Christian Wolff: Natural right 5 - Serving others

Wolff ends this hodgepodge of a book with the notion of servitus. Wolff’s definition of servitus might at first seem rather difficult to comprehend - servitus is a right one has to a thing of another person. The idea becomes clearer when we move from this abstract level to more concrete examples. One particular instance of servitus is such where a person is allowed to walk or ride through another person’s estate to their own. Other types of servitus might involve a right to hunt in neighbour’s land, right to collect nuts or berries from it or a right to draw water from a well in it.

All the examples just given involve estates in a more rural area, but there are forms of servitus that are appropriate to more urban living areas. Thus, in one type of servitus a building may use the wall of another building as a supporting structure. Furthermore, the examples have all been affirmative in the sense that they allow a person to do something to the thing of another. Another type of servitus is negative in the sense that it involves a right to prevent an owner from doing something. For instance, an owner of an estate might be prevented from building a too tall building that would obstruct the view of the neighbour.

Majority of servitus are, Wolff insists, based on the free choice of the owners of the things in question. Yet, he admits, some of them might be obligated by the natural law. For instance, an owner of a building should take care that neighbouring buildings still receive enough light for normal proceedings of life. Thus, a building owner might be obligated into a servitus, where their neighbour is able to demand the placement of windows on their building, so that light can come through to the neighbouring estate.

All the examples of servitus presented thus far have been what Wolff calls a real servitus, that is, they involve relations between two estates. This type of servitus remains valid, even if the owner of the estate changes. A completely different is the case with what Wolff calls personal servitus, which is tied to a certain person and is cancelled e.g. if the person in question dies. A good example of this type of servitus is usufruct, in which a person is allowed to use a thing belonging to another person and even gather profits from it, as long as the thing in question remains substantially same.

Christian Wolff: Natural right 4 - Loans, deposits and mandates

Although Wolff inserted the discussion of money on the pretext that money is required as a measure for trades, he continues with a discussion on contracts, in which, like in donations, a person gives or does something for someone else without receiving anything in return. The list of different types of contracts he considers is not Wolff’s personal invention, but hails from a long tradition of natural law. Indeed, this tradition continued even after Wolff, and we find even Hegel discussing briefly these various types of contract.Thus, going through these various types of contract has its reasons.

Commodatum

Wolff begins with a type of contract where a person concedes a use of an unconsumable thing she owns to another person for free. Thus, if I borrow a lawnmower to my neighbour, this is a case of commodatum, but if I borrow him some eggs, this usually isn’t, since eggs are in most cases used for culinary purposes. Then again, Wolff admits, if I would borrow eggs for my neighbour to show off in a parade, it would be commodatum, since the eggs are not consumed in the process.

Commodatum, like all these types of contracts, is based on the will of the person owning the thing borrowed. Thus, although the situation of the person asking to borrow things would be such that she should be borrowed, there’s no basis why a person not wanting to borrow would have to do this. Furthermore, commodatum remains the property of the owner, and the person to whom the thing is borrowed can only use it for temporary purposes. Specifically, that person cannot borrow the borrowed thing to someone else without a specific permission of the owner. After the use is over, borrowed thing should be returned to the owner. Indeed, if the owner needs the borrowed thing for her own purposes, it should be returned to her at once.

Naturally, if some damage happens to the borrowed thing, the person to whom the the thing was borrowed should cover the damages, if they are caused by her intentionally or through negligence. Then again, if the borrowed thing is already faulty and causes some damage to due to this fault, the owner of the borrowed thing should pay the damages.

A peculiar case of this type of contract is the so-called commodatum duntaxat causa - in effect, borrowing for the sake of the person owning the borrowed thing. The example above would be a case of this sort, if I had borrowed the lawnmower to my neighbour so that he could mow my lawn. This type of commodatum is somewhat different from the more general one, Wolff notices. For instance, if my neighbour is negligent when mowing my lawn and damages my lawnmower, it is actually my fault, since I should have been more careful in choosing a person to mow my lawn. Then again, if my neighbour would have intentionally damaged my lawnmower or if he happened to use it for some other purposes, while the damage happened, he would be obligated to pay the damages.

Mutuum

This type of contract is almost similar to commodatum, but now the borrowed thing is consumable, for instance, when I borrow eggs to my neighbour for him to use in baking. In this case, the very thing borrowed cannot be, of course, returned, but at least a thing of similar type and of same quantity should be returned.

One thing that is often borrowed in mutuum is money, for instance, if I pay my neighbour’s lunch, when he has forgotten his wallet, and he promises to return it the next day. For a loan of money to be a simple mutuum, there should be no interest paid for the loan. Since money comes in different currencies and a specific currency can be, according to Wolff, quantified in two different manners - either through its intrinsic characteristics, like the amount of gold it contains, or through its fluctuating valuation in the market - a mutuum must specify in what manner the loan is to be paid back: should be it of the very same currency and whether it must have the same amount of precious metal or have the same value in relation to other currencies.

Depositum

The name of this type of contract should be familiar from deposit boxes. In effect, in depositum some person agrees to take someone else’s thing into her custody and to guard it for free, for instance, when my neighbour leaves his car for me to watch, while he is on holiday. The ownership of the thing does not transfer to the custodian, who also has no right to use what is deposited. A use of the deposited thing would constitute a theft. Then again, the custodian of the deposited thing can deposit the thing further, that is, find another guardian for the thing she herself was supposed to guard already.

Although the custodian is obligated to guard the deposited thing, the owner has also responsibilities. Specifically, she should be careful in her choice of the custodian, and if she has happened to pick out a negligent person and she could have known this person to be negligent, Wolff insists, then the possible damage is to be blamed on her own negligent choice. Similarly, if the owner wants to end the depositum and asks for her thing back from the custodian, it is the responsibility of the owner to find reliable transportation from the custodian to herself for the thing.

Just like with commodatum, Wolff points out a possibility of depositum duntaxat causa. Here, the phrase means depositing a thing for the custodian, that is, providing her the opportunity to use the deposited thing - for instance, in the case above, my neighbour would have then allowed me to use his care he had entrusted to my care. Depositum duntaxat causa is then something close to commodatum, the difference being that the owner of the deposited thing still has more responsibility of the deposited thing.

Sequestrum

All the contract types dealt with thus far can involve more than one owner. Hence, we might have same thing owned by many persons, which they then decide to borrow to a friend of theirs or give it to this same friend to guard. Quite obviously, the eventual return of the thing is more difficult, because all must get their share, when thing is returned.

A very specific type of depositum with several owners for same thing is sequestrum. Here, the thing is deposited, because there is a lawsuit going on, determining who is the true and sole owner of the thing. Because of its close resemblance to depositum, there is not that much new to say about sequestrum. The most important difference between sequestrum and depositum concerns the time when the custodian must return the deposited thing to its owner. With sequestrum, the thing is to be returned when the controversy about its owner has been solved and the rightful owner has been decided.

Mandatum

While previous types of contracts involved things, mandatum involves actions. In a mandatum, one person asks another to do something in her name and this other person agrees to do it with no charge. Although the action in question could be nearly anything, Wolff clearly thinks mostly cases related to a business deal, for instance, if my neighbour asks me to participate in an auction in order to buy a specific object for him.

An important presupposition of mandatum is that the person mandated to do the deal should not get any profit for the deal arranged - not as a direct wage, of course, but also not through more indirect means, such as arranging a deal with a company one partially owns. In other words, the mandated person must be neutral in relation to the deal being made. Wolff does not deny that even a stakeholder could give council about and lobby for a deal - he just notes that such council doesn’t fulfil the definition of mandatum.

Wolff defines several types of mandatum. For instance, he notes that a mandatum could define very specific instructions, which the mandated person would have to follow to the letter, or it could outline only in broad details the outcome desired and leave the mandated person free to reach this goal by almost any means. In addition to this division, Wolff mentions also that mandatum could be either publicly known or a secret mandate. In the latter case, mandatum should also determine in what instances the mandated person has the right to reveal who the deal is being made for.

An important question in all the types of contract thus far has been who is to account for possible damages. In case of mandatum, it is usually the mandating party who has to be ready to pay something. The mandated person might lose opportunities to work, while doing the business deal, and they might even have to spend some money when contracting the deal, and the mandating party must be ready to account for such expenses. Then again, the mandated part must also account for damages caused by them, for instances, when overstepping the boundaries set by mandatum.

In addition to the basic case, where a person mandates another person, Wolff also considers cases where there are a lot of people mandating the same person for the same task or a lot of people mandated to do the same task by the same person. The important question about such a case is, undoubtedly, how the responsibilities are divided.

Honorarium

Peculiarly, Wolff leaves this type of contract unmentioned in the table of contents, probably because he deals it in the middle of the section about mandatum. The idea itself is rather simple - honorarium means donating money to a person as reward for their freely giving or doing something. In other words, honorarium could be given for such things like commodatum, mutuum, depositum and mandatum. The only restriction is that the person rewarded shouldn’t have done the act for the sake of receiving honorarium - in this case, Wolff says, the apparent honorarium is actually more like a wage paid for the actions.

Fidejussio

Fidejussio is a contract dependent on obligation of another person - a person entering into fidejussio guarantees that if this other person does not fulfil the obligation, the first person will do it. Although again, this obligation could be almost anything, in the most usual case fidejussio concerns a debt. Wolff notes that fidejussio is a contract that requires extreme vigilance in part of the guarantor, because it contains a clear risk of having to pay for mistakes of another. This means that valid fidejussio has strict preconditions - no one can be forced to make a guarantee and the guarantor must understand what is meant to be guaranteed and with what conditions. Furthermore, it is of utmost importance to commit fidejussio into a written form, although even an oral fidejussio is juridically valid.

Fidejussio is also dependent on the original obligation. If the obligation was not valid, then a fidejussio cannot either be. Furthermore, if the obligation is defined to start only at a certain date, fidejussio cannot begin before it. Finally, the guarantor can never be obligated to do more than the original debtor, although fidejussio can determine the guarantor e.g. to pay less of the debt.

Wolff notes that one debt can have many guarantors, and there are two main ways how this could happen. Firstly, all of them might be guarantors in conjunction. In that case, the fidejussio contract might determine who is to pay what - for example, if there is a certain ratio in which different guarantors want to pay the debt. If such a contract does not exist, Wolff says, then the person, to whom the debt should be paid (the creditor), can choose any guarantor. Secondly, guarantors can form ordered successions, that is, guarantors themselves can have their own guarantors. In such a case, naturally, the second guarantor will have to fulfill the obligation only if the original debtor and the first guarantor cannot do it.

Expromissio

Expromissio is a contract resembling fidejussio quite closely. The main difference is that while in fidejussio guarantor must fulfill the obligation only if the original debtor cannot do it, in expromissio the obligation is at once transferred to the new person. Indeed, expromissio releases the original debtor from the obligation completely.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Married with children

If we ignore the rather short and uninteresting section on oaths, Crusius ends his account of natural law proper by investigating family life. His idea of families has a strong theological colouring. God, Crusius says, has created humans in such a manner that they seek sexual relations, so that the world would be filled with human beings. Furthermore, Crusius continues, God wants that all children will be raised and taught such important matters as belief in God. This duty of raising and educating children, Crusius thinks, belongs to their parents, and in order that parentage of children were certain, couples should be married, that is, form contracts, which forbid sexual relations with other people and which obligate parents to raise their children.

Crusius notes that although human procreation should be regulated and restricted to married people, not every human being need to have children. Of course, only celibacy is a real alternative for Crusius, since he considers sexual organs should be used only for reproduction. In other words, Crusius think sex is allowed only in the context of marriage.

Although Crusius calls marriage a contract, he notes that it is quite different from an ordinary contract, since it only determines the persons entering the married state, while the duties involved are already determined by our duty to obey God. Thus, although normal contracts can be broken, if the people involved just all want so, marriage contract is meant to last for a whole lifetime, because children need a secure family, so that divorces are acceptable only in very special circumstances, Crusius argues. Although one might think so, Crusius is of the opinion that infertility is no real reason for divorce, since it might well be just temporary. Indeed, the only acceptable reason for divorce, in Crusius’ eyes, is adultery, because it makes the proper end of marriage insecure.

Because the main end of marriage is procreation, Crusius continues, polyandry - marriage of one woman with several men - is in his opinion nonsense, because one woman needs only one man to become pregnant (Crusius does not seem to consider the possibility that a woman might have different children for different men). Polygamy - marriage of one man with several women - Crusius considers at least more possible, but ultimately rejects it. Raising children of many women is more difficult, Crusius says and adds that God must have meant us for monogamy, because the two genders are born in almost same numbers (a few more men are born, Crusius explains, because God has foreseen that men will die in wars).

Although the main purpose of marriage is raising children, Crusius think that it has an important secondary purpose, namely, the communion between husband and wife. In a quite sexistic fashion, Crusius insists that women cannot really give intellectual satisfaction to men, but they can provide companionship and sexual satisfaction - a rather bleak view of what marriage is all about. In a similarly sexistic fashion Crusius says that women have a stronger drive for taking care of children, because God meant them to be more involved with the upbringing of children.

Raising children, Crusius says, involves three different duties. A parent must, firstly, take care that the children live and become strong and healthy, secondly, guide them toward virtuous life, and finally, teach them such skills that they require for becoming useful citizens and for cultivating their skills. Although a parent would die, she is obligated to take care of her children, for instance, through inheritance.

In addition to these duties, Crusius continues, parents have a right - which Crusius calls paternal right - to decide the means by which their children are to be raised. This right involves a right to force children to do something, although only in certain limits: for instance, children are not for sale. Paternal right becomes less and less important, when children grow, although, as one might have suspected, Crusius says that daughters should be ruled by their parents as long as these daughters are not married.

Just like parents, children also have some rights, Crusius notes. Children have a right to demand sustenance and education from their parents, until they get old enough to provide for themselves. Children also have a right to expect that their parents do not restrict their freedom needlessly. Finally, unless their parents have decreed otherwise, the children have a right to inherit their parents.

Crusius also indicates that children must have some duties also. Due to their being minors, children must obey their parents, except if this would mean doing things that are against natural law. In addition, Crusius says, children are obligated to be thankful of what their parents have done for them (of course, he continues, children should love and honour their parents, even if their parents have not raised them at all). An important part of these duties is that children must take care of their parents in their old age. These duties are such that no civil laws can overcome them - for instance, a king should not punish his parents.

Christian Wolff: Reasonable thoughts on the social life of men and especially on the community - The enlightened despot

The origin of households in the Wolffian system is the desire for intercourse, together with the obligation to care for the possible outcome of the intercourse, that is, children. Now, Wolff suggests that household by itself cannot satisfy all needs of a human being. At most, a life constricted to a household can satisfy only basic needs, but this would be only animal and not human life – the households could not provide for the future nor would they be able to care for higher needs like science and arts. Wolff even invokes the Hobbesian argument that a life without a community of men would be a life of fear, because anyone could be killed by other people.

A community or a state is then created by households entering into a mutual contract that aims at the general well-being of all of them – note that it is the head of the houshold that gets to decide the loalty of everyone in his family. Wolff obediently notes all the six classical possibilities with the traditional names derived from Aristotle: the good constitutions or monarchy, aristocracy and polity and their corrupted variants or tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Wolff then does allow the possibility of ”polities” or republics ruled by majority votes, although he notes that they are often hindered by party politics. Still, the rest of the book is clearly meant for absolute or constitutional monarchies, where the king has all or at least majority of power in his hands. Wolff's task is to enlighten the German despots and make their minds accessible to reforms their states required.

Wolffian ideal of society contains some characteristics that justify calling him an enlightenment philosopher. For instance, Wolff encourages kings to found schools, colleges and universities for educating people in sciences and handicrafts, to build hospitals and apothecaries for serving the sick and to make the cities beautiful for all senses by filling them with works of art and by making sure that nothing stinks. Then again, the main interest of Wolff in politics is the upholding of public morality, which gives Wolff's suggestions a moralizing tone. Thus, Wolff suggests that only art that teaches morals is to be accepted and that a state should be filled with buildings for public moral preaching. The most extreme suggestion from modern standpoint is that all punishments should happen in public in order that potential criminals would think twice of their immoral intentions.

The idea of places for public moral preaching is interesting as a not so veiled attempt to promote churches as necessary for the well-being of the state – the attempt becomes even more apparent, when Wolff notes that belief in God is almost a prerequisite for a moral society. True, Wolff has admitted that morality is possible without religion. Wolff even goes so far as to accept China as an atheist state that has one of the best constitutions in the world – as we shall see, this admission will be fatal to Wolff's carrieer. Still, Wolff is convinced that majority of atheists will be scoundrels incapable of living in community with other people.

Wolffian politics is then not so much interested of the welfare of the people, but of their morality – although bodily and mental welfare is, of course, part of moral perfection in Wolffian system. Thus, it is just natural that in Wolff's opinion laws of a state should be based on the law introduced already in Wolff's moral writings, that is, the natural law. Wolff does allow some changes to be made to the natural law in case when following it would be extremely difficult. For instance, natural law determines that a child should become independent, when she has all the necessary skills for taking care of herself. Yet, because it is often hard to determine the exact time when a person has become mature in his actions, state must make a concession and determine some fixed age at which everyone is to be considered an adult.

Natural law is for Wolff even a higher authority than state. Usually one must obey the rulers of one's state, but if the rulers break the natural law, people are not committed to obeying them. Thus, if a king tries to murder someone, the attemped victim has the right to defend herself. Yet, Wolff advices people to resist the ruler's will only in the cases where one's own well-being is threatened or where one is commanded to do immoral things. Hence, if a despot threatens to kill your neighbours, you have no obligation to help them – unless you happen to be the soldier who is to pull the trigger.

Wolffian system of politics appears then to have no true stopgap for tyrants and dictators. True, Wolff does advise kings to limit their own power and become as symbolic rulers as king of Sweden or queen of England are nowadays. Wolff even justifies this adivce through a comparison with the universal monarch or God, who leaves the actual government of the world to humans. Yet, there is no guarantee that a tyrant would follow Wolff's advice. Indeed, Wolff can only hope that religion and the fear of God would stop kings from tyrannical behaviour – a rather poor hope when Wolff has just congratulated God of not meddling in human affairs.

The individual states are then related like individual persons to one another, and just like persons ideally act like self-enclosed monads, so should states have no concern for the international community. Positive in this isolationism is that Wolff thinks all warfare to be evil and justifiable only as a self-defence – although Wolff does accept also reasonable suspicision of evil intentions as a reason for self-defence, somewhat like American head of state before the attack to Iraq. But Wolff appears to be blind to the invisible economic battle that his mercantilist tendencies generate – Wolff advices states to horde as much money as possible, which in effect make economic co-operation impossible in international level.

So much then for Wolffian politics. Next time I'll have something to say about the generation of Wolffian school.

Christian Wolff: Reasonable thoughts on the social life of men and especially on the community (1721)

It is clear that Wolff must have already had made preparations for the Vernünfftige Gedancken von dem gesellschafftlichen Leben der Menschen und insonderheit dem geimeinen Wesen, when he published the previous title in the ”Reasonable thoughts” -series. Wolff's German ethics concentrated on the individual in abstraction from his social surroundings, but the current book promises to correct this mistake.

Wolff accepts the tradition of contractual origin of societies, which emphasises the essentialy individual nature of human beings and which was later criticised by Hegel. The story begins from an imagined point where individuals have not yet formed any societies. If human beings could provide for themselves, the story would also end here, but they have various needs for which they require the help of others. Thus arises the need for contracts, where one person offers what the other desires. Some of these contracts call for the persons involved to live together as a unit, and such units and the interpersonal relations within them are what Wolff is describing in the book.

The origin story provides Wolff already with some general principles that are valid of all societies. Every society has been generated for the purpose of promoting the well-being of its occupants – hence, the end of the society lies in the individuals and their common good. When the society strives to do something for the good of its members, it is morally mound by the same natural laws as the individuals themselves. If the society breaches those laws, individuals have then no duty to remain within that society. Finally, all of these societies can be regarded as individuals in their own right, and every society should be independent of other societies of the same sort.

Wolff calls the study of these societies politics, but the first half of the book is actually dedicated to what was traditionally known as economics after a pseudo-Aristotelian book of the same name. This was not economics in the modern sense – a study of e.g. commerce – but study of oikos or household, while politics was restricted to a study of polis or community. Wolff's book quickly turns into a description and justification of the customs of his own culture, the 18^th century Germany. Thus, we hear that a household contains three types of relations: those between a husband and a wife, those between parents and children and those between masters and servants.

The traditionality of the book can be seen in Wolff's definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman for the sake of conceiving and educating children. Wolff's justification of the tradition of marriage betrays a common ambivalent relation to sexuality. Wolff admits that the desire for sex is natural as the necessary means for the reproduction of human species – even a person in an ideal state of knowledge would want to have sex. Thus, having sex is even a duty: once you are capable, just go and do it.

Then again, Wolff thinks sex is good only as a means for reproduction. Especially the pleasure connected to sex exists only for the sake of hinting that conception of children is good. Hence, any sex that cannot lead to the birth of children is by definition forbidden. Wolff explicitly mentions e.g. bestiality, prostitution and homosexuality, but refrains from describing all possible sexual vices in order to avoid giving any bad influences. And who is the worse sinner, the prostitute or the client? Wolff's definite answer is the prostitute: while the client is governed by his sexual impulses, the prostitute could use reason, but chooses to make sin for the sake of money.

Often the defenders of traditional marriage shy away from the unwanted consequences of their premisses. Wolff takes his premisses seriously and denies even all heterosexual sex that cannot lead to conception. Thus, sex and marriage with an elderly and generally with an infertile person is forbidden. Still, Wolff does allow marriage continue throughout the life time of the married persons, so that they can take care of one another in their old age.

Mere conception of children is not enough, but one is duty-bound to take care of the children until they can take care of themselves. Hence, the need for marriage. Because one is committed only to raise one's own children, women should not have many partners, Wolff says – otherwise, we could not determine who the father is. In principle men could have many wives, but children of one wife are enough for one man to provide for – shortage of cash is the only reason for dismissing polygyny.

Husband and wife must then take care of their children. Here Wolff can conveniently just copy what he has said in his ethical writings, because duties for the welfare of others coincide with the duties for oneself: one must feed and cloth the child, and especially one must educate him or her, both in intelligence and will. Wolff shows some progressiveness, when he urges the parents to depend more on the children's intelligence than on beating and punishments – that is, when the children start to understand things better. When the children can finally provide for themselves, the duty of the parents stops, but the children are for the rest of their lives committed to respecting their parents for their kind deeds.

If the parents work for the good of the children, the servants are hired to work for their masters. Although the masters thus appear to be more in need, it is actually the servants who have the worse position: servants cannot provide for themselves and so they must sell their services for their living. What servants are to do is mostly decided by the contract made with the master – they just have to do it obediently and the master has to see that the servants are not overtasked. Wolff even allows the possibility that servants (or slaves) would be owned by the master, who could then also sell them to others. Wolff restricts slavery only to persons whose happiness essentially requires external governance. We immediately recognise a common excuse for the enslavement of Africans: they just couldn't manage themselves.

Wolff lived in an age when social relations were for the most part hierarchic. Thus, even in household there must be one person leading others. Children are still not fully rational and so are to obey their parents, while the servants are bound by the contract to obey their masters. When it comes to mixing children and servants, Wolff expressly instructs to avoid it. Children might disturb the work of the servants, but the true reason for Wolff's command appears to be the fear of corrupting influence that servants as persons of lower status might have on children.

The case of husband and wife is more interesting. The result is, of course, determined by the gender roles of the time. Husband or the lord of the house is to be the final master over the household, while the lady of the house is relegated into the position of a trusted advisor, who knows the affairs of the household best, and a representative of the lord, whom the other occupants must obey. Yet, Wolff admits that in principle men and women are not that different. Women are just more bound to the children, and it is customarily the men who have to provide for their families. Hence, the men know more about the ways of the world and should therefore rule the household. Although Wolff's argument is meant to uphold the status quo, it leaves open the option that under different customs women might have the opportunity to educate themselves and become as capable of taking care of the household as men are.

Wolffian economics shows then barely a hint of progression from the traditional trappings. We shall see if things fare better with the actual politics.