Christian Wolff's German Ethics New Essays

by Schierbaum, Sonja; Walschots, Michael; Walsh, John

• ISBN13: 9780192869562
• ISBN10: 0192869566
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780192696571
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-06-26
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This volume offers collective exploration of major aspects of Christian Wolff's ethics. It focuses on what is arguably Wolff's most important and influential text on moral philosophy, namely his Rational Thoughts on the Action and Omission of Human Beings for the Promotion of their Happiness, originally published in 1720 and commonly referred to as the German Ethics to distinguish it from his later Latin works on ethics.

The contributions cover a range of topics, including the systematic structure of the text itself and the relation between Wolff's ethics and the preceding natural law tradition, and many of the chapters consider the development of the basic tenets of Wolff's moral theory in his later Latin writings. Throughout the volume, special attention is given to the core concepts of Wolff's moral philosophy, such as obligation, perfection, the highest good, and happiness. Other notable topics include Wolff's conception of moral judgment and moral education, as well as the role of psychology and anthropology in his ethical thought. The volume also includes discussion of the influence of Wolff's ethics on subsequent figures such as C.A. Crusius, G.F. Meier, and Kant. As a whole, the volume seeks to show the importance of Wolff's German Ethics within the history of ethics as well as inspire others to engage with his thought.

Author Biography

Sonja Schierbaum, Ph.D. (2012), is currently leader of the Emmy Noether research group "Practical Reasons Before Kant (1720-1780)" at the University of Würzburg. She has published several papers and book chapters on eighteenth-century German ethics, moral psychology, and epistemology. She also has research interests in late medieval philosophy. She is the author of Ockham's Assumption of Mental Speech: Thinking in a World of Particulars (Brill, 2014) and has co-edited a volume on late-medieval conceptions of self-knowledge (with Dominik Perler, Klostermann, 2014).

Michael Walschots received his PhD from the University of Western Ontario, Canada in 2016 and has since held postdoctoral positions in Scotland, Canada, and Germany. He has published widely on the historical context of Kant's moral philosophy in journals such as Kant-Studien, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, and Ergo and has received grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

John Walsh is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He took his PhD in 2018 from the University of South Florida and has been a Visiting Research Fellow at Brown University and at Université de Fribourg. He has published several book chapters and journal articles on the intersection of metaphysics and ethics in Classical German Philosophy.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Sonja Schierbaum, Michael Walschots, and John WalshPart I. The German Ethics in Its Historical Context1. The Systematic Structure of Wolff's German Ethics in Context, Clemens Schwaiger2. Natural Law as a Theory of Practical Philosophy: The Relationship Between Natural Law and Ethics in Christian Wolff's Practical Philosophy, Frank Grunert3. Wolff's Powerful Concept of Perfection and its Roots, Ursula Goldenbaum4. Wolff's Modern Stoicism: Ethics, Politics, and Cosmopolitanism, Stefanie BuchenauPart II. Metaphysical and Conceptual Foundations5. Wolff on Obligation, John Walsh6. Objective Morality: Wolff and the Impious Hypothesis, Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero7. Is Christian Wolff's Practical Philosophy Eudaimonistic?, Emanuel Lanzini8. Perfection and the Foundations of Wolff's German Ethics, Timothy RosenkoetterPart III. Duty and Agency9. Perfectionism and Duties to Self in Wolff and Kant, Paul Guyer10. Wolff on the Duty to Cognize Good and Evil, Michael Walschots11. Wolff, the Pursuit of Perfection, and What We Owe to Each Other: The Case of Veracity and Lying, Stefano Bacin12. Can the Will Go Wrong on Its Own? Wolff's Conception of a Deficit of the Will, Sonja SchierbaumPart IV. Method and Reception13. Wolff's Ethical Experimentalism and its Roots in his German Ethics, Courtney Fugate14. Human Nature and Human Minds: Wolff's Moral Anthropology, Corey W. Dyck15. Secunda et adversa fortuna: Wolff and Meier on the Moral Relevance of Good Fortune and Misfortune, Paola Rumore16. Wolff and Crusius on the Duty to Love, Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet