WHILST the percept allows us to form a concept by way of thought, at which point we make a connection between the two, Steiner suggests that when we observe the thought-process itself we find ourselves involved in a “self-sustaining activity” that represents an immediacy of Spirit. Unlike those who form their one-sided worldview purely on percepts, ensuring that true reality always involves a necessary interaction between percepts and concepts leads to the identification of true essence by way of intuition.

Although this “unprejudiced observation” makes it possible to form an idea of humanity’s psychological and physical constitution, this inherent organisational faculty has no impact on the nature of thought. In actual fact, at the very moment thinking begins the entire “psycho-physical” dimension grinds to a halt:

It suspends its own activity, it yields ground. And the ground thus set free is occupied by thought. The essence which is active in thought has a two-fold function: first it restricts the human organisation in its own activity; next, it steps into the place of that organisation. Yes, even the former, the restriction of human organisation, is an effect of the activity of thought, and more particularly of that part of it which prepares the manifestation of thinking. This explains the sense in which thinking has its counterpart in the organisation of the body. (p.77)

The “psycho-physical” sphere may have no impact on thinking, but the latter component – relating to the body – nonetheless performs an important role in that whilst the Ego represents the authentic character of thought the process of thinking impresses itself upon the consciousness with the result that “Ego-consciousness” becomes manifest in the physical side of human organisation. This, in turn, is utilised by thought in what Steiner terms “spiritual self-subsistence”.

It is from the faculty of human organisation that individual acts of will come into play and these have two distinguishing characteristics, the “motive” and the “spring of action”:

The motive is a factor of the nature of concept or idea; the spring of action is the factor in will which is directly determined in the human organisation. The conceptual factor, or motive, is the momentary determining cause of an act of will; the spring of action is the permanent determining factor in the individual. The motive of an act of will can be only a pure concept, or else a concept with a definite relation to perception, i.e., an idea. Universal and individual concepts (ideas) become motives of will by influencing the human individual and determining him to action in a particular direction. (p.78)

Naturally, we do not all behave in the same fashion and therefore each of us reacts differently to a concept in the sense that an act of will is done in accordance with who we are as individuals.

Borrowing some of Eduard von Hartmann’s own terminology, in this case the phrase “characterological disposition,” Steiner explains that we respond to ideas and concepts on the basis of the moral or ethical outlook that has been formed during the course of our lives. The Austrian describes this individual outlook as “ideal content,” something we accumulate as we use intuition to fashion concepts during our encounters with percepts. When a concept becomes the motive for an act of will, it is based on whether the individual is likely to derive pleasure or pain:

The immediately present idea or concept, which becomes the motive, determines the end or the purpose of my will; my characterological disposition determines me to direct my activity towards this end. The idea of taking a walk in the next half-hour determines the end of my action. But this idea is raised to the level of a motive only if it meets with a suitable characterological disposition, that is, if during my past life I have formed the ideas of the wholesomeness of walking and the value of health; and, further, if the idea of walking is accompanied by a feeling of pleasure. (p.78)

The moral “springs of action” are thus based on motives that have been framed in accordance with one’s subjective character and, once a particular concept has affected the character itself, leading to an act of will.

Although these “springs of action” can execute a more basic role, such as when an object is perceived instinctively and we immediately perform an act of will in order to satisfy hunger or a sexual urge, they also operate on a more supreme level in the sense that we react to certain percepts out of moral goodness. Steiner regards the decision to employ tact, for example, as something that can exert a profound effect on the individual’s “characterological disposition”. Feelings play a similar role in that if a percept from the external world involves us coming face to face with someone who is clearly suffering, we experience a “spring of action” that evokes within us the emotions of pity, empathy and compassion.

Apart from natural instinct, good behaviour and feelings of sympathy, we must consider how our personal lives are impacted by thought:

An idea or a concept may become the motive of an action through mere reflection. Ideas become motives because, in the course of my life, I regularly connect certain aims of my will with percepts which recur again and again in a more or less modified form. Hence it is that, with men who are not wholly without experience, the occurrence of certain percepts is always accompanied also by the consciousness of ideas of actions, which they have themselves carried out in similar cases or which they have seen others carry out. These ideas float before their minds as determining models in all subsequent decisions; they become parts of their characterological disposition. (p.79)

In many ways, this process can facilitate a kind of second nature that enables the individual to bypass his or her former experiences altogether. This involves moving straight from the percept to practical action, i.e. pure thought without recourse to perceptual content, something viewed by Steiner as a mark of existence at the “highest level”. One of the main sources for the development of this idea is the little-known theologian, Johannes Kreyenbühl (1846-1929), whose 1882 Philosophische Monatshefte also attributes the “spring of action” to a form of intuitive immediacy.

It could be argued that the “spring of action” ultimately transcends von Hartmann’s “characterological disposition,” with intuition itself becoming responsible for the act of will. As Steiner concedes, real acts of will involve concepts having an effect on the “characterological disposition” until it results in a motive:

The motives of moral conduct are ideas and concepts. There are Moralists who see in feeling also a motive of morality; they assert, e.g., that the end of moral conduct is to secure the greatest possible quantity of pleasure for the agent. Pleasure itself, however, can never be a motive; at best only the idea of pleasure can act as motive. The idea of a future pleasure, but not the feeling itself, can act on my characterological disposition. For the feeling does not yet exist in the moment of action; on the contrary, it has first to be produced by the action. (p.80)

This means that whilst altruistic gestures are often brought into question if someone has an ulterior motive, i.e. opening a door for a stranger purely for the sake of appearing virtuous, they must be attributed to Egoism. In the worst cases, an individual will even impose his or her personal morality at the expense of others.

Steiner highlights an interesting contrast between the individual who acts morally simply on account of something being determined by a legal authority, such as the state, and those who act in accordance with their own conscience and practice what he terms “moral autonomy”:

It is a great moral advance when a man no longer takes as the motive of his action the commands of an external or internal authority, but tries to understand the reason why a given maxim of action ought to be effective as a motive in him. This is the advance from morality based on authority to action from moral insight. At this level of morality, a man will try to discover the demands of the moral life, and will let his action be determined by this knowledge. Such demands are 1) the greatest possible happiness of humanity as a whole purely for its own sake, 2) the progress of civilisation, or the moral development of mankind towards ever greater perfection, 3) the realisation of individual moral ends conceived by an act of pure intuition. (p.81)

At the same time, there will always be different interpretations of progress based on whether one favours civilisation for personal pleasure or civilisation for the happiness of all. Steiner, of course, was writing at a time when civilisation – as irreversibly broken and twisted as it appears today – seemed to offer a sense of hope.

In the case that morality is driven purely by intuition, it does not relate to one’s experiences and therefore operates in isolation from the percepts that we ordinarily interact with during the course of our lives. Unlike the way in which we either act in accordance with the public good or in the belief that we are helping to advance civilisation, Steiner tells us, there is a third form of morality which relies solely on “conceptual intuition” for its motive-towards-action:

On nearer consideration, we now perceive that at this level of morality the spring of action and the motive coincide, i.e., that neither a predetermined characterological disposition, nor an external moral principle accepted on authority, influence our conduct. The action, therefore, is neither a merely stereotyped one which follows the rules of a moral code, nor is it automatically performed in response to an external impulse. Rather it is determined solely through its ideal content. (p.82)

Kant’s theory of ethics rejects the idea that the “rightness” of an action is decided by how fruitful its outcome is, preferring to abide by the notion that the motive or means of a particular action determines its moral value. In other words, that the spirit in which something is done far outweighs the actual consequences. If, therefore, someone performs a “righteous” act without maintaining full knowledge of what they are doing the act itself becomes an expression of “false consciousness”.

In Western philosophy, this principle is known as the “ethics of disposition” (Gesinnungsethik) and relies on the idea that the autonomy of each individual is assured by the manner in which their moral disposition is used in relation to others. Acting in an ethical fashion, therefore, is said to guarantee the freedom of the self as much as it secures the integrity of those selves it comes into contact with. To refrain from enslaving others, for example, also ensures that one avoids becoming a slave.

Steiner regards his own interpretation of moral ethics to be the precise opposite of Kant’s, simply because performing a moral deed solely on account of it being “valid for all men” would spell the end of individual action. Indeed, it is the individual who must decide what is right or wrong in each particular instance and Steiner thus offers the following response to those who claim to be “ideally determined” by pure intuition:

This objection rests on a confusion of the moral motive with the perceptual content of an action. The latter, indeed, may be a motive, and is actually a motive when we act for the progress of culture, or from pure egoism, etc., but in action based on pure moral intuition it never is a motive. Of course, my Self takes notice of these perceptual contents, but it does not allow itself to be determined by them. The content is used only to construct a theoretical concept, but the corresponding moral concept is not derived from the object. The theoretical concept of a given situation which faces me, is a moral concept also only if I adopt the standpoint of a particular moral principle.

At a time when forced lockdowns, mandatory vaccinations and state incarceration is presented as a way of dealing with those who have somehow failed in their “moral duty,” Steiner’s remarks seem even more pertinent:

If I base all my conduct on the principle of the progress of civilisation, then my way through life is tied down to a fixed route. From every occurrence which comes to my notice and attracts my interest there springs a moral duty, viz., to do my tiny share towards using this occurrence in the service of the progress of civilisation. In addition to the concept which reveals to me the connections of events or objects according to the laws of nature, there is also a moral label attached to them which contains for me, as a moral agent, ethical directions as to how I have to conduct myself. At a higher level these moral labels disappear, and my action is determined in each particular instance by my idea; and more particularly by the idea which is suggested to me by the concrete instance. (pp. 82-3)

The manner in which we react to various situations is determined by our level of intuition. Naturally, this involves drawing upon the extensive reservoir of ideas that we have gathered during the course of our lives and once it is connected to the capacity for action it overrides all other moral principles. Steiner calls this “Ethical Individualism”:

If we want to understand how man’s moral will gives rise to an action, we must first study the relation of this will to the action. For this purpose we must single out for study those actions in which this relation is the determining factor. When I, or another, subsequently review my action we may discover what moral principles come into play in it. But so long as I am acting, I am influenced, not by these moral principles, but by my love for the object which I want to realise through my action. I ask no man and no moral code, whether I shall perform this action or not. On the contrary, I carry it out as soon as I have formed the idea of it. This alone makes it my action. If a man acts because he accepts certain moral norms, his action is the outcome of the principles which compose his moral code. He merely carries out orders. He is a superior kind of automaton. Inject some stimulus to action into his mind, and at once the clock-work of his moral principles will begin to work and run its prescribed course, so as to issue in an action which is Christian, or humane, or unselfish, or calculated to promote the progress of culture. It is only when I follow solely my love for the object, that it is I, myself, who act. At this level of morality, I acknowledge no lord over me, neither an external authority, nor the so-called voice of my conscience. I acknowledge no external principle of my action, because I have found in myself the ground for my action, viz., my love of the action. I do not ask whether my action is good or bad; I perform it, because I am in love with it. (pp.83-4)

That which Steiner terms “loving intuition” is responsible for determining good moral action in the external world and this is something that happens without any form of coercion.

Alternatively, a “criminal act” is attributed to the base instincts that are said to appear within the human condition in equal measure. Based on feelings, these tendencies cannot belong to one’s individuality because they are not part of the unified world of ideas. Passions and cravings certainly reveal our more general affinity with humankind, but it is only when something “ideal” appears among such instincts that our true individuality becomes apparent:

My instincts and cravings make me the sort of man of whom there are twelve to the dozen. The unique character of the idea, by means of which I distinguish myself within the dozen as “I,” makes of me an individual. Only a being other than myself could distinguish me from others by the difference in my animal nature. By thought, i.e., by the active grasping of the ideal element working itself out through my organism, I distinguish myself from others. Hence it is impossible to say of the action of a criminal that it issues from the idea within him. Indeed, the characteristic feature of criminal actions is precisely that they spring from the non-ideal elements in man. (p.85)

It is here that we get to the root of Steiner’s insistence that an act which stems from the “ideal” dimension of the individual character is free, whilst that resulting from the compulsion of instinct is something that is imposed. Furthermore, as we have seen, to perform something purely on the basis that it is a duty excludes the possibility of freedom and subjects the individual to a “general norm”. Thus, Ethical Individualism is denied.

Some will claim that the expression of individual morality would lead to absolute chaos and that society would be incapable of functioning in any effective fashion. However, to suppose that a “common moral order” should be imposed upon all individuals demonstrates that

the Moralist does not understand the community of the world of ideas. He does not realise that the world of ideas which inspires me is no other than that which inspires my fellow-men. This identity is, indeed, but a conclusion from our experience of the world. However, it cannot be anything else. For if we could recognise it in any other way than by observation, it would follow that universal norms, not individual experience, were dominant in its sphere. Individuality is possible only if every individual knows others only through individual observation. I differ from my neighbour, not at all because we are living in two entirely different mental worlds, but because from our common world of ideas we receive different intuitions. He desires to live out his intuitions, I mine. If we both draw our intuitions really from the world of ideas, and do not obey mere external impulses (physical or moral), then we cannot but meet one another in striving for the same aims, in having the same intentions. A moral misunderstanding, a clash of aims, is impossible between men who are free. Only the morally unfree who blindly follow their natural instincts or the commands of duty, turn their backs on their neighbours, if these do not obey the same instincts and the same laws as themselves. (pp.85-6)

As for the actual manner in which an individual exercises his or her personal will, this is carried out in accordance with the particular range of ideas and concepts that has been acquired.

This is not to suggest that the free individual does not wish his neighbours to behave in the same way, but unlike the proclivities of those who are driven by the instinct of the herd this is never issued as a demand. Steiner says of the gross hypocrisy that surrounds the issue of morality, that

human nature must be compelled to act as long as it is not free. Whether the compulsion of man’s unfree nature is effected by physical force or through moral laws, whether man is unfree because he indulges his unmeasured sexual desire, or because he is bound tight in the bonds of conventional morality, is quite immaterial. Only let us not assert that such a man can rightly call his actions his own, seeing that he is driven to them by an external force. But in the midst of all this network of compulsion, there arise free spirits who, in all the welter of customs, legal codes, religious observances, etc., learn to be true to themselves. They are free in so far as they obey only themselves; unfree in so far as they submit to control. Which of us can say that he is really free in all his actions? Yet in each of us there dwells something deeper in which the free man finds expression. (p.86)

The Austrian is aware that such ideas may be interpreted as a form of utopian idealism and that perhaps many people seem perfectly incapable of living up to the rigours of Ethical Individualism, but given that man is an “object of perception” he is subject to constant change. As a consequence, this fact allows for

the possibility of transformation, just as in the plant-seed there lies the possibility of growth into a fully developed plant. The plant transforms itself in growth, because of the objective law of nature which is inherent in it. The human being remains in his undeveloped state, unless he takes hold of the material for transformation within him and develops himself through his own energy. Nature makes of man merely a natural being; Society makes of him a being who acts in obedience to law; only he himself can make a free man of himself. At a definite stage in his development Nature releases man from her fetters; Society carries his development a step further; he alone can give himself the final polish. (pp.87-8)

The “free spirit,” Steiner declares, is the final stage of human development and whilst he concedes that shaping one’s conduct in accordance with morality when it is imposed from without is often part of that same development we should not regard it as the “absolute standpoint” of morality itself. Becoming a free spirit means transcending all social, political, economic and religious norms:

The philistine who looks upon the State as embodied morality is sure to look upon the free spirit as a danger to the State. But that is only because his view is narrowly focused on a limited period of time. If he were able to look beyond, he would soon find that it is but on rare occasions that the free spirit needs to go beyond the laws of his state, and that it never needs to confront them with any real contradiction. For the laws of the state, one and all, have had their origin in the intuitions of free spirits, just like all other objective laws of morality. There is no traditional law enforced by the authority of a family, which was not, once upon a time, intuitively conceived and laid down by an ancestor. Similarly the conventional laws of morality are first of all established by particular men, and the laws of the state are always born in the brain of a statesman. These free spirits have set up laws over the rest of mankind, and only he is unfree who forgets this origin and makes them either divine commands, or objective moral duties, or—falsely mystical—the authoritative voice of his own conscience. (p.88)

Steiner might also have added that absolute freedom is absolute responsibility. Free to choose, but not free from the consequences of your decision.

It has never been the case that man should create a righteous universe in which everyone must conform to the dictates of moral law, simply because morality exists by way of the individual. Similarly, it is not a case of striving to be moral but of acting beneath the spirit of a “moral idea”.

By locating morality within the human constitution, Steiner reminds us that institutions such as the state are merely a subsequent outgrowth of the individual. This is why the individual requires a healthy social order to sustain his needs, not to mention ensure his freedom.

These ideas on “Ethical Individualism,” at least when they appear in a more general tone, contain strong echoes of the self-autonomy that one finds in Max Stirner’s (1806-1856) The Ego and Its Own and Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil and The Gay Science, with Stirner almost certainly influencing Ernst Jünger’s (1895-1998) later works Eumeswil and The Forest Passage. In that sense, perhaps, Rudolf Steiner was part of the same defiant spirit of Germanic individualism.