Duplicity

B. Duplicity (§616-631)

The consciousness runs into contradictions about morality at every turn. It is not possible to make Nature/reality a moral utopia because this destroys the very notion of moral laws (as discussed the in previous section, below) (§620). It is not possible to fully divorce the self from Nature and exist in a moral realm alone (§622). Morality, then, is doomed to always be imperfect. It cannot, therefore, be connected to happiness or the desert of happiness, which must instead be obtained through grace (§624-625). A divine being is needed to make sense of the relationship of morality and happiness, but even in this being the duplicity of morality in the world remains a conundrum (§629). Consciousness retreats into itself qua consciousness to escape this duplicity (§631)