B. Bolzano’s doctrine of the highest principle of morality

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze B. Bolzano’s doctrine of the highest moral law. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved: the variants of justification of the supreme moral law proposed by Bolzano are investigated; the context in which Bolzano’s ethical views were formed is clarified; finally, the Bolzano’s doctrine is compared with Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative. The methods of rational reconstruction and historical-philosophical comparisons are used. The article consists of six sections. The first section talks about the role that the doctrine of the highest moral principle played in the philosophy of Bolzano. In the second section, two possible formulations of the supreme moral law are proposed and two variants of the justification of these formulations found in the works of Bolzano are examined — “subjective” and “objective” justification. The third section clarifies the context: it talks about the influence of Bohemian Josephism on the philosophy of Bolzano, two ethical teachings are considered separately: the practical ethics of K. H. Seibt and the moral theology of A. Zippe. The fourth section deals with Bolzano’s criticism of some aspects of the ethical teachings of the Enlightenment: Bolzano believed that hedonism could not be the cornerstone of the doctrine of morals, and he found the moral theologians’ conception of the status of practical truths incorrect. The fifth section gives the assessment that Bolzano gave to Kant’s ethics, and also analyzes separately the reasons why Bolzano criticized Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative. Finally, the sixth section clarifies some of the theses of the ethical theory of Bolzano, and also shows that the Bolzanian version of utilitarianism is able to cope with some of the problems of Kantian ethics.