Let us answer the first question by saying that no single definition can be given of obligation. Rather is it true that there are n1 least two quite different types of the consciousness of obligation, each of which racist be described in its own way. Following Kant, we may call these two types the eategorical and the hypothetical. In the latter case a person is conscious that lie ought to do a thing if he wants to sperme a cer tain end; in the of her lie judges that he ought to do a thing, without being able to assign any end as the necessary means of obtaining which the action is obligatory.
Taking up first the consciousness of conditional obligation, which is called the hypothetical im perative. we find that the complex mental process can be described as follows: 'I want a certain result; and I judge that a certain act is indispen sable if I am to secure that result. Therefore I am conscious that in so far as 1 am motived by m the desire and directed by y judgment 1 must in consistency perform the act,' The fact that when a certain desire and a certain judgment respecting the means of satisfying this desire are present in consciousness a certain act is re quired for consistency's sake, is the fact of hy pothetical or teleological obligation. When I experience that requirement in my conscious ness I say that I ought to do that act. Man as desiring and as not securing a certain object is man at odds with his environment. Man as de siring and yet as not doing what he knows to be necessary to secure a certain object is man at odds with himself. He is inconsistent. His ac tion does not comport with his desire, and be cause he knows that there is this incompatibility his action does not comport with his knowledge. It is unintelligent and irrational. The irration ality of the act is concrete and not abstract. It consists in ineongruousness with a known definite situation. Vary the situation, and the demand of reason or the obligation varies likewise. The obligation is contingent, because reason itself alone cannot create it. But given a desire and a knowledge of some means to gratify it, and there always is in a thinking being, just so far as he thinks, the consciousness of the incompatibility be tween the existence of the desire and a failure to perform the act known to be a necessary means of satisfying the desire. In ease there are two
desires, and the necessary measures to be taken to appease them cannot both be taken, there arises a conflict of obligation. This conflict is adjusted only when one desire has become superior to the other. Then its corresponding obligation be comes superior also. Reason takes into consid eration the aseendency of this desire, and in this concrete situation decides in favor of that eon duet which this desire imposes. Often the part played by reason in the conflict of obligations is still greater, for it often happens that the rela tive strength of a desire is modified by knowledge of the results that follow its gratification. Its nature as desire is not changed: it does not cease to be desire because it is modified by knowledge of consequences. But ;is a desire which is the function of reasoned knowledge, it is a concretely rational desire. Now, in the case of a conflict of obligations. it hoppers frequently that a eon cret ely rational desire is stronger than random desires. and its correlative obligation is supreme over competing obligations. In such a case we have in the fullest sense a supreme reasonable obligation, whieh. however, is after all condi tional or teleological.
lint there are obligations which are eatego•ied. Often we do not say to ourselves. 'Do this lie eause you want that.' but merely. 'Do this.' There in conseionsuess a command saying 'Thou shalt.' or 'Thou shalt not,' and often this commandment is recognized as having right ful 111111101'n y. 1141W does this COMM:1nd arise? To some extent. withmit question, it arises by reason of an economieal tendency to abbreviation, characteristic of all mental processes. We begin by saying to ourselves. 'Do this, because :you want that,' and we end by saying shortly, 'Du this.' And not only may we fail to give a reason, but, as often happens in other reasoned processes, we may come to forget that we have had a reason. Then the command appears as self-evidently rea sonable. That this process actually takes place cannot be denied. lint it is perhaps not the strongest influence at work in producing categor ical imperatives. For this we must perhaps look to another principle well recognized in psychol ogy, though not as yet, so far as the writer knows, ever applied to explain the consciousness of unconditional obligation.