ABSTRACT
The worlds of sociability and the corresponding worlds of play and art are ideal worlds and in this sense ‘artificial’. Only in them this maxim of sociability – the gratification of all is the necessary condition of the gratification of each – is automatically realized and only in them is, thus, themoral imperative substitutable for the aesthetic imperative. In all other social worlds reciprocity precludes moral maxims and ethical principles. As Simmel explicitly stated, this kind of a pure social interaction is possible only among equals, which is a condition which Simmel hardly thought would reign innormal social interaction in the ‘real world’.
