One of the features of this ethic is its insistence upon the primacy of self-consciousness. Indeed, it has its central point in the doctrine of self-consciousness, which, according to Fouillée, implies the consciousness of others and of the whole unity of mankind. Emphasising his gospel of _idées-forces_, he outlines a morality in which the ideal shall attract men persuasively, and not dominate them in what he regards as the arbitrary and rather despotic manner of Kant.
By advocating the primacy of self-consciousness Fouillée claims to establish an ethic which towers above those founded upon pleasure, happiness and feeling. The morality of the _idées-forces_ is not purely sentimental, not purely intellectual, not purely voluntarist; it claims to rest on the totality of the functions of consciousness, as revealed in the feelings, in intellect and will, acting in solidarity and in harmony.
He endeavours to unite the positive and evolutionary views of morality to those associated with theological or metaphysical doctrines, concerning the deity or the morally perfect absolute. He claims, against the theologians and on behalf of the positivists, that ethics can be an independent study, that it is not necessarily bound up with theological dogmas. There is no need to found the notion of duty upon that of the existence of God. Our own existence is sufficient; the voice of conscience is within our human nature. He objects, as did Nietzsche, to the formality and rigour of Kant’s “categorical imperative.” His method is free from the legalism of Kant, and in him and Guyau is seen an attempt to relate morality itself to life, expanding and showing itself creative of ideals and tending to their fulfilment.
From the primacy of self-consciousness which can be expressed in the notion, _Je pense, donc j’ai une valeur morale_, a transition is made to a conception of values. _Je pense, donc j’evalue des objets_. The essential element in the psychology of the _idees-forces_ then comes into play by tending to the realisation of the ideals conceived and based on the valuation previously made. Finally, Fouillée claims that on this ethical operation of the _idées-forces_ can be founded the notion of a universal society of consciences. This notion itself is a force operating to create that society. The ideal is itself persuasive, and Fouillee’s inherent optimism, which we have observed in his doctrine of progress, colours also his ethical theory. He has faith in men’s capacity to be attracted by the ideals of love and brotherhood, and insists that in the extension of these lies the supreme duty, and the ideal, like the notion of duty itself, is a creation of our own thought. The realisation of the universality, altruism, love and brotherhood of which he speaks, depends upon our action, our power to foster ideas, to create ideals, particularly in the minds of the young, and to strive ever for their realisation. This is the great need of our time, Fouillée rightly urges.[31] Such a morality contains in a more concentrated form, he thinks, the best that has been said and thought in the world-religions; it achieves also that union of the scientific spirit with the aspirations of man, which Fouillée regards as so desirable, and he claims for it a philosophical value by its success in uniting the subjective and personal factors of consciousness with those which are objective and universal.