Part 1: The Cult of Man

First, there is one ambiguity that must be eliminated first and foremost.

To make the trial of individualism easier, it is confused with the narrow utilitarianism and utilitarian selfishness of Spencer and economists. It’s makes arguing about it much easier. It is all too simple to denounce as an ideal without grandeur this petty commercialism that reduces society to being nothing more than a vast apparatus of production and exchange, and it is too clear that all communal life is impossible if there are no interests superior to individual interests. That such doctrines should be called anarchic, nothing is more deserved and we give our support to them. But what is unacceptable is that we reason as if this individualism were the only one that existed or even possible. On the contrary, it is increasingly becoming a rarity and an exception. Spencer’s practical philosophy is so morally miserable that it no longer has many supporters. As for economists, if they once let themselves be seduced by the simplism of this theory, they have long felt the need to temper the rigour of their original orthodoxy and to open themselves to more generous feelings.

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But there is another individualism that is less easy to overcome. It has been professed for a century by the very great generality of thinkers: it is that of Kant and Rousseau, that of the spiritualists, that which the Declaration of Human Rights has tried, more or less fortunately, to translate into formulas, that which is commonly taught in our schools and which has become the basis of our moral catechism. It is true that we believe we can reach it under the guise of utilitarism, but it differs profoundly from it and the criticisms that apply to one cannot be appropriate for the other. Far from making self-interest the objective of conduct, he sees in everything that is self-motivated the very source of evil. According to Kant, I am only sure to do the right thing if the reasons that determine my actions are not the particular circumstances in which I am placed, but my status as a man in abstracto. Conversely, my action is bad, when it can only be logically justified by my financial situation or my social condition, by my class or caste interests, by my passions, etc. This is why immoral conduct is recognized by this sign that it is closely linked to the individuality of the agent and cannot be generalized without manifest absurdity. Likewise, if, according to Rousseau, the general will, which is the basis of the social contract, is infallible. If it is the authentic expression of perfect justice, it is because it is a result of all particular wills; consequently, it constitutes a kind of impersonal average from which all individual considerations are eliminated, because, being divergent and even antagonistic, they neutralize and erase each other. Thus, for both of them, the only moral ways of acting are those that can be appropriate for all men without distinction, that is, those who are involved in the notion of man in general.

Here we are far from this glorification of private well-being and interest, from this selfish cult of the self for which utilitarian individualism has been criticized. Quite the contrary, according to these moralists, duty consists in turning our eyes away from what concerns us personally, from everything that relates to our empirical individuality, in order to seek only what our human condition claims, such as it is common to us with all our fellow men. This ideal even goes so far beyond the level of utilitarian ends that it appears to the consciences that aspire to it as all imbued with religiosity. This human person, whose definition is like the touchstone according to which Good must be distinguished from Evil, is considered sacred, in the ritual sense of the word, so to speak. It has something of the transcendent majesty that the Churches of all times attribute to their Gods; it is conceived as invested with this mysterious property that empties around holy things, that abstracts them from vulgar contacts and detracts them from the common flow. And that is precisely where the respect for it comes from. Whoever makes an attempt on a man’s life, a man’s freedom, a man’s honour, inspires a sense of horror in us, in every way similar to that experienced by the believer who sees his idol profaned. Such a morality is therefore not simply a hygienic discipline or a wise strategy of existence; it is a religion in which Man is both the faithful and the God.

But this religion is individualistic, since it has the human being as its object, and a human being is an individual, by definition. There is even no system whose individualism is more intransigent. Nowhere are the rights of the individual affirmed with more energy, since the individual is put on the list of sacred things; nowhere is he jealously protected against infringements from the outside, wherever they may come from. The doctrine of the utilitarian can easily accept any kind of compromise, without lying to its fundamental axiom; it can admit that individual freedoms are suspended whenever the interest of the greatest number requires this sacrifice. But there is no such compromise possible with a principle that is thus put outside and above all temporal interests. There is no reason for a state to excuse an attack on a human being when human rights are above the state. If individualism is, therefore, by itself, a catalyst for moral dissolution, we would have seen it manifest its anti-social essence by now. This time, we can see how serious the issue is. Because this 18th century liberalism, which is basically the whole subject of the dispute, is not simply a theory for ministerial cabinets, a philosophical construction; it has become a reality, it has penetrated our institutions and customs, it is part and parcel of our whole lives, and if we really had to get rid of it, it is our entire moral organization that would have to be rebuilt at the same time.