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.
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