept of ought to do arises, and consequently the illusion that there seems to be two different kinds of ought, instead of only the existential kind. (Ask yourself, why is prostitution wrong? How can sex be wrong, or the giving of money to a woman, since you even give money to a beggar? The ‘ought not’ we feel inside us concerning prostitution is the feeling that such a situation i.e. the situation where a man cannot have sex with the woman he truly loves, ought not to be.)

The truth is, we can neither be kind nor pretend to act kindly, for the philosophical concept of free-will is nonsensical. And once we see that it is impossible to become a compassionate man through our own will, we will then begin to hope and believe that we can be so through God, since this is now the only possible route. We can never will existentially, and thus the will-to-hope and believe becomes the only possible and important will. And why do we feel tragic sadness, instead of remorseful as the Kantian, in being cruel and cowardly? The reason why we feel an obligation to be a compassionate man, instead of a cruel man, is simply that we cannot imagine a man happy in love yet cruel in nature. A cruel man is one who has lost the knowledge of love, and the lost of such a knowledge of happiness is a tragedy. Similarly we feel an obligation to be a courageous man, instead of a coward, for we cannot imagine a happy man, who is inspired by the greatest power i.e. love, remaining still a coward. For it indicates your lack of the ability to be inspired by love, and thus your lack of the ability to appreciate and enjoy love, and this is a saddening affair. Thus we feel that we ought to be a compassionate and courageous man, just as we feel that life ought to have a meaning, or there ought to be God, solely for the sake of happiness i.e. we feel that we ought to be living as men capable of appreciating the happiness of love. We want to be the moral man not because we can see some mysterious metaphysical quality of morality or responsibility etc (for we never really look forward to live in a land full of beggars providing opportunities for us to practice virtuousness), but rather we know intuitively that only a person who loves life enough would choose to be moral, though we do not know (unless you have read this book) why is this so. Isn’t this why the truly compassionate and courageous never feel himself to be so, for he is only interested in the happiness of love, rather than merely to be successful in being compassionate and courageous, as the Kantian who delights in his own virtuousness? There is ever only one ought i.e. the existential ought that life should be happy in love, which in turn requires one to be compassionate and courageous. And it is this existential sense of ought which gives rise to the sense of tragic, rather than the sense of remorse. The truly free man feels only tragic sadness, never guilt or remorse. He is sad about his own lack of compassion and courage, just as he is sad about the suffering of life.

iv

It is impossible to base ethics on the respect of some metaphysical moral laws. How on earth do you know that it is your duty to love your enemies, rather than it is your duty to hate your enemies (or better to hate your friends) instead? You may say that you feel the duty inside you to love your enemies, but then I could equally say that I feel the duty inside me to hate all, enemies and friends. Of course, the Kantian will reply, it is because in loving others, you will tend to help them more, thus increasing their chances of survival, and consequently enabling them to perform more dutiful moral actions. It is not that loving them is good, but that in loving them, you will help to increase the number of dutiful actions performed in this world indirectly.

Is this answer correct? When we feel the duty to love someone (i.e. to be a compassionate man), do we have this hidden motive that loving this man would lead to a future world of more dutiful actions being performed? Surely not! When we feel the duty to love (i.e. to be compassionate), we simply feel this and nothing more. If loving is not good in itself, but only that it leads to more dutiful actions, can we then hurt the feelings of others, so long as we do not decrease the chance of their survival? You can imagine the laws of Nature slightly different from the present ones, where mental suffering, instead of destroying the physical health of a man, could greatly improve his physical health, so that the more one suffers mentally, the healthier he will become physically. In such a world, how could you have come to know that loving is right rather than hating (i.e. it is right to be a compassionate man rather than a cruel man)? Kantians may also say that it is because a man has the quality of morality that we help him. But surely we help someone because we pity him, not that we respect him i.e. that he has the quality of suffering rather than the quality of morality, for don’t we also pity and help animals too? If it is the possession (or the possibility of possession) of morality that determines whether one should be helped, then the hungry saint would be wrong to give the last piece of bread to the hungry villain instead of himself. For even if the villain has the possibility of becoming good in the future, it is still irrational for the saint (who is already virtuous now) to give up his bread for an uncertain future of the villain turning good. Yet this is clearly nonsense. And please do not say that the bread ought to go to the sinner because the saint is already perfectly virtuous, for in this case, why should we then give the extra bread, if there is one, to the hungry saint? Only the possession of the quality of suffering determines whether one should be helped, never morality.

What is wrong with hatred is not that it decreases the number of dutiful performances in the world, or that it may affect the growth of morality, but that it is the expression of suffering and despair itself, for only unhappy people hate. Ethics must be concerned with happiness. Loving is not good because of any future contingent result (including increasing the number of dutiful performances), or that it helps the growth of morality, but because it is an expression of happiness and hope itself, for only happy people love one another.

Is there such a thing as truth-speaking merely for the sake of itself? Contrary to common belief, Kant is truly great when he proposes that truth-speaking is a perfect duty i.e. one that must be done in all situations, thus even when one is approached by a Nazi on the run away Jews. He is right, not in the sense that he thinks that truth-speaking is right in itself (for why should the moral man refrain from the non-universalizable maxim), but in that he believes that if an action is right i.e. a perfect duty, then it must be right under all circumstances. This is because, to any great mind, the Socratic doctrine that all virtues are one, and thus incapable of contradicting each other, must be right.

Thus, if truth-speaking contradicts with compassion, in the case where the Jews is hiding in your house from the Nazi, then one of them must not be a virtue. For if all virtues are but the different manifestations of the same moral quality, then it must be impossible to conceive of a situation where they will contradict. And Kant is truly great here in sticking to this belief, that one must tell the truth at all times since compassion is not a perfect duty, at least to him. Only a lesser mind would think that it is possible to compare the importance of honesty (in truth-speaking) and compassion, for how could two qualities ever be compared like quantities? (And please don’t say that it is in your intuition that the answer lies. How could God have created two different virtues with one clearly or intuitively more important than the other? If God has never created different colors with some intuitively inferior than others, why would He have created different virtues with some more important than others?) If truth-speaking is a virtue, then compassion cannot also be a virtue. There is just no two ways about this issue. If you feel that truth-speaking is a virtue good in itself, then you must be prepared to speak of the truth at all times, even at the sacrifice of compassion. Since I myself do not idolize Kant, so my choice is compassion, and thus only compassion, not truth-speaking, which is not only of a lesser value than compassion, but it must be of zero value. The reason why compassion is a virtue is simply because it is a logical constitute of the happiness of a man in love, whereas a happy man need not be a truth-telling machine like a parrot. In other words, because we feel only the existential ought to be a compassionate person, rather than the moral ought to live like a truth-telling machine, truth-telling cannot be right under all circumstances. We do not feel that we ought to be a honest person, for honesty is an action, not a mode of being like compassion.

Is this very startling i.e. that there is absolutely no value in truth-speaking? Consider this argument. Living happily is good for its own sake, and that is why it is conceivable that if you were to see God one day, you can wish for an interesting and happy world to live in, where you can then live happily for eternity. If you say that truth-speaking is good in itself as happiness, in what way can you ask God to grant you a world where you can keep on practicing truth-speaking for eternity? And won’t such a world be a noisy place, for if it is good for you to live like a parrot speaking the truth every moment uttering non-stop, "The sun is yellow" or "The moon is round" etc (for that is what we mean when we say that happiness is good in itself i.e. that I want to live happily every moment), then everyone must also live like the parrot every moment. And please don’t say that you need only to speak the truth in certain situations, for given God’s omnipotence, He could easily create such situations for you to live like the parrot every moment for eternity. Perhaps this is something hard to accept, for we were taught that honesty (in truth-speaking) is a virtue in itself from youth. But logic tells a greater truth than any culture.

v

To an aesthetic man, moral acts are done for the reward (of absence from suffering) in Heaven. To him, there can be nothing but only a business deal with God. That is why Kant despises such an attitude in living morally i.e. to do good for the sake of a prudent reward. And he is right in despising such an attitude, for it belongs to men of a spiritual development inferior to him.

The ethical man despises the aesthetic man, for he despises the notion of a business-like acting for a future prudent sake. He is right in that life is not about doing business with God, but he is wrong in thinking that all prudent acts are business-like. Does the athlete who train hard to win the championship doing a business deal? If he is merely doing a business deal, he should be glad if he can attain his goal free-of-charge i.e. without the need of working hard for it. Does the true athlete want to win without training hard for it? Would he be satisfied if his opponents are of a standard much lower than him, or that they are paid in advance to lose out to him? Surely not! An athlete is indeed doing a prudent act by training hard to win the championship, yet the act of training hard to win the tournament, although a prudent act, is not a business deal. Not every prudent act is a business deal. And it is the same in the way we live i.e. we are to live as friends of God, helping (in whatever way you believe) and thus aiding Him in constructing a future perfect Heaven for all. There is no business deal at all, but only a friendship with God. You are here to work with God, not here to work for God. For example, in the case of making a decision, the fearful aesthetic man will say, "Please God, decide for me" whereas the prideful ethical man will say, "I will try my best." Only the religious man will say, "Please God, be with me through it all."

vi

"Isn’t the act of sacrificing personal happiness for the a nobler cause great?" Finally, I want to discuss the concept of sacrifice in ethics. It is this that separates us from a robot in performing a moral act. The robot does the moral act naturally, but we will need to sacrifice our personal happiness in carrying out moral acts. This is why the robot is not great, but only human beings, capable of acts of sacrifice, can be called great. So I shall now investigate the concept of sacrifice, which is greatly mistaken due to the bewitchment by our language. The correct understanding of what the concept of sacrifice truly means will enable the reader to see that how the bewitchment by our language has a powerful effect in making one prideful, causing him to mistake the greatness of a religious man for cowardice. I want to show that, contrary to common belief, the common concept of sacrifice is a logically inconsistent concept i.e. it is a language hoax just as that of "a circle with four sides" i.e. words without any true meaning other than the mere purpose of instilling pride. By showing that it is meaningless and unintelligible to talk of the concept of sacrifice (in the common way), I hope to show that the common understanding of moral greatness is also mistaken. I hope that a new understanding of what moral greatness is can be discovered.

What does it mean by "to sacrifice oneself"? If you define "self-sacrifice" as "giving up one’s life for the sake of a just purpose", how on earth do you know that you would die after all? It is entirely possible that the man left on the sinking ship, after sacrificing his last place in the saving boat, may be just fit enough to endure the cold of the sea till the arrival of another rescue team. Even if your body is crucified for the sake of justice, how do you know that your soul would not live on in Heaven, thus benefiting from the act itself? "Of course I don’t know, but rather I believe that I would die." Yet, as what I have said, to believe means nothing more but to say that, I will only be happy, if and only if this is to happen. Thus, the concept of sacrifice cannot be defined as doing that which one believes that he will die from it, for it is impossible to believe that one will die, since no man can be happy if he is to die, unless death can bring him the gain of prideful honor. So what does it mean by to sacrifice?

Does sacrifice mean: To do it despite of pessimism, as commonly believed? We have this strange idea that it is because one is optimistic that he tends to carry out the act, or that it is because one is pessimistic that he tends not to do it i.e. we again think of optimism and pessimism as objects that one can own. And therefore, a man who is pessimistic will be nobler than a man who is optimistic, for he needs to fight against his pessimism which is forbidding him to carry out the act. I want to say that such a way of conceiving what optimism and pessimism i.e. to see them as objects that a man may possess, is totally wrong. Is it because one has shouted, "I shall do it!" (while believing mistakenly that optimism is an object) that he will do it, or is it the other way round, that because one wants to do it that he shouts out loud (indicating correctly that optimism is a way of life he decides to live by)? Similarly, it is because that you have decided not to do it that you mutter, "I ..er.. don’t really feel like doing it." rather than the other way round. It is not pessimism that causes you to feel anxious, or optimism that causes you to feel determined, but it is always the same old probability rate of success that influences your decision whether to do it or not. Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, the probability rate remains unchanged. It is not that such the probability rate has some mysterious telepathic power that causes metaphysical objects of optimism and pessimism to be developed. It is always up to one to choose being optimistic or pessimistic despite of the same probability rate. In fact, there is no such a thing as optimism but only persistence, no such a thing as pessimism but only anxiety. Pessimism and optimism are not objects but ways of life. It is not because that you are optimistic that you want to do it, but rather it is because you want to do it that you adopt an optimistic way of life. Similarly, it is not because that you are pessimistic that you refuse to do it, but rather it is because you do not want to do it (unless you can acquire fame or pride) that you adopt a pessimistic way of life. So the common concept of sacrifice i.e. that a man does it without optimism is merely chimerical. If he really wants to do it, he will be optimistic, unless he has other goals such as fame or virtuousness to achieve through it. Yet in this way, he will still need to be optimistic that he is doing the right thing that can make him famous or moral. (Like what I have said, choosing the morality instead of happiness is no sacrifice at all, for if you have chosen that which you feel is better than happiness, where then is the sacrifice?) So how should we define the concept of sacrifice?

"But he has chosen to risk his life i.e. to give up the way of a lower risk, to choose the way of a much higher risk." Yes, I totally agree that to choose the way of a higher risk is a noble act, and therefore we should define the act of sacrifice through only this. The value of the act of sacrifice is found solely only through this choice, not what will happen in the future after this choice. Surely he is equally great even if he is rescued eventually. It is entirely not necessary that one must die eventually in order to be as great as if he really dies eventually. And we should therefore define the notion of self-sacrifice only as "Choosing the way of a higher risk i.e. the more difficult way". This is precisely what Christ has been saying, that the true man chooses the more difficult road, rather than the road of death, for it is simply logically impossible to know the future i.e. "Always choose to be the last (to reach, rather than never to reach)." And the only reason possible that a man would choose a more difficult way is because that he believes that he is capable of choosing it (he may not know how he is going to survive, but he believes that he will survive), since a higher difficulty implies only a goal harder to attain, not impossible to attain. The common notion of self-sacrifice is only for the prideful, for the prideful must believe that he would somehow gain ‘something’ called moral goodness through sacrificing. (You may ask, if every road leads to life instead of death, then why should I look out for cars when I am crossing the road? The point is, one is required to walk the more difficult road only if there is a need for it. If there is no such a need, then we must obey the law of "least action" in order to conserve our energy for greater things to come.) (I’m not saying that the phrase "I’m even willing to die for them" is meaningless, for great men had been using them all along. It is just that the meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from just looking at the words of the phrase alone.)

Therefore, the urgency we feel inside us to be morally great does not call for our sacrifice (in the commonly believed way which is a logically inconsistent concept), but rather is the call for us to believe that we are capable of walking the more difficult road to reach our destination. Moral greatness lies in possessing the Christian faith that life has a meaning towards eventual happiness (since happiness will never be sacrificed and therefore you must always believe it to be there), rather than forsaking happiness. For as committing suicide (i.e. the murdering of oneself) is as wrong as the murdering of others, to sacrifice oneself is also as wrong as to sacrifice others. If you can gain ‘something’ called nobility from being the last, then your loved ones should be able too, and aren’t you thus depriving nobility (of being sacrificed) from your loved ones? No, do not sacrifice just only because you love them, but do so because you have become unconditionally strong through loving them, and thus are capable of enduring and solving the problem, through hoping and believing in God. Only in this way can you reply to your loved ones, "I want to be the last not because there is any good in being the last, but simply because I am capable of being the last."

Now, compare the mistaken Kantian understanding of moral greatness to the correct understanding of the concept of sacrifice. Just as sacrifice does not mean giving up or forsaking (like a prideful man), but rather choosing the more difficult road to attain (as opposed to the easy road), moral greatness does not mean doing an act with no purpose (like a robot), but rather doing it with a transcendental goal in mind (as opposed to having only a prudent goal).

May I ask the free-willist i.e. a moralist who believes in free-will and moral responsibility, can you give me a precise definition of the concept of moral freedom and responsibility? Note that I’m not asking for the social one i.e. that the murder can never take place if the murderer wasn’t there at the scene, for as philosophers, we know that the victim must also be equally responsible since the murder can never take place if there is no victim to be murdered in the first place too, if this social definition is right. Even if one is able to do what he feels he should and could do every time, why shouldn’t it be true that he is still nevertheless determined to do so? Even if it is true that the laws of nature really allow a man to do that which he wants to do, what does it got to do with the person himself, for it is surely a mere coincidence to the man even if his will is really free, just as it is merely coincidence to the birds that they can fly. Even if the future could be different, what does it mean to say that the person is responsible for it, other than that he should wish for the right to happen, which must also the better? Yet why wouldn’t anyone wish for that which is the better? Why would anyone forsake the better purposely? For the problem of freedom does not concern itself with the possibility of different occurrences, which is surely something easy to understand and define. It is rather about what one means philosophically when he says that a man can choose freely (i.e. I sure know what the act of swimming looks like but the philosophical act of choosing?), for the daily act of choosing is perfectly compatible with determinism.

You can never define precisely the words ‘free-will’ and ‘responsibility’, just as you cannot define the word ‘believe’, for there are just words, as ‘hi’ and ‘bye’. They do not represent any fixed external object or situation, but are merely performing a certain descriptive function i.e. they are short forms. When one says, "There must be free-will," he is not referring to any thinkable situation, for what is freedom other than physical chaos, but is merely saying, "I cannot find a meaning in determinism." Just because the word ‘free-will’ looks objective doesn’t in any sense prove that it is representing some external object. The persistent free-willist may still retort that although freedom is unthinkable, it may still exist. I do not intend to argue about this i.e. whether an unthinkable object can still nevertheless exist. The point is, if it is already unintelligible, how on earth are you so sure that freedom is something good, even if it exists, for the free-willist not merely believes that there is freedom, but also that freedom is good. I mean, if you cannot think of the "circle with four sides" as beautiful, why should you be able to think of a logically unintelligible concept like free-will as meaningful and good? (Remember, the concept of metaphysical freedom is entirely different from the daily concept. Of course it is good to be free in our daily lives, but that does not mean at all that metaphysical freedom must be good in any sense.) Yes, it may be difficult to find a meaning in determinism, but that doesn’t mean that none could be found, and postulating the existence of freedom merely justifies the failure and laziness to seek that which is the only logical possibility.

I know that whenever you hear the word ‘freedom’, you will conjure mental images of the ‘blue sky’ and ‘fresh air’, and when a philosopher says that freedom is not good, you will feel like crying out, how could the ‘blue sky’ be worthless? Yet you do not understand that the concept of metaphysical freedom has absolutely nothing to do with the ‘blue sky’ and ‘fresh air’. If our ancestors had used the word chaos instead of freedom, would you now think that free-will (or chaos-will) is good? You can of course deny that you are thinking of the ‘blue sky’, yet what can you be thinking of then, for the concept free-will is surely unthinkable? If you are not thinking of the ‘blue sky’, then you must be thinking of pride, just as a prideful child insisting to draw an unintelligible "circle with four sides" in order to impress his teacher. You do worry about being unable to come first in a drawing competition, but do you worry about being unable to draw a "circle with four sides"? You are not really worrying about free-will and responsibility, for it is impossible to worry about that which you cannot imagine and think of. You are merely worrying about pride. The philosophical concept of responsibility has absolutely nothing to do with the daily concept i.e. they only sound the same. The free-willist is merely prompted by his pride to name the metaphysical in the daily way, so as to give prestige to his beloved metaphysical objects. (Here I must remind you that whether are we really free in the metaphysical sense has absolutely nothing to do with the way we are going to live, for determinism is not fatalism. Think of the movie where the actor is not a fatalist and would keep on trying his best. Yet we know that the movie is very much determined.)

The problem of free-will is never an intellectual problem, for you cannot have an intellectual problem when you cannot define intellectually what free-will means. Neither is it a scientific problem, for there is only a problem of determinism and chaos in physics, not a problem of freedom. It is a philosophical problem which, according to Wittgenstein, arises from the bewitchment by our language. All philosophical problems have no solution, or better, their solutions lie in understanding how the philosophical problems themselves arise in the first case, and thus the problem is dissolved when one sees clearly that the problem lies only in the asking of the question itself i.e. the problem lies not with the question (for there has never been any question) but rather with the questioner himself who is bewitched by his language. Similarly, the philosophical problem of free-will lies not with the question (for an unintelligible question cannot exist) solely with the free-willist himself who is seduced by his pride. (Karl Popper says that he finds it hard to believe that Beethoven is merely determined to create his symphony. Isn’t this exactly his pride that is speaking i.e. that what I do not believe in must be false? I have never said that it is going to be easy to believe in determinism, but just think of this, isn’t it even more difficult (if not impossible) to understand the logically unintelligible concept of free-will? You may feel yourself to be trapped if you do not believe in free-will, just as the patient in the hospital feels himself to be worthless if he admits that he is sick. Yet isn’t it your pride that is saying this, I’m not determined or sick because I would be trapped or worthless if I believe in it?) In the words of Wittgenstein, philosophy, including ethics, cannot be revolutionized like science and technology, but must be ended instead, through seeing that it has always been the questioner himself who is at fault in asking a nonsensical question. For philosophy is not science in that it does not seek empirical discoveries i.e. the what is or what is not, as whether the earth is round or flat. It deals rather with finding a meaning in what already is i.e. we do not have a choice in philosophy as in science i.e. in quantum physics, we have determinism and uncertainty, but in philosophy, we have determinism and only determinism, for free-will is not only non-existing but also nonsensical.

Please do not mistake me for trying to take away a precious part of your life. I believe that every one has the right to believe in that which makes his life meaningful. You are even free to believe in elves if that makes you happy. But the case of believing in the logically unintelligible free-will is different, for the unintelligible cannot exist as something to believe in and thus I’m cannot really be trying to take away anything from you. Instead, I’m merely trying to show you that you have never really believed in the meaningfulness of free-will either, just as it is impossible for you to believe in the beauty of a circle with four sides, but rather only in the owning of pride. Just as we have always been fools with some of us knowing himself to be so and others do not, we have always been determinists with some of us knowing it and others don’t. If you still find it difficult to accept that it is, contrary to common belief, precisely the possession of free-will that is really degrading, ask yourself this question: Does God have free-will? If God does not have the freedom to do evil, then He must also be degrading, if freedom is good. And if God does have the freedom to do evil and yet will never choose it i.e. that God lives deterministically even if He is free, why couldn’t then man live deterministically too and yet still be as free (and thus great) as God?

ii

I have tried to find out what freedom means. Now I want to ask, who is really a free-willist? It seems that the majority of Christians are free-willists, but I want to show that this is not really so i.e. the common Christians are merely mistaken about their belief.

There are actually three types of Christians, for there are three types of man. The first are the purely deterministic Christians. I’m in this group. The second are the free-willistic Christians who must also be Kantians. Contrary to common belief, these second group is as small as the first group i.e. the pure determinists. It is the third type of Christians who form the majority of the Christian population i.e. they are truly determinists who are merely mistaken about their own belief, thus thinking of themselves as free-willists when they are not. Such Christians include even popular Christian writers like C.S. Lewis, who preaches freedom though he himself is a complete determinist without knowing it. They are not philosophers, yet they try to do that which even a philosopher dare not do. They argue in this way, "If we are not free, then we would be like robots." Of course it is not good to be like the robot, but what a robot lacks is a soul i.e. mental attribute, not freedom, which is an unintelligible concept. And surely the mental world could be as deterministic as the physical world. Or he argues like this, "If a man is determined, then he would be able to go Heaven even if he commits evil, and Christ would then be wrong to say that only a good man can go Heaven." Well, a determinist will also say that a bad diet causes health problems, but does that mean that he has stopped believing in determinism? Yes, those who are evil would go to Hell, but does that mean that they would not repent for sure eventually? Yes, those who refuse to repent will go to Hell, but all will surely repent one day. Please do not mistake me for telling you not to preach the good, for I’m merely telling you to preach the good solely to help him, rather than to inform him that he should choose the good. Lastly, the mistaken Christian may say, "Only if the choice to believe in God is free would it be meaningful or beautiful to choose God." Now, I’m not saying that it would not be meaningful to choose God out of freedom, but rather that when we say this in our daily lives, we mean something totally different from what we mean in our philosophical lives. In our daily lives, what we mean when we say that it is great to choose out of freedom is nothing but that it is great to be inspired by true knowledge to choose the better. We mean, not that man is free in the philosophical sense of freedom, but rather that man is capable and rational of being inspired or moved by (just as he is capable of enjoying) the true and beautiful. And inspiration does not imply philosophical freedom in any sense. In fact, we need to believe in determinism to appreciate the beauty of inspiration. Christians have an argument for the existence of free-will: Because the perfect God has created a perfect world, the suffering in this world must then be accounted for, and thus man must have free-will i.e. something that is outside God. Yet even if we all were to repent, does that mean that there will no longer be earthquakes, volcano eruptions or sickness? Surely not! We will still suffer even if we have the freedom to become good, and thus there is still no reason to believe in free-will.

The mistaken Christian is a fearful aesthetic man i.e. one who believes in free-will for fear of being judged by God. He fears that believing wrongly in free-will may result in divine punishment, though he is not afraid of disbelieving wrongly in determinism, for he says something like this to himself, well, even if life is really deterministic, I would simply reply to God if I’m ever questioned by Him on why have I forsaken the truth, that I’m simply determined to believe in free-will and thus it is not my fault. He will reply in this way, for he is the fearful aesthetic man, who is never willing to risk even a bit of his own security, even though he knows that by being a free-willist, he will judge and blame others, thus bringing suffering onto innocents who are not at fault since life is determined. Yet so long as he is a fearful man, he will regard his own safety with the greatest priority, even if it means bringing suffering onto others. (Ask yourself, orthodox Christians, if God were to deny free-will outright, say through a previously lost scripture, wouldn’t you now be eager to switch side? You believe in free-will not out of truth, but out of fear.) Remember, if you are truly a compassionate person i.e. one who will never be happy unless all go to Heaven one day, then you must be a determinist, for how can you ever live in true happiness if there are going to be people suffering eternally in Hell? You may of course say that they deserve it, but can a mother live happily with her son in Hell by believing that he deserve it? And please do not give me the cunning suggestion that one can choose to forget about the suffering once he is in Heaven, for in that case, what is the difference between the you and the determinist who believes that all will go to Heaven eventually?

A Christian who believes in transcendental happiness must also be a determinist. Ask yourself, if you have free-will, what should you do next in order to secure the attainment of transcendental happiness? Since transcendental happiness is not prudent happiness i.e. the way to it is not knowable through experience, you could never know what to do the next moment but only to hope that you will always act correctly to attain the transcendental goal. Thus you must also hope that you are determined to act, for only in this way can you ensure that your actions are conducive for your eventual attainment. Do not say that all you need is to do the right, for why should doing the right helps one towards a transcendental attainment? If doing the right does not bring you prudent profits, why should it bring you transcendental ones? Only Kantians are qualified to believe in free-will, for they always know what they should do next, since they believe that life’s sole purpose is to do the right for itself rather than for any other purpose. The reward of Heaven is only a bonus to Kantians, not the goal of acting morally. Thus only Kantians are justified to believe in free-will, for they need it in order to carry out successfully what they feel to be right the next moment. The aesthetic Christians may say that doing the right makes them more deserved of happiness. This is wrong, for only Kantians are qualified to say this, since they do not see doing the right as a mean to attain happiness, but rather good for its own sake. But for the normal Christian, who does a moral act not for itself but only for a transcendental purpose, he does not deserve happiness anymore than the prudent businessman. Now, please do not mistake me for condemning non-Kantians, for as what I have said, God gives happiness to those who ask for it, not to those prideful men who deserve it. I must say again, Christians who are non-Kantians can only be determinists.

iii

Only a worldly person who believes that he has been born to acquire possession, rather than to live to the fullest, can believe in free will. That is why the Utilitarian believes in free-will, for his task is the acquirement of worldly happiness. The Kantian is also just as worldly, for his wish for success in morality arises out of pride. What marks a worldly man is that he is unable to see a meaning in present suffering and failure. The Utilitarian believes that life’s most immediate goal is to avoid suffering, unlike the religious man who believes in the endurance of suffering (for a future transcendental purpose). And unlike the religious man who believes that failures can be good just as suffering, that man has to go through mistakes in order to reach the right just as he needs to doubt in order to arrive at certainty, the Kantian denies that the failure in morality (be it physically or moral willingly) presently can ever be good in any sense.

Ask yourself free-willist, do you wish that you would choose the right every moment of your life or just some of the time? Surely you wish that you can always choose the good and refrain from evil every moment of your life. Surely you won’t be contented with being good 90% of the time, and let yourself be evil for the rest. And therefore if you wish to be good every moment of your life, doesn’t this already mean that you wish to be deterministic for every moment in your life, for surely I can now predict your future, which is that you will choose good for every moment in the future. "But wishing to be good every moment does not mean that you would be determined to do so. You would still need to put in a renewed effort at every moment." Yes of course, a renewed effort, but nevertheless you would still wish that you will put in a renewed effort successfully every moment, and doesn’t this lead back to the same conclusion, that you will still nevertheless wish for a deterministic situation that you will put in a renewed effort successfully every moment of your life deterministically. In order words, no man could wish for an indeterministic situation but only for a fully deterministic situation. And if you wish for a deterministic situation and yet fail to achieve it, why should you then believe that you can will successfully for the present? Thus, it no longer matters whether you are determined by your own perfect will or the will of God, which are the same since they lead equally to the same deterministic situation. (Of course you can still have your own free-will, but what is the point of owning something that is of no use? The need to own useless things simply for the sake of ownership is pride.)

Ask yourself, if a criminal suspect has only a 50% probability of having committed the crime, is it right to persecute him or is it better to seek for more evidence. Surely it is better to let a criminal go free than to persecute an innocent wrongly. And if that is so, why shouldn’t it be the same for the case of blaming someone for his moral failure, for isn’t the probability for man to really possess free-will 50% at the very most? "It is for their own good to believe in free-will, for the belief in free-will can motivate one to be more hardworking and thus enable him to gain success easier." First, if it is really for their own good, then they surely have the freedom to choose whether should they believe in it or not. And secondly, what proof do you have in saying that the belief in free-will is good, that it makes one more hardworking. You could have become equally good and hardworking through believing that you are determined by a good God too. A religious man is one who believes that he is determined by the all-powerful God to be compassionate and courageous, and how is it possible for a compassionate and courageous man to do crime? You cannot do crime yet believing that you are determined to be good at the same time, just as you cannot eat your food happily like your birthday cake yet believing that it is poisonous at the same time. I must say again, the philosophical concept of free-will and determinism has absolutely nothing to do with our daily life i.e. a criminal who believes himself to be determined by the Devil must also be determined to accept punishment. Remember, determinism is not fatalism and the belief in it cannot change our daily life in anyway. "But how do I know what I should do now? If I’m really determined, yet without knowing how am I determined, how on earth should I move my limbs?" Is it really difficult to live thinking that you are determined? If you really do not know what you should do at this very moment, why then are you so sure that you should be asking this very question itself now?

iv

What is repentance? Is repentance an action (or decision, or whatever) that needs a renewed effort at every moment of time? If you believe in free-will, then you must also believe that repentance is free, thus needing a constant effort to maintain such an attitude. Yet how can one ever put his will into the enjoyment of eternal happiness if he has to constantly keep repenting, if repentance is an action?

If repentance is an action, how many times need I repent to go Heaven? If I need only to repent once, can I then repent for now and continue with my sinful way for the rest of my life, since I have repented once and that is already enough for me to secure a place in Heaven? If one repentance is not enough, then how many times are enough? Can I then spend the rest of my life in evil after I have repented enough times? And if there is a minimum number of repentance required, is it possible for me to be in a position where there is no longer hope for me to reach the minimum standard? And if there is always hope, surely I’m justified to postpone my repentance till tomorrow? Of course I’ll be risking, but I’m perfectly confident that I can repent successfully at the very last minute of my life, since I’m absolutely free in my ability to repent. Such nonsense arises because we believe that repentance is a free action.

Although we use the phrase "to repent", this does not mean at all that repentance is an action. Like hope, repentance is a way of life that comes only through an awakening, rather than an action willed i.e. repentance is the Stoicism way of life. You cannot will repentance like an action, but can only be awakened into it.

Who is the evil man?

First, ask yourself, who is the compassionate man? The philosopher David Hume believes that a compassionate man is one who possesses a certain pleasant psychological feeling of delight and love. Thus, a man who loves his neighbors will be able to enjoy the feeling of love, which is itself a pleasant sensual happiness. Thus, to Hume, it is good for one to be compassionate. Yes, I would grant him that to possess the ‘feeling of love’ may indeed be a delightful affair, yet what does this got to do with loving your neighbors? For isn’t it possible to imagine a man who, although possesses and enjoys this so call ‘feeling of love’, nevertheless fails to love his neighbors? In fact, couldn’t Hume love his ‘feeling of love’ more than his neighbors, for surely it is his ‘feeling of love’ that brings him delight, rather than his pathetic neighbors (who probably couldn’t even help themselves to a decent meal, let alone bringing delight to Hume.) Similarly, isn’t it your ‘love for your neighbors’ or compassion itself that helps you in pleasing God (thus increasing your chance to go Heaven) rather than your pathetic neighbors (who probably can’t even help themselves)? Thus shouldn’t you love the ‘love for your neighbors’ i.e. compassion more than your neighbors? If compassion is ‘something’ you can own personally, then you can probably develop it independent of external circumstances. That is why the Buddhist monk thinks that he can cultivate this ‘something’ just by meditating on it everyday. If this is so, one needs not perform charity, for even if the performance of charity increases your compassion, you can always choose to increase it through other ways like meditation. Yet the idea of a compassionate man concerned only about his own suffering and salvation is surely strange.

To possess ‘something’ (i.e. compassion) that will cause you sadness, since to be compassionate means to feel sad for the world’s suffering, is to be noble and thus happy? Why couldn’t then a man who possess a headache, which is causing him not only sadness but painfulness as well, claims that he is noble and happy? For isn’t a so call compassionate man who nevertheless does not believe that the world would be saved one day, simply just holding onto ‘something’ (a mental feeling of some sort) without affecting the world in any useful way, just like having a headache? We have this idea that sadness is ‘something’ that comes to exist because of the "failure to obtain what one wishes". That is why they tend to think that "to be sad is to be great" for you will be holding onto ‘something’ extra that no ordinary man holds. Everyone likes to think of being noble as holding onto ‘things’ i.e. virtues like compassion, courage, or the moral will etc. The more a person has them, the greater he is, like the businessman having more houses and properties. That is why they say funny words like "it is noble (and thus happy) to be sad". Sadness is not ‘something’ but rather simply "failing to obtain what one wishes". And how can failure ever be something to rejoice about? Failure is always suffering, and no man can rejoice and choose suffering willingly. It is better to have no wish at all, than to have an unfulfilled wish. It is better to have no compassion at all if one does not believe that the world will be saved one day. (Nietzsche is right in seeing the virtue of compassion as a weakness, that the one who truly feels compassionate about the world can only suffer. For compassion is simply "caring about the world", rather than the ‘caring’ itself. It involves unhappiness about the world, not unhappiness caused by the world. It is simply "wishing that the world could be a better place", not ‘something’ that causes you to wish for so.) And if you do not have the ability to change the world or the faith in an omnipotent God who will save the world, then it is better not to be compassionate, not to wish for a better world, for it can only make you sad (for how can anyone ever be happy without getting his wish fulfilled?)

In short, the man who believes in compassion, that it is good to be compassionate is the cruelest of all, for he sees the suffering of others as an opportunity for him to cultivate his compassion through practicing charity i.e. he uses the suffering of others for his own benefit. For being compassionate means thinking about your neighbors, rather than thinking about your own compassion. Compassion is not something to be owned but rather a way of life to live in i.e. do not worry about your own compassion, rather worry about your neighbors compassionately.

Second, who is the courageous man? Is the person who worries most about his own courage truly courageous? Yet isn’t the person who is most concerned about his own courage, thus wanting to be courageous in order to impress his friends and his own prideful self, likeliest to turn coward in face of dangers? For in thinking of courage, thus believing in that there is something valuable called courage to own or depend on, you will become exactly a coward i.e. one who needs to own or depend on things, including in this case, courage. (Remember courage is not something but rather a way of life i.e. do not think of courage, but rather think courageously.)

Thirdly, as Socrates has tried to show, the man who believes that there is wisdom, that he is capable of being wise, is in fact the most foolish of all. Similarly, in thinking that you will be saved, you will not be saved. And if these are all true, why shouldn’t the man who think that he can be moral, or that there is something called virtuousness that he needs to attain, and thus most concerned with his own morality, be the most evil of all? The man who believes in morality is the man who is the most evil, just as the man who believes in wisdom is the most foolish, and the man who believes in metaphysical justice the most unjust. As the wisest knows that he is as foolish as the fool, the truly moral man feels himself to be as evil as any sinner. Not only does he feel that he is as evil as any sinner, he feels that he can never be even slightly better than any sinner i.e. he must be a deterministic Stoic, believing that he can only be saved through the grace of God, not through his own will. It is not possible to choose believing that he can be good through his own will, and yet at the same time believing that he is as evil as any sinner. If a man believes that he can become morally better through his own will, then he must also believe that he can be better than the sinner, or he is merely a hypocrite in his words. Yet how can a man who believe himself to be better than the sinner a truly moral man? Remember, in Christianity, the moral man is one who repents through accepting that he is as evil as any sinner, not one who has become better than the sinner, or Christ would have encouraged us to work hard, rather than to repent and accept. In short, just as the wisest feels that he can never be wiser than the fool i.e. that there is no such a thing as wisdom, the truly moral man feels that he can never be morally better than the sinner i.e. that there is no such a thing as morality. And pride arises from the unwillingness to accept oneself as a complete sinner with absolutely no prospect of becoming morally better in anyway, except through grace and faith. The truly moral man is not one who merely knows what good and evil is like the ethical man, though neither is he like the aesthetic knowing nothing about good and evil, but rather he is the religious man knowing that there is absolutely no good and evil.

How can the shameful and remorseful man who fails to act morally be evil in any sense, for isn’t evil an active choice? Since how can anyone fail actively? It is the active Kantian, who does an act with the intention to ascertain to himself that he is good, who is truly evil. Only the passive religious man, who believes himself to be fully determined to act morally, can be truly good. Now, you may ask, what about those who commit evil willingly and thus actively? Aren’t they more evil than the active Kantian? I can only say that you have been watching too many movies. It is logically impossible for such a man to exist, though it is possible to act as one, just as it is possible to act as if the splashing of paint is beautiful, and the painting of Mona Lisa ugly to you, but we know that this is mere acting. No one can love evil actively, as no one can love ugliness willingly. If it is possible to love evil, then God must have made us love good accidentally. The Kantian is the only possible evil man to exist, for in believing morality, he also becomes judgmental, and the man who judges is the most evil of all, even if he believes that he can only judge himself, for just as suicide is wrong because self-killing is also killing, judging oneself must also be wrong as all judging. When Christ says, "Judge and you shall be judged," He means not only that no man is capable of judging, but also that it is logically impossible to judge. For He cannot mean that only the true God is capable to judge, since in this case we will never know who is the true God, if we can never know is it truly the evil man who is punished. (Note that Christ is equating "to be judged" as "to be punished".)

Of course, the aesthetic man can be cruel, for fear leads to hatred, but he cannot be evil anymore than the tiger. It is never that he loves to see another suffers, but only that it, sort of, makes him less lonely. Similarly, the perverted killer chooses to see the victim as an object capable of only exhibiting signs of physical pain in order for him to be thrilled, instead of a human being capable of both happiness and suffering. If he chooses to see the victim as a true human being like himself, he would not have willed the suffering of the victim too. It is possible for you to destroy the painting if you see it as merely a collection of ink, but you can only treasure it if you see it as a beautiful painting. Again, the Kantian may say that evil consists of the refusal to see a beautiful painting as beautiful, yet why would anyone give up beauty if he can see it?

The ethical man is the most evil of all, for he wants to be moral, honorable, or noble etc. Contrary to common belief, the Devil is probably the most honorable being around. (If God has liked honor more, He would have chosen the honorable brother of the despicable Jacob instead. Yet it is because of the love that Jacob had for his wife that made him worthy to be a prophet of God. Why did God insist on choosing the irresponsible Jonah to be His prophet? Surely there are many dutiful Kantians He could choose from? Do not say that Jacob and Jonah are actually inferior men who succeed eventually through repentance. Why would God choose someone more inferior to be the greatest? Why wouldn’t He choose the Kantian who is closer to Him? Jacob and Jonah are inferior only to their final selves, rather than to any Kantian. They are men who have defeated their own pride, and have achieved simple honesty to themselves, though they may still lack faith.) Like what I have said, any form of will-to-be is equally prideful and thus evil. No matter what you want to be, to be is to be evil.

Man seeks pride in many ways, and one of the most bewitching ways is through believing in morality and free-will. And there will come one day when you realize that all such will-to-be’s are prideful and evil belonging only to the dead. And with the grace of God there will come the good wills i.e. the will-to-love, will-to-live (for you can only live in happiness, not pride), resulting in the will-to-hope and believe, belonging only to the living. Only happiness can make one forget about his pride, something that you cannot get rid of even by attempting to get rid of, for the more you attempt to do it, the more prideful you become. Only by living in something real and wonderful i.e. happiness of love, like the child, would pride be defeated. And only a religious man can attain a selfless state, not in the sense of losing his personality or individuality (for that is plain nonsense), but rather in the sense of ceasing the will-to-be, so that he is now only interested in living, rather than mere owning i.e. he owns in order to live happily. Live like the child, for he, in not knowing good and evil, is closer to Heaven than the Kantian. The evil Kantian even believes that morality can be taught to the child. Yet what you could do is only to love him unconditionally.

The ethical philosopher may try to refute my point that there may be no such a thing as a moral truth. His argument is probably something like this: If there is no moral truth, then why are you bothering to tell us the truth that there is no moral truth? Isn’t the truth that there is no moral truth itself also a truth? My answer is simple: The non-existence of moral truths doesn’t imply in the least that there are no non-moral truths such as the truths of Physics. And the truth on the non-existence of moral truths is exactly non-moral in nature, just as the truths of Physics. Thus there is absolutely no logical inconsistency in believing the non-existence of moral truths. It seems difficult for ethical philosophers to give up the idea of a moral truth i.e. that which you ought to do solely for its own sake, rather than a prudent sake which involves only pragmatic truths. Yet the moralist needs only to ask himself, is the very concept of free-will really meaningful, for the concept of moral truth makes sense only if the concept of free-will is intelligible? Can the moralist ever give me a precise explanation or definition on what the concept of free-will and responsibility mean? If not, what justifies your belief in the existence of moral truths? Contrary to common belief, it is precisely those believing in the existence of moral truths who should worry about their own belief and dishonesty? There is no ethics and religion, but only religion. (Here, I must remind you that I’m not denying the existence of applied ethics, but only philosophical ethics i.e. the belief that there are acts, other than acts of happiness, that can be good in itself. If helping the poor is good in itself, then we must all pray for a world filled with needy in order for the act of charity, which is supposedly to be good in itself, to be eternally carried out.)

This whole book attempts to say only this: You are a happy being, not a moral being. You are a faithful being (and thus powerful enough to move mountains), not a responsible being. It is not that you are an irresponsible being, but only that God has never created something called responsibility. Neither is there the wisdom of atheism and acceptance (except for the wisdom of happiness) too, since all is determined. There are only Power and Happiness, nothing more. Just as it is the pride in owning true knowledge that causes one to doubt that nature is fully deterministic though forever unknowable, it is also pride that causes one to believe in morality and free-will. For just as God does not play dice, He does not drink wine either i.e. He is not drunk and thus will create (and see) only one, never two. God is Power, and He created Happiness, and that is all.

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