The most important invention, which became established in the second half of the 17th century after long discussions about "false piety," (falsche Devotion) can be understood as a kind of supercoding of the Virtues/Vices scheme. In this (retained) scheme, a further distinction is made on the virtues side between true and false virtues,[57] and interest is then focused almost exclusively on this distinction. It is now assumed that it is not possible to infer motives from actions.[58] This (post-Aristotelian) distinction between Action and Motive opens up space for further distinctions in the area of motives that can be applied to one and the same action. Esprit distinguishes between human (social) virtue and true virtue. Only the original code itself, only the formal scheme of "réverénce pour la vertu et l'aversion pour la vice"[59] is still considered natural and innate, while the actual theory is offered only with the supercoding of the virtues. The moral code is thus doubled again on the side of the virtues with the help of the old distinction between Being and Appearance according to "true" and "false". "La vertu humaine veut avoir un grand nombre de témoins et d'approbateurs; et sa vraye (!N.L.) inclination n'est pas d'être mais de paraître. La vraye vertu ne se soucie que d'être; elle est même bien aise quand on l'ignore; et ceux qui la pratiquent, ne demandent point d'autre témoignage que celuy de leur conscience."[60] One need only delete or equate the adjectives humaine and vraye in this sentence, which at first glance do not contradict each other, and the Paradox suppressed by the construction appears.
~
Luhmann N (2008): Die Moral der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 303.