Bergson, Henri

Abstract

Abstract Henri Bergson's (1859–1941) most sustained contribution to ethics is to be found in his final main book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (TSMR), which was published in 1932. Prior to the appearance of this work his commentators could only speculate on the “ethical implications” of his philosophy, linking his critique of scientific and psychological determinism and championing of unforeseeable novelty in the world – as espoused in his three previous main books, Time and Free Will (1889), Matter and Memory (1896), and Creative Evolution (1907) – with the concerns of ethics, especially questions of freedom (for one such attempt, see the study by Sait 1914). As one commentator notes, for several years Bergson had expressed doubts whether he would publish a book on ethics or morals simply because he doubted whether he could attain conclusions as demonstrable as those of his other texts. Philosophy proceeds by a definite method and can legitimately claim as much objectivity as the positive sciences, though of a different kind (Lacey 1989: 197). Bergson was, therefore, in search of an approach to ethics that would satisfy the ambition he had set for philosophy: that of achieving precision (Bergson 1965: 11). In what follows I will outline the contribution to ethics Bergson makes in the opening chapter of the TSMR and focus on illuminating the two sources morality has in his account. At the end of the opening chapter of the book Bergson states that all morality is in essence “biological,” though he does say we need to give the word “biology” the wide meaning it should have. Bergson is often construed, along with Nietzsche, as an irrationalist and a philosopher of life ( see Nietzsche, Friedrich). However, what Bergson criticizes is the idea of self‐sufficient reason and so he is better seen as being anti‐intellectualist rather than advocating irrationalism (William James [1909] said it was Bergson who liberated him from intellectualism; see James, William). This has two main aspects: first, a rejection of the view that we can be moved by ideas or intelligence alone; and, second, criticism of Kant's conception of an ethics of duty ( see Kant, Immanuel).