José Ingenieros: Some Approaches to Las Fuerzas Morales

Abstract

In the prologue to Las Fuerzas Morales, José Ingenieros states that this book completes the panoramic vision of a functional ethics. El hombre mediocre is a critique of morality; Hacia una moral sin dogmas, a theory of morality; and Las fuerzas morales, a deontology of morality. In all of them, the concept of an ethical idealism grounded in social experience prevails, clearly distinct from the deceptive idealisms of old metaphysics.

Ingenieros maintains that the man who treasures these forces acquires moral value: an upright sense of duty that conditions his dignity. He thinks as he must, speaks as he feels, and acts as he wills. He neither pursues rewards nor is intimidated by misfortunes. He receives adversity with serenity and victory with prudence. He accepts responsibility for his own mistakes and refuses complicity in the errors of others. Only moral courage can sustain those who stake their lives for their homeland or their doctrine, rising to heroism. Nothing is less like it than the occasional recklessness of the braggart or the praetorian, who face sterile risks out of vanity or for pay. An hour of episodic bravery is not equivalent to the courage of Socrates, Christ, or Spinoza: a constant convergence of thought and action, and a clear condemnation of the unhealthy superstitions of the past.

The purpose of this contribution is, in part, to draw some comparisons with the present of our nation and to attempt to show whether or not time has proved Ingenieros right. It also seeks to recover the thought of a major Argentine thinker, now stored away and forgotten in almost all the libraries of our country.