p The scientific approach may be defined as a system of norms of "scientific behaviour”, that is to say, of sensory and mental activity leading to a cognition of the truth. Morality is in fact a system of norms guiding the behaviour of the individual towards moral action and the achievement of the good. To the extent that the establishment and shaping up of morality entails a cognition of the truth, the scientific approach must be followed by ethics. Further the scientific principles are always present in morality although it may be distorted and suppressed by dogmatic, religious or subjectivist views.
p This conclusion is supported by the analysis of yet one more determined feature of morality, namely, with human interrelationships. Morals begin with an act; the human steps out of the bounds of individualism and turns to other individuals, relating to them as subjects and not purely objects. The simple expression of this relationship may be found in the question; what do people need?. In a developed form it is expressed as follows: what is necessary not only for isolated close friends but also for distant acquaintances? What is necessary for society as a whole, not only today but for the future as well? It may be inferred from the above, first, that morality calls for an attempt to look at people from the objective positions offered by the norms of science (that is to say, that one endeavours not to see that which "one would like" or "seems to be plausible" but rather to understand "what is the true state of affairs”); and second, that any serious answer to questions concerning human needs requires a specific of research.
p If an individual does not try to comprehend human needs his pretensions to morality are in fact vapid. At the same time to try to come to a serious understanding of anything without following the scientific spirit is quite impossible. Conviction, faith and intuition devoid of substantiation by science are in reality simply various manifestations of subjectivism, dressed up in the garb of a “teaching”.
p Once we ask "what do people need?" the question arises: what is it possible to do? Determining what is in actuality possible also calls for a scientific approach. Without such an approach all good intentions are sooner or later revealed to be devoid of content or even hypocritical. The choice is between morality incorporating the scientific approach to human problems and immorality, taking no account of humans—a third alternative, given the contemporary state of the science of man and society, is implausible.
45p The elementary demand posed by the scientific approach with which we began our discourse, consists in the striving to examine the circumstances, to take the given conditions into account, to judge and to act with knowledge and understanding, calculating one’s actions and the possible consequences therein. The opinion has received circulation, however, that such a requirement is not sufficiently elevated. This opinion posits the existence of the following dilemma: either nobility of character without calculation, or calculation without nobility of character. The real problem, however, lies not in the abstract juxtaposition of nobility and calculation in general, but rather in their interconnection in any given concrete situation. To leave out or to overlook pertinent facts when even the slightest opportunity is provided to include them is, speaking plainly, sheer stupidity. To ignore that which affects other people is irresponsible and even immoral. Everything depends on the goal, the circumstances, and the orientation. An individual, responsible for the welfare of others in a given situation (be it a flignt in space, mountain climbing, a battle or an uprising) and not planning for contingencies or in general not taking into account circumstances—is a criminal.
p The moral approach to serious matters is initiated when the demand for calculation and situational analysis with the objectivity of the scientific spirit is first advanced, when the persistent search is conducted for optimal paths to the achievement of moral ends. How many sacrifices have occurred because people didn’t bother to consider this demand! Estimation in the scientific spirit, the demand for a comprehensive stock-taking of the conditions and opportunities pertaining to the implementation of the change under consideration, and likewise of the consequences of such a change—such an approach is connected with the awareness of personal moral responsibility. Such a calculation stands, in direct opposition to the calculation of the schemer or time-server. The morality founded upon such calculation was given clear expression in Lenin’s activities, whose work was characterized by an uninterrupted unity between the striving for scientifically grounded goals serving the good of humanity and, on the other hand, the strictest scientific calculation of how to move towards these goals.
p The scientific orientation requires not only the scientific determination of ways and means towards the attainment of moral ends but also an agreement between these ends and moral principles, on the one hand, and objective laws on the other. Rejecting reliance upon sheer will, faith or fanaticism, 46 the scientific approach encourages an individual position to moral convictions identical to the relationship between the scientist and scientific convictions. In contrast to all forms of hypocrisy the scientific approach to morality requires objectivity from the individual in nis awareness of self, and honesty in regard to his principles and goals; it demands that one face the facts squarely and a strict examination of one’s principles, convictions and goals. Just as the mathematician gives precise formulation to his axioms and draws strict inferences from them, so any conscientious individual will try to clarify his own principles and to draw the corresponding conclusions from them, avoiding the conversion of moral axioms into smokescreens for his conclusions and activities which in fact have nothing in common with these axioms.
p Science does not accept anything on faith, rather it demands arguments and rejects unsubstantiated assertions. Calculations based on assertions of faith lacking in proof, these are violations not only of the scientific spirit, but also of the individual and his inalienable right to make conscious judgements.
p The alternatives are sometimes posed; either nobility or calculations, either the absence of any connection between science and ethics—or the reduction of ethics to science. These alternatives stem from a lack of understanding of the dialectic. But it is precisely this dialectical approach which is important for morality. Its first feature—objectivity—is also the first demand posed by the scientific approach, with which, as we have demonstrated, authentic morality also begins. Further, the dialectic presupposes the examination of the object in all of its ties and mediations, in a state of development. The moral significance of these demands is enormous. One-sidedness is a constant source of moral error, just as is the disregard of development and, consequently, of the question of effect. Comprehensiveness implies as a given the estimation of the material and the spiritual, both external and internal, and of those subjective moments and factors inherent in human nature as such. A thorough understanding of the notion of use implies not only materiafbut also moral benefit as well as the moral effect of the deed.
p Let us take another element of the dialectic, namely that of "concrete truth”. It should be obvious that it is of the utmost importance to avoid judgement and decision "on the whole" concerning moral questions and to examine the concrete aspects of the given situation.
47p The basic feature of the dialectic, its essence, lies in the objective flexibility of concepts, reaching for the unity of opposites. Not the subjective flexibility of the sophist, but the flexibility reflecting the comprehensiveness and internal complexity of the object as such. The complexity and contradictory nature of life renders this feature of the dialectic an essential condition determining the morality of a decision already made. The metaphysical approach to moral problems inexorably leads to moral miscalculations and anti-humane decisions.
p The dialectic considers everything in a state of development and refrains from absolutes. Even the absolute imperativeness of morality is only a moment in its development: moral imperatives are also subject to constant review and extension, just as the axioms of mathematics, for example, are reviewed and extended. Life is a process, a process created by humans. Therefore the good can oe apprehended only in the process of establishing it, in the process of ascent to a good of broader scope—in the same manner that questions of truth are resolved in the unfolding of knowledge. Consciousness lacking in intrepidness loses its bearings once it catches a glimpse of the perpetuity of motion. It would prefer, that here and now something could be given a fixed definition and presented in the form of a ready-made answer; what is true and untrue, the proper and the improper. There are however no final and conclusive answers, they are given formulation in the process of human activity as such, in the apprehension and creation of life, in the unending ascent to higher forms of morality.
p Metaphysics merely juxtaposes the truth and the good, science and morality. In fact what is important is their interrelationships, the unity of cognition and praxis, the constant transition of the idea of truth to that of good, of theory into practice and back to theory again, as Lenin pointed out in his Philosophical Notebooks. In these writings we find the relevant extracts from Hegel as well, in particular, that "the Idea of the Good can find its complement only in the Idea of the True". [47•1 We note that practice is directed to the attainment of the good and is thus connected with the "Idea of the Good”, and that theory, cognition, and science are linked with the "Idea of the True”. It is instructive to compare Lenin’s statements concerning the necessity of unifying these elements with Kant’s juxtaposition of “pure” and “practical” reason.
48The good is primary for the individual. Truth is necessary to him not in and of itself, but as a means of achieving a higher good. But since truth in its objectivity does not depend upon the will of the individual, it is in this sense primary in relation to morality and must be taken as its condition, as an inalienable element of the determining not only methods but also moral ends in themselves. Without truth morality is devoid of foundation.
Notes
[47•1] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 216.