150 Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
notwithstanding the universality of the world of ideas. To
the extent that the intuitive content turns into action, it is
the ethical content of the individual. Allowing this intui-
tive content to live itself out fully is the highest driving
force of morality. At the same time, it is the highest mo-
tive of those who realize that, in the end, all other moral
principles unite within it. We can call this standpointeth-
ical individualism.
What is decisive in an intuitively determined action in
a concrete instance is the discovery of the corresponding,
completely individual intuition. At this level of morality,
we can speak of general moral concepts (norms or laws)
only to the extent that they result from the generalization
of individual impulses. General norms always presup-
pose concrete facts from which they can be derived. But
facts are firstcreated by human action.
When we seek for laws (or concepts) in the actions of
individuals, peoples, and eras, we discover an ethics that
is not a science of ethical norms but a natural history of
morality. Only the laws obtained in this way relate to hu-
man conduct as natural laws relate to a particular phenom-
enon. But they are by no means identical with the
impulses on which we base our actions. If we want to un-
derstand how a human action springs fromethical willing,
we must look first to the relationship of that willing to the
action in question. First, we must focus on actions for
which this relationship is decisive. If I or another later re-
flect upon such an action, then we can discover which eth-
ical principles are relevant. While I am acting, an ethical
principle moves me to the extent that it can live within me
[29]
[30]
