ABSTRACT
The contradictions of the "moralities" forbid a simple comprehensive survey. Ethics must then be unitary in itself—it must be so in a sense more cogent than are other philosophical disciplines. If the Idea of pure ethics is contained in every morality, one would think that within this there would be somehow contained the sought-for unity of ethics. The manifold of the moral consciousness is not exhausted in that of positive morality. The latter constitutes here, as it were, only one dimension of the organization, and indeed of an organization taken over empirically and only presented outwardly. Unity of purpose is a fundamental requirement of the moral life. Therefore all ends which are capable of being pursued, all positive norms, commandments and types of morality, are necessarily exclusive and tyrannical. But unity of end is a postulate of life and of conduct.
