Mystical Ethics

A Study in the moral philosophy of W. T. Stace

(1886-1967)

By Kareem Essayyad

Contents

1. introduction

2. The problem of ethics in the modern mind

3. Is a religion possible ? (Basis of religion)

4. Are ethics possible ? (Basis of ethics)

5. Conclusions

6. Bibliography

Introduction

W.T. Stace (1886-1967) is one of the most important philosophers in the

western history of thought, who was concerned with the deepest and most

universal problems in the modern world in general, and who reached some

extraordinary absolutions.

One of his big concerns was the ethical problem in its most general aspects.

He traced its linkages with religion, science, mysticism and the modern western

view of nature of the modern common philosophical systems, specially logical

positivism and analytic philosophy.

Although he can be included in some traditional conclusions, the special

quality which made him rather different from who ended to the same ends was

his consciousness of the scientific view to the world, and his critical view to both

scientific and religious ones.

His very far -or very high- step was to try to make some reconciliation

between empiricism and mysticism, not by interpretation, but by the empirical

methodic steps of induction, as it shall be seen soon.

This paper aims to pursue and describe stace's trial of solving the ethical

modern problem which he presented in separated books, especially "Religion and

Modern Mind" and "Mysticism and Philosophy". He did that through the main

stages we can enumerate as follows:

1. Showing the manners determining the medieval view to the universe. This

step is important to explain the problem of the modern mind of religion and

ethics, briefly we can say that the modern problem of ethics emerged as an

accidental result of the scientific revolution, but not as a methodological one.

This step can be considered as an introduction to the next.

2. Showing the manners of the modern view to the universe. This is made by a

special concentration on three elements: the existence of God, teleology of the

world and the ethical view of our universe, showing the differences between

the medieval and modern points of view in these three aspects. These three

points are strongly correlated to each other in a system begins by theism

which mostly leads to the belief in teleology of our world. This teleology can

establish a kind of objectivistic values to obtain an objectivistic – or altruistic

if we are more accurate – ethics.

3. Confirming that the essence of morals should be, and can only be, the

mystical view, not the mechanical (in the modern age) nor the religious (in

the medieval age). To make this step he tried to describe scientifically the

mystical experience and to affirm its common existence even in animals. He

also had to explain his new idea; the mystical element is the real substance of

every religious experience. Hence, comes the final step:

4. Finally he tried to present his ideas as a digestible matter of thought to the

modern mind. Then he tried to conciliate between mysticism and empiricism,

firstly by the refutation of the objection of empiricism against mysticism, and

secondly by inducing the objectivity of the theosophical experience all over

the world major mystical groups by a semi-scientific method.

Now, we can pursue these stages, to come finally to some critical

observations that form the final conclusions in the end of this paper.

- 1 -

The problem of ethics in the modern mind

1- Medieval view of the universe:

In the very beginning, we should understand the fact that, the view of the

medieval human being to his universe was controlled by religion, unlike modern-

man's one, which is shaped through science. To make use of this section we

should remember that distinction(1).

This control or shaping does not provide us with any kind of information

about our universe directly. The geological age for example is not present

directly in the holly book, but was calculated from it. And the existence of God,

on the other hand, is not demonstrated by science as a fact, nor the opposite.

Stace represented that control and shaping as a background in man's

consciousness, very general background. It controlled men's views

psychologically, not logically(2)

. This is the second important point we should

take in our consideration.

By these previous two points, Stace could explain how the role of religion

was decreased while the mechanical view extended, although the mechanical

view itself did not refuse religions. These realities may by the essential addition

to the modern philosophy in this book.

The medieval view in points was as follows:

1. World was created from nothingness by God, in 4004 p.c. commonly. Dante

thought it was created in 5200 p.c. This world may come to an end in 4004

A.C., and there were three great events which formed the universal and

historical drama: Adam's fall, incarnation of Jesus and the day of Judgment(3)

.

.23م( ص 1998، 1ستيس، الدين والعقل الحديث، ترجمة: إمام عبد الفتاح إمام، )مكتبة مدبولى، ط ولتر (1) السابق، الموضع نفسه. (2) .24السابق، ص (3)

2. this world is spherical or circular, and it is the centre of universe. Everything

goes around it. That gave human beings some divine essence, or was a result

of believing in such divinity in them(4).

3. Being created by God, world behaves according to some divine plan, which

human beings should know and behave in their lives according to a

corresponding plan. This corresponding plan is ethics.

After this exposition we can reach three main realities about the medieval

view;

1. God does exist.

2. This universe is designed to reach a determinate aim, or controlled by it.

3. This universe is ethical. (For it has a rational and moral end of God's own)

We can observe the association from 1 and 2 to result in 3, as the existence

of God forced psychologically the human mind to arrive to the belief in teleology

(no. 3) and that teleology being objective led it to an objectivistic system of

ethics.

That could have continued forever, but the scientific revolution changed

something important in the unconscious background we spoke about erstwhile.

2- The Scientific Revolution:

The birth of modern science was during the 17th

. century, in which some

famous splendid scientists and thinkers deconstructed and reconstructed the

medieval view.

Firstly, came Copernicus (1473-1543), his most famous achievement was

the theory of heliocentrism instead of geocentrism. The ancient science supposed

the apposite giving the following facts:

1. Earth is fixed.

السابق، الموضع نفسه. (4)

2. All planets go around it.

3. Planets courses are circular(5).

But these suppositions made hard difficulties to classical scientists, and

made the whole course of any planet or star very complex. That was because

scientists observed the locations of the planets (Mars for example) all over the

year and drew the course like that:

West

Shape no. 1

And that made the whole course of Mars around earth to be like that:

Shape no. 2

This complex movement was supposed for every planet and star in the sky,

with that conversion in the shape no. 1. What was achieved by Copernicus is to

simplify that diagram. He observed that this conversion could be explained if we

suppose the earth goes around the sun, and all planets do so(6).

Then came Kepler (1571-1630) with his three laws of the movements of

planets, and Galileo (1564-1642) with his discoveries. Stace explained all of this

and came to an end which he thinks it can sum up all the conflict between

science and religion, for example the situation of Galileo against men of religion

.71السابق، ص (5) .72-71السابق، ص (6)

East

when they refused all his discoveries not to miss with their beliefs(7). Stace

deduced that this conflict was not a scientific nor religious, but was a

philosophical one between the teleological view of the universe, and the causal

classical one.

In a previous location it was ensured that the teleological view to the

universe is not contradicted methodologically with the causal, because an end can

be converted to a cause if there is a desire to do so. One may think there is a

cause really for the falling of the apple, and that cause (general law of

gravitation) is God-made for certain purposes. God's will can be a theological-

natural-supernatural cause.

That causal mechanical view of our universe achieved a historical victory,

and became the general theory of Newton (1642-1727) and Laplace (1719-1827),

and psychologically got rid of the divine providence and was the reason why

people became behaving as if God does not exist, although science did not

confirm that or refute the opposite at all.

What is important here is that the view of the world does not aim to any

thing. Either God exists or not, this view could eliminate every kind of

objectivistic criteria of ethics, leading to the subjective ethics or relativism.

For stace, the relativity of morals does not make any kind of morals,

because the essence of ethics is altruism, and the essence of all evils is egoism(8)

.

3- Breakdown of Morals:

We should understand an important fact of Stace here. He did not agree

with any kind of relative ethics and thought the basis of the objective ethics in the

medieval age was the Judeo-Christian tradition which was crystallized around the

dogmatic belief in God's existence(9)

.

.81السابق، ص (7)(8) W. T. Stace: Mysticism and philosophy (J.B. Lippincolt company, USA, 1

st. Ed., 1960) p.

324.

(9) www.philosophy.lander.edu/intro/stace.html.

Existence of God is not activated if we do not believe in providence, and

that existence is the sole essence -or basis- of the objective criteria of ethics. In

the long chain of causes we are supplied with by mechanism, we can not easily

find a place for God. Even if he is -or was- in the beginning of it, he is now very

far from us. Psychologically, we begin to behave as if God does not exist in our

lives(10)

.

There were logical contradictions between mechanism (or science) and

religion. The contradiction is psycho-methodological in nature. We can find three

causes made this contradiction:

1. Achievements of science: people were dazzled by the modern discoveries and

inventions, and they knew that the revolution of 17th

century was because

scientists became concerned more in causality and mechanism. (Not the

opposite!)

2. Complete causal explanations: Any teleological explanation became

accessory and useless, or even against the spirit of the natural science.

3. Concentration on causes only: to attain scientific progress.

When the teleological view disappeared from modern mind, here came an

ethical problem. That was because Stace thought that teleological view is the

basis of the objectivistic criteria of morals, without it we can never reach any

morals but relative individual or utilitarian societal ones. We here observe him

going beneath ethics commands to discover its origins, walking the same way as

Nietzsche (1844-1900) and differing from him in the end. Nietzsche reduced

these commands into the conflict amongst powers and desires of human beings:

"Jews, people who come to existence for slavery, with all ancient ages…

.108: 104ولترستيس: الدين والعمل الحديث، ص (10)

succeeded in converting values… Converting the poor to be a saint or a

friend"(11)

.

فردرش نيتشه: ما وراء الخير الشر، ترجمة: محمد عضيمة )المكتب العالمى لمطباعة والنشر، بيروت، د.ط، د.ت( (11) .220ص

- 2 -

Is a Religion Possible ?

- Basis of Religion -

Mentioned previously is the breakdown of religion and morals in the

perspective of Stace. Now we talk about the possibility of a religion in the

modern world and mind.

Some philosophers agreed with Stace's view to the religious basis of

morals, like Paul Tillich,. The latter believed that providence can supersede the

ountic anxiety, while forgiveness supersedes ethical anxiety, while the existence

of God supersedes the spiritual one"(12)

.

Another existentialist may agree also within limits. J.P. Sartre refused the

secularist ethics saying that "the existentialistic philosopher strongly rejects that

kind of secularist ethics, which tries to dismiss God paying the minimal

exertion"(13)

. But we may observe the different meanings. It is the difference

itself between mysticism and atheistic existentialism. Although there is some

field for the comparison between both.

Some other philosophers refused the religious basis, like Kai Nielsen who

thinks that the religious ethics infantilizes us by its their pressure on concern and

providence(14)

. Among Arabic thinkers we can find Adel Dahir who believes that

ethics are former to religion and may be the basis of it, otherwise how can we

have any knowledge about the good nature of God, if we do not have any

knowledge about goodness itself? If we have the latter knowledge, why do us

need religions to be ethical? (15)

.

.121-120( ص2، ط2005الثقافة العربية، القاهرة، يمنى طريف الخولى: الوجودية الدينية )دار (12) .23م( ص1954دميان )دار بيروت، لبنان، د.ط، ناحجان بول سارتر: الوجودية فمسفة إنسانية، ترجمة: (13)

(14) J. P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, op. cit., p. 102.

.194( ص 2004، 1ر المحروسة، القاهرة، طعادل طاهر، نقاًل عن عاطف أحمد: اإلسالم والعممنة )دار مص (15)

We make these comparisons because Stace himself made some of them

during his research in "the effect of mechanism on philosophy". He found some

philosophers strongly affected by mechanism positively and tried to develop a

view about the universe and mind based on it. Like Descartes, Hobbes, Hume,

Comte, Vahinger and the logical positivists like Moritz Schlick, A. J. Ayer and

R. Carnap. He also found who were negatively affected and reacted, like

Descartes (again), Berkeley, Kant, Hegel and idealists after Kant, romanticism

and the absolute idealism in England and U.S.A. (16)

.

On those comparisons Stace rested the ability of religion to make sense to

the modern mind by ethical view to nature and humanity.

Descartes adopted the famous dualism: Body and soul. He agreed with

mechanism completely in the field of body and extension, but he also agreed

with the religious view in the spiritual field. Therefore we find him on both of the

two fronts(17)

. He made a relation between God and the world when he thought

the existence of materials depends on the existence of God himself.

Consequently, the existence of God was substantial to maintain his system(18)

.

Hobbes (1588-1679) was the first naturalist philosopher in the modern ages,

his belief in God was accidental, while his theory of the world was completely

materialistic even concerning the soul. He believed also strongly in mechanism

and general causation, and made ethics relative and individual(19)

.

Hume (1711-1771) was more powerful and effective. He went further than

Hobbes in his criticism of causality, in brief we can say without any exaggeration

that his refusal to the necessity was an effective element in the developing of

.171: الدين والعقل الحديث، ص سولتر ستي (16) .179، 178السابق، ص (17) .181السابق، ص (18) .183، 182السابق، ص (19)

non-teleological view of the universe. Necessity, according to him, is not a given

fact, and it is of daughters of our minds(20)

.

Reaching Vahinger, we can see a restrictive refusal to the absolute from the

point of view of the critical positivism, there is nothing called the "Absolute",

"the thing in itself", nor "the self". Nothing survives except sensations. They are

the existent and the given, from them world entirely came in its natural and

psychological partitions. Critical positivism asserts that every other claimed

different opinion is a mere subjective difference that cannot be real in terms of

positivism. There are only phenomena, they are existent and uniformed… any

explanation different from that cannot explain anything otherwise by fictions"(21)

.

Comte (1798 –1857) - according to stace- derived his ideas from Hume.

He presented the formal formula of the positivism. He divided the history of

human race into three stages: the theological, the metaphysical and the

positivistic stages. In the first stage man learned to explain the natural

phenomena by Gods and souls. In the second he began to explain them as some

kind of abstract powers and laws. But in the third he explained all phenomena by

observable events. It is the scientific stage(22)

.

Stace reaches- in his brief exposition to non-teleological doctrines -logical

positivists. They agree with Comte that all metaphysical sentences are

meaningless. Their enemies were fond of assuring that the positivism itself has

its own metaphysics unconsciously, but it all depends upon the meaning given to

metaphysics. The point here is: no fact but facts of science, no science but

mathematics and natural sciences. According to this, Ethical statements are

meaningless, and are considered instead as imperative formulae(23)

.

.193-184السابق، ص (20) .199-198السابق، ص (21) .199السابق، ص (22) .201السابق، ص (23)

Stace turns to the opposite side, i.e. the side of the religious philosophies.

He begins by the theory of extreme idealism of Berkeley, this theory denied the

objective existence of things and considered them as being products of our

perception. Nothing can be or maintain its being unless there is a mind – one at

least – to perceive it. This idea led him to the hypothesis of the existence of God.

Things would stop existing without a mind experiencing them, then we should

assume God is existent(24)

.

Kant also reached the same view in a different way. Kant's proper success

was the discrimination between the two worlds: world controlled by teleology,

freedom and stability, and another world controlled by causality, determinism

and becoming. That differentiation enabled him to adopt the two views –

scientific and religious – completely without exceptions, because each view can

be applied to the world that it belongs to. That was the main idea in his Critique

of Pure Reason(25)

.

Stace turns afterwards to romanticism referring to its trial to work against

the positivistic view by discovering ambiguous elements in nature around atoms

and rays. That was shown through some examples from the English romanticistic

poetry(26)

.

He ends to the beginning of the 20th

century when idealism and

romanticism failed in their own aims and the scientific stream came back

extremely although the discoveries of the contemporary physics, e.g. General

Theory Relativity and Quantum. On the literary front, realism in literature

became the dominant tendency(27)

.

.216-212السابق، ص (24) .222-221السابق، ص (25) .235-230السابق، ص (26) .240-237السابق: ص (27)

Till now, Stace has shown the conflict and its fate. He will present his own

theory about the possibility of religions in the scientific civilization. To be clear,

we should ask these questions:

- Does religion contradict with science itself methodologically and/or

theoretically?

- If it does not, can we believe in God?

- If we can, what is the nature of God exactly?

- If we know it, what is the essence of religions?

Firstly, Stace, as we mentioned, does not think there is a real contradiction

between religion and science. He believed the problem of that claim was arisen

and developed by philosophers not by scientists. Science does not say a word

about the religious reality, positively nor negatively. We can see here a Kantian

division. We can attack the religious realities by our scientific and logical tools,

but in vain. Vainly also we try to demonstrate God, angels and revelation

scientifically. The previous sections ensured this enough by turning the

methodological and logical contradiction between religion and science to a

psychological one successfully, if we can say so(28)

.

Can we believe in God according to the arguments of His existence? Stace

naturally, and according to his previous point of view, cannot accept any

scientific or pseudo–scientific arguments. He cannot accept scientific ones

because this will be interference between science and religion which he separates

one from another. And he cannot also accept the pseudo–scientific arguments

because it will be a false inference scientifically. He can only, and wants really

to, accept a non-scientific argument.

Accordingly, he began to refute all classical arguments on being of God by

a self-discussion and self-criticism. He confuted them one by one. He discussed

the argument of "the chain of causes" which tries to prove God's existence by

.251-250السابق، ص (28)

supposing there is surely a first cause to all causes of being and change in the

world, namely God. Stace asks himself why there should be a first cause, why we

consider the infinite regress is a fallacy(29)

. Moreover, if there is a first cause,

why we imagine it as a mind or a soul, why it is not a mere material cause. He

reaches at the end to a conclusion that this conception was, in fact, a teleological

one, to serve moral points of view(30)

. He discussed also the argument of

miracles, he thought they are too old to persuade anyone of anything.(31)

.

Then he came to approach God's nature, he analyzed it and discussed every

quality. Firstly, it is said God is a mind or awareness, eternal, omnipotent,

omniscient, universal, perfect and pure goodness. He focused here on the

paradox, classical indeed, of stability and change. God is supposed to be constant

in his nature because he is eternal, and that contradicts with His being as a

universal mind because we here should understand the word "mind" in its human

meaning i.e. like the human mind which consists of a chains of changeable ideas.

That is not consistent with the stability supposed(32)

.

Another paradox is related to the creativeness of God, because of the

contradiction between the creating activity and eternity. One comes from change

and the other comes from stability(33)

.

The third paradox shown here is of the omnipotence of God. It contradicts

with the rules of logic and the existence of evil in the world, that paradox was

discussed in details by Hume(34)

.

Some thinkers after complete despair ended to the idea of secrets, according

to it we can believe in some irrational believes considering them as secrets i.e.

.252السابق، ص (29) .253السابق، ص (30) السابق، الموضع نفسه. (31)

.254السابق، ص (32) .255السابق، ص (33)

.256السابق، ص (34)

accepted ideas even they are contradicted with the natural logical mind(35)

. Stace

cannot be supposed, being an empiricist, to accept such a situation which jump

from complete ignorance and scruple directly to a completely devoted faith.

Stace then tried to solve the problem by understanding the essence of

religion in general "the essential reality of religion, of every religion, is that there

is some way to go outside the darkness of this life, a way to light. No aim for our

way now, but the aim of the another way is delight and cheerfulness.. then what

is that way?" (36)

.

For stace there are two ways: ethical, which he severely refuses to be the

essence of religion, because it lacks itself an empirical proof, and mystical, which

he affirms that it is the real essence of every religion, and which he thinks it does

not lack such a proof. According to him Mysticism is immanent in every

religious experience, for it is not confined only to they who are the so-called

mysticists(37)

.

He began then to analyze the mystical experience and found four special

properties(38)

:

1. All in one, and one in all, i.e. the unity with the Absolute.

2. The surreal vision, a vision which is outside time-place and mind.

3. That vision cannot be described by words, because words depend in its

function of distinction, and there are no distinctions in that kind of visions.

4. That experience is of cheerfulness, happiness, peace and freedom.

Here, Stace arrived to the middle of his way to morals, in the next chapter,

he would complete it.

.257السابق، ص (35) .261السابق، ص (36) .263ابق، ص الس (37) .267السابق، ص (38)

- 3 -

Are Ethics Possible ?

- Basis of Ethics -

Stace thought the mystical experience could be a successful source of moral

commands, but he had to show two points:

1. How can the mystical experience be a basis for ethics?

2. Is it an objective experience? Is its matter objective?

The last point is divided into two partitions: the first is related to the

experience itself being objective or not, i.e. being available for every human

being. The second is related to the object of that experience, its knowledge being

objective or subjective.

Stace answers the second question by asserting that "the basis of the

mystical theory of ethics is that the separateness of individual selves produces

that egoism which is the source of conflict, grasping, aggressiveness, selfishness,

hatred, cruelty, malice and other forms of evil; and that this separateness is

abolished in the mystical consciousness in which all distinctions are annulled…

no separateness of I from you, or of you from he, and that we are all one in the

Universal self- the emotional counter part of this is love. And love, according to

the theory, is the sole basis, and also the sole command, of morality"(39)

.

Hence, he called that experience "trans-subjective", in which we cannot find

any duality between the object and the subject; all is in one, in the universal self.

But there is still the first point with regard to objectivity, some people have

not any moment of theosophical feelings, what is the proof they all have some

kind of moral ability? Stace believed every one of human beings had some

moments of mystical experience, even if he was not aware of it(40)

.

(39) W.T. Stace, mysticism and philosophy, J.B. Lippincott company, USA, 1

st Ed., 1960, p.

324. (40) Idem.

There is a reason for the epistemological and linguistic isolation of

mysticists from others. Stace thought there are two theories explaining this, the

first is the emotions theory, according to it, the deeper our feelings are, the harder

to be expressed. That is a problem of ineffability; it is not only a problem of

language, but of logic also, because emotions are so complicated and ambiguous.

The second theory to explain this is the spiritual blindness; people cannot easily

understand the mystical experience exactly as a blind man cannot understand the

word "red", but stace made certain of this, the problem here is a mere linguistic

one, and the mystical experience is universal(41)

.

Stace believed that, the data of such experience are objective because of

what is called catholicity Evidence. That evidence depends upon the similarity

amidst mystical experiments all over the world, and that is a proof of the honesty

of mysticists and of the objective truth of the mystical experience(42)

.

(41) www.homepages,ihug.co.nz/drandmkw/spirit/wtsy%20%20mb6.

.159ن: نظرية المعنى عند والتر ستيس )دار الثقافة لمنشر والتوزيع، د.ت، د.ط، ص محمد محمد مدي (42)

CONCLUSIONS

Previously, we talked about the mystical ethics of W.T. Stace in three main

topics:

1. The problem of ethics in the modern mind: and showed that the modern mind

was so different from the medieval one. The point of difference was the

scientific revolution in the 17th

century. It changed a lot of concepts of human

kind about world by determinism and causation, and the contradiction

between science and religion was neither a scientific contradiction nor even a

logical one, but it was psychological in nature. There is not a real

contradiction between them.

2. Is a religion possible?: and said that there were some philosophical trials to

get the religious mind back and vice versa. We talked about some of these

trials and showed that, the ethics cannot be based on the religious basis of

medieval age.

3. Are ethics possible?: and talked about the trial of stace to set up some kind of

ethics theoretically upon mysticism, considering it the essence of every

religion. Mysticism can be the basis of ethics for the contemporary mind

because it is the source of love, and it can eliminate the distinctions between

the ego and the others, and it covers all the distance between the object and

the subject.

Bibliography

I. Primary literature:

1. Stace, W. T., Mysticism and philosophy, J.B. Lippincott company, USA, 1st.

Ed., 1960.

، القداهرة 1عقل الحدديث، ترجمدة: إمدام عبدد الفتداح إمدام، مكتبدة مددبولى، طترنس: الدين وال ستيس، ولتر .2 م.1998

II. Secondary literature:

1. Moreland, J.P. and Nielsen, Kai, Does God Exist ?, Prometheus Books,

Buffalo, New York, N.E., 1990.

م.1954، دار بيروت، لبنان، د.ط، سارتر، جان بول، الوجودية فمسفة إنسانية، ترجمة: حنا دميان .2

لمطباعدددة والنشدددر، العدددالم نيتشددده، فدددردرش، مدددا وراء الخيدددر والشدددر، ترجمدددة: محمدددد عظيمدددة، المكتدددب .3 بيروت، د.ت، د.ط.

III. References:

م.2004، 1أحمد، عاطف، اإلسالم والعممنة، دار مصر المحروسة، القاهرة، ط .1

.2م، ط2005دار الثقافة العربية، القاهرة، الخولى، يمنى طريف، الوجودية الدينية، .2

مدين، محمد محمد، نظرية المعنى عند والتر ستيس، دار الثقافة لمنشر والتوزيع، د.ت، د.ط. .3

VI- Web Sites:

- www.homepages.ihug.co.nz/drandmkw/spirit/wts%20%20mb6.

- www.philosophy.lander.edu/intro/stace.html.