materialisierungen 4 Andrea von Hülsen-Esch, Ricarda Bauschke-Hartung, Vittoria Borso, Reinhold Görling, Hans Körner, Achim Landwehr, Roger Lüdeke, Eva Schlotheuber, Timo Skrandies, Jürgen Wiener (Hg.) .-„ # ' 1 graduiertenkolleg ~, materialität und produktion .• „. iJFCi 1 1 1 1 1 1 i 1 1 1 11 !1 1 Edited by Louis Schreel Pathology & Aesthetics Essays on the Pathological in Kant and Contemporary Aesthetics ~~7rHEINRICH HEINE dlulp UNlVERSITÄT DÜSSELDORF Bibliografische Infonnation der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © düsseldorf university press, Düsseldorf 2016 http://www.dupress.de Redaktion: Louis Schreel Lektorat: Marnie Slater & Liz Allen Titelbild: Ema ©Petra Poggenpohl Satz, Layout und Umschlaggestaltung: Hannah Reller Herstellung: docupoint GmbH, Barleben Der Fliesstext ist gesetzt in Adobe Garamond Pro ISBN: 978-3-95758-032-0 Table of Contents Louis Schreel Preface: Pathology and Aesthetics 7 Wolfram Bergande Kant' s Apathology of Compassion 11 Claudio Rozzoni Literature and Health: Proust as Symptomatologist 49 Sjoerd van Tuinen Painting versus Theatre: Hysteria of the Hand 69 Stefan Kristensen On the Figuration of Drives, or Duchamp as an Outsider 99 Louis Schreel Animating Ideas: Pathology and the Aesthetic Idea in Kant and Deleuze .. .. . . 121 List of Contributors ...................................................................................... 167 Kant's Apathology of Compassion Wolfram Bergande Now reason's ability eo become mascer over all ehe inclinacions striving against ic chrough ehe mere idea of a law is absolucely inexplicable, hence it is also incomprehensible how ehe senses could have ehe ability co become master over a reason which commands wich such authority on ics side. For if all the world proceeded in accordance wich ehe precepc of ehe law, we would say chat everything occurred according co ehe order of nature, and nobody would think even of inquiring afcer ehe cause. -Immanuel Kant, Religion within the boundaries of mere reason' Christianity has assuredly taught men eo pay litrle attention co God's jouissance, and this is how Kant makes pass his volunrarism ofLaw-for-Law's-sake, which is something that cops, one might say, the ataraxia of the Scoic experience. -Lacan, Kant with Sade2 1. Tue Moral Pleasure of Respect In his critical works, e. g. in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant employs the weilknown and seemingly clear-cut distinction between sensuousness, Sinnlichkeit, on the one hand and undcrstanding, Verstand, respectively reason, Vernunft, on the other, hence between thc "physical" (Kant 1889, pp. 122, 133) laws governing human nature and the moral law, the categorical imperative, which ought to govern the individual's will and thence, at least in principle, his or her acts, too. 3 Kant's moral philosophy accordingly seems to divide into two aspects: into what on the one hand could be called a pathology, taking care of reason as it tends to get heteronomously, i. e. sensuously affected or even passionately so; and, on the other, into what could not unjusdy be called an 'apathology' which secures the grounds for an unaffected and dispassionate morality. This apathology comes close to a praxeology; even if Kant, unlike the Stoies or the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, does not Kant 1996, p. 102f. (Footnote t); cf. Kant 2007, 06: 059. Lacan 2006a, p. 651 f. (Translation modified.) Cf. Wood 2015, 132ff. 1 11 Wolfram Bergande depart from an absolute Other (an almighty God) but only postulates his existence and his eventual afterworldly reward for a moral life. For Kant, feelings, Gefühle, respectively sentiments, Empfindungen, almost invariably fall under physical laws, hence under the aspect of pathology. "[E]very feeling generally" (Kant 1889, p. 167) is "pathological" (ibid.), writes Kant in the second Critique, literally so because feelings ultimately derive from the subject's pathe, from its physical nature, and critically because they tend to encroach upon the autonomy of moral reason. However, already in the second Critique there is one-although only one single-exception to this rule: the "singular" "moral feeling" of "respect'', Achtung (Kant 1889, p. 169). Being "produced simply by reason" (Kant 1889, p. 169), ir is a case sui generis, even if compared with the somewhat similar aesthetic feelings which Kant will introduce only later in the Critique of judgement. 4 Standing out as an exceptionally "practical" (Kant 1889, p. l 72f.) feeling, respect accompanies those and only those wills which are morally good because they would be grounded in pure reason. Practically, this means that the will in question would be absolutely clcansed even of the "slightest admixture" (Kant 1889, p. 112) of pathological (sentimental, as it were) causaliry. As a matter of fact, later, in thc Critiquc of Judgement, Kant will explicate thar actually "any determination of the will" as such would carry a "state of mind which accompanies" it; and that this state of mind "is in itsclf a feeling of plcasure and identical with it" (Kant 1914, p. 70). 5 So is respect,Achtung, then a pleasure? Kanr's answer must appear somewhat paradoxical: yes and no. Yes, because given that respect is a determination of the will, it must be idenrical with a feeling of 4 Cf. Kant 1886, p. 115: Ir "is encirely of irs own kind". 5 Cf. Kant 1914, p. 53: "Bur ro will somerhing, and ro have a sadsfaction in irs exisrence, i. e. ro rake an imerest in ir, are idemical." 12 1 Kant'.< Apathology o/Compassion pleasure, too. No, bccause the feeling of respect actually suggests itself as exemplary for the "moral pleasure [moralischen Lust]" (Kant 2007, 06: 378, 391; Kant 1889, pp. 289, 301) of which Kant writes in 1797 in the Metaphysic of Ethics; and as 'moral pleasure' respect is far from being a pleasure in the ordinary sense of the term. This is because the dctermination of the will by the "practical law" (Kant 1889, p. 112), which occasions the feeling of respect, makes a very special case for Kant. Even if one insisted on calling respect a 'pleasure', namely a 'moral pleasure', it nevertheless would not involve any kind of 'pathological' pleasure, neither in the sense of presupposing it, nor of feeding on it, nor of aiming at it. As Kant claims in the Critique of Practical Reason: Reason, with its practical law, determines rhe will immediately, not by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or pain, not even of pleasure in the law itself [nicht vermittelst eines dazwischen kommenden Gefohls der Lust und Unlust, selb.rt nicht an diesem Gesetze], and it is only because it can, as pure reason, be practical, that it is possible for it eo be legislative (ibid.; Kant 2007, 05: 025). Nor is respect itself, as seems to go without saying at this point in Kant's text, a pathological 'pleasure in the law itself' eithcr. All of this holds true for Kant even though the determination of the will, as he admits, implies a somewhat painful feeling of "humiliation" of one's "self-conceit" (Kant 1889, p. 167)6, a feeling of pain which, although it is not a pleasure, would have to count as "pathological" (ibid.) in equal measure, if only it was not indeed the negative reverse of the feeling of respcct and thus, according to Kant, another major "effect of the consciousness of the moral law" (ibid.).7 So not only is it that the moral feeling of respect would not in any way involve or imply 'pathological' feelings. What is more, it "cannot be compared to any patho6 Cf.Kantl889,p.173. Cf. Kant 1889, p. 213. 1 13 Wolfram Bergande logical feeling" (ibid., p. 169) in the first place, !et alone itselfbe "reckoned either as pleasure or pain" (ibid., p. 173) in the ordinary, 'pathological' sense, for it "[„.] is a feeling that applies merely to what is practical, and depends on the conception of a law, simply as to its form, not on account of any object [„.]" (ibid.). lt is "produced by an imellecrual cause" only (Kam 1889, p. 166). And that is also why it "is the only one that we know quite a priori, and the necessity of which we can discern [einsehen kännen]" (ibid.).8 So much does respect grow from purely reasonable grounds alone that even though for the sake of convenience one might call it a 'moral pleasure' it nevertheless and strictly speaking "comains no pleasure" (Kam 1889, p. 173) at all (nor pain, at least if we leave its negative reverse, humiliation, aside). What the feeling of respect actually does consist of phenomenologically speaking is, according to Kam, a cerrain kind of"selfapprobation" which "contains something elevating' (ibid.), a kind of"inward peace" (Kam 1889, p. 181).9 More prccisely, it is a "comentment, which is primarily contentment with one's own person" (ibid., p. 215), however far from it's opposite double: complacency, Behaglichkeit. This contentmem or self-comemmem may cerrainly amoum to some kind of "enjoymem" (ibid.), as Kam admits. However, "comemmem (acquiesceritia)" in the full meaning of the term is "unattainable" for human beings "during life" (Kam 2006, p. 130). And, what is more, the comemmem that is evemually attainable for humans is only "a negative satisfaction with onc's state" (Kant 1889, p. 215). lt yields an only negative enjoyment, one which has "nothing to do with enjoymem of life" (ibid., p. 183) in the ordinary sense and 8 Transla(ion modified. Kant also writes of a "Vernunftliebe seiner selbst", foornote *'in Kam 2007, 06: 045. 14 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion [ ... ] which cannot be called happiness, because it does not depend on the positive concurrence of a feeling, nor is it, strictly speaking, bliss, since it does not include complete independence on inclinations and wants, but ir resembles bliss in so far as the determination of one's will at least can hold itself free from their inAuence; and thus, at least in its origin, this enjoyment is analogous to the self-suf!iciency which we can ascribc only ro the Supreme Being (ibid„ p. 215). For the worldly human being who seeks to practically emulatc this self-sufficient Supreme Being, comentment spells out as the moral virtue of "apathy" (Kam 2006, p. 152) or "equanimiry" (Kam 2006, p. 131), rarely also as: "ataraxia, Ataraxia" (Kam 2006, p. 154; Kam 2007, 07: 256). 1° Kam repeatedly recommends or even commands apathy (e. g.: the "dury of apathy" (Kam 1886, p. 226) in the Metaphysics of Ethics ( 1797)), usually with an explicit reference to anciem Sroicism, like in the following passage from the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point oJView (1798): 'Ihe principle of aparhy-namely that the wise man must never be in a state of affect, not even in that of compassion with the misfortune of his best friend, is an entirely correct and sublime moral principle of the Stoic school; for affect makes us (more or less) blind (Kant 2006, p. 152). If the twin feelings of humiliation-and-respect together make up the moral contemmem of the human being, then we could say that something like countenance (like 'comemmem' deriving from the Latin continere, 'to hold together, to enclose') is the respective practical disposition of an individual's "moral ascetics" (Kam 2005, p. 597; Kam 2007, 6: 484). In thc Metaphysics of Ethics, Kam refers this "cultivation of virtue" (ibid.) to "the old watchword of the Stoa[. „], bear andforbear. bear, cndure the evils of lifc without complaim; forbear, abstain from its superfluous enjoymems [überflüssigen Ergätzlichkeiten]" (Kant 1886, p. 304). The virtuous human being ought to stay apathctic in the face of pathology, i. e. in the face of any sentimems/fcelings, affccts and passions, whether pleasurable or painful. This is bccause they constantly threaten to infringe upon the purely moral determination of the will. IO Cf. "Ataraxia" in Kant 2007, 07: 256. On "ataraxia" as "Gleichmtithigkeit" (equanimiry) see: "Entwürfe zu dem Colleg über Anthropologie aus den 70er und 80er Jahren" (Kant 2007, p. 15: 854). 1 15 Wolfram Bergande Sure enough, rhis does nor mean w be "dull" or "indifferent" (Kant 2006, p. 131 ), as Kant hasrens ro add in ehe Anthropology. However, ir can lead w quire exrrcme consequences. Kant's nororious example, which appears in borh ehe Anthropology (Kant 2007, 07: 253; Kant 2006, p. 152) and ehe Metaphysics of Ethics (Kant 2007, 06: 457; Kant 1886, p. 276), is ehe rejection of compassion, Mitleid, as a form of parhological suffering. Kant's referee in the Metaphysics is again the Stoic "sage" who "rejected compassion [Mitleidenschaft]" even in "the case ofhis friend" because he could not "allow" himself-and as to Kant indeed he ought not to allow himself-"to be infected by his [friend's] sorrow" and thus to "augment the evils in the world" (ibid.) by suffering rogerher wich him. 11 For the Kant of the Metaphysics rhis is tantamount to saying that as a maner of principle "rhere can be no obligation to act kindly our of compassion [Mitleidj" (ibid.). 12 2. Compassion as Surrogate of Reason But this is not the whole story. For in the Anthropology, Kant continues the above quoted passage about the 'principle of apathy' with an important reservation: Nevertheless the wisdom of nature has planred in us the predisposit'ion to compassion in order to handle the reins provisionally, unril reason has achieved the necessary strengrh; that is to say, for rhe purpose of enlivening us, nature has added the incentive of pathological (sensible) [pathologischen (sinnlichen}] impulse to the moral incentives for the good, as a temporary surrogate of reason [einstweiliges Surrogat der Vernunft] (Kant 2006, p. 152). And in the Metaphysics of Ethics, in a section titled 0/ the Duty of Sympathy, Kant continues the discussion of this "predisposition of nature", namely of the natural predisposition "to have a fellow-feeling with the joys and sorrows [Mitfreude und Mitleid (sympathia moralis)] of others [Anderer]" (Kant 1886, p. 275; Kant 2007, 11 Translarion modified. 12 Translation modified. Cf Denis 2000. 16 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion 06: 456). 13 Here, these two feelings, Mitfreude (compassionate joy, so to speak) and Mitleid (compassion), appear under the category of ''sympathia moralis" (Kant 2007, 06: 456), which is somewhat paradoxical given that Kant maintains that we are undoubtedly dealing with sensuous feelings, ''sinnliche Gefühle", thus obviously not with moral but instead with aesthetical, 'ä'sthetisch" (ibid.), i. e. with ultimately pathological feelings. This paradox notwithstanding, Kant infers from the 'predisposition of nature' to have such sympathetic feelings if not a direct 'obligation to act kindly out of compassion' (which, as we just have learned, cannot be) then nevertheless an "indirect duty [„.] to cultivate the [se] sympathetic affections" (Kant 1886, p. 276). So surprisingly here we are called on by Kant not to repress the naturally pathological feeling of Mitleid, compassion. Instead we are to cultivate it. To allow for this cultivation, Kant is led to introduce a further distinction between a natural and a cultivated kind of sympathy; this distinction temporarily resolves the paradoxical categorization just mentioned, it is true, but only at the cost of reapplying the primary distinction between morality and pathology, i. e. between Achtung (respect) and Mitleid (compassion or sympathy, respectively), within the subsphere of pathology itself, i. e. within the subsphere of compassion (respectively sympathy). So within this subsphere we face again the second Critique's primary distinction between morality and pathology: namely between a "free" and morally cultivated compassion which is 'participating' ( ''theilnehmend" (Kant 2007, 06: 456) and "seated in the will and the ability to communicate to one another" and which "depends on practical reason" (Kant 1886, p. 276) 14, if however, as we will learn, not on practical reason aloneand a slavish, ''servilis" (Kant 2007, 06: 457), and pathologically admixed or soaked 13 Translation modified. 14 Translation modified. 1 17 Wolfram Bergande compassion, a "Mitleidenschaft" (ibid.), which by contrast is "seated in that physical susceptibility, which nature has implanted in us, for feeling in common the delights or misery of our neighbour" (Kant 1886, p. 275f.). This latter Mitleidenschaftcommunicates itselfby itself. By itself it is ''mittheilend" (Kant 2007, 06: 457). lt 'spreads in a natural way', ''sie sich ... natürlicher Weise verbreitet", comparable to 'warmth', "W'firme'', or 'contagious diseases', "ansteckender Krankheiten" (ibid.). By contrast to its counterpart, it is not a duty, not even an indirect one, but must remain repressed and avoided by all means. So if there is, as we have learned in the Anthropology, 'the incentive of pathological (sensible) impulse to the moral incentives for the good, as a temporary surrogate of reason', then we can conclude from the Metaphysics of Ethics that this surrogate impulse is not straightforwardly pathological but the result of cultivation. And the Metaphysics seems to agree with the Anthropology as to why at all we should cultivate 'compassionate natural (aesthetical) affections', ''mitleidige natürliche (ästhetische) Gefühle" (Kant 2007, 06: 457). We should do so because we can "[. „] make them serve as instruments enabling us to discharge the offices of a humane mind, upon ethical principles [sie als so viele Mittel zur lheilnehmung au/moralischen Grundsätzen und dem ihnen gemässen Gefühl zu benutzen]" (Kant 1886, p. 276). Particularly, we may use them in cases where practical reason is in need of support; for instance, as we read in the Anthropology, 'provisionally, until reason has achieved the necessary strength'. However, only insofar as they effectively serve such purposes should we cultivate them, that is, only insofar as they are directed to an active end. Otherwise they are useless, as Kant warns in the Anthropology: " [ ... ] the ineffectual sharing of one's feelings [die thatleere lheilnehmung seines Gefühls] in order to appear sympa18 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion thetically in tune with the feelings of others, thus allowing oneself to be affected in a merely passive way, is silly and childish" (Kant 2006, p. 132). Still this is not the end of what can be termed Kant's apathology of compassion. If the Metaphysics calls on us to cultivate natural compassion, i. e. the sensuous sympathy with others: "humanitas aesthetica" (Kant 2007, 06: 456), and to transform it into truly humane compassion: "humanitas practica" (ibid.) as it 'depends on practical reason', then this is not so much because, as Kant considers, "we might be unable to repress" (Kant 1886, p. 277) it anyway; nor is it only because compassion can function as a temporary surrogate impulse for the possibly deficitary 'strength' of practical reason; rather, and this is astonishing, compassion can help us "to do what the representation of duty on its own might be unable to accomplish [dasjenige zu tun, was die Pflichtvorstellung.für sich allein nicht ausrichten würde]" (ibid.) 15, as Kant surprisingly concedes towards the end of the Metaphysics' section on the Duty ofSympathy: Neither ought we to desert the chambers of the sick nor the cells of the debtor, in order to escape the painful sympathy we might be unable to repress, this emotion being a spring implanted in us by nature, prompting us to do what the representation of dury on its own might be unable to accomplish (Kant 1886, p. 276f.). 16 There are-as Kant lets his readers know in what is a rather passing albeit concluding remark-actions commanded as duties by practical reason, and, as can be presumed, strengthfully so. Nevertheless, 'the representation of duty alone' does not suffice to determine the will effectively-presumably regardless of the support of the concomitant feeling of Achtung, respect. So obviously it is not only, as the Anthropology suggests, some temporary and hence sooner or later remediable deficit of 15 Translation modified. 16 Translation modifi~d. 1 19 Wolfram Bergande 'rhe strength of reason' which compassion, the 'pathological surrogate of reason', is supposed to supplement in a however culrivated form. Rather, the Metaphysics seems to point here to a fundamental problem one might have with doing one's dury as it is commanded by the practical law alone. Can we not suspect that in extreme cases this problem might indeed become irremediable without the 'positive concurrence' of a cultivated 'pathological feeling'? And would not rhis consequendy pur the selfcontentment of rhe virruous agent in danger, together with the ideal of supreme self-sufficiency that orientates i t? One must be very precise here. Kant writes that "[ ... ] although it is no direct duty to rake apart in the joy or grief of others", it neverrheless "is a dury not to avoid" the occasions and places where such feelings are usually triggered: "rhe chambers of the sick" or the "cells of the debror" (Kant 1886, p. 276). Even so, the feeling of the 'joy or grief of others' must remain problematic for Kant, like any of the other "inner and ourer enjoyments" of everyday life: "only inasmuch as they are innocent in themselves, i. e., not contrary to moraliry, and present themselves spontaneously, may we adopt rhem, but never go in pursuit of them" (Kant 2001 b, p. 397), as we learn from rhe notes taken by Johann Friedrich Vigilantius from Kant's lectures on ethics in 1793-94. Otherwise, Kant warns, they indeed might be "injurious to our self-contentment" (ibid.). As a consequence, it seems as if cases where cultivared compassion is asked for must neither actively be sought nor actively be avoided. If compassion arises, it must arise spontaneously, unintentionally. This probably also implies rhat such cases must not be passively sought nor be passively avoided either, i. e.: negligently or secretly. A perfectly balanced state of neirher activity nur passiviry is obviously what is at stake when it comes to the morally obligatory selfcontentment of Kant's virtuoso of virtue. 20 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion Be this as it may, the remarkable resu!t is that Kant seems to allow for cases where rhe 'representation of dury on its own' [die Pflichtvorstellung.für sich allein], obviously because it is on its own, is not enough to determine the will; not just factually, e. g. because it would be overpowered by other pathological motives, "Triebfedern" (Kant 2007, 06: 036), or because it would lack the experience which enlivens or enhances its strength (and even granted that the effective outcome is always indeterminable because empirical), but principally-namely, as one may suspect, because without intuition the Pflichtvorstellungwould be just as void, "leer" (Kant 2007, 03: 075) as it would then become "blind" or rather blinded under the rule of an uncultivared "affect" (Kant 2006, p. 152). Is rhis an overinterpretation? Certainly, Kant would have rejected any such interpretation, just like his Metaphysics explicitly opposes any such view. For if, according to Kant, "the power of mastering every opposing excitement of the sensory can, and indeed must, be absolurely postulated [das Vermögen (facu!tas) der Überwindung aller sinnlich entgegenwirkenden Antriebe seiner Freiheit halber schlechthin vorausgesetzt werden kann und muss'J" (Kant 1886, p. 2 l 4f.; Kant 2007, 06: 397), then in principle reason must be rhe absolute master. Yet the question remains wherher Kant's systematic treatment of compassion does not point to a fundamental problem wirh reason's principally absolute mastery, particularly in regard to Kant's famous coordination of freedom and constraint ('you can becausc you must'). The first epigraph to this text, taken from Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, is one of a small number of scattercd marginalia in Kant's corpus which appear to reflect such a problematic. 1 21 Wolfram Bergande And yet recent secondary literature on Kant often appcars to ignore this problematic. To give an example: lt certainly is not altogether wrong to interpret Kant's text-as has been clone-in the conventional sense that "only ehe moral feeling of Achtung, which is exclusively triggered by the practical law and which has an inner causal relation to the practical law, can guarantee that it only motivates to moral actions" (Goy 2007, p. 352). lt is not wrong, bur it understates the case, because, as has just been evidenced in Kant's text, there seem to be at least imaginable cases in which a 'temporary surrogate impulse' not only "may later facilitate our doing our dury" (Carcwright 1984, p. 87 Fn. 11) or cases in which it "can be of instrumental importance" (Denis 2000, p. 65), as other interpreters of Kant have it; but also cases in which such a surrogate impulse might be indispensable for doing our duties in ehe first place. A 'temporary surrogate impulse' then may be principally indispensable for a 'representation of duty' which, 'on its own' as it in some cases obviously is, without such an im pulse, without an as it were Fichtean '/tnstoss" (Fichte 2013, p. 37) avant la lettre, cannot perform its moral duty. 17 (And then again, if chere indccd are such exceptional cases in which moral reason principally cannot dispense of this Surrogate im pulse, then of course the question arises as to how Achtung should be able to 'guarantee that it only motivates to moral actions' in all the other cases.) Now on ehe other hand it is not only to overstate the case but just wrong to argue (as has been clone by one interpreter in the recenrly published Kant-Lexikon) chat "the natural feelings of compassion [die natürlichen Gefühle des Mitleids]" would be "necessary conditions of the accomplishment of charity [notwendigen Bedingungen zur Erfüllung der Wohltätigkeit]", even granted that they are "not sufficient for the 17 Cf Honneth 2001. 22 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion accomplishment of the moral dury of charity [nicht hinreichend zur Erfüllung der moralischen Pflicht zur Wohltätigkeit]" (Mieth 2015, p. 413). 18 Natural compassion is a condition of cultivated compassion, so much is true. Just like "[ ... ) the sensible feeling which is at the bottom of all our inclinations is the condition of chat impression which we call respect, Achtung' (Kant 1889, p. 168; Kant 2007, 05: 075) according to the Critique of Practical Reason. But in the Metaphysics Kant is quite clear about that "painful sympathy [schmerzhaften Mitgefüh~ [ ... ) being a spring [einer der ... Antriebe] implanted in us by nature" (Kant 1886, p. 277): lt is one of ehe springs to do good, einer der Antriebe, not the only one. Hence compassion (Mitleid respectively Mitgefühb, whether in natural or cultivated form, cannot be a necessary, i. e. a general condition of charity; nor can any other feeling be such a necessary condition, except Achtung. In the second Critique, Kant leaves no doubt about it: "There is here in the subject no amecedem feeling tending ro morality. For this is impossible, since every feeling is sensuous, and the motive of moral intention must be free from all sensuous conditions [die Triebfeder der sittlichen Gesinnung aber muss von aller sinnliehen Bedingung.frei sein]" (Kant 1889, p. 168). 19 Otherwise there could actually be no cases at all in which, as Kant claims, moral "[r]eason, wich its practical law, determines the will immediately, not by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or pain, not even of pleasure in the law itself, [ ... )" (ibid., p. 112). And according to Kant "practical pure reason" does determine ehe will, not only immediately but also effectively. lt is not only ehe "objective determining principlc of ehe objects of action as called good and evil" but also the "subjective determining principle, that is, a motive [Triebfeder] to this action [ ... )" (ibid., p. 168; Kant 2007, 05: 075). 18 My uanslation. 19 Translation rnodified. 1 23 Wolftam Bergande As a result, compassion, i. e. the pathological affection, if not infectedness, by somebody else's feelings, appears as quite paradoxical, as quite Rousseauistic so co speak, at lease in chese cwo ultimate publications of Kant, ehe Metaphysics and ehe Anthropology. Both inessential and necessary, it appears co be an undecidable in ehe technical sense of deconscructive cerminology. On ehe one hand compassion is ruled out as pathological by ehe auchoricy of reason; either because it is an evil which must not be engaged wich nor unnecessarily mulciplied, like in ehe case of a friend's suffering, which can only be 'endured wichout complaint' if need be; or because it would have co be classified as 'superfluous enjoyment' from which one must 'abstain', like-che example is Kanc's-che "offensive variety of chis compassion called mercy, by which is meant thac kind of benevolence shown eo ehe unworchy" which only serves co "boast" one's own "worchiness co be happy" (Kant 1886, p. 276). 20 As a merely 'added' extra, compassion seems eo add noching really necessary co ehe good will, which is self-sufficient from ehe moral point of view. In any case, as Kant emphasizes, one just cannot be obliged co be compassionace, just like "love", being a natural "affection", simply, i. e. nacurally, "cannot be commanded" (Kant 1889, p. 15)-even chough as far as "love" is concerned, it may accually appear as analmost "indispensable complement" eo ehe moral Pflichtvorstellung's "command of ducy", given chac "ehe laccer as an incentive, withouc ehe contribucion of ehe former [i. e.: oflove], is not very much eo be counted on'', as Kant concedes in The end of all things (Kant 2007, 08: 338; Kant 200lc, p. 230). On ehe ocher hand and 'practically' speaking, chis added surrogate seems co be essential, at least in chose particular cases in which compassion incices reason co leave its abscracc 'representation of dury 20 Translarion modified. 24 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion on its own' and eo not only will but eo also act according co ehe categorical imperative. Thence for Kant it becomes an 'indirect ducy' not co foreclose on ehe real life occasions in which compassion can possibly affect or rather infect ehe moral agent, driving him towards its cultivation. From this it follows chac, paradoxically, compassion is boch on either side and beyond ehe Scoic dichotomy 'bear and forbear' co which Kant refers. lt is not really concained by chac dichocomy, neither logically nor 'practically'; andin case compassion should be contained, it gets excluded from 'practical' reason, at least theoretically. Conversely, insofar as compassion should be beyond chis dichotomy, it gets nevercheless included inco 'practical' reason, needed as it is eo incite eo dfective action in exceptional cases. So, paradoxically, it is boch excluded and included within 'practical', i. e. moral reason. Ics logic can chus be reconstructed as follows: Kant's concept of moral subjectivicy firscly excludes compassion, namely either as a pathological object of ehe will or 'as commanded'; yec it is precisely in chis excluded compassion where ehe subject, secondly, rediscovers a therewich excluded part of icself; hence it chirdly and laboriously undercakes eo recover chis part by saving compassion in ehe form of cultivated (albeit 'painful') sympathy (which is not a ducy but which not eo avoid is an 'indirect ducy'). Here one can see how Kant's concept of moral subjectivicy becomes quite twisced as it seeks co save not ehe appearances but, so eo speak, ehe noumena. "The subject is, as it were, internally excluded from its object [en exclusion interne a son objet]" (Lacan 2006b, p. 731 ), as can be stated here wich Lacan. Compassion marks ehe inner oucland of ehe subject, subjected as it is eo an allegedly purely rational moral law. And it is chrough cultivaced compassion chac ehe subjecc's apathy, its disposition eo will and act morally, i. e. humbly and respectfully at ehe 1 25 Wolfram Bergande same time, entertains an encrypted, i. e. encapsulated and hardly decipherable, communication with the pathological feelings of the social other-and eventually with his or her own pathological feelings, as it would be in the case of compassion with oneself, i. e. of self-pity, a concept which, not surprisingly, is alien to Kant's corpus. So if for some moment Kant may have appeared to dismiss any form of pathological feeling as supplementary to intellectual reason alone (by the way quite similar to Plato's Socrates who e. g. in the Republic21 dismisses even the artistically staged feelings of tragedy and comedy), then it must now be clear that some rhetorical dismissals norwithstanding Kant straightforwardly accepts a more or less cultivated compassion as a natural supplement to moral reason. Making solitary reason leave its purely intellectual, i. e. unpractical (if not immoral) abstractions, truly humane and thus virtuously charitable compassion is attending, '~heilnehmend" (Kant 2007, 06: 456), but not properly communicative, "mittheilend" (ibid.: 457). Thus it comes close to-but is not identical with-the communicable, mitteilbar aesthetic feeling of the Critique of judgement. 3. Morality and its Discontents All things considered, compassion, Mitleiden{schaft), remains a problematical feeling in Kant's late theory of moral virtue, whether principally or only factually, already because it will not always be possible to critically distinguish berween natural and cultivated compassion; nor berween cultivated compassion and 'boasting mercy'; moreover, and more imporrantly, because in order to properly function as a supplement to reason, cultivated compassion is contingent upon the repression of the 21 Cf. e. g. Rep. 413a; 429c-d; 606a ff. 26 1 l Kants Apathology of Compassion double of the feeling of respect, Achtung, namely upon the repression of the ominous 'pleasure in the law itself'. This is because it is precisely with cultivated compassion that Kant gets disquietingly close to such a commanded pleasure. Certainly, for Kant there simply is not anything like a commanded pleasure-the feeling of Achtung norwithstanding, as it is supposed to be not a 'pleasure in the law itself' but a pleasure on the mere occasion of that law; and the same would apply to the "moral pleasure (moralischen Lust)" or "moral enjoyment (moralischen Genuss)" which, as to Kant's Metaphysics, may be the "reward" (Kant 1886, p. 207; Kant 2007, 06: 391) of virtuously charitable actions. Yet at closer inspection Kant's scattered remarks on the ominous topic of a 'pleasure in the law itself' and on a possibly 'commanded' feeling appear quite contradictory: On the one band it must remain true for Kant that 'any determination of the will' is a 'feeling of pleasure'.22 And the prime case for such a determination of the will, namely the will's determination by the moral law and the concomitant feeling of Achtung, is something which even forces itself upon us, "sich für sich selbst uns aufdringt" 23 (Kant 2007, 05: 031).24 So remarkably, Achtung results as a 'moral pleasure' which the moral law forces upon us. However it is supposed to be no 'pleasure in the law itself'. On the other band, Kant asserts in a footnote to his discussion of the sources of the aesthetic feeling in the Critique of]udgement that "[a]n obligation to enjoyment is a manifest absurdity [Eine Verbindlichkeit zum Geniessen ist eine offenbare Ungereimtheit]." And he continues: "Thus the obligation to all actions 22 Cf Kam 2007, 06: 211; 05: 178. 23 Kant's wording here is inceresting: In the scrictest sense ehe moral law not just forces icself upon us, bur it "forces itself for itself [sich for sich selbst] upon us", as if this force would act on behalf of itself, like another subject, and not on behalf of e. g. a desired outcome, namely the subjectivation of the thus moralized individual. 24 Cf. Kant 2007, 06: 036. 1 27 Wolfram Bergande which have merely enjoyment for their aim can only be a pretended one; however spiritually it may be conceived (or decked out), even if it is a mystical, or so-called heavenly, enjoyment." (Kant 1914, p. 52 Fn. 2; Kant 2007, 05: 209, Fn. *)So whereas the moral law obliges the subject to the painful humiliation of its seif resulting in the 'moral pleasure' of Achtung, it nevertheless does not oblige, it cannot oblige according to Kant, to enjoy pathologically, because that would be, according to this marginal assertion, manifestly absurd from a logical point of view. There is a similar argument in a passage from the Vigilantius-notes. There one can read that 'to enjoy having duties' would be 'contrary to the nature of duty' ('nature' here metaphorically in the sense of essence and not of physical quality). And one can paraphrase Kant in that passage by saying that to enjoy duties would be symptomatic of 'impulses' standing under the inacceptable 'authority' of 'painful or despotic commands': [ ... ] it is also certain that every obligation is forthwith associared wich a moral constraint, and thar ir is contrary to the nature of duty to enjoy having duties incumbent upon one; it is necessary, rather, that man's impulses should make him disinclined to fulfill rhe moral laws, and that these impulses should be overcome only rhrough ehe authority of ehe latter, without it being possible to say rhat these laws demand respect in ehe manner of painful or despotic commands" (Kant 200lb, p. 259).25 Now to enjoy one's submission to a prohibitory law and to take this culpable enjoyment as a libidinally "regressive surrogate [regressiver Ersã]" (Freud 1973, p. 240) for the enjoyment of the object prohibited by that law is exemplary for the "essence of masochism" (ibid., p. 241) as perversion according to Sigmund Freud's seminal text A Child is Being Beaten. So obviously what Kant excludes as a double of Achtung, throughout all these contradictory statements on the topic of a forced enjoyment, and without really getting at it, is something similar to what moral masochism is for Freud: pleasure in the law itself. As far as Freudian psychoanalysis is concerned, it 25 Cf. Baxley 2015. p. 237. 28 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion identifies perversion as one of the major clinical structures besides neurosis/hysteria and psychosis. In Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, these structures represent the possible avatars (Schicksale) of the drives (Triebe) deriving from the castration complex. As such they represent different ways to cope with a primally repressed "pernicious enjoyment" (Lacan 1991, p. 52) which is the necessary libidinal remainder resulting from the institution of the super-ego (Über-Ich) as inner agent and executor of the moral law within the individual, i. e. from the individual's subjectivation. Thereby, as Freud explains in Civilization and its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur), morality is based on a self-sustaining and indeed self-aggravating libido-economic logic: Tue super-ego parasitically feeds on the pathological satisfaction which it itself prohibits. Tue super-ego derives its strength from the libidinal energy of what it prohibits. And so what Kant admitted as pathological 'surrogate' of moral reason, namely compassion (if only it is 'not commanded' but 'cultivated'), reveals itself as a quite unbehaglich, discontentful constituent of morality, namely in the form of an apriori compassion-ofoneself (rather than with-oneself), imposed as it always already is by the social other. So from a Freudian perspective, Kant's 'strength of reason' is in pathological deficit right from the start. Tue more pathological satisfaction the super-ego prohibits, however, the stronger it gets, and the stronger it gets, the more it prohibits, and so on. Now to conceive ofhow this spiral logic is set into motion, one must logically presuppose, firstly, a primordial moment in which the moral law would have been originally imposed, that is forced upon the subject, and, secondly, a concomitant primordially prohibited enjoyment. This is the enjoyment of a pathological object whose only function it would be to serve the institution of this prohibitory law. Tue concomitant state of mind would be identical with the derermination of the will by that law. 1 29 Wo/ftam Bergande In conrradistinction to simple pleasure, Lacan at one point starts to reserve the term 'Jouissance" (Lacan 1967, 30.05.67, p. 274f.) for this enjoyment insofar as it is logically, ethically and aesthetically 'extimate' (included/excluded) to a subjectivity thence twisted by this extimacy.26 And Lacan ranges rhe literary work of Kanr's contemporary Marquis de Sade among rhe ancient ethical traditions in philosophy, e. g. Stoicism or Peripateticism, insofar as it would provide a noteworthy access to rhe experience of this enjoyment. (Lacan 2006a, p. 645) According to Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis some of antiquiry's ethical schools, just like various Christian virtue doctrines, ultimately projected this enjoymenr onto a Supreme Being, onto a fatherlike, almighty God, onro an Other who is the, as it were, Subject Supposed to Enjoy. As to Lacan, de Sade's La philosophie dans le boudoir supplements Kant's Critique of practical reason with its "truth" (ibid., p. 646)-and we should add: a truth about rhe enjoyment of this supreme Other which for Lacan turns out to be the unconscious as the discourse to which the subject is subjected. In a similar vein, Julia Kristeva speaks of a "logic of the intimare" which would work the Kantian 'practical' rcason from wirhin and which rhe literary work of de Sade would "srage [ ... ) by illustrating how the intimate of the passionate and.sensitive soul, because it finds itself under the empire of judging Reason and his de-sensitizing and unifying power, is an intimate which is condemned to enjoy this force" 27 (Kristeva 1997, p. 76). lt is wirh his theorem about the radical "propensity [Hang]" to do evil in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason thar Kant had earlier approached rhis 'pleasure 26 , In the contexr of his concept of rhe 1hing (la Chose) Lacan speaks of an imimare exrerioricy ( ''exthioriti intime') and of extimiry ( ''extimite') (Lacan 1986, p. 167). 27 My rranslaüon. 30 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion in the law itself' (Kant 2007, 07: 265). 28 Besides, with respect to the provocations in de Sade's writings one might want to follow Lacan's text on Kant with Sade and argue that Kant's theory of evil can actually come to terms with de Sade, given that de Sade's work would stay within an (anti-)virtue-ethical framework. As to Lacan, "[h]is [de Sade's] apology for crime merely impels him to an oblique acceptance of rhe Law. Tue Supreme Being is restored in Evil Action [le Malifice]" (Lacan 2006a, p. 667). As far as Kant's Religion is concerned, it is the subject's "free power of choice [freien Willkür]" from which "depravity [Bösartigkeit]", which can also be called "perversity [Verkehrtheit] (perversitas)" (Kant 1996b, p. 83; Kant 2007, 06: 037), ultimately derives-depraviry respectively perversiry tobe understood not as the simple propensiry to yield to one's natural inclinations but as rhe formal "propensity of the power of choice [Willkür] to maxims that subordinate the incentives of rhe moral law to others (not moral ones)" (Kant 1996b, p. 78; Kant 2007, 06: 030). As a somewhat paradoxical "innate guilt [angeborene Schuld]" perversity "must nonetheless have originated from freedom [aus der Freiheit entsprungen]" (Kant l 996b, p. 84; Kant 2007, 06: 038). For Kant there is "no conceivable ground for us, therefore, from which moral evil could first have come in us [kein begreiflicher Grund da, woher das moralische Böse in uns zuerst gekommen sein könne]" (Kant l 996b, p. 88; Kant 2007, 06: 043). And even though "the concept of freedom [ ... ] first and foremost derives from this law", i. e. from the moral law as freedom's ratio cognoscendi, i. e. even though "the concept of the freedom of the power of choice [der Begriff der Freiheit der Willkür] does not precede in us the consciousness of the moral law but is only inferred 28 Cf. Zac 1972, p. 153. 1 31 Wolfram Bergande from the determinability of our power of choice rhrough this law as unconditional command" (Kant l 996b, p. 93 Fn. *; Kant 2007, 06: 049), this for Kant cannot mean that "rhe freedom of the power of choice", "Freiheit der Willkür", and thus evil would also be ontologically grounded in the consciousness of the moral law (as i ts ratio essendi). Consequently, and given that for Kant there just cannot be a 'pleasure in the law itself', there can be no pleasure in the opposition to the law itself either. Hence there can be no "evil reason [boshafte Vernunft]" in which "resistance ro the law would itself be thereby elevated to incentive [Triebfeder] (for without any incentive the power of choice cannot be determined)". This is because in being "so the subject would be made a diabolical being" which according ro Kant "is however not applicable to the human being" (Kant 1996b, p. 82; Kant 2007, 06: 035). 4. Tue Aesthetics of Rationalization: Disgust, Boredom and Humour As Kant thus ignores or rather pushes aside the possibility of perverse enjoyment within morality, he accordingly misjudges "[ ... ] rhe aesthetic constitution [ästhetische Beschaffenheit], the temperament so ro speak of virtue", roo, conceiving of it as a "joyous frame of mind rjröhliche Gemüthsstimmung]", a "heart joyous in the compliance with its duty (not just complacency [Behaglichkeit] in the recognition of it)" (Kant 1996b, p. 73 Fn. t; Kant 2007, 06: 023 Fn. t) 29 • Kant detects, it is true, something "very ambiguous", i. e. some moral ambiguity within "the self-torment of a remorseful sinner". Bur this turns out ro be unproblematic because it "usually [is] only an inward reproach for having offended against prudence" (ibid.). lt is the usual seif29 CE Zac 1972. p. 147. 32 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion reproach of the offender for not having been clever enough (since he gor caught). This is obviously not a moral disposition betraying a secret perverse enjoyment. And so for Kant this just fits all roo weil with a "slavish frame of mind [sklavische Gemüthsstimmung]" of those who, rather unambiguously, arc just "weighcd-down by fear and dejected" and likewise "never [ ... ] without a hidden hatred of the law [nie ohne einen verborgenenen Hass des Gesetzes]" (ibid.) ro which they feel themselves subjected. To this analysis of Kant one would have to object roday with Lacan that at least in the case of masochism "the masochist is not" a mere "slave [esclave]" of the law (Lacan 1967, 30.05.67, p. 276f.).30 Nor is it that the 'slavish frame of mind' would boil down ro the simple question ofbeing clever enough or not. Rather, such a mindset reveals the subject-the subject of the unconscious-as being more than just dever. Tue masochistic subject of the unconscious is all-roo-clever, a clever-clever "old fox [un petit malin]" (ibid.) according to Lacan, since it is precisely in the act of submitting ro the law and its punishment that he or she finds enjoyment. As Lacan states: "the masochist knows that he is within enjoyment [le masochiste sait qu'il est dans la jouissance]" (ibid.). Be this as it may, Kant's Critique of practical reason sides with the derided "Sroic" who refuses to recognize anything evil in some "paroxysms of gout" which to him must appear as a merely physical pain: A bad thing [Übel] it certainly was, and his cry betrayed that; but that any evil [ein Böses] attached to him thereby, this he had no reason whatever to admit, for pain did not in the least diminish the worth of his person, but only that of his condition. If he had been conscious of a single lie it would have lowered his pride, but pain served only to elevate him [ihn zu erheben], when he was conscious that he had not deserved it by any unrighteous action by which he had rendered himself worthy of punishment. (Kant 1889, p. 15lf.; Kant 2007, 05: 060) 31 30 My translarion . .ll Translation modified. 1 33 Wolfram Bergande In contrast to the Stoies who moralized the whole of physical reality, Kant is surely more than critical of the tendency of "human reason [ ... ] to link the course of nature with the laws of morality [den Lauf der Natur an die Gesetze der Moralität anzuknüpfen]" (Kant 1996b 114 Fn. *;Kant 2007, 06: 073 Fn. *).32 Correspondingly, he makes a sharp distinction between the spheres of morality and of physical reality, i. e. pathology. Still for Kant these two extremes, the Stoic's cosmotheistic and his own quasi-monotheistic view, converge in the idea of an ideal elevation, Erhebung, a genuinely "moral apathy, moralische Apathie" which would be cleansed of all pathological activity ('lies', punishable 'unrighteous actions', etc.) as much as of all pathological passivity ("bluntness, Fühllosigkeit", "listlessness, subjective Gleichgültigkeit" and "indifference, Indifferenz" (Kant 1886, p. 226; Kant 2007, 06: 408)).33Aesthetically, Kant's 'moral apathy' should thus be free of the boredom (Langeweile) which characterizes, according to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, the "general terms beyond which Stoicism cannot get", for instance "[t]heTrue and the Good, wisdom and virtue". For Hegel, these Stoic terms are "lacking the fullness of life"; they are "no doubt elevating [erhebend], but since they cannot in fact produce any expansion of the content, they soon become boring rJangen sie bald arf: Langeweile zu machen]" (Hegel 1977, p. 122).34 32 On Kant and Scoicism cf. Schneewind 1996, 292ff„ parcicularly p. 294. Cf. also Sancozki 2006, p. 508, who acgues chat despite many parallels Kant's critical philosophy was developed without subscanrial recourse to ancient Stoicism: "Wenn man ihn [Kant] überhaupt in eine antike Richtung einordnen kann, dann ist die Stoa zu nennen. Er selbst hätte sich als kritischer Philosoph al/.erdings sicher gegen derartige Zuschreibungen gewehrt. [..}Negativ konnte der Gang durch die drei Kritiken jeweils begründet zeigen, dass eine genuine Auseinandersetzung mit der Antike for die Genese der grund/.egenden Prämissen der jeweiligen Theorien keine Rol/.e spielt." 33 Translation modified. Cf. Assmann 2003, passim, for ehe distinction berween monocheism and cosmotheism. 34 Tcanslacion modified. 34 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion Against this background it must have been unthinkable for Kant that the paintrodden's sage elevation, Erhebung, might secretly contain a malign (i. e. all-too-cleverly evil) pleasure as an added extra, as a pernicious surplus enjoyment, for instance a kind of elevated self-pity. But then how would Kant have judged the legendary apathetic self-contentment of the Stoic "[ ... ] Epictetus who, when his master was twisting his leg, said, smiling and unmoved, 'You will break my leg', and when it was broken, he added, 'Did I not teil you that you would break it?'" (Origen 2001, chap. LIII). Is not Epictetus' jovial countenance in face of a pain unjustly suffered an extreme form of what Kant had in mind when he praised "contentment (acquiescentia)" as an "enjoyment analogous to the self-sufficiency which we can ascribe only to the Supreme Being" in the Critique of Practical Reason?35 Actually, it is not. For Kant sees a limit to moral elevation beyond which man's "moral capacity" becomes "fancifully" exaggerated and thus "nonsense" (Kant 200la, p. 32). And it is precisely some famous Stoies which Kant-as quoted by Herder-has in mind here: "Seneca was an impostor, Epictetus strange and fanciful." (Ibid.) 36 However, can Kant's moral apathy, the subject's countenance, based as it is on reason's practica! law only and on a solitary Pflichtvorstellung ('representation of duty on its own'), be said to be free of all fancies? 35 See above (Kant 1889, p. 215). 36 Schneewind 1996, p. 292 quoces ehe whole passage from which chis phrase is taken: "Man fancifully exaggerates his moral capaciry and sets before himself the most perfect goodness; ehe outcome is nonsense; but what is required of us? Tue Scoic's answer: 1 shall raise myself above myself, „. rise superior eo my own affiiccions and needs, and wich all my might be good, be the image of godhood. But how so, for godhood has no obligations, yet you cercainly do„. Now ehe god departs and we are lefr wich man, a poor creature, loaded with obügacions. Seneca was an impostor, Epictetus strange and fanciful" (Cf. Kant 2001a, p. 32). Schneewind cesumes Kant's relacionship to Stoicism as follows: "Kant's reservations about Stoicism were as pervasive as his appreciation of it" (ibid.). 1 35 Wolfram Bergande !nterestingly, for Freud's Psychopathology of Everyday Lift section on Erroneously carried out actions, it is precisely the "srriking countenance [Fassung] which the patients show" in the face of"apparently accidental injuries" which "in the more serious cases of psychoneuroses" may "berray the portion of unconscious intention" causally involved therein. An analysis of ehe respective unconscious intention regularly reveals thac chese "precended accidents" in rruch "are really self-inflicced" and "sympcoms of ehe disease". Behind the seeming "calmness, Ruhe" we must: according eo Freud, suppose an unconscious and "constantly lurking tendency co self-punishment [ ... ] which skilfully, makes use of an external situation" (Freud 1922, p. l 98f.). 37 This self-punishment resulcs in a pernicious enjoyment through which ehe subject (of the unconscious) communicates wich itself. Freud's exemplary case in the Psychopathology is a young married woman who [ ... ] broke her leg below the knee in a carriage accidenr so that she was bedridden for weeks. Tue striking part of it was ehe lack of any manifestation of pain and ehe calmness [Ruhe] wich which she bore her misforcune. 1his calamity ushered in a long and serious neurotic illness, from which she was finally cured by psychotherapy. During ehe treatment 1 discovered ehe circumstances surrounding ehe accident, as well as certain impressions which preceded it. Tue young woman with her jealous husband spent some time on ehe farm of her married sister, in company wich her numerous orher brothers and sisters wich their wives and husbands. One evening she gave an exhibition of one of her talenrs before this intimate circle; she danced artistically ehe 'cancan', eo ehe great delight of her relatives, but to ehe great annoyance of her husband, who afterward whispered to her, 'Again you have behaved like a prostitute'. Tue words took effect; we will leave it undecided whecher it was just on account of ehe dance. That night she was restless [unruhig] in her sleep, and ehe ncxt forcnoon she decided to go out driving. She chose ehe horses herself, refusing one team and demanding another. Her youngest sister wished to have her baby wich its nurse accompany her, but she opposed this vehemently. During ehe drive she was nervous; she reminded ehe coachman that ehe horses were getting skittish, and as ehe fidgety [unruhigen] animals really produced a momentary difficulty she jumped from ehe carriage in fright and broke her leg, while those remaining, in the carriage were uninjured. Although afrer ehe disclosure of these details we can hardly doubt that this accidenr was really contrived, we cannot fail to admire ehe skill which forced the accident to mete out a punishment so suicable to the crime. For as it happened 'cancan' dancing with her became impossible for a long time" (ibid., p. l 99f.). 37 Translation modified. 36 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion Here self-communication adopts the cwisted form of an acting out of an unconscious phantasy of self-punishment. Ir is rooted in what can be called a sympcomatic 'compassion-of-oneself'. "[!] n our present state of civilization", writes Freud in 1904, "[t]he self-inflicted injury which does not entirely tend coward self-annihilation has [ ... ] no other choice [ ... ) than to hide itselfbehind the accidental [ ... ]. Formerly, it was a cuscomary sign of mourning, at other times it expressed itself in ideas of piety [Frömmigkeit] and renunciation of the world [Weltentsagung]." (Ibid., p. 199 Fn. 1) lt is known, of course, how Kant repeatedly denounces Schwärmerei and other ambiguous forms of moral pathology like e. g. bigotry. And it has been evidenced above how much Kanc's moral subject is supposed co differ from that through its 'joyous frame of mind' etc. Yet in Kant's later philosophy traces of a symptomatic enjoyment at ehe roots of moral subjectivity can be detected, coo. A comparison wich de Sade is helpful here, following Lacan's cexc on Kant with Sade, for it suggests that the elevated and self-content enjoyment of the virtuous subject would turn into, so CO speak, 'moral' disgust under de Sadean conditions: "Imagine a revival of Epictetus in Sadean experience: 'You see, you broke it', he says, pointing to his leg. To reduce jouissance co ehe misery of an effect in which one's quest stumbles-doesn't this transform it into disgust?" (Lacan 2006a, p. 651) And as Jacques Derrida suggests in Economimesis, "ehe experience of disgust" cogether with "the scheme of vomiting" (Derrida 1981, p. 21) mark ehe blind spot of Kant's rationalistic moralism. Or rather it occupies "[ ... ] wichin ehe Kantian system a strategic point that unites 1 37 Wolfram Bergande all faculcies'', as Winfried Menninghaus convincingly argues (Menninghaus 2003, p. 114).38 lt is in Kam's own concepcion of disgusc indeed where his contradictory Statements on ehe paradoxical copic of a 'commanded feeling', a 'pleasure in ehe law itself' or an 'enjoyment of duties' converge-statements like: that ehe determination of the will by ehe moral law 'imposes itself (sich au/dringt)' and thac Achtung is the 'moral pleasure' resulcing from this imposition; thac it is 'contrary co the nature of duty to enjoy having duties incumbent upon one'; chat 'an obligation co enjoyment is a manifest absurdiry', just like it 'cannot be commanded' co have a certain 'affection' like e. g. 'love'. This is not least because disgusc (including possible variants) is the only form of forced enjoyment that Kant openly admics (again Achtung and its reverse, humiliation, notwithstanding). In ehe Critique of judgement, § 48 dealing wich ehe Relation of Genius to Taste, Kant defines disgust, Ekel, as ehe"[ ... ) peculiar sensation, which rests on mere imagination, [in which) ehe object is represented as [if) it were imposing itself for our enjoyment [all ob er sich zum Genusse aufdränge] while we strive against icwich all our mighc" (Kant 1914, p. 195; Kant 2007, 05: 312).39 As itwere, disgust is a feeling which commands itself to us. Tue aestfietic resulc according to Kant is that in disgusc, Ekel, "the artistic representation of ehe object is no longer distinguished from ehe nature of ehe object itself in our sensation", which is to say thac an imaginary !et alone symbolic distancing of ehe object is impossible. Thus disgust is the singular "kind of ugliness which cannot be represented in accordance 38 On Kam's concept of disgusr cf. Menninghaus 2003, panicularly pp. 103-120. Menninghaus observes that „[t] he sensation of disgusr judges, as it were, on physical, aesrhetic, and moral levels, thus occupying-very much like rhe sensation ofbeauty-within the Kancian sysrem a srrategic poinc that unites all faculties. lt supplemencs the purely theoretical critique with a test of taste-with a dietetic organon judging all sorrs of 'food for the incellect'." (lbid„ p. l 14f.) 39 Translation modified. 38 1 Kants Apathowgy of Compassion with nature". lt cannot be forborn because it cuts through any kind ofimaginary or symbolic distancing. Disgust is a formation of ehe 'real' in Lacan's sense. Therefore it ruins ("zu Grunde zu richten") "all aesthetical satisfaction [ästhetische Wohlgefallen] and consequencly artificial beauty [Kunstschönheit]" (ibid.). As disgust collapses ehe difference between sensation and representation, it also tends to collapse the difference between ehe subject and the disgustful object-be it a suffering human being. From an aesthetical point of view, it thus marks ehe blind spot of the ethically and logically necessary self-implication of ehe morally judging subject into his own systematized rationalizations. Through disgust, ehe moral subject is blinded and thus beyond good and evil. Yet at the same time, we may presume, disgust is just the extreme reverse side of compassion and chus is related to ehe very possibility of practical reason; as surrogate or supplement of moraliry's truth, it kicks ehe solitary Pflichtvorstellung into ehe fullness oflife. Moreover, we can conclude that in analogy to ehe feeling of Achtung, which is a feeling "ehe necessity of which we can discern (einsehen)", in the case of disgust it is necessity as such, i. e. the necessity of subjectivation, i. e. moraliry's ultima ratio, which becomes an object of aesthetic experience. Thus it appears that in Kant's moral philosophy disgust is the-ugly-truth of ehe "necessiry, indeed urgency" of "a demand of moraliry itself", namely of "finding a sensible representation ofmorality" (Guyer 1993, p. 178).40 4° Cf. Menninghaus: "While virmally all pertinem scholarly work on Kant focuses on the duality of the sublime and the beautiful, rhe Kamian sysrem is in fact distinguished by a triad-that of'the feelings of the sublime, rhe beautiful, and the disgusting'. This triad proves tobe highly functional with regard to the paradigm ofphilosophical organa. [ ... ] Tue beautiful and sublime positively compensate for theoretical deficits of foundation and practical deficits of motivation; the feeling of disgust warns us away, and shelters us in negative-apotropaic fashion, from giving in to what would be opposite to the (groundless) good or the (unknowable) purposiveness of nature. As an effect of cultivation, such desirable achievements do not constitue a miraculous natural phenomenon,-proving chat the human being is namrally good in essence. Rather: to speak with Freud, in the end these positive functions of disgusr are instituted by the superego" (Menninghaus 2003, p. 116). 1 39 Wolfram Bergande Aesthetically speaking again, this ultimate necessity appears here in a most 'accidental' (Freud) form, namely in a form which, in everyday experience, is as pervasive as it is unpredictable: boredom. And just as disgust is ehe reverse side of compassion, Mitleid, and by the same coken ehe discontentful double of respect, Achtung, so analogously is boredom ehe discontentful (unbehaglich) double ofKant's moral apachy. For it is "disgusc" chac, in Kant's Anthropology, essentially defines "boredom". Boredom, lange Weile, wrices Kant, boils down co disgusc or nausea, given thac boredom is ehe "disgust [Anekelung] wich one's own existence, which arises when ehe mind is empty of ehe sensations coward which it incessancly strives [aus der Leerheit des Gemüths an Empfindungen, zu denen es unaufhörlich strebt, der langen Weile]" (Kant 2006, p. 43; Kant 2007, 07: 152). In ocher words: boredom is ehe disgust, Ekel, feie on the occasion of a permanencly frustrated striving for sensations. As we have every reason co suspect here, boredom or disgust become morally relevant precisely in cases where ehe 'representation of duty on its own', emptied as it is of all 'pachological' determinations, would not accomplish ehe practical decermination of ehe will. So we can furcher presume that it is through ehe aesthetical (i. e. ultimately: pachological) feelings of disgust and/or boredom that "[t]he rule of ehe Judgement according to laws of pure practical reason" (i. e. ehe categorical imperative) can indeed get suspended, a rule which obliges eo "ask yourself whecher, if ehe accion you propose were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you were yourself a parc, you could regard it as possible by your own will. Everyone does, in fact, decide by chis rule whether actions are morally good or evil" (Kant 1889, p. 161; Kant 2007, 05: 069). Affected by disgusc/boredom, ehe Kantian subject, like ehe Sc~ic, simply cannot ask himor herself whether he or she 'could regard' ehe propo40 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion sed action 'as possible by his or her own will'41 • This is because it is precisely disgust/ boredom which masks boch ehe self-implication of ehe subjecc's will into ehe moral law (conceived of in analogy co a 'system of nature') and ehe unconscious (quasinatural, quasi-pathological) "pre-determinism" of ehe will resulting from it; how such pre-determinism could possibly "co-exist wich freedom" is something which, as co Kant's Religion, "we want eo discern [einsehen], but we never shall" (Kant 2006, p. 94, Fn. *;Kant 2007, 06: 049). lt cannoc be discerned, in any case, unless ehe subject stops ignoring his or her as it were 'moral' disgust, which is compassion in its mosc extreme, namely ics most debased form. If, as Kant claims, in disgust 'ehe artistic representation of ehe object is no langer distinguished from the nature of ehe object itself in our sensation', i. e. if not even the artistic representation can temper disgust, chen a fortiori we may conclude chat accually any representation of ehe (disgusting) object 'is no langer distinguished from ehe nature of ehe object icself in our sensation'. Such 'moral' disgust thus makes it impossible co decide whether a sympathetic affect springs from intuition or racher from reason, i. e. whecher from 'pathological' infection by a social ocher ('humanitas aesthetica') or racher from the subject's 'practical' free will ('humanitas practica'). Thus in ehe experience of disgust ehe subject can no langer decide whether its 'represemation of dury', Pflichtvorstellung, is 'pathological' or 'practical'. For it is only in pure "chinking" chac 1 can imagine chac "I amfree, because 1 am not in an other, but remain simply and solely in communion with myself [schlechthin bei mir selbst bleibe], [„ .)"; nothing buc "[„ .) my activity in conceptual thinking is a movement wichin myself [meine Bewegung in Begriffen ist eine Bewegung in mir selbst]", 41 Cf. Cooper 1996, p. 266. 1 41 Wolfram Bergande as Hegel remarks in the Phenomenology wich respect to (not only) ancient Stoicism. As Hegel explains, this is because "[ ... ] in the case of a representation [Vorstellung], [ ... ] consciousness still has specially to bear in mind that this is its representation [Vorstellung]; on the contrary, the concept [Begrif.ß is for me srraighraway my concept [Begrif.ß" (Hegel 1977, p. 120). 42 Disgust breaks up this rational self-communion. So besides veiling the self-implication of the moral subject into its object and besides blurring the distincrion between pathological and moral compassion, disgust lastly makes it impossible even to discern whether the Pflichtvorstellung really is the subject's very own representation or not, and whether it is a representation of a concept or a representation in the sensuous, aesthetic sense. Screenshot from The Amputee (1974) directed by David Lynch 42 Translation modified. 42 1 Kants Apathology of Compassion While the Pflichtvorstellung tends to become indiscernible in the experience of disgust, and despite Kant's verdict about the impossible artification of disgustful objects, there are nevertheless artistic srrategies to counter the symptomatic knot interlacing disgust, apathetic boredom and painful compassion. David Lynch's The Amputee of 197 4 artistically stages and exposes such symptomatic feelings as they eventually mask an unconscious over-determinarion. 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