Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

THE PSYCHOWGY OF INGRATITUDE 205
the viewpoint of merit, has the advantage of having been first in the field
of benevolence. (Significantly, some primitive peoples have succeeded
in evolving a practice and ethic of giving that eliminates the problem of
priority in giving.) Kant considers that gratitude is not a mere opportunist
maxim to secure a further benefit, but that the respect due to a
person on account of his benefaction to us is a direct requirement of the
moral law, in other words, a duty. But he goes even further:
'But gratitude must be seen as a sacred duty, as one, that is, whose
infringement ... may destroy the very principle of the moral desire to do
good. For that moral object is sacred in respect of which an obligation
can never be fully redeemed by an equivalent act. '
If Kant sets so high a value on gratitude, because it is not humanly
possible ever fully to requite the benefactor, it is surely because he
sensed the social discord, the chronic envy and resentment, that must
arise in a society where envy, and hence ingratitude, came to be sanctioned
as the accepted response. The moral obligation of gratitude thus
indirectly inhibits envious feelings of aggression. Without such an inhibition-exerted
upon the individual by the cultural ethos, by the
axioms of decency and by religion-there would be a danger that
unconsidered benefactions in a society might have altogether unexpected
consequences.
Kant also shows the frame of mind in which the duty of gratitude
should be performed and the manner of its performance:
The lowest degree is to render equal services to the benefactor, should he
be able to receive them (if still living), and if not, to extend them to others;
not to regard a benefaction received as a burden of which one would be glad
to be relieved (because the recipient stands one step below his patron, so
that his pride is wounded); but to accept the occasion of it as a moral
blessing, i.e., as a given opportunity to pledge this virtue of human love
[gratitude] which represents both the sincerity of the benevolent mentality
and the tenderness of benevolence (attention to the finest nuance of this in
the concept of duty), thus cultivating human love. 19
Most of us know people who find it almost impossible to accept help, a
kindness, a present or a benefaction. Psychiatry has described extreme
19 Op. cit., pp. 312f.