Morality

C. Morality (§596-598)
A. The Moral View of the World (§599-615)

The Spirit has now entered a world in which it understands its unity with a spiritual universal, and thus understands its duty (moral action). It understands and performs this duty; on a spiritual level it both gives the laws of duty and performs them (Kant). On a practical level, however, the moral conscience is a process, not an unchanging state of moral understanding. This is because the moral conscience must mediate, it must make decisions about how laws of duty apply to actual circumstances, and it must deal with the human question of the relationship of moral action and happiness (I take this to mean personal success and worldly consequences of actions).

In the practical sense the moral world cannot be perfect. The consciousness postulates a moral perfection - God - so as to make sense of its own imperfectness by describing a relationship: the sinner to God. However, there are too many questions inherent in the picture of God as a moral perfection (§608-612). Most problematically, comparing the morally imperfect world (the place where moral laws apply) to a morally perfect one is to suggest that the greatest moral perfection is a world in which moral laws are not necessary or do not apply. The paradox here means we cannot take the perfection of moral laws to be the true goal of Spirit (§613-615).