European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

THE ETHICAL DIMENSION IN EUROPEAN IDENTITY 309We are now at a crossroads that makes us perceive the enormousburden that the modern man of European culture has placed on hisback, since our anthropocentrism brings our moral identity back to usas well as the unpardonable moral sense of our actions. (To begin with,it is obvious that modern man has loaded himself, paradoxically, withtons of rational faith..., that “condemn” him, if he does not sufficientlyreflect upon it, to the risk of leaving all of it on his back, and to thusremain suffering from a singular and now perverse unconsciousnessmade of imputable distraction and irresponsible behaviour.)Culture, civilization (legality), moralization. illustrationand moralizationWith this double title I want to summarise the link between theseconcepts or landmarks of Kantian philosophy. We have understood,from the depths of what reason means, that for Kant the demand formoralization comprises the sense of rational action in history. And thathistory pursues human fulfilment as a search for absolute good.Morality is the perfect determination of man. But Kant has a problemin what he makes of his manifestation. In what he makes of hismanifestation, the creation of man has, let us say, a merely politicalphenomenalistic appearance; it is the implantation of legality in thewomb of which freedom positively looks for its centre.We are facing the logical difficulty that results from the nonphenomenicalnature of moral good, as the rigorous terminology ofKantian criticism have delivered it to us. Something that, on the otherhand, supports our experience: the best laws do not seem to make mangood. Sometimes we are still tempted to stay with Rousseau, when wefind that the gadgets of our civilization seem to be encouraging our evilnature to act. 13Kant has not been too explicit about the encounter betweenmorality and politics, although he has said enough to make us think. Infact, Kant has inspired very determining theories on the present thatdescry the two sides of the dilemma, in view of giving phenomenicalmediation to morality (discourse ethics, for example, anchored in thefact of language; think of Habermas and Apel) and in order to fine13Kant has seen this clearly in another way, when he notices that a longer lifewould be unbearable for humans, since we would be condemned to experience therough tracks of our unsociabilities even in relation to our loved ones. It is a fact thathistory unwraps the abyss of evil.