Conscious Human Action 11Eduard von Hartmann, in hisPhenomenology of Moral
Consciousness, claims that human willing depends on
two main factors: motive and character.^4 If we consider
all human beings as the same, or at least see their differ-
ences as negligible, then their will appears to be deter-
mined fromwithout, namely by the circumstances they
encounter. But if we consider that different human beings
make an idea or mental picture into a motive only when
their character is such that the idea in question gives rise
to a desire, then human beings appear to be determined
fromwithin and not fromwithout. But because we must
ourselves make an idea that impinges from without into a
motive of action in accordance with our character, we
imagine that we are free, that is, independent of external
motivation. But, according to Eduard von Hartmann, the
truth is that
even though we ourselves first raise ideas into
motives, yet we do this not arbitrarily, but accord-
ing to the necessity of our characterological organi-
zation; that is, we are anything but free.
Here, too, no consideration is given to the difference
between motives that I allow to affect me only after hav-
ing permeated them with my consciousness, and those
that I follow without having a clear knowledge of them.
- Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906),Die Phänomenologie des sittli-
chen Bewusstseins[Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness] (1879).
Von Hartmann combined the views of Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer
into a doctrine of evolutionary history based on the conflict of uncon-
scious will with unconscious reason. He was a major figure of the time
and influenced many subsequent thinkers, including C. G. Jung.