Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Cultivating oneself benefits all

The most general duties in natural law, Crusius begins, are those that we are obligated to perform to everyone, no matter what the particular stand in life is and no matter what further contracts or agreements we might have made with them. In other words, they are the duties that we should be able to deduce without any further assumptions from the basic principle of natural law.

One of these duties (or more likely, a combination of several related duties) is that we should always be joyfully ready to serve and help a person in need of assistance - for instance, if we find a lost tourist in our hometown, we should be ready to show where she has to go. This is a general duty, Crusius affirms, that we are obligated to perform to anyone, no matter who they are. Even our enemies do not make an exception, and furthermore, we shouldn’t even hate or envy them. Still, this does not mean we are not allowed to make any preferences, Crusius accedes, since we are more obligated to serve friends, as long as we do it fairly and equitably.

Crusius doesn’t think that we are obligated to serve people without any reward, but admits that usually services are to be paid for in some form. It is only when people do not have the means to pay that we might be obligated to help them without reward, and even this obligation is not so strict if the people in question can help themselves, if they are to blame for their condition or if someone else could help them. Furthermore, even if no other reward for a service can be expected, the one assisted is obligated to be thankful for help. Analogically to a demand for a reward, if someone offends us, we have a right to expect the offender to repay the deed.

Furthermore, Crusius continues, if circumstances permit it, we should try to be truthful, that is, what we think should correspond to what our words mean. Here the conditional is important, and Crusius is not willing to go down the route where Kant - at least as he is usually interpreted - would go. That is, Crusius does not want to say that we are always obligated to speak truth, because in some cases this might break some other duties. He still advises to avoid straight out lies, even if they were made with good intentions. Instead, Crusius allows dissemblance, for instance, using silence and gestures to suggest that things are otherwise than they actually are.

In addition to the duties aimed strictly toward other people, Crusius notes that dealings with other people create an obligation to do something for ourselves. That is, in order to serve others we have to have abilities by which we can help them, which means that we are obligated to cultivate our skills. Partially, Crusius reminds us, this duty of self-cultivation has already been dealt with in ethics, but there are still certain aspects of this cultivation that concern the natural law more. A particular example is the need for what Crusius calls decorum, in other words, what is considered to be external signs of virtue - say, one has to dress in a manner that a decent person is expected to dress in one’s own society. Although decorum is not virtue as such, it at least implies to the onlooker that she is seeing a virtuous person, Crusius suggests - or at least it doesn’t deter her. Thus, decorum is of assistance in making people want to ask help from you.

Crusius also notes that if a society is to work properly, all people cannot cultivate the same abilities, even if they were abilities required for the noblest causes. Thus, a need for particular life careers arises. Crusius considers the possibility that each person would pursue the career that is best suited to a person. Yet, he remarks, it is too difficult to determine what would be the best career for each person. Instead, Crusius advises everyone to strive for a career, which suits their wishes and doesn’t waste their talents - or even earlier, their parents should find out what the person likes and guide them toward it. This strategy works, Crusius thinks, because person’s desires usually show what they are most suited to do - desire for a certain career should come out naturally, and as all things natural are God’s design, this desire must be good.

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.

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.