Feilbogen’s brief review examines F. W. Neurath’s twenty-five-page pamphlet, published in Vienna in 1891, on whether statesmen are bound by private morality. Its central passage locates Neurath’s answer in the distinction between particular moral prescriptions and their ultimate purpose:
Nicht die einzelnen Vorschriften der Privatmoral sind nach Neurath für den Staatsmann massgebend, wohl aber der höchste Zweck derselben, nämlich die Förderung eines Reiches vollendeter Geistigkeit und Liebe.
English translation: According to Neurath, it is not the individual precepts of private morality that are authoritative for the statesman, but rather their highest purpose, namely the promotion of a realm of perfected spirituality and love.
Political action thus remains morally directed without being governed by each rule of private conduct. The review moves from this longstanding controversy to Neurath’s proposed criterion, then situates it within his broader worldview. Feilbogen characterizes that outlook as highly idealistic yet grounded in Kantianism and Darwinism, and recalls its earlier presentation in Neurath’s economic and social essays of 1880. The pamphlet applies this established outlook specifically to politics.
Feilbogen offers a compact exposition rather than a sustained evaluation. The review’s conceptual interest lies in its account of how Neurath preserves an ethical end for statesmanship while distinguishing political judgment from obedience to private moral rules.
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