The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Kurt - Die Selbstzersetzung der Verantwortlichkeitstheorie E. v. Hartmann's
According to Hartmann, an agent must be held morally responsible, because a normally organized person of our present civilization may be supposed to have a character, which enables him to resist temptations. He can arouse the activity of ideation, and meet his impulses with opposing motives. Here Hartmann deserts his principles and pursues a phantom of freedom. His presupposition is that morality has reached an advanced state of development before such resistance on the part of the doer is possible. Herein lies an unconscious acknowledgment of the fact that these moral powers necessarily influence the will. The fact that one man applies anti-impulsive motives, the other not, is due to the former's possessing more moral insight and will-power than the latter; and this condition depends on innumerable causes. The final product of all these causes is, therefore, absolutely determined, and cannot be considered free and responsible. In many passages of his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Hartmann's language is that of the determinist, in the face of which his attempt to find a basis for blame must be futile. It is a contradiction in his philosophy to hold, on the one hand, the uniform development of all physical and moral powers, on the other, to deny that they act according to uniform law. Because a man, who has been systematically trained, is able to resist temptations, he is not, on that account, free and responsible. K. would hold him responsible because certain causes must, if the conditions are favorable, necessarily produce insight and morality.