Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Conflicting duties

After duties toward oneself and God, Crusius comes to what could be called the essence of natural law, that is, the duties toward other human beings. In effect, this section brings forward completely new facts about humans - they live in societies, because they can benefit from one another, because they feel attachment and love to one another and because they generate further human beings. Yet, in a sense this realm of natural law in the strict sense is grounded on realms of ethics and natural theology. Firstly, according to Crusius, accomplishing duties toward other people presupposes that one has already perfected oneself, as ethics demands. Secondly, and even more importantly, both the need for other humans and the duties toward them are based on the will of God, which humans are supposed to obey. In other words, Crusius notes, we are obligated to love God, because he loves us, and since God wants humans to live in a community, we are obligated to do that and help one another. As it should be clear by now, Crusius doesn’t think we should expect any earthly happiness from doing our duties, and indeed, he insists that good and security of the community is always more important than our own happiness.

The central role of divinity in Crusius’ account is a clear move against the suggestion of Wolffians that atheists could form a rational society. Crusius admits that one could construct a discipline based merely on the idea of a human community, which would then describe means by which human beings in such a community could live well. Yet, such a discipline would lack the power to oblige anyone to follow its rules, Crusius insists, which is then provided by the assumption of God’s existence. Furthermore, he adds, the aid of God and his judgement is required, when convincing people who cannot follow complex chains of reasoning.

Crusius admitted that although in principle all of natural law could be deduced, God has also given a faculty for discerning answers to questions concerning it, for the sake of people who are untrained in reasoning - this faculty he calls conscience. Now, Crusius admits that individual conscience is fallible. Thus, he concludes, we should justify our moral sentiments with proper proofs, to remove the possibility of error.

The task of demonstrating natural law starts by finding out its principle. Crusius notes that this notion of principle has an ambiguous meaning. Firstly, when looking for this principle, one might be searching for the ultimate force which turns rules of natural law into proper laws - this, as we have seen, is the will of God. Secondly, and more pertinently, the search for a principle might look for grounds, by which natural law can be known.

The question for grounds of knowing natural law, Crusius continues, has again many possible meanings. Firstly, one might be looking for capacities which enable human being to know natural law - these capacities are, as Crusius has pointed out, reason and conscience. Secondly, and again more pertinently, one might search for the concepts, from which natural law can be deduced and especially the highest law, from which other parts of natural law can be deduced. These concepts, Crusius concludes, are human nature, its relation to God and all the relations connecting human beings to one another, while the highest law says that we humans should act toward one another in accordance with the perfection of our essence, our relationship to God and all the connections God has created between humans. This may sound like a mouthful, but Crusius adds a helpful explanation - we should be guided by an obedience and love toward God, love all humans for their own sake, be aware that natural law concerns also other humans, since they have been created for the same goals, and because of love toward other humans, join a community to advance divine purposes.

Crusius divides natural law into further parts. Firstly, there is the natural law in a yet more restricted sense - the study of how we should behave, when we assume no difference between governed and governors - civil law - study of a need to form a government and of rules of behaviour for governed and governors - and finally, law of nations - study of duties that nations have toward one another. In practice, Crusius still appears to continue with a more general study of how, for instance, duties in all areas of natural law can be divided. For instance, he notes that duties in natural law are necessary or contingent, while necessary duties are either absolutely or hypothetically necessary.

If we go through some important divisions Crusius notes, firstly, he states that some duties in law of nature are based on the obligated person loving someone, while others are based more on communal nature of human beings. The first type of duties do not require reciprocity, while the other type demands that both persons help one another. Another important division concerns whether duties are negative or positive. First type consists of duties telling us not to do what goes against God’s purposes, while second type consists of duties telling us to do what God’s purposes demand.

Crusius notes that the object of duties can also vary. Some duties we are meant to do toward certain individual persons, while other duties are directed indeterminately toward all humanity and still third type consists of duties toward parts of whole humanity, such as our own nation. Crusius notes that the latter two types divide into positive duties that are meant to help all humanity and to negative duties where we are meant to avoid making the accomplishment of human goals impossible.

In addition to duties, Crusius for the first time notices also rights. Similarly to duties, Crusius divides rights to negative and positive rights. We have a negative right for something when no law nor a condition validated by law determines or restricts our actions concerning it, barring laws that restrict all actions. That is, if there’s nothing to restrict us from eating an apple - for instance, no one else owns it - we have a negative right to eat it. Positive rights, on the other hand, are such that are generated by laws or conditions validated by laws, such as contracts - for instance, we have a positive right to eat an apple we definitely own. Some positive rights are based on civil laws, while others are based even on natural law. For instance, many duties prescribed in natural law can also be regarded as positive rights, Crusius notes - we are obligated to keep ourselves healthy, but it is also our right to do so.

Crusius notes that both duties and rights can be internally or externally obligated. By an internally obligated duty Crusius means a duty that has its justifying ground in the matter itself, for instance, when we are obligated to follow a rule that is reasonable. Externally obligated duty, on the other hand, is to be done for other reasons than for the inherent nature of the action, for instance, when we are obligated to follow a decree of a king in order to retain the stability of community. Internally obligated right, on the other hand, has a justifying ground, which might be such that is not known, while externally obligated right seems like a right, although it might have no justifying ground - clearly, one can also have rights that are both internally and externally obligated.

Crusius notes that while a person might have an internal right for something, another person might not be internally obligated to respect that right, firstly, because the other person might not know the relevant circumstances justifying that right, and secondly, because it might not be determined who exactly is bound to satisfy that right (for instance, when a person has a right to expect the community to provide her livelihood, but no particular citizen is tasked to take care of that). Similarly, Crusius continues, a person might be internally obligated to do something for another person, although this other person would have no internal right to expect this, since God can in certain conditions demand that we do such things. Furthermore, although a person would have an external obligation to do something for another, this other person might have no internal right for this - for instance, when the first person has signed a contract that would make her lose all her belongings, the other person has no true right to ask for this. What can be said, according to Crusius, at least generally, is that externally valid right corresponds to an externally obligated duty, that is, we are bound to generally respect what seems like a right. Of course, Crusius notes, a mere external right is never a true right in the eyes of God, no matter what all humans think.

Now, it might seem like all these various duties and rights might sometimes contradict one another. True, Crusius admits, duties and rights are connected to some goals, and actions striving toward different goals can hinder one another. Yet, this does not mean that statements describing our various duties and rights would ever contradict one another - and since they are based on God’s decrees, Crusius insists, they can’t. What happens in such a case of collisions is that our finite minds forget that divine laws can be infinitely multilayered and describe various exceptions when certain rules of conduct do not hold.

Thus, in case of such a collision, Crusius concludes, we should try to determine which of the duties and rights is to be respected most in these particular conditions - for instance, if we know one duty to be absolutely necessary and the other just in certain conditions necessary, then we must follow the absolutely necessary duty. What we shouldn’t do is to just accept the opinion of majority in all cases.

In case of conflicting duties in particular, Crusius notes the importance of distinguishing objective from subjective duties. By an objective duty Crusius means a duty that is meant generally for all humanity, but not specifying who or in what conditions is to fulfil it. A subjective duty, on the other hand, is specifically meant to be fulfilled by a certain individual in certain conditions. If of two colliding duties one is objective and the other is subjective, Crusius concludes, the subjective duty must always be preferred, since we can always assume someone else will fulfill the objective duty.

If both duties are either subjective or objective, Crusius suggests several possibilities to choose between them - for instance, if one duty is more certain, then we should follow it. An important dividing line for Crusius is the goal that a duty has - for instance, a duty to make humans more virtuous means more than a duty to make them happy. If no other ground for choice can be found, then one must look for the quantitative extensiveness of what is achieved by the duties.

A peculiar case Crusius considers happens when we have a single duty to fulfill, but we are uncertain which person should be its target. Crusius suggests we should usually choose the more virtuous or at least the more useful person. The exception is the case when the other person is in danger of dying and needs our instant care.

Crusius notes that usually, when we have a determined duty colliding with someone’s right, then the duty must prevail. Crusius notes that this duty must be based on something more than mere another right, since then we are actually dealing with a collision between rights. Furthermore, he notes as exceptions cases where, firstly, upholding the duty would break a number of humanly important rights, and secondly, when the goods gained by upholding the duty are not incomparably small in comparison with goods lost by breaking the right.

Finally, Crusius considers the cases, where rights collide with other rights. He notes that positive rights are weightier than negative rights. If many persons have a positive right to the same thing, then the thing in question should be divided, if it is possible, and if not, then give the right to the person who first claimed it. If all the colliding rights are just negative, then actually all human beings would have the same right to the thing, and since anything cannot be divided between all humans, Crusius argues, the first one to put their claim on the thing should have the right for it. Finally, Crusius notes that even if technically we would have a right for something, in order to maintain good relations to others it is often best to cancel our own claim to have a right.

So much for the general part of natural law, next I’ll be tackling the most general duties and rights in it.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Worshipping God

After talking about duties toward oneself, Crusius turns his interest to duties toward God. In some sense, he notes, we have been talking about them all the time, because all duties are based on God’s will and therefore duties toward God. Still, there are some duties that are specifically duties about God, which is their immediate object.

Now, one might wonder how God can be an object of a duty, since God is supposedly immutable and no one can actually do anything to him. Crusius clarifies that it is more a question of, firstly, our notion of God, and secondly, of our relationship to God. In other words, it is our immediate duty toward God to act in accordance with his perfection and our relationship to him.

It is thus our duty to obey God, Crusius says. In fact, he says, all duty is in a sense obeying God since God wants us to obey all duties. Crusius considers the question whether the duty to obey God would make God an awful tyrant. Crusius notes that this duty is not just arbitrary whimsy of a dictator, but flows from the very nature of divinity.

Two sides exist in human mind, Crusius continues, cognitive understanding and volitive will, and both have their own duties toward God. If we start from the side of the understanding, Crusius notes that we are obligated to know God, since it is noblest thing to know the ultimate source of everything. This does not mean that we should know God perfectly, since as we are imperfect entities, our knowledge is always limited. Still, we should try to know what God actually is and what kind of properties he has, what he wills and what he has achieved in the world (creating and sustaining the world, to start from the obvious). Furthermore, Crusius remarks, we should try to know other things as parts of a hierarchy, the pinnacle of which is God.

Yet, knowing God is not the only cognitive duty toward God that Crusius recognises. Indeed, he notes that in addition to knowledge we might have beliefs, not just in the broad sense of convictions, but in the sense of weaker convictions that might still be doubted. Now, Crusius says, we might have rational reasons to believe in this strict sense something, even if we couldn’t demonstrate its certainty. Particularly, he says, if disbelief would break an obligation toward God, we should choose belief, even if the truth of this belief could not be perfectly demonstrated. For instance, accepting general skepticism would imply that God has made us incapable of knowing anything, which Crusius considers a blasphemy. Even seemingly absurd statements about God (e.g. his trinitarian nature) should be believed, Crusius concludes, if there just is external evidence making it probable.

When it comes to will, Crusius suggests, we have a duty to love God, since God loves us also. This love of God implies that we try to live as virtuously as possible, since God wants us to be good. Other things implied by love of God, Crusius goes on, are that we should respect God, be thankful to him and humble ourselves before him.

All the duties mentioned thus far have been internal duties, that is, they concern our mental actions. We do have external duties toward God, Crusius insists. Firstly, all the so-called internal actions have some external signs, and we might say that showing the external signs of appropriate internal actions is an external duty. Then again, Crusius continues, we also have an external duty to e.g. pray to God, if we have difficulties in upholding our internal duties. Still, he concludes, there is no external duty toward God that would have no relation to internal duties.