Morality

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Morality (Latin: moralitas, from mores "manner, customs, usage, habits") in the philosophical sense comprises a system of values and norms by which the right actions of individual human beings, larger communities of human beings or entire cultures are measured. The term was coined by Cicero in his philosophia moralis as a translation of the Greek term ἠθική (êthikê "Ethics").[1] At the same time, the emphasis shifted from the knowledge of the spiritual source of the good, guided by reason, to the practical realisation of established moral norms and values.

Morality and prenatal existence

„Among the gods we acquire the gift in our pre-earthly existence of looking at the other human being, of noticing how he feels, how he thinks, of grasping with an inner share what he is. And if we did not have the contact with the gods that I have described, we would never be able to develop that looking into the other human being on earth, which alone makes earthly life possible. When I speak of love in this context, and especially of general human love, you must think of love in the concrete sense I have just described: in the sense of a truly intimate understanding of the other human being. And if one adds this understanding of the other human being to general human love, then one has at the same time given with it everything that is human morality. For earthly human morality, if it does not move in mere phrases or fine speeches or in resolutions which are not carried out or the like, is based on the interest which one human being takes in another, on the possibility of looking over into the other human being.

The person who has an understanding of man will receive the social-moral impulses from this understanding of man. So that one can also say that man has attained all moral life within the earthly existence in the pre-earthly existence, attained in such a way that from the coexistence with the gods the urge remains for him to form such a coexistence at least in the soul also on earth. And this shaping of such a life together, so that one human being accomplishes the earthly tasks, the earthly mission, with the other, leads in reality alone to moral life on earth. We see, then, that love and the effect of love, morality, are by all means a consequence of what man has gone through spiritually in the pre-earthly existence.“ (Lit.:GA 219, p. 62f)

Morality and I

To be able to be moral is an ability of the human I:

„In a real sense, only the I itself can be considered moral; one cannot even speak of moral impulses in the astral body. One can speak of moral impulses in the astral body only in so far as the I is in intimate connection with this astral body during life and the impulses of morality which assert themselves in the I are thereby transferred to the astral body.“ (Lit.:GA 176, p. 352)

At earlier planetary stages of evolution man could not yet be moral, for then he had no individual I. It was only when this was given to him during the earthly stage that he was able to develop his own morality. Only when this was bestowed upon him during earthly evolution could he begin to develop morality out of himself, and in moral feeling and doing he opens his I to the (spiritual) cosmos and harmonises himself with it.

„Everything moral is based on a relationship of the total human being to the outer world; not to the physical outer world, but to that which surrounds us in spiritual forces and powers.“ (Lit.:GA 170, p. 64)

This development will only be completed in the future Vulcan state.

„Man stands towards the true, the beautiful, the good in such a way that in the true he opens his etheric body, first the etheric part of the head, directly to the cosmos. In the beautiful he opens his astral body directly to the cosmos. In morality, he directly opens his I to the cosmos. During the development of the moon, one could not yet speak of morality, for then man was still involved in a necessity, almost in a natural necessity, with regard to what he did. Morality only begins on earth. And it will reach perfection in the Vulcan evolution, when all that pulsates in the fire-processes of the blood will be purified I, I purified by morality, I completely seized by morality: when man's I-forces and moral forces will be one and the same, and his blood, that is, his blood-heat - for the material is only the outer sign - when his blood-heat will be the sacred fire of the Vulcan.“ (Lit.:GA 170, p. 74f)

The 4 cardinal virtues are closely related to the four fundamental members of the human being. Wisdom works directly through the I, fortitude or heartiness works through the astral body, prudence through the etheric body and justice through the physical body.

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ Cicero, De fato 1; Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie: Moral, moralisch, Moralphilosophie, Vol. 6, p. 149
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