Georg Friedrich Meier: Thoughts on honour – Is honour worth seeking?

One might think that Meier’s study of honour has been rather practical, since he has already given, for instance, good practices on how to gain honour. Yet, Meier refers by the epithet practical not to tips for good practices, but to questions of what one should do. In other words, it is only when we ask whether honour is worth seeking that we are doing practical philosophy.

On Meier’s terms, the question appears to have a rather easy answer. Honour has already been defined through various perfections: the person honoured must have true perfections, and the person honouring should have a clear, correct, certain and vivid understanding of these perfections. Meier admits that like all things human, honour must already imply some imperfections, but as these are due to human nature and not to anything essential to honour itself, these imperfections do not matter: otherwise, all science would be imperfect. Thus, as an effect of various perfections, honour itself must be a perfection.

Meier argues for the perfection of honour from another angle, also. Just like good causes prove the perfection of honour, so do its good consequences. Honour gives the honoured person the power to motivate others and thus endows them with a capacity to benefit humankind by making countless other people more perfect. Honour also benefits the honoured person, because it motivates everyone honouring to serve them, because those honouring love those honoured. Finally, honour makes honoured persons satisfied in a manner reminiscent of the satisfaction of God.

Previous arguments concern only the honour in this life, but Meier thinks that honour after one’s death is also valuable, since it is essentially similar honour as that before one’s death. Honour after one’s death indeed greatly expands the merits of a person, because it enables them to serve people even beyond their death. Furthermore, Meier thinks that happiness consists largely in hope and therefore hope of honour after death satisfies honourable persons even when they are living. Finally, Meier goes so far as to suggest that honour can give many personal advantages in the afterlife, picturing Saint Paul being served by his admirers in heaven.

Now, we could really end the text here, but Meier still has to consider all the objections against honour. With a decent ad hominem Meier suggests that many of these objections come from mean people, who despise honour, because they do not have any themselves. If we ignore this and look at the objections instead of the objectors, Meier notes that often human honour is disparaged as taking attention away from God, whose honour, on the other hand, is so great that nothing human can be compared with it. Meier notes that these are just excuses, since the honour of God and the honour of humans do not contradict one another and because humans do have their honourable perfections even if they are not as great as God’s.

Often honour is opposed with mere rhetorics, like when it is compared to a pleasant dream or mere nothingness. Meier thinks that anyone saying that honour isn’t anything real has no understanding what real means – such things are said by people thinking their own stomach is the most real thing. Then again, he adds, if you think eating, drinking and gold give you satisfaction, doesn’t honour make us more perfect than these external goods?

Meier notes that some people think honour as such is shameful and suspect people will just go on endlessly striving for more and more honour. He answers them that such supposed bad consequences of honour are actually consequences of its misuse. Indeed, he adds, all goods can be misused, even religion. Meier thinks that the drive for honour is not bad, if it stays in its proper limits. Besides, he admits all earthly goods leave humans wanting for more, even religious enjoyment, because finite can never be completely perfect.

Honour is good, Meier can then conclude, but how good is it compared to other goods? It isn’t the greatest good, Meier notes, since that place he reserves for religion. After religion, the hierarchy of goods, he says, starts with moral perfections and continues with all other perfections of higher mental capacities, including truth and science. Below these come all other mental perfections and then all other internal perfections. The lowest rung of the hierarchy of goods is reserved for all external perfections, which include also honour. Yet, Meier insists, it is on the higher scale of these external perfections, because it has the greatest good of a human being as its consequence and it makes a person more perfect than any other external good. Honour is then a true and important good, thus, Meier argues, both being ignored and being despised must be really bad. Indeed, he continues, if you are ignored, you won’t have great perfections, and if you are despised, you will have great imperfections.

The final question Meier considers here is whether apparent honouring or despising are truly good or bad. He begins by noting that both apparent honouring and apparent despising arise out of mistake or pretence. If a despicable person is honoured with pretension, Meier says, this is just ridicule and therefore no true good. Then again, if a despicable person is honoured because of a mistake, the honoured person appears to be served by this mistake, but the erroneous foundation causes more harm. If we change the despicable to an honourable person, pretentious honouring is not as great an evil, but it is still an evil, because pretentions are bad. Even less of an evil the case becomes, if the apparent honouring is based on error. Moving to apparent despise, Meier thinks that an erroneous despising of an honourable person is not as great an evil as despising someone for good reasons, but it is still an evil. Finally, pretentious despising of an honourable person is actually no real evil, but works more like a bitter medicine for avoiding hubris.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - The law of the land

The purpose of state or republic, according to Crusius, is to guarantee common good of its citizens, and prudence in affairs of state means finding the best means for this common good. Crusius notes that no one constitution is the only possible means for common good - all three simple constitutions (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy) and their various combinations could work. Following tradition beginning from Aristotle, Crusius remarks that all of these constitutions could also be corrupted, if the regents of the state cared only for themselves and their own class (e.g. the three simple constitutions could be corrupted into tyrannies, oligarchies and ochlocracies). This corruption or illness of republic, Crusius clarifies, is not to be confused with mere irregularity of republic, where its constitution does not wholly serve the common good - irregularity does not yet give subjects right to overthrow their regents nor does it give other republics a right to meddle in its affairs.

In practice, Crusius advises that constitution of a republic should somehow restrict the power of regent. At least during the crucial time, when a new regent is required, either citizens should have a say in choosing the new government of the republic or this should be precisely determined by the constitution, so that the common good would not be too dependent on whims of an arbitrary individual. Indeed, the constitution should allow for strengthening and weakening the power of the regent, as the situation demanded.

In monarchy, Crusius specifies, regularity of the state demands that the power of the monarch is restricted by immutable laws, and even better, by an independent council or collegium, because individual rulers can easily become vicious. Still, Crusius adds, these restrictions shouldn’t get in the way of swift decisions, if common good required them. Furthermore, Crusius suggests that monarchies should be hereditary, because this would allow educating future monarchs to their position.

In addition, hereditary monarchies fall more rarely in civil wars, Crusius believes. In fact, he considers civil war so great a danger that he counsels making hereditary lines definite. Crusius advises particularly against monarchies with several monarchs, because at worst this encourages civil wars and at best it still weakens the republic.

Crusius has not as much to say about aristocracies and democracies. He notes that aristocracies should not be hereditary, because that could prevent best people becoming regents. Furthermore, Crusius thinks that rules stating how an aristocratic counsel comes to a decision should be clear, so that there would be no ambiguity about the decision making process. Of democracies Crusius really has nothing to say beyond noting that it requires a completely civilised nation.

In addition to choosing a constitution, Crusius continues, prudence in affairs of state concerns also the day-to-day decisions of a republic. Individual republics have their own particular circumstances requiring particular decisions, but Crusius notes that some general rules can be justified already by the general nature of republics.

Crusius begins by noting that good and prudent government has three goals, none of which should be ignored nor emphasised over others. First goal is to secure the position of regent and apply his powers most efficiently. Crucius remarks that writers like Machiavelli had focused on this goal, forgetting that the good of the regent was intricately connected with the good of the citizens, the second goal of prudent government. This second goal was overemphasised, Crusius says, by republican writers, who had forgotten that a republic still required an efficient regent. Finally, Crucius picks as the third goal the status of republic among other republic. Just like with other goals, he notes that some politicians focused too much on this particular goal, forgetting that external glory of state is based on its internal happiness.

Crusius states that prudence in affairs of state uses the very same capacities as prudence in private affairs, although it applies these capacities in different matters, which it then ought to be informed of. Specifically prudent governor should know the geographical characteristics of the land and the citizens, the political constitution of the whole republic and various communities within it, economic state of the republic, and finally, interests and goals of neighbouring republics.

Crusius emphasises the role of religion as the basis of security of republics. In addition to religion, sciences, arts and freedom of thinking should be protected, because they serve as means for securing all the goals of human life and make republics respected. Despite the lip service to freedom of thinking, Crusius is not willing to tolerate ideas working against the security of state, such as, he insists, atheism.

Crusius advises regents to be careful in choosing their officials and to prefer intelligent and virtuous people over those of high birth. Still, he also suggests that regents should not replace their own intelligence with the intelligence of their officials and that they should closely control the doings of those officials, because they work in the name of the regent. Crusius insists that officials should always follow direct commands of regent, to make the republic secure, while laws, according to Crucius, can be broken, if it is prudent to do so. Indeed, Crusius suggests, good example of regent guides subjects better than any laws.

Crusius speaks for strict regulation of state spendings - republic should always have some reserve finances, in case money is required for emergencies. Money shouldn’t particularly be given freely to subjects, Crusius argues, because they wouldn’t respect what they haven’t worked for, and they particularly shouldn’t have the right to press their own coinage. Instead, subjects should be taxed heavily, Crusius says, since no citizen should have means to live by oneself, but be in various ways dependent on other citizens. Indeed, a person providing sustenance to others should be congratulated, Crusius suggests, because they help to realise one goal of republic. To make taxation fair, Crusius notes, richer individuals should pay the most. Generally, he insists that money should be directed to move from owner to another from time to time, since in this manner it helps the state and the subjects more than if it remained stagnant. Thus, if some goods in land were still ownerless, they could be taken as regent’s property, so that they could be used for everyone’s benefit.

Crusius has not very much to say about legislation, beyond the general fact that laws should be applicable to different subjects. Furthermore, Crusius emphasises that laws should definite, so that there can be no room for misinterpretation, whether it is accidental or purposeful. Against another sort of fraud is directed Crusius’ advise that regents should be careful that religious communities won’t meddle into civil life of their members, since this is often a way to deceive lower classes.

When it comes to foreign relations, Crusius advocates for maintaining the army in good condition, because a strong army has an important role in preventing foreign conquest and in raising the prestige of the republic, which is important for achieving its goals. In commerce, Crusius holds onto essentially mercantilist ideals: foreign imports should be restricted, because losing gold weakens the state, and if something is to be imported, it should be raw materials that are then further developed into manufactures that could be sold to other countries for more money. Crusius still does not believe that republics are only competitors of one another. Indeed, he says that just like humans require friends, countries require alliances for their own security.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - How to win friends and influence people

After dealing with the general rules of prudence, Crusius turns to its first area of application, that is, private affairs. He begins by noting that large parts of this study can be discarded, because they belong already to other sciences. Firstly, prudential care of one’s body and health belongs to medicine, secondly, prudential care of one’s understanding and intellect is the matter of logic, and finally, prudential care of one’s will and motivations has already been dealt in various parts of ethics and moral philosophy.

What is left for Crusius to consider is the prudential care of relationships with other people - in other words, how to get others to respect, honour and care for us. Unlike in case of proper moral philosophy, this is not so much a question of what one is deep down like and what an ideal, omniscient, God-like observer would say about one’s character, but more about how one appears to other people. Thus, although a person would be far from perfection in some field, she might still be respected, because she was viewed as perfect, at least when compared to other people.

Even so, Crusius is quick to warn his readers to avoid such a mere relative honour, because an honour based on being better than someone else will just create envy in others. In fact, he notes, lasting respect and honour must be based on true perfections. Furthermore, he continues, one should be careful in not bragging about one’s perfections and showing them only with good understanding, if one wants others to respect them.

A further, but related question Crusius considers is how to get people to love oneself. Love, Crusius defines, is awakened by perceiving perfections in someone and makes the lover attempt connecting with the beloved. Most often love is awakened, Crusius says, by perception of a perfection of will, because good will and good behaviour are signs of a person who is easy to connect with. Indeed, Crusius notes, a simple way to find love is to show love. Similarly, one should avoid things like mocking others and being ungrateful, if one does not want to be despised by others.

Crusius defines friendship as a type of love, more particularly, as connection of persons, in which both attempt to promote one another’s private ends. Because friendship is kind of love, Crusius advises, finding friends is a lot like making people love oneself. Indeed, he notes that best means for getting friends is to make oneself indispensable to others.

With this rather Dale Carnegian part of Crusius’ philosophy behind us, we have only one more part of the book to consider - that of prudential affairs of state.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Art of fulfilling your goals

Having completed Crusius’ account of natural law - study of what we human beings must strive for - we still have a second part of his moral philosophy to deal with - study of prudence or the best means for achieving our goals. While natural law is meant to affect our use of will by making us choose best goals, study of prudence should affect our understanding.

Crusius notes that many particular arts also tell what are the best means for achieving some particular end, but such arts are not included in the general study of prudence. Furthermore, Crusius also won’t accept in this study means that are clear enough from common experience. The only thing left, then, Crusius says, is to look at means that can be derived from the nature of human soul and the principles of whole moral philosophy.

Crusius notes that the means we are discussing can be means either of private or public matters, which divides the study of prudence into two parts. In addition to these two parts, Crusius remarks, a third part should be added, which would universally look at general means for any goal whatsoever. This general part of the study of prudence is then further divided into two parts. First part would study the best ways how to apply a given means, while the second part would explain how we can find means in general for different goals.

Starting from the first part, Crusius notes that one should at first try to simplify one’s goals. For instance, if we have a complex goal to reach, we should try to analyse this goal into finer components that could be pursued more easily. Furthermore, Crusius lists various general methods for ensuring that a given goal is reached, such as finding many possible means for one goal. Finally, Crusius suggests that we should always consider whether the means we use for achieving one goal could be used at the same time for pursuit of a different goal.

The second part Crucius divides into three sections, first of which deals with ways to find means pertaining to understanding. Crusius explicitly mentions such capacities as a capacity to look at things and perceive conditions affecting the use of those things as means. Furthermore, Crusius mentions the capacity to gather experience and information from different sources.

The second section is then about means concerning will. Crusius lists, among other things, bravery, cheerful mind and good moral taste as those means. All of these had their own reasons why Crusius included them - bravery would let us continue to fulfill our actions, no matter what the circumstances, cheerful mind would let us ignore potential harms and good moral taste would let us pick quickly what is right and what is wrong.

The largest section is the one where Crusius deals with means concerning relations to other persons. Firstly, he notes that no matter how moral and prudent our actions are, they definitely should appear so in the eyes of other people. Thus, he says, our actions should look like we have chosen our goals with reason and not seem purposeless.

In addition to making others think highly of oneself, Crusius also suggests that one should acquire skills to know what others actually think. Partially, he notes that there are certain general rules to follow here, such as that people often believe only what they can perceive and that they believe things that accord with their own desires.

Beyond such general rules, Crusius thinks that we can learn to interpret an individual person’s mind. In case of ourselves, these readings might be certain, while with other people, Crusius admits, we can often know their mind only with probability. Still, he says, we can use introspection to learn the nature of the capacities of mind, and then draw analogies to other people’s minds.

Crusius draws very stringent limits to in what measure we can hope to know other people. Just like many other philosophers before him, Crusius notes that while physiognomy or study of human mind from mien and other bodily features is in principle a possible science, it is definitely a quite uncertain science - person’s taste can tell us more than his facial expression, Crusius suggests. Furthermore, unlike some Wolffians, Crusius thinks that what person says or does in a state of intoxication - or other similar abnormal state - does not tell what they think in ordinary life.

Finally, Crusius warns against trying to predict person’s future actions, even if we know what they have in their mind. He does not completely discard the possibility, but suggests that this is possible only in cases, where a person is wont to follow their inclinations and external impulses. Because of a possibility of a freely chosen action, Crusius notes, such deductions of future actions are always unreliable - a human being could always choose to act otherwise.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Goal of human life

After a theoretical study of will and basic drives affecting it, Crucius turns his interest toward practical philosophy or morals, that is, the study of how will should be used. Wolffian systems of philosophy often included a discipline of general practical philosophy, which was meant to serve as a basis for all practical philosophy. Crucius admits that such a discipline exists, in a sense, but because of its abstract nature it should be merely included within more concrete practical disciplines.

The basic topic of morals - how will should be used - comprises actually two different, although related questions, Crucius continues. Firstly, there is the question of how human being can make herself happy. This question is dealt with a discipline quite unique to Crucius’ system - a study of happiness. It goes beyond mere question of obligations, because although Crusius admits that we are in a sense obligated to become happy and perfect ourselves, the study of happiness is more about finding the most advantageous means for happiness.

Human happiness involves satisfaction of basic human desires. Now, Crucius says, since one of these basic drives is a drive for good conscience, happiness involves also trying to follow the demands of conscience. Indeed, he adds, one might say that these demands are designed to make humans happy. The demands underlie the second question of morals: what should human beings do, in other words, what duties humans have?

Crucius notes that the demands of conscience - duties or moral laws - assume the existence of a lawgiver, who has decreed these laws. Our obligation to follow these laws, Crucius says, is not caused by the lawgiver forcing us to do something. Instead, the obligation is generated by all the goods the lawgiver or God gives to us - indeed, even the duties themselves are such goods. If a human being subjects his own will to divine will and follows the divine laws, Crucius concludes, he will be virtuous, and because of that, happy.

The sum of these divine laws, or natural law, forms the second major part of morals for Crucius. It divides into further disciplines according to the object of the duties: natural theology deals with human duties toward God, natural law in a more limited sense deals with human duties toward one another and ethics duties toward oneself. Crucius adds that humans also have duties toward animals and even inanimate objects, but these ares so few that the don’t warrant their own discipline. He also adds that we should start from ethics, because we must first perfect our own capacities, before we are able to fulfill other duties.

The aim of ethics is then to perfect human beings, and in order to know how to do it, Crucius says that we must first know the goal God has given to humanity. Before going into that, Crucius notes that God, as the wisest and most perfect being, must have created the whole world for some reason, which is also evident, he continues, from the wise organisation of the parts and whole of the world. The goal that God has envisioned for the whole world, Crucius emphasises, must be that the world can be known and enjoyed rationally. Then again, human beings appear to be only such rational beings, while animals and plants exist only for the sake of human cultivation.

Why God then had to create the world at all, when he could just have thought about it? Crucius’ answer is that God’s goal in creation must involve free actions, which make the fate of the world unpredictable. Furthermore, since God appears to have made humans social, these actions are probably united efforts of many humans. God wants that these actions are virtuous, so that he could reward humans. Then again, it depends on the human choices whether all of them can be rewarded or whether some of them must be punished.

What then, finally, is the goal of humanity or the reward God is willing to give to virtuous people? Crucius notes that this goal cannot be just knowledge, because cognitive is in his system just means for volition. Then again, although Crucius admits that humans have right to use goods of the world, none of them can really satisfy humans. Indeed, because humans have unlimited desires, true reward could only be endless life in another world. Crucius notes that such a moral proof of human immortality is its only possible proof, because all theoretical proofs of immortality fall short of convincing everyone - for example, simplicity of human soul does not mean its immortality, because animals also have simple souls without being immortal.

What kind of behaviour is then required of humans or what it means to be virtuous? Crucius notes that, firstly, this world is not a prison for human beings. Especially body is something that soul truly requires for living in the current world. Thus, Crucius continues, we must keep this vessel in good shape for the duration of our life. Particularly we have no right to forfeit the body given to our use or commit a suicide. In addition to body, Crucius continues, we must also train our understanding. In practice, this means that we must acquire as many concepts as possible and use our understanding in diverse manners.

Since both body and understanding are mere tools for will, the perfection of will is an essential element of virtuous behaviour. Here, the important thing is to retain the freedom of human will - affections should remain mild and strong passions should be avoided, lest we become slave of our drives. Particularly, all goals should be subordinated to conscience and obedience of God, since these cannot be subordinated to anything else. Finally, Crucius points out that subordination here does not mean simply that humans would be constantly thinking about such a goal. Instead, it means, says Crucius, that we should, from time to time, check our behaviour and see whether there is something to fix.

Christian Wolff: Universal practical philosophy 2 (1739)

If first book of Wolff's Philosophia Practica Universalis was all about establishing the primary principle of practical philosophy, the second book, published year later than the first one, is then about application of this principle to more concrete cases. One must still remember that concreteness is here only a relative notion, and we are far from solving any determinate ethical or political questions.

The basic rules for good human action Wolff has already stated in the first book. One should follow natural law, which means striving for one's perfection. Since perfecting oneself means finding reliable and consistent happiness, natural law also guides us to strive for our own happiness. And, since God has made the world order, in which people become happy in certain manner, living according to natural law means also living according to God's decrees.

A new element in the second book is the social side of human activity. We are not just completely indifferent about each other's actions, but for instance, agree with other's actions, try to persuade them to some things etc. All these various social relations make responsibility of the actions also shared – if I convince my neighbour to do something, it is partially my fault, if something bad happens through her actions.

An important feature of this social element of human action Wolff emphasises is emulation – we tend to imitate behaviour of other people. This is important especially for making people act better. That is, if we set up examples of good life, heroes and saints, people might tend to improve their own live by imitating the lives of such good examples.

Wolff's suggestion that moral improvement might happen through emulation is an important sign of his appreciation of the less than fully intellectual side of human activity. True, Wolff thinks that one should try to improve one's behaviour through moral reasoning. Yet, he also sees that this is generally not enough, but there must be something to rouse the sensuous side of human mind. Thus, Wolff suggests that symbolism and rituals could be used for quickly teaching people about moral truths.

Despite admitting the importance of such sensuous element for morality, Wolff is still pretty antisensualist, when it comes to determining the actual principles of action. Senses and imagination provide us only with confused knowledge, which still requires conceptual analysis and reasoning to become truly valid and certain. Thus, sensuality as a source of confusion must be inhibited, in order to make oneself truly perfect.

Now, sensual side of human being is in Wolff's eyes not just a servant of morality or a mere hindrance to properly good life – it is also a sign of a person's motivation for his actions. Here Wolff once again speaks about physignomy, and since this is a topic I've discussed earlier I shall now merely mention it.

So ends Wolff's treatise on practical philosophy in general, although these outlines will be filled with more detailed treatises on ethics and politics later. But in case of theoretical philosophy, new personalities were already taking Wolff's formerly dominating place.

Christian Wolff: Universal practical philosophy 1 (1738)

Wolff's Philosophia Practica Universalis deals with a part of his philosophical system that wasn't nominally studied in his German writings and which was first presented as part of philosophy by Wolff's disciples. That is, the topic is the general part of practical philosophy, common to both ethics and politics, while we have German books only of ethics and politics. That said, many of the topics dealt here were included in Wolff's German ethics. In any case, universal practical philosophy is meant to be a study of the most general rules guiding free actions through knowledge of volition, when it is determined to some actions or non-actions. The aim of this part of Wolffian philosophy is also to offer motives for doing certain things and means for achieving those ends. In general, it should give criteria for deciding when some action should be or should have been done – that is, a heuristic for discovering truths of moral and politics.

An important question is obviously what to count as free action. The basic definition Wolff suggests is that free actions are not based on natural necessities, but on the liberty of soul. Wolff is here not trying to define or explicate human freedom – this should be the task of metaphysics – but merely takes the notion of freedom for granted. Basic distinction is that while sensuous appetites and aversions are natural, everything based on rational decision should be free. Although the distinction seems quite rigid, even in case of sensuous impulses there is some measure of freedom involved – we can e.g. freely move away from the vicinity of things causing certain sensuous appetites. Even such things as ignorance won't make actions unfree, if we just have had capacity to overcome this ignorance.

An important feature of free actions is that they can be evaluated, that is, they are good, bad or indifferent. For Wolff, the criterion of goodness and badness is dependent on the notion of perfection – actions promoting our perfection are good, while actions promoting our imperfection are bad. Wolff thinks also that these evaluations are natural in the sense that they are based on the essence of humanity – humans form a certain genus of entities, thus, they should act in a certain manner. The essence of humanity thus form the content of a natural law, which can thus be distinguished from all positive laws, authority of which is based on mere arbitrary decisions of human beings and their communities. Natural law works as a sort of general framework, on which all positive laws are based in the sense that the validity of the positive laws is instantly cancelled if they happen to contradict natural law.

Because the natural law is based on the essence of human beings, knowing natural law should be just a case of knowing what humans are like. Thus, natural law should in principle be possible to know by anyone. This was especially important conclusion in view of the topical question, whether atheists could be moral persons. Wolff concludes that they can be, at least partially. Natural law does have parts concerning God – human beings must work toward the glory of God. Yet, a significant part of natural law should be independent of such demands and thus be something that even an atheist could follow.

What then is a relation of God to natural law? God, as the creator of the whole world, has also decided that entities with the human essence exist. Thus, God might be called the instigator of natural law. In one sense, this doesn't really say much. True, following natural law will inevitably lead to happy and even blessed life, while transgressing natural law will in the long run lead to mere misery and torture. Yet, this is not so much because of God's particular punishments, but because making oneself perfect will also make one happy, while life geared toward one's imperfection will inevitably work against one's happiness. Although these rewards and punishments of good and bad actions are hence merely natural, nothing speaks against the possibility that God might decide to reward or punish people in a more personalised fashion according to the merits and demerits of their actions.

Following natural law leads thus to natural and perhaps even to special divine rewards. This still does not mean, Wolff says, that these rewards are the only motive for following natural law. Indeed, a virtuous person – that is, someone who has habituated herself to act according to natural law – will do good things just because he loves doing them, no matter whether she would get any tangible rewards for them. Similarly, a truly vicious person would be so engrossed with her perverted ends that she would not discontinue her wicked ways, even if she knew about the punishments awaiting her bad life.

Although Wolff thus accepts the power of habituation in forming one's moral outlook, the general tendency of his practical philosophy is rather intellectualistic. Thus, it is no wonder that according to Wolff, conscience is a form of judgement, instead of feeling. In other words, if one's conscience gives bad advice, this is not so much due to insufficient training or inner depravity of conscience, but more on a lack of good judgement. This does not mean that conflicts of conscience would not lead to any effect that we could feel – on the contrary, if we find out that our judgement has lead us astray, pangs of conscience will follow.

This first part of Wolff's general practical philosophy contains only quite theoretical principles that will be applied to more practical questions in the second book. The final topic Wolff manages to cover in this book is the question of responsibility. Generally speaking, Wolff thinks it is only free actions we can be responsible for. This does not mean that e.g. habits or deeds made in ignorance cannot be blamed or commended – habits can be followed with clear awareness, and ignorance might be something that we could have avoided. Although Wolff does not provide a general explanation what actions to blame and what to commend, he does mention what might be called second-level habits that are to be blamed or commended. Thus, diligence in following natural law is to be commended, while negligence of it is to be blamed.

Gottsched: First grounds of whole worldly wisdom, second part (1734?)

As you might notice from the question mark, I am not completely certain about the publication year of the second part of Gottsched's Erste Gründe der gesammten Weltweisheit. All the external sources I've studied indicate only a publication year for the first book, and because I've seen only later editions of the book, I haven't had the chance to verify this from the original source. Luckily, in the later editions Gottsched added as a preface his own life story, in which he clearly tells that he finished the second part in 1734. Whether the book was also published in the same year I do not know, but it at least seems likely.

In the same preface Gottsched also notes that his philosophical textbooks had been accused of being mere copies of Thümmig's Latin textbooks. Gottsched of course denies the accusation, but one must admit that some influences especially in the ordering of different topics appears indubitable. For instance, in the case of this second part, concentrating on practical philosophy, Gottsched does not follow Wolff's double division of practical philosophy into ethics and politics, but divides first the whole practical philosophy in the same manner as Thümmig, according to levels of generality: the books begins with general account of practical philosophy, moves to natural law and only at the next level introduces the distinction to ethics and politics.

One particular point I forgot to mention when discussing the first part of the book was Gottsched'd definition of philosophy, which differs interestingly from Wolffian definition: for Gottsched, philosophy is a science for obtaining happiness. It is clear then that Gottsched holds practical philosophy to be of primary importance in comparison with theoretical philosophy, which merely serves as a presupposition of practical philosophy – one must know e.g. ontological truths about good and bad and pneumatological truths about human behaviour to get anywhere in practical philosophy.

An important assumption in practical philosophy is that human beings are in some sense free, because practical philosophy is for Gottsched all about free actions – you cannot make evaluations out of reflexes. Freedom, on the other hand, is dependent on us understanding the situation and choosing what to do in that situation – a person with seriously weak understanding, such as a child, cannot then be deemed free and therefore cannot be blamed for his actions.

Gottsched's practical philosophy is thus rather intellectual. Even conscience is for him, just like for Wolff, a faculty for making judgements and involves always syllogistic reasoning: a person has a principle of action (in such and such a situation do this), analyses the situation (this is such an such a situation) and then just follows the conclusion of the deduction. Gottsched also suggests that we could use a sort of reverse reasoning out of their actions in certain situations what their moral principles must be. He notices the possibility of someone faking his behaviour, but has an amusing solution: just make him drunk enough and he will soon reveal his true colours.

Gottsched's rules for evaluating the actions are consequentialist: a principle of action cannot be good, if it won't lead to good consequences. He goes even so far as to suggest that because all actions will ultimately lead to either good or bad results, all actions are either good or bad. It remains rather unclear how long the causal chain starting from an action should be followed to determine its worth – if taken to its utmost extreme of following the consequences to final end of the world, it appears humanly impossible to say anything about the goodness and badness of actions.

Then again, worth of a human being cannot be seen in one action, but more in the general disposition appearing in a number of actions. Furthermore, even the most virtuous person might occasionally have relapses to vicious behaviour because of human weaknesses. Highest good for human beings is then more like a constant attempt to improve one's behaviour and make it more and more virtuous – this is an idea that will reoccur e.g. in writing's of Fichte.

In a very Wolffian fashion Gottsched suggests that the ultimate principle of action should be the demand to make everyone perfect, oneself and others. The care for oneself leads obviously to one's happiness, but it is more difficult to say in Wolffian case how the care for others can be deduced from the assumption of one's own perfection as an end. Gottsched avoids the paradox by noting that God has bound all human beings into a republic ruled by God, which makes it our business to care for citizens of all the universe. Furthermore, Gottsched also points out the Wolffian answer that even intuiting perfection makes one happy, thus making helping one's fellow beings a reasonably prudent choice.

It is this striving towards universal perfection that summarises the content of the law of nature in Gottsched. This law of nature is in a sense backed up by God, in the sense that he has decreed all the causal laws leading from certain actions to certain consequences – vicious action is such that leads to unhappy life, and the connection of the two was the creation of God. Then again, all these causal regularities exist within the world and can be read out of it through a correct use of reason – in other words, we do not need any supernatural revelation to know what is good and what is bad, and even atheists could be convinced of the law of nature.

Gottdched goes then on to further specific features of the law of nature, which is divided, firstly, into duties belonging to all human beings, no matter what their status (and these are classified familiarly into duties towards God, oneself and other human beings), and secondly, to duties pertaining to certain social roles in e.g. a household or a commonwealth. While the law of nature with all its subduties contains then the general principles for all actions, concrete guidance to correct action is provided by the science of ethics and politics. These fields of philosophical investigation tell us how to motivate people to follow the duties implied in the law of nature. Furthermore, they try to give suggestions how following the law of nature becomes easier – one should e.g. educate oneself and tame one's affects and similarly states should provide for both intellectual and moral upbringing of its citizens. The shape of this system has rather Wolffian air, but in small details there are certain differences – for instance, Gottsched seems more willing than Wolff to allow for people helping one another, e.g. with alms.

***

This is also a good place to consider Gottsched as a philosopher in general, since I've now read most of his important writings. He did write a book on rhetoric and he also published a lot of of new editions on his earlier books – especially in his book on poetry he modified the text and added further material as times went by. And undoubtedly a complete picture of Gottsched would have to take into account his poetic achievement. Still, these three books are quite enough to see what is essential particularly in his philosophy.

One can firstly appreciate the role of Gottsched in popularising and summarising central tenets of Wolffian philosophy, as he quite astoundingly manages to make out of five long books (logic, metaphysics, physics, ethics and politics) two books, which still feel complete and full works. One must also appreciate Gottsched's willingness to not follow Leibniz or Wolff slavishly: he adds new material from other writers especially in the matter of natural sciences and even distances himself from some key Leibnizian tenets, like pre-established harmony. Still, one feels that none of this makes Gottsched a very original thinker, but a mere compiler.

The most influential part of Gottsched's ouvre is undoubtedly his poetic, but even here one feels that it is more due to historical reasons of Gottsched just doing in German-speaking world what no one had done before. The book does have an original flair, even if much of the topics have been borrowed from Aristotle, Horace and modern French writers. The same moralising and rule preaching attitude that can be glimpsed in Gottsched's work on practical philosophy shows its full sway in his adherence to rigid rules and in his condemnation of whole genres of poetry. No wonder then that the rising new generation of writers didn't follow Gottsched's instructions.

But this is getting too much ahead of the progress of times. While we now said adieu to Gottsched, next time we will meet a rising star in German school philosophy.

Johann Joachim Lange: Humble and detailed research of the false and corruptive philosophy in Wolffian metaphysical system on God, the world, and the men; and particularly of the so-called pre-established harmony of interaction between soul and body: as also in the morals based on such system: together with a historical preface on that what happened with its author in Halle: among treatises of many important matters, and with short check on remarks concerning duplicated doubts on Wolffian philosophy - Law without a lawgiver

Just as Lange criticized Wolffian metaphysics for reducing the role of God in creation, similarly he criticizes Wolffian ethics for reducing the role of God in upholding morality. True, Wolff does admit that knowledge of God does make a moral person blessed – if we are convinced of God's existence, we can be serene in our belief that God will in course of time reward moral people with peaceful and happy life, while the opposite fate waits immoral people. Yet, just like Wolffian God tends to avoid miracles and has preferred to use natural mechanisms to further his goals, similarly the rewards and retributions are mostly just natural results of the very state of mind caused by belief and non-belief in God – God did not need to even exist, because only the belief in him is required for its beneficial results.

Furthermore, Lange refrains Wolff for accepting the possibility of truly moral atheists and even moral societies of atheists. In Lange's eyes, Wolff's worst mistake is to assume that moral laws could be natural in the sense that they required no reference to an obligation towards a lawgiver. In effect, Lange thinks that Wolff can manage this feat only by confusing self-interest with morality – what is good according to Wolff can be found out by reasoning what is the best outcome for me. Indeed, Lange has no difficulties in pointing out how Wolff considers becoming reasonably wealthy a moral responsibility – he might as well have mentioned the duties of eating well and wearing warm clothes that I ridiculed in my consideration of Wolffian ethics. We see here how Lange's criticism parallels the more general criticism of consequential ethics by Kant – moral worth of an action should not be based on how well it serves my wellbeing.

Lange is also not satisfied with Wolff's primary principle of morality: make yourself and others more perfect. In semblance this command might even feel Christian. But when Christianity commands humans to be perfect, it does this to emphasize their imperfect and sinful state. Wolff, on the other hand, appears to believe that humans can by themselves become truly perfect and self-sufficient: a true blasphemy to a pietist like Lange.

Lange also doubts that Wolffian morality could truly fulfill the second requirement of its primary principle. Indeed, I have also noted that Wolff does not properly justify how the command to perfect others follows from a need to perfect oneself – this might be justified through the harmony of all substances, that is, by stating that when I perfect another person, I am also perfecting myself, but Wolff leaves this completely implicit. Furthermore, as we also saw, Wolff mostly advocated leaving other people to fend for their perfection themselves, because every person should try to be a self-sufficient totality – a final proof of an egotist morality.

In addition, Lange also doubts whether Wolff's ethics is really in line with his metaphysics. He is especially skeptic of the possibility of reconciling independence of body and soul with Wolff's commands to take care of bodily matters. Of course, Wolff can explain these commands as simplified commands to take care of your soul and let body follow through the pre-established harmony, but this does make his ethics somewhat complex.

So much for Lange's criticism, next it is appropriate to see how Wolff answers some of Lange's points.

Ludwig Philipp Thümmig: Institutions of Wolffian philosophy provided for the use of academics, part 2 (1727?)

I noticed that in my investigation of the theoretical part of Thümmig's work I left out a crucial element, namely, the very structure of the science in question. A quick schematic is here:

Few words of explanation. Logic forms its own module in Wolffian philosophy. On the one hand, logic precedes all other sciences, because it introduces the very method used in all sciences. On the other hand, logic is clearly based on psychological considerations: to know how human cognition should work, we must know something about human cognitive powers. Because psychology is partly an empirical science, Wolffian logic, as described by Thümmig, must also have an empirical element.

The second module in the picture consists of metaphysics. Here the foundation of the whole lies in ontology, of which it is difficult to say whether it is empiricist of rational – remember the controversy about the principle of sufficient reason. On ontology are based both cosmology and psychology, first of which deals with the sum of all complex objects and second of which deals with one type of simple object or soul. Both cosmology and psychology also have empirical foundations. In addition to the ontological theory of complex objects, cosmology contains also the highest generalizations from physical laws, clearly based on observations. Even more clearly, psychology contains an empirical part, which the so-called rational psychology then tries to explain. Furthermore, rational psychology is also partially based on cosmology, because psychology must explain the supposed interaction of the soul with its body, a complex object. Finally, natural theology is based on both cosmology and psychology – for instance, the existence of God is deduced cosmologically from the existence of the world and the soul.

The final module of theoretical philosophy is then structured similarly as psychology. First, there is the so-called experimental philosophy, which contains results of the physical observations and experiments. The physics proper offers then a rational explanation for the content of the experimental philosophy , just as rational psychology was supposed to explanation of the results of empirical philosophy. Physics is also grounded on cosmology, which defines the most general laws governing the physical things.

If we finally move to Thümmig's vision of the practical philosophy of Wolffian school, we may firstly note how the practical philosophy is dependent on the theoretical philosophy – logic is used to show how human being should use their intellectual capacities, ontology to define the concept of goodness, psychology to show what humans are capable of and theology to determine how humans should take God into account.

In Wolff's writings practical philosophy was detailed in two writings, the one dealing with ethics and the other with civil philosophy, Thümmig's scheme makes it much clearer that the two disciplines are actually just two parts of one discipline. Indeed, the practical philosophy forms a more definite unity with Thümmig than theoretical philosophy:

The practical philosophy has then a general part, on which both of its major divisions are based. The aim of this general part is to establish natural law as the guiding principle of all good actions – all actions must aim towards perfection. The natural law is then divided into two different sublaws, depending on whether the actions involve only a single human being or whether they involve also interpersonal relations. In the former case, the natural law determines the obligation for an individual to perfect one's intellect, volition, body and external state, while in the second case natural law commands members of a community to make other members as happy as possible and the community in general as prosperous and tranquil as possible. The former aspect of natural law is then the foundation of moral philosophy or ethics, which is then nothing but a system of rules for making oneself perfect. The latter aspect, on the other hand, is the foundation of civil philosophy or politics, which is divided into two parts. The first part or economics deals with the prosperity of simple communities or households, while the second or politics proper, which is also based on economics, deals with the prosperity of communities consisting of households, that is, republics.

Thümmig has thus made two additions to the Wolffian practical philosophy: firstly, he has introduced the idea of a general practical philosophy, and secondly, he has divided the ethics and the politics into two parts, first of which investigates the primary goal of these disciplines and the second of which determined the practical measures for obtaining those goals. When it comes to details, Thümmig fails to make any substantial additions to what Wolff himself had said in his works on ethics and politics. This leads us naturally to the question of the role Thümmig played in the development of German philosophy. I shall endeavor to make similar concluding remarks on every philosopher, once I get to the last text I read from them.

The texts of Thümmig considered thus far have had little of lasting interest. In addition to Institutions, he has edited one collection of Wolffian articles and authored a book on scientific curiosities and an article defending Wolff's German metaphysics. Even the Institutions, which has been clearly the main publication of Thümmig, has been mostly a mere summarized translation of Wolff's works. Of course, Institutions still was important for the Wolffian school, because it presented the doctrine of the school for the very first time in the international language of the time.

Furthermore, it is clear that Wolff and at least other Wolffians took Thümmig seriously and referred to his writings various times. Indeed, it is just to be expected that a promising young philosopher follows for a time the writings of his mentor closely, before breaking into some truly new territory. Thümmig never really had the chance to break away from the shadow of Wolff, because he died rather young in 1728.

Still, in light of Thümmig's writings it is difficult to say whether he could have really changed the tone of Wolffian philosophy. He does introduce novelties, but these novelties are not so much reformations of Wolff's doctrines, but merely additions concerning issues Wolff had not discussed – think, for instance, of Thümmig's fascination with animal psychology. In contrast with later Wolffians, like Baumgarten, Thümmig is more like a person who applies a theory to new fields of investigation, while the later Wolffians sometimes even disputed the theory and the axioms on which it was based – not to mention Kant, who replaced even the methods and aims of philosophy.

So much for Thümmig, next time we shall find out the purpose of the world.