Development of
philosophical disciplines hasn't been one of steady accumulation and
maybe even not a progress at all. Instead, one sees some paradigms
used for some time and then replaced suddenly by other paradigms.
When looked at from the viewpoint of the new paradigm, it might seem
that there was no development at all happening before the shift.
Thus, from the viewpoint of a modern logician, the centuries of
Aristotelian logic might seem filled with no important insights nor
even with any true variation in the views – everyone just learned
their Baroccos. Of course, such an external reflection hides the fact
that within this older paradigm there might have been differences of
opinions – these differences just seem inessential when compared to
the difference of paradigms.
Such a paradigm
shift occurred in many disciplines with the advent of Kant's
critique. Ethics seems to be no exception. Thus, when we
post-Kantians consider Wolff's and Baumngarten's ethics, we might
have difficulties noting any differences between the two, because
they share so many similarities.
And indeed, there
are features found in ethics of both thinkers. Both Wolff and
Baumgarten say that the ultimate principle of ethics is perfection.
Furthermore, both philosophers think that duties divide into three
classes: those toward oneself, those toward others and those toward God.
Yet, Wolff and
Baumgarten have interestingly different tendencies in their ethics,
and these tendencies are based on subtly different features of their
metaphysics. For Wolff, human soul is always essentially a loner. It
is connected to physical world through hypothetical pre-established
harmony, but truly determined just by its own progression. Hence, its
primary duty is always perfecting itself. Duties towards others are
mostly negative, since one should let others perfect themselves,
while the most important duty toward God is to act ethically –
religion is just a modification of ethics.
At first sight,
Baumgarten's view of the human soul might seem quite similar. Human
soul, like all monads, has no real influence on anything outside
itself and is not influenced by anything, except God, which affects
everything. Yet, despite the seeming similarity, Baumgarten at least
emphasises different things. First of all, he is keen note that
monads do have ideal influences to one another – that is, whenever
monad affects another, the other monad is not just passive, but acts
itself. In other words, Baumgarten merely says that the existence of
causal processes between monads is just a matter of viewpoint – in
some sense a monad affects another, in another sense it doesn't.
Furthermore,
Baumgarten says that similar relations hold between all monads and
thus between all substances. In other words, there is no obvious
difference between physical and mental causality and both souls and
bodies form a part of the same world, held together by the glue of
ideal causality. In addition, Baumgarten also holds that souls form a
sort of body of their own – mystical community, one might say, with
God as its head.
It is then no wonder
that Baumgarten places duties toward God as the central element of
his own ethics. We should aim to know God truly and thus avoid all
sorts of heresies, like Spinozism. Furthermore, it is not just about
internal beliefs – we should also externalize our beliefs through
prayers and other ceremonies, Baumgarten says. In other words,
religion becomes the essence of ethics in Baumgarten.
While the role of
divinity becomes more central, the role of individual becomes less
central. Of course, one should make oneself more perfect – that is,
one should e.g. improve one's mental capacities and keep oneself
healthy. Yet, this all seems more like a necessary means for
improving perfection in general – something Wolff thought was best
left for individuals themselves. For Baumgarten, instead, spreading
goodness everywhere is a primary duty of a human being – and human
beings as composites of both body and soul are a good target of good
actions. Indeed, Baumgarten goes even so far as to insist on
conversational abilities as one duty of human beings – we should
not be hermits, but instead we should communicate with other fellow
humans.
Baumgarten's
emphasis of religion and duties concerning other conscious beings
takes Baumgarten into rather strange places. God is supposedly the
only thing one should worship, thus, worshiping other conscious
entities – like demons, whether they happen to exist or not – is
completely forbidden. Even worse it is if one tries to use such
worship to magically aid oneself or harm others – magic is placed
under suspicion.
This concludes
Baumgarten's account of ethics. Next time, we shall turn our interest to royalty.
