Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy

Courtney D. Fugate (ed.), John Hymers (ed.)

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 Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy
Courtney D. Fugate (ed.), John Hymers (ed.)

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Acknowledgments 
Published: June 2024

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Moral Philosophy

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

The editors would like to thank all the contributors for their hard work on this volume and for their
considerable patience; Peter Momtchilo at Oxford University Press for his promotion of the study of
eighteenth-century German philosophy; and Micah Summers for help with the bibliography and editing of
the volume. The editors are also grateful to Dolarine Sonia Fonceca for diligently shepherding this book
through production.

Courtney D. Fugate would also like to thank Florida State University for its support. Most of all, he would like
to dedicate this very small work to the memory of his dear parents, Gary and Marlene: always and forever on
my mind.

John Hymers would like to thank La Salle University for its support, Matthew Connolly for assistance, and
his wife Yvette for her undeserved understanding. John would also like to dedicate this book to the memory
p. vi of his parents, Lawrence and Anna Marie.
 Abbreviations

Apart from the Critique of Pure Reason, which is cited by the A and B edition paginations,
the writings of Immanuel Kant are cited either by an abbreviation specific to the work or
else by the general abbreviation AA, followed by the appropriate volume and page number
of the Akademie-Ausgabe of his collected writings. Unless otherwise noted, all translations of
Kant are from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant and all translations of
Baumgarten’s Metaphysics and Elements of First Practical Philosophy are from the recent
English translations by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers (Baumgarten 2013, 2020).
Other multi-volume editions are cited in a similar manner with the volume followed by a
colon. Unless preceded by a section mark (§), all references are to chapter, volume, or page
numbers. Superscripts after dates indicate edition numbers and the dates outside of square
brackets indicate the primary edition used for the citation.

Wolff ’s Works
WAN Ausführliche Nachricht von seinen eigenen Schrifften die er in deutscher
Sprache von den verschiedenen Theilen der Welt-Weißheit
herausgegeben, auf Verlangen ans Licht gestellet ([1726¹] 1733²)
WDL Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräften des menschlichen Verstandes
(Wolff [1712–13¹] 1754¹⁴)
WDM Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des
Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Wolff [1720¹] 1751¹¹)
WDP Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere (Prefixed to Wolff
1740)
WGNV Grundsätze des Natur- und Völckerrechts (Wolff 1754)
WIN Ius naturae methodo scientifica pertractatum (Wolff 1740–8)
WO Philosophia prima seu ontologia methodo scientifica pertractata (Wolff
[1730¹] 1736²)
WPE Psychologica empirica, methodo scientifica pertractata (Wolff [1732¹]
1738²)
WPM Philosophia moralis, sive ethica, methodo scientifica pertractata (Wolff
1750–3)
WPPU Philosophia practica universalis, methodo scientifica pertractata (Wolff
1738–9)
WRP Ratio praelectionum wolfianarum in mathesin et philosophiam
universam (Wolff [1718¹] 1735⁴)
WTL Vernünfftige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen (Wolff
[1720] 1733²)
Baumgarten’s Works
BA Aesthetica (Baumgarten 1750–8)
BAL Acroasis logica (Baumgarten 1761)
x 

BDO De ordine in audiendis philosophicis per triennium academicum

(Baumgarten 1738)
BEP Ethica philosophica (Baumgarten [1740,¹ 1751²] 1763³; trans.
Baumgarten 2024)
BG Gedancken vom vernünfftigen Beyfall auf Academien (Baumgarten 1740)
BIN Ius naturae (Baumgarten 1763)
BIP Initia philosophiae practicae primae acroamatice (Baumgarten 1760;
trans. Baumgarten 2020)
BM Metaphyisca (Baumgarten [1739¹] 1757⁴; trans. Baumgarten 2013)
BPB Philosophische Brieffe von Aletheophilus (Baumgarten 1741a)
BPG Philosophia generalis (Baumgarten 1770)
BSEP Sciagraphia Encyclopaediae Philosophicae (Baumgarten 1769)
BVEEP De vi et efficacia ethices philosophicae (Baumgarten 1741b)
MBM Metaphysik (Baumgarten 1783)
Kant’s Works
AA Immanuel Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, 29 vols, issued by the
Prussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (vols 1–22), the deustchen
Akademie der Wissenschaften (vol. 23), and the Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (vols 24–9), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1902–
GMS Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Kant AA 4)
KpV Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Kant AA 5)
KrV Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Kant AA 4)
KU Kritik der Urteilskraft (Kant AA 5)
MoC Moralphilosophie Collins (AA 27)
MoM Moralphilosophie Mrongovius (Kant AA 27)
MS Metaphysik der Sitten (AA 6)
MSVig Metaphysik der Sitten Vigilantius (AA 27)
NRFey Naturrecht Feyerabend (Kant AA 27)
PPP Praktische Philosophie Powalski (AA 27)
PrHer Praktische Philosophie Herder (AA 27)
Refl Reflexionen (Kant AA 14–19)
Rel Religion
UDG Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen
Theologie und der Moral (Kant AA 2)
Other Commonly Cited Works
AIN Ius naturae (Achenwall 1750.¹ 1763⁵; trans. Achenwall 2020a)
APIN Prolegomena iuris naturalis (Achenwall 1767; trans. Achenwall 2020b)
AT Œuvres de Descartes (Descartes 1964–74. 1897–1910.)
GDIB De iure belli ac pacis libri tres (Grotius, 1625¹)
HIN Elementa juris naturae, et gentium (Heineccius 1746; trans. Heineccius
2008)
KE Exercitationes iuris naturalis eiusque cumprimis cogentis methodo
systematica propositi (Köhler, [1729¹], 1732², 1738³)
 Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy
Courtney D. Fugate (ed.), John Hymers (ed.)

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Published: 2024 Online ISBN: 9780191976162 Print ISBN: 9780192873538

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Contributors 
Published: June 2024

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Moral Philosophy

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

Alexander Aichele
, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Stefano Bacin
, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Milan

Stefanie Buchenau
, Professor of German and European History of Ideas, University Paris 8 Saint-Denis

Courtney D. Fugate
, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University

Paul Guyer
, Jonathan Nelson Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Philosophy, Brown University

John Hymers
, Associate Professor of Philosophy, La Salle University

Heiner F. Klemme
, Professor of Philosophy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Gualtiero Lorini
, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Catholic University of Milan

Frederick Rauscher
, Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University

Sonja Schierbaum
, Principal Investigator of the Emmy Noether Group Practical Grounds, University of Würzburg

Clemens Schwaiger
, Professor of Philosophy, Katholische Stiftungshochschule (Benediktbeuern)
 Fiorella Tomassini
, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Groningen

Michael Walschots
, Postdoctoral Fellow, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Allen Wood
p. xii , Ruth Norman Halls Professor, Indiana University
 Introduction
Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers

Although once little noticed, the profound relationship between Alexander

Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62) and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) has now
become an accepted piece of contemporary scholarship. This earlier lacuna
though was really a case of amnesia whose etiology in turn is hard to diagnose,
as Baumgarten’s importance has long been hiding in plain sight: three of his
textbooks are reprinted in the Academy Edition of Kant’s work, and Kant con-
tinually referrs to him throughout his published lectures. Moreover, important
scholars such as Erdmann (1866) and Heidegger (1934, trans. 2010) had long ago
traced Baumgarten’s philosophy and its importance for Kant, thus laying the
groundwork for what should have become a vibrant field of Baumgarten studies.
Accordingly, in earlier publications we have recounted Kant’s intense preoccupa-
tion with Baumgarten’s thought and drawn attention to the voluminous scholar-
ship on this topic that has developed over the last fifteen years—a trend perhaps
first stimulated by the publication of Clemens Schwaiger’s important work (1999;
2000; 2008; 2011a), but also driven by a more general “historical turn” occurring
in contemporary Kant scholarship, itself aided by a flurry of translations of
Baumgarten’s difficult Latin writings into Japanese, French, Italian, German,
and English.¹ Despite these developments, we think it is fair to say that anything
like a full account of the complex relationship between these two thinkers and,

¹ Ursula Niggli (Baumgarten 1999) translated the three difficult and dense prefaces to Baumgarten’s
Metaphysica found in the first four editions (Baumgarten 1739¹, 1743², 1750³, 1757⁴), and Günter
Gawlick and Lothar Kreimendahl were the first to translate the entire book into German (Baumgarten
2011), whose work was then followed by Fugate and Hymers (Baumgarten 2013), and most recently by
Luc Langlois and Émilie-Jade Poliquin (Baumgarten 2019b). Jean-Yves Pranchère translated
Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (Baumgarten 1735) as L’invention de
l’esthétique—Méditations philosophiques sur quelques sujets se rapportant au poème (Baumgarten
2017a; an earlier German translation is Baumgarten 1983a). The University of California Press has
recently dusted off Karl Aschenbrenner and William B. Holther’s 1954 English translation of the
Meditationes and reprinted the Reflections on Poetry (Baumgarten 2022) under their Voices Revived
series. The Initia philosophiae practicae primae (Baumgarten 1760) was translated into French by
Langlois, Mathieu Robitaille and Poliquin as Principes de la philosophie pratique première (in Kant
2015). Alexander Aichele also translated the same work as Anfangsgründe der praktischen Metaphysik
(Baumgarten 2019a), as did Fugate and Hymers under the title Elements of First Practical Philosophy
(Baumgarten 2020). The Aesthetica, first translated by Matsuo Hiroshi into Japanese (Baumgarten
1983b; revised edition 2016), has since been translated into German by Dagmar Mirbach (Baumgarten
2007) and, in an annotated edition, into Italian by Francesco Piselli (Baumgarten 2017b); Mirbach’s

Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Introduction In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy.
Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press. © Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers 2024.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0001
2  .    

more importantly, between the philosophical tendencies they represent, is prob-

ably far off in the future. The goal of the present volume is to advance the
discussion just a few steps by reassessing some of the key debates and opening
up new paths for research regarding the interconnections among Baumgarten’s
and Kant’s views on the foundations of practical philosophy.
However, before getting to the topics covered in this collection, we should take
a moment to recount just the formal outlines of the larger story as befits an
introduction: Beginning shortly after its publication, Kant lectured from
Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy (1760)² approximately
twenty-five times between 1759 and 1794, sometimes mentioning “first” or “uni-
versal” practical philosophy in the title of his course and drawing attention to his
adoption of Baumgarten’s textbooks. During much of this time he also employed
Baumgarten’s Philosophical Ethics (1740,¹ 1751,² 1763³) and Metaphysics (1739,¹
1743,² 1750,³ 1757,⁴ 1763,⁵ 1768,⁶ 1779⁷), as well as works by Georg Friedrich
Meier (1717–77), Johann August Eberhard (1739–1809) and others, all of which
are either lightly modified translations of Baumgarten’s books or are heavily
influenced by his thought. Although the deeper reasons for this affinity are worthy
of further consideration, Kant was quite explicit in his praise for Baumgarten’s
analysis of philosophical concepts (KrV A21n./B36n.), remarking at one point on
the Ethics that it was “richest in content and perhaps his [i.e. Baumgarten’s] best
book” (AA 27:16). Indeed, he even once told his students that it was “incompre-
hensible how such an acute man [as Baumgarten]” could have failed to discover
the proper distinction between categorical and pragmatic imperatives himself, and
thus the key to Kant’s own position (MoM 29: 516).
The notes Kant penned in his copies of the Metaphysics (AA 17–18) and
Elements (AA 19) bear out this connection, at once disproving the suggestion
that his engagement with Baumgarten’s textbooks was merely the accidental result
of a state requirement to employ an approved manual, and so only provided him
with an outline of the subject as Kuehn (2010, 17) and Schlipp (1938, 145) seem to
suggest. Far beyond what is found in the existing lecture transcripts and exceeding
several times the length of the original textbooks, these notes show Kant analyz-
ing, modifying, approving, criticizing, and reformulating Baumgarten’s thoughts
over long stretches of time until they begin to take on a more recognizably Kantian
shape, even at times crystalizing into formulations found in his published
writings.³ Overall, the relationship is almost never direct, with Kant seemingly
fully accepting just as little as he fully rejects of Baumgarten’s philosophy. The

volume also contains many passages from the Metaphysica and Ethica philosophica. Hymers’s trans-
lation of the Ethica philosophica (Baumgarten 1740¹, 1751², 1763³), has just appeared with Bloomsbury
(Baumgarten 2024).
² AA mistakenly labels this as the 4th edition (19:7).
³ Notable examples of the latter include the distinction between the contradiction-in-conception
and contradiction-in-willing tests (Refl 6741, 19:146), the universal natural law formula of the
  3

upshot is a complicated, transformational story wherein the material provided by

Baumgarten’s text is slowly sculpted, section after section, into a new form and
placed on a new foundation. For this reason, Schwaiger aptly calls Baumgarten
“Kant’s lead author.”⁴
Focusing on Kant’s notes to the Elements alone, we can pick out some of the
more general points of contact and difference. His sometimes line-by-line com-
ments clearly provide the basis for his published characterization of perfectionism
in the Groundwork and second Critique (e.g. GMS 4:443; KpV 5:41). According to
his assessment, perfectionism proves valuable, and indeed superior to rival tradi-
tional theories, because it excludes sensuous motives from morality and because it
provides a generally accurate account of the logical structure of rational willing
and associated concepts (e.g. Refl 6487, 19:24–5). Yet it fails to distinguish
properly moral obligation from other sorts of rationally necessitating grounds
(Refl 6624–5, 19:116; 6800, 19:164–5; MoM 29:516). Thus, while Kant shares
Baumgarten’s focus on obligation as the most fundamental concept in practical
philosophy, in the notes he frequently distinguishes Baumgarten’s “impelling
causes” from what he regards as properly moral grounds of action.⁵ While the
former are simply natural, determining grounds of what is willed, and are there-
fore at best pragmatic in character, the latter should be understood in terms of
what ought to be willed, seen from the perspective of our “indebtedness” or of what
is “owed” to oneself or another out of respect for freedom and the mutually
binding character of its laws.⁶ This fundamental distinction then reverberates
throughout Kant’s analysis of all further dependent concepts in the Elements.
Reward and punishment, for instance, when seen merely as “impelling causes,”
serve only to necessitate the commission or omission of certain future actions; but
when understood as moral, and so as justified and deserved, their application must
rest on their moral fittingness in view of certain actions already performed.⁷
Similarly, according to Kant, Baumgarten’s distinction between moral and non-
moral constraint must be redrawn along the same lines; the truly moral corre-
sponds to constraint to what is morally owed to oneself and others and not merely
to what is required as a means to their perfection. Likewise, the sort of self-
constraint involved in the morality (as opposed to mere legality) of action must be

categorical imperative, the concept of the highest good as the heterogeneous combination of virtue and
happiness, and Kant’s understanding and criticism of alternative moral theories (perfectionism,
Epicureanism, Stoicism, etc.).
⁴ See Chapter 1 below. Bacin, following Schwaiger, further argues that Kant’s choice was personal,
grounded in his philosophical appreciation of Baumgarten. Cf. Bacin (2015, 17–19) for a closely argued
account of Kant’s interest in Baumgarten.
⁵ See Chapter 1 below. Schwaiger argues that although Baumgarten borrows the term “obligation”
from Wolff, Baumgarten not only deviates from Wolff in making it the central theme of his ethics
(following Köhler) but also substantially refines the concept.
⁶ The Rousseauean root of this can be seen, e.g. in Refl 6667, 19:128.
⁷ Which is a point that reemerges in the second Critique (KpV 5:37).
4  .    

understood not simply as psychologically or metaphysically internal, but rather as

internal in the sense of grounded in the pure or unconditionally free will.
Another thing we see in the notes is Kant remarking that each of Baumgarten’s
basic practical laws is either erroneous or tautological when taken at face value,
but also possesses a correct sense if, once again, it is only understood in line with
the properly moral concept of obligation. Thus, “seek perfection” is tautologous,
except if by it we understand, “be a good human being,” i.e. perfect your freedom
by subjecting it to moral laws (Refl 7268, 19:298; 6655–6, 19:125).⁸ “Live in
accordance with nature” is likewise both vague and erroneous if taken to mean
that we should live in accordance with the actual laws of physical/psychological
nature, but correct if understood as saying that we should live in accordance with
the “idea at the basis of nature,” i.e. only according to maxims selected for the fact
that they can be given the essential form of universal natural law (Refl 6658,
19:125–6). Indeed, taken in this sense, this dictum is equivalent to one of the three
formulations of the categorical imperative, namely, the natural law formulation.
In these and in many other instances, we can see Kant following in respect to
Baumgarten’s Elements a procedure similar to that which he claimed to have
applied also in respect to the Metaphysics, namely, one of “applying gentle
pressure” to induce its author, whose “book has been chosen for the richness of
its content and the precision of its method—to follow the same path [as Kant
himself]” (AA 1:502–3).⁹

Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy

Baumgarten’s Elements contains an original reformulation of a discipline invented

by Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and articulated briefly in the latter’s dissertation,
Philosophia practica universalis, mathematica methodo conscripta (1703), more
fully in the Preliminary Discourse and first chapter of his German Ethics (1723),
and most fully in the two Latin volumes of his Philosophia practica universalis,
methodo scientifica pertractata (1738–39). Baumgarten’s independence from
Wolff is signaled immediately from the title and definition of this new discipline:
“ (universal)   is the science containing the first
principles that are proper but also common to the rest of the practical disciplines”
(BIP §6). Instead of placing its distinguishing mark in universality, as Wolff had,
Baumgarten refocuses this discipline on its uniqueness as providing the first,

⁸ For more on this, see Guyer (2007) and (2016a) as well as the chapters by Guyer and Fugate in this
volume.
⁹ Another basic concept Kant modifies in a decisive way is that of what it means to consider
something “in itself,” “absolutely,” or “unconditionally,” which has obvious implications for the
concepts of unconditional obligation, unconditional good, and so forth. For more on this see, BM
30–2 and ch. 10 below.
  5

fundamental principles for all practical philosophy as such. This is then stressed
directly in the definition: its principles are the “firsts” that constitute any piece of
philosophy a piece of practical philosophy, and so therefore belong essentially to
(are “proper” to) each practical discipline as such. And so it is because first
practical philosophy’s principles are proper to each practical discipline, that they
are also “common” to them all.
In this Baumgarten goes beyond Wolff by providing the ground for the
discipline’s universality, while at the same time strengthening the analogy with
metaphysics and opening the way for a “metaphysics of morals.”¹⁰ But he also
makes fundamental changes when spelling out the implications of this definition;
for by the “practical disciplines,” Baumgarten here intends those contained in “the
science of the obligations of a person that are to be known without faith”
(BIP §1),¹¹ which are therefore “to be deduced by an apodictic method through
principles that are certain and not through testimonies, divine or human autho-
rities, or accounts” (BIP §2). Thus, whereas Wolff had placed the defining feature
of the practical disciplines in their “affective” role in determining the will’s free
actions, Baumgarten places it in their demonstration of the laws of such and the
elucidation of the manner in which these laws make certain actions morally
necessary; that is, he places it in rationally articulating the concept of “obligation”
and all its essential features and implications. What is more, to the extent that
Baumgarten defines philosophy in general as what can be known “without faith,”
practical philosophy for him must be restricted to the demonstration of those laws
that can be known in such a way, that is, to natural laws, as well as to the concepts
required for understanding how these can come to determine our actions natu-
rally (see BIP §69; also, BM §430, 470–3, 482).
This priority of the natural over the supernatural in morality, although also
present in Wolff, receives indeed a radically new foundation in two considerations
that are distinctive to Baumgarten’s thought more generally and so are worth
mentioning here. The first is his theory about how we are to decide which should
be the first principle or principles for any science, including practical philosophy;
these, he explains, are to be selected based on a “wise” judgment, which chooses its

¹⁰ The same point is made in Schwaiger’s chapter in this volume (Chapter 1). BIP §7: “Just as
metaphysics is related to all the rest of the disciplines, so too is first practical philosophy related to the
rest of the practical disciplines (§6, BM §1).” It is interesting that Kant himself reverts—despite his use
of Baumgarten’s textbook—to the title of “allgemeinen” practical philosophy when discussing the
discipline (GMS 4:390). This possibly reflects Kant’s critical reevaluation of Baumgarten’s (compara-
tive) conception of “first” principles, which the former regards as grounding at most a comparative
generality, not strict universality (see Fugate 2015, esp. 74f.). Thus, the emphasis in the Groundwork is
on the mere generality of Wolff ’s theory of willing.
¹¹ The emphasis on obligation in the very definition of the practical disciplines at least complicates
Schwaiger’s suggestion that Baumgarten’s moral philosophy only appears to be centered on this
concept—a fact decisive in relation to Kant—because he failed to publish an entire overview of first
practical philosophy, but rather only its elements, i.e. the BIP. Cf. Schwaiger’s chapter below
(Chapter 1).
6  .    

principles in view of their being the best suited to the realization of the ends and
perfections of the science among the greatest number of human beings (BIP §89).
Thus, since the “natural” is, by definition, what can be known directly through our
experience of things and their own internal principles or natures, it follows that if
there is a natural and relatively most self-evident principle of practical philosophy,
then it will also be the best first principle and so will be the one chosen as such by
the best practical philosopher. Indeed, this priority of the natural with respect to
human beings seems to be the root motivation for Baumgarten’s inclusion of the
condition “without faith” in his definitions of all philosophical disciplines includ-
ing first practical philosophy (BIP §90); for dependence on faith, rather than on
our direct experience of nature, already indicates an absence of self-evidence and
thus a deficiency in the power to directly convince and motivate by naturally
available means. The second consideration that lends priority to the natural—and
this really underwrites the previous one from a metaphysical point of view—lies in
Baumgarten’s argument that God himself prioritizes natural over supernatural
order in all his choices, and thus also in the choice of moral laws (BIP §69; BM
§495, 497, 498). Together, these two considerations can be seen as providing a
large part of the philosophical grounding for Baumgarten’s closer adherence,
when compared with Wolff, to traditional accounts of natural law.
Finally, much has been made of Baumgarten’s “softening” of Wolff ’s rational-
ism with respect to practical philosophy.¹² And this is surely an important insight
into Baumgarten’s motivations in the Elements; for it is hard to deny that Wolff ’s
formulation of perfectionism fails to fully capture the complexity of moral moti-
vation and tends toward a sort of elitism, two features that Baumgarten worked
hard to remedy in line with his Pietist leanings.¹³ But it bears emphasizing that this
points us to only one aspect of Baumgarten’s originality with respect to Wolff ’s
practical philosophy, the greater part of which has yet to be explored, or perhaps
even noticed (further points are mentioned particularly in Schwaiger’s chapter
below, but can also be found throughout the others). To take just one instance: As
central as the concept of the “good” must be to any moral philosophy, it has yet to
be emphasized that (let alone explained why) Baumgarten radically departs from
Wolff ’s definition of it. For Wolff, “good” is a concept first arising within and so
belonging properly to empirical psychology, where it is defined as “what perfects
us and our own state” (WDM §422; WPE §554). It is thus essentially human-

¹² See e.g. Schwaiger (2018a, 58).

¹³ Baumgarten’s allowance for the “mediocrity” of human intelligence (BIP *IX; Baumgarten 2013,
92; BPB 12) has not perhaps been fully appreciated. It runs like a thread through his works and is
closely related to his metaphysics of finitude (BM §249) and his understanding of the moral principle of
the mean (BIP §107, 244, 248; BA §269; and especially BEP §170). See also the many formulations of
moral principles throughout the BIP that modify the main rule with “as much as you can.” Moreover,
in the preface to the second edition of the BEP, Baumgarten applauds those doctors of philosophy who
are able to teach mediocre minds (BEP 35). Fugate (2023, 65) argues that this reflects a central feature
of Baumgarten’s thought.
  7

centered. Baumgarten’s definition, in sharp contrast, is found in his Ontology and

so is not restricted to any special class of beings: “Something is good,” he writes,
“if, when it is posited, a perfection is also posited” (BM §100). That this difference
in views on the nature and scope of goodness affects their metaphysical doctrine of
transcendental goodness is clear enough,¹⁴ but one would only expect such a
difference to have even more significant and wide-ranging effects on their moral
philosophies as well.¹⁵ What are the reasons for this change? What are its con-
sequences? Are there other, similarly fundamental innovations that have yet to be
noted and whose impact has yet to be detected? It is our hope that the chapters
in this volume will advance the growing debate on these topics and so open the
path for a better understanding of the nature, significance, and influence of
Baumgarten’s Elements.

This Volume

This volume contains the first comprehensive reappraisal of the relationship

between Baumgarten’s and Kant’s thoughts on the grounding principles of
moral philosophy to be published in the English language, and only the second
in any language to date.¹⁶ The topics covered span the range of key concepts in the
foundations of practical philosophy: obligation, law, goodness, motivation, impu-
tation, conscience, the relationship between ethics and right, and many more.
Later chapters provide a comparative look at Kant’s and Baumgarten’s places
within the wider tradition of natural law.
We open the volume with two selections from Clemens Schwaiger’s seminal
study, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten—Ein Intellectuelles Portr€ at (Schwaiger
2011a), chapters 7 and 8, under the title “The Inventor of the Practical
Imperative.” Schwaiger dismantles the common and unfounded opinion that
Baumgarten is simply an orthodox Wolffian, an opinion which he claims has
led to a dearth of Baumgarten scholarship (until recently, that is). His contribution
to this volume uncovers many instances in which Baumgarten has not simply
followed Wolff, but rather critiqued and even extended Wolff ’s thinking, often in
a way more congenial to his Pietist background. In contrast to Wolff, and under
the influence of Heinrich Köhler, Baumgarten centralizes obligation within his
practical philosophy; he introduces the concept of necessitation, which he iden-
tifies with freedom, ahead of Wolffian necessity; he overcomes Wolffian rational-
ism with the addition of sensory impulses that would motivate the actor alongside

¹⁴ E.g. it allows Baumgarten to defend the Scholastic convertibility of being and goodness (BM
§100), something Wolff only mentions in passing and in principle cannot accept according to his
definitions (WO §503).
¹⁵ For more on this, see Chapters 5 and 10 in this volume.
¹⁶ Schwaiger (2011a) being the first.
8  .    

rational ones; he limits ethics to the possible, hence identifying and eliminating
any “chimerical ethics” that would demand the impossible; he develops the concept
of “moral egoism” (a term which the tradition has largely ascribed to Kant) to
overcome Francke’s complaint that Wolffian ethics is inherently solipsistic; and
finally he distinguishes moving from living cognition, refining the latter into one
of the chief perfections demanded by practical philosophy, thereby psychologizing
ethics. Kant, argues Schwaiger, is terminologically dependent on Baumgarten,
and his own terminological precision is often owing to his confrontation with
Baumgarten. Kant also developed the idea of a metaphysics of morality precisely
from Baumgarten’s concept of a first practical philosophy, although the two
approaches are quite disparate qua content. For example, Baumgarten gave Kant
his focus on duty. Moreover, Baumgarten is the first to use the term “imperative”
morally, which Kant goes on to sharpen, whitling away any idea that a moral
imperative could belong to the sensory or psychological. Finally, and fatefully,
Baumgarten detached happiness from ethics, and sees religion as playing a key
role in the latter. Thus, Schwaiger argues that it would be hard to account for
Kant’s interest in Baumgarten were the latter simply an orthodox Wolffian whose
strength is found merely in mastering and taming the vast output of his school-
master. Rather, the twin but opposing poles of rationalism and Pietism gave
Baumgarten a unique framework for developing the thought of Wolff, and in
the process, incalculably influencing Kant.
Stefanie Buchenau’s chapter (“Mathematizing Morality”) provides a different
perspective on the developmental story told in Schwaiger’s work by framing it
from two related vantage points. The first lies in Wolff ’s original intention to
reform moral philosophy into a genuine and well-articulated science by realizing
the dream of earlier philosophers to treat it according to the mathematical method
or mathesis universalis; the second in his aim to do so in a way that would also be
eminently useful to all of humanity as such, and thus to develop a method that is
both popular and maximally suited to fostering moral improvement. Against this
background, Buchenau argues, we should see Baumgarten’s Elements as a radical
criticism of Wolff ’s view that these two aims are in fact consistent when understood
in relation to the actual, finite nature of the human beings that such a mathesis is
supposed to improve. In effect, Baumgarten’s “softening” of Wolffian practical
rationalism—which Schwaiger shows also has Pietist roots—can equally be viewed
as aiming to fulfill Wolff ’s own popular project by drawing on resources from
outside of the Wolffian practical mathesis, particularly in the realm of practical
psychology and aesthetics. On this basis, Buchenau then argues that Kant’s moral
philosophy can be interpreted, in a certain respect, as a return to the Wolffian
scheme, which explains his (qualified) praise for Wolff ’s universal practical philos-
ophy and his attempt to positively relate his work to it. For, just like Wolff, Kant aims
to establish a foundation for moral philosophy—containing a “mathematically”
systematic account of basic moral principles—that is capable in turn of supporting
  9

a truly popular doctrine, one thus aimed at moral improvement. Taken together,
the first two chapters of this volume demonstrate the complexity involved in
situating Baumgarten in relation to the two dominant philosophical tendencies of
the day, namely, Pietism and Wolffianism, and consequently of understanding his
mediating role between Wolff and Kant.
In the next chapter (“Obligation as Moral Necessitation and Nötigung”), Heiner
F. Klemme casts a critical eye on the standard claim that Baumgarten’s innovative
use of the term “Nötigung” (Lat. “necessitatio,” practical necessitation) and Kant’s
adoption of it indicates a closeness of their philosophical positions. While not
denying Kant’s dependence on Baumgarten’s terminology or other possible effects
this might have had on Kant’s thought, Klemme advances the debate in two
important ways. First, by situating Baumgarten’s usage within the larger termi-
nological tradition (particularly with reference to Leibniz’s French writings), he
shows that Kant’s usage can be seen as indicative of a philosophically motivated
distancing of his views from Leibniz’s position according to which obligation is
never a matter of necessitation. This, Klemme notes, brings Kant in fact closer to
Baumgarten in one respect, since the latter uses Nötigung precisely to further
develop the space for understanding a tension within willing according to which
one aspect of the will constrains another. Second, Klemme drives home the point
that, in another and deeper sense, the way such a space is conceptualized in the
two thinkers is completely distinct, and so in this respect there simply can be no
question of influence or of borrowing. Baumgarten conceptualizes this space
deterministically and causally, thus developing a psychological cum metaphysical
picture of this tension. Kant, on the other hand, rejects any such approach to
moral motivation, insisting instead on what Klemme characterizes as a “norma-
tive” account of this space and the tension that fills it between what one does and
what one ought to do in view of one’s moral necessitation. In this way, Klemme
brings the debate to a new stage; the question is no longer whether and to what
extent Kant directly borrows from Baumgarten, but rather—given the sharpness
in the fundamental shift from Baumgarten’s psychological cum metaphysical
approach to a normative¹⁷ one—what is the deeper basis for such an influence
at all? Moreover, by what logic was Kant able to redeploy Baumgarten’s concepts,
with their various modifications, on this utterly distinct normative footing?
Sonja Schierbaum and Michael Walschots’s contribution to our volume
(“Necessitation, Constraint, and Reluctant Action”) confirms, but also qualifies
and extends, a thesis mentioned by Klemme in his chapter, namely, that Leibniz
and thinkers closer to him see obligation as inconsistent with constraint, that Kant
differs by seeing obligation as involving it essentially, and that Baumgarten’s

¹⁷ One might already here start to wonder if this characterization is sufficiently precise to frame the
question; for Baumgarten would surely have regarded his account as normative as well, though not, to
be sure, in the same sense as Klemme ascribes to Kant.
10  .    

theory of moral necessitation forms the intermediate bridge between the two
positions. Schierbaum and Walschots begin by carefully presenting the textual
and philosophical basis for the claim that Wolff holds obligation and constraint to
be incompatible, the central reason being that he equates free action with action
done gladly, which he holds to be the direct opposite of acting under constraint.
The only exception is when we must choose the lesser of two evils; here alone can
we act with displeasure, but only so as to avoid an even greater displeasure.
According to the authors, Baumgarten departs from Wolff ’s language and theory
in several crucial ways, which allow him to regard a special sort of constraint as
compatible with, though not required for, genuine obligation. The main point is
that Baumgarten develops a model of choice and motivation wherein it makes
sense to speak of deliberating in a state of conflict with ourselves, but also then
producing the grounds that turn choice decisively in the direction of our obliga-
tion. It is the condition that such grounds be produced by us or internally, in a way
that essentially presupposes freedom, that makes such constraint both moral and
compatible with natural obligation. Nevertheless, Baumgarten holds it as at least
possible for one to act without constraint, although only in the sense that the
preponderance of motives to fulfill our obligations is so overwhelming that it
doesn’t make sense to speak of it as reluctant and hence constrained.¹⁸ Turning
then to Kant, Schierbaum and Walschots echo Klemme’s claims by emphasizing
the difference between Baumgarten’s psychological approach and Kant’s norma-
tive approach to moral necessitation. But despite this difference, they argue, Kant
can be seen in one very important respect as radicalizing Baumgarten’s view by
holding constraint to be not only consistent with obligation but even equivalent to
it when understood normatively. On such an interpretation, we can see that the
sort of psychological model of interiority developed by Baumgarten—wherein a
dual self must produce (at least in part) the grounds that are to necessitate it
morally—bears a striking structural analogy with Kant’s normative account of
self-constraint and perhaps also of autonomy.
Moving beyond a consideration of the concept of obligation alone, the next
chapter compares the accounts of its grounds and status in the two philosophers.
Here Stefano Bacin argues that in §37 of the Elements, Baumgarten provides
important qualifications to the controversial notion of “objective morality,”
which had long been at the center of the dispute between moral realists like

¹⁸ Baumgarten’s notion of “constraint” is clearly supposed to reflect common usage. Thus, if

someone performs an action with the tiniest, almost unnoticeable conflicting inclination, then one
would not normally call this a case of reluctant action or constraint and so neither does Baumgarten.
But, in a strict sense, there would in this case not necessarily be a difference in kind, but only in the
degree, between such a condition and what is happening in recognized cases of constraint: namely, self-
produced grounds to perform our obligation are overriding other conflicting ones. The question thus
remains whether, according to Baumgarten, human beings, as finite, can ever act with without self-
constraint in this more subtle sense. And the answer seems to be negative (BIP §54; BM §719–20; but
esp. BM §661, 713).
  11

Wolff and his voluntarist adversaries. He begins by examining Baumgarten’s

understanding of “morality” more generally §36–8, before focusing specifically
on his account of “objective morality” in the key §37. As Bacin argues,
Baumgarten fundamentally reinterprets this traditional concept in a way that is
essentially relational and, somewhat paradoxically for such a theory, connected in
a fundamental way to the divine will. This, on Bacin’s account, has the surprising
implication that affirming objective morality does not—as it had in previous
authors—amount to an outright rejection of what Baumgarten calls “subjective
morality”; indeed, the two provide complimentary ways of viewing one and the
same structure. Finally, Bacin argues that this reinvention of the distinction
between objective and subjective morality in Baumgarten’s Elements plays a
crucial role in Kant’s dialogue with Baumgarten in the former’s private notes
and lectures, and in this manner is an important factor in the development of his
mature practical philosophy.
Gualtiero Lorini’s chapter is framed by Dio Cassius’s complaint that virtue has
become an empty name lacking any motivational force. Lorini argues that Kant
attempts to avoid this through a critical rehabilitation of the role that God plays in
Baumgarten’s ethics. Baumgarten notedly rearranges Wolff ’s ethical system, and
places the duties to God as first in his Ethica philosophica, even though he argues
that ethics is known “without faith <sine fide>.” For Baumgarten, ethics is the
science of obligation, and obligation follows from living knowledge, which in turn
exceeds merely theoretical or dead knowledge. The more living one’s knowledge of
one’s obligation is, the more one understands one’s obligation, and the more
clearly one will act on it. Thus, a living knowledge of God, the most perfect being,
would most perfectly obligate one. In claiming such, Baumgarten not only follows
up his claim in the Metaphysics that God should be considered the author of
natural law, and hence of ethical obligations, but he also radically psychologizes
obligation with his gnoseological framework. Kant rejects both moves, since if
God were author of obligation, then obligation would be arbitrary and would
obviate the possibility of autonomous rational agents freely legislating the moral
law through the good will. Second, a psychological ethics depends on the necessi-
tation flowing from degrees of knowledge, whereas Kant argues that ethics flows
precisely from this possibility of the autonomous rational agents freely legislating
the moral law through the good will, rather than simply the possibility to
understand it more vividly. However, Kant is left with two problems: how does
moral goodness avoid becoming an empty name if its force comes from human
reason alone (that is: how does it motivate us), and how might happiness be
preserved in a system that otherwise seems to completely deny its moral import?
Kant’s solution is to see obligations not as divine commands, but as if they were
divine commands. Then, God does not become the author of moral obligation, but
divine commands become a heuristic urging activity according to an obligation
stemming from the categorical imperative, and likewise God becomes a postulate
12  .    

of reason necessary for the possibility of a happiness that will be the product of
divine distributive justice for those worthy of such.
The next two chapters focus on problems related to the theory of moral
imputation, that is, the philosophical account of the grounds and procedures
involved in determining and judging whether a morally relevant action has been
performed by an agent and whether this has been performed in accordance with a
law, and more particularly which law. In “Baumgarten and Kant on Conscience,”
Allen Wood uncovers and compares the shared juridical and forensic models of
moral conscience in Baumgarten and Kant. As he shows, both see obligation of
every sort as involving, essentially, a judgment pronounced by a court or forum
that renders verdicts on actions and agents. Moral conscience, in particular, is
viewed by both as an internal capacity, structured analogously to an external court
of law, for making certain kinds of judgments about one’s own actions. And like
all courts, a central function of this capacity is deciding the imputation of both
deed and law. For Baumgarten, in fact, Wood shows that the primary judgment of
conscience is one of imputation. Baumgarten thus sees such judgments as inter-
preting the meaning of actions and as applying moral obligation more or less
wisely and accurately. For this reason, a key moral principle in his Elements is that
we should strive to act according to our “best” conscience. Kant, by contrast,
distinguishes judgments about which actions we are to perform or avoid from the
judgment specific to conscience itself. Like Baumgarten, he thinks we should of
course follow our best judgment, but with the awareness that it is always fallible.
Yet, in order to act with moral decisiveness, Kant also thinks what we need is a
distinct sort of judgment on the question: Are we guilty or innocent before our
own judgment when it comes to doing our best to determine what we ought to do,
and in assessing our actions from the standpoint of morality and not mere
legality? Kant holds that conscience, properly understood in this way, judges us
primarily in relation to this last question. And here the judgment of conscience is
infallible—not in the sense that it cannot be objectively mistaken in what we do—
but rather in the sense in which a court of last instance is procedurally infallible: it
has the final say about each particular decision.
Turning from the topic of imputation in general, Alexander Aichele—author of
the only full-length study of Baumgarten’s practical philosophy (2017) and
German translator of the Elements (Baumgarten 2019a)—points to a fundamental
problem in Kant’s specific theory of imputation, namely, that of how it is actually
to be applied in regard to real agents and in concrete circumstances. As Aichele
stresses, one of Kant’s central innovations is to articulate an absolutely pure, a
priori principle for moral judgment. This has the great advantage over previous
theories, such as Baumgarten’s, that it perfectly simplifies—or at least promises to
simplify—the judgment of action types and thus of maxims drawn up for possible
actions. By virtue of this move, moral judgment for Kant is rendered independent
from any empirical elements and becomes purely a matter of the logical
  13

consistency of the proposed maxim with itself and with the a priori conditions of
willing. But the cost of this simplification is a total opacity regarding whether an
agent actually, in retrospect, acted on a certain maxim or not when they per-
formed a physical act. In other words, the purity of the law brings with it the non-
empirical character of the act of determination by such a law such that it now
becomes difficult to understand how empirical behavior—the only kind there is,
after all—can be assessed for its morality. And while this does, indeed, simplify the
judgment of action types on the one side, on the other it therefore creates
perhaps insuperable problems for the practice of moral imputation, which is
the retrospective judgment that an agent actually performed (and so freely) an
empirical act (physical imputation) and that this empirical action exemplifies a
type of action mentioned in a law (imputation of law). As Aichele notes,
Kant does not provide a theory of imputation in his published writings, but
instead in the Metaphysics of Morals, simply gestures toward the sort of theory
fully worked out and explained by Baumgarten as a major part of his Elements.
The problem here, however, is that such a theory can be so robust only because
it was designed to deal with a naturalistic, and thus empirically informed,
conception of freedom and agency. Hence, it is doubtful that Kant can make
use of Baumgarten’s philosophy as he seems to want to do, at least not without
providing a much deeper explanation of how this would work. In this way,
Aichele’s chapter (“Imputation: Applying Practical Norms in Kant and
Baumgarten”) demonstrates a key instance in which the essential difference
between Kant’s and Baumgarten’s approaches yields both advantages and dis-
advantages for each side.
Until very recently, Kant’s moral philosophy has been viewed—as he clearly at
points intended it to be—as a principled rejection of the sort of moral perfection-
ism found in the writings of Wolff and especially Baumgarten. The next two
chapters, however, not only question the adequacy of this view but argue indeed
that when seen through the lens of its development, Kant’s philosophy can and
should be thought of as a new form of moral perfectionism. In “Perfection and
Self-Perfection in Baumgarten and Kant,” Paul Guyer revisits and extends his
previous work on Kant’s relation to the perfectionist moral tradition, focusing
more specifically on Baumgarten’s role in that relationship. In the first part of
his chapter, Guyer takes a closer look at Kant’s criticisms of perfectionism—its
supposed vagueness and emptiness as a moral principle—noting that these are
neither entirely fair to Baumgarten’s version, nor do they rule out perfectionism
per se. Indeed, he argues that Kant’s own moral philosophy can and should be,
and in fact sometimes is by Kant himself, understood to be a new form of
perfectionism, one however that aims at the perfection of the human will qua
transcendentally free, rather than at the perfection of human nature in any
other, naturalistic sense. In the second and third parts of the chapter, Guyer
then digs into the consequences this has for understanding Kant’s adoption and
14  .    

modification of certain basic distinctions within practical philosophy. At the level

of the particular ethical duties of human beings, for example, Guyer shows that
Kant draws directly on Baumgarten’s ethics, but introduces several important
distinctions and refinements, beginning with a revision of Baumgarten’s equation
between perfect and imperfect duties, on the one hand, and juridical and ethical
duties, on the other. According to Guyer, Kant’s revision of the first distinction
allows him to include all perfect duties to oneself and some perfect duties to others
in the class of ethical duties generally (i.e. in the class of those that can and may be
enforced only by respect for the moral law) even though they are not duties of
virtue proper.
The chapter by Courtney D. Fugate (“Perfectionism from Wolff to Kant”) takes
up Guyer’s suggestion that we interpret Kant’s moral philosophy as a new form of
perfectionism and seeks to confirm and further extend it by reconstructing
Baumgarten’s specific role in transmitting the theory from Wolff to Kant. After
providing further reasons internal to Kant’s mature moral theory to suspect such a
connection, Fugate argues that the link between Wolffian and Kantian perfec-
tionism lies specifically in the concept and determinate structure of natural
perfection, or perfection insofar as it can be known with certainty by reason.
Wolff first introduces this notion, employing it as a general or formal guideline
for discovering moral laws, and thus the moral good, and does so according to a
consequentialist model wherein the good is what serves as a means to human
perfection. Baumgarten plays a crucial role in then providing a complete,
systematic treatment of this formal concept of natural perfection, thereby
transforming it into something similar to what Kant would later call an “idea
of reason,” that is to say, a concept of an absolute maximum of perfection from
which arise certain “regulative” principles for its application to the system of
moral laws. According to Fugate, if we examine Kant’s notes on Baumgarten’s
Elements, it becomes clear exactly how Kant’s philosophy is a descendent of
perfectionism; for in them we discover that Kant adopts this same idea of
absolute perfection from Baumgarten, but instead of regarding it as a general
guideline for discovering moral laws in actual nature, he takes morality to lie in
making the pure idea of such natural perfection into the constitutive form of free
willing itself. In this way, the empty and vague principle of perfection becomes
for Kant a substantive principle with the end of subordinating the free will to this
very idea.
In “Baumgarten, Kant, and the Subdivisions of Practical Philosophy,” Frederick
Rauscher carefully anatomizes the many senses of the key terms “inner” and
“outer” in both Baumgarten’s and Kant’s writings. This, by itself, provides a
marvelous illustration of how Kant adopts but also systematically modifies fun-
damental concepts in Baumgarten’s Elements. According to Rauscher, the key to
understanding Kant’s terminology is to see precisely how his emphasis on his own
distinctive conception of freedom (as absolute or transcendental), results in a
  15

redrawing of the lines between what is regarded as internal and external in various
domains. For example, what is “internal” psychologically in Baumgarten is often
regarded by Kant as “external” in respect to freedom (or in respect to what is
normative, one might be tempted to say). But as Rauscher shows through his
exhaustive examination of the texts, and especially of Kant’s reflections on
Baumgarten’s textbook, the story is not as simple in all cases, particularly those
involving the division between internal and external freedom itself. Here Rauscher
advances the thesis that Kant’s relationship to Baumgarten is far more complex
than previously thought and that examining it in detail shows how the seemingly
clean distinction between the domains of virtue and right in Kant’s published
writings masks a deeper complexity that allows for other divisions cutting across
our duties in different and important ways.
Fiorella Tomassini’s comparative study (“Three Models of Natural Right:
Baumgarten, Achenwall, and Kant”) evaluates the relationship between Kant’s
published Doctrine of Right and the natural right tradition as represented
by Baumgarten and Gottfried Achenwall. In her careful analysis, Tomassini
identifies one fundamental goal shared by all three—namely, that of establishing
a systematic doctrine of right based in reason alone—as well as three ways
in which Kant distances himself from their approaches. These latter consist
in his: (1) distinguishing laws of right, as based on freedom, from laws of
nature; (2) rejecting any attempt to found such laws in an end imposed on
human beings, replacing this instead by a self-imposed end; and (3) rejecting the
idea that laws of right must have their origin in the will of a superior, divine will.
A key point Tomassini establishes is that Kant’s division between ethics and
right, which places the distinguishing mark in the latter’s connection to coer-
cion, has no basis in Baumgarten’s Elements, but is instead borrowed from
Achenwall’s Natural Right.
We close the volume with John Hymers’ historical-comparative account of the
genesis of Baumgarten’s doctrine of just war within the framework of the right of
nature, and his influence on Kant’s philosophy of peace (“War, Violence, and
Punishment in Baumgarten’s Philosophy of Right”). With his explicit cosmopol-
itanism, Kant has often been considered the philosophical father of the United
Nations and the role of his work, but especially of Perpetual Peace, within
contemporary theories of just war has been greatly celebrated. Indeed, the very
UN Charter itself takes up a number of Kantian principles, even if imperfectly
elaborated, and among these we find the strict principle of defensive war. By
looking at the breadth of Baumgarten’s philosophy of right, i.e. the Initia, the
Ethica philosophica, Ius naturae, as well as the Sciagraphia encyclopaediae philo-
sophicae, Hymers analyzes Baumgarten’s own position on just war, showing
how it developed from the thought of Hugo Grotius and Christian Wolff ’s
emendations thereto. However, along with his fellow Young Wolves Köhler and
Achenwall, Baumgarten departed at times in a striking manner from the tradition,
16  .    

even while retaining the natural right-basis for a just war theory. Among his
innovations we find a three-fold temporality of defense against harm, the restric-
tion that a just war is limited strictly to defense against harm to oneself, a strict
distinction between force and violence, and, fatefully, a prohibition against puni-
tive war. Especially the doctrine of defensive war and its corollary excluding
punitive war, will show up in Kant. Thus, Baumgarten played a not unimportant
role in establishing the UN’s position on war.
 1
The Inventor of the Practical Imperative
A Portrait of Baumgarten’s Ethics between
Wolff and Kant
Clemens Schwaiger

Part One. A “missing link” on the path from Wolff to Kant.

On the sources and reception history of Baumgarten’s
practical philosophy*

On the urgency of researching Baumgarten’s ethics. It is scarcely possible to assert

that the prehistory of Kantian moral philosophy has been sufficiently elucidated in
every respect. Perhaps the most sensitive lacuna in the research on the road to
Kant—even though it is hardly ever noticed, and let alone that almost no attempt
has been made to bridge it—concerns Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten as the lead
author of Kant’s lectures on ethics. Although Kant taught his classes on morality
for decades based on Baumgarten’s two compendia, a closer study of these works
still remains a desideratum to this very day. Within Baumgarten studies, research-
ers have directed their efforts primarily at the founder of aesthetics. Additionally,
the metaphysics textbook, on which Kant likewise based his lectures, already
receives distinctly less attention in the secondary literature. Still, measured by
the quantity of publications, Baumgarten’s practical philosophy must qualify as
the stepchild. In vain does one look for specific publications or indeed mono-
graphs dedicated to it, whether of recent or older vintage.¹ Yet this aspect of his
academic activity was by no means marginal when considering all of his works.
The main reason for the lack of research interest probably lies in Baumgarten’s
usually having been labeled, at least in this field, as a more-or-less orthodox
Wolffian. In a rough approximation to the history of philosophy, Wolff comes

* Translator’s note: Translated by John Hymers from chapters 7 and 8 (§§37–46) of Alexander
Gottlieb Baumgarten—ein intellektuelles Porträt. Studien zur Metaphysik und Ethik von Kants Leitautor
(Schwaiger 2011a, 115–43). All notes below are from Schwaiger’s text, unless clearly indicated
otherwise.
¹ Editors’ note: For how the situation has changed since 2011, when this piece was published, see the
Introduction to this volume. In respect to monographs, see Aichele (2017).

Clemens Schwaiger, The Inventor of the Practical Imperative: A Portrait of Baumgarten’s Ethics between Wolff and Kant
In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers,
Oxford University Press. © Clemens Schwaiger 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0002
18  

first and then Kant; there is hardly any mention of all that lies in between. The
distinction between the old wolf and the young wolves—if you can excuse this
pun—usually falls by the wayside. From this perspective, Baumgarten may at best
be seen as a pioneer who broke new ground in aesthetics, the field which, as is well
known, he named. His idea of an independent science of sensuous knowledge
could be considered as an original supplement to the Wolffian system. However,
with respect to the rest of the disciplines, did he not himself openly make clear
his deep debt of gratitude to Wolff?² Indeed, it can hardly be denied that
Baumgarten’s autodidactic study of Wolff ’s writings deeply influenced the entire
development of his own thought. By adopting Wolffianism, he overcame the anti-
philosophical tendencies of the Pietist tradition in which he primarily grew up.
Nevertheless, a number of objections emerge when considering his life and
work that, even with regard to morality <in moralibus>, contradict the common
classification of Baumgarten as an undoubted disciple of Wolff. First, the suspi-
cion arises that his upbringing in the spiritual home of Pietism—the effects of
which would surely be difficult to overcome—somehow impacted the shape
of his ethics. For his entire life Baumgarten had a double identity, belonging
both to Pietism and the Enlightenment.³ Furthermore, there is the question of
whether the independence and increased valuation of sensibility, which is docu-
mented in his invention of a new science created for this purpose, did not have
tangible repercussions on his moral philosophy. In the case of a thinker who, like
Baumgarten, was so consistent in developing his basic aesthetic intuitions, there is
not only a very close link between aesthetics and logic, but also corresponding
interactions between metaphysics and ethics.
It is no coincidence that Baumgarten himself emphatically resisted being
generically labeled a Wolffian. In no field of philosophy did he see himself as a
mere imitator or mechanical parrot of Christian Wolff.⁴ At any rate, it was not
actually possible for him to be slavishly faithful to the master in the domain of
practical philosophy in the middle of the 1730s, when Baumgarten commenced
his academic teaching.⁵ For, the relevant Latin writings of Wolff were only to
appear afterwards: the Philosophia practica universalis at the end of the 1730s, the
Ius naturae in the 1740s, and the Philosophia moralis sive ethica only at the
beginning of the 1750s.⁶ So Baumgarten decided to make a virtue out of necessity;

² Cf. Baumgarten, Metaphysics, preface to the first edition (BM 92; AA 17:6); Philosophical Ethics,
preface to the first edition (BEP 30; AA 27:737); BPB (1st correspondence, 4).
³ Niggli correctly demonstrates this in her introduction to Die Vorreden zur Metaphysik
(Baumgarten 1999, xxix), which also offers a very helpful bibliography regarding Baumgarten
(Baumgarten 1999, 217–50).
⁴ Cf. Baumgarten, BPB (1st correspondence, 4); Scriptis quae moderator conflictus academici
disputavit §13 (1743, 22*).
⁵ Translator’s note: Baumgarten began teaching after his successful dissertation of 1735.
⁶ For an extensive presentation and evaluation of Wolff ’s complete moral-philosophical works,
please see my dissertation, Das Problem des Glücks im Denken Christian Wolffs (Schwaiger 1995).
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for want of a usable textbook on ethics, he quickly wrote his own, the Philosophical
Ethics, which was first published in 1740. He found the textbook situation
somewhat better with regard to the general foundation of practical philosophy,
that is, the discipline of a general practical philosophy, which was programmat-
ically required by Wolff. For this, Baumgarten drew on the Exercitationes
iuris naturalis that Wolff ’s student Heinrich Köhler had published a few years
earlier.⁷ Driven by his hunger for education, Baumgarten had become personally
acquainted with this important natural-right scholar on trips to study at the
Wolffian center of Jena, although he never attended a lecture of the great master
Wolff himself. Later in 1760, two years before his death, Baumgarten published
the Elements of First Practical Philosophy as a result of his continued study of this
subject. Both the Ethics and the Elements offered, so to say, the staple diet on
which Kant would nourish his lectures on moral philosophy well into the 1790s.
The fact that Baumgarten laid the foundation of his practical philosophy with
Köhler’s help instead of Wolff ’s was extremely momentous for his approach. His
ethical project obtained its very strong juridical character from this origin. Thus, he
became accustomed to joining general practical philosophy with natural right,⁸
whereas Wolff treated both disciplines as systematically separate. This tendency
toward such a fusion was soon encouraged when Baumgarten, as of 1740, started
teaching at Frankfurt on the Oder, which was a university shaped by jurisprudence.⁹
The most obvious legacy of Köhler is the fact that the concept of obligation
<Verbindlichkeit>—and no longer, as in Wolff, that of perfection—became the
linchpin of his entire moral philosophy. Köhler had dedicated his own treatise to
the key term obligatio; in it he ambitiously attempted to reconcile Wolff ’s and
Thomasius’s diverging views of moral obligation <Verpflichtung>.¹⁰ In general, the
Thomasian school exerted an important influence upon Köhler’s natural right,
although the professor from Jena strongly depended on Wolff for a metaphysical
foundation. That he, for instance, particularly emphasized the difference between
constrained and unconstrained duties, which is how the Thomasians consummated
the distinction between right and morality, was then further passed on to Baumgarten.

II

Baumgarten’s Development of Wolff ’s Concept of Duty. Following Köhler, for

Baumgarten obligatio forms the common generic term encompassing both

⁷ Cf. Heinrich Köhler, Exercitationes juris naturalis, eiusque cumprimis cogentis, methodo system-
atica propositi (1729); see also Baumgarten’s unfinished commentary to the same, Ius naturae (1763),
which was only published posthumously. Illuminating for Baumgarten’s own philosophical beginnings
is his assessment of the situation in BDO §§22f (1748, 21–3).
⁸ Cf. BEP, preface to the first edition (XXX; AA 27:737). ⁹ Cf. Heinrich (1983, 80).
¹⁰ Cf. Köhler (1723, esp. § 47 (9), and § 90 (14)).
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jurisprudence and ethics. All of practical philosophy is consequently conceived

of as the science of obligations (scientia obligationum). In distinction from
moral theology, moral philosophy only has to do with those obligations that can
be known without faith. With his obligation-centered understanding of ethics,
Baumgarten consciously distances himself from classical approaches of virtue
ethics.¹¹ This new prioritization is also unmistakable when compared to Wolff,
who always gets by without a concept of obligation in the definition of practical
philosophy.¹² Baumgarten’s increased valuation of the theme of obligation is
already externally evident in the construction of his universal practical philoso-
phy. While Wolff ’s Philosophia practica universalis only treats obligatio as a
section of one chapter, in Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy
the entire structure of the material follows from this concept. Themes like virtue,
happiness, or the question concerning the highest good, which in Wolff were still
the indispensable building blocks of the foundation of moral philosophy, all fall
silently between the cracks in Baumgarten.¹³ When Kant, in his first sketch of
ethics in the so-called Prize Essay of 1762, describes—as if it were self-evident—
obligation as the “first concept” of morality,¹⁴ and especially later, in the period of
his critical moral philosophy, intones duty as the Song of Songs, this is the result of
a formation lasting many years at the hand of Baumgarten’s two compendia on
ethics. The pursuit of modern deontology does not first begin with Kant, but
rather has an important prelude in Baumgarten. This already decisively paves the
way for Kant’s thorough orientation toward duty and the suppression of the
theme of happiness from the core of morality.
Also momentous for the future are Baumgarten’s interventions with regard to
the Wolffian concept of obligation <Verbindlichkeit>. Contrary to first appear-
ances, these are in no way mere cosmetic corrections. The alterations he made
concern so-called passive and so-called active obligation <Obligation>, i.e. obli-
gation <Verbindlichkeit> on the part of the obligated, and on the part of the
obligator.¹⁵ In harmony with the modern natural right tradition, Wolff had
understood the first to be a moral necessity to act (and accordingly, to refrain

¹¹ Cf. BDO §17; BEP §§1–2; BVEEP §1; Baumgarten (1746, §2; 1750, §29); BIP §1, AA 19:9: “practical
philosophy . . . is the science of the obligations of a person that are to be known without faith <Philosophia
[ . . . ] practica est scientia obligationum hominis sine fide cognoscendarum>” (BIN §2).
¹² Cf. e.g. WDP §62: “practical philosophy [is] the science of directing the appetitive faculty to
choosing the good and fleeing the bad <philosophia practica [est] scientia dirigendi facultatem appeti-
tivam in eligendo bono & fugiendo malo>.”
¹³ Cf. the respective table of contents in WPPU 1:593 and WPPU 2:809, and the synopsis in BIP *xi
(AA 19:8f.). That in Baumgarten’s Philosophia generalis, §149, aretologia, eudemonologia, and anthro-
pognosia universalis are also listed as components of philosophia practica universalis alongside nomo-
logia, has only more of the character of one of Wolff ’s long-since stalled but unredeemed programs.
¹⁴ Cf. Kant UDG A96.
¹⁵ On the origin and significance of this distinction, which was developed in the seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century universal-right literature, see Joachim Hruschka, Strafe und Strafrecht bei
Achenwall—Zu einer Wurzel von Feuerbachs pyschologischer Zwangstheorie (1987, 161).
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from acting).¹⁶ In contrast, Baumgarten accentuates the obligating character

of practical precepts <Vorschriften> in a clearly stronger manner; that is, he no
longer only speaks about moral necessity, but rather about moral necessitation
<Nötigung>. Taking the place of the conventional expression necessitas is the
neologism necessitatio, which he himself probably coined.¹⁷ Here too Kant moves,
both linguistically and factually, once again entirely on the path prepared in
advance by Baumgarten; for, as is well known, Kant holds in the Foundations of
the Metaphysics of Morals that practical necessity appears in the human as a kind
of necessitation. Because the human will is not in itself completely in accordance
with reason, but is also subject to inclination, it does not always act from the good
alone, but often must compel itself to do so. Given the constitution of the human
being, what one should do and what one wants to do come into conflict with one
another too easily; in the human, unlike God, they do not inevitably harmonize.¹⁸
An analogous intensification of the obligatory moment, which would later
continue to affect Kant, also arises in Baumgarten’s concept of active obligation
<Verbindlichkeit>. Here, Wolff had already introduced a profound innovation.
To obligate someone to an action means to connect a motive <Beweggrund> to it.
One necessarily wills an action when, and only when, there is a motive for it.¹⁹
Obligation <Obligation> equals motivation <Motivation>—so runs, in a nutshell,
Wolff ’s solution to the problem of obligation. By means of this psychologizing, or
internalizing, of obligation <Verplichtung>, Wolff aimed at combatting the purely
positivist view of obligation <Verbindlichkeit> that had become regnant following
Hobbes and Pufendorf. Wolff was decisively influenced by Leibniz in this anti-
voluntarist line of attack. Leibniz had also already rejected seeing the natural-law
source of obligation <Verpflichtung> in the arbitrariness of a legislature.
Obligation <Verbindlichkeit> must not only be derived from fear of punishment
or hope for reward.²⁰

¹⁶ Cf. WPPU I, §118 “the moral necessity of acting or not acting is called passive obligation
<Necessitas moralis agendi vel non agendi dicitur obligatio passiva>.”
¹⁷ Cf. BM §723 (AA 17:137): “moral necessitation is obligation.” In the illuminating reference work of
Aso, Kurosaki, Otabe and Yamauchi (1989), Onomasticon philosophicum latinoteutonicum et teutonico-
latinum, which charts the bilingual term-indices of over one hundred Enlightenment textbooks and lexica,
Baumgarten’s Metaphysica §701 (AA 17:131) is given at any rate as the first evidence for necessitatio, i.e.
necessitation <Nöthigung>. Hruschka (1995, 740–2) exhaustively clarifies the juridical-historical back-
ground for the emergence of the concept of necessitation in the middle of the eighteenth century.
¹⁸ Cf. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (GMS BA36-39).
¹⁹ Cf. Wolff ’s German Ethics (WTL §8): “to bind somebody to do something, or not to do something,
is nothing other than to connect a motivation or volition or nolition with that thing <Einen verbinden
etwas zu thun, oder zu lassen, ist nichts anders als einen Bewegungs-Grund des Wollens oder nicht Wollens
damit verknüpffen>”; WPPU 1:§118: “the connection of a motive with an action, either positive or
privative, is called an active obligation <Connexio autem motivi cum actione, sive positiva, sive privativa
obligatio activa appellatur>.” In express connection with Wolff, Köhler also determines obligatio moralis
as “a connection of motives with actions <connexio motivorum cum actionibus>” (1729, §300).
²⁰ Cf. the letter to Wolff of Feb. 21, 1705, in Briefwechsel zwischen Leibniz und Christian Wolff:
“I hold that there is obligation even without a superior . . . Therefore, I do not wish that obligation is to
be sought only from fear of punishment or hope of reward, since there is some non-remunerative desire
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Wolff ’s psychological approach to one’s own motivation for acting is once

again powerfully sharpened by Baumgarten. According to Wolff, what weight the
concerned motive has is entirely irrelevant to the mere existence of an obligation
<Verbindlichkeit>. In contrast, for Baumgarten, one can only talk of obligation
<Verpflichtung> when stronger grounds for activity <Bewegungsursachen> that
outweigh all the contrary impulses are associated with the action. Incentives
<Triebfedern> that are not as powerful as all the contrary grounds bring forth
no obligation <Verpflichtung>.²¹ While Wolff only permitted distinct representa-
tion of goods and evils to count as actual motives for acting,²² Baumgarten also
includes, as equal in importance to these, sensory impulses as possible determin-
ing grounds of action.²³ In this extension, Baumgarten, compared to Wolff,
increases the value of the inferior faculties of cognition and desire in relation to
that of the superior. Consequentially for Baumgarten, it is definitive for being
obligated that, by means of their greater combined strength, sensitive and rational
motivations tip the scales toward a determined action.
This express recognition of the motivating power of sensitive impulses clearly
may not be misunderstood to mean that Baumgarten would want to deliver people
over to the dynamism of their own dark and blind drives. Completely to the
contrary, he is obviously interested in understanding the process of motivation
and obligation as the work of freedom. He therefore subjects the Wolffian
definition of obligation to a further and final alteration. The more powerful
impelling force is not simply connected to the activity itself, but rather to the
free determination (to the action). It is no coincidence that the metaphysical
foundations of the theory of obligation were already laid in the chapter on

of acting correctly <Putem esse etiam sine superiore obligationem . . . Nolim igitur obligationem unice a
metu poenae et spe praemii peti, cum sit aliquod non mercenarium recte faciendi studium>” (Leibniz
1971, 19).
²¹ Cf. Baumgarten’s BIP §15 (AA 19:1335–7): “Obligation . . . can be defined through the
connection . . . of overriding impelling causes with free determinations <Obligatio . . . potest definiri
per connexionem . . . causarum impulsivarum potiorum cum libera determination>” (emphasis added
by author); “partial impelling causes, or even more correctly, the total impelling cause, beget no
obligation unless they will be overriding <Causae impulsivae partiales, immo totalis etiam, nisi
potiores fuerint, obligationem nullam pariunt>” (BIP §19; AA 19:14; repeated in BIN §7). This
tightening up of the obligatory character of moral necessitation in contrast to Wolff, as far as I can
see, has remained hidden in the secondary literature. For instance, Max Küenburg writes that
Baumgarten, without differentiating here, saw obligation “according to the stipulation of his teacher
Christian Wolff, in connection of overriding motives with action” (1925, 51; emphasis added by
author).
²² Cf. Wolff, WPE §890: “motives are a distinct representation of good and bad <Motiva sunt
repraesentatio boni ac mali distincta>.” Wolff clearly appears to have undergone a development in this
regard, for in the German writings motives can also be thoroughly non-distinct; cf. the German
Metaphysics (WDM §502) and the German Ethics (WTL §165).
²³ This is the reason why the expression motiva was replaced by causae impulsivae in the definition
above. For the former, as the generic term, also encompasses sensitive impulses (stimuli) alongside
rationally determined motives; cf. BM §342 (AA 17:101), BM §669 (AA 15:46), BM §677 (AA 15:49);
Gedancken vom vernünfftigen Beyfall auf Academien (BG §5).
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freedom in the Psychologia empirica.²⁴ In Baumgarten’s estimation, what he calls

“moral necessitation” has nothing to do with an unfree heterogeneous determi-
nation, but rather presupposes freedom as an indispensable condition. Therefore,
the expression necessitatio moralis would probably be best rendered in contem-
porary speech—as surprising as that may perhaps sound—with “free self-
determination.” True moral obligation <Verpflichtung>, whether more rationally
or more sensually effected, is self-obligation on account of one’s own freedom, or
it does not deserve the name.²⁵
The principle that one cannot be obligated to the impossible emerges as a
practical implication from this connection of obligation <Verbindlichkeit> with
freedom. What lies completely outside of one’s own power can never become an
object of an obligation <Verpflichtung>. Again and again Baumgarten reiterates
this axiom of his doctrine of obligation: impossibilium nulla est obligatio.²⁶ For
Wolff, in contrast, the idea that nobody may be bound to the impossible is of
secondary importance. It serves purely to justify the necessity for exceptions in
conflicts of duty.²⁷ On the contrary, for Baumgarten this premise plays a preem-
inent role; for, here it is used completely generally to ward off the danger of
excessive moral demand. Right at the very beginning of his ethics compendium,
Baumgarten polemicizes against chimerical ethics, which wants to burden people
with false obligations <Verpflichtungen> in the form of exorbitant demands. Both
ways of speaking, whether that of the ethica deceptrix or that of the obligatio falsa,
are without precedent in Wolff; they reflect a worry that manifestly was first to
trouble Baumgarten.²⁸

III

Living Cognition of True Obligation <Verpflichtung> as the Aim of Philosophical

Ethics. As we’ve seen above, according to Baumgarten philosophical ethics has the
primal temptation to want to build moral castles in the air and to pose unrealistic

²⁴ Translator’s note: i.e. BM §§719–32.

²⁵ By taking up the concept of freedom in the definition of obligation, Baumgarten was probably
reacting to a critique, such as was perhaps exercised by Johann Liborius Zimmermann against Wolff ’s
relevant definition (Zimmermann 1728, §8). If obligation <Verbindlichkeit> were detatched from its
origin in right and consisted purely in the connection of a motive with external action, then, absurdly
even criminals, who extort goods from us, or wild animals, who force us to run away to save our lives,
would be considered as authors of an obligation <Verbindlichkeit>.
²⁶ BIP §11; BEP §7; BPB (3rd correspondence, 9); BIN §11; see also already in KE §§306, 488.
²⁷ Cf. WPPU I, §209.
²⁸ Cf. BIP §27 (AA 19:16), BEP §7 (AA 27:874); BVEEP §38; see also Georg Friedrich Meier’s
Philosophische Sittenlehre (Meier 2007, §§24–25), who sees in such a “deceptive ethics <betrügerischen
Sitttenlehre>” the very greatest mistake of a “moralist” and gives as an example for a “false duty” the
requirement of abhorrence of erudition. At the very least, this example was probably aimed at Pietism’s
many anti-scholarly tendencies.
24  

demands. Yet for him the alternative is clearly not to counter by renouncing all
moral claims. Rather, one of the main uses of moral philosophy is to facilitate,
through an emendation of moral insight, the exercise of true and not merely
imaginary duties. Perhaps when cognition of the structures of human impulse is
deepened, motivation for moral action can also be strengthened.²⁹ At this point,
moral theory immediately turns into moral psychology, without Baumgarten ever
sharply distinguishing them.
The latter, for its part, rapidly takes up a religious hue and thereby leads to the
affirmation of morality through religion. This is because Baumgarten holds that
cognition of God, at least ideally, increases the motives for all other duties and
thus likewise facilitates their exercise. Religion is capable of producing an effect
that strengthens motivation only insofar as it leads to a living cognition (i.e.
cognition that has a practical effect) of duties. As a concrete means to achieving
such living cognition, Baumgarten mentions for instance the practice of edifica-
tion <Erbauung>, as he says while employing a key Pietist concept.³⁰ One would
scarcely err in suspecting the continual effect of Pietist influences on Baumgarten’s
emphasis on the liveliness of direct moral cognition. Apart from that, the enduring
dependence on Pietism is also the reason why he, in contrast to Wolff, intention-
ally places the duties toward God ahead of the duties to oneself.³¹ In the theocen-
tric orientation of morality, the powerful Pietist undercurrent of his thinking
becomes quite noticeable.³²
Wolff had in fact already used the expression “living cognition” in opposition to
“dead cognition” as an ethical term of art. Cognition is living if it renders a motive
for willing something, but dead when this is not the case. Wolff was also certainly
aware of the theological origin of this pair of concepts. As belief without works
would be dead, so too would be cognition without consequence for action.³³

²⁹ Cf. BEP §3 (AA 17:873); BIP §3 (AA 19:9) and §26 (AA 19:16).
³⁰ Cf. BEP §§69–70 (AA 27:886f.). Baumgarten’s consistently quite loyal interpreter Meier, in
Metaphysik III, §669, also cites conversion and being born again as paragons for living knowledge.
An evident Pietist influence lingered on in this central point for him, as for his philosophical teacher;
after all, August Hermann Francke had incessantly propagated the revival of a living faith as the chief
goal of at his Waisenhaus (i.e. orphanage) in Halle (see Wiebecke 1967, esp. 25–32; in this unfortu-
nately still unpublished dissertation, a secularization of Pietist ideas is made responsible, with good
grounds, for the “loosening” of Wolffian rationalism in Baumgarten and Meier).
³¹ Cf. Preface to the first edition of the BEP (AA 27:737), and BEP §21 (AA 27:876); Baumgarten
1750, §29.
³² Cf. Poppe 1907, 32–4; Feiereis 1965, 70: “Baumgarten’s attempt to determine the concept of
religion, elaborated by means of philosophy, as the departure point for ethics must be regarded as a
significant innovation in the German Enlightenment. There is no template for this, even in Wolff.” It
is only to be remarked in passing that Baumgarten’s new relationship between morality and religion
was of a consequence with regard to the formation of Kant’s ethico-theology that may scarcely be
overestimated.
³³ Cf. Wolff ’s German Logic (WDL Ch. 1, §15); Ratio praelectionum (WRP Sect. II, Ch. 6, §30); the
German Ethics (WTL §169); and WPPU II, §244: “Living cognition is called that which brings about a
motive for willing or not willing. But on the contrary called dead is that cognition which does not bring
about a motive for willing or not willing.” Hans Böhm (1926, 215) overlooks the biblical origin; in
contrast, he suspects that the term originates solely in rhetoric.
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However, in Baumgarten the doctrine of cognitio viva and mortua carries a much
greater weight. Liveliness is for him generally one of the chief perfections of
cognition but is especially demanded by practical philosophy.³⁴ Due to its foun-
dational importance, this theme is also from now on anchored in empirical
psychology, whereas Wolff first discusses it in the practical part of universal
practical philosophy. Further, according to Baumgarten, and again in conse-
quence of his efforts to increase the value of sensibility, not only rational motives
but sensuous impulses too can enliven cognition. Each cognition, insofar as it only
contains incentives, would be living, no matter whether this was sensuous or
rational.³⁵ On the contrary, Wolff had only wished to speak about living cognition
when there is rationally grounded conviction. Consequently, for him the certainty
of cognition is the necessary yet, at the same time, really the sufficient condition of
its liveliness.³⁶
However, against this narrow, indeed automatic connection of certain cogni-
tion and correct action, Baumgarten expresses reservations based on experience.
One could have at one’s disposal distinct moral cognition that has progressed to
conviction and proof and yet by no means already be a moral beacon. Despite
possessing knowledge of virtue, the path to virtue can still at any given moment be
too steep for someone. Conversely, there are many good people for whom
indistinct cognition of morality already suffices for the most difficult of actions.³⁷
To mark his distance from Wolff more clearly, Baumgarten soon finds a termi-
nological specification necessary for his original word choice: there can only be
talk of living cognition in the strict sense insofar as the cognition actually suffices
for action; when it, on the other hand, is insufficient for the action demanded, it is
properly to be called dead.³⁸ The cognition that indeed contains motivations for
desiring or averting, yet without these inevitably effecting the corresponding
action, are better called moving cognition (cognitio movens), and their opposite

³⁴ Cf. BG (1740, §5); BPB (3rd correspondence, 12); Scriptis quae moderator conflictus academici
disputavit (1743, § 15); BA I, § 22; BIP §4 (AA 19:10); BAL § 6.
³⁵ Cf. BM, first edition §669 (BM 438, variant 234): “cognition, insofar as it contains the incentives
of the mind, is called living insofar as it is not dead <cognitio quatenus elateres animi continet, viva
quatenus minus mortua dicitur” [trans.: translation of BM slightly modified]; see also Meier’s
Anfangsgründe aller schönen Wissenschaften (1754, I § 178), which specifically differentiates between
the “rational” and the “sensuous life” of cognition.
³⁶ Cf. WPPU II, §§245–9.
³⁷ Cf. BEP §444 (AA 27:1001); BVEEP §§10 and 25; Meier (1744, §55) is also illuminating here, and
above all the disputation held under the chairmanship of Meier with the significantly anti-Wolffian
title, “Philosophical meditations concerning the life of cognition, not necessarily depending on its
clarity, truth, and certitude <Meditationes philosophicae de vita cognitionis, ab eius claritate, veritate et
certitudine non necessario pendente>” (Meier and Plitt 1747).
³⁸ Cf. BM §671 (AA 15:47): “Cognition . . . is living (more strictly . . . sufficient for acting). Cognition . . .
is dead (more strictly . . . insufficient for acting) <Cognitio . . . est viva (strictius . . . sufficiens ad agendum).
Cognitio . . . est mortua (strictius . . . insufficiens ad agendum)>” [trans.: translation of BM slightly mod-
ified]; BVEEP §10.
26  

lifeless cognition (cognitio iners).³⁹ With this newly formed distinction between
living and moving cognition, discrepancies between cognizing and acting
can be more easily explained. Whereas Wolff in this regard leans toward intellec-
tualism and finds the moral panacea in the enlightenment of the understanding,
Baumgarten is able to make phenomena such as the impotence of cognition or
action against better knowledge more comprehensible.⁴⁰ In fact, in his view, all
human cognition is moving to a certain degree, even if this power is still very small.⁴¹
Nevertheless, even a very true cognition is by no means always living enough to
guarantee an action corresponding to it. The path from the original consternation to
a consequential action usually still leads through many dry periods.
Baumgarten takes up yet another significant distinction in this connection.
The liveliness of cognition may no longer be confused with the vividness of
perception, even though the designations (cognitio) viva and (perceptio) vivida
sound beguilingly alike and therefore this error often creeps up. For, vividness
can in fact contribute to liveliness, but knowledge often only shines without it
becoming a burning issue. Conversely, extremely effective cognitions are often not
very vivid.⁴² Under the vividness of a representation Baumgarten understands
that clarity that comes from a multitude of characteristics, thus the so-called
extensive clarity that he developed.⁴³ Aesthetics concerns itself with the laws of
vivid cognition, since sensitive cognition, as its specific object, is especially char-
acterized by a variegated wealth of individual characteristics and consequently
through extensive clarity.⁴⁴

³⁹ Cf. BM §669 (AA 15:46); BVEEP §3. The changes referred to between the first and later editions
of the Metaphysica are a perfect example of Baumgarten’s having thoroughly undertaken to radically
re-work his magnum opus in specific points. The catalyst for such was, in this case, the dissertation of
December 1741 (i.e. BVEE), which has earned even less attention in previous research. Thereby,
Baumgarten himself gives a tip in the preface to the second edition of the BEP: the concise brevity of
his textbooks, if necessary, is made up for through the greater elaborateness of corresponding
dissertations (BEP XXX; AA 27:741).
⁴⁰ Cf. BVEEP §12, and §39, where we are reminded of the famous and then oft-cited passage of
Ovid: “I see and approve the best, but I follow the worse <Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor>”
(also in Meier and Plitt 1747, §29); on this, see also Schwaiger 2011a, chapter 5. [Translator’s note: this
chapter is translated in our companion Oxford volume, Baumgarten and Kant on Metaphysics
(Schwaiger 2018a, 55–60).]
⁴¹ Cf. BVEEP §16; BIP §204 (AA 19:90).
⁴² Cf. BG §9; BVEEP §13. This warning notwithstanding, the equation of both concepts is to be
found throughout the Baumgarten literature, as it is, for example, in Pimpinella 1993, 35f. for whom
however it does not escape notice that Wolff ’s cognitio viva and Baumgarten’s perceptio vivida belong
indeed to different spheres of thought.
⁴³ Cf. BM §531 (AA 15:12): “clarity due to the multitude of notes can be called extensively greater
clarity. An extensively clearer perception is lively <Claritas . . . multitudine notarum extensive maior dici
potest. Extensive clarior perceptio est vivida>”; BG §6; BEP §40 (AA 27:881); Baumgarten 1735, §112:
“we call vivid that in which is given many different things, be they simultaneous or successive, to
apperceive <Vividum dicimus, in quo plura varia, seu simultanea fuerint seu successiva, appercipere
datur>.” That Baumgarten assigns the attribute “vivid” chiefly to “discourse <Vortrag>” points in
this case to a rhetorical origin of the term.
⁴⁴ Cf. Baumgarten, BPB (2nd correspondence, 7); see also BEP §43 (AA 27:881). The head of the
Jena Wolffians Johann Peter Reusch, to whom Baumgarten must owe, as one of his authoritative
       27

These terminological clarifications, which go considerably beyond Wolff, may

at first sight seem hair-splitting, as Baumgarten in general is a man of subtle
distinctions. Nevertheless, with the conceptual separation of vivid, moving, and
living cognition, he has won nothing less than a factually established and princi-
pled divorce of the aesthetic sphere, ethical theory, and moral practice. To arouse
vivid representations in the intuition is the one thing; to provide incentives for
desiring is something else; and finally, to assert actively that which is cognized as
good against all resistance is still yet a whole different art. In this manner, for
example, a superficial moralization of literature, such as Gottsched had established
in consequence of Wolff ’s poetics, is already rejected from the outset.

IV

Kant’s Negative Dependence on Baumgarten’s Moral Philosophy. The exemplary

analysis conducted here with regard to an author who has long since been
undeservedly consigned to oblivion has made it possible to unearth, at every
turn, Baumgarten’s considerable independence, which extends even into the
domain of practical philosophy. The extraordinary esteem that Baumgarten
experienced on the part of his contemporaries arose precisely because he stood
for a more productive and freer form of Wolffianism in every field, and not just in
aesthetics as the discipline for which he is celebrated. That he indeed occasionally
was put on a par with his illustrious predecessors Leibniz and Wolff ⁴⁵ may seem
to us today an inordinate exaggeration. Nevertheless, even such a ruthlessly sober
observer of the philosophical scene of that time as Kant seems to have greatly
admired precisely Baumgarten’s Ethica.⁴⁶
Even from the historical distance of two and a half centuries, Baumgarten still
deserves the title of having been the most significant and most original philoso-
pher of the so-called Leibniz-Wolffian school. Through his quiet reconstruction,
he succeeded in the daring feat of reconciling the traditionally irreconcilable
opposites of Pietism and Wolffianism. He took the wind out of the sails of the
Pietist critique of Wolffian philosophy, which raged most fiercely in precisely the
realm of the practical. He accomplished this, for instance, by understanding how
to strengthen the element of freedom in moral consciousness, or by giving more
weight to the religious motivation of moral activity. Not least he successfully
countered the dangers of an exorbitant intellectualism by laying bare, in a manner
of speaking, the independent rationality of the senses.

teachers, crucial suggestions for his later doctrine of claritas and especially for his fundamental
distinction between extensive and intensive clarity (see Schwaiger 2011a, §53), already stresses the
advantage of the greater vividness of sensitive representations (cf. Reusch 1734, §§102 and 250).
⁴⁵ Cf. Förster 1765, §1. ⁴⁶ Cf. Praktische Philosophie Herder (AA 27:16).
28  

Now that specific contours of Baumgarten’s approach have emerged, at least

in outline, it is necessary to more closely investigate in particular the degree to
which his original synthesis of a sort of “Pietist Enlightenment” became momen-
tously efficacious in the course of the development of Kant’s ethical thinking.
For, it should really be beyond doubt that Kant’s daily wrestling with his lead
author forms nothing less than the seed of his critical ethics. True, in his lectures,
Kant undertook no individual philological interpretation of his model, such as
in the style of mediaeval Aristotelian commentary. However, in many instances
he remains quite terminologically dependent on Baumgarten even in cases
where he departs from him. More important than the assessment of direct
borrowing is the observation that ultimately a large array of Kant’s decisive
conceptual distinctions can only be made fully comprehensible as reactions to
Baumgarten’s position. In many cases where Kant coined a piece of ethical
terminology, we can conjecture that Baumgarten stood in the background as a
secret opponent. To give only a few examples from the range of subjects con-
sidered here: The distinction, which indeed goes back to Kant, between a principle
of the dijudication or judgment of the good and a principle of the execution of the
same, is aimed most fundamentally against the theory of motivation of obligation
<Verbindlichkeit> that Baumgarten, as already mentioned, had once again shar-
pened in contrast to Wolff. Against Baumgarten’s tacit transition from moral
theory to moral psychology, Kant insists on the insight that the determination of
what should be qua content is one thing, and the motion toward the active
implementation of what is correct is something else. Kant also continually
chafed against Baumgarten’s objective of making it so that ethics facilitates the
exercise of moral duties through the provision of as many motives as possible.
In blatant dissonance with such a model of harmony, Kant, on the one hand,
trots out the possible opposition between duty and inclination and persists
intransigently in the demand that one must, if necessary, also act against
all inclination purely based on duty. And on the other hand, in this context
belongs also his fundamental separation of pragmatic and moral motivation, of
prudential calculation and the ethical point of view, which is of such conse-
quence for his differentiated view of human activity as can scarcely be over-
estimated. He always takes a critical dig at Baumgarten’s all-too-uniform
understanding of practice and morality. Thus, provisionally, for the investiga-
tion of Kant’s long-term reception of Baumgarten’s moral philosophy, the
following conclusion can be drawn: Insofar as it is necessary to retrace Kant’s
path so as to understand him better, there is also certainly no way around his
trailblazer, Baumgarten.⁴⁷

⁴⁷ For a detailed attempt to present, by means of all available materials and assistance, the here only
hastily sketched importance of Baumgarten for the long and rocky course of Kant’s ethics, I refer to my
habilitation thesis Kategorische und andere Imperative (Schwaiger 1999).
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Part Two. Baumgarten’s Approach to

a Philosophical Ground for Ethics

The reception-historical significance of Baumgarten as lead author of Kant’s

lectures on ethics. Is there still a good reason today for grappling with the
moral philosophy of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten? Not the only possible
reason, but one that is thoroughly obvious and sensible, is the immense influence
that Baumgarten’s thought had on Immanuel Kant’s intellectual career.⁴⁸ For
anyone who needs to deal seriously with Kant’s philosophical development,
there is no way around Baumgarten. For it can scarcely be contested that the
philosopher from Halle, and then Frankfurt, was by far the most important
academic author for his colleague from Königsberg. For decades, Kant not only
read ethics, but famously also metaphysics, following the thematic framework
set by Baumgarten (“with Baumgarten as a guide <duce Baumgartenio>”).
According to lecture notes by Herder at the beginning of the 1760s, Kant was
recorded to have praised the Philosophical Ethics as “the richest in content and
probably his best book.”⁴⁹ As magister legens, Kant from the beginning based his
lectures on morality on this book, which was first published in 1740; he then
added the Elements of First Practical Philosophy soon after its appearance in
1760.⁵⁰ With his express preference for the textbooks of an author considered
notoriously difficult, Kant stood strikingly quite alone at the University of
Königsberg. He held on tenaciously to his compendia even when the Zeitgeist
had long embraced other philosophical fashions.⁵¹
Philosophical historiography has indeed scarcely been especially impressed by
Kant’s downright fixation on Baumgarten. In the attempts to reconstruct the
genesis of the critical ethics, Baumgarten usually remains the “man in the sha-
dows.” Thereby, a consistent account of Kant’s constant discussion partner would
offer the unique chance to obtain insight into the think-tank of the great philos-
opher from Königsberg. Far more widespread, however, is the blatant disinterest
expressed, for instance, even by a highly respected Kant interpreter such as
Lewis White Beck: “Unlike [Kant’s] students, we need bother no more about
Baumgarten; we are interested in Kant and in his subject matter, not in having
Baumgarten explained to us” (Kant 1963, xi).

⁴⁸ In contrast, Steffen W. Groß for instance simply refuses to place Baumgarten on the line leading
to Kant. Rather, the perspective of the at-best moderately significant precursor to Kant hinders the
perception of the specific significance of Baumgarten (cf. Groß 2001, 280).
⁴⁹ Praktische Philosophie Herder (AA 27:16).
⁵⁰ On this, cf. the excursus in Schwaiger (1999, 34–8).
⁵¹ In this regard, very illuminating is Oberhausen and Pozzo’s effort in combing through the
Königsberg University source material (Oberhausen and Pozzo 1999).
30  

Not only is the situation no better within Baumgarten studies itself concerning
the treatment of his practical philosophy, but in fact it’s even worse. It’s been
decades since we were told that “a study of Baumgarten’s ethics is urgently to be
desired.”⁵² The neglect of this sort of work has contributed greatly to the fact that
Baumgarten has been so often misunderstood.⁵³ However, despite the long-
standing reprints, this field is still largely terra incognita. Until very recently
there has not been a single study dedicated specifically to Baumgarten’s moral
philosophy.

II

Baumgarten’s Grounding of Ethics Against the Backdrop of Wolff ’s Universal

Practical Philosophy and Köhler’s Right of Nature. It is no coincidence that
Baumgarten’s moral theory has been criminally neglected as the unloved stepchild
until this very day, just as has been his doctrine of right. A massive preponderance
of questions concerning theoretical philosophy can already be seen in the research
on the school-founder, Wolff, himself.⁵⁴ Yet, the really innovative move of
Baumgarten, this “silent revolutionary,”⁵⁵ only reveals itself through a patient
study of the scholasticism of his day, i.e. a study first and foremost of the other
authors in the Wolffian movement that served as Baumgarten’s own guides. Yet,
as is well known, such “philological philosophy” is not everybody’s cup of tea.
When Baumgarten graduated from his studies and commenced his
teaching in the middle of the 1730s, Wolff ’s metaphysics and ethics were
still officially forbidden. A second anti-Wolffian campaign, which was, however,
defeated in the end, directly harassed his older brother Siegmund Jacob
Baumgarten, who in 1736 published a Theological Morality showing clear traces
of a Wolffian influence.⁵⁶ Alexander Gottlieb made a virtue out of the necessity
of this persecution in Halle, and sought contact with neighboring Jena; there, he
attended the lectures of the Leibnizio-Wolffian Heinrich Köhler, among others.⁵⁷
Baumgarten then regularly used Köhler’s new and influential textbook on
natural right, the Exercitationes juris naturalis, which first appeared in 1729, as

⁵² Peters 1934, 43. ⁵³ Cf. Schwitzke 1930, 87.

⁵⁴ Cf. the overview of the history of research concerning this in Schwaiger (1995, 20–6).
⁵⁵ Thus runs a felicitous formula of Baeumler (1975, 229).
⁵⁶ For these occasions, cf. the still most fundamental account in Schloemann (1974, 40–50). –
Siegmund Jacob’s work was initially only published in sheet form and then appeared in 1738 for the
first time completely under the title Unterricht von dem rechtmäßigen Verhalten eines Christen, oder
Theologische Moral. A comparison with his younger brother’s Ethica Philosophica, published two years
later, would presumably be a worthwhile field of research and indeed should lead to an illuminating
exploration precisely with respect to the relationship of the moral philosophy and moral theology
of his day.
⁵⁷ Cf. Meier (1763, 12). – Mühlpfordt (1986, 250) rightly stresses the outstanding charisma of the
Jena Young Wolffians.
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the basis for his own introductory lectures in this subject. From Köhler he
assumed the habit, in the treatment of the right of nature, of proceeding from
the basic concepts and principles of practical philosophy in general.⁵⁸ However, in
so doing, his grounding of ethics also conversely preserved a stronger juridical
template than was otherwise usually the case.
At that time, the designation philosophia practica universalis had become
customary for the philosophical foundation not only of the right of nature but
also of all practical disciplines, overwhelmingly because Wolff had published
under this title a large two-volume work at the end of the 1730s. Based on his
first published work of the same title, which appeared in 1703, Wolff could himself
take credit for having in general been the inventor and founder of this new
fundamental discipline.⁵⁹
Baumgarten, in contrast, preferred the designation philosophia practica prima,⁶⁰
through which he inconspicuously added his own emphasis. For, through this
little alteration he draws an immediate parallel with theoretical philosophy: Just as
metaphysics, as “first philosophy,” prefaces the other philosophical fields (and
again, within it, ontology precedes all the rest of the sub-disciplines of metaphysics
as the basic science), so too first practical philosophy should provide the founda-
tion for the rest of the moral disciplines.⁶¹ This is also expressed in the definition
(altered from Wolff): First practical philosophy is that first science that contains
the principles that are proper and overwhelmingly common to the rest of the
practical disciplines.⁶² While Baumgarten can claim a certain originality for the
title first practical philosophy, building such an analogy with metaphysics is not at
all unusual in the Wolffianism of the time, but instead thoroughly common. The
idea of a sort of “moral metaphysics” leads the way for Kant’s later “metaphysics of
morals,” at least terminologically, even though his project is completely different
qua content.⁶³
A final, weighty observation in connection with these considerations regarding
philosophical architectonics is still to be made: Baumgarten never completely
finished his first practical philosophy (at least in book form), but rather merely

⁵⁸ See BDO §17, and Förster’s preface to the Sciagraphia (Baumgarten 1769, 32*). Alexander
Aichele has recently investigated Baumgarten’s detailed yet in no way uncritical reception of Köhler
(Aichele 2004b and 2005). For the philosophico-historical placement of Köhler between the poles of
Leibniz and Wolff, the detailed study of Lamarra, Palaia, and Pimpinella 2001 is indispensable.
⁵⁹ Cf. Schwaiger 2005. Baumgarten (cf. BIP vi*) and Meier (cf. 1764, §30 and elsewhere) also
recognize Wolff ’s justification for his achievement in this area. However, Köhler still seems to have
foregone the discipline’s name, which was surprisingly never used in Wolff ’s German Ethics.
⁶⁰ Cf. Baumgarten 1743, §5; Baumgarten 1746, §2; BIP §6; BAL §7.
⁶¹ Cf. Baumgarten 1740, §9; BIP §7.
⁶² Cf. BIP §6: “first (universal) practical philosophy is the science containing the first principles that
are proper but also common to the rest of the practical disciplines”; BIN §3; Baumgarten 1769, §160.
In contrast, Wolff ’s definition more strongly emphasises the practical value of his new invention:
“practical universal philosophy is the practically effective science of directing free actions according to
the most general rules” (WPPU I, §3).
⁶³ For this, see Schwaiger 2001.
32  

composed its elements (initia). The titling of his later work of 1760 (Initia
philosophiae practicae primae) does not merely emerge from a trace of modesty,
as is probably the case with Kant’s Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten of 1785.
Rather, in it is reflected a painful limitation, because, conceptually, this science
actually aimed at something much more comprehensive. Next to the doctrine of
obligation <Verbindlichkeit>, which alone was actually executed, it should have
also contained a doctrine of virtue, a doctrine of happiness, and indeed, actually, a
doctrine of general anthropognosia, or the art of cognizing the moral state of other
people.⁶⁴ The factual limitation to the theory of obligation, dictated not least by
the requirements of the juridical training, was supremely momentous in view of
Kant’s reception: with this depletion of content, quite conspicuous vis-à-vis
Wolff ’s thematic breadth, Baumgarten unintentionally but decisively laid the
groundwork for the focus on duty, the forgetfulness of virtue, and the abstinence
from happiness found in later Kantian ethics.

III

Baumgarten’s Theory of Obligation <Verbindlichkeit>. Köhler had already inter-

preted the doctrine of Verpflichtung or Verbindlichkeit—both expressions are here
used synonymously as translations for the Latin obligatio—as extremely impor-
tant for the entire moral sphere.⁶⁵ For Baumgarten, this term now becomes the key
concept in the definition of both practical philosophy in general and in ethics in
particular. Practical philosophy is to be the science of human obligations
<Verbindlichkeiten>, insofar as these can be known without faith.⁶⁶ Ethics is to
be the science of the internal duties belonging to humans in the natural state.⁶⁷
With these definitions a double demarcation follows: from theological morality
on the one hand, which rests faith-wise on revealed duties, and from the right
of nature and so also positive right on the other hand, which, according to
Baumgarten, in either case has to do with externally constrained duties. The
way of regarding practical philosophy and so also philosophical ethics as doctrines
of obligation is by no means self-evident, but rather stands out remarkably from
other common views.⁶⁸ Even Wolff got along entirely without recourse to the

⁶⁴ For the entire plan of Baumgarten’s universal practical philosophy, see BDO §22; Baumgarten
1769, §§161–4; Baumgarten 1770, §149.
⁶⁵ Cf. the Dissertatio prolusoria to the Exercitationes juris naturalis (KE §CXXXII), as well as §300 in
the same.
⁶⁶ Cf. BIP §1: “practical philosophy is the science of the obligations of a person that are to be known
without faith <philosophia . . . practica est scientia obligationum hominis sine fide cognoscendarum>.”
See also Baumgarten 1746, §2, as well as BIN §2.
⁶⁷ Cf. BEP §1: “ethics is the science of the internal obligations of the person in the natural state
<Ethica . . . est scientia obligationum hominis internarum in statu naturali>.” See also BDO §17; BVEEP
§1; Baumgarten 1750, §29.
⁶⁸ Cf. BVEEP §1; MPS I, §5.
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concept of obligation <Verbindlichkeit> in his definition of philosophia practica

and so also of ethica.⁶⁹
However, Baumgarten not only increases the weight of the concept of obliga-
tion; he furthermore revises this once again vis-à-vis his immediate predecessors.
Köhler expressly invoked Wolff in this regard and simply adopted his definition.
An obligation consists in the connection of a (rational) motive with an action.⁷⁰
Baumgarten certainly retains the basic idea of this definition; however, he changes
it in essential elements. For him, rational motives are not the only possible
motivations, but—in harmony with his general increased valuation of human
sensibility—also sensitive impulses. Furthermore, there can only be talk of
obligation <Verbindlichkeit> when this moving cause is stronger and more
powerful such that it also outweighs opposing incentives. So Baumgarten arrives
at the following modified determination: Obligation <Verbindlichkeit> can be
defined as the connection of stronger impelling causes with the free determina-
tion of an action.⁷¹
Baumgarten is also otherwise careful to articulate the obligating character of
practical norms in a linguistically nuanced manner. Thus, he equates obligation
<Verbindlichkeit> with moral necessitation, and not only, like Wolff and the
tradition before him, merely with moral necessity.⁷² Moreover, it scarcely seems
coincidental that he is indeed the first author to use the term “imperative” in a
specific moral sense and not merely as a specifically grammatical term. In the
practical disciplines, an imperative means that a person is obligated to do some-
thing.⁷³ Despite these linguistic endeavors, at least from a Kantian vantage, there is
an absolutely fundamental shortcoming in Baumgarten, as there was already in
Wolff. Practical obligation here becomes purely a question of psychological
motivation; hence, the specific normativity of moral obligation is not properly
grasped.⁷⁴ In a counter move, Kant later finds it necessary to distinguish a number
of basic types of practical necessitation and accordingly practical imperatives

⁶⁹ Cf. WDP §62: “practical philosophy [is] the science of directing the appetitive faculty in choosing
the good and fleeing the bad <philosophia practica [est] scientia dirigendi facultatem appetitivam in
eligendo bono & fugiendo malo>”; WDP §64; WPM I §1.
⁷⁰ Cf. WPPU I §118: “the connection of a motive with an action is called active obligation
<Connexio . . . motivi cum actione . . . obligatio activa appellatur>”; KE §300: “moral obligation in
general is the connection of motives with actions <Obligatio moralis in genere est connexio moti-
vorum cum actionibus>.”
⁷¹ Cf. BIP §15: “obligation . . . can be defined through the connection . . . of impelling causes with a
free determination <Obligatio . . . potest definiri per connexionem . . . caussarum impulsivarum cum
libera determinatione>;” BIN §7. For an extensive analysis of this at first invisible however important
process of transformation within the context of the early modern debate on obligation, please see
Schwaiger 2011a, chapter 9.
⁷² Cf. BM §723: “moral necessitation is obligation <Necessitatio moralis est obligatio>”; WPPU
I §118: “the necessity of morally acting or not acting is called passive obligation <Necessitas moralis
agendi vel non agendi dicitur obligatio passiva>.”
⁷³ Cf. BIP §39: “The imperatives in the practical disciplines indicate that a human being is obliged.”
⁷⁴ On this critique, see also Hüning 2004a, 102, and Hüning 2004b, 146 and 158.
34  

systematically. His famous doctrine of imperatives is not least a large-scale

counter-project to Baumgarten’s monolithic theory of practice.
At any rate, Baumgarten, based on his thorough psychologization of the
doctrine of obligation, becomes sensitive to the so-called false duties, i.e. duties
that in truth do not indeed exist. Such an obligatio falsa occurs, for instance, when
a motive is either fictitious or shown to be too weak.⁷⁵ Baumgarten and conse-
quently Meier expressly characterize an ethics that rests on such erroneous duties
as deceitful or chimerical.⁷⁶ In particular, nobody can be obligated to actions that
are absolutely impossible or that exceed natural human powers. In this connec-
tion, Baumgarten appropriates the old principle of right: impossibilium nulla est
obligatio—i.e. what is impossible is not an obligation.⁷⁷ This insight that one
cannot be obligated to the impossible should help us avoid the danger of excessive
moral demand. Baumgarten indeed sees the temptation to build moral castles in
the air out of false ideals above all in specific religious ethical systems. His student
Meier at least polemicizes in this connection against many fanatical moralists,
who, by way of example, demand that one loves God absolutely alone and that the
love for creatures and for oneself should be entirely eradicated.⁷⁸ Despite all this
criticism of exorbitant moral demands, Baumgarten is nevertheless just as far
removed from any moral laxity.⁷⁹ One must equally guard against taking the
morally difficult to be the morally impossible.⁸⁰ For, the first principle of practical
philosophy, thus the basic moral duty, absolutely demands also the mobilization
of every possible human power in striving for more perfection.

IV

Baumgarten’s Imperative of Perfecting <Vervollkommnung>. By his own admis-

sion, Baumgarten, just as Köhler before him, has nobody else to thank but the
master, Christian Wolff, for his highest moral principle. Still, in so doing, he

⁷⁵ Cf. BIP §27. The concept obligatio falsa may be borrowed from Köhler (cf. KE §304), but it, as far
as I can see, plays no role in Wolff.
⁷⁶ Cf. BEP §7: “an ethics of erroneous obligations is deceptive (chimerical) <Ethica obligationum
erronearum deceptrix est (chimaerica)>”; BVEEP §38; MPS I, §24. The polemic against ethica
deceptrix is the apex of a more comprehensive typology of deficient forms of ethics, which
Baumgarten manifestly first developed (cf. BEP §§4–7). The parallel remarks by Meier are exceptionally
helpful for the historical contextualization of the here controverted mistaken forms (MPS I §§19–24).
⁷⁷ BIP §§11 and 43 (AA 19:12 and 24–25); BPB (3rd correspondence, 9); BIN §11. The cited
axiom of right, which has meaning for the doctrine of imputation, is likewise already mentioned by
Köhler in this connection (cf. KE §306).
⁷⁸ Cf. MPS I, §25.
⁷⁹ Translator’s note: see Schwaiger’s more recent “Zwischen Laxismus und Rigorismus.
Möglichkeiten und Grenzen philosophischer Ethik nach Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten” (Schwaiger
2016b) for further discussion of this theme.
⁸⁰ Cf. BIN §85.
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claims to have again conceptually penetrated the entire problem of perfection.⁸¹

While, in comparison, Wolff formulated his highest moral principle in a long-
winded manner, Baumgarten compacted it into a concise, memorable imperative.
Thus, Wolff ’s Gesetz der Natur (i.e. law of nature) in the so-called German Ethics
reads as follows: “Do what makes you and your condition, or that of others, more
perfect; omit what makes it imperfect.”⁸² Baumgarten writes laconically: perfice te,
and accordingly, quaere perfectionem and indeed quantum potes;⁸³ in English
“perfect yourself,” and accordingly “seek perfection, as much as you can.” The
newly added appendix quantum potes, which is also regularly appended to
Baumgarten’s other moral principles,⁸⁴ is again intended to express the limitation
of what is possible in each case.
In this, Baumgarten clearly couldn’t, and wouldn’t, leave it at merely proposing
in condensed shorthand the Wolffian demand for perfection. With his problem-
atic formula that required clarification, Wolff already saw himself suspected of
turning morality into a scandalous selfishness. His Pietist opponents, and among
them above all his great adversary Joachim Lange, leveled the charge that ulti-
mately only the perfection of the agent oneself was intended.⁸⁵ To refute this
allegation, Köhler had already stressed the indissoluble connectedness of perfect-
ing oneself and perfecting others, and from this sought to develop a proof for
the necessity for the perfecting of others.⁸⁶ Taking this consideration further,
Baumgarten distinguishes a two-fold manner of perfecting: namely, the ground
of perfection can be either in oneself or somewhere outside. In the first case one
makes oneself perfect as an end, and in the second, as the means to the perfection
of others. Were one to wish to perfect oneself comprehensively and not only
partially, one must seek perfection as an end for oneself and at the same time as a
means for others.⁸⁷

⁸¹ Cf. the preface to the first edition of the Ethica Philosophica (BEP XXX; AA 27:737): “As is right,
I have brought forth a first principle understood according to, restricted to, and credited to the
illustrious Wolff, to whom I owe so much in philosophizing”; preface to the second edition of the
Metaphysics (BM 87); KE §340. On this point, see chapter 10 of Schwaiger 2011a.
⁸² Wolff, the German Ethics (WTL §12, original in bold); WPPU I §152: “The law of nature obligates
us to commit actions that as such tend to our perfection and that of our condition, and to omit actions
that as such tend to our imperfection and that of our condition” (original in italics).
⁸³ BEP §10 (AA 27:874, italics in original); BIP §43; BIN §30. For instance, briefer than Wolff,
however still somewhat more cumbersome than Baumgarten, is Köhler’s formulation: “Live more
appropriately to your perfections . . . and those of others <Vive convenienter perfectionibus tuis . . . et
aliorum>” (KE §704).
⁸⁴ Cf. BEP §10 (AA 27:874f.); BIP §§46 and 48 (AA 19:26).
⁸⁵ Cf. Lange 1724, 367–9; Lange 1726, 151; Lange 1734, 19: “the principle of the new ethics proposes
under the name perfection actually nothing other than a perverted self-love, and personal interest.”
⁸⁶ Cf. especially KE §§699f.
⁸⁷ Vgl. Cf. BEP §10 (AA 27:874); BIP §43 (AA 19:25). – Meier’s broader discussion of this two-fold
perfection unmistakably clarifies that the distinction between perfecting as an aim, on the one hand,
and as a means, on the other, should be read as a reply to the charge of self-interest against Wolff
(Meier 2007, I, §32; II, §504; Meier 1764, §§105 and 200).
36  

Baumgarten’s Theory of Rightful <rechter> Self-love, or: the Invention of Moral

Egoism. This insistence on a double imperative of perfecting was certainly only a
start for confronting the accusation, which indeed was not all that implausible,
that the orientation toward the agent’s own perfection ultimately prepared the
way for a self-seeking and selfish conception of morality. Thus, beyond the
aforementioned distinction, Baumgarten looks to remove the basis of the accusa-
tion raised by the Pietists by developing a differentiated theory of self-love within
the framework of his concrete doctrine of duty. One can point to this key theme as
an example again showing that Baumgarten was not a pure imitator of Wolff, but
rather, so to speak, belongs among the vanguard of the creative wing of
Wolffianism. For, this entire problem remained structurally unexposed in Wolff.
Insofar as Wolff, following Leibniz, understood love from the beginning as
directed at the happiness of another, the question concerning the justification
and the limits of love for oneself scarcely came sufficiently into focus. Love is the
“readiness to draw appreciable delight from the happiness of another.”⁸⁸ In
contrast, Baumgarten understands the concept in a broader and no longer exclu-
sively other-centered sense: Love is the joy arising from the perfection of some-
thing whatsoever, be it a thing or a person.⁸⁹ From this conceptually broadened
basis, one can then also freely speak of self-love or proper-love, if, namely, one
takes joy from one’s own perfections and abhors one’s own imperfections.⁹⁰
To take the sting out of the Pietist allegation, Baumgarten now immediately
distinguishes between well-ordered and inordinate self-love. The first is according

⁸⁸ The German Metaphysics (WDM §449); WPE §633: “Love is the disposition of the soul to perceive
pleasure from the happiness of another <Amor est dispositio animae ad percipiendam voluptatem ex
alterius felicitate>”; WPE §649. Wolff thereby falls in line with the core of the Leibnizian definition in
the preface to the Codex iuris gentium diplomaticus of 1693: “To love . . . or to hold dear is to delight in
the happiness of another” (GP III, 387). On the background for the emergence of this famous
formulation, see Busche 1991.
⁸⁹ Cf. BM §684 (AA 15:50): “Joy based on the perfection of somebody is love <Gaudium ex alicuius
perfectione est amor>” (translation of BM slightly modified). Köhler assumes a certain middle
position: “Love is the disposition for taking pleasure from the happiness of somebody <Amor est
dispositio capiendi voluptatem ex alicuius felicitate>” (KE §689). The substitution of alterius for alicuius
makes a reference to oneself possible; yet, the retention of felicitas instead of Baumgarten’s perfectio still
always implies reference to a person. [[translator’s note: alterius always means “another of two,” so in
this case somebody else. Alicuius has a range of meanings, including “somebody,” “something,” and
even “some other.” In BM we translated alicuius as “of another,” but Schwaiger here shows that
translation is perhaps too interpretative, even if it so readily suggests itself.]]
⁹⁰ Cf. BEP §191 (AA 27:920): “rejoice in your perfections having averted your imperfections . . . by
means of sensitive and rational heautophilia (philautia), i.e. love of self <gaude perfectionibus tuis
aversatus imperfectiones tuas [ . . . ] sensitiva et rationali heautophilia (philautia) amore tui ipsius>.”
Similarly, Köhler had already written “pleasure drawn from our own happiness is called love of ourself
or philautia <voluptas hausta ex felicitate nostra dicitur amor nostri seu philautia>.” In contrast, for
Wolff there is no defining determination of self-love in either the German Ethics or the WPE. Only the
older Wolff who returned to Halle attempts make up lost ground (cf. WIN I, §606; WPM 4, §51), but
this late development can be disregarded in the present context.
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to the universal laws of our perfection, and the second opposes these. Self-love
may not be blind, but rather must have sight, so to speak, i.e. it must rest on a
correct estimation of one’s self.⁹¹ Anyone who evinces an excessive attachment to
themselves, indeed surpassing love for God, apotheosizes themself and makes
themselves guilty of an idolatrous self-love.⁹² With the harsh syntagma of a
“philautia idololatrica,” which is probably his own newly coined locution,
Baumgarten is presumably reacting to the already-mentioned attack of Joachim
Lange, according to which the Wolffian principle of perfection would lead people
to idolatry and self-apotheosis.⁹³ The objectionable phrase is taken up, but at the
same time disarmed, through its assimilation into his own conceptual system.
While this figure of speech remained basically a chance expression limited to
the situation in which it arose, there was one turn of phrase that was much more
consequential. To condemn an excessive selfishness as immoral, Baumgarten
speaks in general—as probably the first author in the history of philosophy to
do so—of a “moral egoism.”⁹⁴ Certainly, the word “egoism <Egoismus>” (and
accordingly “egoist <Egoist>”), in particular through Wolff, had already long since
found entry into the eighteenth-century philosophical lexicon. However, with this
term Wolff still strictly signified a radical epistemological position, which one
would today call solipsism, namely the denial of the existence of an external or
social world independent of consciousness.⁹⁵ Now, however, it is questionable
whether any thinker has ever earnestly advocated such an extreme view, which

⁹¹ Cf. BEP §194 (AA 27:921): “ordered self-love conforms to the common laws of our perfection, and
the disordered is unfitting for the same. Love that follows a just assessment of the beloved possesses
vision; that which does not is blind <Philautia ordinata est legibus perfectionis nostrae communibus
conformis, iisdem disconveniens inordinata est . . . Amor iustum amati aestimium sequens est oculatus
illud non sequens, coecus est>.” Köhler had already modeled blind and vision-possessing (self-)love
(1729, §698). With an unmistakable anti-Pietist line of attack, Meier also stresses that self-love did
not inevitably indicate “a disorderly and debauched inclination to oneself” (MPS II, §501), but rather
that orderly self-love must be distinguished from the disorderly (MPS II, §502).
⁹² Cf. BEP §§81 and 195 (AA 27:889 and 921). ⁹³ Cf. Lange 1734, 19.
⁹⁴ Cf. BEP §300 (AA 27:957): “Pay attention to internal honourableness . . . , observing moral
moderation in duties towards you yourself . . . , both avoiding excess in yourself, for instance when
perfecting the end, along with the proficiency of being excessive, i.e. moral egoism <Da operam
honestati internae . . . , in officiis erga te ipsum observans mediocritatem . . . , vitans excessus in te, ut
fine perficiendo, cum habitu excedendi s. egoismo morali>”; MPS III, §772. Aso et al. (1989, 115) cite
the aforementioned Baumgarten passage as the first usage. Johann Gustav Wilhelm Hesse’s dissertation
De egoismo morali provides still considerably stronger evidence for the novelty of the word pairing,
with the author expressly declaring: “Concerning the composite term [moral egoism], I don’t remember
seeing it anywhere except in the celebrated Ethics of Baumgarten <Quod ad terminum compositum
[= egoismus moralis] attinet, illum me legere non memini, nisi in Celeb. Baumgartenii Ethica” (Hesse
1757, §17, scholion 1). Hesse then immediately defends the application of the still unusual and strange-
sounding neologism with the justification that it is thoroughly suitable for signifying the intended
mistaken disposition clearly and concisely (1757, §17, scholion 2). Also, Silvano Sportelli’s study into
the reception of the concept arrives at the same result: “the substantive egoism accompanied by the
adjective moral is first found . . . in Latin in the Ethica Philosophica, written in 1740 by A.G. Baumgarten
<Il sostantivo,egoismo‘ accompagnato dall’aggettivo,morale‘ si trova [ . . . ] per la prima volta, in latino,
nell’Ethica philosophica, scritta nel 1740, di A. G. Baumgarten>” (Sportelli 2003, 170).
⁹⁵ Cf. Halbfaß (1968, 200–27). Baumgarten also acknowledges this original gnoseological mean-
ing of the concept (cf. BM §392; AA 17:109).
38  

borders on pathological, as his own conviction. Nevertheless, to give the concept

some tangible content, it made sense to move from an interpretation of it as a
purely theoretical possibility in thought to that of a practical attitude for life.⁹⁶ The
so-called moral egoist is then someone whose doing and acting is centered solely
on themselves and who recognizes no “alter ego.” Kant became acquainted with
this practico-ethical meaning of the concept of egoism through his commen-
taries on Baumgarten and plainly and simply took it over into his own concep-
tual system. A moral egoist is the one who limits all ends to himself and only sees
interest where something is personally beneficial to himself.⁹⁷ This Kantian use
of the word has been presented subsequently, and until this very day, as unique.
Baumgarten has been completely forgotten as the actual originator of this
use of the concept. The relevant article in the famous dictionary Historisches
Wörterbuch der Philosophie gives the impression that the career of moral egoism
as a technical term began with Kant.⁹⁸ There is reason to fear that we’re only
dealing here with an especially prominent example, but indeed scarcely the only
such, of Baumgarten blindness within the previous research into the history of
concepts.
Precisely the just-mentioned concept of solipsism, which is intricately con-
nected with the concept of egoism, provides the next striking evidence for this.
This term first wins its current epistemological meaning in the nineteenth century,
according to which it stands for the exaggerated thesis that only I truly exist,
everything else being but a mere representation of the I. In the eighteenth century,
for instance with Kant, in contrast, it means something like selfishness.⁹⁹
Curiously, in the course of a good 200 years, the respective conceptual content
of both the terms “solipsism” and “egoism” have actually been exchanged. Again,
however, unlike what the Historische Wörterbuch der Philosophie insinuates, Kant
is not the definitive inventor of moral solipsism,¹⁰⁰ but rather Baumgarten before
him. With the term solipsismus moralis, the latter is combatting a self-love
exclusively concerned with one’s own interest, and which does not let other
ends of action come into play.¹⁰¹ With this criticism of solipsism, Baumgarten
has once again been Kant’s immediate source; written testimonies again prove
this, which have survived from Kant’s activity as a lecturer, as do various notes
from his handwritten Nachlaß.¹⁰²

⁹⁶ Cf. Hesse (1757, §17, scholion 1), who mentions the distinction between theoretical and practical
atheism as an analogous example for an equivocal, i.e. speculative as well as existential, usage of the
concept.
⁹⁷ Cf. “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view” §2 (in Kant 2007); PrHer 27:53; MoC 27:359.
⁹⁸ Cf. the article “Egoismus” (Reiner and Halbfaß 1972). ⁹⁹ Cf. KrV A129.
¹⁰⁰ Cf. Fuchs’s article “Egotismus, Egoismus, Egomismus” (1972), and Gabriel’s “Solipsismus”
(1995), both in the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie.
¹⁰¹ Cf. BEP §195 (AA 27:921); BIN §31.
¹⁰² Cf. e.g. MoC 27:359–60; see also “Observations on the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime”
(in Kant 2007; AA 20:145 and 169).
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VI

The Relation of Morality and Religion: Selected Examples Showing Baumgarten’s

Pietist Imprint. In addition to the exemplary demonstration of the significance of
Baumgarten for the history of the reception of ideas, in the preceding it should
also have become clear that his striking sensibility for the problem of rightful self-
love was sharpened not least by theological attacks. Above all, the Pietist context
can scarcely be overestimated in its importance for the concrete design of
Baumgarten’s ethics.¹⁰³ It is true that Baumgarten aimed to exclude revealed
religion from practical philosophy by definition, as we’ve already seen. He vehe-
mently forbids any mixture of Christian theology in the long-familiar realm of
moral philosophy. It would, however, be entirely mistaken to wish to derive from
this fact that religion as such was unimportant for his view of morality; in fact, just
the opposite is the case.
In comparison to Wolff and Köhler, Baumgarten strengthened in many ways
both the explicit and the implicit religious elements in ethical activity. This
is already reflected in his ethical taxonomy. In a silent transposition of the
Wolffian order, the duties to God are again prioritized over the duties to oneself
and the duties to others.¹⁰⁴ The reason for this, for Baumgarten, is not so much their
greater weight, for the supreme duties can equally constitute the crowning achieve-
ment of the moral edifice. Rather, the duties to God are placed first because they
should facilitate the exercise of the rest of the duties as their amplifier, so to speak.¹⁰⁵
The literally first duty is thereby that to religion, under which Baumgarten under-
stands the glorification of God’s honor. As a virtual refrain, the first paragraphs of
the doctrine of duty in the Ethics invariably end with the conclusion that one is
obligated to religion. The last is understood as an indispensable means for human
perfection.¹⁰⁶ The highest human perfection consists in general in a cognition of
God that is as perfect as possible. Therefore, one is obligated to a cognition of the
divine perfections that is as true, clear, certain, and living as possible.¹⁰⁷ The increase

¹⁰³ This has indeed already occasionally been remarked in the literature; however, it has scarcely
been investigated closely; cf. e.g. Poppe 1907, 32.
¹⁰⁴ In contrast, Wolff had consciously placed the officia erga se ipsum first ahead of the officia erga
Deum so as to make it clear that the glorification of God also still constitutes an integral part of one’s
own perfection (cf. Wolff 1735, sect. II, ch. 6, §§26f.).
¹⁰⁵ Cf. Preface to the first edition of BEP (BEP XXX; AA 27:737) and §21 (AA 27:876–77);
Baumgarten 1750, §29.
¹⁰⁶ Cf. BEP §§11–21 (AA 27:875–77); BM §947 (AA 17:194): “the glory of God and his celebration
are religion <Gloria dei et illustratio eius sunt religio>.” With this close connection of religion and
ethics and, accordingly, with this foundation of ethics in a philosophical concept of religion,
Baumgarten is pioneering for the late German Enlightenment (cf. Feiereis 1965, 70–2). First, Kant’s
ethico-theology turned Baumgarten’s founding relation completely on its head: And now, through
morality is access to the question of God first of all opened; a proper class of duties with respect to God
has become seen as superfluous.
¹⁰⁷ Cf. BEP §§27 and 31 (AA 27:878).
40  

in truth, clarity, certainty, and liveliness of the cognition of God is termed, with a
key Pietest concept, “edification” (aedificatio).¹⁰⁸
The goal and culmination of all striving after religious perfecting thereby forms
for Baumgarten the living cognition of God (viva dei cognitio).¹⁰⁹ At this point, the
Pietist influence is once again palpable. For, a living, practically effective cognition
of the divine word in contrast to dead biblical scholarship and stiff theological
speculation was indeed the very program of Pietism, and the impetus of all its
pedagogical efforts. Baumgarten, stamped by his education at Francke’s institute,
thoroughly made this fundamental Pietist concern his own, but then attempted to
secure it philosophically.¹¹⁰ A cognition that is the most living as possible forms,
not only in religious practice but also in every domain of philosophy, an ideal
worth striving for.¹¹¹ Therefore, the vita cognitionis is counted from the beginning
among the chief perfections of cognition. It is no coincidence that it is always
stressed at the end in Baumgarten’s canon of formal perfections of human
cognition.¹¹² Baumgarten, however, defined this concept more precisely as his
thinking developed. In the first edition of the Metaphysics (1739), he still con-
sidered cognition as living insofar as it contained mental incentives; in later
editions of this work, cognition is considered properly living only when it actually
suffices for bringing forth the desired object.¹¹³ This conceptual precision corre-
sponds to Baumgarten’s newly defined concept of obligation, according to which
there can only be talk of obligation <Verpflichtung> when overriding impelling
grounds are present.
A continuous subliminal effect of Pietist thought can however be established in
Baumgarten’s moral philosophy not only in the treatment of the duties to God but
also in the discussion of the duties to oneself. Such a crypto-Pietism is noticeable
for instance in the strong accentuation of the duty for self-cognition and likewise

¹⁰⁸ Cf. BEP §69 (AA 27:886). On the role of these programmatic words among the founding fathers
of Pietism, cf. Haizmann 1997, esp. 56–9, and Breuer 2005.
¹⁰⁹ Cf. BEP §70 (AA 27:886f.).
¹¹⁰ In the introduction to Die Vorreden zur Metaphysik, Ursula Niggli takes a similar view, according
to which both Baumgartens, Alexander Gottlieb and his brother Siegmund Jacob, despite all their
“open-mindedness for modern philosophy, never abandoned [their] strict and devout Pietist character”
(Baumgarten 1999, xxix).
¹¹¹ Wiebecke has already worked out in detail how Baumgarten here “secularizes” a key term of
Pietist devoutness through generalization, so to speak (Wiebecke 1967, 30).
¹¹² Cf. BEP §202 (AA 27:923f.); BG §5; Baumgarten 1743, §15; BA I, §22 (for commentary, see the
Ästhetik-Nachschrift, Baumgarten 1907, §22); BIP §4 (AA 19:10); BAL §412. Baumgarten’s famous
doctrine of initially only four, but soon six, cardinales perfectiones cognitionis was due one day for a
more comprehensive analysis of its developmental history. The first schematic attempt to do so takes
place in Strube 2000, 33f.
¹¹³ Compare the first edition of BM §669: “cognition insofar as it contains the incentives of the mind
is called living <cognitio quatenus elateres animi continet, viva . . . dicitur>” with §671 of the fourth
edition (AA 15:47): “cognition that moves effective desires or aversions, and its motive power, is living
(more strictly . . . sufficient for acting) <Cognitio movens appetitiones aversationesve efficientes et vis
eius motrix . . . est viva (strictius, [ . . . ] sufficiens ad agendum)>”; BIP §204 (AA 19:90). On the
practico-theoretical importance of this terminological refinement and in general on the ethical signif-
icance of cognitio viva, see above pp. 23–27 for a fuller account.
       41

also that of self-judgment. For example, Baumgarten advocates a methodological

self-investigation by means of recollection every evening, or the regular use of a
diary.¹¹⁴ Such practical training in individual self-analysis was famously a char-
acteristic of Pietist spirituality. However, despite all the emphasis on strict self-
examination and moral vigilance, Baumgarten underlines at the same time that
one remains in the end an unfathomable secret to oneself. For, as a finite spirit,
one cannot illuminate everything with an equal light, so that the deeper motives of
the heart must often remain hidden.¹¹⁵
Lastly, an unmistakable Pietist impact on Baumgarten’s ethics is evident in his
development of a proper ethics of sin <Sünderethik> as a special section within the
framework of diverse morals for specific groups (e.g. for scholars and non-
scholars, the young and the old, the healthy and the sick, and so on). For example,
Baumgarten speaks there about temptation and anxiety, guilt and relapse, moral
slavery and being hardened, but also about penance and conversion, moral
epiphany and walking in the light.¹¹⁶
With such reminiscences as those on representations of penitential hatred and
being born again within the framework of a still specifically philosophical ethics of
perfection, Baumgarten indicates his double identity as a pupil of Pietism and
partisan of Wolff.¹¹⁷ Apart from that, he found an eloquent expression for this
two-fold self-understanding with a subtle title choice for his moral newsletter.¹¹⁸
The Philosophischen Brieffe von Aletheophilus in fact primarily brings to mind the
Gottsched-Manteuffel Societas Alethophilorum with its Enlightenment motto,
Sapere aude. However, at the same time, an additional epsilon interposed in the
Greek turns the Friend of Truth (Alethophilus) into the Friend of God
(Theophilus).¹¹⁹ The Wolffian Baumgarten understands himself thus as a decid-
edly religious Enlightener. As such, he remains—possibly through an alliance with
Pietist studies—the very first yet to be discovered.

¹¹⁴ BEP §§157 and 160 (AA 27:911 and 912).

¹¹⁵ Cf. BEP §§155f (AA 27:910f.). Aichele (2005, 4) sees a weighty discovery of Baumgarten here,
in that the moral judgment of action is not possible with complete certainty, even by the agent him or
herself.
¹¹⁶ On corruptio moralis, cf. BEP §§426–450 (AA 27:996–1002) and BM §788 (AA 17:154). – There
is also no template for this in Wolff ’s German Ethics; there is absolutely no entry in its index for “sin.”
Wolff does not at all employ any specific situational ethics of the sort that Baumgarten had appended in
the concluding Pars specialis to his Ethica following the model of the Theologischen Moral of his older
brother Siegmund Jacob (SJ Baumgarten 1738).
¹¹⁷ Translator’s note: On the tension characterizing Baumgarten’s position between Pietism and
Wolff, also see Schwaiger’s more recent article “Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens Begriff der Religion
im Spannungsfeld von Wolffianismus und Pietismus” (Schwaiger 2016a).
¹¹⁸ In 1741, Baumgarten published a German-language philosophical newsletter under the pseudo-
nym “Aletheophilus,” which continued until the beginning of 1744 and comprised 37 letters in total.
¹¹⁹ To my knowledge, Ernst Müller was recently the first to point out the small, so easy to miss, and
yet still so significant difference with the Alethophilus Society (Müller 2004, 49 n. 145). In his ambitious
interpretation, Müller understands Baumgarten’s newly established aesthetics “as an attempt at
mediating between Pietism and rationalism” (Müller 2004, 46).
 2
Mathematizing Morality
Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant on the Philosophia
practica universalis
Stefanie Buchenau

The practical philosophers of the German Enlightenment had higher ambitions

than current academic philosophers and teachers of philosophical ethics. Far from
asserting that philosophers and non-philosophers are on an equal footing in moral
matters, they clung to the idea that philosophers could claim some moral supe-
riority over non-philosophers. They assumed that moral matters required a habit
of analyzing, systematizing, and even demonstrating moral propositions and
rules. They even thought that such moral reasoning could benefit from being
cast in methodical order analogous to mathematics and that, grounded in firm
principles, it could offer moral insights that were practically relevant and trans-
latable into action. The philosopher’s moral superiority over the non-philosopher
entailed a particular responsibility. Those who were endowed with philosophical
and intellectual skills and habits were called upon to act as “teachers of mankind,”
to teach their students how to become better human beings and ultimately to lead
the whole human race to bliss and happiness.
These were the ideas and ambitions underlying the so-called “universal prac-
tical philosophy” or philosophia practica universalis, which will be the center of the
present article. The project itself was first formulated by Christian Wolff, who
began his philosophical career with a sketchy forty-page version in 1703, worked
on the same project throughout his life, and laid out a detailed version of more
than 1,000 pages in two volumes published in 1738 and 1739. In these two
fundamental treatises, Wolff defined the philosophia practica universalis as an
“affective” science “directing free actions through the most general rules” (Wolff
1703, def. 1). His declared aim was to transform practical philosophy (including
its subdisciplines of ethics, natural law, politics, and economics) into a mathe-
matical science according to a deductive order founded on a priori axiomatic
principles. Morality was to be demonstrated mathematically. In 1738 and 1739,
these first principles were set forth in a preliminary section entitled Prolegomena.
In the following decades, Wolff ’s philosophia practica universalis project was
perpetuated by a number of disciples, including Baumgarten and Kant. I will take

Stefanie Buchenau, Mathematizing Morality: Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant on the Philosophia practica universalis
In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers,
Oxford University Press. © Stefanie Buchenau 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0003
   43

the three projects one by one to show their respective particularities and adjust-
ments and to give a clearer account of the philosophia practica universalis project,
its philosophical aims and difficulties, and its evolution.

“Not the Same Old Story”: Cartesian mathesis universalis and Wolff ’s philosophia
practica universalis. The philosophia practica universalis project has received
surprisingly little attention in Wolffian and Kantian scholarship, indicating a
general perplexity among current readers.¹ While it still makes sense for us
today to ascribe a positive function to reason, knowledge, and judgment a positive
function in matters of morality, we find it harder to establish a connection
between mathematics and morals. What can it possibly mean to mathematize
morality? Isn’t the moral domain marked by a contingency that makes any
mathematization, demonstration, and quantification impossible? And aren’t
human agents in their essence characterized by a freedom that distinguishes
them from physical objects? Furthermore, doesn’t morality involve human qua-
lities other than mathematical and methodical reason? These are possible ques-
tions and objections that seem to explain a broader attitude of incomprehension
and disinterest toward philosophia practica universalis, some of them already
formulated by Enlightenment thinkers themselves.²
And yet, despite our resistance today, the project of mathematizing morality
exerted a tremendous attraction among early modern philosophers, around the
time of—and even before—Wolff, who comments on this in retrospect, in a note
to his 1728 Preliminary discourse, in which he outlines the nature and ambition of
his philosophia practica universalis project:

In 1703 I produced a practical universal philosophy written according to the

mathematical method, and I submitted it to the examination of the learned men
in a public dispute at the Academy of Leipzig, since the statutes required a
writing sample for those applying to be private teachers <Doctores privatos>.
And it was through this writing sample <specimine> that I was first introduced to
Leibniz, who had received it through Mencke, and had judged me worthy of his
favor and friendship. Although I was very young, I wrote this text in imitation of
the more recent mathematicians, who in the Mathesis universalis generally convey

¹ The linguistic barrier must also have played a role. While a series of fundamental treatises by
Baumgarten have recently been translated into German, English, French, and Italian, Wolff ’s two
philosophia practica universalis treatises have not yet been translated from their original Latin, except
for a partial translation of the first treatise into French (Buchenau and Rey 2000). A few articles have
been devoted to this subject. See in particular Allison (2011); see also Bacin (2015), Klemme (2020),
Lenders (1979), Schwaiger (2005).
² On these objections, see the highly interesting preface to Meier (1764).
44  

the general principles of Arithmetic and Geometry; I still find solid traditions
in it, as I have now meditated more deeply on the theory of its use, and
scrutinized its reasons more closely. Universal practical philosophy is of greatest
utility where one wishes to treat the whole of practical philosophy according to a
demonstrative method. I have defined it as an affective science, because it bends
<flectit> the will to desire and aversion: I have defined it as practical, because it
teaches to determine the faculty of locomotion for the execution of internal
actions. (WDP §70)³

By affirming that he wrote this treatise “in imitation of the more recent
Mathematicians, who in the Mathesis universalis generally convey the common
principles of Arithmetic and Geometry,” Wolff emphasizes his own early math-
ematical ambitions and establishes a direct link between his philosophia practica
universalis project and the Cartesian mathesis universalis. At a closer glance, his
project even seems connected with several earlier projects. These include the
mathesis universalis drafted by Descartes himself as well as various attempts to
revise this original project and transform morals into a demonstrative science, as
outlined by Locke, Leibniz, Caspar Neumann,⁴ and Ehrenfried Walther von
Tschirnhaus,⁵ all of whom Wolff explicitly acknowledges among his influences.⁶
Of course, most of these projects, including Descartes’s and Locke’s projects, have
remained incomplete and sketchy: Descartes himself, for instance, seems to have
remained entangled in some contradictions. In his early Rules for the Direction of
the Mind, he famously set up an all-encompassing philosophical system based on
a set of mathematical, axiom-like, fundamental, evident, and certain principles
and mathematical tools produced by the human mind. And yet, it was only late in
his life that he came to affirm morals’ central place in the system after having
conceived in his Discourse on Method no more than a provisional morality serving
as a temporary moral guide.⁷ Nonetheless, Wolff ’s predecessors seem to have

³ See also Klemme (2020, 240–53).

⁴ See Wolff ’s autobiography Eigene Lebensbeschreibung: “I had undertaken this work at the insti-
gation of the excellent theologian, Mr Caspar Neumann, from whom I had heard more than once that
morality, even theologiam moralem, had not yet been treated as it should be, if it were to be practiced
with advantage, and especially if preachers were to apply it in sermons for the edification of their
listeners [ . . . ], for which a man would be required who was capable of the Methodi mathematicae and
well-practiced in the more recent physics, where one examines the reasons of what one observes in a
clear manner. When I now sent him my disputation of the Philosophia practica universali, he showed
his delight about it [ . . . ]” (Wolff 1980). See also WAN 136.
⁵ Note that Wolff borrows his definition of axioms in the opening paragraphs of his 1703 treatise
Philosophia practica universalis from Tschirnhaus: “We call such propositions axioms, the truth of
which is immediately revealed to us, when they exhibit the definitions into which they enter” (Wolff
1703, chapter II, scholion).
⁶ On these influences, see also Schwaiger (2005, 223–6).
⁷ In the French preface to the Principles, Descartes famously compares the whole of philosophy to a
tree, its roots to metaphysics, the trunk to physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk to “all the
other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely, medicine, mechanics, and
   45

formulated a few fundamental intuitions which remain valid and inspirational for
Wolff. This applies particularly to Locke and Leibniz,⁸ whom Wolff mentions
explicitly:⁹ Wolff seems to have taken up Locke’s claim expounded in several
places in his Essay concerning Human Understanding that “morality is capable of
Demonstration, as well as mathematics” and that moral rules are knowable with
the same degree of certainty as “any Demonstration in Euclid.”¹⁰
This transformation of moral philosophy into a mathematical and demonstra-
tive science seemed to be possible because of certain resemblances between
mathematics and moral philosophy. First of all, they share a concern with ideal
notions that are independent of experience. Just as it is possible to construct a
geometrical triangle and deduce new properties in the mind without depending on
the existence of such geometrical figures in the external world, it seems possible to
take moral principles such as “justice” as mental objects of reasoning, without
reference to an extramental and empirical existence.
Second, moral deliberation and choice seem to require recourse to solid and
unquestionable principles (“justice”) and rules (“live honorably”, “don’t steal”),
similar to mathematical reasoning. It furthermore seems to presuppose an
ethical rigor and a consistency of one’s actions with these principles, as already
claimed in former philosophical traditions such as the ancient and modern
Stoic tradition; from this viewpoint, practical deliberation resembled a syllogistic
exercise and logical (rather than strictly mathematical) analysis allowing one
to deduce whether an action is right or wrong, permissible or not, obligatory or
not as a logical consequence from a higher and more general principle. This
general principle was supposed to offer some methodical norm and guide
against which human actions, behavior, and moral character could be compared
and judged. Consistency and consensus in turn represented a positive aim in

morals. By ‘morals’ I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a
complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom”. Descartes adds that this
ultimate part accounts for philosophy’s greatest benefit: “Now just as it is not the roots or the trunk of a
tree from which one gathers the fruit, but only the ends of the branches, so the principal benefit of
philosophy depends on those parts of it which can only be learnt last of all” (AT IXB:14; Descartes
1985, 1:186).
⁸ See also Leibniz (1765, 4.3.18): “The mere consideration of the goods of this life already serves to
establish important consequences for the regulation of human societies. One can judge what is just and
what is unjust as unquestionably <incontestablement> as in mathematics; for example, this proposition:
There can be no injustice where there is no property, is as certain as any demonstration in Euclid;
property being the right to <droit à> a certain thing, and injustice the violation of a right. The same is
true of the proposition: No government grants absolute freedom. For government is an establishment of
certain laws.”
⁹ WPPU, preface: “Indeed, there was not a lack of those who acknowledged that the theory of
human actions could be subjected to the laws of demonstration, among whom I will name Locke and
Leibniz.”
¹⁰ “I am bold to think, that Morality is capable of Demonstration, as well as Mathematicks: since the
precise real Essence of the things moral Words stand for, may be perfectly known; and so the
Congruity, or Incongruity of the Things themselves, be certainly discovered, in which consists perfect
knowledge” (Locke 1975, 3.11.16); see also Sheridan (2020).
46  

matters of morality. Enlightenment philosophers tended to think that moral

conflicts and controversies were neither unavoidable nor desirable, and that they
generally reflected misunderstandings, biases, and prejudices. A mathematical
method could thus make it possible not only to remain in harmony with oneself
but also to disambiguate moral reasoning and discourse, to detect hidden incon-
gruities, and to achieve a linguistic and logical clarity and transparence that is
impossible in domains other than mathematics and morals.¹¹
Third, it seemed possible not only to reason from practical principles but also
to explain human action with reference to such principles; thus to trace it back
to the representation of such principles as being the mental cause of one’s action,
as if the same principle of sufficient reason and the same pattern of mechanical
causality applied both to the physical and to the moral world, and as if it were even
possible to formulate moral rules and laws of action.
Fourth and finally, it seemed possible to think of these principles as being
anchored in the human mind and shared by all rational beings, even though they
may never have been instantiated in empirical reality. This idea, already been
formulated in the ancient Stoic natural law tradition and reiterated by modern
authors such as Leibniz¹² and Wolff, does not exclude the possibility of encoun-
tering them in reality, nor of recognizing and reconstructing them retrospectively
in existing legal and moral traditions. It asserts, however, that it must equally be
possible that they will never come to existence and yet to remain valid in the
human mind.
While some of these ideas had been formulated by a few of the predecessors
mentioned before, in particular Locke and Leibniz, Wolff seems to have been the first
to realize this mathematization of morals project in greater detail. If he succeeded
where his predecessors had failed, as he seemed to think,¹³ this philosophical
accomplishment appears to be intrinsically linked to certain corrections and read-
justments of previous views on the mathematical method and practical philosophy.
In other words, Wolff did not content himself with realizing a project that his
predecessors had already conceived in principle. Instead, Wolff ’s philosophica prac-
tica universalis bears a set of highly original features, as pointed out by Wolff himself:

My dissertation de Philosophia practica universali was reviewed by H. Mencke as

Professor moralium. Because he now realized that I had written the same

¹¹ In his Essay, Locke himself illustrates this idea by analyzing several moral propositions such as
“No Government allows absolute Liberty” (1975, 4.3.18). The definition of government already contains
a reference to the law, it is easy to demonstrate its incompatibility with absolute liberty (allowing
anyone to do as they please). See also Leibniz’s (1765, 4.3.18).
¹² See in particular Leibniz (1667) and (1671–2).
¹³ In his review of a collection of letters by Locke in 1711 (Acta eruditorum, October 1711, 474–80),
Wolff asserts that Locke seems to have accepted that he will not realize his mathematization of morals
project when he locates the heart of moral doctrine in the New Testament (p. 477). See also Schwaiger
(2005).
   47

methodo mathematica, and that I did not remain with the old pattern <ich
auch nicht bey der alten Leyer verblieb>, but sought to go further, he asked
me whether I had studied mathesin, since his intention was to employ me in
the Actis. (Wolff 1980 133)¹⁴

According to Wolff, Mencke¹⁵ (who later sent the treatise to Leibniz¹⁶) had
already realized that Wolff was not sticking to the “same old story” and that his
Philosophia practica universalis was not a standard mathesis universalis, nor did
his more geometrico apply in a standard way to any mathematical method.
The early 1703 Philosophia practica universalis already contains a few indica-
tions of Wolff ’s originality. First, while he opts for a classical mathematical mode
of presentation and resorts to definitions, scholia, problems or tasks, and proposi-
tions or theorems, a shift of emphasis from theory to practice is immediately
obvious. Philosophia practica universalis reaches beyond the original Cartesian
mathesis aimed at refuting a theoretical skepticism and/or establishing God’s
existence: it is a practical world-wisdom (Weltweisheit), beneficial for all
humans insofar as it is meant to direct their free actions and educate their will.
As Wolff puts it in his preface, “[w]hen we set out to treat universal philosophy
by a demonstrative method; it is ours, too, to devote the same effort to practical
philosophy, which is by far the most useful to the human race.”¹⁷ Second, one
notes here a distinction between theoremata (Lehrsätze) and problemata
(Aufgaben),¹⁸ with an original emphasis on the latter. This distinction would be
further developed in the bipartite structure of Wolff ’s later treatise, which is
divided into a theoretical and a practical part. In the latter part, Wolff invites
his student to solve a set of practical problems of common relevance, such as how
to wisely direct all of one’s actions throughout life.
The 1738/39 version of the treatise elaborates on the same division. Whereas
the first part contains chapters on: (1) first principles and notions, the difference
between human actions; (2) obligation and the moral law; (3) God, as the author
of the natural law, distributing rewards and punishments; (4) virtue and vice, bliss
and happiness of man; (5) moral conscience; and (6) moral imputation, the
second part is concerned with: (1) moral problems and rules; (2) the most general
direction of human action; (3) the path to be followed toward the highest good

¹⁴ Wolff emphasizes his originality again in the Ratio Praelectionem: “The name of a universal
practical philosophy has so far been unheard of among the philosophers, and perhaps the thing
understood by it has also been unknown” (WRP sect. 2, cap. 6, §2, 191). See Schwaiger (2005, 222).
¹⁵ Otto Mencke, the editor of Acta eruditorum and a friend of Leibniz, who according to Wolff sent
the manuscript to Leibniz, also particularly praises Wolff ’s mathematical skills, describing him in his
letter as a “charming person <hübscher Mensch>” “well versed in omni parte Matheseos, also in
Algebraicis.”
¹⁶ In his autobiography, Wolff mentions Leibniz’s favorable response. On the wider context and the
divergences between Wolff ’s and Ludovici’s accounts, see also Gerhard (1860) and Klemme (2020).
¹⁷ See Wolff (1703, Preface). ¹⁸ Schwaiger (2005, 230).
48  

and terrestrial happiness; and (4) how to acquire a guarding conscience and avoid
moral guilt. A third innovation, intrinsically linked to the changes just mentioned,
concerns Wolff ’s assertion of the parallelism or connubium between reason and
experience, which is already reflected in the 1703 treatise. After a first chapter
containing a set of preliminary definitions and a second chapter on axioms, Wolff
in the third chapter presents a set of a posteriori observations.
These shifts allow us to infer the twofold challenge that Wolff faced when
attempting to establish a mathematical moral philosophy: he had to address
both mathematics and practical philosophy, and thus show that mathematics
can be practical and that, conversely, practical philosophy can be mathematical.
The first challenge was to develop a view of mathematical reasoning that
was sufficiently broad to ensure its applicability to practical philosophy. For
Wolff, this meant, first of all, treating mathematics as a form of logic and analytical
reasoning and relativizing mathematics’ exemplary value for philosophy: “The
proofs or demonstrations of the Mathematicorum are nothing else than a bunch
<Hauffen> of inferences <Schlüsse> put together according to the rules of logic
<Vernunftkunst>.”¹⁹
Second, it was important to adopt a view on mathematical analysis that was
broad enough to include all forms of practical and theoretical problem-solving,
and so comprising exercises in both doing and thinking that would be accessible to
philosophers and non-philosophers alike.²⁰ Wolff first laid out these ideas in his
early treatises on mathematics, the Anfangsgründe (first published in 1710),²¹
which already covered both “pure” (arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry) and
“applied” branches of mathematics (architecture, hydraulics, hydrostatics, optics,
and astronomy). Beyond strictly mathematical and geometrical tasks such as
adding numbers or tracing a triangle from three given lines, these include
more practical and technical tasks such as making bricks (which requires a
rudimentary knowledge of physics and chemistry to protect the bricks from
excessive exposure to cold temperatures and humidity) or drawing a perspectival
plan for a building.²² Tasks (Aufgaben) here offer the basis for conducting proofs,
and they can be transformed into theorems (Lehrsätze).
Far from restricting his classes to an esoteric audience of future mathematicians
and philosophers, Wolff systematically sought to include a broader public, i.e. all
those students who attended mathematics classes as part of the program offered
by the philosophy faculties, or as a general propaedeutics to the studies of the

¹⁹ Wolff 1763, Kurzer Unterricht §45. See also WDP §139, on the identity between the philosophical
and mathematical method. Wolff here takes Leibniz’s side, against Descartes.
²⁰ From 1702 onwards, on coming to Leipzig to teach mathesin and finding this field “lay idle,”
Wolff put considerable effort into the elaboration of this mathematical method of teaching or Lehrart
(Wolff 1980, 129).
²¹ This work of four, sometimes six, volumes was greatly expanded in later editions throughout the
1730s.
²² See Beiser (2009, 50ff.) and Buchenau (2013, 15–52).
   49

“higher” faculties, or even just as a preparation for life and travel. In order to adapt
to these different types of audience, Wolff developed two alternative teaching
programs in parallel, the first one offering a more thorough initiation for “who-
ever wants to go back to the proofs” and the second one a more rudimentary
teaching program intended “for life and the traveler.”²³ These changes indicate
more than Wolff ’s strong pedagogical ambition as a teacher of mathematics, as
contemporary accounts suggest²⁴; they expressed Wolff ’s original assimilation of
what was then called the “order of invention” to the “order of teaching,” and his
original notions of method, logic, and systematicity—which in turn explain his
shift of focus to issues of teaching.²⁵
After having begun to clarify these mathematical and methodical premises,
Wolff turned to ethics. He set out his main ideas in the German Ethics before
developing them in more detail in the Latin Philosophia practica universalis and
other treatises. In his view, a methodical arrangement of ethics, far from resulting
from an external and retrospective philosophical ordering, must already be incip-
ient in ordinary moral reasoning. For whoever strives to do the good (which, in his
view, corresponds to a particular task or problem), seeks wisdom, consistency, and
an orderly life (ordentlicher Lebenswandel).²⁶ Such an orderly life, in turn, can be
defined as “the arrangement of one’s actions and omissions in such a way that a
particular intention is always a means to the perfection of our inner and outer
state” (see WPPU 1:§81 and WTL §142). This depends on the agent’s capacity and
habituation for systematizing her duties in such a way that she does nothing
without intention, and indeed composes a “system” in which “each intention is a
means of another and all together a means to the main intention <alle insgesammt
ein Mittel zur Haupt-Absicht>.” In other words, human wisdom and virtue
correspond to a state of perfection (WTL §144), consistency, or concordance of
the manifold (Übereinstimmung des Mannigfaltigen) where everything in the
agent’s actions “is in mutual harmony, and nothing hinders anything else”
(WTL §144). Such wisdom allows us to correct errors of judgment wherein we
mistake an apparent good for the real good, and to establish clear priorities where
there are multiple duties and goods, avoiding conflict between duties.²⁷ This

²³ Wolff develops a similar twofold, esoteric and exoteric, method of teaching in other domains,
such as in his writings on natural law.
²⁴ Ludovici’s article on Wolff in the Zedler encyclopedia particularly underscores the originality of
its method of teaching (Lehrart).
²⁵ On systematicity, see “De differentia intellectus systematici & non systematici,” in Wolff (2019).
²⁶ See also Meier (1764, §7, p. 55): “It is therefore quite natural that such a systematic, profound
and thorough mind as that of the Freyherr von Wolf should have had the idea of systematically and
thoroughly investigating the nature of a duty and of all moral things that are connected with it.
And from this arose the science that is called the universal practical philosophy. It can be explained by
that practical knowledge of the world which contains the first principles that belong either to all or to
several moral disciplines.”
²⁷ Note that this view denies the existence of tragic situations marked by conflicts between equally
valid duties.
50  

requires not only world-knowledge—i.e., insight into causal connections and

anticipation of possible consequences, which implies the correct evaluation of
all the relevant circumstances, the choice of the most direct means, and the
consideration of possible impediments—but also self-knowledge or the explana-
tion of the determining or impelling reasons for our willing and non-willing
(rationes, per quas voluntas & noluntas ad actus suos determinator), together
with the laws characterized by a particular moral obligation or necessity. Both
world-knowledge and self-knowledge seem to go hand in hand here, converging
in a state where the most clear and distinct world-knowledge is also the most
motivating self-knowledge and rational insight into the scope of one’s own power
or agency. Within this pattern, the good reveals itself to be a relative notion
depending on such reasoning and on establishing priorities. Faced with a choice
between several goods and with her own restrictions and the limited means at her
disposal, the wise human agent chooses the best. Happiness follows as a side-effect
of such perfection and systematization.
And yet, while moral reasoning and ordering tends toward a philosophical
form of virtue, it must be grounded in ordinary tendencies and shared or common
notions, similar to mathematical axioms. That is to say, first, that it must depend
on a natural impulse on which any human agent temporarily relies. Wolff here
clearly resorts to an old Stoic idea according to which morality commands one to
follow nature and indeed one’s own nature. As Wolff puts it, this law “obliges us
by the nature of things and our own nature <verbindet uns die Natur der Dinge
und unsere eigene> to do what is good in itself and to refrain from what is evil in
itself ” (WTL §9). He also asserts that “those have not spoken wrongly who said
that the law of nature is based on the conformity <Übereinstimmung> of our
actions with our nature” (WTL §28; my emphasis).
Beyond natural impulse, then, moral ordering also depends on a core of
“directive,” “heuristic,” and common notions, such as obligation, duty (officium),
rectitude, law. As Wolff puts it at the very end of the Prolegomena in his 1738/39
Philosophia practica universalis: “Universal practical philosophy teaches heuristic
principles <principia heuristica>, or techniques <artificial> for discovering moral
and political truths” (WPPU 1: §11).²⁸ For Wolff, these methodical, “directive,”
and “fruitful” notions, at the foundation of an open and ever-evolving system,
originate neither in mathematics nor in logic but in metaphysics, that is, in

²⁸ On the directive (or guiding) and fruitful notions in philosophia practica universalis, see also the
interesting preface of the second part on moral practice and WAN §137: “Ich habe einen allgemeinen
Begriff von der Verbindlichkeit gegeben, dergleichen man bisher nicht gehabt (da er) wie alle wahre und
deutliche Begriffe fruchtbar ist.” For a discussion of these terms, see Wolff ’s articles De notionibus
directricibus et genuino uso philosophiae primae (On directing notions and the genuine use of first
philosophy), De notionibus foecundis (On fruitful notions), in Wolff (1729–31, 1:310–50 and 2:105–65).
According to Wolff ’s definition, a directive notion is a notion or concept indicating the direction in
which one needs to think in order to succeed in one’s search.
   51

ontology, theology,²⁹ and psychology (WDP §105).³⁰ While offering methodical

guidance, they seem to be accessible to the philosopher and the non-philosopher
alike. They are already immanent in what Wolff calls historical knowledge and
natural logic.
This in turn explains the extent to which moral and legal customs and historical
bodies of law can supply material for mathematization and systematization. As
Wolff explains in his Grundsätze, it is possible to employ mathematics (Mathesin)
for the “unwrapping” (Auswickelung) of laws, following, as he puts it, in

the footsteps of Euclid, who took the laws of true logic very strictly into account,
and accordingly assigned a complete explanation to all words, determined each
and every proposition sufficiently, and arranged the explanations as well as the
propositions in such a way that the following ones could be understood from the
preceding ones and their truth could be elucidated.

The aim of such a mathematical presentation is “to kindle a light for the entire
domain of jurisprudence <der gantzen Rechtsgelehrsamkeit ein Licht angezündet>”
and to prove “what Cicero very skillfully said,³¹ that jurisprudence is not to be
drawn from the Twelve Tables, nor from the orders of the praetors, but from the
innermost part of philosophy <aus dem innersten der Philosophie>.”³² Such a
mathematization, of course, still builds on existing systems and bodies of law,
such as the Roman law;³³ for these provide a set of empirical rules and even a
rudimentary rational system of rules, to be refined by philosophical investigation.
To sum up, since ordinary moral and legal reasoning is already systematic and
scientific in nature, the philosophical and retrospective systematization does not
differ substantially from common practical reasoning, contrary to what Wolff ’s
Cartesian predecessors had claimed.
From this follows a novel proximity between teachers and students of moral
philosophy. Of course, the philosopher remains superior, morally speaking. For
morality, self-mastery and freedom depend on a clear and distinct moral knowl-
edge of the good, and on the intellectual skills of analysis and systematization that

²⁹ Wolff ’s intention of making theology compatible with rational morals is manifest from 1703
onwards. This specifically engages the notion of God as a legislator, introducing a positive obligation
through the very nature of things and distributing rewards and punishments in accordance with
principles of reason and justice.
³⁰ For this reversal of the Cartesian model, see Buchenau (2011).
³¹ Cicero, De Legibus, I, 17. ³² WGNV Preface.
³³ See also Meier (1764, 83): “If one claims that the Freyherr von Wolf is the inventor of the general
practical knowledge of the world, then one is very far from claiming that he invented everything that
this science contains. Cicero in his books De Officiis and De Legibus, Socrates and Seneca, the Roman
civil jurists, the divine scholars, and all moral writers, especially the teachers of the law of nature, have
already taught most of what must be counted as this science. Only the Freyherr von Wolf, in his
Philosophia practica universali, in quarto, has combined all these scattered considerations into a single
system.”
52  

allow the individual moral agent to avoid moral errors, resist mistaken judgments
about the good, acquire new moral insights, and free themselves from the slavery
of the senses. And yet, the philosopher can also teach these skills to a broader
public. Far from preaching incomprehensive precepts, she can contribute to the
formation of moral skills, moral character, and true freedom, and thus bears a
particular responsibility to serve the human community and lead the human race
to happiness.

II

The Practical Philosopher’s First Elements: Baumgarten’s Criticism of Wolff. This

perspective allows us to better explain the astonishing appeal and impact
of Wolff ’s project of mathematizing morals. It in fact explains the rise of a
totally novel orientation within German philosophy toward the mid-century.
Among the various treatises on universal practical philosophy,³⁴ Baumgarten’s
Initia philosophiae practicae primae (176) stands out as an original revision. It
provides the foundation for several further treatises and commentaries on
practical philosophy, ethics, and natural law: his Ethica philosophica (1740)
and his Ius naturae (1763), a compendium to Heinrich Köhler’s Exercitationes
iuris naturalis (1732). Furthermore, it either relies on or informs some of his
other writings on philosophy, such as his Metaphysica (1739) and Aesthetica
(1750/58).
As we will see, Baumgarten’s contribution consists not only in developing but
also in radicalizing and deeply transforming the original Wolffian project.
Underlining the significance and primacy of universal practical philosophy as a
whole and urging his reader “not to study ethics, if it is possible, until after these
prior sciences have been explained” (BEP *iv; see the editor’s introduction in BIP 3),
he seems to side with Wolff. The value of such universal practical philosophy lies
in supplying fruitful principles and directive notions, thereby augmenting the
“evidence” for notions from every practical discipline (BIP §§3, 9). Baumgarten
furthermore provides insightful comments on the relation between practical
philosophy and natural theology, and between its subdisciplines of ethics,
politics, and law, as well as on hermeneutics in jurisprudence.
His clarification of the core notions set out in Wolff ’s introductory section—
such as obligation, the law, moral consciousness, imputation, and freedom—
follows the spirit of Wolff ’s own treatise while allowing for a new order
of priorities. It is not happiness, but obligation, that is the highest principle of
philosophy, which latter he defines as “the science of knowing the obligations

³⁴ See Thümmig (1726–7), Canz (1739), Meier (1764), Sutor (1774), and the discussion in Lenders
(1979, 845ff.).
   53

of man without faith.”³⁵ And to enhance the systematicity of morals, he even

considers it possible to reduce the set of core principles or notions to one single
principle, or better, one single rule or duty. In Baumgarten’s view, “metaphysics
alone has an absolutely first objective domestic principle; all other disciplines have
relatively first domestic principles.” This first rule ascribes a new primacy to honor
(or dignity); for “the proposition live honourably (either internally or externally)
extends beyond right and therefore beyond the right of nature strictly considered,
and can be numbered among the first principles of the whole of practical philos-
ophy” (BIP §94).
But Baumgarten not only elaborates this mathematical and systematic ration-
alism, he also questions a couple of Wolffian premises, thereby deeply transform-
ing the original project. As mentioned earlier, Wolff ’s ambition was to
demonstrate practical rules from principles and moral laws and even to explain
maxims of action through reference to representations and motivations viewed as
“determining” or “moving” grounds (Beweggründe). To him, both the physical
and the moral world must be viewed as a nexus or series of causally connected
elements, and as moved by a set of laws of motion (Bewegungsgesetze), the only
difference being that the protagonists of the moral world are moral agents,
operating as “moral causes.” These act according to a particular, moral type of
necessity and obligation, as determined by the quality of their representations.
They are pushed by particular psychological “mechanisms,” by “motives,” “mov-
ing grounds,” or “mobiles” (Beweggründe), which are at the center of Wolff ’s
moral semiotics (WPPU 1:§707) or “the art of knowing the human mind.” But
despite the claimed analogy, the natural and moral domains are still to be opposed
and the explanations that Wolff offers concern moral possibilities, anchored in
freedom, principles, moral force, and character.
Baumgarten, on the other hand, works toward a naturalization of the human
soul and psychology as a doctrine of motivations, which changes the very orien-
tation of the earlier Wolffian mathematization project. To develop his argument,
he corrects a set of Wolffian premises. First, the quest for knowledge of the good
cannot be an indefinite striving. Not only does moral reasoning never reach
beyond establishing moral probabilities,³⁶ but setting out from a consideration
of the means at the agent’s disposal, it requires the recognition of the agent’s
intrinsic limits. Wolff ’s formulation of the moral law therefore needs to be
corrected. It does not command us to follow nature but to “[l]ive according to
nature, as much as you can” (BIP §46, emphasis in original).

³⁵ See also Langlois (2018, 26).

³⁶ Aichele (2005) offers interesting comments on Baumgarten’s thought on moral conscience. He
shows in what sense Baumgarten’s notion of imputation requires a forensic type of syllogistic reasoning
and implies conjectures about the agent’s motivation.
54  

The means at a human’s disposal furthermore include representations, upon

which agents are supposed to act; these can possess greater or lesser “weight,” or
motivational force. Baumgarten’s terminological innovations and his novel term
“overriding impelling causes,” here show his effort not only to explain what he
calls “obligation” and “moral necessitation” but also to quantify morals, by
measuring and comparing the respective “weight” of a representation, viewed as
an “impelling cause”:

In a free determination and its opposite, the    are
those ascribed to that free determination for which there are more when these are
summed up for each (BM §697). If someone wishes to excite a greater preference
in some determination rather than in its opposite, then the overriding impelling
causes must be connected with it (BM §§712, 342). (BIP §12)

This claim is not inspired by Wolff ’s own mathematical and philosophical

approach. On a closer look, Baumgarten’s intention is, on the contrary, to contest
the former’s claim about philosophy’s moral “weight” or impact. In his eyes, the
whole Wolffian model rests on the mistaken premise that the philosopher’s modes
of argumentation or reasoning are the most “vivid,” and so possess the greatest
practical power and efficacy. But in Baumgarten’s view, it is very possible for
philosophical discourse to lack such vividness. Wolff thus seems to belong to those
who are “doing too much in philosophy”³⁷ and pursue excessive ambitions,
ignoring philosophy’s “abstractedness” and “dryness.”³⁸ His very premise that
philosophical analysis can offer practically relevant knowledge in fact seems
deeply mistaken, since it does not aid us in fathoming the human heart and its
impelling causes, nor in establishing a proportion and congruity in moral actions,
nor even in producing morally efficient modes of communication and teaching.
Pointing out the philosopher’s intrinsic weaknesses as a teacher of morality,
Baumgarten draws from emerging anti-philosophical tendencies and the disquali-
fications of the philosopher as a speculative Stubengelehrter and Schulfuchs.
The moral disqualification of the philosopher goes hand in hand with the rehabil-
itation of the poet, who appears to be a far better teacher of morality, replacing
philosophical analysis with a method of lucidity (lichtvolle Methode, Aufklärung).³⁹

³⁷ BPB 11, letter 3: “If diligence in philosophy takes away the power of historical and probable
knowledge, of faith, of mathematical insight or knowledge, along with other actions to which I am
obliged, then I do too much in philosophy.” See also BPG and, again, Meier (1764, 59ff.).
³⁸ See Baumgarten (1740).
³⁹ See Meier (1764, 56): “The greater and more varied the light by which it brightens and enlightens
<helle macht und erleuchtet> the doctrine of natural duties, the more perfect is practical philosophy.
Consequently, the clearer, livelier, and clearer is the knowledge it gives us of our natural duties, the
more definite are the concepts of our duties, the more precisely it describes and explains everything,
and the more comprehensible <verständlicher> and easier is its whole exposition <Vortrag>: the greater
is its perfection.”
   55

Capable of producing “noble, true, exact, clear, perspicuous, vivid, distinct,

certain, and maximally pragmatic” cognitions and equipped with the skills to
“strike and conquer our hearts,” the poet alone establishes evidence (evidentia)
that appeals to everyone on a personal level, thus best responding to the needs and
aims of a truly universal practical philosophy. One notes that in some respects,
Baumgarten’s aesthetics stems directly from this comment on Wolff ’s thought on
poetry and fables in part two of Philosophia practica universalis.⁴⁰
This, again, implies a revolutionary shift in perspective, breaking the supposed
symmetry between theory and practice and introducing descriptive psychology
into what had been a purely prescriptive practical philosophy.

III

“Breaking new ground?” Kant’s Systematic Clarification and Consolidation of

Philosophia practica universalis’s First A Priori Practical Principle. Kant famously
refers to the Wolffian project in his Groundwork. There, he suggests his own
rejection of the Wolffian Philosophia practica universalis, asserting that his tran-
scendental approach to practical philosophy will allow him to “break new ground
<ein ganz neues Feld einschlagen>” in comparison to Wolff and other authors
(Verfasser) of the philosophia practica universalis (GMS 4:390). As he writes:

Let it not be thought, however, that what is here called for already exists in the
celebrated Wolff ’s propaedeutic to his moral philosophy, namely in what he
called universal practical philosophy, and that we do not therefore have to break
new ground <ein ganz neues Feld einschlagen>.

In the subsequent lines, Kant points out several insufficiencies in the Wolffian
project, which he here qualifies as a propaedeutics to morals and as a theory of
general volition. In his view, Wolff has failed to distinguish the sources of our
moral notions. This accounts for his confusion between pure and empirical,
practical and pathological, forms of willing and motivation, and for his illegitimate
introduction of moral psychology into moral philosophy, as well as for Wolff ’s
flawed definitions of moral obligation and necessity.

⁴⁰ See WPPU 1:§§ 250–323. The reconstruction of Baumgarten’s argument requires consideration of
these two dimensions of his thought which, paradoxically, commentators tend to dissociate, focusing
either on aesthetics or, more recently, on practical philosophy. Such compartmentalization, perhaps
due to the mediocre quality of some of the older Baumgarten scholarship on aesthetics, ignores the
significance of Baumgarten’s aesthetics as emerging from a critique of philosophy and as an attempt to
redefine its boundaries. It therefore engages epistemology and all branches of philosophy, including
practical philosophy.
56  

And yet, this statement is contradicted by others that, on the contrary, suggest
Kant’s high esteem of Wolff and the Wolffians and his will to continue, improve,
and defend the same project and its underlying intuitions. In particular, he
appears to seek a better a priori foundation and methodical principle for practical
philosophy than what the Wolffians had to offer, and to seek a solution to the deep
complications introduced by Baumgarten.
Kant’s desire to establish a continuity between philosophia practica universalis
and his own project is manifest in a series of titles: his lectures on moral
philosophy, given twenty-eight times between 1756 and 1794, are often presented
as treating universal practical philosophy and ethics. A course from 1793/94, for
instance, bears the title: “Metaphysics of Morals or Universal Practical Philosophy
along with Ethics according to Baumgarten.”⁴¹ It is also well-known that he
employed Baumgarten’s Initia philosophiae practicae primae as his textbook
from the winter semester of 1759/60 onwards.⁴² Before devoting a detailed
comment to it in the Groundwork and the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant discusses
the value of the mathematical method in philosophy in his 1764 treatise Inquiry
concerning the distinctness of the principles of natural theology and morality.⁴³
And it is striking that Kant, in his Groundwork and the Metaphysics of Morals,
sets himself the same task as Wolff. Affirming the existence of a metaphysics of
nature and of morals, he not only borrows from Wolff his division of the
philosophical system into logic, ethics, and physics where ethics and physics
denote territories determined by two types of law, i.e. moral and natural laws;
he also takes over the very project of locating a priori principles that offer a certain
methodical guidance in the realm of practical philosophy. Similar to Wolff and his
predecessors, Kant emphasizes the practical advantage of such a method, beyond
its speculative interest. Such philosophy helps to fight moral corruption (GMS
4:390) and tendencies toward sterile rationalization (Vernünfteln), providing a

⁴¹ For Kant’s debt to universal practical philosophy, see also the excellent discussion in Allison
(2011, esp. 37–52) and Bacin (2015). Allison opposes Wolff ’s Schulphilosophie to Garve’s
Popularphilosophie and assigns Wolff a rather negative role for the genesis of Kantian thought.
While agreeing with him on Garve’s popular stance and positive influence on Kant, I tend to view
Wolff as being more ambivalent and philosophically richer.
⁴² Kant held Baumgarten in high esteem, and he particularly appreciated the Elements, stating that it
was the “richest in content and perhaps his best book” (PrHer 27:16). On his relation to Baumgarten,
see also the editors’ preface to the English translation of BIP.
⁴³ In UDG, Kant’s emphasis lies on the differences between the mathematical and philosophical
method. In philosophy, the abstractedness and impossible exhaustive analysis of metaphysics’s first
notions constitute obstacles to attaining “the highest degree of philosophical certainty in the funda-
mental principles of morality.” He nonetheless does not lose sight of this aim, i.e. a mathematical
certainty for philosophy. He simply notes that it would require a more reliable definition of the
fundamental concept of obligation and adds that this requires further clarifications “for it has yet to
be determined whether it is merely the faculty of cognition, or whether it is feeling (the first inner
ground of the faculty of desire) which provides <entscheide> its first principles.” On this writing, see
Tonnelli (1959) and the revue Asterion (9/2011).
   57

guiding thread (Leitfaden) or a certain norm of judgment. More generally, Kant,

like the Wolffians, attempts to reconcile scholastic and popular tendencies and
modes of communication.
To locate the highest principle, Kantian criticism sets out from the same
common notions as the Wolffian propaedeutics, which are ontological in nature
and yet accessible to the common understanding (gemeiner Menschenverstand).
Duty here deserves a special place. While representing a common and popular
notion shared by all humans, it makes the existence of moral philosophy self-
evident (leuchtet von selbst . . . ein) (GMS 4:389) and allows for a transition to the
central common notions of moral law, obligation, and dignity, which already
figured in Wolff and Baumgarten. One of Kant’s major corrections consists in
clarifying these notions via a novel distinction between “formal” and “material”
principles or causes of willing and obligation (Beweggründe). The notion of
obligation needs to be more carefully distinguished from motivation: what mor-
ally determines, binds, or necessitates an action is not a psychological motive; it is
the moral law, which according to Kant’s revolutionary claim, is amenable to
formalization because it does not require reference to an external end but can be
characterized by an unconditional necessity.
From this follows the novel and ground-breaking distinction between two
worlds, the moral and the physical, or the noumenal and the phenomenal. The
moral law stirs a very particular feeling i.e., respect. These clarifications in turn
allow for better explanations of the rational agent’s honor or dignity and her will’s
intrinsic value, as well as a set of further readjustments concerning natural
theology and the notion of a divine legislator, which can dispense with reference
to utility, happiness, and rewards in the celestial world.
All of this allows Kant to draw a clearer distinction between the moral and
natural world, and between moral philosophy and moral psychology or anthro-
pology, to rid himself of anthropology and of any reference to human nature,
faculties, or “natural” law in his own propaedeutic, and thus to cleanse moral
philosophy of everything that may be only empirical (GMS 3:389).
Kant takes a further step in the same direction in the introduction to the
Metaphysics of Morals (1797), whose fourth section bears this very title:
“Preliminary Concepts of the Metaphysics of Morals (philosophia practica uni-
versalis)” (MS 6:221). Expanding his viewpoint from ethics to the legal domain, he
takes up the Wolffian broad and inclusive notion of ethics as comprising notions
of law and justice. Moreover, he borrows his distinction between duties as narrow
and broad, perfect and imperfect, directly from Baumgarten, subscribing to the
latter’s conviction that morality depends not only on the conformity of one’s
actions to a formal moral law, but also on material impelling causes. What Kant
calls “duties of virtue” strongly resemble what Baumgarten called “imperfect
duties.” Without being an object of legal constraint, these still refer to the moral
perfecting of oneself, and they occupy the center of Kant’s moral didactics,
58  

elaborated in the greatest detail in the Metaphysics of Morals itself.⁴⁴ It follows

from this that he maintains a Wolffian view on the philosopher’s twofold moral
function. She must not only provide a methodical thread for moral philosophy
but also assume a pedagogical task in order to ensure that, beyond its formal
acknowledgment, the notion of duty finds “entrance to the human soul <Eingang
in das menschliche Gemüt>” and possesses the “material” force of conviction
and practical efficacy required for the translation of such knowledge into action
(MS 6:151).

IV

Conclusion. Wolff was the first to succeed in elaborating the ambitious project
with which his early modern predecessors had all been struggling, i.e., the math-
ematization of morals or philosophia practica universalis. Contrary to conven-
tional wisdom, this project already contained a twofold, scholarly, and popular
or “wordly” dimension to the extent that it was built on a wide conception of
moral reasoning and wisdom and addressed philosophers and non-philosophers
alike. From this perspective, it was the birthplace of moral universalism and
popular philosophy—and of aesthetics as an early form and variant of popular
philosophy—as Baumgarten’s critical revision in his Elements shows.
These developments in turn shed interesting light on Kant and his debt to
Wolffian philosophia practica universalis and the ideals of “popular” philosophy—
a philosophy engaging the whole of humanity, not just its philosophical elite.
While his criticism “breaks new ground,” it mainly concerns insufficiencies in the
application of the mathematical method. Despite the claimed distance, Kant is far
from abandoning the earlier project of a mathematical philosophy à la Wolff. On
the contrary, he remains deeply committed to it, attempting to save it from
Baumgarten’s attack and to respond at least to a some of his challenges. His
critical philosophy is meant to offer a more radical and “mathematical” solution,
remedying previous insufficiencies and providing stable foundations. But to fully
appreciate and critically discuss Kant’s move, it is necessary to begin by recon-
structing this very project and by acknowledging its philosophical audacity.

⁴⁴ See in particular Refl. 6457 (AA 19:10), approximately dated 1764–6.

 3
Obligation as Moral Necessitation
and Nötigung
From Leibniz via Baumgarten to Kant
Heiner F. Klemme

In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant asserts that the good will is
the “highest good” (GMS 4:396) of volition.¹ In contrast to a pure rational being,
human beings do not have a “holy” (“absolutely good”) will, whose maxims
“necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy” (GMS 4:439). Instead we
are dependent on the principle of autonomy: we can have a good will only if we
determine ourselves to act out of respect for the moral law. Kant calls this
dependence obligation. At the same time, he speaks of “moral necessitation”
(moralische Nötigung) in this context (GMS 4:439). Because we are dependent
on, i.e. necessitated by, the principle of autonomy, there is an “objective necessity”
to perform or omit certain actions. Kant calls this objective necessity to perform
an action “from obligation” (aus Verbindlichkeit) duty:

A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy,
absolutely good will. The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will
that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) <die moralische Nötigung> is
obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy will. The objective
necessity of an action from obligation <aus Verbindlichkeit> is called duty.
(GMS 4:439)

Kant seems to have inherited this characterization of obligation as moral necessi-

tation from Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Metaphysica: “Moral necessitation
is Obligation. Obligation to a reluctant action will be  ”
(BM §723). Georg Friedrich Meier translates necessitatio moralis in his German
edition of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica as “sittliche Nöthigung.”²

¹ The work on this chapter has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 777786. I thank John
Walsh for discussions on this topic during our stay at CONICET in Buenos Aires.
² MT §523. The whole translation reads: “Die sittliche Nöthigung ist die Verpflichtung (obligatio),
und die Verpflichtung zu einer Handlung die ungerne gethan wird, ist der sittliche Zwang (coactio

Heiner F. Klemme, Obligation as Moral Necessitation and Nötigung: From Leibniz via Baumgarten to Kant In: Baumgarten
and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press.
© Heiner F. Klemme 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0004
60  . 

Since Kant based his lectures on metaphysics and ethics on Baumgarten’s

textbooks and dealt with his position in numerous reflections, it is plausible to
regard Baumgarten as the source of Kant’s terminology. In fact, this is not
disputed in the literature.³ Equally uncontroversial is the view that Kant’s defini-
tion of obligation differs from Baumgarten’s in content.⁴ Baumgarten does not
speak of the “principle of autonomy,” nor is the supreme reference point of his
practical philosophy the good will. He claims that practical philosophy is “the
science of the obligations of a person that are to be known without faith.”⁵ In this
way, the concept of obligation becomes the basic concept for all practical sciences.
Kant not only does not have such a basic science comprehending ethics, law,
politics, and economics, but also rejects it in the preface to the Groundwork.⁶ His
main point is that universal practical philosophy fails to ground the concept of
obligation because it examines “the actions and conditions of human volition
generally” but not “the idea and the principles of a possible pure will” (GMS
4:390). In universal practical philosophy, pure reason is not identified as the sole
source of all our moral obligations.
Although there is no fundamental disagreement in the literature on these two
points, an investigation of the precise similarities and differences between
Baumgarten’s and Kant’s conceptions of obligation is still outstanding. I would
like to contribute to filling this lacuna by turning to the debate surrounding the
concept of obligation in the period between Leibniz and Kant.⁷ I will begin with
the concept of obligation in Wolff and Baumgarten and then examine the latter’s
most important student, Georg Friedrich Meier. While Baumgarten is known for
his brevity of expression, Meier’s writings are characterized by a comprehensive-
ness that might be helpful for understanding his teacher’s position. Before deter-
mining the specifics of Kant’s position with respect to the aforementioned authors
in the final section of this chapter, I will briefly turn to Leibniz’s theory of
obligation. His Essai de théodicée (1710) was virtually required reading for all
philosophers and theologians of the time, and was translated into German by an

moralis).” Baumgarten greatly expanded his Metaphysica in the second edition and added German
translations to some terms in the fourth. However, he does not translate the expression “necessitatio
moralis.”
³ See, for instance, Schwaiger (2009, 70), Schwaiger (2000, 251), Bacin (2015), and Langlois (2018,
43–4).
⁴ Bacin even claims that there is, in general, no “continuity between their views” (2015, 32).
⁵ Baumgarten, BIP §1. On the definition of ethics as a practical science see BEP §1–3.
⁶ There is a short section on “Preliminary Concepts of the Metaphysics of Morals” in the Preface to
the Metaphysics of Morals, which contains the subtitle “Philosophica Practica Universalis” (MoM
6:221–8). In it he defines concepts like obligation and duty in a way that makes clear that the whole
section is an alternative to the tradition of this discipline.
⁷ However, it is not possible to discuss here the position of Christian August Crusius, who develops
his philosophy in explicit opposition to Wolff ’s psychological interpretation of obligation. For discus-
sions of the debate on obligation in this period, see Hüning (2004a, b), Schwaiger (2000, 2009), Klemme
(2019, 2020), and the contributions by Hüning (2019), Langlois (2019), and Rivero (2019b) in Rivero
(2019a). On the relation between Crusius and Kant see Klemme (2016) and Rivero (2021).
      ̈ 61

anonymous author in 1720 and again by Johann Christoph Gottsched in 1744. In

these translations, the terms necessitieren and nötigen are also used, and this is
important for understanding the developments that followed.
My interest in the aforementioned authors is not motivated by a desire to
understand the development of Kant’s philosophy. I will not contribute to the
question of when Kant read which author and what traces can be found in his
texts and notes; rather, I am interested in the philosophical significance of
his position. Why does Kant use the concept of necessitation (Nötigung) in his
definition of obligation, like Baumgarten? Why does he, unlike Wolff and
Baumgarten, use the concept of dependence (Abhängigkeit)? I aim to demonstrate
why the terminological proximity to Baumgarten often noted in the scholarship
cannot hide a serious difference between the two authors.
Preliminary to the discussion, consider Clemens Schwaiger’s claim that
“Wolff ’s psychological approach to the agent’s own motivation [ . . . ] is now
sharply amplified by Baumgarten” (2000, 252). According to Schwaiger, this
intensification is indicated by the fact that, according to Baumgarten, “there
[can] be talk of an obligation only if stronger causes of movement, which outweigh
all contrary drives, are connected with the action” (2000, 252). For Wolff, on the
other hand, the question of the “weight” of a motive is “quite irrelevant,” because
Wolff allows only “distinct ideas of good and evil to be regarded as actual motives
for action” (Schwaiger 2000, 252).⁸ If, however, Baumgarten’s conception of
obligation as necessitation is an expression of his amplification of Wolff ’s
“moral psychological approach,” this does not establish a proximity to Kant.
Quite the contrary. Kant’s use of the concept of necessitation (Nötigung) certainly
does not contribute to solving the moral psychological problem of motivation, as
he himself makes clear in the Preface to the Groundwork.⁹ Whereas Baumgarten
and this tradition of universal practical philosophy place the problem of how
human beings can be induced to act freely at the center of considerations of
obligation, Kant focuses on the problem of the validity (Geltung) of the law of pure
reason for a “will that is not absolutely good” (GMS 4:439). Kant transforms the
psychological concept of obligation into a purely (a priori) normative concept
based on pure reason, intended to show how a good will—and thus a categorical

⁸ I am not sure that, for Wolff, the question of the “weight” of a motive is “quite irrelevant.” After all,
he argues that distinct concepts are our strongest motives. In any case, before Baumgarten, the Wolffian
Johann Christoph Gottsched emphasizes the importance of the strength of the motive in his version of
universal practical philosophy, first published in 1733: “For we know that nothing but good and evil, in
so far as they can be distinctly cognized by the intellect, can give a powerful motive <einen kräftigen
Bewegungsgrund> to direct the will [ . . . ]. It is therefore not possible to recognize one action as
absolutely good, and yet to detest it; or to hold another to be thoroughly evil, and yet to will it.
Rather, if this seems to happen, it must be due to the imperfect knowledge of the mind, which does not
quite distinctly represent the good and evil of an action” (Gottsched 1736, §23; edition of 1777, §29).
⁹ See Kant’s answer in the Groundwork to the question posed by Johann Georg Sulzer as to why our
moral concepts are often so ineffective in motivating us (AA 4:411n). For discussion, see Klemme
(2011).
62  . 

imperative—are possible at all.¹⁰ Questions of general motivational psychology

and of a general theory of action are not at the center of Kant’s interests in the
Groundwork; for the answer to the question of how a categorical imperative is
possible can only succeed in the context of an investigation which takes into
account the sharp distinction between pure reason as the source of our moral
obligation and empirical concepts based on experience.
Thus, if Kant seems here to be further from Baumgarten than from Wolff, the
question of Kant’s use of the psychological concept of Nötigung in his definition of
obligation arises all the more urgently. I have already mentioned the answer to this
question: Kant reinterprets the psychological concept into a normative one
grounded in pure reason. When Kant asks in the Groundwork how the human
will can determine itself out of respect for the moral law, he is not interested in
the strength of motives that might bring this about but in the question of
how a sensibly affected being—such as a human being—can be under moral
obligation at all.

Necessity and Necessitation: Wolff und Baumgarten. The central role of motivation
in universal practical philosophy is clear from Wolff ’s conception of obligation,
understood in terms of the will’s relation to its motives: “To obligate a will to do
something or not to do something, is nothing other than to connect a motive of
volition or nolition with it” (WTL §8). Our motives are based either on rational
insight into the law of nature or on constraint (or coercion). Rational human
beings need only natural obligation to see the “nature of free actions” (WTL §21)
and to act virtuously.¹¹ For Wolff, reason is the “teacher of the law of nature”
(WTL §23), and through reason the human being is “a law unto himself” (WTL
§24). On this conception of obligation, motives are representations of good and
evil that determine the will. Here Wolff assumes that distinct cognition of good
and evil is, as it were, motivationally irresistible. Distinct cognition is the strongest
motive we can have. The mind judges good and evil, and the will necessarily
follows this judgment (WDM §373). The more distinct our cognition of the law of
nature is, the freer we become. Accordingly, cognition of the law of nature is the
key to insight into the necessity of one’s own actions. Whoever has this insight acts
according to it.
The human will is not “absolutely” rational, but rational only under the
condition that the human being recognizes his natural obligation. Wolff has no

¹⁰ See Klemme (2019, 27).

¹¹ “Nature obligates us to perform intrinsically good actions and to omit intrinsically evil ones”
(WTL §12; see also §9).
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specific term for the transition from a merely possible to a necessary determina-
tion of the will by its motives. If the human being cognizes the good and evil
determined by the law of nature, then it makes no sense, on Wolff ’s view, to speak
of a determination of the will in the sense of a necessitation (Nötigung). If a human
being does what he wills because he has cognized something as good, he is
not forced in the sense of nötigen; he simply acts as he wills to act. He performs
a free action.
Wolff ’s view is implicitly disputed by Baumgarten, who conceives of all
kinds of obligation as necessitation. Accordingly, Baumgarten’s amplification
of Wolff ’s moral psychology entails interpreting all motivation as a psychological
act of coercion. In fact, the German word nötigen—Meier’s translation of
necessitatio—implies that the agent is reluctant to perform the action to which
he is obligated.¹² Yet, if necessitatio just means that a person is incited by a new
motive to act in a certain way, then it is not clear why Wolff could not have used
this expression as well.
Let us examine Baumgarten’s concept of obligation more closely. He addresses
this concept in §723 of the Psychologia empirica of his Metaphysica, in the section
on freedom. Free determinations are moral determinations that express either a
possibility, an impossibility, or a necessity. Morally possible in the broad sense is
“that which can only be done through freedom, or in a free substance as such”
(BM §723). Morally possible (or permissible) in the narrow sense is “that which
can only be done through freedom determined in conformity with moral laws”
(BM §723). Morally impossible in the broad sense is “that which cannot be done
solely on account of the freedom in a free substance,” and in the narrow sense is
that which is impossible “through the freedom that must be determined in
conformity with moral laws” (BM §723). Morally necessary in the broad sense is
“that whose opposite is only impossible through freedom, or in a substance insofar
as it is free,” and in the narrower sense it is “that whose opposite is impermissible.”
The concept of moral necessity in the narrow sense thus indicates that an
expression of freedom possible in itself may not be carried out because it is not
permitted. It is precisely at this point that Baumgarten introduces the definition of
obligation already cited: “Moral necessitation is . The obligation to
perform an act reluctantly will be  ” (BM §723).
The concept of obligation relates to that of moral necessity in its entirety. Just as
moral necessity presupposes freedom, so does moral necessitation. Not only does
freedom not contradict moral necessitation, it is a characteristic of the latter (BM
§724). The purpose of moral necessitation is to make an act necessary for a free

¹² The German word nötigen expresses this maybe more clearly than the Latin neologism necessi-
tatio coined by Baumgarten. See also the entry Nötigen in Zedler, Universal-Lexicon, where nötigen (to
necessitate) is “to seek to bring one to do that which, by himself, he otherwise would not have any
particular desire to do. Such necessitation can happen in two ways: either by an irresistible force, or by a
powerful representation” (Zedler 1732–54, Vol. 24, Sp. 1166).
64  . 

will. Through obligation, a merely possible act becomes necessary. A special form
of obligation is moral constraint (or coercion).¹³ Baumgarten defines moral
constraint as that by virtue of which an action is performed reluctantly; this
suggests that there is also obligation that we gladly perform, without constraint.
(In this case, however, Meier’s translation of necessitatio with “nötigen” might be
questionable.)
As we have seen, the concept of freedom contradicts neither moral necessity
nor, consequently, moral necessitation. First, a person’s freedom is enhanced
when he distinctly cognizes the reasons that make an action necessary. We can
speak here of freedom as insight into the moral necessity of an action:

[ . . . ] the more conscious I am of my motives, the more freely do I will (§712). It

is morally necessary that one who wills or refuses most freely perceives the
motives of willing and refusing most distinctly whenever they will or refuse
(§723). (BM §725)

Second, God’s actions are not absolutely necessary, “since the opposite of these is
possible in itself ” (BM §902). God is not only free, he is “supremely free” (BM
§902). God has the omnipotence to be able to realize the opposite of all free
actions. However, God is not only supremely free; he also acts supremely “right-
eously” (BM §902). For this reason, his actions are not absolutely, but morally
necessary: “Since [ . . . ] God’s supreme freedom always determines itself most
righteously (§901), all of the actions are also morally necessary while they are
morally the holiest (§§723, 724)” (BM §902). Baumgarten’s justification for the
claim that God always wills the good, is noteworthy: God does not will the good
because he cognizes the good through his reason, as Wolff claims; rather, God’s
will is determined by his love for human beings. God is love and truthfulness (BM
§§903–5). He acts in a way that is morally necessary out of the goodness of his will.
If God did not have a benevolent will, then he would be necessitated by his reason
to do what is necessary. But this is precisely not the case. God necessarily wills the
good, but he is not necessitated.
So, it is clear why Baumgarten uses the term “necessitation”: he simply wants to
distinguish God’s freedom from that of human beings. Baumgarten seeks to avoid
Wolff ’s position, according to which there is in principle no difference between us
and God concerning the way we are determined to free actions by our under-
standing. As Wolff sees it, if we have distinct representations of good and evil,
then we are not necessitated to act freely at all. In this case, we—like God—simply
do what we will. Baumgarten, instead, wants to stress the difference between us
and God in this regard.

¹³ Kant already argues in his lectures on moral philosophy from the 1770s that coercion does not
create obligation (see Kant 2004, 50).
      ̈ 65

II

Necessitation as a “Must”: Georg Friedrich Meier. What does Meier contribute to

understanding the concept of obligation as developed by his teacher Baumgarten?
In his Allgemeine praktische Philosophie (1764), Meier elucidates obligation as
Baumgarten did in §723 of his Metaphysica, beginning with considerations of the
broad and narrow senses of what is possible, impossible, and necessary. However,
Meier does not mention Baumgarten once. The only two authorities to which he
refers are common sense and the “jurists” (1764, §66).¹⁴ The latter, in his view, are
quite correct in asserting that obligation consists “in the bond of rights or laws, or
in a legal bond [ . . . ] by virtue of which we are necessitated [genötigt] to act”
(Meier 1764, §66).
According to Meier, it is “morally necessary that all free actions be contingent,
and that they can be determined by distinct motives” (Meier 1764, §66). The
concept of moral necessitation expresses the act by which “an action is made
necessary” (Meier 1764, §66). Thus, a merely possible action becomes necessary:
“Obligation is the moral necessitation <moralische Nötigung> to free actions”
(Meier 1764, §66). If we compare Meier’s definition of obligation with
Baumgarten’s as necessitatio moralis, it is Meier who clearly adds a psychological
emphasis by using the German word Nötigung.
Meier articulates the notion of moral necessitation in the first-person singular
and uses the notion of “must” (müssen) in this context: “Whenever a human being
considers himself obligated to do something, he says: ‘I must do it, I cannot help
myself, I find myself necessitated <genötigt> to do such and such’ ” (Meier 1764,
§67). The “must” expresses that a free will has been obligated by certain reasons to
do or to refrain from doing something. A person who must do something sees no
alternative to his action. His free action has been made necessary by motives that
bind (fetter) a free will that is in itself contingent. While it is possible in principle
for a free will to perform or refrain from performing an action, the motive turns a
possible action into a necessary one: “Where there is no moral possibility, there is
no moral necessity” (Meier 1764, §68). In keeping with Wolff, Meier explains
obligation as a relationship that exists between the will and its motives: the “nature
of all obligation” consists “in the connection of the motives of the will with free
actions” (Meier 1764, §68). Motives can consist in punishments and rewards.
Even “the sweet and evangelical promises of God in holy Scripture” yield an
obligation (Meier 1764, §68; see also §70).
Meier seems closer to the position of his teacher than to that of Wolff. After all, he
speaks of müssen and uses this term from the perspective of the first person singular.
This “must” is a psychological amplification of Baumgarten’s necessitatio moralis.

¹⁴ “My definition agrees perfectly with the general way of thinking of all human beings” (Meier
1764, §66).
66  . 

III

Inclined to, but not Necessitated: Leibniz. In the Theodicy,¹⁵ Leibniz aims to show
that the theory of liberty of indifference advocated by Luis de Molina is just as false
Thomas Hobbes’s view that the human will is determined by physical influence.
The rational monad has a choice because, according to the principle of contra-
diction, it could have acted otherwise.¹⁶ For our purposes, it is important to note
that, for Leibniz, God or a rational monad is not necessitated (necessiter) but
merely inclined (incliné) to choose in a certain way. This is because Leibniz
identifies necessiter with metaphysical necessity. By contrast, the inclination of a
rational will to choose what is best expresses a moral necessity. In the German
translations (Leibniz 1720), l’incline à agir is translated as “antreiben” (to drive)
and obligé as “gehalten sein” (to be required to). The word necessiter, on the other
hand, is translated as “necessitiren.”¹⁷ Gottsched translates necessiter as “nöthigen.”¹⁸
However, he also uses nöthigen to translate the French “obligé,” which, like incliné,
expresses a moral necessity. According to Leibniz, moral necessity consists in the
obligation to choose the best.¹⁹ It is the choice of a being who wills the chosen action
itself. The sage wills the best with moral necessity. His choice is an expression of his
own nature. For this reason, Leibniz calls moral necessity a “happy necessity” (une
heureuse nécessité).²⁰
According to Leibniz, God is also obligated, i.e. necessitated or genötigt (in the
sense of obligé, not necessiter), to act according to his own nature. Gottsched
translates “obligé” here as “gehalten.” God is obligated (obligé) to choose what is
best because this choice corresponds to his nature. His nature consists in his
reason. He is not necessitated (necessiter) but inclined (incliné) to do so. Yet, based
on Gottsched’s translation of “oblige” as “genötigt,” we can also say that God is
necessitated (genötigt) by his own nature to choose the best.
Two further claims by Leibniz deserve our attention. First, the will is deter-
mined (déterminé) by “distinct cognition of the best” (Leibniz 1952, §310).

¹⁵ Baumgarten owned a copy of this work. See the note by Günter Gawlick and Lothar Kreimendahl
in their edition of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica (XVI, note 37).
¹⁶ On Leibniz’s conception of freedom, see Jorati (2017, ch. 5).
¹⁷ “God is prompted to all good; the good, and even the best, inclines him to act; but it does not
compel him, for his choice creates no impossibility in that which is distinct from the best” (Leibniz
1952, §230).
¹⁸ On the impact of Leibniz’s distinction between inclining and necessitating on early eighteenth-
century discussions of obligation, see Schwaiger (2009, 70; 2020, 251). However, Schwaiger does not
consider the possibility that necessitatio is the Latinized version of Leibniz’s nécessitation.
¹⁹ “[ . . . ] between metaphysical necessity, which admits of no choice, presenting only one single
object as possible, and moral necessity, which constrains the wisest to choose the best” (Leibniz 1952,
§367).
²⁰ “This so-called fatum, which binds [obligates; verbindet, ed. Gottsched] even the Divinity, is
nothing but God’s own nature, his own understanding, which furnishes the rules for his wisdom and
his goodness; it is a happy necessity, without which he would be neither good nor wise” (Leibniz 1952,
§191; see also §175).
      ̈ 67

To be determined by distinct cognition is equivalent to saying that the will

becomes inclined (incliné) to act in a certain way.²¹ Gottsched sometimes trans-
lates “determiner” as “lenken” (to direct).²² The second claim concerns the
relationship between cognition and motivation. According to Leibniz, only God
follows his judgments about the best without fail. Human beings do not. There
may be various reasons for this. For example, Leibniz refers to new inclinations
that drive our actions in a different direction before we perform them. He explains
this by appealing to the difference between judgment about the truth and about
the good: we can fail to do the best, but we cannot fail to acknowledge the truth
(Leibniz 1952, §310).
Leibniz does not take his remarks on the difference between judgment and
action in the case of the will as an occasion to comment at length on the moral
psychology of human volition. This is simply not his topic in the Theodicy. He
does not wish to contribute to the psychology of human action, but to elucidate
the fundamental connection between knowledge, freedom, and necessity. He
wants to show that a rational being is bound by its own nature to will the best,
even though it has the choice to act otherwise.
If we compare Leibniz with Wolff and Baumgarten, Wolff is closer to Leibniz’s
position than Baumgarten insofar as Leibniz and Wolff assume that God and
human beings are inclined to do the good but are not necessitated to do so. God
and human beings are obligated (geneigt, gehalten) to do the good, but they do not
have to in the sense of individual psychological necessitation. Unlike Leibniz,
however, Wolff does take an explicit interest in questions of the psychology of
action. It is no coincidence that Wolff claims to have given a new definition of
obligation.²³ This definition regards the practical question of how a person can
be moved to act in a certain way. The deeper reason for Wolff ’s strong interest
in questions of motivation, compared to Leibniz, may be because Leibniz
advocates a theory of pre-established harmony, which Wolff does not accept.²⁴
For Leibniz, since the monad has no windows, obligation cannot be conceived
of in terms of anything that is not already in principle obscurely thought in
this monad. The monad is always already obligated by itself. It acts by virtue
of its own spontaneity. Obligation thus expresses a self-relation. By contrast,
Wolff conceives of obligation in relation to something that determines good
and evil outside the person in the form of the law of nature. According to

²¹ “God is prompted to all good; the good, and even the best, inclines him to act; but it does not
compel him, for his choice creates no impossibility in that which is distinct from the best; it causes no
implication of contradiction in that which God refrains from doing. There is therefore in God a
freedom that is exempt not only from constraint but also from necessity. I mean this in respect of
metaphysical necessity; for it is a moral necessity that the wisest should be bound to choose the best”
(Leibniz 1952, §230).
²² See Leibniz (1744, §309). Gottsched also uses lenken in his definition of obligation (Gottsched
1736, §8).
²³ See WTL, Vorrede zu der andern Auflage. ²⁴ On this see Wunderlich (2021).
68  . 

Leibniz, I obligate or direct my own will by obtaining distinct cognition of what

I already know implicitly.

IV

Necessity, Necessitation and Nötigen: From Leibniz to Kant. We have seen that
Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, Meier, and Kant often use the same terms but attach
different meanings to them. One of the difficulties in fully grasping the meaning of
their terms arises from the fact that they are parts of complex theories that reach
deep into the realms of logic and metaphysics. A comprehensive understanding of
Baumgarten’s or Kant’s concept of moral obligation would require extensive
reflection on numerous areas of their thought. However, this could not be
accomplished in the present contribution. Nevertheless, we have seen that
Leibniz conceives of a rational being as obligated (obligé) to act according to its
own nature. For a rational being, there is a moral, but not a metaphysical,
necessity to act freely. Meier expresses this moral necessity by the word “must,”
thereby giving it a strong individual psychological imprint in the wake of his
teacher Baumgarten. To obligate—or direct—a person’s will, according to Meier,
is to give him a motive that he cannot resist because it is so strong.
To be sure, Kant takes up Leibniz’s idea that a purely rational being is bound by
its own nature to perform free actions. However, Kant does not use the concept of
obligation to indicate this. According to Kant, neither a relation of dependence
nor of necessitation (Nötigung) is present in a pure rational being (God). For Kant,
God is not inclined (incliné) to choose the best; rather, a holy will follows the
moral law with necessity. It has no choice.
Why Kant does not adopt Leibniz’s language is largely explained by Kant’s
dualism. He believes that the human will is determined by its desires and inclina-
tions (sensibility) as well as by pure reason. Whereas, for Leibniz, God’s will is
determined (directed) by his full knowledge, for Kant, the human will is deter-
mined (directed) by both his sensibility and his pure rational nature. Because of
the specificity of his conception of the (good) will, Kant uses a terminology that
allows him to conceive of the human will as being under a tension that does not
exist in Leibniz and that brings him somewhat nearer to Baumgarten.
It makes sense that Kant employs the concept of moralische Nötigung.
However, this does not mean that he is interested in a motivational-psychological
interpretation of obligation. In particular, it does not mean that Kant proceeds in
the Groundwork “linguistically as well as factually [ . . . ] entirely along the trajec-
tory laid out by Baumgarten” (Schwaiger 2020, 251). The considerations of
obligation addressed by numerous authors in the context of universal practical
philosophy fall within the realm of empirical psychology and concern all of our
expressions of freedom. These authors seek to contribute to the question of how
      ̈ 69

we can concretely direct the will of people so that they do the good and refrain
from evil. Kant, however, is concerned with a very different question. He wants to
understand how a good will is possible, even though the human will is always also
affected by sensibility. He answers this question by referring to the principle of
autonomy, on which we depend insofar as we could not acquire a good will
without it. For Kant, dependence on the principle of autonomy is the key to
understanding our independence from our desires and inclinations.²⁵ This is in
essence not a psychological relation, for Kant, but a normative one in which we as
human beings stand to ourselves as purely rational beings. Dependence is at the
same time a moral necessitation insofar as the will, which is not absolutely good,
considers itself necessitated to determine itself according to the principle of
autonomy. The act of necessitation does not take place at a particular time, and
it does not entail that the human being is actually determined to act according to
the principle of autonomy. Thus, it does not function as a motive in the sense
employed by Wolff or Baumgarten.
Contrary to the entire tradition of universal practical philosophy, Kant holds
that pure reason itself is the source of a priori concepts and becomes practical
through them. Pure reason becomes practical only if its supreme principle is
represented distinctly enough. (In this respect, Kant’s analyses of the validity of
the categorical imperative also have a motivational relevance.) At the same time, it
becomes clear that Kant no longer regards the concept of obligation as a concept
of a general theory of action; rather, it becomes a basic concept particular to “pure
moral philosophy” (GMS 4: 389). Thus, the concept of obligation can no longer be
applied to the realm of (what Kant calls) hypothetical imperatives. The transfor-
mation of obligation from a moral-psychological to a pure normative concept
involves a narrowing of its meaning.²⁶
In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant makes clear that the heteronomy of
choice, as we find it in hypothetical imperatives, opposes the principle of obliga-
tion. Heteronomy of choice, as we find it in the universal practical philosophy, is
outside the domain of obligation:

Autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of duties in
keeping with them; heteronomy of choice, on the other hand, not only does not
ground any obligation at all but is instead opposed to the principle of obligation
and to the morality of the will. (KpV 5:33)

²⁵ “This is to say, the sole principle of morality consists in independence from all matter of the law
(namely, from a desired object) and at the same time in the determination of choice through the mere
form of giving universal law that a maxim must be capable of. That independence, however, is freedom
in the negative sense, whereas this lawgiving of its own on the part of pure and, as such, practical reason
is freedom in the positive sense” (KpV 5:33).
²⁶ See Klemme (2019, 27).
70  . 

Moral necessitation explains why people feel respect for the moral law but are not
subjectively determined to follow it. The ought expressed by the categorical
imperative is not a must. Human beings are prepared by their feeling of respect
for the moral law to follow it. However, because they are also inclined (to use
Leibniz’s phrase) to follow their desires and inclinations, they have a real choice.
They should act according to the moral law, but they are not determined with
metaphysical necessity to do so. Ultimately, we cannot explain why we do not
follow the law. Our volition remains a mystery to us.²⁷ Perhaps this is the most
obvious point of disagreement between Kant and the tradition of universal moral
philosophy: that tradition accepts the principle of sufficient reason in explaining
why people act a certain way. Kant does not.

²⁷ Kant is clear about this in his Metaphysics of Morals AA 6: 226–7. On this passage see Klemme
(2013).
 4
Necessitation, Constraint, and
Reluctant Action
Obligation in Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant
Sonja Schierbaum and Michael Walschots

Kant conceives of obligation in a specific way, namely in terms of imperatives,

which, as he explains in the Groundwork, are commands that “are expressed by an
ought, and by this indicate the relation of an objective law of reason to a will that,
according to its subjective constitution, is not necessarily determined by it
(a necessitation)” (GMS 4:413).¹ As this passage indicates, Kant understands the
imperatival character of obligation itself in a particular way, namely, in terms of
necessitation (Nöthigung) or, as he clarifies in many other both published and
unpublished texts, in terms of constraint (Zwang) to actions that we perform only
reluctantly (ungern).² What might not be obvious to present-day readers about
this constellation of concepts, including the language of imperatives,³ is that
they are also used to describe obligation in the writings of Alexander Gottlieb
Baumgarten, whose textbooks Kant regularly used in the classroom.⁴ However,
while a quick comparison of their writings makes it clear that Kant preserves
some of Baumgarten’s terminology, a closer look reveals that Kant understands
the relationship between obligation, necessitation, and constraint to reluctant
action very differently than Baumgarten: whereas Baumgarten argues that
moral or natural obligation is compatible with a certain kind of constraint, but

¹ Sections I and II of this paper are the result of our equal collective efforts. Michael Walschots was
primarily responsible for section III. Our names are listed alphabetically.
² See esp. MS 6:379 and section 3 below where we reference many of these passages. In the
Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, necessitation (Nöthigung) and constraint
(Zwang) are inconsistently translated, such that Nöthigung, for instance, is sometimes rendered as
“constraint” (see Kant 1996a, 377n.). In this chapter, we consistently translate Nöthigung and Zwang
and their variants as “necessitation” and “constraint” respectively.
³ See Schwaiger (1999, 166–7). Since Schwaiger and others have already investigated the historical
roots of Kant’s language of imperatives, we do not engage with this topic in this chapter.
⁴ In addition to Baumgarten’s Initia philosophiae practicae primae acroamatice (Elements of First
Practical Philosophy) and his Ethica philosophica (Philosophical Ethics), both of which Kant used in his
lectures on moral philosophy, Kant also used parts of Baumgarten’s Metaphysics as the foundation for
his lectures on metaphysics, natural theology, and anthropology. See Naragon (2006) and Bacin (2015).

Sonja Schierbaum and Michael Walschots, Necessitation, Constraint, and Reluctant Action: Obligation in Wolff,
Baumgarten, and Kant In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by:
Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press. © Sonja Schierbaum and Michael Walschots 2024.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0005
72     

it need not have this character, Kant argues that obligation necessarily involves
constraint to reluctant action.⁵ Not only this, but by conceiving of natural
obligation as compatible with constraint, Baumgarten himself departed in a
subtle but significant way from his most important predecessor, Christian
Wolff, for whom constraint is incompatible with natural obligation. Although
work has already been done to better understand Kant’s conception of obligation
within its historical context,⁶ thus far little attention has been paid to how Kant
and his predecessors understand the relationship between obligation, necessita-
tion, and constraint to reluctant action.⁷ Accordingly, our aim in this chapter is
to sketch the distinct ways in which Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant understand
the relationship between these concepts in an effort to illustrate the subtle ways
in which their conceptions of obligation differ from each another.
The chapter proceeds in three sections. In section I, we sketch Wolff ’s theory of
obligation, according to which obligating a person involves connecting a motive to
an action. We then illustrate that although Wolff sees constraint as incompatible
with natural obligation, he nonetheless says that it is compatible with a certain
sort of divine or human obligation. In particular, we show that Wolff believes
that obligation is compatible with constraint only when obligation involves the
threat of punishment, and that, in this case, we act without pleasure or reluctantly.
In section II, we argue that Baumgarten makes both some small, mostly termino-
logical changes to Wolff ’s theory of choice, as well as some more significant
changes to Wolff ’s concepts of constraint and reluctant action: for Baumgarten,
acting reluctantly is to act in one way while simultaneously being impelled to act
in opposing directions. We illustrate how this enables Baumgarten to say that
constraint and reluctant action are compatible with natural obligation as well. At
the same time, we emphasize that Baumgarten only believes that natural obli-
gation occasionally takes on the form of constraint, and thus that it sometimes
does not have this character. Finally, in section III, we illustrate that although
Kant preserves much of Baumgarten’s terminology, such as the language of
necessitation, Kant departs from Baumgarten by conceiving of obligation as

⁵ As we go on to show below, Baumgarten and Wolff distinguish between natural, divine, and
human obligation, where natural obligation is equivalent to moral obligation. Indeed, in this chapter we
take natural and moral obligation to be equivalent for Wolff and Baumgarten. Although it is not a focus
of ours in this chapter, Kant distinguishes between moral and legal obligation, i.e., the obligation of
virtue and right respectively. With respect to Kant’s position, our focus is more general, namely to
illustrate that obligation most generally considered, and therefore both moral and legal obligation,
involves constraint to action we perform only reluctantly.
⁶ See e.g. Klemme (2018) and Schwaiger (2009).
⁷ For instance, in the scholarship on Wolff ’s conception of obligation, such as Hüning (2004a, 2004b,
2015); Klemme (2007); and Poser (1980), there is no discussion of reluctant action in relation to
constraint and obligation. The literature on Baumgarten’s ethics is rather small and focuses on very
specific topics. Aichele (2005), for instance, focuses on Baumgarten’s “juridical” conception of conscience,
whereas Osawa (2018) focuses on the role of God. For some discussion of Kant’s conception of obligation
as involving constraint, see Alexy (2015); Baxley (2010, ch. 3; 2015); Sensen (2015); and Villiez (2015).
 , ,    73

necessarily involving constraint: as Kant’s reply to Schiller’s famous objection

reveals, obligation must take on the character of constraint to reluctant action
on account of the kinds of beings we are, namely beings who are both rational
and natural, and thus who possess inclinations that always threaten to impel us
in directions that oppose morality. The result, we hope, is a more nuanced
understanding of how these three thinkers understand obligation by means of
a better appreciation of the subtle ways in which their theories differ from one
another.

Christian Wolff. Wolff presents his theory of obligation as based on two other
more fundamental positions he holds: (1) his theory of the good, and (2) his
theory of the will.⁸ First, according to Wolff ’s theory of the good, actions and
omissions⁹ are good or evil in themselves and by nature, and not by virtue of the
decision of a human or divine will (WTL §5). More specifically, Wolff argues that
actions are good or evil by virtue of their naturally occurring consequences,
that is, based on whether they make what he calls the internal and external
states of human beings (both one’s own and those of others) more perfect
or more imperfect (WTL §2–5).¹⁰ For Wolff, all actions are either good or
evil in this way, and no action is morally indifferent (WTL §3).¹¹ Second,
according to Wolff ’s theory of the will, when we represent an object as good,
our soul becomes inclined (geneigt) toward or wills the object (WDM §492).
Representing an object as good therefore functions as what Wolff calls a reason
or motive (Bewegungsgrund) (WDM §496)¹² for willing an action and representing
an object as evil is a motive for “nilling” an action, i.e. being disinclined toward an
object (WDM §493).¹³ Indeed, Wolff argues that willing or nilling an action
requires that we represent an object as either good or evil; thus if we performed

⁸ In the Preface to the first edition of the German Ethics (see WTL, Vorrede, unpaginated), for
instance, Wolff clarifies that he proceeds in line with the mathematical method, according to which
everything that comes later is grounded on what comes before, and the first chapter of part one proceeds
by first discussing his theory of the good (§2–5) and theory of the will (§6–7) before moving to his theory
of obligation (§8–11). For a discussion of the more general aspects of how Wolff ’s psychology fits into
his metaphysics, see Goubet (2021).
⁹ For the sake of simplicity, we focus overwhelmingly on action in this chapter.
¹⁰ We cannot discuss the central notion of perfection in the context of our chapter. See Bacin (2017),
Schwaiger (2011a, 155–65), and Schwaiger (2018b) for a discussion.
¹¹ See Favaretti (2024) for the argument that Wolff revised this position in his later Latin works.
¹² In the first index to the German Metaphysics (WDM, Das erste Register, unpaginated), Wolff
states explicitly that Bewegungsgrund is his German term for the Latin motivum. We therefore adopt
“motive” as a translation for this term.
¹³ As we discuss in more detail shortly, Wolff distinguishes between “nilling” (nicht wollen) an
action, i.e., being disinclined toward an object, and omitting (lassen) an action, i.e., neither willing nor
nilling an object (WDM §494).
74     

an action in the past, for example, then we must have represented something as
good (WTL §6–7).¹⁴
Strictly speaking, to represent an object as good is merely to will and be inclined
toward the object, whereas choice, i.e. making a decision and acting, requires
representing an object as best, i.e. as the greatest good on balance with other
possible options (see WPPU 2:§335). Wolff makes this point clear with the
analogy of the scale (Wage): when I represent something as not only good but
as the greatest good on balance with other possible options, I act; when I represent
something as the greatest evil, I have an aversion toward or “nill” the object; and
when I represent an object as neither good nor evil or as equally good and evil,
I omit acting altogether¹⁵ (see WDM §509–10). The distinction between mere
willing and choice corresponds to what Wolff refers to as the “ancient” distinction
between the antecedent (vorhergehend) and consequent (nachfolgend) will (DM
§504); the antecedent will is “incomplete” in the sense that it does not yet
possess sufficient reasons for choice, whereas the consequent will is “complete”
because it does possess sufficient reasons (WDM §504; see also WPE §919–20).
Put differently, the antecedent will does not yet have enough motives to
represent something as the greatest good or evil, and thus cannot yet act or
make a decision, whereas the consequent will possesses sufficient motives to
represent something as the greatest good or evil and thus makes a decision,
chooses, or acts (see WPE §919–20).
As mentioned, Wolff presents his theory of obligation as depending upon his
theory of the good and of the will and defines obligation in terms of connecting a
motive with an action: “Obligating someone to do, or omit, something is nothing
other than connecting a motive of willing or nilling to it” (WTL §10).¹⁶ Wolff
offers the example of the sovereign obligating subjects not to steal by connecting
the punishment of hanging to the action of stealing (WTL §8). In this example,
obligation takes place by means of the sovereign connecting evil (the punishment
of hanging) to an action (stealing), such that if a subject were to properly cognize
the evil connected to this action,¹⁷ they would have an aversion to or nill stealing.
In the first instance, however, Wolff argues that it is nature that obligates us to
perform actions that are good and to omit those that are evil, because, as already

¹⁴ Things are a little more complicated than this in that in his early, German writings, Wolff applies
“motive” (Bewegungsgrund) to both distinct representations of the intellect as well as to confused
representations of the senses, but in the later Latin writings he reserves motivum for reasons for action
that are distinct representations only (see WPE §890 and 670). We cannot discuss the distinction
between distinct and confused cognition in detail here. For discussion, see McQuillan (2017) and
Schierbaum (2022).
¹⁵ To be sure, nilling an object does not necessarily require the active avoidance of an object; it can
result in omission as well.
¹⁶ For discussion of Wolff ’s conception of natural obligation and its cognitive and other require-
ments, see Hüning (2021).
¹⁷ Indeed, Wolff ’s theory of obligation accords an important role to our knowledge of good and evil.
For a discussion see Walschots (2024).
 , ,    75

mentioned, actions have good and evil consequences connected to them by nature
(WTL §9). More generally, however, he argues that we can distinguish between
different kinds of obligation based on the source of the connection between a
motive and a reason for acting: if nature is the source of this connection, then we
are talking about natural obligation; if the source is God, then divine obligation;
and if human beings, then human obligation (WTL §18).
An important, but implicit, aspect of Wolff ’s theory of obligation, which will be
important once we turn to Baumgarten, is that there is a sense in which obligation
can be described in terms of “making an action necessary”: if obligation amounts
to connecting a motive to an action, and human beings necessarily act in accord-
ance with what they represent to be best, then obligation involves making it
morally necessary that a person act in a certain way.¹⁸ Indeed, in the German
Metaphysics Wolff admits that there is a sense in which human beings act in
accordance with what they represent as best with necessity (WDM §521); for
whatever we represent as best determines that we act accordingly. Put differently,
if we represent an object as not only good but the best among the possible options
available to us, then unless something better comes along, we necessarily choose
that object. At the same time, and similar to Leibniz’s defense of freedom in the
Theodicy (see e.g. Leibniz 1952, 63), Wolff argues that the necessity involved in
choosing the best, and thus the necessity involved in obligation as well, is
compatible with freedom because alternative actions are still absolutely possible
in the sense that there is nothing logically contradictory about us choosing
another course of action (WDM §515–16). Thus, Wolff argues that it is merely
certain (gewiss) (WDM §517) or hypothetically necessary that we act in accord-
ance with what we represent as best, but not absolutely necessary in the sense that
alternative courses of action are absolutely impossible.¹⁹ Accordingly, Wolff
defines freedom in terms of the capacity (Vermögen) of the soul “to choose
from two equally possible things that which pleases it the most” (WDM §519),
as well as in terms of a certain kind of self-determination (WDM §519), namely
where the soul is determined to action by its internal representations of the good
rather than by anything external to the soul (WDM §518–19).
Although freedom is compatible with a certain kind of necessity, Wolff argues
that free action is antithetical to constraint (Zwang). As Wolff states in the

¹⁸ Admittedly, things are much more complicated than this. In order for obligation to work, a
number of further conditions must be met. As Wolff himself makes clear in his example of stealing, for
example (WTL §8), the good or evil connected to an action must follow with the same kind of
necessity possessed by naturally occurring consequences. Furthermore, the motive connected to an
action presumably must be of a sufficient strength, otherwise it would have insufficient influence
on our choice (this is a point Baumgarten stresses, as we discuss below). Finally, and as already
mentioned, human beings must be aware of the good or evil connected to an action in order for
such a connection to influence their choice. See Walsh (2024) for a recent discussion of Wolff ’s account
of obligation.
¹⁹ See WDM §575 where Wolff distinguishes between these two kinds of necessity.
76     

Vorbericht to the third edition of the German Ethics: “My entire moral science
<Moral> is built on the nature of the free will and knows of no constraint
<Zwange>” (WTL, Vorbericht, §10). When discussing the analogy of the scale,
for instance, Wolff addresses the objection that the analogy implies that choice is
necessary (WDM §510). He replies by clarifying that motives do not “necessitate
<nöthigen>” or compel the soul to choose: “For the question is not whether
motives are a constraint <ein Zwang>, but whether one of them is stronger than
the other” (WDM §510). Wolff goes even further and argues that the will cannot
be constrained, “because we can will nothing except that which we hold to be
good, and we can nill nothing, except that which we regard as evil (§506), but the
understanding cannot be constrained <gezwungen> in its representations; so it is
in no way possible to constrain <zwingen> the will” (WDM §522). Wolff primarily
has what he calls “external” (äusserlich) constraint in mind here, that is, constraint
by a force external to the soul (see WPPU 1:§579). This sort of constraint takes
place either when we are constrained by something external to the soul but
nonetheless internal to the human being (such as when bodily processes force
us to twitch), or when we are constrained by something external to the human
being entirely (such as when another person forces one’s hand to do something)
(WDM §519, 987; see also WGNV §4 and WPPU 1:§580). Wolff also claims that it
makes no sense to conceive of acting freely in terms of “internal” (innerlich)
constraint either (WDM §987), because by determining ourselves to act when we
act according to our representation of the best, we are acting voluntarily
(willkührlich) (WTL §518) and thus are not constrained to act.
A main reason why Wolff conceives of action in accordance with our repre-
sentation of the best as antithetical to constraint is that he conceives of constraint
as the exact opposite of acting gladly (gerne). For Wolff, representing the good is
connected to the experience of pleasure (Lust) (WDM §404), which means that
when we act based on the representation of the best, we seemingly always act
gladly (gerne) or with pleasure (WDM §987). Since freedom simply means
choosing what pleases us the most (DM §519), as noted above, Wolff argues
that it makes no sense to conceive of acting in accordance with the representation
of the best, i.e. freely, as being constrained; for “who would want to say that they
are constrained to that which they do gladly?” (DM §987). This means, of course,
that constraint can only take place if we act ungladly, without pleasure, or
reluctantly (as ungern is often translated). Wolff argues that this only happens
in a very specific case, namely when we prefer a lesser to a greater evil. More
specifically, Wolff argues that when we prefer a lesser to a greater evil, we
intentionally regard a lesser evil as good “in so far as one regards it as a means
to avoid greater evil, even if one does not hold it to be good in itself ” (WDM §507).
In such cases, what we regard as “best” we take to be evil in itself but we
nonetheless represent it as good only because it is both a lesser evil and a means
to avoid an even greater evil. Although we still act in accordance with our
 , ,    77

representation of the best in such instances, we do not act gladly because we think
that what we recognize as “good” or “best” is not good in itself; thus we do not
simultaneously experience the pleasure that would occur if we thought the object
was good in itself. Accordingly, when we choose a lesser evil to avoid a greater one,
this is the only case where, on Wolff ’s view, we voluntarily choose the best but we
act ungladly, without pleasure, or reluctantly.
In line with the above, Wolff argues that only one specific kind of obligation is
compatible with constraint, namely the kind that involves choosing a lesser evil to
avoid a greater one. As Wolff explains in the preface to the second edition of the
German Ethics: “With this obligation [natural obligation], the human being is
entirely free in its actions and it is never freer than when it acts in accordance with
it: on the other hand, with all remaining obligation we encounter a kind of
constraint” (WTL, Vorrede zu der andern Auflage, unpaginated; see also WTL
§946). Later on in the German Ethics, Wolff clarifies that he conceives of the fear
of punishment as a variety of external constraint (WTL §1023), and thus that both
human and divine obligation can involve constraint insofar as they involve the
fear of punishment. Indeed, if fear of punishment is our primary motive for nilling
an action, for example, then we find ourselves in precisely the unique scenario
described above, namely that of regarding an action we take to be evil (such as not
stealing, if we mistakenly think that stealing is good) as good only in order to
avoid a greater evil (being hanged, i.e. the punishment for stealing) (see WGNV §5
and WPPU 1:§581). As mentioned, however, because we believe that the action we
recognize as good is not good in itself, we do not experience the associated
pleasure and thus do not act gladly. Insofar as we do not act gladly in this scenario,
it is compatible with constraint, since constraint is just the opposite of acting
gladly (WDM §987). As perplexing as it may sound, an important consequence of
this picture is that there is a sense in which performing these obligations is less free
(minus libera) (WPPU 1:§589) than others: if freedom is defined as choosing that
which pleases us the most, and in cases where we act on threat of punishment we
act ungladly, without pleasure, or reluctantly, then these cases are less free. Indeed,
Wolff is explicit that it is less than ideal for obligation to involve constraint
because it treats human beings like cattle (WTL, Vorrede zu der andern Auflage,
unpaginated), and thus does nothing to perfect the will (see WPM 2:§138).
Accordingly, it is only via natural obligation that human beings can achieve true
virtue rather than the mere external habit of goodness (WPPU 1:§321).²⁰
In summary, Wolff conceives of obligation as compatible with constraint and
reluctant action in a very specific case, namely where we choose a lesser evil to
avoid an even greater one, which takes place when we are obligated by means of
the threat of punishment. For Wolff, natural obligation, where we are obligated by

²⁰ This is why natural obligation is moral obligation, namely because only this kind of obligation
perfects the will.
78     

nature and are determined by our own representation of the good, is antithetical
to constraint, for we always perform these obligations with pleasure or gladly. In
the next section, we illustrate that Baumgarten makes a subtle but significant
change to Wolff ’s view: he understands reluctant action more broadly than Wolff
and argues that a specific kind of constraint is compatible with natural obligation
as well. This is an important change, we suggest, among other reasons because it is
Baumgarten’s broader understanding of reluctant action that Kant will adopt, as
will be discussed in section III.

II

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. In the Preface to the Elements, Baumgarten states

that one of his aims is that of “abridging” and “explaining” (BIP *VI) Wolff ’s
works on universal practical philosophy. As a result, the general picture of
Baumgarten’s moral philosophy that we are offered in chapter 1, section I of the
Elements, entitled “Obligation in general,” is strikingly similar to that of Wolff,
especially when it comes to Baumgarten’s theory of the good. Baumgarten argues,
for instance, that actions are good by virtue of the consequences or “implications”
(BIP §32–3) they have on the body, soul, and external state of human beings (BIP
§34, 45); and thus that some actions are good and evil in themselves and by nature,
which Baumgarten calls “objective” goodness, in contrast to those that are good
through the will of another (whether human or divine), which he calls “subjective”
goodness (BIP §36); that, on this basis, we can distinguish between “natural” and
“positive” obligation, i.e. those to which we are obligated by nature and the
positive institution of a being’s will, respectively (BIP §29); and that all actions
are naturally either good or evil by virtue of the fact that all actions have natural
“implications” (BIP §32). There are of course some important differences between
their moral philosophies, and in this section, we illustrate a select few such
differences that directly concern our purposes in this chapter.²¹ We illustrate
that while Baumgarten makes some small, mostly terminological, changes to
Wolff ’s theory of choice, a more significant difference concerns the relationship
between obligation and constraint to reluctant action.
The way in which Baumgarten’s theory of choice subtly departs from Wolff ’s is
signaled by his understanding of obligation: “One who connects the overriding
impelling causes <caussas impulsivas> with a free determination renders its
opposite morally impossible, and therefore renders the former free determination
morally necessary, and indeed, obligates it” (BIP §13, see also §15). The point of
departure is the language of “impelling causes,” which replaces Wolff ’s language

²¹ See Schwaiger’s landmark discussion of some of these most relevant differences in Schwaiger
(2011a, 118–21, 151–4).
 , ,    79

of “motives” (Bewegungsgründe).²² In the Metaphysics, Baumgarten argues that, in

line with the principle of sufficient reason (see BM §22),²³ we do not simply desire
indiscriminately but always for a reason, and thus there are grounds of desire,
which he calls the “impelling causes” of desire or “incentives”:

Whoever desires or averts intends the production of some perception. Hence, the
perceptions containing the ground of this sort of intention are the impelling
causes of desire and aversion, and thus they are called the   
 < >. (BM §669; see also §342)

More specifically, what grounds desire is cognition, i.e. knowledge: “,

insofar as it contains the incentives of the mind, is  [ . . . ] and insofar as it
does not contain these incentives, it is  [ . . . ]” (BM §669). Baumgarten agrees
with Wolff that we only ever desire what we perceive to be good (see BM §665).
Thus it is knowledge of the good (see BM §100) that is moving or grounds desire.
Furthermore, the way in which we know the good determines the nature of desire:
if our knowledge is obscure or confused, then our incentives are “stimuli” (BM
§677) and we sensitively desire (see BM §676–88), but if our knowledge is clear
and distinct, then our incentives are “motives” (BM §690) and we rationally desire
or “will” (see BM §689–99).²⁴
Similar to Wolff, Baumgarten distinguishes between merely desiring what
we perceive to be good and choosing what we judge to be best. To capture
this distinction between desire and choice, Baumgarten also makes use of
the distinction between antecedent (antecedens) and consequent (consequens)
volition, such that antecedent volition involves “incomplete” impelling causes and
is “inefficacious,” whereas consequent volition involves “complete” impelling causes
and is “efficacious” (see BM §695, 671). The point is that merely perceiving the
good or desiring is inefficacious will, whereas choice is efficacious willing.²⁵ For
Baumgarten, we only ever choose what we “prefer,” that is, what we judge to be the
best among the goods known to us (see BM §726, 697). More specifically, what
determines choice is what Baumgarten calls the “state of preponderance” (BM
§674), that is, the greater total that one or many impelling causes have on balance

²² According to Schwaiger (2011a, 120fn.343), the notion of “impelling causes” is broader than
Wolff ’s notion of “motive” in that the former comprises rational and sensitive motives alike, whereas
the latter, strictly speaking, only comprises rational motives. See also Carboncini (2021, 205–7) and
Dyck (2018) for a discussion of Baumgarten’s reception and development of Wolff ’s psychology. For a
more in-depth discussion of Baumgarten’s conception of impelling causes and its influence on Kant,
see Walschots (forthcoming).
²³ For an illuminating discussion of Baumgarten’s commitment to and specific take on the principle
of sufficient reason, also in relation to both Wolff and Kant, see Fugate (2014).
²⁴ For a more in-depth discussion, see Schwaiger (2011a, 75–7) and Pimpinella (2001).
²⁵ See BM §669, 671, 675, and 695. In BM §675 Baumgarten distinguishes between three senses of
efficacious and inefficacious willing. We are only referring to the third sort here, because only it
corresponds to the distinction between mere willing and choice.
80     

with the impelling causes that speak for alternative courses of action. Thus,
although his terminology is somewhat different, Baumgarten offers a model of
choice that is quite similar to Wolff ’s, according to which choice is “determined
according to preference” (BM §726, our emphasis), i.e. we necessarily choose what
we judge to be best or what we prefer.
This slightly modified account of choice helps explain Baumgarten’s concep-
tion of obligation, which, again, is as follows: “One who connects the overriding
impelling causes with a free determination renders its opposite morally impossi-
ble, and therefore renders the former free determination morally necessary, and
indeed, obligates it” (BIP §13). Baumgarten is therefore clear that to obligate
someone involves not only connecting a motive or impelling cause to an action
or free determination but connecting “overriding” impelling causes, that is,
impelling causes that are sufficiently strong such that, so long as they are correctly
cognized, they would produce “preference” and cause a person to choose and act
accordingly (BIP §12). Indeed, Baumgarten is much more explicit than Wolff in
saying that obligation involves making an action necessary: “One who obligates
renders a free determination morally necessary” (BIP §12). It is even likely that
Baumgarten coined a new Latin word, namely necessitation (necessitatio),²⁶ to
capture the fact that obligation involves rendering an action morally necessary. To
be sure, and as is the case for Wolff, a role for freedom is preserved here in that
choice only follows the judgment of what is best with hypothetical necessity
(see BM §724), not absolute necessity, since the opposite of what I necessarily
choose according to my judgment of the best is still absolutely or logically possible
(see BM §102). Baumgarten therefore defines freedom as desiring or willing
“according to one’s own preference” (BM §719).
The aspect of Baumgarten’s theory of obligation that we wish to focus on for
our purposes in this chapter is the relationship between obligation and constraint
to reluctant action. Generally speaking, Baumgarten defines both necessitation
(necessitatio, Nöthigung) and constraint (coactio, Zwang) as “the alteration of
something from contingent to necessary” (BM §701).²⁷ He quickly clarifies,
however, that absolute necessitation or constraint, whereby “something contin-
gent in itself would alter into something absolutely necessary” is impossible, thus
“nothing can be altered into something absolutely necessary,” including human
action (BM §702). What is possible, in the first instance, is “external” necessitation
or constraint, i.e. “constraint from without” (BM §707). If this amounts to what
Baumgarten calls “unqualified” external constraint, such as when one human
being is pushed by another, then the substance (the human being who is pushed)

²⁶ See Schwaiger (2009, 69–70) and Schwaiger (2011a, 119).

²⁷ Although Baumgarten suggests in this passage that necessitation and constraint are interchange-
able concepts, they cannot be; as we go on to show below, Baumgarten allows for some instances of
obligation or moral necessitation to lack constraint. (see e.g. BM §723).
 , ,    81

“suffers” something and does not itself act. As such, both absolute and unqualified
external constraint are incompatible with action, which Baumgarten defines as a
substance acting “through its own power” (BM §210), rather than by means of
something external to it. When action takes place “through the nature of a
substance” (BM §710) itself, such as when a plant’s leaves face the Sun or the
human body pumps blood, this is “internal necessitation” or “internal physical
constraint” (BM §710). However, while internal necessitation is compatible with
action, it is incompatible with free action because internal necessitation implies
that an action is “physically necessary” (BM §710).
In the Elements, Baumgarten argues that only a very specific kind of constraint is
compatible with free action, and therefore obligation as well. Indeed, Baumgarten’s
discussion of constraint in the Elements begins where the Metaphysics ends, namely
by clarifying that both absolute and unqualified external constraint “do not belong
to free actions” and thus they cannot be called “moral constraints,” nor are they
“obligations” (BIP §50). He argues that only “  , in
which a person is said to constrain himself ” (BIP §51) is compatible with obligation
because only this kind of constraint is both compatible with and presupposes
freedom (BIP §51). Internal moral constraint “occurs whenever we connect over-
riding impelling causes with a certain one of our free determinations” (BIP §52).
The idea is that, distinct from internal physical constraint, internal moral constraint
involves a substance (such as a human being) acting according to preference, i.e.
“freely” as opposed to “physically.” Essential here is that we produce this preference
ourselves: “   . . . occurs whenever we connect overrid-
ing impelling causes with a certain one of our free determinations” (BIP §51).
Baumgarten’s point, of course, is not that we can create obligations at our own
discretion, but rather that we can come to see what our obligations are ourselves.
We come to realize what is best and thereby ascertain what we prefer by counting or
“weighing” the impelling causes in favor of or against various actions, which
Baumgarten calls “” (BM §697).²⁸
A key point to stress about this picture is that internal moral constraint is
compatible with natural obligation as well. Recall that natural obligation occurs
when we ourselves recognize the objective goodness or evil of an action grounded
in its natural implications or consequences. Thus, when we come to realize what is
best by nature, there is a sense in which we ourselves produce the preference
that determines choice and therefore that we constrain ourselves to perform a
certain action. To be sure, moral constraint can also be “external,” namely when
one person constrains another by means of “”, i.e. enticements or

²⁸ Baumgarten offers a fascinating account of deliberation and proceeds to list twelve questions that
one can ask oneself to assist in the process of determining what is best, such as: “how much good can
come about from a given action and its opposite?” and “how much effort is required to make these
options actual?” (BM §696).
82     

persuasion, or “”, i.e. threats or dissuasion (BIP §52). Baumgarten calls this
“qualified” external moral constraint and explains that in such cases my action is
both “produced by something else outside of me” and “I am said to  
” (BM §714). In both cases, however, namely in both internal moral
constraint and in qualified external moral constraint, a connection is made
between overriding impelling causes and a certain free determination, such that
a preference is produced in the person constrained and they are thereby necessi-
tated. Not only this, but both internal moral constraint and external qualified
constraint are free because, in the case of external qualified constraint, although
the overriding impelling cause is given to us from without, we ourselves none-
theless recognize it and act according to preference (BIP §52), and thus we can be
said to constrain ourselves in this case as well.
In conceiving of natural obligation as compatible with constraint, Baumgarten
departs from Wolff in a significant way. A major reason enabling Baumgarten to
do so concerns his understanding of reluctant action. Baumgarten defines con-
straint (coactio) in relation to free action, which he calls “  
 ,” in terms of “the production of a reluctant <invitae> action” (BM
§714). What is significant about Baumgarten’s view is that he understands reluc-
tant action more broadly than Wolff. According to Baumgarten: “I desire or avert
 <invitus> (ungladly <illubenter>, against one’s will <contra lubi-
tum>) when the preponderance is not very great towards preference, or when
many and likewise great things seem to impel me to the opposite of that which
I desire or avert” (BM §713, translation modified). In this definition, Baumgarten
does not restrict acting reluctantly to the case where one acts ungladly or without
pleasure (illubenter) but expands it to refer to any case where we act in one way
but are also impelled in opposing directions. This is a small but significant move
because it means that a broader category of action can be described as “reluctant”
action. According to Baumgarten’s model of choice, a single impelling cause or
incentive is just one reason among many that speaks for or grounds a desire such
that, on its own, a single impelling cause merely impels or encourages a person to
act in the way it suggests but does not determine choice. Thus, although one
would necessarily choose option A, for example, if the total impelling causes
speaking in its favor were greater than those that speak for, say, opposing alter-
natives B and C, I nonetheless remain impelled by the impelling causes that speak
for alternatives B and C when choosing A. Put differently, if I choose A, I not only
recognize the grounds speaking in favor of alternative options B and C, but these
cognitive grounds continue to be moving and exert an impelling force on me
even if I choose A. Thus, while I might necessarily choose A if it has the most
cognitive reasons speaking in its favor on balance with other, alternative options,
Baumgarten’s conception of reluctant action implies that I would perform
A reluctantly if I were to be simultaneously impelled by strong cognitive grounds
that speak for alternative options B and C. This is a much broader category of
 , ,    83

action than the one Wolff described, where reluctant action, or action performed
ungladly or without pleasure, was limited to the case of choosing the lesser evil to
avoid a greater one. While Baumgarten defines those cases as reluctant as well (see
BM §713), because they involve being impelled by opposing alternatives too, he
expands the definition of reluctant action to cover all the cases where we act in one
way but we simultaneously will alternative courses of action or are impelled in an
opposite direction. This is noteworthy because it means that any instance of
obligation, including natural obligation, that involves a person simultaneously
willing an opposing course of action counts as acting reluctantly. Not only this, but
these cases are also instances of constraint since constraint simply means “the
production of a reluctant action” (BM §714). Baumgarten’s broader sense of
reluctant action therefore makes it possible for him to say that natural obligation
is compatible with constraint and reluctant action as well.
By way of conclusion to this section, it should be noted that while Baumgarten
conceives of obligation as compatible with constraint, he is clear that not all
instances of obligation take the form of constraint. As he states toward the end
of the section on moral constraint: “Sometimes all obligation is called constraint,
but only very broadly and unsuitably” (BIP §55). Indeed, not all action involves
being simultaneously pulled in opposite directions, thus not every action is
reluctant. On the contrary, Baumgarten discusses that it is possible for a person
to act with “pure pleasure” or “sheer displeasure” (BM §713; see also §661), such
that one only possesses impelling causes to either desire or avert a particular
action, i.e. where one possesses no impelling causes simultaneously pulling one in
opposed directions. He also says that it makes no sense to say that one is
simultaneously impelled in an alternative direction, and thus acts reluctantly, in
cases where there exists “a remarkable preponderance” (BM §713) of impelling
causes. As such, when we are obligated to an action by means of impelling causes
that only add to the impelling causes we already possess that speak in favor of a
particular action, for example, such that we only experience pure pleasure or a
large preponderance in relation to one option only, and where we have either none
or very few and insignificant impelling causes that speak in favor of opposing
alternatives, then we are obligated but not constrained. At the same time, the point
of Baumgarten including a chapter on moral constraint in his discussion of
obligation is to explain how some cases of obligation, indeed perhaps many, can
be conceived in terms of constraint, that is, the production of reluctant action,
and that natural obligation is compatible with constraint and reluctant action
as well. This marks an important difference between his theory of obligation
and Wolff ’s.²⁹

²⁹ It should be noted here that, strictly speaking, Wolff ’s philosophy also has the resources to explain
being “impelled” toward opposing courses of action at the time of choosing a particular course of
84     

III

Immanuel Kant. One of the most fundamental ways in which Kant departs from
both Wolff and Baumgarten concerns the concepts of freedom and choice. Indeed,
Kant likely had both figures in mind when he refers, in the Critique of Practical
Reason, to the “otherwise acute” men who believe that there is a difference between
choice being determined by representations that originate in the senses as opposed
to the understanding, when in fact both sorts of representation determine choice in
exactly the same way, namely by means of the degree of pleasure involved, thus
leaving no room for the possibility of pure practical reason. Thus, Kant not only
ridicules the psychologically determinist conception of choice common to both
Wolff and Baumgarten by calling it “the freedom of a turnspit” (KpV 5:97), but he
also proposes a substantially different theory of the good, according to which the
goodness inherent to pleasure, which Kant calls “the agreeable,” is different in kind
from moral good, or “the good” proper (see e.g. KpV 5:58).
Kant’s rejection of psychological determinism is significant because it implies
that he rejects understanding obligation in terms of connecting a motive or
impelling cause to an action. Put differently, Kant’s rejection of psychological
determinism implies that he rejects conceiving of obligation in terms of necessita-
tion, if by necessitation we mean making it necessary that a human being act in a
certain way by giving them a motive that determines their choice, so long as they
sufficiently cognize it. Nonetheless, and as mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, Kant continues to understand obligation in terms of necessitation, so he
must understand necessitation in a substantially revised way.
Consider the following passage from the Groundwork, which immediately
precedes his definition of an imperative quoted at the beginning of this chapter:

If, however, reason all by itself does not sufficiently determine the will, if it is also
subject to subjective conditions (to certain incentives) that are not always in
agreement with the objective ones; in a word, if the will does not in itself completely
conform with reason (as is actually the case with human beings), then actions
objectively recognized as necessary are subjectively contingent, and the determi-
nation of such a will, in conformity with objective laws, is necessitation; i.e. the
relation of objective laws to a will not altogether good is represented as the
determination of the will of a rational being by grounds of reason, to which this
will is not, however, according to its nature necessarily obedient. (GMS 4:412–13)

action: while I might necessarily choose according to what I judge to be best, for Wolff, representing
something as good is not only to will it, but also to be inclined toward it, as we have seen in section I.
Thus, Wolff too might say that I could choose A while simultaneously being inclined toward B and C.
The point, however, is that Wolff describes the scenario where one chooses A but remains inclined
toward B and C as neither constraint nor reluctant action, and that he reserves those terms exclusively for
the scenario discussed above, namely where we prefer a lesser to a greater evil.
 , ,    85

As this passage indicates, Kant conceives of human choice in a drastically different

way than Wolff and Baumgarten, namely he regards the human being as the kind
of being that does not necessarily act in accordance with what they cognize to be
best (see KpV 5:20, 32, 79, MS 6:222, 379). For Kant, only the divine or holy will is
such that “willing already of itself necessarily agrees with the law” (GMS 4:414)
and thus “would not be capable of any maxim conflicting with the moral law”
(KpV 5:23).³⁰ The human will, by contrast, possesses “sensibility” which is “an
obstacle to practical reason” (KpV 5:76), which makes it such that what human
beings recognize as objectively necessary (i.e. how we would necessarily act if we
were purely rational or possessed a holy will) is not necessarily subjectively
necessary. In line with this understanding of the human will, Kant conceives of
necessitation as referring to the tension between what is objectively necessary and
what is subjectively contingent—a tension that takes place in the human will only.
As Kant says in the Metaphysics of Morals: “an imperative is a rule the represen-
tation of which makes necessary an action that is subjectively contingent and thus
represents the subject as one that must be necessitated <genötigt> (necessitiert) to
conform with the rule” (MS 6:222). On Kant’s view, necessitation is therefore
relational in the sense that it signifies the relationship between the objective law of
reason, on the one hand, and a subject, on the other, who possesses sensitive
inclinations that often pull in a direction that opposes morality. Put differently,
necessitation captures the ideal nature of morality, that is, the idea that, if one were
perfectly rational, one would necessarily act in accordance with what is best or
objectively necessary. As such, necessitation and obligation are terms that capture
the normativity of morality, for Kant. For beings that are both rational and natural
and thus who do not necessarily act in accordance with the objective law, to
represent an action as objectively necessary is therefore to represent a subjectively
contingent action as necessary; only in this sense does necessitation imply making
an action necessary for Kant.
Kant not only understands obligation in terms of necessitation, but he also
seems to identify necessitation, and therefore obligation, with constraint. In the
Metaphysics of Morals, for instance, Kant claims that “all duty is necessitation
<Nöthigung>, a constraint <Zwang>, even if this is to be self-constraint in
accordance with law” (MS 6:401, translation modified).³¹ Not only this, but
Kant also claims that obligation involves acting reluctantly as well. Consider the

³⁰ See Stern (2012, 41–99). The difference between the human and divine will for Wolff and
Baumgarten is that whereas human beings necessarily act in accordance with what appears good,
even if they might be mistaken, the divine will is only capable of distinct cognition and thus is never
mistaken about what is good (see WDM §984 and BM §863ff. and 890ff.)
³¹ Reminiscent of Baumgarten, Kant goes on to draw a distinction between two types of constraint
to distinguish between the kind of obligation belonging to right, on the one hand, and to virtue on the
other: constraint, he says, “may be an external constraint or a self-constraint” (MS 6:379, see also MS
6:381–3).
86     

following passage from the Metaphysics of Morals which brings all these concepts
together:

The very concept of duty is already the concept of a necessitation (constraint) of

free choice through the law. This constraint may be an external constraint or a
self-constraint. The moral imperative makes this constraint known through the
categorical nature of its pronouncement (the unconditional ought). Such con-
straint, therefore, does not apply to rational beings as such (there could also be
holy ones) but rather to human beings, rational natural beings, who are unholy
enough that pleasure can induce them to break the moral law, even though they
recognize its authority; and even when they do obey the law, they do it reluctantly
(in the face of opposition from their inclinations), and it is in this that such
constraint properly consists. (MS 6:379)

In this passage, Kant repeats the point made above, namely that the necessitation
involved in obligation is a function of the human being as both a rational and a
natural being with inclinations that can oppose the moral law. What he adds in
this passage is that necessitation of this sort is to be understood as constraint, and
that constraint “properly” consists in acting reluctantly. Not only this, but Kant
also clarifies in the above passage that acting reluctantly is to act “in the face of
opposition.” Kant reportedly expands on the nature of reluctant action in the
Vigilantius lecture notes on moral philosophy, where it is said that constraint
“consists in the necessitation to an action that one undertakes with reluctance . . .
A thing is done reluctantly by a free being, insofar as (1) there is present in it an
inclination to the opposite of what it wills to do and (2) he nevertheless does what
he wills as a free being” (MSVig 27:519). In the Mrongovius II lecture notes as
well, we are told that Kant believes that constraint “takes place when we have an
inclination to the opposite of an action” and that “constraint always presupposes a
hindrance in the will” (MoM 29:616).³² Understanding constraint and reluctant
action in this way is significant, because it implies that Kant does not have
Wolff ’s narrow definition of reluctant action in mind, but Baumgarten’s broader
definition, according to which we act reluctantly when we act in one way but are
simultaneously impelled to act in opposing ways.
A central feature of Kant’s view, in comparison with Wolff and Baumgarten, is
that Kant stresses that all obligation involves constraint and reluctant action. In
addition to the passages from his published works cited in the previous paragraph,
the lecture notes report that Kant claims that “[a]ll obligation is a kind of
constraint” (MoC 27:269, translation modified) and that “every obligation is
forthwith associated with a moral constraint” (MSVig 27:490). This aspect of

³² Thanks to Jens Timmermann for giving us access to his translation of the Mrongovius II lecture
notes.
 , ,    87

Kant’s theory of obligation is borne out in detail via his response to Schiller’s
famous objection to Kant’s moral theory. In On Grace and Dignity, Schiller argues
as follows: “In Kant’s moral philosophy, the idea of duty is presented with a
severity that repels all graces and might tempt a weak intellect to seek moral
perfection by taking the path of a somber and monkish asceticism” (Curran and
Fricker 2005, 150). To put the objection more succinctly, Schiller’s primary
problem with Kant’s moral theory is that duty necessarily involves constraint.
Schiller believes, by contrast, that duty involves what he calls “grace,” that is,
“harmony” (2005, 147) with the entirety of the human being as both a natural and
rational being, such that the human being would ideally always do its duty not
reluctantly but “with pleasure” and from inclination.³³ Kant’s official reply to
Schiller in the Religion confirms that the disagreement, or misunderstanding,
between the two authors does indeed concern the proper meaning of obligation
(see Rel 6:23n.). While Kant clarifies there that he should not be misinterpreted as
saying human beings should hate the moral law, for this would lead to them
shirking as many opportunities to be virtuous as possible (see also Rel 6:484–5), he
is also clear that he disagrees with Schiller that obligation “also has a certain charm
(grace) about it” (MSVig 27:490). More specifically, Kant argues that “it is
contrary to the nature of duty to enjoy having duties incumbent upon one; it is
necessary, rather, that man’s impulses should make him disinclined to fulfill the
moral laws” (MSVig 27:490, our emphasis). Indeed, Kant argues that doing duty
from impulse and enjoying duty would destroy obligation entirely. As he explains
in the Vorarbeiten to the Religion:

If all human beings were to follow the moral law gladly <gern> and willingly
<willig>, just as is contained in reason and the rule, then there would be no duty,
just as one cannot conceive of this law, which determined the divine will, as
obligating him. Thus, if there are duties, if the moral principle in us is a
command for us (a categorical imperative), then we must be regarded as neces-
sitated to it, even without pleasure and our inclination. To do duty gladly <gern>
and from inclination is a contradiction. (AA 23:100)

Given the discussion above, it is clear why Kant makes this claim: obligation
necessarily involves constraint and reluctant action, that is, being obligated to act
in one way but always being pulled to act in opposing ways, because necessitation
is made possible by the fact that human beings are both rational and natural, i.e. by
the fact that we possess natural inclinations that can oppose the rational moral
law.³⁴ Thus, as Kant says in the Metaphysics of Morals, “when they [human

³³ See Baxley (2010, ch. 3) for an excellent discussion of Schiller’s objection and Kant’s reply.
³⁴ To be sure, we agree with Baxley, (2010, 110–15), who suggests that Kant’s conception of
obligation in terms of constraint is not a phenomenological claim about what it is like to experience
88     

beings] do obey the law, they do it reluctantly” (MS 6:379).³⁵ Vigilantius contains a
nice summary of Kant’s view:

A necessitation is therefore only conceivable where a contravention of the moral

law is possible . . . Where there is no necessitation, there also no moral imperative,
no obligation, duty, virtue, ought, or constraint is conceivable. Hence moral laws
are also called laws of duty because they presuppose an agent subject to impulses
of nature. (MSVig 27:489)

Kant therefore departs in a significant way from both Baumgarten and Wolff: by
conceiving of necessitation as expressing the tension between the sensible and
rational nature of human beings, Kant conceives of obligation as necessarily
involving constraint and reluctant action. Indeed, compared to Wolff and
Baumgarten, Kant’s position is somewhat radical in that, for Kant, there can be
no obligation without constraint and reluctant action.

IV

Conclusion. Our aim in this chapter has been to sketch the distinct ways in which
Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant conceive of the relation between obligation, neces-
sitation, and constraint to reluctant action. As we have seen, Wolff argues that
natural obligation is incompatible with constraint and that only cases where we
prefer the lesser to the greater evil, such as when we are obligated by the threat of
punishment, are compatible with constraint and reluctant action. We have argued
that Baumgarten makes a subtle but significant change to this view: Baumgarten’s
broader conception of reluctant action, according to which we act reluctantly
when we are simultaneously impelled in opposite directions, allows him to say
that natural obligation is compatible with a certain kind of constraint as well,
namely internal moral constraint where agents themselves bring about a prepon-
derance of impelling causes and therefore constrain themselves. Whereas
Baumgarten argues that moral obligation is compatible with constraint, but it
need not have this character, in the final section we illustrated that Kant conceives

obligation in every instance but is rather a metaphysical claim about the nature of obligation given the
kinds of beings that we are. Thus, even for Kant we may not necessarily experience obligation as
constraint and acting reluctantly in every instance, but only when our inclinations oppose the moral
law. Kant’s point, however, is rather that, as natural and rational beings, we can never be rid of the
possibility that our inclinations might oppose the moral law, and for this reason obligation must always
be represented as being inextricably linked with constraint and acting reluctantly.
³⁵ In fact, Kant adds in a footnote here (MS 6:380n) that his view implies that disobeying the law
involves reluctance as well: no human being is so unholy as to no longer be a moral being, thus from the
point of view of the inclinations, the moral law always opposes their pull as well, so disobeying the
moral law involves constraint and reluctant action for the human being as well.
 , ,    89

of obligation as necessarily involving constraint. For Kant, obligation necessarily

involves constraint to reluctant action in finite, human beings due to the presence
of natural inclinations, which can at any time pull us in the opposite direction.
Our analysis reveals, we believe, the central role that freedom plays in obligation
for all three thinkers. Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant rightly stress that freedom
underlies obligation, but how one conceives of this freedom has consequences on
the resulting theory of obligation. If one conceives of freedom as compatible with
psychological determinism, as Wolff and Baumgarten do, then the necessitation of
obligation takes on a particular character, namely making it necessary that the
person obligated act in a certain way, so long as certain conditions are fulfilled,
such as sufficiently cognizing one’s obligation. But if one rejects this conception of
freedom, as Kant does, then obligation and necessitation take on a different
character, namely it becomes the normative pull we feel as human beings to
make what is subjectively contingent correspond to what is objectively necessary.
We therefore believe that an even more nuanced understanding of how these
figures understand freedom would reveal further subtle aspects of their theories of
obligation,³⁶ but we must reserve a discussion of this issue for another occasion.

³⁶ For a discussion of Kant’s account of freedom in relation to Wolff, Leibniz, and Crusius,
see Allison (2006).
 5
Morality as Both Objective and
Subjective
Baumgarten’s Way to Moral Realism and
Its Impact on Kant
Stefano Bacin

In the pivotal first chapter of Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy,

§37 catches the attention of the reader for its tone and complexity. There
Baumgarten maintains that it must be acknowledged that actions have as such
moral worth, that is, that they possess what he calls “objective morality.” The
section is striking for this bold main claim as well as for the way it is spelled out.
For Baumgarten stresses that it does not commit him to a series of further claims
that prima facie would appear to follow from it. Thereby he points out that the
notion of objective morality is not to be taken to entail that the moral worth of
actions is such as can be determined by considering them in isolation, independ-
ently from every relation either to the whole of nature or to God’s will.
This bold claim represents Baumgarten’s way of taking a stance in the long-
standing dispute that had divided German philosophers in two rather neatly
opposing fronts for more than three decades by the time his Elements was
published. The very terms in which he articulates his position are a clear indica-
tion to that effect. “Objective morality” is the distinctive phrase that was used to
characterize the Wolffian rationalist view that the moral worth of actions does
not depend on any act of will, even on the imposition of the divine will. As Wolff
himself had put it, moralitas obiectiva is the name for the “truth” that “the reason
why an action is good or evil is to be found in the nature and essence of the
human being” (WAN §137, p. 392; my translation). In the article “Moralität” in
his Philosophical Lexicon, Johann Georg Walch helpfully summarized the ensu-
ing discussion as a quarrel between defenders of theological voluntarism and
those who took up a view that had gone out of fashion at that time, namely that
the morality of actions is ontologically independent (Walch 1733, cols. 1839 ff.).
In Walch’s eyes, this is a Scholastic view, which is thus appropriately phrased
in Scholastic terms: the Wolffians, holding that view, are advocates of moralitas
obiectiva. On the opposite side, Wolff employs the same label when referring

Stefano Bacin, Morality as Both Objective and Subjective: Baumgarten’s Way to Moral Realism and Its Impact on Kant
In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers,
Oxford University Press. © Stefano Bacin 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0006
       91

approvingly to the “Scholastics” and their notion of moralitas obiectiva

(WAN §137, p. 392).¹ In these terms, Wolff and his opponents take opposite
stances to what is classically known as the Euthyphro Dilemma. In §37 of the
Elements, Baumgarten’s distinctive way of dealing with this issue emerges as a
position that combines the official defense of the core of the Wolffian view with
significant additions.
Now, besides the first sentence, in which Baumgarten (unsurprisingly) endorses
the Wolffian-Scholastic view, §37 includes important caveats that aim to clarify
how that view is to be understood in order to prevent any misunderstandings.² In
this light, this section has a significant structural similarity to another important
section in the Elements, namely §71, in which Baumgarten analogously observes
that his views on natural law do not entail a number of implications that might
be easily associated with it. In both cases, Baumgarten maintains a definite view,
while at the same time adding that the relevant claim does not involve several
further claims to which the advocates of that view are usually assumed to be
committed. Sections structured that way aim to show that, properly construed, the
view of the rationalist camp is in fact broader than most would suspect, so that it is
able to accommodate important insights on which the opposite camp insists. In
§37, Baumgarten maintains that the notion of objective morality not only does not
amount to a rejection of the view that God’s will provides its sufficient ground
but also does not dismiss the apparently antithetical conception of “subjective
morality.” This is all the more surprising, since moralitas obiectiva and moralis
subiectiva were commonly employed as contrasting, mutually exclusive labels for
the two camps in the debate.³ In this respect, §37 is paradigmatic of Baumgarten’s
overall integrative strategy.⁴ An important part of its meaning lies in how
Baumgarten refers to a debate that he makes ipso facto more complex, moving
beyond its original shape.
Moreover, the main claim of §37 and the appended clarifications also deserve
attention because of their place in the overall argument of the Elements. The
propositions presented in that section, along with the definitions of §36 and the
implications drawn in §38, connect Baumgarten’s treatment of the goodness of
actions (BIP §§32–5) to the final part of Chapter 1, in which he puts forward his
formulas of the moral imperatives (BIP §§39–49). The view defended in §§36–8

¹ On the general debate see Grote (2017, ch. 1).

² Meier, whose Universal Practical Philosophy closely follows Baumgarten’s Elements, presents
roughly the same caveats remarks in §§54–6, observing that such clarifications are needed because
“the disputes of the scholars” have made the central claim “confused” and generated “a great amount of
false thoughts” on the matter at issue (Meier 1764, §54, 108–10).
³ See e.g. still in the 1760s, rather close to the publication of Baumgarten’s Elements, the survey in
Seydlitz (1765, §§100 ff.), which contrasts advocates of objective morality to those of subjective
morality.
⁴ The integrative character of Baumgarten’s general outlook has been repeatedly stressed by
Schwaiger (see e.g. 2011a, 27–9, 118–26). See also Grote (2017, ch. 4).
92  

makes that delicate transition possible, as it explains how the objective moral
worth of actions can go together with, in fact even requires, their being connected
to the imposition of a superior will.⁵ In this respect, too, the brief but incisive
treatment of objective morality represents a distinctive aspect of Baumgarten’s
account of the foundations of practical philosophy.
These three features of §37 provide the main reasons for devoting closer
attention to that transition in the Elements. To properly appraise its significance,
in the following I shall examine how Baumgarten construes his view of morality in
§§36–8 with a specific focus on the central §37. I shall first consider how he
understands and argues for the key notion of “objective morality.” Then I will
analyze the last, and arguably most surprising of the implications that he draws
per negativum from the main claim, namely that affirming objective morality does
not amount to a rejection of what Baumgarten calls “subjective morality.” Finally,
I will briefly examine how Baumgarten’s distinctive way of taking sides in the
Wolffian camp reverberates through the close dialogue with the Elements in
Kant’s private notes and lectures, thereby deeply impacting the development of
the latter’s own views in practical philosophy.

A New Take on the “Scholastic” Objective Morality as a Relational Property.

The main claim in §37 is that we must attribute objective morality to actions,
that is, we must appraise them as good or evil in themselves, independently
from the imposition of a superior will that gives them that worth. This entails
that even one who is not willing to accept the existence of God must nevertheless
recognize that moral actions have objective moral worth. In accordance with the
traditional vocabulary, Baumgarten equates “objective morality” with “perseity
before the will of God <perseitas ante voluntatem Dei>” (BIP §37), thereby
making his commitment to the so-called Scholastic view explicit beyond any
possible doubt. Up to the first sentence of §37, thus, the Elements would seem to
provide nothing more than a resolute restatement of the traditional Wolffian
view. The five following points that make up the rest of the section, however,
show that Baumgarten’s aim is in fact to offer a richer conception of what
objective morality consists in, thereby putting the contrast with the opponents
of the Wolffian in a different light.

⁵ Despite their importance, those sections of the Elements have not attracted much attention, to the
best of my knowledge. Schwaiger (2021, 61–3) has considered them with a specific focus on the
meaning of the notion of “morality.” While Grote has convincingly shown how Baumgarten embraces
a few points made by Wolff ’s critics such as J.L. Zimmermann and J.G. Walch (see Grote 2017, ch. 4),
he has not given consideration to how Baumgarten understands the central idea of objective morality,
nor to how he introduces subjective morality.
       93

In the second part of §37, Baumgarten suggests that defending the view that
actions have moral worth as such, prior to any command, even independently
from God’s will (hereafter, the “Objective Morality Claim,” for the sake of brevity),
does not have the implications the opponents of that view usually point at. More
precisely, Baumgarten suggests in §37 that the rationalist view does not amount to
holding that the morality of actions lies in, or has its foundations, in their specific
intrinsic properties, although the talk of perseitas and good or evil actions per se
could very well give that impression. The first four of the five points making up the
second part of §37 articulate that general idea.⁶
The first clarification that Baumgarten considers necessary to avoid misconstr-
ual of the “Scholastic” view he defends, is that the Objective Morality Claim does
not imply “that actions external to every nexus, even the nexus with perfection
and their own implications, are already considered good or evil” (BIP §37). If
we maintain that actions are good or evil per se, prior to any possible command,
the thought that goodness and badness are features that can be attributed to
them considered in isolation seems to suggest itself. Goodness and badness
would then be construed as (something like) intrinsic properties. This way of
understanding the Objective Morality Claim would motivate one of the
main objections of its opponents, that is, that “good” and “evil,” as non-reducible
properties, become obscure words, as goodness and badness seem to be presented
as qualitates occultae of sorts.⁷ However, to Baumgarten’s eyes, that is but a
misunderstanding of the Objective Morality Claim, as follows from the definitions
given in §33 and §36: actions are good and evil prior to any command, but
nevertheless only by virtue of their connection to perfection.⁸ In fact, the elucida-
tions in §37 unfold a notion already advanced in §36, where morality is defined
precisely in relational terms, namely as the “relation and convenience <respectus et
habitudo> of a free action to perfection” (BIP §36; compare §82 and BIN §54).⁹

⁶ I shall comment on the first two points here, on the following two in the next section, and on the
fifth in §4. Similarly, Meier (1764) presents the first four remarks in §54 and the equivalent to
Baumgarten’s fifth remark in BIP §56.
⁷ See Walch (1733, 1842): “the Scholastic doctrine is very obscure, as it delivers empty words
without real concepts.”
⁸ On Baumgarten’s understanding of perfection, which I cannot examine here, see Schwaiger
(2011a, 162–5).
⁹ Here I do not follow Fugate and Hymers’s translation of the Elements, which renders respectus et
habitudo with “the respect and habituation”. Aware of the terminological difficulty, Fugate and Hymers
add the remark that “[b]y habituation, Baumgarten clearly means that one’s morality (i.e. morality,
subjectively considered) is one’s condition or character with respect to perfection” (BIP 51n.88;
compare BIP 7: “Morality is the habituation towards perfection in action”). That does not seem to
match the specific context of Baumgarten’s definition, though. The topic at issue is not an agent’s
conscious attitude or consistency in a certain way of conduct, which yield a habit, but the moral quality
of token actions. In fact, the meaning of habitudo in Scholastic Latin is not anything like “habit”
(habitus), but very close to “relation”, more specifically a relation of purposiveness or suitability (see e.g.
Penner 2013, 3), which I try to render here with “convenience”. Thus, unlike a habit, a habitudo can be
ascribed to things, while habits are ascribed to agents. Baumgarten’s phrasing clearly shows that the
94  

Thus, in Baumgarten’s view, good and evil cannot be conceived of as intrinsic

properties, as they are essentially relational.¹⁰
The train of thought initiated in the first point of §37 is further pursued in the
(on the face of it, less perspicuous) second point. Baumgarten remarks that on
the view that he defends morality is not “only in the intellect like some, but who
knows what, thought entity <ens rationis>” (BIP §37). If goodness or badness are
construed as specific properties that are taken to be possible, but cannot in fact
be determined as to their existence, then that would boil down to construing them
as mere fictions, inviting again the objection of obscurity. Here Baumgarten refers
to §62 of his Metaphysics, which defines a non-entity precisely in those terms.¹¹ If
objective morality were to be understood that way, that would entail that the
moral predicates “good” and “bad” would be merely fictional or mental entities,
since they would denote qualities that are per se only as lacking connection with
anything else.¹² But then again, that has already been ruled out by presenting
goodness and badness as relational properties of actions. Because they lie in the
connection of actions “with perfection and their own implications,” the notions
of good and bad are not mere representations that could turn out to be merely
abstract thoughts, which the mind would apply to actions only in playing a
pointless game. The goodness and badness of action can very well be determined
as to their existence because they consist in a relation to human nature and reality
at large.
Notably, the thought, central to Baumgarten’s view, that morality is essentially
relational also justifies his terminological choice in those sections. When he
discusses the matter at issue giving the notion of objective morality center stage,
Baumgarten distinguishes himself from Wolff and most Wolffians, including his
teacher Heinrich Köhler. All of them had rather employed the notion of ‘internal

term is understood in that meaning: “respectus sive habitudo” is virtually a hendiadys, which puts an
emphasis on the purposive character of the relation. Note that also Baumgarten’s Metaphysics gives
clear indication in that sense. There he provides the following definition: “The respective determina-
tions of possible things are respects [respectus] (habituations <habitudines>, ta pros ti, relations in a
broad sense, either external or internal)” (*. § 37). “Habitudo” is thus to be taken as roughly
synonymous with “relation”. Accordingly, Meier, whose work closely follows the Elements* of his
teacher Baumgarten, defines morality (Sittlichkeit) of actions as “their relation <Beziehung> to the
perfection or imperfection of the human being” (Meier 1764, §50, 102). Aichele’s rendering of habitudo
with Beziehung can thus better convey the proper meaning of the term (see Baumgarten 2019a, 55).
Quite the same holds true for §82 of the Elements, to which Fugate and Hymers appropriately refer in
their annotation to §36.
¹⁰ See BIP §36: “Good free actions are related to perfection as means.”
¹¹ See BM §62: “A non-being (negative, cf. §54) would be something possible but not determinable
with regard to existence (§61). But this is impossible, and if it appears to be a being, it is a fictional being
(a being of reasoning reason).”
¹² In this regard, Meier invokes the risk of a sort of moral idealism implied by that misunderstanding
of objective morality (or internal morality, in his vocabulary): “For, if one would maintain that, should
no rational beings represent themselves a free action as morally good or evil, then no action would be
good or evil, then one could just as well conclude that nothing would be actual if there were no thinking
beings who represent something to themselves. Consequently, one could just as well infer that
everything exists in thoughts” (Meier 1764, §54, 109f.).
       95

(or intrinsic) morality’ (innere Sittlichkeit, moralitas intrinseca), which they take to
be synonymous with “objective morality”.¹³ A few years later, Baumgarten’s pupil
Meier would have done the same as well (Meier 1764, §§51ff.). It is remarkable
that, while Baumgarten often suggests conceptual and terminological connections,
adding to many terms further corresponding concepts in brackets, he conspicu-
ously does not do so with regard to objective morality. We should thus assume
that he does not consider the term as properly equivalent to “internal morality”
(moralitas interna) as opposed to “external morality.” In fact, the label “external”
would denote a relational determination, while “internal” would not include
relations.¹⁴ But Baumgarten’s main point is, on the contrary, that morality is to
be articulated in terms of relations. Thus the label “internal” would be misleading
at best. It is precisely because objective morality is commonly conceived of as
“internal” that we need to focus on its profoundly relational character.

II

Objective Morality and God’s Will. The insistence on the relational character of
objective morality leads to Baumgarten’s third point in §37: the Objective Morality
Claim is compatible with the thought that “the existence of morality in deeds <in
factis>” cannot have “a sufficient ground outside the will of God” (BIP §37). In
fact, the Objective Morality Claim is not merely compatible with it, but requires
support from that idea, as Baumgarten’s reference to §933 of his Metaphysics
makes clear. There he had argued that the world goes back to God’s perfect will.¹⁵
Although the objective moral quality of an action is independent of any prior
command, even imposed by God’s will, that quality is rooted, through relations, in
the fabric of the world that has in God its ultimate sufficient ground. If the
goodness and badness of actions lies in their relation to perfection, it can exist—
that is, actions can actually be good or bad—if and only if those relations hold.¹⁶
This, in turn, depends on the overall order of the world, which has its ultimate
ground in God.¹⁷ Thus, in Baumgarten’s view, the Objective Morality Claim not
only does not rule out, but in fact requires backing by the thought that God’s will

¹³ See e.g. Thümmig (1726–7, 1:§12): “Actions are either good as such, or evil as such. And the
intrinsic morality of free actions consists in that <actiones aliae per se sunt bonae, aliae per se malae.
Atque in eo consistit intrinseca actionum liberarum moralitas>.” See also KE §327.
¹⁴ Baumgarten had equated objective with internal and subjective with external in BIP §29, with
regard to obligation. He never does so with regard to morality.
¹⁵ See BM §933: “God created this world most freely (§932). Therefore, he willed to create it (§893).
He willed it efficiently (§671) and hence completely, because he is infallible (§879), and consequently
from complete motives.”
¹⁶ On Baumgarten’s conception of existence see BM §55. See also Fugate (2018).
¹⁷ Analogously, Meier distinguishes between “next and immediate sufficient ground,” which lies in
human nature and the internal quality of its actions, and “the first sufficient ground of everything that is
actual in the world,” which lies in God’s choice (1764, §53, 107).
96  

is the ultimate sufficient ground of the world. With his third point, Baumgarten
rejects what might be called “independent moral realism,” that is, the view that
objective morality exists necessarily, independent from any act of God’s will,
which it in fact governs.¹⁸ On the contrary, Baumgarten argues, God’s will is
indispensable to the existence of objective morality, because objective morality
exists necessarily in relations grounded on God’s will.
At this point it has become clear that Baumgarten is willing to grant to the
atheist only a narrowly limited ability to cognize morality.¹⁹ His view on the
matter is phrased, from a different angle, also in the fourth point of §37. Other
Wolffians are prepared to emphasize that, since the morality of actions is directly
related to the features of human nature, even one who is not prepared to
acknowledge the divine order of the world can grasp the essential moral properties
of actions, that is, their “internal morality,” and can thus become a virtuous
person.²⁰ That is precisely what the fourth of Baumgarten’s points in §37 refrains
from conceding. He stresses that the Objective Morality Claim does not entail
“that all implications of free actions are determined through the nature of the
action or agent alone (§33, BM §408)” (BIP §37; emphasis added). Baumgarten
thus insists that referring to the features of human nature cannot be enough,
because objective morality is to be properly grasped only with regard to the system
of relations it is rooted in, which in turn cannot leave out the ultimate ground of
that system, namely God. He supports his view by referring back to the section of
the Elements in which Baumgarten had defined that the moral worth of action
depends on the implications, or consequences (consectaria), of that action. What
matters, now, is that Baumgarten holds that those consequences can be both
natural and “chosen <arbitraria>,” that is, depending on “the free choice <arbitrium>
of someone” (BIP §33). The connection of an action to its consequences, therefore,
cannot be exhausted by considering only the features of human nature, without
referring to God’s will. Moreover, those connections are in fact part of a larger
system, as the reference to Metaphysics §408 suggests, where Baumgarten
argues that all elements of the world are interconnected.²¹ Combined with the

¹⁸ See Miller (2019, 207).

¹⁹ In his Metaphysics (BM §999), Baumgarten had defined “the (theoretical) atheist” as one who
“denies the existence of God,” in contrast to the “naturalist in the stricter sense,” who merely denies
divine revelation.
²⁰ See e.g. Meier (1764, § 53, 107): “when we attribute [ . . . ] all actions of human beings an internal
and natural morality, we do not maintain anything but that they have a morality that has its next and
immediate sufficient ground in human nature and the internal quality of all free human actions. Thus
even if someone were an atheist, denying God’s existence, if only he maintained that the human being
has free will, he could, his denial of God notwithstanding, become properly convinced <gründlich
überzeugt> that all his free actions are either internally morally good or internally morally evil.” In his
Natural Law, Meier goes as far as maintaining that the atheist could be “convinced of natural law
<Recht der Natur> through the empirical method” (1767, §8, 17; my emphasis).
²¹ See BM §408: “The simultaneous monads of this world mutually determine each other’s
place [ . . . ] (§§281, 285); hence, they mutually influence each other (§211).”
       97

claim made per negativum in the third point of §37, Baumgarten’s fourth point
about objective morality is that actions are good and evil by virtue of the network
of connections with their consequences that is arranged by God’s will.²²
In this light, even the first sentence of §37 does not grant so much to the atheist
as it might appear at first glance. It rather puts a demand on him: “Objective
morality must be attributed <tribuenda est> to free determinations by the theo-
retical atheists themselves” (§37). Somehow reversing the more conciliatory view
that the atheist can grasp features of the world that allow him to reach a certain
grade of apprehension of morality, Baumgarten remarks that, properly speaking,
objective morality pushes the atheist beyond the limits of his untenable position. If
morality, as objective, is rooted in relations that bring together the overall order of
the world, someone who is not prepared to recognize God as its ultimate ground
cannot cognize objective morality as such either. An atheist can maybe appreciate
some connections of certain actions to the perfection of some traits of human
nature, but that is only scratching the surface of objective morality, which remains
unattainable to him in its entirety. Objective morality “must be attributed” to
actions even by the atheist, who however would thus be committed to give up his
atheism. In accordance with this take on the issue, Baumgarten, unlike Wolff,
never refers approvingly to Grotius’s “impossible hypothesis” that morality would
hold even if there were no God (see e.g. WTL §5, p. 7, and WAN §395).
Thus Baumgarten has a viable response to a further objection of Wolff ’s
adversaries, namely, that only the theological voluntarist who holds a divine
command theory can properly account for the morality of actions, without ending
up in a regress, since he can point at a first cause that has made some actions good
and some bad (see Walch 1733, col. 1841). On his part, Baumgarten intends to
provide such an account, without making morality dependent on anything else
and thereby contingent, that is, without giving up genuine objective morality. In
his view, the ultimate cause of morality is the same as nature’s, that is, God’s will.
It is God’s will which sustains the features of human nature and its perfection, in
relation to which the morality of actions is determined.
Thus the compressed argument sketched in the remarks 1 to 4 of §37, sup-
ported by the important sections of the Metaphysics that Baumgarten refers to,
points out that the objective morality of actions should not be construed as an
intrinsic property, or with regard to intrinsic properties, of actions, although that

²² Note that this entails that Baumgarten cannot actually endorse the talk of perseitas, although he
employs that term in brackets after introducing the notion of objective morality, as I have mentioned
earlier: “morality is attributed as objective to actions either insofar as they are seen as good or evil per se
(perseity before the will of God, etc.)” (BIP §36). “Perseitas” would denote what is purely self-standing and
can be considered independently from any relation at all. But that would counter Baumgarten’s idea of
universal connection, as put forward in BM §408. The fact that the term “perseitas” never occurs in
Baumgarten’s Metaphysics strongly suggests that he uses it in the Initia only to make reference to the debate
on the foundations of morality, without actually endorsing its traditional meaning. On Baumgarten’s use of
“per se,” however, compare BM §15. (Thanks to Courtney Fugate for pressing me on this.)
98  

would appear to be the most natural way for actions to be recognized as good or
bad per se. Rather, Baumgarten argues, morality lies in relations, primarily to
human nature, and mediately to the entire order of the world as sustained by the
action of God’s will. That result brings Baumgarten to the fifth and most surpris-
ing of the claims in §37, namely that objective morality does not rule out subjective
morality. I shall thus turn to that last point.

III

Subjective Morality: The Prescriptive Character of Morality. The last of the five
crucial elucidations given in §37 formulates the outcome of the revision of
the Objective Morality Claim articulated in the first four points. At the end of
his reworking of the implications of that claim, Baumgarten simply observes that,
since holding that there is an objective morality does not entail any of the
consequences examined up to that point, then (“hence”) it does not amount to
maintain “that there is no subjective morality” either (BIP §37). In the previous
section, he had distinguished between the morality that is to be attributed to actions
“insofar as they are seen as good or evil per se” and the morality attributed to them
“insofar as they are good or evil because of someone’s free will” (BIP §36). If, as
I have noted above, Baumgarten’s choice to focus on the notion of objective
morality, instead of the more common talk of “internal morality,” is already
unusual, it was even more so to maintain that the two can go together. In fact,
however, Baumgarten argues for more than the mere possibility of that connection.
The very laconic phrasing of the fifth point in §37 (only four words in the
original Latin) requires clarification. That remark would prima facie seem to mean
that subjective morality must not be ruled out. Analogously, the first sentence of
§38 reads that “subjective morality, through the positing of objective morality, is
not denied even in actions that are good or evil per se, and it does not deny
objective morality” (BIP §38; my emphasis). The carefully phrased sentence would
seem merely to allow that attributing objective morality to actions does not deny
that there is room for subjective morality too. The reference to §36 and the
previous four points, though, make clear that Baumgarten argues for a stronger
and more meaningful view. Once the elucidations in §37 have explained that
objective morality does not rule out, in fact requires, that the moral worth of the
same actions be related back to God’s will, then it becomes apparent that the
distinction in §36 does not differentiate between cases, but between perspectives
from which genuine moral worth is attributed to actions.²³ Crucially, though,
those perspectives are not optional, but both apply to all actions, even to those that

²³ A similar view seems to be suggested by Baumgarten’s teacher Köhler. See KE §411: “We shall
note a double source of morality, springing from a different way to consider. For the morality of actions
       99

are per se good or bad. Besides §37, the relevant background for that conclusion is
provided by an elusive statement in §33, which is bound to remain rather obscure
in its original context, before the further development of the argument. There
Baumgarten had remarked that the implications of actions are natural, as they are
“more closely and adequately connected with a free determination through its
nature and that of the subject to whom it belongs, and are natural” or “chosen,” if
they are connected with the action “through the free choice of someone.”
However, since the implications can be “connected through both,” “it is wrong
to conclude that if the implication is natural, it for that reason is utterly not
chosen, and that if it is chosen, then for that reason it is utterly not natural” (BIP
§33). God’s will, thus, gives a teleological order to the elements of the world that
make the morality of actions both objective and subjective.
In Baumgarten’s actual, stronger view, thus, the Objective Morality Claim
entails that subjective morality must be attributed to actions as well, that is, that
their objective morality must be connected with their subjective morality: they are
good or bad per se just in view of the fact that “they are good or evil because of
someone’s free will” (§36), namely God’s. Recall that the third remark in §37 has
established that the existence of morality (where “morality” was appropriately not
qualified) requires a connection to God’s will. In the terms that we have now
reached, therefore, that means that morality exists—that is, actions actually have
moral worth (or must be recognized as having such)—only as both objective and
subjective, that is, as both belonging to the very nature of things (primarily human
nature) and sustained by God’s own will.²⁴
The epistemological implications of that claim are made explicit in §38. If
morality has those two faces, it can be properly cognized from both sides: “it is
valid to conclude with certainty, due to the choice <arbitrium> of God, from a
subjective morality known from elsewhere to a similar objective morality,” as
much as “it is valid to conclude with certainty, in regard to the choice of God, from
an objective morality known from elsewhere to a subjective one” (BIP §38).²⁵
Importantly, the path from nature (that provides evidence of objective morality)
brings us beyond the domain of nature, that is, to our equation of it with the
subjective morality of the relevant actions with regard to God’s will. The cognition
of morality through natural relations ultimately leads to the domain of natural
theology. Notably, this does not contrast with Baumgarten’s initial definition of

is referred either to their implications or to a law that represents their implications <Annotemus
duplicem fontem moralitatis, ex diverso modo considerandi oriundum. Moralitas enim actionum vel
refertur ad consectaria earum, vel ad legem, consectaria repraesentantem>.”
²⁴ A similar claim had been already defended by Baumgarten about obligation: “Since some
obligations can likewise be more closely and adequately known from nature and choice, the obligation
to one and the same thing can be simultaneously objective and subjective, or natural and chosen”
(BIP §30).
²⁵ Baumgarten makes the same point again later on in BIP §82 in terms of natural laws and divine
positive laws.
100  

practical philosophy as “the science of the obligations of a person that are to be

known without faith” (BIP §1), since natural theology shares the same feature: it is
“the science of God, insofar as he can be known without faith” (BM §800).
Accordingly, “whatever a creature understands through its own nature about
the mind of God according to universal nature, it knows through divine revelation
(BM §982), which is natural (§469)” (BM §983). A case in point seems to be
exactly what one can infer from objective morality with regard to subjective
morality. Once again, after the analogous point in the first sentence of §36, the
atheist’s ability to cognize morality is acknowledged and yet at the same time its
limits are clearly marked, since he would either have to refrain from making the
“certain inference” or be compelled to give up his atheistic view.
By suggesting that the Objective Morality Claim entails that morality is at
the same time subjective with regard to God’s will, Baumgarten provides his
response to a further charge raised against the Wolffian view, namely that
the mere notion of objective (that is, internal or natural, for most Wolffians)
morality is not sufficient to account for obligation (see e.g. Walch 1733, 1841f.). In
Baumgarten’s view, the source of the bindingness of moral requirements does not
merely lie in natural obligation as rooted in the nature of things, as Wolff had
maintained (see e.g. WTL §9). Baumgarten now suggests that the very nature of
things (primarily human nature) is originally normative because it is at the same
time sustained by God’s will. The Anti-Wolffians observed that obligation lies in
limiting freedom to the pursuit of a final end, which cannot happen merely within
objective morality (see Walch 1733). Now the new take on objective morality
proposed by Baumgarten provides exactly that: insofar as it is at the same time
subjective, that is, is sustained by God’s will, objective morality displays a teleo-
logical orientation toward a specific final end, namely perfection.
Now, on this view, as both objective and subjective, morality is essentially
prescriptive. This is, I believe, a stronger view than it might appear at first. By
emphasizing the mutual implication between objective morality and subjective
morality, Baumgarten certainly prepares the stage for addressing the relation
between the non-contingent moral worth of certain actions and the corresponding
explicit norms. An important part of Baumgarten’s account is that practical norms
(both ethical and juridical) are grounded and authoritative insofar as they draw on
objective morality (BIP §62). That sort of connection would only be accidental,
though: any given norm should find its proper foundation in objective morality,
thereby possessing subjective morality, but that would not, by itself, prove that
objective morality necessarily needs a corresponding subjective morality. That
possibility is not viable, though, because of the mutual implication between
objective and subjective morality. There cannot be subjective morality without
objective morality, but also the other way around, there is no objective morality
without a corresponding subjective morality. The Objective Morality Claim
implies, on Baumgarten’s view, that subjective morality must be attributed to all
       101

actions as well, if only by virtue of the connection to God’s will. Thus Baumgarten
argues not only that morality might appropriately yield concrete norms,²⁶ nor
does he suggest, as Kant would later, that the prescriptive character of moral
norms depends on the limits of the faculties of finite beings like humans. Rather,
on Baumgarten’s view, morality is essentially prescriptive, that is, it must be
spelled out in norms because it is at the same time both objective and subjective.
Baumgarten’s distinctive emphasis on obligation from the outset of the
Elements entails a modified understanding of objective morality that goes beyond
the Wolffian view.²⁷ Drawing on Wolffian materials, Baumgarten adds with the
claims of §§36–8 an important argumentative step to the common Wolffian view.
If we consider how Wolff ’s view unfolds both in the German Ethics and the later
Philosophia practica universalis, we notice that he starts with an account of the
features of free actions, arguing then that they are good or bad in themselves
because of their natural features. That natural morality is presented as the source
of obligation and the content of the law of nature.²⁸ Baumgarten’s careful treat-
ment of objective morality finds no direct correspondence in the steps of Wolff ’s
argumentative path, not to mention the notion of subjective morality. Unlike
the (other) Wolffians, Baumgarten begins with examining the notion of obliga-
tion, which determines the overall outlook of the entire Elements.²⁹ Only after
having established how obligation is to be conceived of in its different compo-
nents, he considers how the goodness and badness of actions can be construed
in that light (§§32–5). Then, unlike the (other) Wolffians, Baumgarten needs to
show where proper obligation has its foundations and why in turn those founda-
tions yield prescriptions. This is achieved with the thesis that the Objective
Morality Claim involves that subjective morality must be attributed to all actions
as well.
Thus the conclusion that morality is to be spelled out in norms justifies the
role that the sections on (objective and subjective) morality (BIP §§36–8) play
in the overall argument of the first chapter of Baumgarten’s Elements. Only once
he has established the claims that I have examined so far, can Baumgarten
introduce the main imperatives in which morality is spelled out: “do the good,”
“seek perfection,” “do what is the best for you to do,” “live according to nature.” These
fundamental prescriptions are the main focus of the last sections of the foundational
chapter of his entire practical philosophy (BIP §§39–49). There he simply

²⁶ Something of the sort seems to be suggested by Schwaiger’s remark on this point: “With this
expansion of Wolff ’s doctrine, Baumgarten takes into account the fact that morality is always reflected
in the personal attitude to concrete historical and social moral norms.” (2021, 62f.).
²⁷ Schwaiger (2021, 62f.) sees here an “extension of Wolff ’s doctrine” on Baumgarten’s part.
²⁸ See WTL §§1–20, WPPU 1: chs 1–2 (§§9–114 and §§115–270). See also the compact survey in
WAN §137. Compare, e.g. Thümmig (1726–7, 1: chs 1–2); Gottsched (1736, chs 1–2, §§14–29).
²⁹ See Schwaiger (2011a); Bacin (2015, 19–24).
102  

observes that “the imperatives in the practical disciplines indicate that the human
being is under an obligation <significant, hominem obligari>” (BIP §39; transla-
tion modified).³⁰ They express the fact that the “human being is obligated to
commit the good, and hence to omit evil.” That requirement, however, does not
merely follow from the fact that human beings are subjected to a specific com-
manding authority. That demand primarily articulates the existence of morality as
sustained by God’s will, that is, as both objective and subjective.

IV

Impact on Kant. The sections of Baumgarten’s Elements that I have examined so

far also play a role in the decades-long dialogue with that work that crucially
contributed to the development of Kant’s views in practical philosophy.³¹ Their
impact, however, is partially ambivalent. On the one hand, Kant focuses on the
distinction between an objective and a subjective side of morality, but does not
accept it in Baumgarten’s terms. On the other hand, he draws on those sections
with regard to the connection between objective morality and bindingness. The
latter aspect comes closer to the spirit of Baumgarten’s claims, without however
subscribing to them.
We can best follow both lines of Kant’s considerations on §§36–8 by examining
two sets of the students’ notes from his moral philosophy classes, which provide
extended comments on that matter. In lectures from the mid 1770s, Kant first
addresses the thought that “we can regard all objective morality as the subjective
morality of the divine will” (Kant 2004, 40; cf. AA 27:263). Unlike Baumgarten,
however, he immediately stresses that the same does not hold true with regard to
the human will. Thus he ends up apparently rejecting the central distinction put
forward by Baumgarten in §§36–8: “if we distinguish morality into objective and
subjective, this is wholly absurd, for all morality is objective, only the condition of
its application can be subjective” (Kant 2004, 41; cf. AA 27:264). Differently from
Baumgarten, then, “subjective morality” indicates here for Kant the morality of
which a subject is capable, depending on his or her powers. The distinction
between subjective and objective thereby assumes a different shape, as it distin-
guishes a necessary standard from the way in which that standard can be met
according to the constitutive conditions of specific subjects. Kant’s distance from
Baumgarten becomes apparent when Kant is eventually able to phrase his view on
moral motivation in terms that are then only superficially similar to Baumgarten’s,

³⁰ On Baumgarten’s notion of imperatives and its impact on Kant see Schwaiger (1999, 165ff.).
³¹ On the main features of that dialogue, with references to further literature, see Bacin (2015) and
the introduction and the materials collected in Fugate and Hymers’s translation of the Elements.
       103

characterizing the moral incentive as “morality <Sittlichkeit> itself subjectively

considered as an incentive” (KpV 5:76).
Accordingly, Kant puts aside Baumgarten’s thought of the mutual implication
between objective and subjective morality, to focus only on the need that the
former provides the proper ground for the latter.³² Kant writes in private notes:
“The moralitas subjectiva is based on the objective. Because it is good to obey,
I obey” (AA 19:125; cf. AA 19:22). This follows from Kant’s modified construal of
the distinction: Objective morality is the necessary and immutable standard on
which every realization according to the constitution of the faculties of a subject is
to be measured. Now, since the full correspondence between the necessary
standard and its realization is only possible in the divine will, Kant can in fact
acknowledge that objective morality amounts to God’s subjective morality. Thus
Kant is reported to have commented on those sections at the time of the
Groundwork: “Can we regard objective morality alone as one that arises from
the divine will?—Yes, for since the divine will is the idea of the most perfect will,
we can say the most perfect will commands it” (MoM 29:616).³³ However, Kant
refuses to regard that correspondence as a mutual implication. Only objective
morality is genuinely necessary and hence it is independent from the other. Even
in God’s will, subjective morality would be unjustified if it were not backed up by
the objective. To Kant’s eyes, Baumgarten’s view is affected by the same weakness
as theological accounts.³⁴ Thus Kant goes on observing: “it does not follow from
this that moral laws must be derived from the divine will; in that case, we would
not be able to cognize them as necessary. [ . . . ] If we have an objective morality we
have no need of one that is subjective. Objective morality cannot be derived from
subjective morality. If I can see from the nature of the matter that an action is
moral I do not need the divine will” (MoM 29:616).
Kant thereby rejects Baumgarten’s insistence that objective morality should be
regarded at the same time as subjective morality because God’s will is its ultimate
sufficient ground. Nevertheless, that conception gave expression to the underlying
thought that morality must be conceived of as necessary and, at the same time,
connected to the corresponding determination of a will. As Kant’s appraisal of the
prior views brings more and more to light, an adequate account of morality should
explain both that moral demands cannot have merely a positive character and,
still, they are essentially binding.³⁵ In this regard, Baumgarten’s view could be seen
as a case in point, as it gives center stage to that characteristic dual aspect of
morality. His remarks on the issue could display an acute awareness of the need to

³² In one peculiar case, Kant experiments with employing the distinction between objective and
subjective morality to distinguish “degrees of the practical worth of actions”: see AA 19:301f.
³³ For the new critical edition of the Moral Mrongovius II and the English translation, see Kant
(forthcoming). See there the notes to 29:616 with further comments on those remarks.
³⁴ On this see Bacin (2018a, 55–7).
³⁵ On Kant’s appraisal of prior rationalist accounts of morality, see Bacin (2018a).
104  

account for both the foundations of moral normativity (or evaluative properties)
and its (their) constitutive prescriptive force. In this respect, Baumgarten’s
Elements could provide Kant with an example of a view that aimed at overcoming
the weaknesses affecting traditional rationalist views, that is, primarily the inabil-
ity to account for the bindingness of morality.
Now, if Baumgarten’s view could have been of help in identifying the central
issue and the shortcomings of the previous discussion, for Kant it did not provide
a viable solution, as we gather from his comments. Thus the account of morality
that Kant developed did not follow the lines suggested by Baumgarten’s. Most
significantly, Kant was not prepared to endorse the strongly teleological view of
nature that is integral to Baumgarten’s account, which centers on the order
sustained by God’s will. If anything, Kant moved in the opposite direction.
While Baumgarten aimed to suggest a more convincing way to regard normative
properties as rooted in the nature of things, Kant eventually argued that what is
morally relevant cannot have its foundations within nature, precisely because that
would rule out the objectivity of morality (i.e. its necessity and immutability).
Accordingly, one of Kant’s notes to §36 stresses, against Baumgarten: “Goodness
is either moral or physical” (AA 19:21). Kant endorses the Objective Morality
Claim, but construes it not in terms of properties or natural relations, but of laws:
the moral worth of actions is necessary and immutable because of their (non-
natural) relation to the moral law.³⁶

Concluding Remarks. A closer look at §§36–8 of the Elements thus reveals impor-
tant aspects of Baumgarten’s distinctive way of embracing the moral realism of
Wolffian rationalism. Baumgarten aims to defend the view advocated by prior
Wolffians, but he does so in original terms. Instead of suggesting that actions are
per se good or evil simply because of some essential attributes, he proposes to
construe their moral worth in relational terms. This view opens up a broader
perspective, in which the morality of actions is determined only within the larger
context of the teleological structure of reality. This in turn leads to understanding
their worth as belonging to the overall order of the world supported by God’s will.
Thus, he argues, objective morality must be regarded, at the same time, as
subjective. Because of that dual character, morality is at the same time necessary
and immediately prescriptive.
Baumgarten thereby moves between independent moral realism and divine
command theory. In his view, God is the metaphysical ground of moral properties,

³⁶ On how Kant’s account unfolds from the aim of presenting a hybrid view along these lines,
see Bacin 2018b.
       105

but indirectly, namely in a way that depends upon the overall structure of the
world. Thus moral properties can indeed be considered per se, but only when the
focus is only on their relations with the connected implications in nature. That
cannot but remain a partial and superficial consideration, though, as it misses the
proper ground of the normative importance of those connections. The atheist—
whom we might probably also call the “naturalist,” as he only accepts natural
explanations—cannot but fail to account for the emergence of normative properties.
In his account, Baumgarten tries to combine a Wolffian position with elements of a
quasi-voluntarist account in order to explain the fundamental bindingness of
morality. On his view, neither horn of the Euthyphro dilemma is sufficient. Its
solution is to find the proper way to combine both horns.
This proposal is presented in the Elements as an attempt to make a case for a
Wolffian view, defending the Objective Morality Claim. Yet, because of its dis-
tinctive features, it can be seen as an attempt to move beyond the original terms of
the debate. Four decades after the publication of Wolff ’s German Ethics, the
ensuing discussion was worn out enough that merely taking a stance in one or
the other camp was hardly reasonable or appropriate. Re-affirming one view or
the other in their traditional terms could by then sound like nothing else than
a verbal dispute.³⁷ Contributing to the debate required a new perspective on the
issue, accommodating the desiderata of both factions. The hybrid, conciliatory
character of Baumgarten’s take is also a reaction to the state that the debate had
reached by then. Also because of that character, Baumgarten’s distinctive treat-
ment of objective morality could provide Kant with a thoughtful attempt at
pursuing an integrative strategy in accounting for its most fundamental features,
namely its necessity and bindingness.

³⁷ See e.g. Ahlwardt (1752, §765): “The whole quarrel as to whether morality depend on God’s will
or there is a moralitas objectiva is, in our view, a mere, useless battle of words.”
 6
“At tu nomen inane es”
Baumgarten and Kant on the Legislator:
Moral Theology and Justice
Gualtiero Lorini

First, we must clarify, in a preliminary way, the meaning of the quotation placed at
the beginning of the title of this chapter. It comes from a tragedy by Dio Cassius and
had much fortune thanks to its retrieval by Francis Bacon (Bacon 2001, 189). In this
tragedy, Brutus, on the point of death, complains that all his life he had revered
virtue by esteeming it a concrete thing (ut rem), but has now painfully realized that
it would be nothing but an empty name (nomen inane). This quotation expresses
indeed a paradoxical and, in some ways, provocative outcome, to which Kantian
ethics risks exposing itself if one focuses on the assumptions that lead it to part ways
with a conception of ethics that assigns a foundational role to moral theology, such
as that of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. The framework of this possible reading is
what we shall try to elucidate in the present chapter.

Baumgarten’s Practical Philosophy: Beyond Eudaimonism and Voluntarism. As is

widely known, Baumgarten represented a crucial didactical reference point for
Kant, since for almost his entire academic career the philosopher from Königsberg
delivered his lectures on metaphysics on the basis of the fourth edition of
Baumgarten’s Metaphysics (1757). Moreover, the lectures on anthropology that
Kant introduced at the Albertina were based on the part of the Metaphysics
devoted to empirical psychology. The same goes for his lectures on moral philos-
ophy, which Kant held on Baumgarten’s Philosophical Ethics (1751,¹ 1763²) as well
as on his Elements of First Practical Philosophy (1760).
As regards Metaphysics, Kant explicitly sets out his reasons for choosing
Baumgarten as his reference author. This preference is due to Baumgarten’s
analytical skills and precision¹ but also to his originality, which Kant feels is

¹ See Announcement of the Program of his Lectures for the Winter Semester 1765–1766, AA 2:308,
tr. 1992:295; KrV A21/B35, tr. 1998:156; Letter to Herz, November 24, 1776, AA 10:198, tr. 1999:159.

Gualtiero Lorini, “At tu nomen inane es” Baumgarten and Kant on the Legislator: Moral Theology and Justice.
In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers,
Oxford University Press. © Gualtiero Lorini 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0007
 “      ” 107

close to his own underlying attitude, namely, a willingness to tread untrodden

paths. Kant is aware that he is commenting on a complex author (see Entwurf
und Ankündigung eines Collegii der physischen Geographie, AA 2:10) and, like
him, does not avoid thorny problems for the sake of popularity (see Schwaiger
2011a, 35–6). It is therefore interesting to assess whether, and to what extent, this
also applies to Kant’s adoption of the Elements as one of the reference texts
for teaching moral philosophy. In this direction, we need first to outline some of
the features that mark Baumgarten’s originality within Wolffian moral philosophy
as well.²
Although Baumgarten published the first edition of the Ethics in 1751 and the
Elements in 1760, from the point of view of the ordo studiorum there is no doubt
whatsoever that the Elements should be considered the first step: “It is my wont to
join practical universal philosophy, as it is called, with the right of nature, to which
it is prefaced, and I urge you not to study ethics, if it is possible, until after these
prior sciences have been explained” (BIP 3). Practical philosophy “is called”
“universal” by Wolff, who in 1738 had in fact published a Philosophia practica
universalis in two volumes. Moreover, the relationship between natural law and
practical philosophy presented by Baumgarten in the Ethics is also substantially
Wolffian, for in stating the need for practical philosophy to come before natural
law Baumgarten is just echoing Wolff ’s Ius naturae (WIN 1:§4).
However, while Wolff directly engages with a universal practical philosophy,
Baumgarten not only prefers to start from the Elements (Initia) but also refers
them to a practical philosophy defined as “first” (prima) and not as “universal.”
With this choice, Baumgarten, on the one hand, intends to promote and
reinforce a tendency that is certainly also present in Wolffianism, namely, to
establish a parallel between metaphysics and practical philosophy: just as meta-
physics represents the “first philosophy” (philosophia prima) as regards the
speculative disciplines, so practical philosophy serves as the foundation for
other practical disciplines, such as philosophical ethics (BGB §9; BIP §7). Yet,
on the other hand, he expresses the intention of later supplementing these
elements of a “first” practical philosophy with further elements, such as a
doctrine of virtue or happiness, which, however, find no place in the Elements
(Schwaiger 2008, 223).³ Here, obligation is the pivotal concept, as attested by the
two parts of the text, devoted respectively to obligatio and obligantia (the sources
of obligation).

² I say “as well” with regard to moral philosophy since many studies have by now pointed out the
peculiarities of Baumgarten’s metaphysics within Wolffianism: see e.g. Casula 1973; Fugate and
Hymers 2018; Lorini 2022.
³ For an overview of Baumgarten’s plan for a universal practical philosophy see BDO §22; BSEP
§161–3; BPG §149. In this latter work Baumgarten presents a plan, later disregarded in the printed
writings, which actually included a doctrine of virtue and happiness as well (see Bacin 2015, 20;
Schwaiger 2008, 223 n.19).
108  

This limitation to the concept of obligation, however, should not be taken to

suggest that Baumgarten’s analysis is insubstantial; for indeed it elaborates this
concept in a radically original sense. The centrality of obligation to his moral
philosophy is due to the decisive influence of the Jenese natural law-scholar
Heinrich Köhler, a Leibnizian-Wolffian from whom Baumgarten absorbs his
approach to legal issues, even borrowing and radicalizing the definition of obli-
gation that Köhler himself borrowed from Wolff, for whom “the connection [ . . . ]
of a motive with an action [ . . . ] is called active obligation” (WPPU 1 §118).⁴
Baumgarten introduces a quantitative component at the root of the connection
between motive and action, so that: “Obligation, whether active (§12, 13) or
passive (§14), can be defined through the active or passive connection of overrid-
ing impelling causes with a free determination” (BIP §15; my emphasis). While
Wolff, in accordance with tradition, distinguished between a passive obligation,
referring to the obligated person, and an active one, referring to the one who
obligates (WPPU 1 §118), Baumgarten, while keeping these definitions in the
background, reinforces the necessitating character of passive obligation, whose
effectiveness is equated with the active not only insofar as it links impelling causes
with a free determination but also insofar as this impelling cause overrides other
potentially impelling causes.
From this point of view, obligation can be stronger or weaker (BIP §16) and is
thus addressed according to a gradualness allowing a description of its procedural
unfolding. This constitutes a psychologization of obligation, which in fact is no
longer defined in terms of “moral necessity,” but in terms of a “moral necessitation,”
which Baumgarten introduces and discusses precisely in the Empirical Psychology
of his Metaphysics (BM §723). Wolff ’s definition of the active obligation also
responded to a need for internalization through which, stimulated by Leibniz, he
sought to disentangle obligation from a positive-voluntaristic framework of
Hobbesian-Pufendorfian descent (WTL §8, 137; Schwaiger 2000, 252). However,
Baumgarten is more radical in insisting on the intensity of the impelling cause,
which makes the obligation effective when it is stronger than the motives that
oppose it.
In the same direction, a further and crucial element of Baumgarten’s distance
from Wolff is the admission of sensible elements as motives, in line with the
promotion of the lower cognitive faculty that culminates in aesthetics. However,
this does not imply reference to a necessity external to the subject or linked to the
dark and irrational dimension of sensibility. On the contrary, Baumgarten—again
unlike Wolff—does not define obligation as linking motive with action, but rather
in the context of a free determination to act, which is demonstrated precisely by its

⁴ See Köhler: “moral obligation in general is the connection of motives with actions” (KE §300).
Bacin (2015: 19) highlights that through his emphasis on obligation “Baumgarten departs from Wolff ’s
pattern, whose treatment of universal practical philosophy begins, in the first German version, with a
chapter on the fundamental rule of actions (see WTL §1–71).”
 “      ” 109

location in the section of Empirical Psychology devoted to freedom. Baumgarten’s

practical philosophy does not establish an automatic transition between the
presence of a rational motive for action and the action itself. In line with his
own degree-based conception of obligation, he rather distinguishes between a
“moving” knowledge, i.e. that which “contains the incentives of the mind <elateres
animi>” (also called “more broadly living” knowledge) but is not necessarily
sufficient for action (BM §669), and a “[more strictly] living” knowledge, which
is “rousing or sufficient for what is to be done” (BM §671).
Furthermore, whereas Wolff focuses on the aforementioned topics chiefly in
practical-moral texts, Baumgarten’s practical treatment essentially relies upon
metaphysical assumptions, which are set forth mainly in empirical psychology.
Indeed, although Wolff pursues an anti-voluntaristic psychologizing of obligation
too, if we look in his Empirical Psychology for elements pertaining to the moral
debate, we find reference to topics that, once again, clearly separate him from
Baumgarten, namely those related to happiness.⁵ For Wolff indeed “the purpose of
ethics is human happiness,”⁶ while Baumgarten does not give such centrality to
the issue of happiness in ethics,⁷ and decisively separates the theme of happiness
from another topos of the moral reflection of his time, namely, perfection.
Baumgarten’s treatment of perfection in the moral sphere again presupposes
a metaphysical framework and, in particular, The First Principles of the
Mathematics of Intensive Quantities. This implies the analysis is structured
through a series of ontological degrees (BM §185–9), which correspond to as
many gnoseological degrees, according to the definition of metaphysics as the
“science of the first principles in human knowledge” (BM §1). Perfection is “the
agreement” of “several things taken together,” which “constitute the sufficient
ground of a single being”, and “the one thing in which there is agreement is the
   ” (BM §94). Baumgarten then links per-
fection to the good by stating “something is good if, when it is posited, a perfection
is also posited” (BM §100), but always within a gradual continuity in which the
perfection of a being is linked to its own reality: “when the realities of a being are
posited, its perfection is posited (§141). Hence, realities are good (§100), and
indeed absolutely necessary realities are a  , and realities
contingent in themselves are a  ” (BM §147).
These metaphysical premises resonate in the Elements when Baumgarten claims
that “whoever commits goods because they are good, commits them because
perfection is posited when these are posited” (BIP §43). When, in the same
paragraph, Baumgarten further specifies the “imperative” “do the good”—already
outlined in §39 as an instrument of obligation—as “seek perfection as far as

⁵ Wolff, WPE §636. Schwaiger (2011a, 106ff., 152) is exhaustive on the role of happiness in
Baumgarten’s ethics.
⁶ Wolff WPM I, §8; see also WTL §44–57.
⁷ For the few occurrences of this topic see BIP §98; BEP §10, 13.
110  

you can,” he explicitly refers to the “degree of strength of which you are capable”
(BIP §43). In this framework, clearly rooted in metaphysical-ontological assump-
tions, we deal again with the concept of a “determining ground [ . . . ] of the
perfection that you will be able to seek,” defined as the “reality that must be posited
in you yourself, or in another (§141). The former will be your perfection as an end;
the latter, yours as a means (§341)” (BIP §43). It follows that the moral imperative
can be formulated as: “seek your perfection by which you become either a more
perfect end, or a more perfect means. Omit, as much as you can, those things
that render you more imperfect either as an end, or as a means, or in either respect
(§31)” (BIP §43).
We can now begin to glimpse the terms and limits of Baumgarten’s influence
on Kant. Not surprisingly, the relevance attributed to obligation and its formal-
ization in an imperative met with Kant’s approval. Equally interesting for Kant is
the non-eudaimonist turn that distinguishes Baumgarten within the framework
of the general Leibnizian-Wolffian rejection of voluntarism. However, while
through the decoupling of perfection from happiness Baumgarten breaks away
from orthodox Wolffianism, Kant already in his lectures attacks Baumgarten’s
very treatment of perfection.
As early as the Praktische Philosophie-Herder (1763–64) Kant disputes the
extension of Baumgarten’s imperative to the means of perfection, believing that
this makes the principle too general and, therefore, empty (PrHer 27:16). In
Moral-Mrongovius II (1784/85) Kant defines the principle of perfection—
expressly referring to Wolff and Baumgarten—as neither contrary to nor useful
for morality: “an empty husk <leere Nuß>” (MoM 29:626). In the same lectures,
Kant also argues that pursuing perfection as an end is tautological, while pursuing
it as a means would be pragmatic and not moral (MoM 29:626–7). In the
Moralphilosophie-Collins (1774–75), Kant also considers Baumgarten’s definition
of perfection, which can apply as much to things as to human beings, to be too
vague and argues for the need to distinguish it from “moral goodness <moralische
Bonitaet>” so as to be understood as the perfection of the will and not, generically,
of the faculties (MoC 27:265–6; see also Osawa 2018, 114–5).
The aforementioned lecture notes show that on Kant’s account, Baumgarten’s
concept of perfection is insufficiently determinate to be a moral principle. Indeed,
Baumgarten’s moral subject, who seeks his own possible perfection, is structurally
entangled in a metaphysical system that accounts as much for his inwardness,
with the psychological-empirical evaluation of the compelling cause that prevails
in obligation, as for his placement in an ontological order:

When the existence of this world is posited, the supreme perfection that there can
be in a world is posited (§187, 934). The most perfect world is that world in
which the supreme perfection that is possible in a world is posited (§185).
Therefore, this world is the most perfect of all possible worlds. (BM §935)
 “      ” 111

Furthermore, “the end of God in creating the world was the perfection of
creatures” (BM §945). For such a subject, duty in ethics is ultimately delineated
by that part of metaphysics dealing with the rational knowledge of God, that is,
natural theology—another point that distinguishes Baumgarten from Wolff.⁸ In
the part of Ethics devoted to Religion, Baumgarten argues that the moral agent
must pursue her or his own perfection by resembling God as closely as possible
(BEP §92), on the grounds that God is knowable in his perfections according
to a “true,” “clear,” “certain,” and “living” knowledge. The Ethics (BEP §27, 30–1)
attests that moral obligation is connected with the search for divine perfections,
whose types one can know. The fundamental part of this obligation is directed
toward the “glory of God,” which in the Metaphysics, together with its celebration,
constitutes precisely religion (BM §947). Therefore, religion expresses a mixture
of objective knowledge (of divine perfections) and subjective motivation (their
celebration) (cf. BM §942, 947; Osawa 2018, 111). Thus, the application of
the knowledge of God obtained in natural theology to “Internal Worship”
(BEP, section VI) actually constitutes moral theology, as is made clear in the
Elements (BIP §98).
The output of Kant’s persistent didactic confrontation with Baumgarten
regarding practical philosophy and consequently ethics cannot, however, be
reduced to the rejection of the theological component of Baumgarten’s ethics,
which itself oscillates greatly, as we shall see. Actually, while rejecting this
approach, Kant will have to provide a convincing alternative, the elaboration of
which, on the one hand, will present him with no small number of problems and,
on the other hand, will cause him to retain, with changed functions, a reference to
God in ethics.

II

Self-Legislation, Obligation, Motivation. We have mentioned the problematic

nature of the theological foundation of Baumgarten’s ethics. The main difficulty
lies in the tension between the reiterated claim of a reference to the divine
“without faith <sine fide>”⁹ and an undeniable fideism through which natural
theology takes on a moral value in ethics. This contrast is ideally summarized in
the Elements itself, where, on the one hand, the definition of practical philosophy

⁸ Cf. WRP §26–7, where duties to oneself come before duties to God; WTL §59. For Baumgarten,
happiness too, albeit from a different perspective than perfection, is related to the divine dimension and
is discussed in Rational Psychology concerning The State After Death (BM §787–91).
⁹ More broadly, Baumgarten frequently defines philosophy as a form of knowledge independent
from any indication dictated by faith. See e.g. BG §12; BAL §1; BPG §21. For a detailed list, see
Schwaiger 2011b, 217 n.15.
112  

as “the science of the obligations of a person that are to be known without faith”
(BIP §1) is further developed:

If, however, an inquiry concerning divine positive right would infer either
(1) whether God at any time will issue laws that a person could not know from
anywhere else except through revelation strictly considered, and which will
nevertheless obligate the entire human species: such does not pertain to philos-
ophy (§1); or (2) whether there are such divine universal positive laws that have
no sufficient ground at all in the nature of the action and the agent: such is denied
(§69). (BIP §74)

On the other hand, Baumgarten admits “a supplement” to the right of nature

“subjectively considered” in the form of “divine positive right and revealed moral
theology” (BIP §98). The scholarship has discussed the significance of these
concessions to moral theology. An analysis of the historical context suggests
framing Baumgarten’s approach within an attempt to reconcile the rationalist
(especially Wolffian) approach with Pietism (Poppe 1907, 32; Schwaiger 2000,
255; 2008, 233–6); there has even been talk in this regard of a “Pietistic
Enlightenment” (Schwaiger 2000, 259). This ties in interestingly with the enhance-
ment of the concept of obligation through the legal approach that comes to
Baumgarten from Köhler. Baumgarten indeed broadens the meaning and value
of the concept of obligation from Roman law in which it is closely linked to a
vinculum iuris, that is, to an ethical-moral realm, using Holy Scripture as a model
(Langlois 2018, 44).
However, the systematic weight of this openness to Pietism remains debatable
because in the Elements Baumgarten argues for the possibility of reading natural
laws also as resulting from divine choice: “seeing that the will of God, or his most
free choice (BM §898), follows most perfectly upon supreme knowledge (BM
§893), all of his positive laws have likewise a sufficient ground in the nature of the
action and the agent, or are likewise natural (§63). And since God wishes every
good (BM §899), all the natural laws (§39) are also divinely chosen” (BIP §69; my
emphasis; see also §70–7 and KE §330, 359). On the one hand, this passage reveals
the importance that Baumgarten attributes not only to divine understanding
within the tradition of moral rationalism, but also to divine will as the ultimate
foundation of the moral law (Bacin 2015, 25). On the other hand, the passage
suggests that God’s will prescribes certain laws because, by having their own
sufficient reason in the nature of the action or agent, they are naturally good. In
line with this latter reading Baumgarten states that “natural right broadly con-
sidered, i.e. practical philosophy, would be, or would exist, even if there were no
God (Met §824)” (BIP §71). This statement derives from Wolff (WTL §20), and,
however, contrasts with §824 of the Metaphysics, where we read “If God were not
actual, then the principle of contradiction . . . would be false.”
 “      ” 113

Therefore, Baumgarten oscillates between a mannered concession to Pietism in

the context of a fundamentally rationalist attitude and a deeper, more systematic
recourse to moral theology. In any case, these two elements share one aspect that
marks a clear break with Kant: namely, the absence of a recognition of the intrinsic
value of the moral good.
On the one hand, despite what in Kant’s eyes is a meritorious valorization
of obligation, its treatment according to degrees anchors Baumgarten to a ration-
alistic calculus that does not allow him to characterize the moral good in quali-
tative terms. On the other hand, this weakens another aspect of Baumgarten’s
ethics, with which Kant could in principle agree, namely, non-Eudaimonism.
Indeed, despite the scant space that happiness finds in his practical philosophy,
Baumgarten admits the possibility of rewards for “every free good determination”
(BIP §110), which can even become an instrument through which natural law
exerts obligation. As Baumgarten states: “the law of nature is: commit whatever
promises the most and greatest rewards, and omit its opposite (§70, 110)” (BIP
§111). It is not surprising that Kant’s dissatisfaction on this point resembles his
abovementioned criticism regarding Baumgarten’s definition of perfection not
only as an end but also as a means (PrHer, 27:14).
For Baumgarten even the atheist must concede that “every free good determi-
nation has its own good implications, and hence natural rewards (§34, BM §907)”
(BIP §110), but—again with a Pietistic accent—he admits what the atheist will
deny, namely, that natural rewards can always be regarded as “likewise divine and
chosen (§109)” (BIP §110).¹⁰ What is at stake here is not merely a defense of the
possibility of interpreting natural law also as if it were a divine product; for, in the
previous section on the legislator, Baumgarten had already established the actu-
ality of divine legislation, stating:

God is the author of obligations, and indeed of the natural laws (BM §940, 317).
Since he has the supreme right concerning the giving of laws (BM §972), he is the
legislator of natural law and the whole of the right of nature broadly considered.
D ,  and  are those things that have God as author
and legislator. (BIP §100).¹¹

¹⁰ The figure of the “theoretical atheist” returns often in the Elements: he must admit the cogency of
the moral law as the law of nature “ independently of his own error” (BIP §101, tr. 2020: 85; see also
§35, 71, 110, 119), at the same time “no small defect is uncovered in the right of nature or practical
philosophy belonging to the atheist” (§111, tr. 2020: 90, see also §120, tr. 2020: 94–5).
¹¹ At §104 (tr. 2020: 86) Baumgarten writes that “There is no true antinomy among the strictly, and
most strictly, revealed positive divine laws and those revealed by the right of nature (§85, BM §991),”
but the conditions he invites to be checked in this paragraph are meant only to ensure harmony
between the two perspectives. Although sometimes—like at §69 of the Elements—Baumgarten seems to
reject, with Wolff (1724, §134, and §422), the theory of divine command (see also BIP §36, 102), a
passage such as §100 seems an excellent example of his concessions to Pietism (or at any rate to moral
theology) beyond what Wolffian rationalism is willing to do.
114  

Baumgarten refers then to the degrees of revelation through which “the right of
nature as well as each of the natural laws and obligations” (BIP §100) can be
known, thereby reaffirming the core role of theological premises in his practical
philosophy and the consequent heteronomy of his ethics.
It is thus apparent how Baumgarten’s conception of God as author of the law
and lawgiver represents the fundamental target of the Kantian critique. From the
time of the Inquiry—almost coeval with the aforementioned lecture notes of
Herder—Kant in fact strives to provide a “secular” foundation for this obligation.
In this sense, he distinguishes the sphere of moral obligation from the pursuit
of happiness insofar as the former is characterized by necessitas legalis (UDG,
298; Kant 1992, 272).¹² In doing so, he grasps and signals the pivotal role of the
concept of obligation in the moral domain and complains about the lack of
clarity surrounding it (UDG, 298; Kant 1992, 272). While Kant certainly refers
to Baumgarten and Crusius when claiming the necessity of the end linked with
actions characterized by moral obligation (UDG 298; Kant 1992, 272), he refers to
the English tradition of moral feeling, and expressly to Hutcheson (UDG, 300;
Kant 1992, 274), not to defend the core role of obligation, but rather the idea that
the morally good has an absolute value, a value which moral feeling discloses to us
(Langlois 2018, 38–9).¹³
Yet, “at least until 1785” (Bacin 2015, 28) Kant does continue to grant a role to
God concerning moral legislation. It seems that, having acknowledged the cen-
trality of obligation, Kant was looking for a way to secularize this concept and,
having not yet found it, was treading a middle path between Baumgarten and the
tenets of his own mature ethics. This is quite evident with regard to a distinction
through which Kant criticizes the statement in §100 of the Elements, i.e. that God
is as much the author of natural law as he is the lawgiver (as author of the
obligation linked to this law). Both the Reflexionen and the lecture notes of the
1760s, 1770s, and early 1780s show Kant’s insistence on the distinction between
author of the law and lawgiver (Gesetzgeber).
The underlying assumption is that “there are arbitrary <willkürliche>, there are
natural laws. The former have an author, the latter a legislator” (R 6680, AA
19:131; see also R 6769, AA 19:156; R 7090, AA 19:247). In the case of the moral
law Kant does not allow for authorship by God because that would make the
law positive, and therefore arbitrary and contingent, whereas it should be
possible to consider it as natural, namely uncreated (PrPow 27:145; MoM
29:635; MSVig 27: 544–5; 1997:302), just like the properties of a geometric figure
(e.g. MoC 27:283; 1997:76; PPP 27:137; MoM 29:634). However, in these years

¹² Note in a passage like this an early inclination toward a legal lexicon, in which Baumgarten’s
influence is likely playing a part.
¹³ We cannot here go into more detail concerning Crusius’ position, in which the moral dimension
depends upon the theological one more clearly and sharply than in Baumgarten, see Langlois 2018, 40.
 “      ” 115

Kant repeatedly admits that God can be considered the author of the obligation
connected with the moral law, and in this sense as a “lawgiver.”¹⁴ For instance, in
the Moralphilosophie Collins we read that “any moral law is an order, and they
may be commands of the divine will, but they do not flow from such a command”
(MoC 27:277; 1997:68). The reference to God’s will is certainly in line with
Baumgarten’s position, on which Kant is commenting here. Kant then immedi-
ately refers to those aforementioned hints, in which Baumgarten seemed to
consider God as playing only the role of a lawgiver—i.e. as the one who makes
the obligation effective—with respect to a law whose morality is independent of
him: “God has commanded it because it is a moral law, and His will coincides with
the moral law. It also seems that all obligation has a relation to one who obliges,
and thus God appears to be the obligator of human laws” (MoC 27:277; 1997:68).
Yet, as we have seen, Baumgarten silenced these hints in §100 of the Elements,
where God is peremptorily defined as the author of both the moral law and its
obligation. Kant is thus willing to follow Baumgarten only in granting God the
role of author of the obligation: “God is the lawgiver but not the creator of moral
laws” (PPP 27:147).¹⁵
This concession is in line with a problem that occupies Kant at this stage of his
reflection and that not surprisingly emerges from the very pages of these courses,
namely, the shift from the “decision-question <qvaestio diiudicationis>: what is
good?” to the “execution [question]: why should I do this good?” (R 6972, AA
19:217). This is basically the problem of motivation: what motivates the subject
actually to implement the maxim recognized as good? In other words: what makes
the obligation effective?

In performance, to be sure, there must indeed be a third being, who constrains us

to do what is morally good. But for the making of moral judgments we have no
need for any third being. All moral laws can be correct without such a being. But
in execution they would be empty if no third being could constrain us to them. It
has therefore been rightly perceived that without a supreme judge all moral laws
would be without effect, since in that case there would be no inner motive, no
reward and no punishment. Hence the knowledge of God is needed in the
execution of moral laws. (MoC 27:277–8)¹⁶

Of course, the central point is to understand the nature of this “knowledge of God”
and how it can determine our moral action, assuming that such a determination
is possible based on this knowledge. In the light of the foregoing, it is apparent

¹⁴ On Kant’s use of the distinction between “author of the law” and “lawgiver” against Baumgarten,
see Bacin 2015, 27–8; Irwin 2004, 150–3, and Irwin 2009, 156–7; Kain 2004, 281–5; Reath 2006, 145–6.
¹⁵ See also PrHer 27:10; 1997: 6; Kant 2004, 61, 79; Pädagogik AA 9:494.
¹⁶ See also Kaehler, 55–6, 62.
116  

that much of the distance separating Kant from Baumgarten concerning the
foundation of practical philosophy is played out in this passage. Although having
grasped early on the impossibility of considering the moral law as created, and
thus positive and arbitrary, Kant has the problem of explaining how the self-
legislation that the moral subject recognizes as grounded in his practical reason
has an actual capacity to obligate, that is, how it can constitute a concrete
motivation to act morally.
Still, in the Canon of Pure Reason Kant had essentially argued that the main
motives in the performance of moral duty should be identified with hope in
rewards or fear of otherworldly punishment (KrV, A 811–12/B 839–40; 1998,
680–1). This was part of a conception of the highest good that would be signif-
icantly revised in the second Critique. As mentioned above, an important
watershed in the evolution of Kant’s position on these issues is represented by
1785 with the publication of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. As is
well known, at the core of this text Kant places the autonomy of the will, by
virtue of which he makes a clean sweep of any residue of heteronomy, beginning
with any reference to God, in the foundation of morality. In so doing, he also
refuses to ascribe to God the role—albeit residual with respect to Baumgarten—
that he still seemed to accord to him in the earlier notes and lectures, namely
that of a “legislator” who is the “author of obligation.” In the second section
of the Groundwork, he nonetheless recognizes an author of the moral law, which
is not God but the will:

Hence the will is not merely subject to the law but subject to it in such a way
that it must be viewed as also giving the law to itself and just because of this as
first subject to the law (of which it can regard itself as the author). (GMS 4:431;
1996a, 81)

It has been argued that in this passage Kant refers to the will as the “author” of the
law just as he employed the word “legislator” to indicate the author of the
obligation in the previous notes and lectures (Bacin 2013, 64; Kain 2004, 285).
In other words, autonomy is accomplished only at the moment when the legisla-
tion of practical reason, expressed by the moral law, is freely and concretely
chosen by the will. The will thereby makes this law its necessarily binding
maxim,¹⁷ and thus gives a law to itself, i.e. realizes self-legislation.
In a note likely coeval with the Groundwork, Kant argues these issues in terms
that are interestingly reminiscent of Baumgarten:

¹⁷ Kant recognizes the centrality of obligation as soon as the Preface of GMS: “The dependence upon
the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation” (GMS
4:439; 1996a, 88; see also NRFey 27:1326).
 “      ” 117

The necessitation <Nöthigung> of a rational being through the mere knowledge

of the law is the obligation <Verbindlichkeit>. Yet the law can only compel a
rational being, and this can only recognize itself as compelled, if this recognizes
the universal validity [of the law] for every will, and hence also the necessary
assent of its own will to it. (R 6187, AA 18:483)

However, the position expressed in these lines is quite different from Baumgarten,
because Kant uses the term “necessitation” to emphasize the insufficiency of
merely knowing the law for the effectiveness of the obligation. What is indeed
further needed is an assent (Einstimmung) on the part of the will with respect to
the universal validity of this obligation. In Baumgarten, obligation flowed directly
from the knowledge of a motive at the very moment that this motive prevailed in
the moral agent—even sensibly—over weaker ones. Furthermore, this gnoseolo-
gical criterion was placed within an ontological hierarchy that had God at its top,
so that the obligation was ultimately toward the “glory of God.”
Thus, in Baumgarten the necessity by which obligation is concretely effective as
motivation has a theological root and a psychological nature so that the prevailing
motivating factor is immediately effective as a motivation. For Kant, instead,
the difference in our good or bad will is not explained through degrees of our
knowledge, but through the act of our practical self-determination. The question
concerning the foundation of our obligation is certainly akin to the question
concerning our subjective disposition to obey the moral law, but it is not
identical to it. Indeed, I must first be clear about how morality is possible as
autonomous self-legislation, and then ask myself whether I want to act morally
(Klemme 2014, 67–8).
By defending autonomy against an ultimately theological foundation of ethics,
Kant defines a self-legislation that takes place in two stages: one connected with
the knowledge of the moral law and another connected with the free assent
granted to it on the basis of the recognition of its universality and necessity.
Only in this way does it make sense for Kant to speak of “necessitation.” The
problem with the Groundwork emerges precisely at this point. Although in the
second section, on the basis of the formulations of the categorical imperative,¹⁸
Kant goes so far as to admit “a world of rational beings (mundus intelligibilis) as a
kingdom of ends,” whose members are lawgivers “through the giving of their own
laws by all persons as members” (GMS 4:438; 1996a, 87), a crucial question is left
open. We need to explain how the will, in rational beings, can be endowed with its
own autonomous causality enabling it to give laws to itself and oblige itself to
follow them. That is, we must provide a deduction of the moral law, which implies
a definition of freedom and its peculiar causality.

¹⁸ Decisive in this regard are the references to humanity as an end in itself (GMS 4:429; 1996a, 80)
and to “the will of every rational being as a will giving universal law” (GMS 4:431; 1996a, 81).
118  

In the third section, Kant tries to define freedom by equating it with autonomy.
From a practical point of view, being able to think of freedom already means being
free, but this is not an ontological property of rational beings. Indeed, although
“we have finally traced the determinate concept of morality back to the idea of
freedom” (GMS 4:448; 1996a, 96), “we could not even prove the latter as some-
thing real in ourselves and in human nature” (GMS 4:448; 1996a, 96). We still
need to explain how it is possible to acquire that “interest” of practical reason that
sensibly motivates us to act morally and which consists in making ourselves
worthy of happiness “even without the motive of participating in this happiness”
(GMS 4:450; 1996a, 97).¹⁹ It is a matter of that particular satisfaction possible only
on the basis of free adherence to the moral law (GMS 4:396; 1996a, 52), a “feeling
of pleasure or of delight in the fulfillment of duty,” whose origin cannot be made
“comprehensible a priori” “for a sensibly affected rational being” (GMS 4:460;
1996a, 52).
As is well-known, Kant’s solution relies on the acknowledgment of two natures
coexisting in the human being: the phenomenal and the noumenal. It is by virtue
of the latter, that is, by belonging to an intelligible world, that the unconditionality
of freedom can be conceived. Removing the contradiction between these two
dimensions is the business of speculative reason, which thereby makes room for
practical reason (GMS 4:456–7; 1996a, 102–3),²⁰ but without this removal allow-
ing us “to comprehend how freedom is possible” (GMS 4:456; 1996a, 102). The
conclusion of the Groundwork is actually aporetic: “freedom, however, is a mere
idea, the objective reality of which can in no way be presented in accordance with
laws of nature and so too cannot be presented in any possible experience; [ . . . ] It
holds only as a necessary presupposition of reason in a being that believes itself
to be conscious of a will” (GMS 4:459; 1996a, 105). “How this presupposition
itself is possible”—although it is not only possible but also necessary for the
validity of the categorical imperative—“can never be seen by any human reason”
(GMS 4:461; 1996a, 106).
In the argumentative structure of the Groundwork, reference to the divine plays
almost no role. When Kant refers to it, as the highest (original) good, he specifies
that we have this concept “solely from the idea of moral perfection that reason
frames a priori and connects inseparably with the concept of a free will” (GMS
4:408–9; 1996a, 63). Nevertheless, in the Dialectic of the KpV the existence of
God—and the immortality of the soul—plays a decisive role as a postulate of
practical reason with regard to the attainment of the highest (derived) good, that
is, the union of virtue and the happiness proportionate to morality. Of course,
before getting to this point, in the Analytic Kant must overcome the impasse of the
Groundwork by famously reversing the terms in which the problem was presented

¹⁹ See also the letter to M. Herz, end 1773, AA 10:145; 1999: 140.
²⁰ See also KrV BXXV; 1998: 114–15.
 “      ” 119

in 1785. It is no longer a matter of founding a supposed deduction of the moral

law based on a definition of freedom but of starting from the moral law, which is
immediately evident as a “fact of reason,” and deducing the reality of freedom
(KpV 5:31; 1996a, 164).
For our purposes, this acquisition, although problematic, has immediate reper-
cussions. Indeed, by assuming the mutual determination between freedom and the
moral law, one has in fact gained practical access to the intelligible dimension. On
this basis, an attempt can be made to resolve the antinomy of practical reason
emerging between the two dimensions that the moral law requires to be connected
in the highest good, namely the intelligible dimension of virtue and the sensible
dimension of happiness (see KpV 5:109–10; 1996a, 228).
Solving this antinomy is crucial because “if [ . . . ] the highest good is impossible
in accordance with practical rules, then the moral law, which commands us to
promote it, must be fantastic and directed to empty imaginary ends and must
therefore in itself be false” (KpV 5:114; 1996a, 231). This state of affairs requires
the possibility of an intelligible order, that of the moral law, to act on causally but
freely and to be accomplished in the phenomenal-sensible order. However, the
contingency and thus the finitude of the being whose action is supposed to fulfill
this causality, namely the human being, represents a problem, whence the need to
postulate the access to an infinite dimension such as that disclosed by the
immortality of the soul.
Yet even more relevant for our purpose is the clash between the “practical task
of pure reason” consisting “in the necessary pursuit of the highest good” (KpV
5:125; 1996a, 231) and the following remark:

there is not the least ground in the moral law for a necessary connection
between the morality and the proportionate happiness of a being belonging to
the world as part of it and hence dependent upon it, who for that reason cannot
by his will be a cause of this nature and, as far as his happiness is concerned,
cannot by his own powers make it harmonize thoroughly with his practical
principles. (KpV, 5:124–5; 1996a, 240)

For the fulfillment of this morality to be causally followed by happiness, therefore,

it is necessary to postulate the existence of God because “the highest good in the
world is possible only insofar as a supreme cause of nature having a causality in
keeping with the moral disposition is assumed” (KpV 5:125; 1996a, 240). A being
capable of such causality is “an intelligence (a rational being)” and its causality in
accordance with the representation of laws is “his will.” “Therefore, the supreme
cause of nature, insofar as it must be presupposed for the highest good, is a being
that is the cause of nature by understanding and will (hence its author), that is,
God” (KpV 5:125; 1996a, 240–1; see also KpV 5:140; 1996a, 252). As is evident, in
a decisively altered context, Kant leverages not only divine understanding but also
120  

divine will, as Baumgarten already had and who in this sense had departed from
the theological rationalism of his time.
Practical reason, therefore, has both a need (Bedürfniß) and a warrant
(Befugniß) (KpV 5:125; 1996a, 241) to postulate the existence of God because
this serves to fulfill the duty, imposed on us by the moral law, to achieve the
highest good (Gallois 2008, 134). However, while working toward the promotion
of the highest (derived) good is a moral duty, postulating the existence of God (as
the highest original good) answers a subjective need, dictated by the limitation of
human reason (KpV 5:125; 1996a, 241). Thus, the subjective necessity of this
postulate cannot ground morality, on pain of loss of autonomy, and this stands in
stark contrast to Baumgarten.
At the same time, while Kant rejects God as the foundation of practical
philosophy and obligation, which arises within the section of the Elements on
the Legislator, he also develops, and in some ways radicalizes, those passages of the
Elements in which Baumgarten alludes to “a supplement” to the right of nature
“subjectively considered” in the form of “divine positive right and revealed moral
theology” (BIP §98). At stake here is a particular sense of the concept of “justice”
not explicitly thematized by Kant but deducible from his glosses to Baumgarten.
Where in fact Baumgarten formulated “the law of nature” as “commit whatever
promises the most and greatest rewards, and omit its opposite (§70, 110)” (BIP
§111), Kant replaces “promises <spondet>” with “merits <meretur>” (R 6523, AA
19:54). Apart from references to rewards—to which we will have to return—the
centrality of merit must be emphasized here. It is practical reason itself that
demands that those who are worthy of happiness should obtain it and that this
happiness should be proportionate to morality. A lack in only one of these two
desiderata would generate an injustice that would itself be at odds with morality.
The sense of Kant’s recourse to the postulate of God’s existence in this frame-
work is well captured by the concept of a “pure practical rational belief <reiner
praktischer Vernunftglaube>” (KpV 5:144; 1996a, 255), which allows us to analyze
how the notion of “justice” outlined above can be either misleading or fruitful
depending on whether it is applied to the theological idea of God, thus encroach-
ing on theodicy, or to religion as a heuristic horizon of morality.

III

Theodicy and Religion: What Remains of Moral Theology. Baum has rightly
observed that the methodological reversal of the GMS by the KpV overcomes
but actually does not resolve the aporia that emerged in 1785. In light of what we
can positively claim about the intelligible world, the results of the “deduction of
the supreme principle of morality” (GMS 4:463; 1996a, 108) are the same as those
emerging from the second Critique: reason “cannot make comprehensible as
 “      ” 121

regards its absolute necessity an unconditional practical law (such as the catego-
rical imperative must be)” (GMS 4:463; 1996a, 108; Baum 2014, 222).
In any case, in the KpV Kant openly claims that he does not see this as a
limitation because his approach does not suppose the gnoseological necessity of
knowing the causa noumenon, that is, a theoretical-speculative access to the
supersensible dimension. Accordingly, in this context, practical reason uses cau-
sality “for none other than a practical purpose; and thus it can transfer the
determining ground of the will into the intelligible order of things inasmuch as
it readily admits at the same time that it does not understand how the concept of
cause might be determined for cognition of these things” (KpV 5:49; 1996a,
179–80). Indeed, “as for the concept which it makes of its own causality as
noumenon,” practical reason “need not determine it theoretically with a view to
cognition of its supersensible existence and so need not be able to give it signif-
icance in this way [ . . . ] For, the concept receives significance apart from this—
though only for practical use—namely, through the moral law” (KpV 5:49–50;
1996a, 180).
Likewise, in practical use we can refer to God as the guarantor of justice as
expressed by the highest derived good because it is clear that at the practical level a
theoretical-speculative knowledge of God, such as that to which natural theology
strives, is not required. By contrast, in Baumgarten the obligation is ultimately
oriented by the possibility of knowing God as ontologically determined. Kant’s
distinction between theoretical and practical use of reason thus allows us to
understand the limits of reference to God in the moral sphere, especially when
it comes to divine justice. In the lecture-note of the 1780s, we read: “through
morality we recognize God as a holy lawgiver <heiliger Gesetzgeber>, a benevolent
sustainer of the world <gütiger Weltversorger>, and a just judge <gerechter
Richter>” (AA 28:1073; 1996b, 408; emphasis in original).²¹
The unity of these three characteristics is complex. Here justice seems in a sense
to act as a mediator between holiness and goodness as “a negative perfection,
because it limits [God’s] goodness in the measure that we have not made ourselves
worthy of it” (Philosophische Religionslehre Pölitz, AA 28:1076; 1996a, 410²²). The
notes are even more explicit, stating that although “God’s justice is usually divided
into justitiam remunerativam et punitivam; according as God punishes evil and
rewards good,” “the rewards God bestows on us proceed not from his justice but
from his benevolence. For if they came to us from justice, then there would be no
praemia gratuita; but rather we would have to possess some right to demand
them, and God would have to be bound to give them to us” (AA 28:1085; 1996a, 417).

²¹ See also Mrongovius Rational Theology, AA 28:1284; Natürliche Theologie Volckmann, AA

28:1184; Met-K2, AA 28:805; Met-Dohna, AA 28:699.
²² See also Mrongovius Rational Theology, AA 28:1284, 1286, 1292; Natürliche Theologie
Volckmann, AA 28:1185, 1188; Friedman 2022, 11.
122  

Quite to the contrary, “Justice gives nothing gratuitously; it gives to each only the
merited reward. But even if we unceasingly observe all moral laws, we can never
do more than is our duty; hence we can never expect rewards from God’s justice”
(AA 28:1085; 1996a, 417).
Here the employment of Baumgarten’s legal vocabulary is balanced by a clear
rejection of his consideration of the possibility of God granting gratuitous
rewards. On this view, for God there would be no difference between distributive
and retributive justice “since to distribute desert according to worth, at least to
such creatures as we are, is to directly distribute retribution” (Friedman 2022, 15).
On Friedman’s account, it is, therefore, necessary to identify a “permissive space”
in which God, considering the imperfection of human beings, can grant them
rewards that would be undeserved in terms of “nomic justice,” but in the terms of a
“philic justice” are nevertheless not unjust. In this way, while justice defends God’s
holiness against an excess of goodness, his goodness, which is also one of his
perfections, is defended against the severity of his holiness (Friedman 2022, 12–16).
Friedman’s refined analysis deserves a separate discussion, but for our purposes
it is interesting because it identifies two levels in God’s justice. One is closely
related to God’s rigorous justice, which is not theoretically accessible by human
understanding and against which all human effort is immeasurable. On the other
level, justice is taken less strictly, but without contradicting the concept of God,
whose perfections include goodness. In the latter case, we can conceive in practical
terms a relationship between virtue and happiness governed by a concept of
justice understandable and acceptable in human terms. It is apparent that in
this scenario God’s role with respect to morality is not foundational, but rather
heuristic.
When one unduly claims to base a moral evaluation of God and his justice on
the theoretical-speculative understanding of his essence, one falls into the errors
described by On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy (1791).
From the very first lines of this short text Kant claims that even “the defending of
God’s cause,” through trying to give reason to what seems to contrast to his
wisdom, is in reality no more than the cause “of our presumptuous reason failing
to recognize its limitations” (AA 8:255; 1996b, 24). In the first note, Kant states
that “none other than a moral proof” (AA 8:256; 1996b, 25) for God’s existence
could be valid for reason, since we can deduce the existence of such a being neither
from experience nor from the simple transcendental concept of this being. “Divine
wisdom judges” what humans take as violations of divine wisdom in the world
“according to totally different rules, incomprehensible to us, where, what we with
right find reprehensible with reference to our practical reason and its determina-
tion might yet perhaps be in relation to the divine ends and the highest wisdom
precisely the most fitting means to our particular welfare and the greatest good of
the world as well” (AA 8:258; 1996b, 27). Therefore, the pretended philosophical
defenses against what in the world seems to be at odds with God’s attributes,
 “      ” 123

namely holiness, goodness and justice, clash with the formula sunt superis sua iura.
Indeed, any reference to the unfathomable divine wisdom to justify “evil proper
<das eigentliche Böse (Sünde)>” as sin, “ill <Übel>” as pain and the “disproportion
<Mißverhältniß> between crimes and penalties in the world” “cut the knot” but
cannot untie it, “which is what theodicy claims to be capable of accomplishing”
(AA 8:260; 1996b, 28).
At the beginning of the final note of the Miscarriage Kant significantly employs
the word Unvermögen to claim that the best expression of authentic theodicy
consists in admitting the “impotence of our reason, and our honesty in not
distorting our thoughts in what we say, however pious our intention” (AA 8:267;
1996a, 34; Lorini 2016, 122).
However, a few years later, in the Religion, Kant addresses the relationship
between religion and morality in a positive sense. Here, Kant does not aim to
define a religion deduced from mere reason, but rather to define a religion
placed within these limits, as appears as soon as the Preface to the first edition of
the text:

So far as morality is based on the conception of the human being as one who is
free but who also, just because of that, binds himself through his reason to
unconditional laws, it is in need neither of the idea of another being above him
in order that he recognizes his duty, nor, that he observe it, of an incentive other
than the law itself [ . . . ] Hence on its own behalf morality in no way needs
religion [ . . . ] but is rather self-sufficient by virtue of pure practical reason.
(Rel 6:3; 1996b, 57)

The independence of morality from any determining ground external to practical

reason is certainly consistent with the positions expressed in this regard both in
the Groundwork and in the KpV. Kant contends indeed that God’s existence can
never hold as a determining ground for moral action. At the same time, he still
defends the necessity to postulate the existence of God as both the condition of the
existence of the highest good and the object of a “pure faith of reason” (Rel 6:138;
1996b, 164). Yet, in 1788 he goes a step further by developing a highly challenging
point of his ethics, namely, the link between assuming “the existence of this
supreme intelligence” and “the consciousness of our duty” (KpV 5:126; 1996a,
241): “But although on its own behalf morality does not need the representation of
an end which would have to precede the determination of the will, it may well be
that it has a necessary reference to such an end, not as the ground of its maxims
but as a necessary consequence accepted in conformity to them” (Rel 6:4;
1996b, 58).
This drives Kant to maintain that, in order to admit “the idea of a highest good
in the world, [ . . . ] we must assume a higher, moral, most holy, and omnipotent
being,” an idea that “rises out of morality and is not its foundation; [ . . . ] it
124  

is an end which to make one’s own already presupposes ethical principles”

(Rel 6:5; 1996b, 58). As a consequence: “Morality thus inevitably leads to religion,
and through religion it extends itself to the idea of a mighty moral lawgiver outside
the human being, in whose will the final end [ . . . ] is what can and at the same
ought to be the final human end” (Rel. AA 6:6; 1996b, 59–60).
Thus, in the definition of religion as the “recognition of all our duties as divine
commands” (Rel, AA6:153; 1996b, 177), the “as <als>” does not mean “insofar as
our duties are [divine commands]” but rather “as if they were [so]” (see Sala 2004,
235). This means that human nature needs at least the representation of a
transcendent idea, which serves as the “analogue of a purpose” for moral action.²³
Therefore, the reference to a transcendent dimension is not superfluous even in
the moral understanding of religion.
Therefore, Kant claims that the title of his work shall not merely indicate the
reduction of religion to morality.²⁴ Furthermore, he places a General Remark at
the end of each chapter, which, in terms of revealed theology, is supposed to
integrate the chiefly rational perspective of the text. Finally, Kant introduces the
concept of “reflecting faith,” which can serve reason by possibly making available
for it what belongs to the “inscrutable field of the supernatural,” thereby supplying
that “moral impotence” (Rel 6:52n; 1996b, 96), which was already acknowledged
in the Miscarriage (Lorini 2019, 282).
In such a framework, religion is clearly distinguished from any religious belief,
and should rather be understood as a “purely moral religion,” accessible through
reason alone, which can therefore legitimately aspire to universality (Rel, 6:103–4;
1996b, 137–8). Religion thus serves as a vehicle for morality, and behind any form
of obedience to a command “as if ” it came from God we can grasp a form of
adherence to the moral law that Kant defines as “the true (moral) service of God”
(Rel 6:192; 1996b, 208). To this view of religion, Kant opposes “the transaction of
an affair of God” or “a religion of divine service (cultus),” characterized by a
“passive obedience” (Rel 6:103; 1996b, 139), which can be identified with the
obedience emerging from the section on religion of Baumgarten’s Ethics (BEP
§90–1; Osawa 2018, 117).

IV

A Possible (not Unproblematic) Synthesis: The Metaphysics of Morals. Religion

understood in the sense gained in the previous paragraph is what Kant refers to in
the Metaphysics of Morals when he speaks of the “duty of religion.” Such a duty

²³ Analogy is not meant here in the technical sense, as Kant defines it in Logic, AA 9:132; 1992: 626,
and employs it, e.g. in the KU, 5:463–5, 2000: 327–9.
²⁴ See the preliminary notes to the second edition of Rel, 23: 91, 93–6.
 “      ” 125

concerns “what lies entirely beyond the limits of our experience but whose
possibility is met with in our ideas, for example, the idea of God” (MS 6:443;
1996a, 564). With a clear echo of the Religion this duty consists in “recognizing
all our duties as (instar) divine commands” (MS 6:443; 1996a, 564). Yet Kant
adds that “this is not consciousness of a duty to God,” since “in this (practical)
sense [ . . . ] to have religion is a duty of the human being to himself ” (MS 6:443–4;
1996a, 564), thereby reaffirming an unbridgeable distance from Baumgarten’s
theologically grounded ethics, at the basis of which are duties to God (BEP,
Pref. 1751; AA 27:737, §21–2).
However, this “duty of religion” that requires the admission of God’s existence
seems to be in partial tension with the second Critique, where the existence of God
as a postulate of practical reason met a merely subjective need, since “pure
practical rational belief ” could not be imposed as a duty. Yet in the Metaphysics
of Morals, the admission of God’s existence acquires a heuristic function, which
justifies the duty to admit God as the supreme moral lawgiver and as the object of
a religion (understood in the sense clarified in the Religion).
This point is crucial since it allows the relationship between morality and
religion to be clearly fixed with respect to all the key notions analyzed so far,
namely (self-)legislation, obligation, motivation, and justice. Religion brings with
it a possible reference to a transcendent dimension, with respect to which,
negatively, reason can only try not to stand in contradiction. Positively, reason’s
appropriation of religion takes place on the practical level to the extent that
practical reason draws from religion the elements that serve to ensure the accom-
plishment of morality. This results in a particular form of justice, which is attained
if we achieve happiness by fulfilling what makes us worthy of it.
For this to be attained it must be possible to appeal, under the conditions
defined in the previous paragraph, to the distributive justice of God as a supreme
moral lawgiver.²⁵ However, this appeal, though enforceable as a duty by a rational-
moral religion, can at best be translated into a hypothetical imperative, in the
service of a categorical one (Campagna 2013, 204). In this regard, in the
Metaphysics of Morals Kant reverts to a terminological issue concerning which
he had already criticized Baumgarten:

A (morally practical) law is a proposition that contains a categorical imperative

(a command). One who commands (imperans) through a law is the lawgiver
[legislator]. He is the author (autor) of the obligation in accordance with the law,
but not always the author of the law. In the latter case the law would be a positive
(contingent) and chosen law. (MS 6:227; 1996a, 381)

²⁵ Brandt (1993, 28) argues that when ethics designates as the object of duty that by which we make
ourselves worthy of happiness it is appealing to God’s distributive justice. As examples of this he brings:
KrV A804–19; KpV 5:107–48; KU 5:469–74.
126  

Here Kant sticks to the distinction settled at the very beginning of his commentary
on the Elements, namely that between the “author of the law” and the “author of
the obligation in accordance with the law.” Interestingly, after not even being
hinted at in the GMS and KpV, here the distinction re-emerges in the text that
offers the most complete version of Kantian morality through the integration into
a single framework of law and ethics, which are differentiated not on the basis of
the content they prescribe, but precisely on the basis of the diverse obligation-type:
external for law and internal for ethics.
Kant goes further and seems to even open to a voluntarist vision:

A law that binds us a priori and unconditionally by our own reason can
also be expressed as proceeding from the will of a supreme lawgiver,
that is, one who has only rights and no duties (hence from the divine will).
(MS 6:227; 2006, 381)

On closer inspection, however, two textual elements dispel this impression.

On the one hand, Kant states that the law that binds us a priori “can also be
expressed as proceeding from the will of a supreme lawgiver.” This suggests
that we need to understand the reference to this lawgiver in the same way
as, several pages later, we are told to understand the duty of religion, namely,
as requiring us to think of our duties merely “as (instar)” divine commands.
That is, it is an analogical reference to the divine with the purpose of strength-
ening, but not founding, moral obligation. Moreover, immediately following
Kant adds: “but this signifies only the idea of a moral being whose will is
a law for everyone, without his being thought as the author of the law”
(MS 6:227; 2006, 381).
Among the most immediate and glaring consequences of removing the God of
theology from the foundations of ethics is the way Kant understands “the ends
that are also duties,” identified with “one’s own perfection and the happiness of
others” (MS 6:385; 1996a, 517; emphasis in original). On the one hand, Kant’s
early criticism of Baumgarten’s concept of perfection (and the consequent imper-
ative) meets here a positive alternative: the only subject on whom it is legitimate to
impose as a duty (and as a purpose) to pursue perfection is ourselves, since our
own perfection can never serve as a means to others’ perfection. On the other
hand, the anti-eudaimonist approach demands that the only happiness to be
promoted is the happiness of others. Yet, even more important is that we are
talking about “duties to oneself” and “duties to others,” since duties to God, which
Baumgarten placed first in his own ethics, have no place here (see also Kuehn
2010, 22).
Such a picture depends on the fact that, as already argued, although Kant agrees
in principle with Baumgarten’s anti-eudaimonist and (especially) anti-voluntarist
 “      ” 127

instances, he rejects the metaphysical claim of theology, that is, the claim to attain
a knowledge of God such that it can exert a direct influence on the faculties of the
subject in terms of indicating the moral duty.
The Doctrine of the Methods of Ethics expresses with almost schematic
clarity this state of affairs. Ethical Didactics claims the need for a Moral
Catechism, which “must precede a religious catechism,” and “cannot be inter-
woven, merely as an interpolation, in the teachings of religion but must rather be
presented separately, as a self-subsistent whole” (MS 6:478; 1996a, 592). Indeed,
“it is only by pure moral principles that a transition from the doctrine of virtue
to religion can be made, since otherwise the professions of religion would be
impure” (MS 6:478; 1996a, 592).
Coming then concretely to a Fragment of this Catechism, in the Remark
connected with this paragraph, Kant argues that in it “the greatest care must be
taken to base the command of duty not on the advantages or disadvantages that
follow from observing it, whether for the one it is to put under obligation or even
for others, but quite purely on the moral principle” (MS 6:482; 1996a, 595).
Through this “cultivation of reason <Cultur der Vernunft>,” “the pupil is drawn
without noticing it to an interest in morality <Interesse der Sittlichkeit>” (MS
6:484; 1996a, 596). This answers—in terms of an open pedagogical project and not
without anthropological implications—the question before which the GMS
stopped and which the KpV in fact did not resolve.
Beyond these last developments within Kant’s ethical reflection, the elements
acquired so far can only produce the outcome summarized in the title of the
conclusion of MS, which is directed against Baumgarten’s idea of ethics: Religion
as the doctrine of duties to God lies beyond the bounds of pure moral philosophy
(MS 6:486; 1996a, 598).
The meaning of the quotation placed in the title of this chapter is perhaps now
clearer. Taking up the words that Dio Cassius puts into the mouth of Brutus,
Bacon wants to emphasize that, without a divine foundation, Stoic ethics turns out
to be built on sand and not “upon the rock” (Bacon 2001, 189). Kant’s reference to
God’s existence in ethics critically transposes this issue because he does not make
it a ground for a theological foundation of ethics. Rather, he places this reference
to God in a religious framework, but at the same time means by religion a heuristic
horizon to which morality points so as to consolidate itself. Underneath this
crucial methodological turn, there is a deep anthropological issue, which we
cannot delve into here.
Without God to ground ethics, the obligation of the moral law is based on human
reason alone and struggles to establish itself as the exclusive motivation in the realm
of moral action. Thus, when we pursue a “cultivation of morality in us,” and try to
trace action back to its motivation, we face an insurmountable problem: “a human
being cannot see into the depths of his own heart so as to be quite certain, in even a
128  

single action, of the purity of his moral intention and the sincerity of his disposition,
even when he has no doubt about the legality of the action” (MS 6:392; 1996a, 523;
see also GMS 4:407; 1996a, 61–2).
This is the price, expensive but acceptable, of an ethic built upon the autonomy
of a subject conceived of as a Selbstdenker.
 7
Baumgarten and Kant on Conscience
Allen Wood

The texts for most of Kant’s lectures—on metaphysics, natural theology, ethics,
even anthropology and empirical psychology—were the Latin textbooks written
by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Kant did make use of other authors in
teaching: Georg Friedrich Meier in logic, Johann August Eberhard in natural
theology, and Gottfried Achenwall in the philosophy of law. But we can never-
theless say that Baumgarten is the single author whose texts had the greatest
influence on Kant’s lectures. In lecturing on Baumgarten, Kant never hesitates to
disagree with him. But even the structure of the Critique of Pure Reason recog-
nizably follows the structure of Baumgarten’s Metaphysics.
Throughout Kant’s philosophy, we are struck by his use of legalistic and
forensic metaphors and parallels. Although the title Critique was drawn from
the writings on literary criticism of Henry Home, Lord Kames, Kant tells us that it
refers metaphorically to a legal forum before which the claims of metaphysics are
to be adjudicated. And the principle of morality for Kant is conceived as a law we
legislate for ourselves and for all rational beings thought of as a realm or com-
monwealth of ends just as a legislature gives civil and criminal laws for a
community. Many of Kant’s readers have been put off by the apparent “legalism”
of his conception of ethics, worrying that it entails a set of strict and inflexible
commands, or inferring (as Schopenhauer did) that it represents merely a deplor-
able legacy or relic of a divine command morality. It is true that Baumgarten was a
divine command moral theorist. But Kant was not. And those who have not seen
past the above negative thoughts have been misled when Kant’s use of legal
concepts has hidden from them the role of ends (duties of virtue and the highest
good) in his moral philosophy, as well as the fact that his ethics itself is conceived
as a Doctrine of Virtue. The thought that Kantian ethics is “legalistic” has also
given many the utterly false impression that its spirit is cold and hostile to human
emotions, whereas in fact Kantian ethics is above all an ethics of caring, for which
a good heart—love and respect, kept in balance—is the chief value.
It was indeed chiefly from Baumgarten (though also to an extent from
Achenwall) that Kant inherited the emphasis on law as the framework within
which he placed many of his ethical concepts. But the use of legal concepts by both
Baumgarten and Kant has much to be said for it. For both philosophers, the
idealized image of a legal process was a guiding idea when it comes to thinking

Allen Wood, Baumgarten and Kant on Conscience In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy.
Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press. © Allen Wood 2024.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0008
130  

about ethics. Its appeal to both would seem to rest on the thought that a fair
legal proceeding is a suitable image for the way reason can be the guide and
the standard in human affairs. Contrasting or competing claims and considera-
tions can be brought before an impartial authority that weighs them and renders a
fair verdict, giving all parties to any controversy a chance to present their case
and yielding a fair result which all should find acceptable and none may reason-
ably reject.
There are interesting connections but also differences between Baumgarten and
Kant regarding the concepts of obligation, imputation, deed, and conscience. We
can see them if we compare Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy
(1760) with Kant’s in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1794) and
the Metaphysics of Morals, especially the Doctrine of Virtue (1798). It is from
Baumgarten that Kant gets the thesis that the fundamental concept of ethics is
obligation (BIP §3, 10, MS 6:222). Both philosophers, moreover, see obligation in
judicial or forensic terms. What they see this way is not only legal obligation but
even moral obligation, or in religious contexts, the obligation to obey God—as a
matter of the judgment pronounced by a court or forum that renders verdicts on
actions and agents. For Baumgarten, moral obligation is seen theologically as our
obligation to obey God’s will. For Kant, moral obligation falls under a rational
principle, valid in itself, but it can be regarded as authored and legislated by our
own autonomous will. But for Kant even if the source of moral obligation is not
God, our duties can nevertheless be thought of as divine commands, because we
symbolize God as a morally perfect will and therefore think of all duties as willed
by him. The thought that God wills us to perform our moral duties and apportions
happiness according to worthiness enables us to consider divine volition as the
command of a legislator. For Kant, to be religious is to recognize all duties as
divine commands. A morally good person need not be religious in this sense, but
Kant thinks morality gives us practical grounds for belief in God and therefore for
thinking of our duties religiously.
Both for Baumgarten and for Kant, therefore, it holds that for an agent to be
judged, whether legally, morally, or religiously, the agent must be a person (BIP
§10; MS 6:223), that is, a being susceptible of having deeds imputed to it. For this
to be the case, the being must be the author (BIP §149–58; MS 6:223–4) of some
imputable deed (BIP §125; MS 6:227–8), an action falling under a law of some
kind. This makes the concept of imputation fundamental to Baumgarten’s ethics
as well as his philosophy of law and justice, and this is prominent in Baumgarten’s
presentation. Imputation is also an important concept in Kant, but its importance
has often not been properly appreciated by Kant’s followers and interpreters.
Misunderstandings of Kant’s views about imputation have led to some of the
commonest errors about Kant’s views on important ethical topics, such as con-
flicts of obligation, the scope of moral responsibility, the relation of moral judg-
ments to chance circumstances, and the role of conscience in the moral life. This
      131

last is the main topic of the present chapter, but it will help if we take a somewhat
broader perspective on the role of imputation in Kant’s ethics.

Imputation (imputatio, Zurechnung). Baumgarten distinguishes two kinds of

imputation, or two aspects of imputation. One is the imputation of a deed to an
agent (called the imputation of deed, imputatio facti), by which an agent is judged
to be the author of a deed. The second is imputation of law (imputatio legis), by
which the deed is judged to have some relation, such as guilt, innocence or merit,
to a law under which it falls. Kant draws the same distinction, distinguishing the
imputation that ascribes a factum to an agent (MSVig 27:570–1, 575) from the
imputation that judges the status of the act in relation to right or ethics, which he
calls the imputatio diiudicatoria; when the judgment has validity before laws of
right, it is called imputatio iudiciaria sive valida (MS 6:227).
Both philosophers therefore see conscience in judicial terms, though of course
one’s judgment of one’s own action cannot be that of an external Gerichtshof or
external court of law. Conscience is a judgment not of an external forum but an
internal one, the forum of agent’s own reason (BIP §182–3). It is a mistake to
think of this inner forum as a mere “picture” (Bild) or metaphor (as does
Heidegger 1962, 316). It is true that the judge in the inner court (i.e. oneself or
one’s own reason) seldom wears black robes or sits in a wood-paneled room
whose walls are covered with pretentious Latin quotations and hypocritical
religious slogans. But when the judgment of conscience is genuine; it gives a
valid verdict which deserves our respect at least as much as the verdicts rendered
by judges in our official courts of law, whose notorious incompetence, political
bias and corruption is the chief reason for all the pompous and expensive external
trappings intended (and often badly needed) to elicit respect from the public.
One difference between Baumgarten and Kant is that for Kant, a deed (factum)
in the technical sense, must fall under an obligation (MS 6:223), so that for Kant
there can be no imputatio facti unless there is also an imputatio legis. For
Baumgarten it is sufficient for any deed to be imputable if it meets certain
conditions required for moral responsibility (BIP §125–48). For Baumgarten,
there can be degrees of imputation, depending on the conditions of responsibility
and the kind and degree of understanding of the agent in relation to the deed.
A deed may therefore be imputable to an agent even if it is morally or legally
indifferent and is neither forbidden, obligatory, nor meritorious.
For Baumgarten, a judgment of imputation is quite broad in scope and signif-
icance, so that Baumgarten’s theory of imputation is best seen as a general theory
of free and morally responsible action. Imputation can include the interpretation
of deeds as to their intent (BIP §140–5). Baumgarten’s conception of imputation is
132  

in this way broader (or deeper) than Kant’s, which deals only with the question
whether a deed is judged right, wrong, or meritorious (in some degree) as falling
under a specific duty or duties (MS 6:227–8). In relation to conscience,
Baumgarten’s conception of imputation can therefore play the role in foro interno
of the agent’s conscience, regarded broadly as a faculty of moral judgment.
Imputatio facti for Baumgarten concerns not only whether an agent has per-
formed deeds falling under some moral concept, such as being obligatory, pro-
hibited, or meritorious; it can also play a role in moral decisions, determining with
greater or lesser perfection, wisdom, maturity, honesty, virtue, and moral effec-
tiveness which deeds ought to be done.
Thus for Baumgarten, conscience—simply as the capacity to impute deeds to
oneself—includes the agent’s judgment about what should be done (BIP §200).
Such judgments are always fallible, and Baumgarten understands them as admit-
ting of different degrees of validity or perfection: consequently, some judgments of
conscience can be better than others. This makes sense if we think of judgments of
imputation as responding better or worse to the circumstances and applying the
obligation or law to them more or less wisely. Thus Baumgarten says we should act
according to our “best conscience” (BIP §200, 201–5). For Kant, however, there is
no best, better, or worse conscience. There is simply a verdict of guilt or innocence
pronounced, prospectively or retrospectively, on oneself for a deed. Kant ascribes
fallibility to our understanding in making moral judgments; but he denies that
conscience is fallible or that it can err. This last claim, however, is puzzling,
paradoxical, and easily misunderstood. It is not the claim that our capacity to
judge the rightness or wrongness of actions in relation to the moral law is ever
infallible or immune to error. We will return later to the question how best to
understand it.
For Baumgarten, a deed is an existence of some kind imputable to a free
substance, or person (BIP §10). In order to be imputable to an agent, it must
meet certain conditions of responsibility. Ignorance and error, where not culpable,
preclude imputation of a deed (BIP §128). Nothing that is absolutely necessary or
inevitable can be imputed; neither can what is impossible, or what is merely
natural; nor what is constrained either externally or internally or what the agent
is powerless to effect (BIP §131); nor what is merely fortuitous. Baumgarten
explicitly rejects the concept of a “crime of fortune” (BIP §132).

II

Kantian Departures from Baumgarten Regarding Moral Imputability. On this last

point, Kant differs from Baumgarten in a couple of important ways that have often
gone unappreciated or have even been badly misunderstood. First, Kant holds that
when we act wrongly, all the bad consequences of our deed (but none of its good
      133

consequences) can be imputed to us. This is true even if we did not anticipate or
could not have anticipated these consequences and they occurred merely through
good or bad fortune; analogously, all the good consequences of a meritorious deed
are imputable, but none of the bad ones (MS 6:223). Kant therefore quite explicitly
and deliberately departs from Baumgarten in allowing for what some have called
“moral luck.” For Kant good or bad luck cannot change a wrong action into a right
one, or the reverse; but a deed that is contrary to duty can incur far greater blame if
its consequences are worse, and an act fulfilling a meritorious duty is deserving of
greater praise if its consequences are better. It does not matter whether the good or
bad consequences were intended, foreseen, or even foreseeable by the agent.
Many moral philosophers and critics of Kant—notably, Bernard Williams
(1981)—have thought that Kant fundamentally rejects the possibility of moral
luck and have even taken this to be the foundation of Kant’s entire moral outlook.
No doubt Williams and others drew their erroneous conclusion from the fact that
Kant says early in the Groundwork that the good will retains its unlimited
goodness even when it is powerless to achieve the outcomes which are its ends
(GMS 4:394). Kant does hold such views about goodness of will; but not every
moral evaluation of actions for Kant is a matter of the agent’s good will. To think
that would decontextualize actions and their moral assessment in ways that are
plainly erroneous—errors with which Kant’s critics often falsely charge him. The
right conclusions, however, would be first, that moral merit for Kant is equivalent
neither to goodness of will nor to the moral worth that actions have only when
they are done from duty. A second conclusion is that you cannot understand
everything about Kant’s ethics just from reading (or worse yet, misreading) only
the first dozen pages of the Groundwork.
A second significant departure from Baumgarten is Kant’s view concerning
conflicts of duty. Some philosophers think there can be genuine moral dilemmas:
cases where every one of your options violates some duty and exposes you to moral
blame. Baumgarten’s theory of imputation would seem to make such cases impos-
sible, since for Baumgarten what is inevitable or impossible for an agent to do cannot
be imputed; and in the case of a genuine moral dilemma, it would be impossible for
the agent to avoid blame. Further, Baumgarten appears to analyze obligation in terms
of the motivation to fulfill it. Thus every obligation consists in “overriding impelling
causes” (BIP §16) that make the action morally necessary. Obligations can be
stronger or weaker, and there can be different or even competing “impelling causes”
of an action. But any obligation consists in impelling causes that are overriding and
make the action morally necessary and its contrary morally impossible (BIP §17).
Unless the impelling causes for an obligation are overriding, there is no obligation
(BIP §20). This too would make genuine moral dilemmas impossible.
Kant has quite often been thought to reject the possibility of genuine moral
dilemmas because he denies there can be a “conflict of duties (collisio officiorum
s. obligationum)” (MS 6:224). This consorts well with the caricature of Kant as a
134  

stern, simple-minded moralist with no tolerance for moral complexity or ambi-

guity of any kind. That this is a gross misunderstanding of both the letter and
spirit of Kant’s moral philosophy can be seen at every turn by anyone who engages
in a careful study of it. In particular, the common idea that Kant cannot allow for
moral dilemmas is grossly false, and it is important to see why.
Those who have thought that Kant denies there can be moral dilemmas based
on his denial that there can be a “conflict of duties” have simply not read carefully
what he means by that term. What Kant denies possible would be “a relation
between [two duties] in which one of them would cancel the other (wholly or in
part)” (MS 6:224). But a moral dilemma would be a case in which duties would
conflict while neither duty is “canceled” and both do remain in full force. I know of
no case in which Kant cites an actual instance in which I must do something that
violates a strict duty whatever choice I make. He comes fairly close to accepting
such cases, however, and never denies their possibility.
Kant does explicitly claim that there can be a conflict between grounds of
obligation or obligating reasons (rationes obligandi). Here he accepts the principle
that (as regards what the agent should do) the stronger ground prevails over the
weaker (fortiori obligandi ratio vincit). For example, he holds that a strict duty of
right prevails over an ethical duty of love or gratitude. In such a case, only one of
the two contrary actions—in this case, the strict duty of right—could be practically
necessary, while the other is not; but it is Kant’s view that the weaker ground or
reason does not cease to exist or lose any of its moral strength just because it is
overridden by a stronger obligating reason. Kant describes the case of someone
who must testify truthfully in court against a father or benefactor, but has grounds
based on gratitude for being sorry to have to do so (MSVig 27:508); and also the
case where a person feels bound to fulfill a debt of gratitude to a benefactor who is
in need, but cannot do so because he owes the money to another as a strict debt.
Such cases already place us at least in the vicinity of a genuine moral dilemma.
And if there were a case where two strict duties cannot both be fulfilled by the
agent, yet one of them has clearly stronger grounds of obligation, then that would
be precisely what philosophers mean by a moral dilemma. Kant’s accounts of
obligation and imputation do clearly leave room for such cases.
Kant also plainly recognizes what Williams has called “moral cost” and “moral
regret”—cases, that is, where duty requires that we must do one thing, but we also
have moral reasons based on duty to regret leaving its contrary undone and feeling
sorrow about this omission on moral grounds.

III

Conscience in Baumgarten. Baumgarten’s theory of imputation involves judgments

of actions and agents in the context of a forum—something like a court of law.
      135

Judges in court impute actions to people. So does God in passing judgment on

moral agents. These are cases of a forum externum, where the judge is a different
person from the person being judged (BIP §186–99). (The court where God is judge
is the celestial court.) But we can also judge our own actions in a forum internum,
playing two roles: that of the judge and that of the person judged. This for
Baumgarten is the court of conscience (BIP §200–5). Conscience, like all imputatio
legis, subsumes an action under a law. But in conscience, it is our own action that is
imputed. And the court or forum of conscience is the court of our own reason.
Conscience for Baumgarten can be more or less “instructed” depending on the
agent’s knowledge of the laws under which the action falls as well as knowledge of
the deeds being judged. Lack of such knowledge makes a conscience “immature”
(BIP §201). A conscience can also be “proportionate” if it takes deeds seriously in
proportion to their moral weight and “disproportionate” if it fails to do this, either
by exaggerating or underestimating their importance. Conscience is then “light” if
it takes the deeds not seriously enough, and “micrological” if it pays excessive
attention to what is unimportant (BIP §202). A conscience that gets such matters
right is called “perfect” and its failure in any respect makes for an “imperfect”
conscience (BIP §203). Plainly for Baumgarten the function of conscience is to
judge actions according to their moral qualities in relation to the law that applies
to them. Conscience can do this well or badly. It can get matters right, or it can fall
short in some way.

IV

Kant’s Departures from Baumgarten Regarding Conscience. Apparently from some

time in the 1770s onward, Kant draws a distinction between two kinds of
judgment we can make of our actions. This is a distinction between moral
judgments about what to do and the judgment of conscience. This distinction
plays a role in his later moral philosophy, as found in On the Miscarriage of All
Philosophical Trials in Theodicy (1791) the Religion (1794), the Metaphysics of
Morals (1798), and his lectures on ethics. It plays a decisive role in his striking
claim that there can be no such thing as an erring conscience.
This claim would be wildly implausible if it meant that some moral criterion
might yield infallible judgments about what to do. It seems incompatible with
Baumgarten’s view that judgments of conscience can be more or less perfect, more
or less “instructed” or “immature” (BIP §201), “feigned,” or “micrological” (BIP
§202) or even “servile” and powerless (BIP §205). It is clearly not Kant’s position
that we are ever infallible in any of these ways. Instead, Kant seems to want to
draw a distinction between the judgment that I should do this or that and the
judgment of conscience, which is distinct from this and is in some sense infallible
even when the judgment about what I should do might be erroneous.
136  

I think the right way to look at it is to view Kant as drawing a distinction

between three different things that occur (or can and should occur) whenever
I make a morally significant decision.

1. A judgment of my intellect that I ought to do A.

2. The decision to do A.
3. The judgment of conscience (prospective or retrospective) regarding my
doing A.

The question about what conscience is then depends on what (3) consists in.
What is (3) about? Is it about what you should do, and if not, how is it related to
the judgment that you should do A? We must answer these questions in such a
way that (3) is distinct from both (1) and (2) and that (3) is in some sense infallible
or immune to error, although I can never be certain of the correctness of (1) and
I can still act wrongly in (2) even in the presence of the infallible judgment (3)
(MSVig 27:619).
The difference seems to be that while (1) is a judgment about what to do, or
better yet, about what we ought to do, and (2) is the choice to do it, (3) is a
judgment (prospective or retrospective) about myself as the agent who might do,
or else who has done, the deed. Conscience is about how I have behaved in arriving
at my judgment (1) and, if the deed is already done, about the way I made the
choice (2). Kant calls conscience my faculty of moral judgment passing judgment
on itself (Rel 6:186). In making the judgment (3) I am deciding not only whether
I should do (or should have done) this action A but also whether I have
considered and have chosen the action in the right way—for instance, by moral
standards, not prudential ones. I am passing judgment not on my action but
on myself. Kant holds that if I do pass this judgment, and am found not guilty
before the inner court, then I can then be certain that I have done everything
that morality could require of me (MS 6:401). This is the sense in which
conscience is infallible. Kant holds it to be infallible even in cases where my
judgment (1) is mistaken and hence cases in which the action I have chosen (2) is
objectively wrong.

What is the Judgment of Conscience? The certainty and infallibility of conscience

cannot be about (1), since Kant admits that in many cases that is never certain.
Our intellect, in making such judgments, is never infallible and is always prone at
times to error (MS 6:401; Rel 6:186; MSVig 27:618). If I act according to such an
erroneous judgment (2), then what I do may be objectively wrong, and yet I might
be pronounced not guilty before the inner forum or court of conscience (3).
      137

Kant emphasizes that conscience involves awareness that I have judged my

action with great thoroughness and strict diligence (R 6:186, VE Vigilantius
27:619). Thus we might think that the judgment of conscience is simply that
I have judged what I should do (1) with “due care.” For we could, and where
necessary always should, make judgments of kind (1) with due care. But this
cannot be what conscience is about. For the kind and degree of care required, the
obligation to exercise due care in relation to what is required, and the choice of
only that action which one has judged with due care to be the right one, can be
considered part of our obligations themselves, that is, part of (1) and (2). Whether
and to what extent we have done this belongs to what Baumgarten would mean by
our best judgment of conscience and what Kant would assign to the (always
fallible) faculty of moral judgment.
If (3) is distinct from (1), then it cannot be merely that (3) is a judgment
otherwise like (1) but made with due care. We should always exercise “due care”;
that obligation belongs to any duty we have. Further, what “due care” requires
could vary in what it demands under different circumstances. Matters of greater
moral importance require greater care than trivial matters. Where flames are in
the vicinity, I don’t have to be as careful with a bucket of water as I am with a can
of gasoline. There might be cases where it is more important to exercise special
care to get something right—as when the rights of others or their interests
for which I am especially responsible are at stake. All these matters pertain to
(1), not to (3).
Kant sees (3) as like a judicial judgment—the verdict of a judge in court—in one
crucial respect: it returns a verdict: either guilty or else not-guilty. Kant distin-
guishes prospective and retrospective judgments of conscience. He calls the
former “warning conscience” and the latter “judging conscience” (MS 6:440). If
the action is prospective, then guilty means the proposed action is wrong and
I must not do it, whereas not-guilty means it is right (if not obligatory, then either
meritorious or at least permissible) for me to do it. If conscience is retrospective,
then “guilty” means I have acted in some way wrongly, even if my judgment (1) was
not in error and my deed (2) followed it. This could have happened, for example,
if I did the right thing, but ignored moral considerations altogether in doing it,
or did it with corrupt intent and a bad disposition. “Not guilty” means I have acted
innocently—i.e. not in a manner for which I should be blamed before the court
of conscience. This could happen even when my judgment is objectively in error
and therefore my action is objectively wrong. Suppose I later decide that my
judgment (1) was in error and that objectively considered, I should not have done
this action. Kant thinks that for all that my judgment of conscience might be “not
guilty.” How I should feel about this conscientious but wrong action, once I appreciate
its wrongness, is something to which we will return at the very end of this chapter.
Kant also thinks we cannot fail to pass judgments of conscience on ourselves—
conscience is an instinct (MoC 27:297, 351, 353). A being who does not pass this
138  

judgment would not be a moral agent at all. But we can fail to heed the judgment
of conscience, and that is why we can still do wrong (2) even when there has been
a judgment of conscience. We can also deceive ourselves about the judgment of
conscience, substituting another judgment for it. This can be a judgment confus-
ing imprudence with moral wrongfulness (MSVig 27:576)—as when I tell myself
that conscience has declared me not guilty because I experience relief at the
fact that my action will incur no consequences harmful to me. That is how Kant
would describe many of the cases in which people might say their conscience
has erred.
Kant is more emphatic about this when the judgment we substitute is too
lenient, perhaps because such cases are those in which we do wrong while telling
ourselves we have done right. But Kant is also aware of the possibility of a
“morbid” or “tyrannical” conscience (MoC 27:356–7). The judgment can also be
hairsplitting, micrological (MSVig 27:576; MS 6:440), or involve “fanatical self-
contempt” (MS 6:441). These kinds of errors, Kant says, can become habitual, in
the way someone becomes habituated (addicted) to tobacco smoke (MoC 27:356).
Kant even speaks in this context of erring conscience (MoC 27:354–5), but in
these comparatively early lectures seems not to mean what he later does. There
can be errors of fact and errors of law. The action may then be defective, he says,
but cannot be imputed to the agent as crime. Here erring conscience seems to refer
only to innocent errors of judgment for which the agent cannot be blamed.
Kant explicitly rejects Baumgarten’s identification of conscience with the fac-
ulty of moral judgment (MSVig 27:616). Or in the terms explained above, he
explicitly denies that (3) is the same as (1). He claims that imputatio facti is a
function not of conscience but of practical reason (MSVig 27:616). Likewise, Kant
rejects Baumgarten’s distinction between natural and artificial conscience (MSVig
27:617). For these are two ways of making the (always fallible) intellectual
judgment (1) about what we ought to do.

VI

Conscience as the Inner Court of Last Instance. The court of conscience is “inner”
in the sense Kant regularly uses that term. That is, it is between an individual
moral agent and himself or herself. For Kant, inner sense is the awareness of my
own states, and inner moral worth is worth as measured not by comparison with
others but only with my own self- legislated moral law and my idea of virtue (GMS
4:394, 397). In the inner court of conscience, I play all the judicial roles: I am at
once accused, prosecutor, defense attorney, witness and judge (MS 6:438–40;
MSVig 27:618). Kant at times suggests that I may look upon the judge as an
external person: God, but this is a person I create for myself; it provides no
evidence for God’s existence (MS 6:438–9; MSVig 27:574).
      139

The judgment of conscience and its infallibility are best understood, I believe,
by pursuing the thought that conscience is like the verdict of a court, if we add
the further thought that for the individual moral agent, conscience is to be seen
as the court of last instance, that is: for this specific action, which I propose to do
(or have done) here and now, the verdict is final and beyond which it is not subject
to further appeal. The verdict is not only about whether I have done my best to
judge the action right or wrong (1) but about myself, my disposition, my way of
considering the action and the purity of the source of the action in myself. This is
why conscience involves being honest with myself and demands “descent into the
hell of self-cognition” (MS 6:441).
In what sense, if any, does following the verdict of your conscience make it
possible to be certain you are doing the right thing? A court of last instance is
infallible in the sense that procedurally, there is no appeal beyond it; there is
nothing in the legal sense that can rightfully correct it. We know that in our legal
system, a court of last instance can sometimes make terrible errors and do
monstrous things. The US Supreme Court for instances, furnishes many horrify-
ing instances of this, and it is now certain to furnish many more with the recent
deliberate appointment to the bench of a supermajority consisting of vile and
corrupt political party hacks for the express purpose of depriving citizens of their
basic rights (such as minorities of their right to vote and women of their right over
their own bodies). But for each of this court’s decisions—Dred Scott, Plessy vs
Ferguson, Citizens United, Dobbs vs Jackson, or the terrible declaration that the
Second Amendment provides for an individual right to threaten the lives of others
through the private possession of firearms with no supervision by a well-regulated
state militia—the criminally wrong verdicts of this highest court are final, and in
that sense infallible. As a matter of law, they must be followed; it would be wrong
(illegal) not to follow them. This remains so even if, as we must hope, such
monstrous decisions are overturned for future cases by legislation or by later
decisions that set new precedents.
The question posed for Kant’s theory of conscience is this: Suppose I judge an
act to be right (1), perform it (2), and at the time I perform it, my conscience
acquits me of any wrongdoing, so that (as Kant says) regarding that particular act,
nothing more can be required of me (MS 6:401). But then suppose that subse-
quently I come to realize that my understanding was mistaken in its judgment (1):
that objectively considered, my act was after all morally wrong, and further that it
has had many harmful consequences. What does Kant’s account of conscience
require me, and thus also allow me, to say, and to do, about this situation?
Kant is committed to say unconditionally that I should not have acted against
my conscience, and that I cannot be blamed for following it. But clearly this is a
case where moral regret is in order. Certainly also, if possible, actions are required
to repair the evil and the harm I have done. We might worry that Kant’s
commitment to the position that I should not have acted against my conscience
140  

and have done all that morality requires of me also prevents him from saying that
any moral regret whatever is in order. That would be a position few of us could
find acceptable. Kant’s theory of imputation, however, does give him a way out. If
we say that following my conscience is all that morality can ask of me, then there is
one sense in which my action cannot be judged wrong. But if I later come to see
that the act was objectively wrong, then there is another sense in which the act and
its consequences can be imputed to me. This is a case like a moral dilemma, in
which conflicting judgments of my action are in order.
I must not blame myself for following my conscience, but I can still blame myself
for doing something objectively wrong, and I can (and even must) also impute to
myself the bad consequences of my objectively wrong deed. Kant seems to confirm
this last point when he discusses morsus conscientiae, the “bite of conscience,” and
how we should experience it and respond to it. Cases covered by this bite certainly
include those where I am aware of having failed to heed my conscience and have
acted against its verdict—doing what the inner judge has condemned as wrong.
But I think it also covers cases where I have heeded my conscience but later come
to see that my action was, objectively considered, wrong.
 8
Imputation
Applying Practical Norms in Kant
and Baumgarten
Alexander Aichele

If practical philosophy makes sense at all it must not be limited to the rational
foundation of more or less general, universal, or particular moral norms. To be
sure, this inevitable, indeed fundamental, task has to be dealt with. However, even
having done so successfully is not enough. For simply quoting a moral norm, even
one that is rather universal and fundamental, and perhaps adding its reasons, does
not and cannot answer the question practical philosophy is bound to answer:
What shall I do—right here, right now?
Obviously, the answer I long for will and must entail a practical norm, namely
the right one which applies to the single situation I am in, allowing me to act
morally good. Furthermore, I have to know how to act according to that norm
under the circumstances given; that is, how to apply the moral norm I am obliged
to follow. This modest wish, however, already poses a problem that admits of no
clean and definite solution. One may call it the practical sister of the time-honored
problem of the incommensurability of universal concepts and singular things,
which latter should however be grasped truly through the former without being
themselves possible parts of extensional logics or simply things of the right,
conceptual kind.
The issue recurs in the practical field: to know which practical norm is to be
applied, I have to know which kind of action it is I am intending to execute—or
which action it was that I have (or someone else has) done willingly. Even from a
less subjective, more Aristotelian point of view, the problem does not change
much: to know which practical norm is to be applied, the agent has to have
definite and unambiguous knowledge of the situation he is (or was) in and that
demands his action. Indeed, the formal problem remains very much the same.
There is a single, mental or physical, event or a single state of the world demand-
ing or allowing free action. Such action is open to moral judgment; even more,
rational beings like humans are under obligation to judge their actions morally, i.e.
to apply practical norms to their actions. These actions are, first and foremost
from a theoretical point of view, singular events, changes brought about or to be

Alexander Aichele, Imputation: Applying Practical Norms in Kant and Baumgarten In: Baumgarten and Kant on the
Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press.
© Alexander Aichele 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0009
142  

brought about by an individual existing and acting under singular circumstances.

From simple epistemic reasons it is clear that a limited mind is unable to grasp
intellectually those singularities, since in order to distinguish just one of them
definitely from all actual—let alone possible—other ones such a mind would have
to be able to form an infinitely complex, but definite concept, in other words: such
a mind could not have any intellectual limits. Therefore, for the human mind
there is no such thing as definite, complete knowledge about possible objects of
practical norms. Thus, objective, complete certainty of whether this or that
practical norm is the right one to be applied, is impossible. This holds both for
the strictly private, subjective sphere of mental events and acts like desires,
intentions, and so on, and for the public, objective sphere of physical events or
actions as well, and, of course, for any attempt at reasoning back from physical
events or actions to intentions, too.
G.E.M. Anscombe made this point by showing that there are innumerable
possible descriptions for one and the same action or action-like event even if it
just looks like a man pumping water (2000, esp. §23–30),¹ and Wolfgang Wieland
has delivered a systematic analysis of the problem christening it the “aporia of
application” (1980, 13). It was, however, anything but unbeknownst to their
former colleagues. It gave, in particular, A.G. Baumgarten reason to build up a
sweeping and thorough defense against both epistemic and moral skepticism (cf.
Aichele 2017), concerning which I will discuss the application of practical
norms. First, however, I will attempt to show that Kant seems also to be
conscious of the problem, since he alludes to it so studiously, and thus that his
avoidance of any kind of theoretical reflection on the concrete application of
norms should appear (pace Anscombe) quite intentional. This is perhaps
because Kant’s new foundation of morals does not change anything with acting
in real life—neither with the aporia of application and the moral judgment on
singular actions, nor, and possibly more importantly, with Baumgarten’s quite
elaborate theory of the application of norms worked out under the label of
imputation. The self-same concept, by the way, is inserted by Kant in a very
short passage of the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals, which comes
nearest to a theoretical reflection on the application of norms. Is it possible that
Kant simply did not see any need to elaborate an appropriate theory, since
Baumgarten’s was already available, apparently ready for use and integration
into his own thought?
Anyway, both Baumgarten and Kant, presumably in the wake of Pufendorf (cf.
Aichele 2011a), agree on this point, which either gives rise to or follows from the

¹ Famously, by physically pumping water there is a vast range of things a person may do:
replenishing the water supplies of the house nearby, poisoning the inhabitants of the same house,
beating up a jolly rhythm and so on, all of which can be viewed as falling under some distinct universal
concept which will at times be of moral significance, at others not.
  143

aporia of application: Practical norms do not apply themselves to their proper

objects. Cases of practical norms do not exist in themselves and cannot be
found by looking at the world as if they did; they are not things. On the contrary,
cases of practical norms must be established, and they are established by apply-
ing practical norms to events, situations, actions, intentions, acts of will, or
whatever we prefer to call the raw material of moral judgment and practical
reason. Whether Baumgarten and Kant have more in common here remains to
be seen.

Kant on the Object of Practical Norms. To become aware of Kant’s somewhat

questionable, even indifferent attitude toward the application of practical norms
one has to look at something apparently taken for granted right at the onset of his
practical philosophy. Starting with the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals,
Kant makes his principal aim abundantly clear. The very object of practical
philosophy, which it must deliver first and foremost and without any shadow of
a doubt, is a necessary and universal supreme principle of morals, purified from
any contingent elements and therefore purely rational. Without such a principle,
definite moral judgment is impossible, because its foundation, the true distinction
between good and evil, would be lacking. Morals, then, would be as anyone likes,
which means there would be no morals at all. The existence of morals itself,
accordingly, depends on the possibility of passing moral judgments with complete
certainty. Therein alone lies the knowledge of what ought to be done or what
ought to have been done, the answer practical philosophy must give to justify its
own existence.
What, now, is the object of moral judgment? The answer that comes naturally
and that Kant even seems to take for granted is this: actions (GMS 4:397 and
passim).² But this is where the shady zone between his supreme principle and its
application begins. For it is by no means clear what Kant intends by talking
about action, which he does endlessly, most prominently in formulating the
categorical imperative. He does so, however, without giving a hard-and-fast
definition of action or acting. The most natural understanding would seem to
indicate a single event brought about by a human (or another rational) being
exercising its freedom to change the condition of the world, i.e. a physical action
or perhaps even just a mental act. Unfortunately, this innocent reading does not
really fit into Kant’s reasoning. That is why we now must dwell on this quite
elementary topic.

² I won’t quote, in general, parallel passages of the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason
for reasons of space.
144  

II

Moral Judgment: More General Propositions about Less General Propositions. To

be sure, Kant apparently does not claim that the universal principle of morality
applies to actions in the sense just mentioned. Quite to the contrary, “when moral
worth is at issue, what counts is not actions, which one sees, but those inner
principles of actions that one does not see” (GMS 4:407).
Besides suggesting that even Kant seems to share the natural understanding of
action as a kind of observable physical event, this thoroughly representative
quotation shows that moral judgment does not relate, at any case not directly,
to such events but to something behind them, being of completely another,
immaterial and unobservable kind. Obviously, an action cannot be the same as
its principle, the first being an empirical event, the second a logical or proposi-
tional entity open only to thought. However, just as clearly, there has to be an
intimate relation between both. An action somehow contains its principle, and
such an ‘inner principle’ makes a human physical event a fully fledged action
giving rise eventually to moral judgment in contrast to some involuntary behavior
that does not. Moral judgment, therefore, is passed on the occasion of possible or
actual actions; yet, it does not concern those actions as such but rather the inner
principles that make an individual’s spontaneous movements into actions.
Action means voluntarily changing the world according to the acting subject’s
principles, or the agent’s will. This emerges from Kant’s explanation of will: “Only
a rational being has the capacity to act in accordance with the representation of
laws, that is, in accordance with principles, or has a will. Since reason is required
for the derivation of actions from laws, the will is nothing other than practical
reason” (GMS 4:412; emphasis in original).
Principles are representations of laws. Whatever else objective laws may be
apart from their being valid independently of subjective cognition, they surely
come in propositional form. These propositions can be represented and recog-
nized as they are, as is the case with a purely rational being. Then the subjective
representation of the law tallies exactly with the law itself and the will is going “to
choose only that which reason independently of inclination cognizes as practically
necessary, that is, as good” (GMS 4:412; emphasis in original). However, such
representation—subjective, as it is—can even deviate from the law, that is, from
reason, and focus in on something that only appears to be good but is not truly so.
Without correction, then, the will is going to directly choose evil or, if it is lucky,
possibly good but for the wrong, perhaps again evil, reasons: “in a word, if the will
is not in itself completely in conformity with reason (as it is actually the case with
human beings), then actions that are cognized as objectively necessary are sub-
jectively contingent” (GMS 4:412–13).
Such are the practical principles human actions are founded on. Subjective
practical principles Kant calls “maxims”:
  145

A maxim is the subjective principle of acting, and must be distinguished from the
objective principle, namely the practical law. The former contains the practical
rule determined by reason conformably with the conditions of the subject (often
his ignorance or also his inclinations), and it is therefore the principle in
accordance with which the subject acts; but the law is the objective principle
valid for every rational being, and the principle in accordance with which he
ought to act, i.e., an imperative. (GMS 4:421n.; emphasis in original)

Obviously, we have to distinguish between multiple, weaker laws of acting, called

“practical rules,” which are valid only under contingent conditions, and the one,
hard practical law that is unconditionally and, thus, universally valid. Both are
formed by reason objectively and will be represented, subjectively, as practical
principles. The former, however, describe only how the subject may act reasonably
under his contingent, ever-changing conditions, while the latter prescribes what
the subject ought to do regardless of his contingent situation, or under all
circumstances. Thus, there is an infinite number of possible objective practical
rules and subjective principles representing them but there is just one necessary
practical law that must be represented subjectively, truthfully, and effectively so as
to give any maxim moral worth or, better, to show whether some contingent
maxim is morally good. The moral law—or more accurately, its subjective
representation—applies exclusively to subjective representations of practical
rules, that is, maxims, but not to singular actions.
The subjective representation of the moral law is an imperative “expressed by
an ought” (GMS 4:413), albeit a special one, since each reasonable maxim may
rightly be (re)formulated as an imperative. Notwithstanding that we are now of
course talking about the categorical imperative, it must be noticed that its three-
fold formulae are nothing but all of its possible subjective representations. For the
moral law in itself does not necessarily entail an “ought,” since “a holy will” has no
need for an imperative whatsoever, “because [its] volition is of itself necessarily in
accord with the law” (GMS 4:414). The moral law in itself, therefore, is a simple
proposition that first must be transformed into an imperative to work as a
corrective for rational beings whose will can be and, in the case of human beings,
is necessarily affected by contingent sensuous or selfish desires.
So, we have subjective practical principles representing laws of acting. These
laws essentially just tell what it is to act reasonably or to do good, as “every
practical law represents a possible action as good and thus as necessary for a
subject practically determinable by reason” (GMS 4:414). If the subject is not a
holy will and does not necessarily realize their potential for rational determina-
tion, an imperative is needed, because “all imperatives are formulae for the
determination of action that is necessary in accordance with the principle of a
will which is good in some way” (GMS 4:414). No practical law or imperative
automatically focuses on the right sort of good, but rather on just any good.
146  

Further, a subject of not only the morally but even of the epistemically faltering
kind may represent, by their maxims, any practical law correctly or inadequately,
or even incorrectly. Thus, not only an imperative commanding to do some good is
needed but also a corrective filtering out of the right sort of good. The categorical
imperative is supposed to do both: it commands a possibly unreasonably willing
subject both to scrutinize whether their maxims are not just good somehow, e.g.
for satisfying their selfish desires, but of the right, moral sort of good, and to act in
accordance with the result, that is, to commit or to omit an action, namely the one
represented by an objective practical principle, which in turn is represented by the
maxim examined.
Now, such a representation of an action does not give exactly the one, singular
action which shall be done here and now (or has been done). It prescribes just the
kind of action that ought to be done (or ought to have been done). Even if future
singular actions, obviously, are representable by merely general concepts, the
subject, who is always under pressure to act under contingent and infinitely
complex circumstances, is left without guidance from Kant with regards to
actually doing the right thing. This is because such guidance does not matter for
moral judgment:

It is here a question only of the determination of the will and of the determining
ground of its maxims as a free will, not of its result. For, provided that the will
conforms to the law of pure reason, then its power in execution may be as it may,
and a nature may or may not actually rise in accordance with these maxims of
giving law for a possible nature. (KpV 5:45–6)

For moral judgment or moral action, it simply does not matter what happens
in the material or “empirical” world, i.e. what changes in it; it only matters
what an acting subject wills to do, i.e. what kind of action he ought to
execute when he acts. So, singular actions are excluded from moral judgment,
and, therefore, they are not what Kant means when he talks about actions—
which he does all the time. This exclusion follows, according to Kant’s
distinction between things-in-themselves and phenomena, from the phenom-
enal nature of singular actions—we do not want and do not need to go
there!—and should work just fine as an impenetrable armor against all sorts
of application-aporias. But, as we shall see right away, it does not and it
cannot do so.
Before we turn to that, however, we have to readjust, at least for the moment,
our innocent everyday concept of action. Although Kant often gives the impres-
sion that he shares it, inserting it into his theory of moral judgment would make
no sense; for such a concept of action is incompatible with the moral law itself for
the reason that morality can be found in volitions only insofar as they are
expressed by maxims. This is, first and foremost, a requirement of logic: Since
  147

the moral law is a universal proposition, which just happens to be made into a
categorical imperative for wills that are not holy, it can only apply to other
general—formally particular, but on no account singular—propositions, that is,
maxims. Otherwise, moral judgment will be trapped in the aporia of application
and will never result in a definite, objective verdict on moral worth or lack thereof.
Therefore, the categorical imperative’s objects must be universals expressing
simply the kind of action a subject intends. There is no need to read more into
Kant’s talk of “subjective principles of action” as if these had to be of some special
or fundamental significance (e.g. that they must be chosen and held on to for the
whole of life). Rather, each and every action, as long as it is framed by a universal
concept, can be made the object of a maxim and, thus, judged morally. In short: an
act for Kant is not a single, manmade event in the material world—action naively
considered—but a general proposition formulating the intention to execute an
action of this or that kind under this or that kind of circumstances, that is to say, a
maxim expressing a volition. And as Kant talks constantly about moral judgment
of actions by applying the categorical imperative, we have to concede that Kantian
“action” indicates just the act of will choosing or forming a maxim. Put in
scholastic terms, moral judgment according to Kant exclusively relates to actus
immanentes, intentional modifications of the mind, conceived by understanding
and judged by reason, but never to actus transientes, modifications of the world by
causal, corporeal activity.³
Such a venerable sense of “action” has its merits. On the one hand, it excludes
worldly events from moral judgment, which would be categorically impossible
anyway and focuses moral judgment, at the same time, on its single-most object,
the acting subject’s will. On the other hand, as the subject’s will is conceived here
propositionally by the understanding, using necessarily universal concepts, and
judged by reason, using the most universal propositional principle, it seems to
presuppose that there is a way to come to definite and objective moral verdicts by
purely logical means—even if it is not really clear what, exactly, the contradiction
of a “self-contradicting will” (GMS 4:424) or “self-destruction” (GMS 4:407) of
maxims contradicting the categorical imperative would mean. It is easy to see that
the only being—except, of course, an all-knowing being—in position to judge
actions morally in this case is the acting subject himself. But, after all, locking up
morals into the subject’s mind is not a problem; rather it solves the notorious
application problem by brute force.
Or so it seems. But the issue is not concluded. For testing maxims against the
categorical imperative does not deliver a fully fledged moral judgment—not by far.
This is because such a result just tells the subject what one’s duty is and sets aside
the question whether it is a possible or actual one. However, knowing one’s duty

³ For the distinction see Thomas Aquinas, ST IaIIae q. 3, art. 2, ad. 3.

148  

and even willing or acting “in conformity with” it, is not enough, since only an
action “done from duty [ . . . ] has moral worth” (GMS 4:406). For an epistemically
limited subject, unfortunately, such knowledge about the purity of one’s own
moral grounds is unattainable, as Kant emphasizes:

It is indeed sometimes the case that with the keenest self-examination we find
nothing besides the moral ground of duty that could have been powerful enough
to move us to this or that good action and to so great a sacrifice; but from this it
cannot be inferred with certainty that no covert impulse of self-love, under the
mere pretence of that idea, was not actually the real determining cause of the will;
or we like to flatter ourselves by falsely attributing to ourselves a nobler motive,
whereas in fact we can never, even by the most strenuous self-examination, get
entirely behind our covert incentives, since, when moral worth is at issue, what
counts is not actions, which one sees, but those inner principles of actions that
one does not see. (GMS 4:407)

Behind our honest conscience in acting by choosing a maxim purely from duty
there always lurks the possibility of doing just the same thing in truth on an
egoistic, contingent, purely “subjective ground of desire” (GMS 4:427), thereby
contradicting moral duty and falsifying the agent’s own conscience. This is
perfectly possible if the action of choosing a maxim consists in a singular imma-
nent act. For in that case, the subject is not able to know for sure whether this act
of choice corresponds to the maxim, consciously represented, or to another one
which may determine the choice but is, while choosing, not represented con-
sciously. Therefore, the subject can always be mistaken about which maxim, in
truth, is actually determining his will. And this uncertainty can never be lifted
since it is impossible to subsume a singular act or event under a universal
proposition or rule with objective certainty, that is, without the possibility of
getting it wrong. One and the same action may be explained with infinitely
diverse, even contradictory maxims. This is the point, as we might remember, of
the aporia of application. There is simply no way to objective conceptual certainty
if it is a singular—be it a transcendent or an immanent act—which is to be grasped
universally.
All a subject is capable of knowing is whether the maxim he believes to
determine his own will is in conformity with duty or not. However, this is no
moral judgment in the full sense. Hence, a subject’s practical judgment is
restricted to the conformity of their own apparent maxims. This is not very
satisfying, especially bearing in mind the enormous effort Kant applied in seeking
to establish a revolutionary foundation for morals with respect to moral judgment.
Setting aside the question of his success, at any rate, a gap yawns between practical
norms and singular actions. Here, Kant’s new foundation changes nothing for the
better, perhaps, even to the contrary, and the same goes for his somewhat weak
  149

remarks concerning “a judgment sharpened by experience, partly to distinguish

in what cases they [i.e. moral laws] are applicable and partly to provide them
with access to the will of the human being and efficacy for his fulfilment of them”
(GMS 4:398),⁴ and his quite airy moral pedagogics in the second Critique’s
Doctrine of Method (cf. KpV 5:151–61).

III

Moral Imputation: The Road to Singular Actions? The aporia of application does
not go away if one tries to circumvent it with metaphysical subtlety or if one
simply ignores it. Whether or not Kant has explicitly realized the significance of at
least some conceptual reflections on the application of norms for a practicable
practical philosophy is not important. Looking at the remarkably practically
oriented, virtually down-to-earth Metaphysics of Morals, chances are that he
has; although, even there, he only gives some hints—or better: exactly one
hint—at something as a theory of application.
There exists a well-known passage concerning the philosophy of law that is
regularly misunderstood or, more precisely, mostly tacitly understood⁵ as if Kant
had also written what in fact he has left unwritten and is found, in great detail, in
Baumgarten. We will get to that soon. First, let us read at length this very
condensed passage from the Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals:

Imputation (imputatio) in the moral sense is the judgment by which someone is

regarded as the author (causa libera) of an action, which is then called a deed
(factum) and stands under laws. If the judgment also carries with it the rightful
consequences of this deed, it is an imputation having rightful force (imputatio
iudicaria s. valida); otherwise it is merely an imputation appraising the deed
(impuatio diiudicatoria). – The (natural or moral) person that is authorized to
impute with rightful force is called a judge or a court (iudex s. forum).
If someone does more in the way of duty than he can be constrained by law to
do, what he does is meritorious (meritum); if what he does is just exactly what the
law requires, he does what is owed (debitum); finally, if what he does is less than
the law requires, it is morally culpable (demeritum). The rightful effect of what is
culpable is punishment (poena); that of a meritorious deed is reward (praemium)
(assuming that the reward, promised in the law, was the motive to it); conduct in

⁴ The upshot of Kant’s confidence in this naturally evolving excellence would be a quite elitist circle
of judging practical judgment itself: Only people possessing such outstanding capacity could be
competent to judge practical judgment and, especially, whether another subject has a similar capacity.
The hoi polloi are just bound to believe in their higher contemporaries, though. Such elitism is
defended in Enskat (2007).
⁵ For an example of this doubtful practice, see Aichele (2004a, 247–62).
150  

keeping with what is owed has no rightful effect at all. – Kindly recompense
(remuneratio s. respensio) stands in no rightful relation to a deed.
The good or bad results of an action that is owed, like the results of omitting a
meritorious action, cannot be imputed to the subject (modus imputationis tollens).
The good results of a meritorious action, like the bad results of a wrongful
action, can be imputed to the subject (modus imputationis ponens).
Subjectively, the degree to which an action can be imputed (imputabilitas) has to
be assessed by the magnitude of the obstacles that had to be overcome. – The greater
the natural obstacles (of sensibility) and the less the moral obstacle (of duty), so
much the more merit is to be accounted for a good deed, as when, for example, at
considerable self-sacrifice I rescue a complete stranger from great distress.
On the other hand, the less the natural obstacles and the greater the obstacle
from grounds of duty, so much the more is a transgression to be imputed
(as culpable). – Hence the state of mind of the subject, whether he committed
the deed in a state of agitation or with cool deliberation, makes a difference in
imputation, which has results. (MS 6:227ff.)

The punctual insertions of classical Latin terminology alone clarify that what Kant
says here, of course, is closely related to the tradition of general moral philosophy
and natural law. He even selects Wolff ’s specially coined name for his newly
invented discipline of Philosophia practica universalis, much criticized in the
Groundwork (cf. GMS 4:390), for the chapter title from which this passage of the
introduction is taken, although Kant’s main source is indubitably Baumgarten’s
Elements of First Practical Philosophy.⁶ But that is not the point, here.
The point is, rather, that in this passage Kant introduces, more or less by
quotation, a concept, namely imputation, which is suitable and, in fact, invented
for applying practical norms to singular actions, thereby reviving the natural
understanding of action. He does so tacitly as, even here, he gives no explicit
definition of action in general. The meaning Kant intends, however, is clear enough
since he talks not only about (free) causes but also about results of actions, which are
morally judged by people other than the agent himself. So, physical events, changes
of the world brought about by free beings indeed become objects of moral judgment
through imputation. The same is affirmed by Kant’s definition of “deed”:

An action is called a deed insofar as it comes under obligatory laws and hence
insofar as the subject, in doing it, is considered in terms of the freedom of his
choice. By such an action the agent is regarded as the author of its effect, and this,
together with the action itself, can be imputed to him, if one is previously acquainted
with the law by virtue of which an obligation rests on these. (MS 6:223)

⁶ Cf. my introduction to Baumgarten (2019a, vii–lxviii); see also Schwaiger (2011a) and Schwaiger
(1999).
  151

From this it is clear that singular actions can be judged morally only by imputation
and if and only if these are deeds, that is, if they can be subsumed under some
moral, that is, a juridical or ethical, law and if they are done by a rational and,
therefore, free agent. Notice that moral judgment has to be taken in the universal
sense holding for ethics and law as well, since the concepts Kant defines in his
universal practical philosophy “are common to both parts of The Metaphysics of
Morals” (MS 6:222). In short, deeds can be done only by persons and singular
actions are only morally imputable to persons: “A person is a subject whose
actions can be imputed to him. Moral personality is therefore nothing other
than the freedom of a rational being under moral laws [ . . . ]. A thing is that to
which nothing can be imputed. Any object of free choice which itself lacks
freedom is therefore called a thing (res corporalis)” (MS 6:224).
Obviously, the restriction of practical judgment to deciding the conformity of an
action with duty is no longer, in this context, to be regarded as insufficient for
qualifying it as moral. For, what kind of judgment if not a moral one would a
“moral imputation” be? And, indeed, moral imputation establishes precisely the
conformity or disconformity of an action with duty and the degree of the agent’s
culpability or praiseworthiness in accord with the circumstances of one’s actual
deed. To do that, no special, or even objective insight into the subject’s mental
processes or into their maxim-based decision making seems to be needed. Rather,
it appears to be taken for granted by Kant that a singular action, if done by a
person and not in conformity with duty, must be based on a morally wrong
maxim. Which maxim, exactly, the subject has chosen wrongly and why he has
done so is of no relevance; the sole question to be decided is whether it would have
been possible, under the given circumstances, to act in conformity with duty. In
this way, the subject’s state of mind is of interest only insofar as it is counted
among the given circumstances and does not constitute the exclusive, essential
object of moral judgment.
All this sounds very lucid, and, as far as it goes, it is a quite faithful rendering of
the concept of imputation developed by natural law,⁷ elaborated in great detail by
Baumgarten, and, credit where credit is due, completed by Kant with a new
universal principle of possible obligation, that is, the categorical imperative (see
MS 6:225; Kant 1996a 379). However, Kant gives just a skeleton, and even that
only by half. For he never explains how a judgment of imputation is, in fact,
passed on an action, e.g. how a deed, being done, or a person, having performed a
deed, or the law, which has to applied, can be identified, and so on. And, further,
Kant omits any discussion of such a judgment’s first part, which is called “physical
imputation” (imputatio physica). By doing so, he deprives the imputational
process from its empirical foundation, as if a moral imputation could be made

⁷ For a short but concise historical overview, cf. Hruschka (2004, 17–27).
152  

without a long, hard, and perhaps even scientific look at the event that is first to be
declared an action, and then a deed, and, in the end, sanctioned with reward or
punishment.
That’s why Kant’s concept of imputation could be used in practice only with
some speculative fantasy or historical or legal knowledge. Possible reasons for that
remarkable omission are easy to invent: Perhaps Kant was worried about system-
atic unity, because there seems to be no place for such a thing as imputation in his
critical foundation of practical philosophy, or, possibly, he took it simply for
granted that a well-informed reader would tacitly supply the rest of a fairly well-
known theory—which would indicate that, somehow, at the level of application,
practical philosophy could be treated quite independently from its foundational
level and, in spite of moral philosophy’s critical revolution, every day’s moral
business could go on as usual. Maybe we get a little wiser by having a look at
Baumgarten.

IV

Baumgarten on the Application of Practical Norms. To understand the casualness

with which Kant adopts a totally uncritical doctrine of moral imputation, virtually
unchanged, we have, first, to make a very fundamental, epistemological point at
least in outline. After that, we will be in a position to analyze (to some degree) that
doctrine itself, namely, Baumgarten’s theory of imputation.⁸

IVa

Subjective Certainty. Baumgarten was in no way a stranger to epistemic modesty.

He is very clear about the epistemic status of each and every conceptual judgment
regarding contingent things, events, and states passed by intellectually imperfect
beings like humans, necessarily bound to the laws and means of extensional logic.
Due to the human impossibility of forming and employing fully analyzed singular
concepts, which would then perfectly identify a possible being in a completely
determinate possible world, all our judgments are, at best, of probability or
subjective certainty in contrast to complete or objective certainty (BAL §424).
There is, however, an antidote against falling into the scientific throes of the sort of
universal skepticism that Kant, along with Baumgarten, so much and rightfully
abhors. According to Baumgarten, aesthetic or sensual, that is, non-conceptual,
judgments regarding the mere existence of material things that are different from

⁸ For more detail on what follows, cf. Aichele (2019, 269–98).

  153

the judging subject himself can be completely certain, that is, they can be passed
without any fear of erring. On that basis, conceptual, empirical judgments are
grounded in reality external to the human mind and may, therefore, be regarded
as grasping this reality as truthfully as is possible for imperfect minds and even
held to be true if the appropriate theory of epistemic probability is observed (cf.
Aichele 2017, 167–224). So, to Baumgarten “a certain uncertainty” (BAL §424)
must be involved necessarily in all of our possible conceptual judgments on
contingent beings, and yet this does not justify any form of universal skepticism.
Baumgarten condenses and specifies his theory in Elements §28. It is too long to
be quoted here, so I will only outline the parts relevant to my present argument.
Baumgarten first makes the elementary distinction between certainty and uncer-
tainty, the former of which consists in a judgment sufficient for identifying
one singular thing among all possible things. Compared to this, any other kind
of judgment must be uncertain, that is, any judgment referring to a thing in
universal empirical terms, Baumgarten’s “aestheticological cognition,” is uncer-
tain. However, from such certain uncertainty about singular identity follows
neither sheer ignorance nor the necessary falsity of each universal judgment
relating to a singular. Even a limited mind is able to identify a bird among a
multitude of things; and a duck among many birds; and a teal among many ducks;
and even Harold and Hester, both of them teals, among many teals—unless all
possible things, birds, ducks, teals are congregating in your backyard. In short:
A judgment that is uncertain need not be untrue.
Deciding on a judgment’s truth or falseness, that is, affirming or negating it,
requires reasons. As we are dealing with “incomplete” or subjective certainty, a
contingent state of the mind of a finite subject of cognition (BM §531), only those
reasons which are factually recognized count. Baumgarten’s method seems to be
simple, and, albeit complex when filled out with qualitative and quantitative
content (cf. Aichele 2019, 275–9), amounts basically to this, formally speaking:
Count or calculate the reasons, weigh them against each other, and decide in
accord with the outcome according to the subjective truth value given. The
relevant epistemic qualities are three: A judgment is probable (probabile), if
more (and weightier) reasons are recognized for affirmation than negation; it is
dubious (dubium), if there are as many reasons for both; and it is improbable
(improbabile), if there are more known reasons for negation than affirmation.
Common to all such judgments is that they are similar to truth (verisimile) in that
they are of propositional form and there always exist some reasons indicating
truth even if these do not suffice for affirmation.
Against pure probabilism, judgments can be reduced to the pair of objective
truth values (BAL §464): Someone considering a judgment probable may be
uncertain about its objective truth but he does not doubt it, even less takes it to
be improbable; rather he takes it to be true, at the same time recognizing the
possibility that it could be false. The same goes, the other way around, with
154  

improbable judgments. And someone doubting a proposition’s truth suspends his

decision because he has sufficient reasons neither for its probability nor for its
improbability, since he has as many for the former as for the latter. Therefore,
probability excludes both improbability and doubtfulness; improbability excludes
both probability and doubtfulness; and doubtfulness excludes probability and
improbability as well. So, the subject is left with the classical pair of “true” and
“false,” and he is able and authorized to use both, in fact literally, beyond any
reasonable doubt.
Right from the start, beginning with his Logic, Baumgarten, in contrast to Kant,
does not need to have any qualms about the objectivity of single moral judgments,
since he has already dealt with its impossibility in regard to every conceptual
judgment passed by contingent subjects on contingent matters. Anachronistically
speaking, Baumgarten is very conscious of what much later will be called the
aporia of application.

IVb

Imputation. Evidently, any moral judgment must bear such objective uncertainty.
However, this need not hinder everyday application of practical norms, since it
can be supplemented by a rational theory of subjective certainty.
As has been hinted, deciding about future actions or kinds of actions is, in fact,
the lesser issue, at least from the point of view of application. Both Kant and
Baumgarten claim (and rightly so) that possible future actions can be given or
represented solely by universal concepts and propositions appropriate to the
extensional reasoning of a finite mind. So, it might happen that the kind of action
chosen with respect to volition and the singular action factually done conflict as to
how they are determined conceptually or judged morally. But it is also clear that
both volitions and singular actions are objects of different kinds of moral judg-
ment, one prospective and another retrospective. Both deal with different material.
The first, as far as the purely practical side is concerned, deals right from the
beginning only with universals—even though, at least, Baumgarten takes into his
philosophical and methodical account the singularity of the deciding agent’s
situation. The second has somehow to mediate between universal practical
norms and singular physical events of possible moral relevance by transforming
the latter, in the process, into universals. Baumgarten neatly distinguishes between
prospective and retrospective moral judgment, in his own terms deliberatio
(deliberating). This includes both connumeratio (adding up reasons), for the
former, and imputation, for the latter, and develops different methods for treating
each, even though, in some way, the latter also involves the former thereby making
imputation an even more complicated affair (cf. Aichele 2019, 279f.). Since both
Baumgarten and Kant allocate moral judgment to singular or physical action, and
  155

therefore retrospective moral judgment to imputation, we will here focus on

Baumgarten’s theory of imputation. For Kant offers basically none in his pub-
lished writings.
Of 205 paragraphs in total, the eighty paragraphs from sections VII to XIIII
of the second chapter—altogether more than a third of Baumgarten’s entire
Elements—are devoted to imputation, and attach great importance to strategies
of error avoidance. Baumgarten starts with a general definition of imputation,
which I quote in full:

APPLICATION is the judgment according to which what is affirmed about

some universal (a notion) is affirmed about its inferior (a concept under it),
under the same content, or what is denied about its inferior, under the same
content. Called IMPUTATION BROADLY CONSIDERED is (1) the judgment
according to which one is judged the author of a certain deed, (2) the application
of a law to a deed, or the subsumption of a deed under a law. We call the former
the (physical) IMPUTATION OF DEED, and the latter a (moral) imputation of
LAW. This is the affirmation or denial of a predicate concerning some deed, a
predicate that a certain law affirmed or denied concerning the superior, i.e. the
concept, under which a given deed is contained. IMPUTABILITY (imputativity)
is that disposition of some determination that can be (1) attributed to some author,
or (2) subsumed under a certain law. The former belongs to the (physical) DEED,
i.e. the dependency of a determination on freedom; the latter belongs to the
(moral) LAW, i.e. the dependency of the free determination on the law, the
applicability of the law to a given deed, and that disposition of it by which it is
contained under some notion concerning which a certain law affirms or denies
something such that the same can hence be affirmed or denied according to the
maxim of all and none (BM § 154). (BIP §125)

Objects of imputation are thus external actions (remember: actus transientes),

together with their free consequences (BIP §133), executed by a free cause, that is,
by a person, that is under a moral, that is, an ethical or juridical, law. Imputation is
thus a retrospective moral judgment. Neither internal acts as volitions, attitudes,
or wishes, nor external actions forced by insurmountable violence or natural
necessity, nor impossible actions can be possible objects of imputation (BIP §131).
A judgment of imputation consists then of two parts, the second part, moral
imputation, necessarily requiring the first one, physical imputation. Physical
imputation investigates whether a certain physical event has been caused by a
person. If so, that event is not to be explained solely by determination through
laws of nature, as if it would have happened as it has without the author’s free
activity. On the contrary, such an event is the effect of free action. Physical
imputation, therefore, terminates in causal judgment. This has to meet three
requirements by establishing: first, whether the event to be investigated has
156  

happened at all, so that a deed might possible have been done; second, whether the
assumed cause was a person at the time of causal action; and, third, whether she
has freely caused that event in the world, so that it was truly a deed (BIP §127).
All these elements investigated in physical imputation are both contingent and
singular. So, at best, the resulting judgment will be of subjective certainty and each
partial judgment forming it can be, at best, probable. However, should any partial
judgment that is not probable but dubious or improbable enter the frame, then
physical imputation is not permissible (BIP §144). If the judgment is subjectively
certain though, it will have this form: “Person P has done deed D.”
This proposition constitutes the second premise of the syllogism of subsump-
tion whose conclusion makes up moral imputation. This form of reasoning is still
known under the banner of a “legal syllogism” or “legal deduction.” Wolff
officially explained and introduced it in his Jus Naturae on the occasion of proving
a title of ownership (cf. Aichele 2011b, esp. 498–502). Its demonstrative force
stems from its logical form, the modus ponendo ponens.
Baumgarten uses the same form but calls it “syllogismus imputatorius” (BIP
§171). Since all retrospective moral judgments must be imputational judgments
and all imputational judgments must be of that form, Baumgarten, by identifying
this logical process with the imputational syllogism, expands its validity to the
whole sphere of morals. According to this model, the first premise is a law and the
second premise is a deed (BIP §171). To be more exact: The first premise is a
conditional quoting the practical norm whose applicability is to be judged, while
the second premise presents the essential features, the “momenta” (BIP §128), of
the deed suspected to be subsumable under the norm, so that it can be declared a
case of the norm or not. If the deed in the second premise corresponds to the
antecedent of the conditional in the first premise, then its consequent is affirmed
by the conclusion. In the simplest form:

Premise 1 (norm): If person P has done the deed D, then P will be punished (or
rewarded) with so and so.
Premise 2 (physical imputation): Now, P has done D.
Conclusion (moral imputation): Therefore, P is to be punished (or rewarded), etc.

Of course, the use of “punishment” or “reward” must not be misunderstood:

These concepts are not exclusively legal ones. After all, after having judged
another person’s behavior to be ethically bad or good, people treat that person
with contempt or respect.
Logical simplicity does not preclude epistemic complexity, though. And it is
precisely the inevitable epistemic issues that Baumgarten tries to tackle with a
detailed discussion of possible sources of error befalling physical imputation in
§138–45, and logical mishaps of moral imputation in §173–5, which is too
  157

elaborated to be analyzed here (cf. Aichele 2019, 283–97). Notice that

Baumgarten’s discussion of possible failures indicates no weakness of his theory.
Rather, it is the other way around, because his theory focuses not only on
foundations but also on their application, as it must if practical philosophy is in
fact to be practical.
Irrelevant to imputation is the origin of the law to be applied, that is, whether it
concerns a natural or a positive obligation. So, there won’t arise questions
concerning the authenticity or even perhaps the truth of the syllogism’s first
premise since all those laws are given somehow. If the second premise contains
a true description of the action investigated all is well: The imputational syllogism
will produce an appropriate result, condemning or praising the correct person for
the correct deed.
That is why imputation’s success depends on the presentation of the second
premise. For it legitimates the recognition of the event described as a case for
applying the law stated in the first premise. However, the event to be investigated
by the second premise cannot be grasped through purely logical means alone. So,
the second premise lacks the corresponding logical necessity. The syllogistic
process, to be sure, is completely determined logically but the second premise,
being a singular judgment, must inevitably contain empirical but necessarily
universal concepts aestheticologically generated from sense perception and expe-
rience. Therefore, demonstrating that necessarily just these and not some other
concepts must be applied to grasp the event investigated is impossible. It follows
that one and the same event with respect to one and the same deed can always be
described in several, possibly incompatible, ways. So likewise, multiple and vary-
ing subsumptions are possible. And these are in principle, and always, open to
argument.
For this reason, there must be institutions suited to applying the different
kinds of practical norms, which are authorized to decide which is to be applied
and how. Baumgarten calls these institutions “courts” (fora) (BIP §180ff.). Such
a court’s task consists in declaring an event with respect to a deed a case of some
law, that is, in deciding which description is fitting, and thus which second
premise is correct and which first premise is to be applied. Precisely this, the
application of law, is moral imputation. Provided that this decision procedure is
not carried out by an all-knowing being, its result can only be probable; still,
such imputational judgment does the job of applying universal norms to
singular actions. And that seems to be acceptable, especially when it is taken
into account that the slightest flaw in the process will make imputation
untenable—presumably a wide-ranging precaution that Baumgarten takes
against the conviction of innocents and exaggerated punishment—although it
may well be argued, for example, that subjective certainty is never good enough
for passing, e.g. a sentence of death of which the outcome would be irrevocably
objective.
158  

Of Clean and Dirty Hands. It is not all too difficult to see now why Kant does not
dwell on physical imputation, turning, in fact, a blind eye to it. As pure, sublime
even, as his revolutionary foundation of morals may be, it seems to preclude
application here below in everyday life, because it does not offer, let alone show, a
way, intelligible or not, to morally judge singular actions performed by real people.
Even if Kant in the generally more practically oriented Metaphysics of Morals,
references the traditional concept of imputation, he omits precisely the part
focusing on singulars, that is, physical imputation, mentioning solely the part
based exclusively on universals, that is, moral imputation, which, however, does
not get airborne without the physical. Conceding that he simply overlooked the
problem would be implausible in the extreme. Perhaps, as suggested above, he had
hoped that the reader would tacitly fill in the gap, well-known as the concept of
imputation was, and proceed further on his own devices. Or, maybe, Kant did
not want to cloud his theory by considering the sorts of details that necessarily
arise in the application of philosophical theories to real-life situations, especially
in moral theory.
Baumgarten, on the other hand, does not fear getting his hands dirty. He
entertains no illusions about the objectivity of moral judgments, or really of any
judgment about contingents, as far as they are passed by human and thus finite
minds. And, consistently, he does not require objectivity, but instead makes do
with subjective certainty without, however, condemning us to skepticism. So, with
dirty hands, he is able to establish a functioning moral philosophy, including a
method for the application of practical norms. It goes without saying that such
practical philosophy must remain provisional, that is, it has to stay open to
improvement or revision, something which was not, it seems, Kant’s cup of tea.
But, to repeat, Baumgarten’s careful analysis of imputation accomplishes some-
thing that everybody expects, and rightly so, from practical philosophy, namely
showing, as precisely as possible, the means for its application in everyday life.
Whether it is somehow possible to have the best of both worlds, a theory with one
hand clean and the other one dirty, remains open to discussion.
 9
Perfection and Self-Perfection in
Baumgarten and Kant
Paul Guyer

Kant’s rejection of the “perfectionism” of Christian Wolff and Alexander Gottlieb

Baumgarten as a satisfactory foundation for moral philosophy is well-known
(see e.g. Schmucker 1961, 291). Yet Kant’s account of the duties of virtue in the
Metaphysics of Morals is closely modeled on their accounts, particularly
Baumgarten’s account in his Ethica, just as his account of the duties of right in
that work is closely modeled on Gottfried Achenwall’s account of those duties in
his Ius naturae, and like the latter can be as telegraphic as it is just because the
predecessor work was prescribed to his students and readily available to his
readership.¹ Kant’s reliance on Baumgarten is particularly evident in the case of
duties of virtue to oneself, which fall under the rubric of the duty of self-perfection.
The difference between Kant and Baumgarten on duties to oneself cannot then be
that there is no room for perfectionism in Kant’s moral philosophy at all. If Kant’s
critique of perfectionism as a foundation for moral philosophy is sincere and
sound, then the difference must be at the foundational level, a different conception
of the fundamental principle of morality, but one that yields the same superstruc-
ture, the same particular duties. But even that conclusion is too simple. First,
Kant’s foundation for moral philosophy can be presented, and Kant himself
sometimes does present it, as a version of perfectionism, but one on which it is
not human nature and the human condition in general that must be perfected but
the human will, more specifically the freedom of the human will. Second, although
Kant’s account of the duties of virtue, especially his account of the duties of virtue
to oneself, does follow Baumgarten’s model, there are several differences of detail
that are worthy of note. This chapter will address both of these points. Just to
make matters a little more complicated, I will suggest that Kant’s moral philoso-
phy is best understood as comprising three levels, not just the two levels of
fundamental principle on the one hand and concrete system of duties on the

¹ Bacin (2015) argues for the close connection between Kant’s account of the duties of virtue and
Baumgarten’s ethics, but does not interpret Kant’s overall approach to moral philosophy as perfec-
tionist in the way that I do. For the relation between Kant’s doctrine of right and Achenwall’s Ius
naturae, see my introduction to Achenwall (2020a).

Paul Guyer, Perfection and Self-Perfection in Baumgarten and Kant In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical
Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press. © Paul Guyer 2024.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0010
160  

other that is obviously suggested by Kant’s distinction between a Groundwork for

the Metaphysics of Morals and the actual Metaphysics of Morals: there is the level
of fundamental principle (the level of the Groundwork), the next level of organ-
ization (in the Metaphysics of Morals) where Kant makes his distinctions between
perfect and imperfect duties, duties of right and ethical duties, and further
distinctions within those rubrics such as his distinction between innate and
acquired right in the case of juridical duty and duty to self and others in the
case of ethical duty. Then finally comes his catalogue of specific duties (in the
Metaphysics of Morals, although anticipated in the Groundwork in the note to
4:421) such as the duties of moral and natural perfection in the case of ethical
duties to oneself, of beneficence, gratitude, and sympathy as ethical duties of love
to others, and of the avoidance of arrogance, defamation, and ridicule as ethical
duties of respect to others. There are important similarities as well as differences
between Kant and Baumgarten at the first of these levels, and important differ-
ences as well as similarities at the second and third.
In several previous papers I have discussed similarities as well as differences
between perfectionism in Kant and Wolff (see Guyer 2007, 2016a, and 2024). This
chapter will focus on the similarities and differences between Kant and
Baumgarten. For reasons of space, the discussion of the similarities and differ-
ences between Kant’s and Baumgarten’s treatment of our particular ethical duties
will be confined to the case of our duties to ourselves.

The Foundational Level. Kant heaps scorn on Baumgarten’s attempt to cast the
fundamental principle of morality in perfectionist terms. His criticism is not fair
to Baumgarten and obscures the fact that his own approach may also be con-
sidered a form of perfectionism, indeed that Kant himself sometimes presents his
own view in such terms.
Kant presents his criticism of perfectionism as early as the prize essay,
the Inquiry concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology
and Morality, submitted to the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1762 and pub-
lished by the Academy in 1764 as the runner-up to Moses Mendelssohn’s prize-
winning essay, Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences (1764; 1997, 251–306). Here
Kant writes:

The rule: perform the most perfect action in your power, is the first formal
ground of all obligation to act. Likewise, the proposition: abstain from doing that
which will hinder the realization of the greatest possible perfection, is the first
formal ground of the duty to abstain from acting. And just as, in the absence of
any material first principles, nothing flowed from the first formal principles of
   - 161

our judgments of the truth, so here no specifically determinate obligation flows

from these two rules of the good, unless they are combined with indemonstrable
material principles of practical cognition. (UDG 2:299)

It certainly sounds as if Kant is here alluding to Baumgarten, whose Elements of

First Practical Philosophy (Initia philosophiae practicae primae acroamatice) had
just appeared in 1760 and which Kant had quickly begun to use as the text for his
course on moral philosophy, along with Baumgarten’s older Ethica philosophica.²
(Baumgarten’s division between the Initia and the Ethica, itself derived from
Wolff, anticipates Kant’s division of moral philosophy into the Groundwork for
the Metaphysics of Morals and a Metaphysics of Morals; the Critique of Practical
Reason, which presents neither an addition to the Groundwork’s formulation(s) of
the categorical imperative nor to the Metaphysics of Morals’s catalogues of the
specific duties of human beings but instead deals with the issues of freedom of the
will and the highest good, stands outside of this sequence.) In his Elements
Baumgarten formulates the fundamental principle of morality in just these
terms. First he says that “The imperatives in the practical disciplines serve to
obligate a human being. Hence: commit or do the good, and indeed omit evil”
(BIP §39).³ Then he refines these formulae. “Now the morally impossible is . . . no
obligation, and neither is the unqualifiedly absolutely and naturally impossible,”
he premises—that is, ought presupposes can—the fuller formulations of the first
two imperatives are “seek perfection as far as you can, i.e. in that degree of
strength of which you are capable, and which is neither posited entirely beyond
your power, nor rendered morally impossible by stronger laws,” that is, not
overridden by some stricter duty, or, “as much as you can, seek your perfection
by which you become either a more perfect end, or a more perfect means,” and
“Omit, as much as you can, those things that render you more imperfect either as an
end, or as a means” (BIP §43). Kant’s formulation of the principle of perfectionism
as do or omit as much as is in your power alludes to this Baumgartenian
formulation; so even when he invokes the name of Wolff, as he does in his
1770s lectures on ethics, he presumably has Baumgarten as least as much if not
more in mind. The passage from Kant’s prize essay seems to insinuate that
Baumgarten offered only a formal first principle of morality, not a material
principle, one that it is for that reason vacuous or tautological. That is what he

² Baumgarten’s Initia has recently been translated into English by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers,
as Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy: A Critical
Translation with Kant’s Reflections on Moral Philosophy, and into German, by Alexander Aichele, as
Anfangsgründe der praktischen Metaphysik. At the time of writing, Baumgarten’s Ethica philosophica
remained available only in Latin but Hymers’ translation has since appeared with Bloomsbury in 2024.
³ Clemens Schwaiger has argued that Baumgarten innovated and provided a model for Kant in
starting his moral philosophy from the concept of obligations, expressed through imperatives;
Schwaiger (2009), in German in Schwaiger (2011a, 144–54); in that volume see also “Baumgartens
Anssatz einer philosophischer Ethikbegründung” (128–43).
162  

explicitly says about Wolff in the lectures: there he argues that the fundamental
principle of morality must be purely “intellectual,” but that it cannot “again be
tautological, and consist in the tautology of pure reason, like that put forward by
Baron Wolff: Fac bonum et omitte malum, which . . . is empty and unphilosophical”
(MoC 27:276).⁴
Now this criticism is unfair to Baumgarten, and no doubt to Wolff as well. For
Baumgarten continues that:

Someone seeking his own perfection intends a consensus of different things

within himself into one, namely his soul, his body, and his external state; he
intends internal perfection both among these and with the rest of the things
constituting universal nature. And, therefore, he also seeks the consensus of his
own merely natural actions, and the rest of those things both in and outside of
himself that are not posited as within his power, with his own free determina-
tions. Hence, he intends the same ends that are posited in these. Whoever intends
the same ends as are fixed in advance by nature, however,   
. (BIP §45)

And then in the Ethica Baumgarten explains at length what comprises the
perfection of one’s soul, one’s body, and one’s external state or resources and
how one is to perfect them. So he certainly did not think that he was offering a
mere tautology; to use Kant’s terms, he clearly intended to be offering the first
material principle or principles of ethics to complement his first formal principle
of morality.
So Kant’s charge that Baumgarten’s perfectionism is an empty formalism—an
ironic charge, of course, because that was precisely the charge that would be
brought against Kant’s own categorical imperative (see Guyer 2021)—is hardly
fair to Baumgarten’s intentions. A second criticism that Kant makes might seem
to come closer to the mark, but is still unfair to Baumgarten. This is also in the
lectures, and here Kant uses the same formulation of the moral principle that he
ascribes to Wolff, but this time ascribes it to “our author,” that is, to the author of
the textbook for the lectures, i.e. Baumgarten:

The first moral law of our author is: Fac bonum et omitte malum. The express
meaning of the phrase is: Fac bonum. The good must be distinguished from the
pleasant; the pleasant refers to sensibility, the good to the understanding. The
concept of the good is a thing that satisfies everyone, and hence it can be judged

⁴ The same words are found in Kant (2004, 60), which is based on the transcription of Kant’s
lectures by Johann Friedrich Kaehler dated summer semester 1777. The Kaehler notes prove that the
Collins notes actually represent Kant’s lectures as given in the 1770s, thus that although they are in
Collins’s own hand he must have copied them from an older transcription.
   - 163

by the understanding. The pleasant satisfies only according to private predilec-

tion. So the statement might mean: Do what your understanding presents to you
as good, and not what is pleasant to your senses [ . . . ] But in this statement the
differentiation of goodness might already have been made. Do what is morally
good. But in that case there ought to have been another rule, to tell us what moral
goodness consists in. So it can in no way be a principle of morality. (MoC 27:264)

Here at least Kant seems to concede that Baumgarten was trying to supply a
material as well as formal principle, or presupposing one. But any insinuation that
Baumgarten was trying to derive his material principle from what is pleasant to
the senses, which would be doomed because people are ineliminably idiosyncratic
in that regard, would still be off the mark. Baumgarten did not take pleasure as the
immediate aim of morality; like Wolff, he thought that pleasure was only the
perception of perfection, so morality must aim at perfection, although the reali-
zation of perfection will manifest itself in the feeling of pleasure. But Baumgarten
surely thought that the status of one’s mind, body, and external state as the proper
objects for our perfection was given by human nature in general (for him a proper
subject of metaphysics), not by personal, variable preference. Taking the perfec-
tion of one’s mind, body, and external state as one’s fundamental moral goal is not
like preferring chocolate to rum raisin ice cream.
Kant’s deepest criticism of Baumgartenian perfectionism would thus have to
be what he says in the Critique of Practical Reason. Here Kant presents his
criticism of what he takes to be the fourfold possibilities for “material determining
grounds in the principle of morality” that have hitherto been recognized,
namely the projects of founding morality in (i) subjective external grounds,
either of education “according to Montaigne” or “civil government” “according
to Mandeville”; (ii) subjective internal grounds, either of “physical feeling”
“according to Epicurus” or “moral feeling” “according to Hutcheson”; (iii) objec-
tive internal grounds, namely “of perfection” “according to Wolff and the Stoics”;
or (iv) objective external grounds, namely “the will of God” “according to Crusius
and other theological moralists” (KpV 5:40). His specific objection to perfection-
ism, although here associated with Wolff, is then that “if an end as an object which
must precede the determination of the will by a practical rule and contain the
ground of the possibility of such a determination—hence as the matter of the will
taken as its determining ground—is always empirical; then it can serve as the
Epicurean principle of the doctrine of happiness but never as the pure rational
principle of the doctrine of morals and of duty (so too, talents and their develop-
ment only because they contribute to the advantages of life . . . )” (KpV 5:41).
Perhaps Baumgarten did not intend the nature and needs of one’s mind, body, and
external state as the proper objects of perfection in the name of morality to be only
empirically known, but in Kant’s view they are, and in that case, we might take
him to be saying, the Baumgartenian theory of perfection is no better off than the
164  

Epicurean foundation of morality in happiness: that depends on an empirical

theory of what constitutes happiness, whether for humans more generally or
for individuals more particularly, and the same is true of Baumgarten’s material
first principles. And of course what can be known only empirically is always
indeterminate and variable, so no secure moral theory can be founded on empir-
ical concepts.
Kant thus proposes to replace Baumgarten’s material first principle(s) with
something “intellectual” rather than empirical, and therefore determinate and
fixed rather than indeterminate and variable. But his proposed alternative can
be understood as itself a form of perfectionism, although one that is actually rather
than merely apparently “intellectual.” In order to see this, first let us see what
Kant’s alternative foundation for morality is, and then see how he both implies
and explicitly states that this should be understood as a form of perfectionism.
In the lectures and reflections from the 1770s that were Kant’s own notes for
those lectures, thus in our traces of Kant’s most direct engagement with
Baumgarten, we find Kant’s most explicit statements that the fundamental prin-
ciple of morality is that each exercise of any agent’s freedom should be consistent
or harmonious with all other exercise of freedom by that agent and all others.⁵ We
can take a few sample statements from Refl 6802 (1773–75? 1772?), “The universal
and supreme practical law of reason is that reason must determine free actions . . . .
This consists in the disposition of action taken universally agreeing with the free
power of choice (with itself) and with freedom first ceasing to be unconstrained
and lawless [ . . . ] Actions are not correct, freedom is without a rule, if freedom
does not stand under such restriction from the idea of the whole” ( 19:166–7); Refl
6851 (1776–78), “Your actions ought to agree with your freedom and with what is
universal in your inclinations, with the freedom of others and with what is

⁵ After all this time, the most extensive studies of this material remain Schilpp (1938) and
Schmucker (1961), with a briefer treatment in Ward (1972). Both Schilpp and Schmucker observe
Kant’s focus on the consistent exercise of freedom as a “law to itself” as the basis of morality in these
materials (e.g. Schilpp 1938, 131–2; Schmucker 1961, 317), although both characterize Kant’s position
in these materials and in his mature moral philosophy as “formalism” rather than “perfectionism,” in
Schilpp’s case as “procedural formalism.” Of course what one means by any term ending in “-ism”
always has to be made precise, and I would not object if what I call Kant’s perfectionism were also
considered a form of formalism, properly defined. Schilpp’s interpretation of Kant’s freedom-based
theory is limited, however, by his focus on a negative conception of freedom, in which the use of a
formal requirement of consistency in the use of freedom frees us from domination by inclination—a
part, of course, of Kant’s view—to the almost complete exclusion of a positive conception of freedom,
our freedom to set our own ends, which I regard as the heart of Kant’s view. Thus Schilpp writes “All
this lends force to our contention that by ‘freedom’ Kant means freedom or aloofness from de facto
drives and desires.” He only hints at what I regard as the necessary complement to Kant’s conception of
freedom when he continues that when Kant states “that ‘freedom is a power for acting or refraining to
act independently of empirical grounds’ ” (in what Schilpp refers to paragraph 23 of the fragment from
1775, i.e. Reflection 7202, originally Loses Blatt Duisburg 6, AA 19:276–82, at 19:281–2) “he means the
capacity to withhold assent to a particular drive in order that the drive and its objective may be
reflectively interpreted and the final objective may be determined in the light of such reflective
interpretation and construction” (Schilpp 1938, 136). Schilpp’s “the final objective may be determined”
does hint at the ability to set our own ends as the essence of Kantian freedom.
   - 165

universal in their inclinations” (AA 19:179); Refl 6854 (1776–78? 1780–89??),

“freedom in accordance with laws, insofar as freedom itself is a law, constitutes the
form of the moral sense” (AA 19:180);⁶ and Refl 6864 (1776–78), “The principium
of moral judgment (the principium of the conformity of freedom with reason in
general, i.e., lawfulness in accordance with universal conditions of consensus) is
the rule for the subordination of freedom under the principium of the universal
consensus of freedom with itself (with regard to oneself as well as other persons)”
(AA 19:184; BIP 210). Refl 7197, a note that Adickes really could not date at all—
he lists 1780–89 as most probable, but also conjectures 1773–77 and 1776–79, and
as less likely 1790–1804—states that “Morality is the inner lawfulness of freedom,
namely insofar as it is a law to itself. If we abstract from all inclinations, then the
conditions under which alone freedom can agree with itself remain (1) that the use
of freedom harmonize under a universally valid law with the determination of
one’s own nature, (2) with the ends of others insofar as they harmonize into a
whole, (3) with the freedom of others in general” (AA 19:270; BIP 280). The last of
these formulations is reminiscent of Kant’s formulation of the categorical imper-
ative as requiring that we transform the kingdom of nature into an empire of ends,
“a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as
ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself)” (GMS
4:433), at least on the assumption that rational beings exercise their freedom
precisely by setting ends for themselves (see also Kant’s definitions of humanity at
MS’s Doctrine of Virtue, Introduction, 6:387, 392). The key idea is that each
exercise of anyone’s own freedom to set her own ends must be consistent with the
further exercises of such freedom that would otherwise be possible for her as well
as with the exercise of their own freedom to set their own ends that would
otherwise be possible for others, in the limit case all others, where, no doubt,
some conditions on what would otherwise be possible are presupposed. Choices
and actions that might be considered exercises of freedom when considered in
isolation but that undermine or compromise the possibility for further exercise of
freedom by oneself or others are to be avoided, and in that sense freedom is to be
preserved; ultimately, Kant’s view is that the possible range of free choices for
oneself and others is to be expanded by the provision of means to possible ends,
since a rational being cannot freely choose an end for which it does not or does not
believe itself to have adequate means.⁷

⁶ Schmucker (1961, 326–7) also cites R 6802 and 6854, as well as R 6978 and 7197, which I cite in a
few lines.
⁷ Ward’s brief discussion of the role of the 1770s lectures on ethics in The Development of Kant’s
View of Ethics points in the direction of my interpretation when he says that what the “consistency” in
the use of freedom that requires “is not just a lack of self-contradiction”; “It is more like a coherence in
once’s own conduct or with a harmonious social system of purposes.” This accurately reflects the fact
that Kant requires both intra- and interpersonal consistency in the use of freedom. But whereas on my
interpretation what Kant requires is the “greatest possible use of freedom” for all to set their own ends,
166  

All of these formulations are also reminiscent of Kant’s statement of the

Universal Principle of Right in the Introduction to the Doctrine of Right, “Any
action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a
universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with
everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law” (MS 6:230–1), but it is
crucial that Kant’s reflections are statements of the fundamental principle of
morality as a whole, not just of the principle of right, that is, the coercively
enforceable part of morality. The Universal Principle of Right, in turn, is readily
understood as requiring the maximization of freedom, in the sense that each
should have the greatest possible sphere for the use of her freedom compatible
with an equally large sphere of freedom for everyone else. Kant also uses max-
imizing language in the statement of the principle of non-coercibly enforceable
duties to oneself in the lectures: “In all self-regarding actions, so to behave that any
use of powers is compatible with the greatest use of them”; what I have just
described in the previous paragraph is packed into this phrase. But then he
extends this statement of his foundational principle to all duties: “The conditions
under which alone the greatest use of freedom is possible, and under which it can
be self-consistent, are the essential ends of humankind. With these, freedom must
agree. The principium of all duties is thus the conformity of the use of freedom
with the essential ends of humankind” (MoC 27:346). The formulation that
freedom should agree with the essential ends of humankind might make it
sound as if there is some essential end other than its intra- and interpersonally
exercise with which the use of freedom must agree, but Refl 6851 and 7197 have
already made it clear that morality itself and thus the essential end, or ends
(singular or plural makes no difference) of humankind is nothing other than the
agreement of freedom with itself, i.e. the consistent use of freedom. The interpre-
tation of Kant’s principle as requiring the greatest possible use of freedom might
seem to be a maximizing form of consequentialism, but it is clear that in the
interpersonal case what Kant is requiring is maximal yet equal spheres of freedom,
so the common objection that maximizing consequentialism ignores the differ-
ence of persons would be misplaced. And Kant himself is perfectly comfortable
using the language of maximization with regard to freedom: as early as 1764–68 he
says that “All right action is a maximum of the free power of choice where it is
taken reciprocally” (Refl 6596, 19:101; BIP 146, but contrary to what the transla-
tion of Fugate and Hymers, “action of right,” might suggest, this refers to right or
morally correct action in general, not right in the specific sense of coercibly

Ward seems to regard human ends as given by human nature and circumstances: “The moral rules . . .
provide a method for systematizing the given empirical ends of our nature so as to make them
‘universally valid,’ and thus harmonious and consistent” (Ward 1972, 53). This seems to me to get
Kant exactly wrong: freedom for Kant is the freedom to set our own ends, although consistently with
our freedom to set our own ends on other occasions and the freedom of others to set their own ends,
and precisely not in merely harmonizing given ends.
   - 167

enforceable correct action). Kant’s “reciprocally” makes it clear that what morality
requires is maximal equal freedom.
This conception of the foundation of morality is radically different from what
we find in Baumgarten, who begins with the obvious point that morality (obliga-
tion) concerns only free rather than involuntary actions (BIP, §10), but does not
make freedom or its intra- and interpersonal maximization the goal or “essential
end” of morality. What remains to be shown, however, is that Kant’s account can
be regarded as a form of perfectionism, and that indeed he himself sometimes
regarded it as such. One piece of evidence that implies that Kant’s principle is itself
a form of perfectionism is the version of the fourfold classification of possible
foundations for morality that we find in the lectures on ethics from the 1770s, thus
from the period in which Kant is working out his basic idea. Whereas in the
Critique of Practical Reason all four approaches, including the “objective internal”
or rationalist approach of perfectionism, are to be rejected in favor of Kant’s own
approach, which thus stands outside of the scheme, in the lectures he puts nothing
other than his own principle in the position of the “intellectual” yet internal
foundation for morality. Thus after he rejects the internal empirical theories of
self-love (Epicurus, Helvétius, Mandeville) and moral feeling (Shaftesbury and
Hutcheson) and the external empirical theories of education and government
(here Montaigne rather than Mandeville, and Hobbes), all of which could yield
only contingent principles, what he presents as the internal intellectual foundation
for morality is nothing other than his own theory: if morality rests “on a principle
that resides in the understanding, then [its] injunction is absolute. [For example]
You are not to lie, whatever the circumstances may be. If I consider my free choice,
it is a conformity of free choice with itself and others. It is thus a necessary law of
free choice” (MoC 27:253–4). The position of perfectionism in Kant’s scheme is
here occupied by the principle that the use of free choice is always to be consistent
with free choice itself, or with the greatest possible use of freedom. This suggests
that the maximization of freedom in this way is its perfection. But Kant also says
this explicitly. In the crucial period 1769–70, when the great light dawned in
Kant’s practical as well as theoretical philosophy, he wrote:

There is a free power of choice which does not have its own happiness as an aim
but rather presupposes it. The essential perfection of a freely acting being
depends on whether this freedom [crossed out: of the power of choice] is not
subject to inclination or in general would not be the subject of any foreign cause
at all. The chief rule of externally good actions is not that they conform with the
happiness of others, but with their power of choice, and in the same way the
perfection of a subject does not depend on whether he is happy but on whether
his condition is subordinated to freedom: so also the universally valid perfection,
that the actions must stand under universal laws of freedom. (Refl 6605,
19:105–6; BIP 150)
168  

And the presumably later reflection 7197, the first part of which was previously
quoted, continues:

This perfection of freedom is the condition under which the [crossed out: good]
perfection of all others and the happiness of a rational being must be universally
satisfying (worthiness), and is all that remains if the object of our current
inclination have all become indifferent to us. (Refl 19:270–1; BIP 280)

It would take more room than I have here to fully explicate these passages, but
they contain the gist of Kant’s mature moral philosophy, if not in the language
with which we are familiar from the Groundwork and the second Critique, and
present it as a form of perfectionism. The goal of morality is that each of one’s free
actions be compatible with maximal freedom for oneself as long as that is
compatible with maximal freedom for others, thus with maximally equal freedom
for all, and this is the perfection of freedom; happiness either for oneself or others
is not the direct or immediate object of morality, but morality constitutes the
condition of worthiness to be happy. Happiness is “presupposed” in the sense that
it is a natural goal of all, and, although Kant does not suggest this in these passages,
the perfection of freedom or greatest freedom possible in the world would in fact
produce the greatest happiness possible in the world. The last claim will have to be
left dangling here (although for Kant’s first stab at it, see the Critique of Pure
Reason, A 809–10/B 837–8).
The foundation of Kant’s moral philosophy is thus perfection, but the perfec-
tion of freedom rather than the perfection of the human mind, body, and external
state. However, Kant hardly completely rejects Baumgarten’s ethics, as opposed to
his elements or foundation, because those more concrete objects of perfection are
the basis of Kant’s catalogue of the particular duties of virtue of human beings.
That is, although Kant has radically revised Baumgarten’s foundation for moral
philosophy, the superstructure of his own ethics is largely Baumgartenian. But
before we turn to that, we need to briefly consider some revisions that Kant makes
at the level between the most general principle of morality on the one hand and
the particular duties of human beings on the other. These revisions must be
understood in order to understand the difference in organization between
Baumgarten’s Ethica and Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue in spite of their similarity in
content at the most concrete level of our duties, especially our duties to ourselves.

II

The Intermediate Level: Kant’s Classes of Duties. In this section I make two points.
First, while Baumgarten’s catalogue of duties is organized around a simple dis-
tinction between perfect and imperfect duties, Kant’s is organized around two
   - 169

distinctions, that between perfect and imperfect duties and that between duties of
right and ethical duties. Kant’s two distinctions are not co-extensive and lead to a
more complex division of duties than is found in Baumgarten. Second, Kant’s
division of duties is also illuminated by a distinction that is not found in
Baumgarten and in fact is not explicit in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue itself, that
between duties founded in the right of humanity in our own person and that of
others and those founded in the end of humanity in ourselves and others. This
distinction emerges rather in Kant’s final and most detailed engagement with
Baumgarten’s moral philosophy, recorded in the notes on Kant’s course on the
metaphysics of morals taken by his lawyer Johann Friedrich Vigilantius in 1793–4.
But it does illuminate Kant’s organization of the Doctrine of Virtue in the
Metaphysics of Morals, finally published in 1797.
Baumgarten follows the tradition, going back at least to Hugo Grotius and
Samuel Pufendorf, according to which duties (or correlative rights) are divided
into two classes, perfect and imperfect.⁸ Perfect duties are those that may be
coercively enforced by those to whom the obligations are owed, or by agents
acting for them, such as a state, while imperfect duties are those that do not permit
such enforcement. He also calls perfect duties “external,” since their coercive
enforcement will be executed by an agent other than the one who has the duty,
while imperfect duties are “internal,” since they can be motivated, or perhaps
metaphorically enforced, only by the one who has the duty.

Seeing that someone can be obligated to something such that another human
being, however, cannot extort <extorquere> it, whether absolutely or physically
or morally, and, nevertheless, someone can also be obligated such that another
human being can absolutely, physically, or morally extort from him that to which
he is bound: morally possible extortion granted to another is sometimes an
impelling cause, which, through obligation, is connected with a certain free
determination, and sometimes is not. An  to some free determina-
tion through the extortion permitted to another human being is 
(complete, perfect), and the rest are   (incomplete, imper-
fect). Therefore, we are   if and insofar as a 
 is represented by us as     

⁸ Grotius distinguishes between “Right properly, and strictly taken,” such as that of a lord over a
slave, which obviously includes permission to coercively enforce it, and “imperfect” property, as well as
between “a Rule of Moral Actions, obliging us to that which is good and commendable,” as opposed to
an unenforceable “counsel” (Grotius 2005, Book I, chapter I, paragraph V, 138–9; paragraph IX,
148–9). Pufendorf distinguishes between “perfect law,” which has two parts, one the precept “whereby
it is directed what is to be done or omitted,” the other the sanction “wherein it is declared what
Punishment he shall incur, who neglects to do what is commanded,” and imperfect duties, “such as
could not have been extorted by Force or Law,” for they “are not absolutely necessary for the
Preservation of Mankind, and for the Support of Human Society in general, although they serve to
embellish it, and render it more commodious” (Pufendorf 2003, chapter I, paragraph VII, 46;
paragraph XIV, 50n, from Barbeyrac’s note).
170  

, i.e., such that its extortion is morally possible or permitted to another
human being. However, we are   if and insofar as a free
determination to which we are obligated is not represented by us as that which
ought to be extorted. (BIP §56)⁹

Baumgarten’s distinction is obviously related to Kant’s distinction between duties

of right or juridical duties, which permit of “external,” “aversive” enforcement,
and ethical duties, which do not (MS 6:218–9).
But Kant’s distinction between juridical and ethical duties is not the same as his
own distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, although the first presup-
poses the second.¹⁰ Kant’s distinction between perfect and imperfect duties, as is
well known, is that between duties of narrow obligation and those of wide
obligation. Duties of narrow obligation specify specific types of action that must
be performed (“Debts must be repaid”) or, more typically, types of action that
must be omitted or not performed (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”), although
the distinction between action and omission is not rigid, since the same duty can
often be stated in grammatically positive or negative form (“Debts must be repaid”
or “Thou shalt not fail to pay your debts”). Duties of wide obligation prescribe
maxims and ends that must be adopted but not specific types of actions that must
be performed in particular types of circumstances—you must adopt the maxim of
beneficence and with it the end of helping others in need, but that does not tell you
exactly what you must do for others in exactly what circumstances, and no readily
stated rule can do this. Kant says that in the case of imperfect duties of wide
obligation “the law can prescribe only the maxim of actions, not actions them-
selves,” and that “this is a sign that it leaves a playroom <latitudo> for free choice
in following (complying with) the law, that is, the law cannot specify precisely
in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action for an end
that is also a duty.” But he makes it clear that he does not mean that one can
just arbitrarily decide when to be, e.g. beneficent, and when one has done
enough, for he continues that “a wide duty is not to be taken as permission to
make exceptions to the maxim of actions but only as permission to limit
one maxim of duty by another (e.g. love of one’s neighbor in general by love

⁹ Even though “extort” is the dictionary translation of extorquere, it seems misleading insofar as
in contemporary common usage “extort” suggests obtaining something by the impermissible use of
force—extortion is a crime—whereas Baumgarten is referring to the permissible use of force. For that
reason “coercion” would be better. But Alexander Aichele’s recent German translation of the Initia is
in the same vein, using abpressen, the dictionary translation of which is “extortion,” rather than the
possibly more neutral zwingen. See Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Anfangsgründe der praktischen
Metaphysik, trans. Alexander Aichele (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2019) Baumgarten 2019a, §56,
pp. 86–9).
¹⁰ Schmucker also recognizes that Kant distinguishes perfect duties from the (narrower) class of
coercible duties (Schmucker 1961, 297), but, since his book concerns only Kant’s early ethics, he does
not go on to explain the importance of Kant’s distinction for the structure of the Doctrine of Virtue,
which I will do.
   - 171

of one’s parents)” (MS 6:390). This is why it is not right to say that perfect duties
are duties of strict obligation while imperfect duties are not, and why Kant may
say that fulfillment of imperfect duties is meritorious but does not call them
supererogatory in the modern sense:¹¹ it takes judgment to decide whether on a
particular occasion helping one’s parents should take precedence over some
other form of beneficence, or whether on such an occasion cultivating one’s
talents should take precedence over any form of beneficence, but that does not
mean that it is just arbitrary which one does, or whether one fulfills any
imperfect duty at all, and if one cannot fulfill an imperfect duty, e.g. of benef-
icence, on one occasion in one way, one may still have a residual obligation to
fulfill it on another occasion in another way, whether toward the same benefi-
ciary or another.¹²
But, although Kant only explains the difference between perfect and imperfect
duty in the Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue, the second half of the
Metaphysics of Morals, the crucial point here is that it is presupposed by his
distinction between juridical and ethical duties, which is made in the Introduction
to the book as a whole and which structures its division into the two halves of the
Doctrine of Right and of Virtue. Baumgarten had equated the distinction between
juridical and ethical duty with the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty,
but for Kant the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty must precede the
distinction between juridical and ethical duty: for Kant, as for Baumgarten,
juridical duty is that which may and indeed must be coercively enforced (see
Guyer 2016d), or “extorted,” but only a subset of perfect duties may be coercively
enforced, namely, those the violation of which would hinder the freedom of others,
who obtain the right to attempt to hinder such hindrance of their freedom by, as
Kant puts it, the law of non-contradiction, in light of which the hindrance to a
hindrance to freedom is supposed to be equivalent to the preservation of freedom
(MS 6:231)—the first goal of morality in general, as a necessary condition of its
greatest possible use. Kant does not fully spell out the premises for his restriction
of juridical right to this subset of perfect duty, but although he does not say so the
specificity of perfect duty is clearly a necessary condition for its coercive enforce-
ment, while why coercive hindrance to the hindrance of the freedom of others
should be permitted and required but coercive intervention to prevent hindrances
to agents’ own freedom—to prevent suicide or self-mutilation, for example—
should not be could certainly use explanation. Be that as it may, Kant’s revision
of Baumgarten’s simple distinction is important, and explains why his category of
ethical duty, that is, non-coercively enforceable duty, is and must be broader than
his category of duties of virtue proper, the imperfect or wide duties to adopt
certain ends and their associated maxims, specifically the two ends that are also

¹¹ Hill (1971) defends an interpretation of some of Kant’s imperfect duties as supererogatory.

¹² For the best treatment of the subtleties of imperfect duty, see Herman (2021).
172  

duties of one’s own perfection and the happiness of others (MS 6:385–8). Ethical
duty must include perfect duties that, for whatever reason, specified or not, are not
candidates for coercive enforcement, such as the duties to oneself not to commit
suicide, self-mutilation, and self-abuse, and the duties of respect to others not to be
arrogant toward them or defame or ridicule them. These duties are part of what it
is to treat oneself and others as ends in themselves, not as mere means, to be sure,
but they are not duties to adopt more specific ends such as self-perfection or the
happiness of others. They are thus not duties of virtue, but they must be classified
as ethical duties because they are not coercively enforceable. Baumgarten’s scheme
did not allow for this distinction.
Kant makes the distinction between ethical duty in general and duties of virtue
in particular tolerably clear in the Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: “to every
ethical obligation there corresponds the concept of virtue, but not all ethical duties
are thereby duties of virtue” (MS 6:383); that is, wherever there is no room for
coercive enforcement, then the fulfillment of duty requires virtue in the sense of
“the strength of a human being’s maxims in fulfilling his duty,” a “self-constraint
in accordance with a principle of inner freedom, and so through the mere
representation of one’s duty in accordance with its formal law” (MS 6:394). But
in much of the Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue Kant places so much
emphasis on duties of virtue as ends that are also duties that it is easy to lose
sight of this distinction. However, a distinction that he makes in the Vigilantius
lectures but does not repeat in the Metaphysics of Morals, although it has not
drawn much attention, can help clarify what is going on. This distinction, which is
clearly Kant’s addition to Baumgarten rather than his comment on anything in the
textbook, is between the right of humanity in one’s own person and that of other
persons and the end of humanity in one’s own person and that of others (MSVig
27:543–4). This distinction presupposes Kant’s conception of humanity as includ-
ing, at least, the freedom of each human being to set her own ends (MS 6:387,
392), and can be understood as equating the right of humanity with the require-
ment to preserve the existence of this freedom and not to undermine it, and the
end of humanity as the requirement to promote or expand this capacity. Then the
ends that are also duties, self-perfection, and the happiness of others, are actually
the ways to expand rather than contract the freedom of each to set their own ends,
since one cannot rationally set ends for which one does not reasonably believe
oneself to have adequate means, and self-perfection and assistance to others are
actually ways to expand the range of means and therefore of ends available to
oneself and others.¹³ What Kant means by the “right of humanity” is that the
freedom of oneself and others is not to be destroyed or compromised, although of
course each individual exercise of freedom must be constrained by the condition

¹³ I here compress into two sentences the argument of Guyer (2016c) and (2019).
   - 173

of intra- and interpersonal consistency, and what he means by the “end of

humanity” is that the freedom of oneself and others is to be expanded or promoted
by the cultivation of one’s own talents and the promotion of the happiness of
others. Kant’s position is then that some of my obligations to others stemming
from their right of humanity are suitable for coercive enforcement, but that others
do not have the right to coercively enforce the right of humanity in myself; and the
end of humanity, whether in my own person or that of others, is never a proper
object of coercive enforcement. Here is the illuminating passage in full:

a. In regard to the rectitude of the action

1. into the right of humanity in my own person, and
2. into the right of other men toward myself.
The former presents in man only a personified person, who determines his
inner use of freedom, is wholly inviolable and so unconfined that here no end of
the action can be articulated, nor constitutes an exception. There is no talk here
of rights against others, or of others against me; everything, rather, has to do
with strict duty and strict right in one’s own person. It can never, therefore, be
adopted according to laws of right, but only ethically; a proof that even ethics is
not essentially coupled with ends, but carries with it strict right in the universal
sense.
b. In regard to purposiveness, i.e., insofar as moral duty relates to ends in its
determining ground, this is either
1. the end of humanity in my own person, or
2. the end of other men,
and to this end, therefore, my acts should have a relation, a congruence.
The end of humanity in my own person is my perfection, and the duty relating
thereto, that of cultivating all the talents to be found in me. This is a duty, since it
rests on necessitation, in that it is not attained without resistance from sensory
impulses; the end of humanity in regard to other people is to promote their
happiness. This is likewise a duty of our external relationships, by universal right,
and to this end the earlier one is at the same time a means, in that if a man
perfects himself, he makes himself fit for all desired ends, i.e., creates the inner
means for all possible purposes; for the more a man gathers knowledge, and
cultivates understanding and imagination, and the more he is in a position to
direct the lower faculties of the soul, the fitter he becomes to attain ends. The
rules that pertain to this are stated as follows:
1. So act, that the maxim of your action may be a rule for everyone, in regard to
the ends of your humanity; and
2. in regard to the ends that can be attributed to all men. (MSVig 27:543–4)
174  

This passage clearly explains the organization of the Metaphysics of Morals, and in
a way that displays the foundational role of humanity, in turn understood as
freedom of choice and action, more clearly and consistently than does Kant’s
published text, where that only occasionally breaks through to the surface, like a
geological substratum mostly covered with topsoil and vegetation. All duties are
duties to preserve or promote humanity, understood as the capacity of agents to
set their own ends. The right of humanity is that the freedom to set our own ends
not be destroyed or impaired, but this right can be coercively enforced only
in some interpersonal cases—those where hindrance to the hindrance by one
person of the freedom of another is, as Baumgarten would say, both physically and
morally possible, and where, as Kant would add, morally necessary. Juridical duty
is thus a subset of a subset of the duties flowing from the right of humanity. All
other duties, thus all perfect duty flowing from the right of humanity in oneself,
such as the duty not to commit suicide, some perfect duty flowing from the right
of humanity in others, namely the duties of respect, and all imperfect duty,
whether to oneself or to others, flowing from the end of humanity, namely self-
perfection and the happiness of others, are not coercively enforceable, and thus are
ethical duties, self-enforceable only by the constraint of respect for the moral law.
But only the non-coercively enforceable imperfect duties to self and others are
duties of virtue proper. This is in fact the framework on which Kant’s Metaphysics
of Morals is constructed, although he does not always make it clear.
Kant reconstructs Baumgarten’s catalogue of particular duties to self and others
on top of this framework. At that level, there are significant overlaps between the
two accounts, although also some subtle differences that I will mention in the next
section. But before I turn to that, let me emphasize the key difference. For
Baumgarten, the essence of human nature consists in mind, body, and depend-
ence upon external conditions, and the moral task is straightforward: perfect these
in yourself, insofar as you can, and then use your own perfection to promote the
happiness of others as well. For Kant, the essence of rational agency and of human
nature insofar as we are rational agents is the freedom to set our own ends, or
humanity, and our fundamental moral task is to preserve and perfect that
freedom. In our own case, as this passage makes clear, the perfection of our
natural abilities is the means to the perfection of our freedom, not an end in its
own right, and the perfection of our moral nature can be understood as part of the
perfection of our freedom. In the case of duty to others, Kant makes it clear in this
passage that the perfection of our own natural abilities is a means to the end of
promoting their happiness, but not so clear that the end of their happiness is also
only a means to something even more fundamental, namely their fullest possible
freedom to set their own ends. There is no room here to spell out how that
argument should go (again, see Guyer 2016c and 2019). The remainder of this
chapter will focus on the comparison between Kant’s and Baumgarten’s treat-
ments of the particular duties of self-perfection.
   - 175

III

The Particular Duties of Self-Perfection. Baumgarten’s initial specification of the

objects of self-perfection—mind, body, and external state—in the Elements
appears to leave no room at all for what Kant treats first and foremost in his
own treatment of self-perfection, namely the perfection of one’s moral capacities.
But Baumgarten’s Ethica belies such a conclusion, and makes it clear that Kant’s
account relies heavily on Baumgarten’s, although with some significant refinement.
Since Baumgarten equates the distinction between juridical and ethical duty
with that between perfect and imperfect duty, and treats juridical duty in his
Elements, the Ethica treats all and only imperfect duties. He divides ethical duty
into religious duty, duty regarding oneself, and duty regarding others. As is well
known, Kant reduces Baumgarten’s three categories of ethical duty to two:
Although in his lectures Kant discusses Baumgarten’s treatment of religious
duty at some length, in the Metaphysics of Morals he treats it only in a single
“episodic” section, arguing that the idea of God “proceeds entirely from our own
reason” and that our only duty concerning this idea is “to apply this idea, which
presents itself unavoidably to reason, to the moral law in [us], where it is of the
greatest moral fruitfulness” (MS 6:443–4)—in other words, our only duty regard-
ing the divine is to treat the moral law within ourselves as if it were divine. In the
Religion, Kant argues that our only duty to God is the duty to be moral, thus to
ourselves and others: with his own emphasis, no less, “Apart from a good life-
conduct, anything which the human being supposes that he can do to become well-
pleasing to God is mere religious delusion and counterfeit service of God” (Rel
6:170). However, Kant largely adopts the substance of Baumgarten’s catalogue of
our duties to ourselves and to each other, although with several refinements that
his revision of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty and his own
foundation for all duties permit. The discussion here, again, must be restricted to
the case of our duties to ourselves.
Baumgarten’s initial specification of the possible objects for self-perfection in
the Elements, as we saw, was just mind, body, and external state or condition (BIP
§45). This seemed to leave no room for a duty of moral self-perfection, and Kant’s
explicit and emphatic inclusion of this duty in his account of the duty of self-
perfection would therefore seem to be a radical departure from Baumgarten.
However, in the Ethica Baumgarten divides duties toward oneself into the
“general” and the “specific” (officia erga te ipsum generatim and speciatim), and the
former includes the duties of self-knowledge, self-judgment, conscience, and love
of oneself (cognitio tui ipsius, diiudicatio tui ipsius, officia erga conscientiam, and
amor tui ipsius). The duty of self-knowledge is the duty to know one’s appetites
and imperfections “as well as one can” (quantum potes) in order to know how they
might affect one’s free actions (BEP §152). The duty to judge oneself is that to
evaluate one’s reasons for actions (BEP §164). The duty concerning conscience is
176  

the duty to submit one’s conceptions of good and evil (bonitas vel pravitas) to the
moral law and to examine one’s free decisions about action (liberas tuas determi-
nationes) in light of the moral law (BEP §175), whether these actions have been
done or are being contemplated prospectively, thus by means of conscientia
consequens or conscientia antecedens (BEP §184). The duty to love oneself, finally,
is certainly not a duty to favor one’s own happiness over that of others, as its name
might suggest; it is the duty to be “ardent” (ardentissime) in the exercise of self-
knowledge, self-evaluation, and conscience (BEP §191). Precisely because of the
danger of confusing this conception of self-love (philautia or heautophilia) with
the ordinary conception and Kant’s constant polemic against any foundational
role for such self-love in morality (see above all Rel 6:35–6), we may conjecture,
Kant does not include Baumgarten’s concept of self-love in his own conception of
moral self-perfection, although we may also conjecture that his emphasis on our
duty to cultivate and strengthen our naturally occurring predispositions to moral
feeling, conscience, love of human beings, and (self-)respect in the Introduction
to the Doctrine of Virtue (MS 6:399–403) is actually his version of this
Baumgartenian duty. Otherwise, Kant simply collapses Baumgarten’s first three
“general” duties to oneself into two. First, he combines the duties of self-judgment
and conscience into “the Human Being’s Duty to Himself as His Own Innate
Judge” (MS 6:437), the duty to cultivate and respect the verdict of the “scrutinizer
of hearts” set up as a “court . . . within the human being” and which, as in
Baumgarten, is divided into “conscience as warning . . . <praemonens>” and,
“when the deed has been done,” conscience as either “acquitting or condemning
[one] with rightful force” (MS 6:439–40). Then, he takes over Baumgarten’s duty
to self-knowledge as the “command to ‘know (scrutinize, fathom) yourself,’ not in
terms of your natural perfection (your fitness or unfitness for all sorts of discre-
tionary or even commanded ends) but rather in terms of your moral perfection
in relation to your duty” (MS 6:441). Baumgarten had placed this duty first on
his list, while Kant lists it after his version of the duty to self-judgment
and conscience—but he also entitles it “the First Command of All Duties to
Oneself,” suggesting that whatever its order in his exposition, it is logically prior
to or presupposed by the duty of conscience: you cannot accurately judge yourself,
or your past or proposed deeds, except on the basis of accurate self-knowledge. So
that is the “first command” of moral self-perfection, and there is no departure
from Baumgarten here.
However, Kant’s revised scheme, on which ethical duty is not all imperfect duty
but does include some perfect duty, does allow him to make one subtle refinement
to Baumgarten’s approach: the duty to develop moral self-knowledge and con-
science is not an ordinary imperfect duty, allowing for some latitude or judgment
as to when and how to fulfill it, but is an unremitting duty, something that we
must take every opportunity to perfect. Or more precisely, Kant’s scheme allows
him to refine Baumgarten’s usual qualification that we must perfect ourselves
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quantum potes, “as far as we can.” What Kant says is that “a human being’s duty to
increase his moral perfection, that is, for a moral purpose only,” a heading that
now subsumes the two parts of conscience and self-knowledge, “is a narrow and
perfect [duty] in terms of its quality; but it is wide and imperfect in terms of its
degree, because of the frailty <fragilitas> of human nature”; thus “It is a human
being’s duty to strive for this perfection, but not to reach it (in this life), and his
compliance with this duty can, accordingly, consist only in continual progress”
(MS 6:446). This duty is perfect in the sense that it is unremitting and leaves no
room for latitude, at least if that is understood as allowing that attention to this
duty may ever be set aside for any reason, but imperfect in the sense that it cannot
be fully perfected in the natural lifespan of human beings.¹⁴ Or, even more
precisely, Kant refines Baumgarten’s “quantum potes” by supplementing his
own distinction between perfect and imperfect duty with the further distinction
between quality and quantity, or kind and degree: the duty of moral-self perfection
is unremitting and perfect in kind, but can only ever be satisfied to some degree;
our duty with regard to it is to satisfy it to the greatest degree that is possible for us,
although there is nothing that would count as an absolute completion or maxi-
mum satisfaction of this duty. This refinement is made possible by Kant’s dis-
tinction between the perfect-imperfect and juridical-ethical distinctions, which
Baumgarten had collapsed.
Kant also brings his use of the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty
within the sphere of the ethical to his adaptation of Baumgarten’s account of the
“special” duties to self, which Kant presents as our duties regarding our natural
rather than moral self. Again, Baumgarten’s initial list in the Elements is just mind,
body, and external state. In the Ethica, he first lists the duty to perfect our
analogon rationis and then the duty to perfect the intellectus proper; the former
includes such capacities as experience, memory, imagination, and invention
(BEP §§203–20), the latter starts with the “obligation to take care of <curandae>
attention, abstraction, reflection, comparison” (BEP §221), or the abilities
involved in reasoning narrowly construed. Kant does not adopt Baumgarten’s
characteristic term analogon rationis (also central in Baumgarten’s aesthetics), but
he might be thought to take over the substance of Baumgarten’s distinction in his
own terms as the distinction between “powers of spirit” as “those whose exercise is
possible only through reason . . . derived a priori from principles” and “powers of
soul,” “those which are at the disposal of understanding and the rule it uses to

¹⁴ Here Kant seems to be reverting to the position he took in the treatment of the postulate of
immortality in the Critique of Practical Reason, that we need immortality to perfect our virtue (KpV
5:122), rather than adopting the position that he developed in the Religion, namely that we can
complete the “change of heart” from evil to good at any time (or “time,” since this is supposed to
happen in the noumenal will) even if we can never tell from our actions in experience that the
change of heart has in fact been completed (see Rel 6:66–7). For discussion, see Guyer (2016b) or
Guyer (2020, ch. 4).
178  

fulfill whatever purposes one might have,” including “memory, imagination, and
the like” (MS 6:445): Kant’s powers of spirit would be Baumgarten’s intellectus,
while Kant’s powers of soul would be Baumgarten’s analogon rationis. Be this as it
may, Kant clearly regards the duty to cultivate these powers as imperfect, as is
implicit in Baumgarten’s classification of them as ethical: they allow for latitude, in
the proper sense that one may have to judge whether any particular occasion is
right for effort to satisfy them (in Baumgarten’s term, “cura”), or whether there is
some other duty that must on that occasion take priority; they may also allow for
latitude in the sense that one must judge what is the best way or method to
cultivate these powers, when what is best for oneself might not be the same for
others; and they are also imperfect in the sense (in their quantity) that there is
nothing that can count as a maximum or completion in the perfection of these
abilities, but one always can and must make further progress in their perfection.
But Kant does bring his distinction between perfect and imperfect duties within
the sphere of ethics to bear on Baumgarten’s account of our duties regarding our
bodies, or our bodily existence. Baumgarten simply lists as among our duties the
“care <cura> of our appetitive faculty” (BEP §235), although this duty actually
straddles a line between the mental and the physical, since we would not have the
kinds of appetites that we have if we did not have the kinds of bodies that we have;
then the “care of the body” proper, which includes our duty to preserve our body
from danger, to care for our members or limbs in particular, to take care of our
diet and health generally, and to practice temperance and sobriety (BEP §250–61).
He then lists the duty to “care for our occupation and leisure,” the duty to remain
busy but to allow ourselves the leisure necessary to recuperate and remain effective
(BEP §267–71); the duty to care for “chastity,” thus to avoid “impurity” and
“sexual intercourse external to matrimony” (BEP §272–5); and the duty to care
properly for the “necessities and commodities of life,” those external goods and
circumstances that are necessary for life on the one hand or make it more pleasant
on the other—temperance with regard to such things is prescribed (BEP §276–80).
Kant largely takes this list over, but divides it into perfect and imperfect duties. On
the one hand, the duties to avoid suicide, self-mutilation, and unchastity, whether
in the form of self-abuse, extra-marital sex, concubinage and morganatic mar-
riage, etc., are perfect: these things are simply to be avoided (although Kant
transfers the proscription of violations of heterosexual, monogamous marriage
to the Doctrine of Right (MS 6:277–80), since in his view these are properly
regulated by public law). There are no occasions on which these proscriptions can
be set aside, not even in favor of some other duty, and there is no question of
degree: they are just not to be done. On the other hand, the duty to develop or
perfect the “powers of the body,” like those of the powers of spirit and soul, is
clearly imperfect: one has to use judgment how to best realize this goal, when to
best realize it and when it must be deferred in favor of other duties, and there
is nothing that can count as complete realization of this goal, although there is
   - 179

certainly something that can count as complete compliance with the perfect duties
to avoid suicide, self-mutilation or self-damage, and unchastity. In Kant’s words,

[w]hich of these natural perfections should take precedence, and in what pro-
portion one against the other it may be a human being’s duty to himself to make
these natural perfections his end, are matters left for him to choose in accordance
with his own rational reflection about what sort of life he would like to lead and
whether he has the powers necessary for it (e.g. whether it should be a trade,
commerce, or a learned profession). (MS 6:445)

This is a perfect statement of the kind of latitude characteristic of imperfect duty

on Kant’s conception.
Kant’s introduction of his own distinction between perfect and imperfect duties
into Baumgarten’s catalogue of the duties of self-perfection is thus straightforward.
A more subtle refinement emerges in his expansion of Baumgarten’s brief treat-
ment of our duty of temperance with regard to the necessities and commodities of
life in the lectures on ethics as recorded both in the 1770s and the 1790s. Here
I refer to Kant’s discussion of the need to avoid miserliness on the one hand and
extravagance on the other, an issue that obviously fascinated him, whether out of
concern for his own tendency (to miserliness) or what he feared for his students
(extravagance). His general objection to both is that they consist in “the desire to
possess the means, without regard for the end that can be obtained thereby”
(MSVig 27:659), thus they are forms of treating oneself merely as a means, to the
accumulation of mere goods for no use at all or beyond any reasonable possibility
of use, rather than as an end. But what he is really saying here is that these vices
compromise our ability to set our own ends freely, that is, they compromise our
freedom or humanity. He is not presupposing that we simply have certain natural
ends, as does Baumgarten, but that our fundamental end is freedom itself, and
these vices undermine that. These vices compromise our possible ends, that is, our
ability to set our own ends freely, and let our lust for what should be mere
means to the ends that we could freely choose for ourselves become ends in
their own right—when, as mere objects, they of course have no claim to such
status. We have to read carefully, but this is what Kant means when he says that, in
the case of the miser,

Now the want of morality here does not properly lie in the failure to employ these
means for any purpose—that he deprives himself of all amusements, and shares
nothing thereof with others, for their pleasure or use or necessity; it lies, rather, in
the principle he has adopted, of retaining in his possession the means for using,
while renouncing any such use. He becomes a mere custodian of his money or
other property, without attaching the smallest use or purpose thereto. He
becomes, therefore, an instrument, a mere means to no end, like a watchdog,
180  

and this is a maxim to him. Now since a man, in and for himself, is supposed to
be an end for his humanity, the miser assuredly violates humanity in his own
person, in that he puts out of sight the end prescribed to him, and looks upon the
mere means given for that purpose as though he himself were a means in that
regard. (MSVig 6:659)

Baumgarten simply regards certain needs as fixed by the conditions of human

“necessity” and “commodiousness,” and thus regards self-perfection as requiring
the provision of the right amount of means to those ends, neither less nor more.
Kant regards one end as given to human beings—the end of humanity in them-
selves, to go back to the framework of the Vigilantius lectures—but this end is
nothing other than our ability to set our own ends freely, and in letting what
should be mere means to the ends that we might set for ourselves, our possible
ends, become ends in their own right, we undermine the end of humanity in
ourselves. Kant’s invocation of the “watchdog” is telling: by undermining our
ability to set our own ends freely we undermine our humanity and reduce
ourselves to the level of mere animals. This is an analysis that Baumgarten
could not offer, because he took mind—even including our moral capacities—
body, and external condition as the immediate objects of perfection, rather than
taking freedom and thus our ability to set our own ends—an ability that we all
have, and that must thus be regarded inter- as well as intra-personally—as that
which is to be preserved and promoted—perfected—as the foundation of moral-
ity. The preservation of our freedom, inter- and intra-personally, is the right of
humanity in ourselves, and its perfection is the end of humanity in ourselves.
 10
Perfectionism from Wolff to Kant
Courtney D. Fugate

If we compare Kant’s mature moral theory to what is found in the previous

tradition, particularly that of natural law—and if we exclude Wolff and
Baumgarten momentarily—then certain of its features stand out as startlingly
original, some of which have even been considered distinctive to his thought. In
this chapter, I will trace these features back to what I believe are their roots in the
moral perfectionism of Wolff and Baumgarten. This may initially seem quite
surprising, since Kant not only unequivocally rejects their moral theories but in
fact does so precisely because of their shared commitment to perfectionism. Now,
while one might argue for a negative influence, insofar as Kant formulates his
theory through the diagnosis and remedy of perfectionism’s failings, I will argue
here for a decisive positive influence. On my account, Kant does not reject
perfectionism as such, indeed quite the contrary, but instead rejects an empirically
specified perfectionism, which, because of that qualification, is able to treat only of
the empirically determined will (with its “turnspit” freedom) and so is not, in
Kant’s eyes, moral at all. What Kant takes almost fully onboard, however, is the
highly articulated idea or formal structure of perfection as this is found particu-
larly in Baumgarten’s cosmology and practical philosophy.¹ In Kant’s hands, this
same formal structure of a world or, more precisely, of a “nature” in general,
becomes the law imposed by the transcendentally free will directly upon its own
manners of acting.
As I will argue, the conceptual preparation for this transformation turns upon
two hinges, both of which trace to Baumgarten’s subtle modifications of Wolffian
perfectionism, namely, his fuller articulation of a non-consequentialist, internal
morality of actions and what I call a “hyper-Leibnizian” account of the idea and
formal structure of perfection itself. In the fourth section of this chapter, we
will then see how Kant discovers a new account of the a priori origin of this
formal structure, which, when combined with his conception of unconditioned
or transcendental freedom, allows him to locate an unconditioned, hence genu-
inely moral law, in freedom’s likewise unconditioned, intentional imposition
of this same formal structure, this homologia, on all its actions. In this way, the

¹ A similarly positive account of Kant’s relation to perfectionism is found in Guyer (2007) and
(2016a).

Courtney D. Fugate, Perfectionism from Wolff to Kant In: Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy.
Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press. © Courtney D. Fugate 2024.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0011
182  . 

neo-Stoicism found in the earlier rationalist tradition, which bids us to “live

according to nature,” becomes in Kant the absolute duty to live according to
reason’s pure, a priori idea of a nature.

Three Striking Features of Kant’s Moral Philosophy. The first of the striking
features of Kant’s moral philosophy I would like to highlight here concerns its
internal unity. On his account, the moral law is not only more unified than what
you will discover in earlier authors, but its very principle consists in the self-
imposed requirement that free action itself take on a special sort of systematic
unity. The late scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez, for instance, argues that
the natural law is supremely one, but not for the reason given by Kant, namely,
because all moral principles ultimately stem from one ultimate principle or
formula, but rather because all primitive moral principles are grasped by the
same innate rational capacity, synteresis, and tend toward the same general end,
namely, the perfection of the human being’s various capacities (Suárez 2015, II:
VIII:243–50). Natural law is then one, not in formula or derivation, but rather in
regard to the psychological origin from which our knowledge of it arises and in
terms of the general end it fulfils. Something similar seems to be the view of Locke
and others, who also defend the unity of the first ground of all moral principles,
but fail in practice to provide a truly unified account of the actual content of moral
judgment. On Kant’s reading, all such principles fail and must fail in this way
because, as much as their principles may take on a general or abstract form, this
generality can only be specified empirically, and so contingently, and is thus
different in kind from genuine universality, which always contains necessity and
so must be specified a priori.²
Stoicism, which served in many ways as an inspiration for Wolff, Baumgarten
and also Kant, perhaps comes closer to such unity through the doctrine of
homologia (see e.g. Cicero 1931, III:xxi). In this we find that the genuine good
consists not only in all action being subject to one single account or logos but more
specifically in this logos’s serving as the chosen principle within us for the selection
of all further action. In this way, Stoicism does indeed place the intention to act in
a consistent and harmonious way at the very basis of the good. However, upon
closer inspection, it turns out that the content of this intention is also so closely
tied to the empirically given dispositions of human nature and traditional religion

² Perhaps the best explanation of this distinction is found in Kant’s contrasting of analytical and
synthetical universality in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (AA 5:407–8). That Kant ascribes
synthetical universality to our moral cognition is confirmed in his Lectures on the Philosophical
Doctrine of Religion (AA 28:1057).
      183

that the unity of the Stoic account remains, in practice, a mere promissory note,
which disappoints as soon as the discussion turns to specific duties.³
In Kant, by contrast, we find that the moral law itself is not only absolutely one,
such that all other moral principles are supposed to be derivable from it, but also
that it admits of various, closely related formulations from which specific duties
are supposed to follow in a unified, rationally transparent way—namely, the
formula of the law of nature, the formula of humanity as an end in itself and
the formula of a kingdom of ends—each of which in turn aims in its own manner at
rendering human freedom supremely and systematically unified. It is notable,
moreover, that these formulas also, in themselves, are supposed to constitute a
special system according to the a priori moments of form, matter, and complete
determination, which, Kant claims in the Groundwork, follow from “the categories
of the unity of the form of the will (its universality), the plurality of the matter (of
objects, i.e. of ends), and the allness or totality of the system of these” (GMM 4:436).
Here, the Stoic homologia in action is thought as only possible based upon the unity
that the pure understanding and reason directly—and so not only with intention but
even with insight into its derivation from one ground—apply in the selection of the
maxims from which all actions are to follow. I would observe here again that we find
nothing of this kind in any previous system of moral philosophy.
This first striking feature of Kant’s moral theory prompts us to ask: From
whence did this conception of virtue arise? Did Kant just invent, out of thin air,
the idea that our duties themselves constitute a scientific system under one
supreme formula and that morality itself consists in seeking the determining
ground of all our willing in that very idea of unity? Or is there, if not an historical
precedent, then at least an historical root for this both ambitious and radical moral
ideal?
If we look a bit more closely at Kant’s various formulations of the moral
law itself, we find a second striking feature. A casual perusal of Kant’s texts
shows that he never tires of contrasting the realm of nature with that of freedom.
However, in explaining the purpose and origin of the three further formulations of
the moral law just mentioned, he also indicates that all of them are based on what
in the Groundwork he calls “a certain analogy” (GMS 4:436). It is easy to verify
that this analogy is precisely one with “nature” in the most general, or formal
sense (GMS 4:437), or with what Kant in the first Critique and Prolegomena terms
“natura formaliter spectata” or nature viewed formally (see e.g. Rel 8:333n.;
B165; A419/B447n.).⁴

³ In this respect, it is a common failing of traditional natural law theories that, despite their supposedly
rational origin, the specific duties this is held to ground usually consists in little more than a loose list of
traditional religious and civic duties. See e.g. the discussion in Cicero, De legibus, II. A fine comparison
between periods of the natural law tradition in this respect is found in Scattola (2003).
⁴ I drew attention to this concept of nature in Kant, its moral function, and its roots in Baumgarten’s
cosmology in BM 25–9.
184  . 

Thus about the formula of the law of nature, he writes:

Since the universality of law in accordance with which effects take place con-
stitutes what is properly called nature in the most general sense (as regards its
form)—that is, the existence of things insofar as it is determined in accordance
with universal laws—the universal imperative can also go as follows: act as if
the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.
(GMS 4:421)

In the case of the formula of humanity as an end in itself, the use of the analogy is
admittedly not quite so obvious, but Kant still states that it consists in considering
the rational being as an “end by its nature” (GMS 4:436). Kant also begins his
derivation of the ends formula with the premise: “Rational nature is distinguished
from the rest of nature by this, that it sets itself an end” (GMS 4:437; emphasis
added), thereby basing it not on transcendental freedom, but on the rational agent
as a special kind of natural being. And in one passage he indirectly confirms this
by explain with regard to all the formulas: “Imperatives as they were represented
above – namely in terms of the conformity of actions with universal laws similar
to a natural order or of the universal supremacy as ends of rational beings in
themselves [ . . . ]” (GMS 4:431).
As for the last formula, Kant clearly states in summary right after its derivation:
“A kingdom of ends is thus possible only by analogy with a kingdom of nature”
(GMS 4:438; emphasis added). And just before this, in stating it as following from
the need for a principle of the complete determination of our maxims, he says that
it amounts to judging “all maxims by means of the formula, namely, that all
maxims from one’s own lawgiving are to harmonize with a possible kingdom of
ends as with a kingdom of nature” (GMS 4:436).
Finally, in one footnote, Kant says even more broadly:

Teleology considers nature as a kingdom of ends, morals considers a possible

kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature. [ . . . ] In the former, the kingdom of
ends is a theoretical idea for explaining what exits. In the latter, it is a practical
idea for the sake of bringing about, in conformity with this very idea, that which
does not exist but which can become real by means of our conduct. (4:436n)

In this passage, all of morals is ascribed the general inverse function of teleology;
instead of thinking nature as a possible realm of ends, it thinks of moral ends as if
they were to form a system of nature. I could present more evidence from other
texts for this analogy with nature taken formally but will not belabor the point
presently. I will only mention that Kant takes this analogy so seriously, that in the
second Critique he feels comfortable adopting as his standard title for the intel-
ligible world simply “supersensible nature.” What is more, at several points in the
      185

Metaphysis of Morals, but also in various unpublished notes, he exploits this

analogy to explain specific moral concepts through comparison with principles
of mechanical nature, including the equality of action and reaction, and universal
gravitation (see e.g. MS 6:232–3, 449). Although I will not present any further
evidence for this claim here, I regard it as relatively established that all three
formulas are based on, or derived from, an analogy with what Kant calls in this
context “formal nature.”
Now, this analogy with formal nature or—what is the same—the form of a
nature in general can be linked with what I said before about the intrinsically
systematic character of the moral law through the fact that the latter is articulated,
even generated, through the rational elaboration of that analogy and its implica-
tions, according to the a priori moments of the form, matter, and complete
determination of a nature in general. The first formula tells us to think of our
maxims as if they held as or possess the form that laws of nature must possess, the
second infers an as if natural end as the only possible ground for those same sorts
of laws, and the third has us think of all such ends as if perfectly and harmoniously
unified in the form of a kingdom of nature.
The third thing that I find striking and a bit mysterious about Kant’s theory of
the moral law is how on the surface it looks a whole lot like something Leibniz
would have dreamt up even though there is no immediate link between the two
philosophers on this point. Not only did Kant surely not read Leibniz’s moral
theory, but he also forthrightly rejects Leibnizian and Wolffian perfectionism as a
moral principle, arguing that it is both empty and unfit for serving as a categorical
imperative. And yet, despite this, the supreme systematicity we find in Kant’s
capstone idea of a kingdom of ends in the Groundwork and in that of the highest
good in the second Critique, unmistakably encapsulates the idea of a sort of
absolute perfection in a sense Leibniz would have recognized as substantially his
own.⁵ For, in the German tradition, Leibniz is after all the father of the idea that
perfection is that of a maximal unity among the greatest multiplicity, and hence
consists in the greatest consistency, order, and universal lawfulness in a whole of
all rational beings.
With these three features of Kant’s moral law before us, my aim in the rest of
this chapter is to offer a hypothetical reconstruction of the path these ideas took
from Wolff to Kant.⁶ To anticipate my conclusion, the reconstructed path I have
in mind is that Kant reached his own account of the moral law through a specific
transformation of Wolffian perfectionism, not directly, but as it was modified,
refined, and refocused in the work of Baumgarten. The details and manner of this

⁵ On Leibniz’s conception of perfection, see e.g. Faveretti Composampiero (2018).

⁶ I qualify what I am going to say as “hypothetical,” simply because I don’t believe that textual
evidence of influence is ever quite conclusive. But I do believe this hypothesis is most likely correct and
is also the most well-supported reconstruction available.
186  . 

transformation are no doubt complex, as most such developmental stories behind

major ideas tend to be, and for this reason I will focus in this chapter only on what
I regard as a few of the more pivotal episodes.

II

Wolff ’s Empirical Perfectionism. The tale starts with Christian Wolff ’s moral theory,
which has fittingly been called a type of moral perfectionism.⁷ Considered gener-
ally, Wolff ’s moral thought clearly stands within the broader tradition of natural
law ethics and, in particular, within the intellectualist rather than the voluntarist
strain of it. Pretty much all natural law ethicists, of either kind, hold the following
views: namely, that all human beings possess the natural capacity to grasp the
distinction between good and evil; that this capacity consists in recognizing some
certain end or ends that are good; that the moral quality of an action derives from
its fitness or unfitness for realizing this end or ends; that, more specifically, this
end or these ends are the core of what constitutes human nature; and so, finally,
that the moral quality of an action derives in particular from its agreement or
harmony with human nature.
It is easy to verify that Wolff accepts each of these claims under some inter-
pretation. Indeed, he often tells us such in direct or indirect reference to previous
authors on natural law. However, despite this broad agreement, Wolff ’s concep-
tion of the moral law and of moral science radically departs from both the
meaning and the intention found in most if not all of those authors, and it does
so according to a common underlying project aimed at revolutionizing moral
theory on the model of modern natural science.
This project of moral enlightenment, which broadly falls under his general aim
to create a sacred marriage between reason and experience, is grounded in the
German Ethics, but is most fully explained in a Latin essay entitled “On Moral
Experience” (“De experientia morali,” 1731). In this work, Wolff explains that the
familiar scientific methods, including those of empirical research, are perhaps
even more crucial to developing a proper moral science, and to a human being’s
becoming moral, than they are to the elaboration of physical science. He intro-
duces and defends this claim on several different grounds, which I have discussed
elsewhere,⁸ but the most fundamental surely lies in his specific conception of the
law of nature itself, or better, of the nature of the natural law. This law, he explains,
makes it our duty to perform the best action available to us (even if we are not
presently aware what that might be), where goodness is defined in terms of

⁷ Wolff ’s perfectionism is treated, among other places, in Klemme (2007) and Schwaiger (2018b).
The following is a compressed summary of the argument in Fugate (2024).
⁸ The following is a summary of the findings in Fugate (2024).
      187

whatever promotes natural perfection and this “natural perfection” is understood

broadly according to the Leibnizian formula of the “maximal agreement of the
manifold” both within any being and between that being and all others. In short,
then, for Wolff the law of nature bids us to perform whatever action most
increases the agreement in the actual, physical, and mental manifold within us
and others, that is to say, whatever action most increases our natural perfection.
Moreover, according to Wolff (again following Leibniz), the laws that govern how
and by what means such moral perfection can be increased are also just the regular
laws of nature. That is to say, the natural perfection that the moral law directs us
toward is said to be “natural” precisely because it involves nothing other than a
harmony of structure and operation under and according to the laws of actual,
physical, and psychological nature. For this reason, and because knowledge of the
latter requires empirical research essentially, understanding precisely what the
natural law demands of us, that is, the distinction between good and evil, as well as
how to best follow this law, both also require in Wolff ’s view an empirical
investigation of our own constitution—our unique inner manifold—as well as of
the nature of our actions and their effects in the whole of the actual world. For this
reason, Wolff spends the bulk of the above essay outlining the many roles that
empirical observation and even experiments can play in discovering and confirm-
ing such moral knowledge. And, not surprising given his views on physical
science, in the course of this he more than once recommends that moral philo-
sophers improve their own science by imitating the way theory, observation, and
experiment are combined to dramatic effect in modern, astronomical theory.
The core observation I wish to draw from this is that Wolff ’s moral theory
should be seen as forming a crucial moment in the development of ethics, because
in it—for the first time, at least in the modern German tradition—we find an
attempt to completely assimilate moral science to natural science, and this based
upon the assertion of a sort of convertibility between moral perfection,⁹ or the
goodness of an action, and natural perfection of the same as this is discoverable
through metaphysics and experimental science. Once this is paired with his
empirical psychology of motivation and his deterministic account of freedom
and practical reasoning, we can see that Wolff ’s ultimate aim was to build a
thoroughly naturalistic moral theory (of course, according to his own conception
of the natural).
To express the point differently, we can observe that, for Wolff, the fundamen-
tal goal of moral science is for human action, as much as possible, to be based
upon a knowledge of how we can increase the systematic order and harmony of
the natural world to which our actions contribute. As he explains in the report on
his own writings, the Wolffian moral principle can be expressed most generally as

⁹ For a similar point see Favaretti Composampiero (2018, 24).

188  . 

simply: “the human being ought to do what brings about the perfection of the world,
and omit what destroys it” (WAN §137; emphasis in original). For this reason, we
find Wolff fully and explicitly endorsing the Stoic view that ethics ultimately
comes down to living in agreement with nature (WTL §28). However, by “nature”
he means not Stoicism’s teleological conception of a cosmos guided by intrinsic
purposes and knowable to us through tradition and rational reflection on our
natural instincts, but rather nature as the object of modern, experimental science
as Wolff understood it. For my purposes, the important point to stress here is this
Wolffian claim of the convertibility between the moral and natural perfection of
an action, along with its implications, because I think such is both the focal point
of the agreement and the disagreement between Wolff and Baumgarten.
Stepping back from the details of Wolff ’s system for a moment, and bracketing
its other laudable qualities, it is helpful to consider the cost of holding such a
theory from the traditional standpoint of theories of natural law—a cost that
I think Baumgarten, and later Kant, were unwilling to pay. Recall that perhaps the
central reason for the invention and continuation of the long tradition of natural
law theory rested in its promise to articulate what was supposed to be a universally
and easily recognized set of laws for human conduct, one which could be common
to everyone regardless of religion, rank, or level of education. Wolff ’s specific
brand of natural law ethics, by contrast, is founded on the idea that nothing less
than a sophisticated moral science, itself resting on the other philosophical
disciplines, is required for providing new insights and overturning received, but
erroneous views about right and wrong, just as modern observational astronomy
(resting on sophisticated mathematics) was required to do with respect to com-
mon, but erroneous views of the cosmos, such as that the earth does not move or
that the Sun is only a palm in width. What is more, in his writings Wolff places
such emphasis on the value of acting from such scientific moral knowledge—
stating many times that those who do so are alone masters of themselves and are
virtuous, while others at most only appear virtuous and are more like slaves, or
children or animals (see WTL §38, 81)—that it is hard to see how his theory would
not create an elite class of philosophers alongside the rest of “childlike” human-
kind. But this is the natural consequence of taking the Stoic emphasis placed on
knowingly acting from the logos that animates nature and pairing it with a
modern, scientific conception of that logos and hence also of the methods required
for its discovery.

III

Baumgarten’s Innovations. It is from this point of view, I believe, that we can

understand the deep changes Baumgarten makes to Wolff ’s moral theory, many
of which are initially quite subtle, but together amount to a moral science with an
      189

entirely different orientation. First, however, it is important to recognize that

Baumgarten clearly does follow Wolff ’s moral theory in its broad outlines,
including the latter’s account of the moral law and, at least in principle, of the
practice of moral science. Baumgarten even clearly recognizes the empirical
dimension of this discipline that Wolff claimed to have discovered, although in
his writings it seems to be reduced to a few scattered indications, which one could
easily overlook.
The main differences between Wolff and Baumgarten, I will argue, can be
grouped under three headings:
(1) Despite his Leibnizian connections, including his conception of perfection,
Wolff places little emphasis on or even rejects several key Leibnizian doctrines that
Baumgarten, however, both expands and places at the heart of his own philo-
sophical system. Two are most relevant here.
The first is the famous Leibnizian doctrine that every substance is a mirror of its
entire world. In his German Metaphysics, Wolff expresses doubt about this theory
and later in his career appears to reject it altogether.¹⁰ Baumgarten not only
provides a new explanation and proof for this idea (BM §400), he also employs
it to extend Wolff ’s own conception of what is called the “analogue of reason.” In
Wolff, the phrase “analogue of reason” refers purely to the expectation of similar
cases of which even brutes are capable (WPE §506). Because reason is the faculty
that allows us to know the causal connections between things, this instinctual
expectation of similar cases bears, in Wolff ’s view, a similarity or analogy to
syllogistic reasoning. But this is far from an important idea in Wolff—it notably
plays no role in his practical philosophy—and I think no one would even
remember it if not for Baumgarten’s innovative use of the phrase “analogue of
reason” to refer to a whole host of capacities—not found in Wolff—which
supposedly belong to the sensitive faculty of knowledge (BM §640). What in
Wolff was a single, unimportant similarity between reason and one of the lower
mental faculties, becomes in Baumgarten a robust doctrine about how even
confused, sensory cognition is implicitly structured like, and even operates in
a way parallel to, the higher cognitive faculty. It is on this basis that Baumgarten
equates the analogue of reason in his own work, with what in legal practice is
called “experience” (BIP §95), and calls for a “twofold marriage of reason and
its analogue” in practical philosophy (BIP §99). Now, by combining this con-
ception of the analogue of reason with the mirror doctrine, Baumgarten is able
to regard the analogue of reason as itself capable of “mirroring” the world
with a perfection analogous to, and even complementary to, that of which the
higher faculty of cognition is capable, though in the special register of sensitive
knowledge.

¹⁰ On this, see Wunderlich (2021).

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The second key Leibnizian doctrine that Baumgarten extends and places at the
heart of his philosophical system is that the actual world is the best of all possible
worlds. Wolff does in fact endorse this Leibnizian doctrine but gives it relatively
little scope. Baumgarten, again, provides a clear defense and elaboration of the
best-world doctrine, while transforming it into a foundational principle of
metaphysics where it is used to prove universal preestablished harmony and to
explain the relationship between the natural and the supernatural orders, and the
hierarchical priority of different sorts of law, among other things. As far as its
elaboration, Baumgarten articulates several principles thought to govern how the
natural perfection of a world is structured, anticipated, and measured.
As I have treated these matters in detail elsewhere, I will recall only those
elements relevant to my argument here (see Fugate 2023). The first point to note is
that philosophy, on Baumgarten’s understanding of it, is something that belongs
to both God and human beings. However, the divine “archetypal” philosophy
stands in a complex relationship to its human “ectype,” or philosophy insofar as it
is developed by finite, human beings like ourselves. In God, all things are known to
flow from all things, such that there is no intrinsic priority between cause and
caused, principle and principled, etc. In human knowledge, by contrast, some
things can only be known through others, and indeed certain truths ought to be
given priority in science because, for beings like us, it happens to be easier to grasp
and demonstrate other truths from them, and since, moreover, it is a duty of wise
judgment that the scholar conform philosophy to the needs of regular human
beings. That is to say, although these truths are not intrinsically fundamental or
first, they will be chosen to serve in this role by the philosopher who recognizes
that they are rather first or simplest relative to us and is cognizant of and strives to
realize the perfections of human knowledge in the wisest manner.
The two sciences that build upon such wisely chosen first principles are
metaphysics, or “the science of the first principles in human knowledge” (BM §1;
emphasis added), and first practical philosophy, or “the science containing the
first principles that are proper but also common to the rest of the practical
disciplines” (BIP §6). In the former, Baumgarten defines perfection in terms of
conformity of several things with a single determining ground or focus, and
its magnitude in terms of the degree of such conformity. Now, a norm or law
is a “proposition that expresses a determination in conformity with a ground”
(BM §83). So in the best or most perfect world as “that in which the greatest of the
most parts and the most of the greatest parts that are compossible in a world agree
in as great a being as is possible in a world,” there is the “greatest universal nexus,
harmony, and agreement that is possible in a world” (BM §441). Consequently,
there are the most universal laws (BM §444). And, indeed, the supreme law of this
world is that “[t]he best of all compossibles are joined together with the best” such
that there will be the greatest unity of the greatest multiplicity under the greatest
number of universal laws (BM §482; emphasis in original).
      191

But the philosopher, who studies only what can be known without faith, has no
access to God’s archetypal knowledge of things and so knows things only insofar
as they are derived from metaphysics and experience. Together, these allow us to
know only laws of things that flow from the latter’s persistent, internal properties,
which we are aware of through experience. And as the collection of all these
internal properties is called the “nature” of the thing and what follows from such
according to laws is said to be “natural” (BM §430, 470–3), human philosophical
knowledge is restricted to the knowledge of natural laws. Thus, while admitting
other, supernatural laws are possible in the best world, Baumgarten believes that
our philosophical knowledge is restricted to those that are natural. This is,
however, not much of a handicap, because although supernatural laws are hypo-
thetically possible, the principle of the best itself places a priority on natural over
supernatural order, such that the law immediately subordinated to the law of the
best is “the law of the best in nature: the best of all natural things in the most perfect
world are joined together with the best” (BM §482; emphasis in original). The
upshot is the general law that supernatural events will occur if and only if it is the
case that the same perfection cannot be achieved according to the ordinary laws of
nature. Thus, while possible, supernatural order will be as minimal and natural
order will be as maximal as possible in the best of all possible worlds, and so in the
actual world. Hence, the philosopher will expect the laws in the actual world to
conform as much as possible to the form of a most-perfect system of natural law.¹¹
This metaphysical conception of the connection between perfection, law, and
nature in the broadest sense—of which I have provided the barest possible
outline—is of paramount importance for understanding Baumgarten’s practical
philosophy, which is founded upon it.¹² First practical philosophy has the function
of wisely choosing the best and simplest principles according to which we can
come to know one specific domain of the natural laws that obtain in the best of all
possible worlds and so also in this world, namely, those pertaining to the free
determinations under the control of the human will (BM §472; BIP §60).
Consequently, the practical philosopher—in the absence of any supernatural
signs to the contrary—will take the system of moral laws to constitute a most-
perfect system of propositions obligating us to conform our own actions to the
realization of the greatest possible natural perfection in the world. It is on this
basis that Baumgarten writes:

In any case, there can be positive law in human laws, and even in divine laws, that
is not natural, the sufficient ground of which we cannot know from the nature of
the action and the agent. But seeing that the will of God, or his most free choice
(BM §898), follows most perfectly upon supreme knowledge (BM §893), all his

¹¹ See Fugate (2018) and (2023). ¹² See Fugate (2023).

192  . 

positive laws have likewise a sufficient ground in the nature of the action and the
agent, or are likewise natural (§63). And since God wishes every good (BM §899),
all the natural laws (§39) are also divinely chosen. From the natural law, one may
validly infer the will of God concerning the free determinations of people, and
from the will of God concerning the free determinations of people, one may
validly infer the natural law. (BIP §69)

The propositions of moral philosophy will thus form the best possible system of
natural norms or laws. Furthermore, as actual nature, encompassing both the laws
of physical and free nature, is for him the best possible, we can now see why
Baumgarten so readily embraces the Stoic principle to live according to nature
(BIP §45); for one who does so brings their free actions under the universal laws of
the best possible world, thereby knowingly and intentionally uniting them into the
most perfect system with all other free actions and with all of physical nature as
well. This is therefore just the same as the duty to “seek perfection” (BIP §43).
As can be seen from this, Baumgarten not only extends Leibniz’s theory of the
best possible world but indeed makes it into a fundamental component of his
theory of the systematic structure of philosophical knowledge in general. For this
reason, it is able to provide the formal structure—what Kant would call a “regu-
lative principle” or “idea”—to guide the discovery and construction of the systems
of both physical and moral laws, as well as the single system comprising both.
However, it does so only under the regulative but philosophically justified guide-
line that these laws are all, or at least for the most part, consonant with our innate
conception of natural perfection.
(2) The second main difference between Wolff and Baumgarten concerns the
latter’s development of a key set of doctrines, which he brings together in a special
chapter of his Metaphysics entitled “The First Principles of the Mathematics of
Intensive Quantities.”¹³ Baumgarten introduces under this title a new branch of
ontology that has the aim of providing a mathematically precise account of the
scales or degrees of various kinds of perfections. This mathematics is referenced
and employed throughout his works and plays an essential role in his natural
theology and even in his conception of the nature of philosophy. As Baumgarten
says in the introduction to his Metaphysics, the mathematics of intensive quan-
tities opens up “a new sphere of mediation” for the philosopher and allows us to
“conceive what is the greatest of that which is real and positive and thus discover
God and the divine” (BM 90). Among other things, in practical philosophy it
proves essential to understanding the degrees of our own perfections, one lesson
of which is that owing to the mirroring doctrine, we should not underestimate the
extent to which just the analogue of reason is already far on the better side of

¹³ I have discussed the importance of this new doctrine in Fugate (2023).

      193

representing the perfection of things and so also what is good. Since the analogue
of reason is already capable of providing a relatively perfect, if not rationally pure,
grasp of the perfection of the world, it can be considered a relatively good
source of judgment about right and wrong, if properly formed. Moral instincts
and common moral views are thus not necessarily to be despised or regarded as
intrinsically vulgar, slavish, or incorrect. In rather sharp contrast with Wolff ’s
ethical intellectualism, then, one might see this as part of Baumgarten’s acceptance
and defense of the “mediocre,” which is something we find mentioned in several
passages in his writings.¹⁴
(3) The third main difference lies in Baumgarten’s view that knowledge is an
intrinsic good because it is a perfection in itself. Both Wolff and Baumgarten agree
that naturally good and evil actions are such per se, intrinsically or in themselves.
This is what makes them moral intellectualists rather than voluntarists like
Pufendorf. But for Wolff, this doesn’t mean that actions are good or evil when
taken entirely in isolation from the rest of nature. It means rather that they are
such because of how they are connected by natural laws with the rest of things. In
fact, Wolff constantly reminds us that the way to determine the moral quality of
an action is by looking to its natural effect, either by experience or by knowing
this in advance through science. A good action is such because it causes perfection,
while an evil action is such because it causes imperfection. This conception
of intrinsic goodness is expressed in the following passage from Wolff ’s German
Ethics:

While the free actions of human beings become good or evil through their
consequence, that is, through whatever alterable thing follows in the internal or
external state of the human being, but whatever follows from free actions must
do so necessarily and cannot refrain from happening (Met. §575); they [i.e. free
actions] are good by and in themselves, and are not first made such through
God’s will. (WTL §5; emphasis added)

If we follow up the reference provided to the German Metaphysics, §575, we find

that in that book Wolff carefully explains that the nature of the necessity of moral
matters—that is, between an action and its consequence—is not an absolute
necessity, but rather what he calls a “physical necessity.” This means that the
necessity of the link between the action and its own goodness is also the necessity
of what happens by virtue of the laws of nature. These laws themselves, of course,
are contingent, but on the hypothesis that they obtain, the connections they create

¹⁴ By speaking of the “mediocre” here Baumgarten surely intends to draw on the ancient doctrine of
the mean (BIP §107, 244, 248; BA §269), yet in a way deeply rooted in his metaphysics of finitude
(BM §249) and framed to instill a respect for the average human being and the “lower” cognitive
faculties (BPB 12).
194  . 

between things—in this case between an action and its consequence and so also
between the former and its own goodness—possess a kind of hypothetical neces-
sity depending on the actual order of nature. To give an example: Brushing your
teeth would be good, according to Wolff, because it improves or maintains one’s
bodily perfection. But there is a possible world in which the natural laws would
make it such that brushing would decrease one’s perfection (say by eroding one’s
enamel) and so would be bad. This explains why, in one sense, Wolff is able to
maintain, in opposition to moral voluntarists, that actions are intrinsically or
objectively good or evil (WAN §137), while, in another sense, Kant can be correct
in saying that Wolff ’s view implies that actions are not intrinsically good or evil at
all. This is because, for Wolff, lying, or breaking one’s promise, or whatever, is not
good or evil all by itself and in virtue of certain features of the very maxim that
internally defines it as the kind of act that it is, as is the case for Kant, but only
when seen from within the actual, though still hypothetical nexus of natural laws.
In short, two different senses of “intrinsic” are operative here; one employed by
Wolff, meaning within the context of natural laws and so of the nature of the act
understood accordingly, and another, employed by Kant, meaning internal to the
maxim defining the act itself irrespective of the actual laws of nature.
Now, Baumgarten fundamentally alters this Wolffian theory in an essential
way, which I don’t think has been noticed previously. Instead of defining goodness
in terms of an action’s effect or consequence, he writes:

The essential determinations of each being agree with its essence (§63, 40) and its
attributes. Therefore, every being is transcendentally perfect. [. . .] Something is
good if, when it is posited, a perfection is also posited. Therefore, every being is
transcendentally good (§99). (BM §99–100)

The third sentence in this passage is key. It does not say something is good when it
causes perfection or when perfection is its real consequence, but only that it is good
if, when the thing is posited, a perfection is posited.¹⁵ This means there are now
two possibilities: Something can be good if, when it itself is posited, perfection is
posited (namely its own); or something can be good if, when it is posited,
something else is posited (say caused) that contains perfection. The significance
of this change can be seen from the rest of the passage. To prove a being is
transcendentally good here, Baumgarten does not show that every being causes
some other perfection according to natural laws, but only that its being as such
is in itself already a perfection. The logic he employs is as simple as it is

¹⁵ Although Wolff ’s understanding of his own theory is clearly consequentialist, it is unclear to me

that this was a necessary implication of his own principles and that it could not have been developed in
the way done by Baumgarten. All he would have had to do was to broaden his conception of goodness
to include perfection itself, instead of restricting it to what causes or brings about perfection.
      195

consequential (and non-Wolffian): If something is good, if, when it is posited,

perfection is posited, then since the positing of any perfection X, posits perfection
X, any perfection X is therefore good. In this case, the perfection in question is not
outside of the being, but rather lies in the positing of its very being.¹⁶ Here
perfection is not an effect, which would be external to the being as an effect
would be to its cause but is instead an immediate “logical consequence” (con-
sectarium), a term Baumgarten carefully employs to deal with such cases. In fact,
so far is Baumgarten’s conception of goodness consequentialist, in the manner of
Wolff, that he as it were reverses the direction in which goodness is held to be
grounded: whereas we have seen that Wolff holds that actions “become” good
through their consequences (which is rooted more deeply in his view that the
relation between an act and its consequence is only physically necessary),
Baumgarten thinks that the goodness of the consequences is grounded in the
goodness of their cause.¹⁷ I submit that such a view of intrinsic goodness is not
possible on Wolff ’s definition of goodness (WDM §422; WPE §554), at least in the
way he himself understands that definition, and to my knowledge he never
defends in this manner the proposition that all beings, whether necessary or
contingent, are transcendentally good.¹⁸
Now, why is this important? First, in a general respect, it means Baumgarten’s
moral theory is founded on a conception of intrinsic goodness that is not purely
consequentialist (in a naturalistic sense) and so is much closer to, if not the same
as, Kant’s later view. Or at least we can say that Baumgarten potentially offered to
Kant’s eyes a non-consequentialist form of perfectionism.¹⁹ Second, I think this
one subtle, but fundamental change helps us understand why Baumgarten’s actual
ethics looks entirely different from Wolff ’s. Just to mention one major difference
this explains, consider that for Wolff religion plays an important, but still rela-
tively minor role in his ethics. In fact, Wolff initially has a bit of difficulty even
explaining its function. This is because, as he recognizes, all our duties consist in

¹⁶ This can also be seen from BM §147: “When the realities of a being are posited, its perfection is
posited (§141). Hence, realities are good (§100), and indeed absolutely necessary realities are a
METAPHYSICAL GOOD, and realities contingent in themselves are CONTINGENT GOOD [ . . . ].”
¹⁷ This follows from BIP §32, which states that goods only have goods as their implications, evils
only evils as their implications.
¹⁸ That he could not do so is signaled by the fact that he first defines “good” in his empirical
psychology, and thus as a concept that makes sense only in relation to human nature. In both the
German and Latin writings, goodness is defined as “whatever perfects us and our own state” (“quinquid
nos statumque nostrum perfecit,” “Was uns und unserun Zustand vollkommener machet” ) (WDM §422;
WPE §554). Wolff does mention, but notably without endorsing, what he refers to as the Scholastic
“bonitas transcendentalis” (WO §503). He equates this however with perfection a such, which—if he is
to be consistent with the above definition of goodness—means that goodness would not even be a
species of perfection, but instead, its cause according to natural laws. Baumgarten, as noted, defines
goodness already in his ontology as whatever, when posited, posits perfection. Hence, for him, moral
goodness is simply a species of goodness as such, namely, that in respect to free determinations insofar
as they are free. This change is clearly fundamental as are its consequences for understanding the
intrinsic goodness of moral acts.
¹⁹ I refrain from making the claim here that Kant explicitly recognized this fact.
196  . 

the necessity of performing good actions, which themselves are such only because
they cause an increase in the perfection of the world. But since God clearly cannot
be made more perfect in any way, let alone made so by our actions within the
world, there can be no direct duties toward God and hence no direct duty to know
God, i.e. to develop religion. Unwilling, however, to consider there may be no duty
to religion at all, Wolff concludes that the only possibility is that we have an
indirect duty to meditate on God’s perfections in order to increase our motives for
performing our other duties (WTL §651). So, if one is religious in a Wolffian sense,
one will, for instance, brush their teeth more vigorously and frequently in the
awareness that God, with all his power and majesty, wants them to do so and so
has chosen it to be the natural law of the world in which they live. In this manner,
religion is good for us and is a duty because it lends support to other acts through
which we perfect ourselves and others. That is to say, religion is good, and so is a
duty, because it brings about or causes acts that themselves in turn cause perfec-
tions. The indirectness of this role played by religion here is mirrored in the fact
that Wolff first deals with it in the penultimate chapter of his German Ethics and
in the third of his five-volume Latin Ethics.
By contrast, almost the first quarter of Baumgarten’s own Philosophical Ethics
focuses on duties of religion, and he provides no less than ten distinct proofs that
we have a duty to religion. Here is one sample paragraph, which I think imme-
diately demonstrates the main difference between him and Wolff:

It is a reality to know the most perfect being most abundantly, worthily, truly,
clearly, certainly, and brilliantly (BM §36). Therefore, the glory of God posits a
reality in you (BM §947). The illustration of divine glory also posits a reality in
you; otherwise it would be evil (BM §146). That would contradict BM §947.
Therefore, the glory of God and his illustration in you agree as the determining
ground of perfection (BM §94), and are good for you (BM §660). Therefore,
religion perfects you as an end (BM §947) and indeed you are obligated to
religion (BM §10). (BEP §11; emphasis added)

Here Baumgarten makes use of both possible ways in which a thing can be good,
that is, in a non-consequentialist and in a consequentialist manner, the latter
being the only one articulated by Wolff himself. What Baumgarten here calls the
“glory of God”—as the Metaphysics tells us—consists in nothing but the greater
knowledge of God (BM §942). So part of this paragraph tells us that knowing God,
which is one aspect of religion (BM §947), perfects us directly or internally, insofar
as we have that very knowledge, thus “as an end,” and this goodness does not
depend on any consequence such knowledge may have. This glory of God, by
itself, is good (BM §942).
Now, also in this passage Baumgarten talks about the goodness of the “illus-
tration of divine Glory.” A little research reveals that this is just the Wolffian,
      197

consequentialist idea of the role of religion in other terms; we illustrate God’s

glory, according to Baumgarten, when we perform our other duties from the
motivation provided by our knowledge of God (BM §947). So here again religion
is good for us, and so is our duty, but now because it also provides a motivation for
us to perfect ourselves. This agrees with what we saw above: Instead of holding
that knowledge of God becomes good through its consequences, which is the
Wolffian view, Baumgarten holds it to be good in itself and therefore also good in
its consequences.
Let me conclude this section by recapping Baumgarten’s relation to Wolff.
From Baumgarten’s point of view, based upon the Leibnizian ideas mentioned
above, Wolff shouldn’t have extolled moral science at the expense of common
moral knowledge, indeed, not even at the expense of our moral instincts, which
can become more perfect through training the analogue of reason. Reason and its
analogue are in fact continuous with one another, and in view of the full scheme
of perfection, even the most childlike of human beings stands very high on the
ladder, while none of us—not even the philosophers—exceed anyone else by much
in comparison with the highest, archetypal perfection of the divine. What is more,
from Baumgarten’s point of view, Wolff understood goodness in a way that
rendered it essentially consequentialist, which in turn led him to overlook the
true center-point of ethics, namely, the knowledge of divine perfection, which
perfects us directly and so is intrinsically good in a non-consequentialist manner.

IV

Kant’s Transformation: From Empirical to Absolute Perfectionism. I now return to

Kant. In teaching from Baumgarten’s textbooks year in and year out, Kant would
have encountered a version of the Wolffian convertibility between moral and
natural perfection, including an endorsement of the Stoic duty to live according to
nature, which would, however, be focused not on a Wolffian experimentally
informed improvement of the human condition through natural science, but
rather on an intrinsically moral natural theology and the endeavor to live a life
in light of it. In the mathematics of intensive quantities and the rules of the best
possible world developed in Baumgarten, which provide a rationale for prioritiz-
ing natural over supernatural laws in moral science, Kant also would have
encountered an elaborate, hyper-Leibnizian theory of the systematic form and
measurement of natural cum moral perfection from which he could draw.
If we then consider the notes Kant penned in the margins of his copy of
Baumgarten’s Elements, I think the following story starts to emerge. Early on, he
accepts this form of perfection, which in Baumgarten’s Leibnizian account is also
(due to the best of all possible worlds doctrine) the form or structure of nature, as
genuinely being the essential form and structure of whatever is good (passim, but
198  . 

esp. Refl 6750, 19:148). As stated already in the Herder notes, Kant believes that
Baugmarten’s Elements contains a fully adequate, general account of practical
perfection, but fails to properly distinguish and specify moral perfection and
hence moral goodness (PrHer 27:16). In this respect, Kant agrees with perfection-
ism’s claim that the essential form of the good lies in something’s degree of formal
diversity and unity under laws, completeness, or formal perfection. What he
rejects is that a grasp of this form can provide a criterion, as Wolff seemed to
believe it able, for discovering unconditioned, substantive, and thus moral goods
through our empirical experience of physical and mental nature. Kant has three
related insights here.
First, this form is insufficient by itself to specify the morally good (Refl 6624–5,
19:116). Baumgarten, following Wolff in this regard, had already indicated the
path forward, even if he had not trod it himself, by defining perfection not
just as the harmony of a manifold under general laws, but more determinately
as such agreement in respect to one thing, the so-called “determining ground
of perfection” (BM §94). The question, then, was this: What is the determining
ground of moral perfection as that one thing with which everything specifically
moral must harmonize according to the essential, albeit general form of perfec-
tion? Kant’s answer is that this is not human nature, but the will itself (Refl 6589,
6590, 19:97–8). In future formulations, this will come to mean that the moral
determining ground of all the will’s actions must be the will itself as an end. But at
this moment Kant is still working out the conception of a will that would be
distinct in kind from the empirically determined will of Wolff and Baumgarten.
The second insight concerns the metaphysical concept of unconditionality.
One, unquestioned presupposition of Kant’s reflections is that morality must
consist in the duty to follow an unconditional or absolutely necessary law. But
here Kant makes a fundamental break with Baumgarten’s conception of concepts
like “unconditioned,” “absolute,” and “in itself ”—a break that, as we will see, has
the unexpected consequence of making Baumgarten’s hyper-Leibnizian cosmol-
ogy (and so his conception of the perfection of nature) immediately relevant to his
(Kant’s) conception of intrinsic goodness. As we saw above in relation to
Baumgarten, he defends both an intrinsic and an extrinsic conception of the
moral goodness of an act,²⁰ that is, goodness with respect to its own being
as well as goodness as conformity with the natural nexus of all other things.
Now, as Kant notes, Baumgarten defines the above terms as follows: “Whatever is

²⁰ Although I cannot defend the view here, I think it may be more accurate to say he defends three
distinct ways (which can overlap) in which an action can be considered good, namely, in regard to its
own being, in regard to its relations to other things in the nexus of nature, and finally in regard to the
divine will and its possible supernatural nexus. The second of these corresponds to the Wolffian sense
of intrinsic goodness and I think also is contained in Baumgarten’s own conception of objective
morality, along with the first. On a similar but in some ways strikingly different account, see Bacin’s
chapter in this volume.
      199

considered, but not in a nexus with those things that are posited externally to it, 
   (intrinsically, simply, absolutely, per se)” (BM §15). As
I have explained elsewhere, for reasons central to the Critical turn, Kant rejects
this conception of the “in itself” or “absolute” as what is valid in abstraction from
external relations and replaces it with the concept of what is valid in every respect
or in every possible relation (BM 30–1). To illustrate the difference: Whereas for
Baumgarten the absolutely possible may be impossible in the actual world (in
some external nexus), what is absolutely possible for Kant would be possible not
only in this world but in every possible world. Now, the upshot for morality is this:
the unconditioned good, as the object of an unconditional or absolutely necessary
law, according to Kant, rests on the notion of a law valid in every possible respect
or relation. That is to say: “The worth of an action or person is always decided
through relation to the whole. But this is only possible through agreement with the
conditions of a universal rule” (Refl 6711, 19:138; also, Refl 6712, 19:138). It would
thus be a law that is necessary in every possible moral world and so also, of course,
prescribes a sort of unity—a good—that can be considered a condition of the
possibility of any moral world at all. What is more, if it is necessary even in every
relation, it is not only necessary with regard to the world as a whole, but also
prescribes some sort of condition and so unity to every relation within that whole.
The third and final insight concerns the implications of this absoluteness of the
moral law. The otherwise empty Wolffian moral principle, noted above, was to be
provided with sufficient content through its empirical specification by way of
observation and experiment. But empirically determined laws (Kant would call
these merely “general rules”) will, on Kant’s view, always be conditional, and so
not necessarily, let alone unconditionally, good. They will be valid only in some
relation, not in every relation possible. The only possible unconditional good,
then, would have to consist in an unconditional formal perfection of the act itself;
the proposition expressing the necessity of the conformity of action to such would
alone be worthy of the name of a moral “law.” Here Kant silently adheres to the
view that action must be good in itself in Baumgarten’s, and not Wolff ’s, sense of
intrinsic goodness, while incorporating his own conception of intrinsic or absolute
goodness as good in every possible relation (Refl 6648, 6651, 19:124; 6700, 19:135;
6711–3, 19:138–9). Now, as the form of what is naturally good in every possible
relation must, on his Baumgartenian understanding of natural perfection, har-
monize with the most perfect possible absolute but also natural totality of free
beings (as a moral nature), Kant seems to have just adopted this same form as the
form of any intrinsically good act. The upshot is that the determining ground of
moral perfection, i.e. the will, cannot be the empirical will of Wolff and
Baumgarten but rather must be understood as practical reason not only as
unconditioned by any sensible inclinations and hence as pure and free (Refl
6621, 19:114; Refl 6639, 19:122), but also precisely insofar as it imposes upon
itself the pure and complete form of natural perfection. Thus, by reversing
200  . 

Baumgarten’s conception of “absolute” from what is not considered in a nexus at

all to what is considered in every possible nexus, Kant is able to regard the
determination of an action (its selection) based on its fitness to the pure form of
an absolute totality of all possible wills (i.e. a kingdom of ends) as the intrinsic
mark of its moral perfection and to identify this with the will’s own absolute
independence in action, i.e. with its true freedom.
In a series of notes from the 1770s, Kant thus comes to the idea that the only
thing that is unconditional is the human will insofar as it is free, and so the only
possible, unconditional formal perfection (and so also universally valid good) is
the formal perfection that the free will imposes upon itself as law and qua free will
and not qua object of empirical nature (Refl 6605, 19:105–6; 7063, 19:240). We
find the first hints of this reasoning in Reflection 6598, where Kant notes: “Just as
freedom contains the first ground of everything that happens, it is also what alone
contains independent goodness” (AA 19:103). Reflection 7197, from the 70s or
80s, further illustrates his line of thought:

Morality is the inner conformity to law of freedom, namely, insofar as it itself is a

law. When we abstract from all inclination, then conditions still remain under
which alone freedom can agree with itself. 1. That its use harmonize with the
determination of its own nature, 2. with purposes of others, insofar as they
harmonize as a whole, 3. and with the freedom of others in general, [all] under
a universally valid condition. This perfection of freedom is the condition under
which the perfection and happiness belonging to a rational being must univer-
sally be pleasing (worthiness) and alone remains left over when the objects of our
present inclination have all become indifferent to us.

Here we see Kant precisely equating the “perfection of freedom” with its uncon-
ditional agreement with itself and with the totality of other free wills according to
universal laws.
Similarly, note 7254, written between the lines of text in which Baumgarten
explains the central principle of perfectionism, reads:

The proposition “perfect yourself <perfice te>” is tautological. One wants to know
what the perfection that is the object of the categorical imperative consists in.
Moral perfection is the condition under which alone all others can be called
perfection. Now, I want to know what this consists in. It is a perfection of the will:
but what [does it consist] in?

At this point, as we have seen, Kant has his answer. The absolute perfection of the
will can only be that its acts within any world (and so also this one) are necessary
and so valid in respect to every possible world of free wills in which the will itself is
under no empirical limiting condition. The only limiting condition left is that of
      201

the form of natural perfection itself, articulated by Baumgarten as the only form of
perfection knowable to the philosopher. This includes the inner “natural” lawful-
ness of the acts themselves as well as the maximal harmony of all wills within a
completely determined totality of “natural” laws.
In this way, the abstract form of natural perfection—though it remains formal
and a priori empty with respect to given nature, natural ends, and even moral
ends—becomes for Kant something substantively good, i.e. a specific end guiding
free choice, because imposing that form on every act of choice now itself becomes
the will’s own end and not just the form of an end that would only be discoverable
empirically. In addition to now being its own end insofar as it unconditionally and
intentionally wills the idea of its own acts as unconditioned, the free will is now
also its own supreme good, but only insofar as it acts essentially or purely in view
of the form of perfection, first discoverable to us as in the form of a nature
in general.
Finally, as this form of perfection in Baumgarten’s sense is essentially the form
of an absolute totality, maximally unified under laws of order, it is basically what
Kant would later call an “idea.” The idea “contains the greatest perfection in a
certain intention” and “[a]ll morality rests on ideas” (Refl 6611, 19:108; also, Refl
6978, 19:219). So following this, Kant naturally thinks of this unconditional good
as consisting in the will’s imposing upon itself not just some lawful order, but
indeed the idea of a complete or absolute order, the “natural” perfection of the will
in every possible respect (Refl 6725, 19:141–2). In this way, Kant talks about
absolute or moral goodness as simply equivalent to whatever harmonizes with the
whole of all possible acts of willing according to an “idea,” namely that of a
completely determinate kingdom of ends thought in analogy with a kingdom of
nature.
Hence, even before this specific term “kingdom of ends” appears in Kant’s
published writings, we find many notes to Baumgarten’s Elements in which the
idea is already present. To take just one example:

We can say that in a world all ends descend from the universal (the whole) to the
particular and thus the end of the whole contains in itself the condition of the
ends of the parts, i.e. that everyone must see himself as subject to the laws
through which he conforms to universal laws in every condition either of nature
or freedom. (Refl 6899, 19:200)

To summarize this point, Kant argues that the actions of a free will can be
absolutely good only because the principle that they arise from is precisely the
awareness of their fitness to completely harmonize with, or to constitute an
absolutely perfect whole with, all possible acts of willing. In this last step, Kant
fully detaches perfectionism from any empirical or natural-scientific remnant.
And in doing so, he also does away with any need for Baumgarten’s softening of
202  . 

Wolffian intellectualism. For Kant, we need not be assured that we are all, whether
by insight or instinct, somewhere on the better side of things, possibly due to our
confused mirroring of the best possible world, since the goodness of our free will
lies entirely within our power to impose our own formal conception of natural
perfection on our own, unconditioned acts.

Conclusion. With this story, all the surprising features I mentioned in my intro-
duction fall into place. It is now clear why Kant’s theory looks so Leibnizian; it in
fact is a direct descendent of, and so borrows many structural features from,
Baumgarten’s hyper-Leibnizian perfectionism. The difference is that Kant’s per-
fectionism is a perfectionism of the free will qua unconditionally free rather than
qua a form of natural causality through the will (i.e. Wolffian “freedom”). We can
also see why Kant would look to the form of nature for the principles of this form
of moral perfection. That idea was already present in Wolff ’s perfectionism and
had become central in Baumgarten’s, but with the first Critique’s isolation of the a
priori form of a nature in general, the notion of natura formaliter spectata can
now provide the pure categorial structure for an intelligible world (“supersensible
nature”) of moral beings. The following note, penned in direct reference to
Baumgarten’s endorsement of the Stoic duty to live according to nature, makes
this connection in Kant’s mind particularly clear:

The principle of the unity of freedom under laws establishes an analogue with
what we call nature, and so also an internal source of happiness that nature
cannot provide of which we ourselves are authors. Thereupon we find ourselves
in a world of the understanding bound according to special laws that are moral.
And therein we are pleased.
The unity of the intelligible world according to practical principles, just like the
world of sense according to physical laws. (Refl 7260, 19:296–7)
 11
Baumgarten, Kant, and the Subdivisions
of Practical Philosophy
Frederick Rauscher

This chapter is an attempt to understand this specific passage that Kant wrote as a
note to §88 of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical
Philosophy, the book Kant used as a text for his lectures on ethics:

1. Inner freedom under inner laws

2. Outer freedom under inner laws
3. Outer freedom under outer laws
(Refl 7065, 19:240, likely written 1776–78)¹

What immediately puzzles me about this passage is how this triad fails to
accord with Kant’s own later mature dual division of practical philosophy into
right and virtue. Right seems to match the third item in Kant’s list, outer freedom
under outer laws, and virtue seems to match the first item in Kant’s list, inner
freedom under inner laws. But there is no obvious match for the second item in
Kant’s list, outer freedom under inner laws. Could it be precisely the same set of
actions labeled “outer freedom under outer laws” but given the distinct viewpoint
of inner laws? Or are there two types or perhaps two aspects of outer freedom,
each subject to either inner or outer laws? And what is the difference between the
inner and the outer such that it differs for freedom and laws? In working out what
Kant might have meant in this jotting in his book, I will concentrate on the most
immediate evidence we have of Kant’s assessment of Baumgarten, namely, the
reflections Kant wrote in his own copy of Baumgarten’s Elements. I will show that
Kant uses some of Baumgarten’s own distinctions between inner and outer in
practical philosophy and follows some of Baumgarten’s understanding of types of
law, but that unlike Baumgarten Kant makes freedom itself the key value in
practical philosophy, resulting in various possible divisions of the subject. There
is some tension among these various distinctions between the inner and the outer,

¹ For the convenience of those examining the new edition that combines a translation of
Baumgarten’s Elements and Kant’s own notes in his copy of that text, I use those translations,
occasionally modifying them.

Frederick Rauscher, Baumgarten, Kant, and the Subdivisions of Practical Philosophy In: Baumgarten and Kant on the
Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press.
© Frederick Rauscher 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0012
204  

a tension I will claim remains in Kant’s final division between right and virtue in
the Metaphysics of Morals.
In this chapter I will first examine how Baumgarten uses the terms “inner” and
“outer,” or “internal” and “external,” identifying ten specific divisions that can be
understood to express four different ways of distinguishing those terms. I then
briefly examine his explanation of law and touch on freedom. I then turn to Kant’s
initial reaction to Baumgarten as revealed in the reflections, showing the various
ways that Kant saw possible divisions among the parts of practical philosophy and
tying them to different ways of understanding “inner” and “outer.” I show that
Kant’s emphasis on freedom rather than perfectionism led him to apply these
distinctions in his own way. The resulting set of distinctions that Kant was
considering in the 1760s and 1770s ultimately lies at the basis of his mature
moral philosophy in the Metaphysics of Morals.

Baumgarten on Inner, Outer, Laws, and Freedom. Baumgarten’s Elements is

supposed to provide his account of the foundation for the whole of practical
philosophy. I will not review the entirety of his account but want simply to focus
on the distinctions that shaped the divisions of practical philosophy Kant devel-
oped. Baumgarten uses the terms “inner” and “outer,” or “internal” and “external”
(which I will use interchangeably) to mark a division at least ten times. These are
connected in various ways ultimately making four different types of distinctions.
The first division, related to internal and external, concerns obligations, or
impelling causes, which come in two main types. The first type are those known
“from the nature of the action and the agents”; these are “natural (objective,
intrinsic, internal)” obligations. The second type are known “through someone’s
free choice”; these are “positive (chosen, subjective, formal, extrinsic, external)”
obligations (BIP §29). The correlation of the terms “internal” with “natural” and
“external” with “positive” is the first use of the terms “internal” (interna) and
“external” (externa) in Baumgarten’s text. In this context, it is clear that the
internality of obligation is that it is internal to the nature of the agent or action,
something that is inseparable from the agent as a part of the character of the agent
or action. This internality is contrasted with the externality of obligation stem-
ming from someone’s free choice. Baumgarten makes it clear that this could be the
free choice of God or of a human being (BIP §66).² The internality or externality

² For Baumgarten, the natural moral laws are at the same time positive divine moral laws. Since the
will of God is the result of God’s supreme knowledge, and the natural moral laws are those that are
known by the nature of the action or agent conceptually, God knows all the natural moral laws and thus
wills them as God’s own positive law (BIP §69). Because of this correspondence, even the theoretical
atheist is able to know all the proper moral laws that would be thought of as divine laws were that
      205

here is a matter of conceptual internality/externality. If an obligation is intrinsic

to the kind of action or agent, then it is internal; otherwise it is external. In this
way a decision made by a particular agent through their own free choice is an
external obligation even though in another obvious sense that decision is internal
to the agent.
This division is brought forward to morality as a whole. Good and evil can be
understood as “    ” because of their intrinsic relation to
means for perfection. Since Baumgarten defines morality as the “respect and
habituation of free action for perfection,” this means that morality can be under-
stood objectively, in relation to good and evil per se, or subjectively, when the good
or evil depends upon someone’s free will (BIP §36).
The second division, related to internal and external, concerns constraint
(coactio) (BIP §50ff.). The term “coactio” is equivalent to the German “Zwang,”
and could also be understood as coercion. Internal moral constraint is when a
person constrains themselves by connecting overriding compelling causes with
one of our own free determinations (BIP §51). External moral constraint (of the
relevant type—Baumgarten rejects absolute external constraint brought about by
external violence as unrelated to free determinations (BIP §50)) is when one
person constrains another either by enticement through what is agreeable or
through fear (BIP §52). The individual who is the subject of external constraint
still makes a free determination in light of the impelling causes. This division
between internal and external is based upon the source of the impelling causes. If
the impelling causes are within the individual, they are said to constrain them-
selves through internal moral constraint. If the impelling causes stem from outside
the moral agent, namely from another person, then the moral agent is constrained
by another through external moral constraint. The internal/external division here
is based upon the location of the source of the impelling causes either in the moral
agent or outside the moral agent. These two types of constraint can act as two
relations of constraint to one and the same action. Baumgarten is clear that the
same free determination can be subject to both internal and external constraint
(BIP §59).
The third division between internal and external concerns laws. Baumgarten
defines laws as norms that express a moral determination, that is, a determination
in accordance with freedom (BIP §60). These moral norms in general are oblig-
atory propositions in that they connect free determinations with the grounds for

person a theist, although this knowledge of the atheist falls somewhat short of perfection in breadth,
certainty, etc. (BIP §71). Thus morality can be known independently of religion. Kant’s reaction to this
is clear in Refl 7092 (AA 19:247) where he comments on BIP §62: “God is not the author of the moral
law through his will, but instead the divine will is the moral law, namely the archetype of the most
perfect will and also the principle of all conditions for determining our wills in agreement with his own,
consequently all conditions of a necessary consent.”
206  

those determinations, namely overriding impelling causes. This connection with

obligation means that, like obligations, the laws can themselves be internal or
external (BIP §61). In that section Baumgarten identifies internal norms as
“incomplete, imperfect, persuasive, counsels” that are not to be extorted while
external norms are identified as “complete, perfect, constraining” that are to be
extorted.
The fourth division is correlated with the division between internal and
external laws, namely the division between internal and external duties
(BIP §92). Duty had been defined in §83 as “action conforming to the law,” so
a division between internal and external laws results in a similar division
between internal and external duties. The internal duties are explained as
“broadly considered, imperfect, of what is appropriate, of love, incomplete.”
The external duties are explained as “perfect, of necessity, of right, complete,
strictly considered.”
So far we have a type of distinction based on a conceptual factor (the divisions
regarding obligation, law, and duty) and a type of distinction based on sources
(the division regarding constraint). Neither of these concern the outcome or target
of moral laws, that is, the expected result of the moral action or the ultimate value
that grounds the moral laws. In the fifth division, which is raised immediately with
the fourth in §92 as linked to violations of duty, we might expect a division
between internal and external results because the division is about harms:
“[H] can also be seen as either opposed to internal duties, and are
 (broadly considered, imperfect, of love, incomplete), or as opposed to
the duty of necessity, and are  (strictly considered, perfect, of right,
complete) [ . . . ]” (BIP §92). Here one might be confused because “harms” nor-
mally would indicate the result of a failure to perform a duty, such as physical
pain, a loss of freedom, a loss of a good, or some other material, specifiable
outcome. Kant himself had precisely this objection to Baumgarten’s claim
about harm, as recorded in the Collins lecture notes: “the law is not harmed but
violated; it is the person who can be harmed” (MoC 27:280). For example, those
harmed by a violation of an imperfect duty to feed the hungry are still hungry
while those harmed by a violation of a perfect duty to not steal lose the use of
that stolen property. These harms do not seem themselves to be broadly or
strictly considered or to be perfect or imperfect; rather, they are material losses
that can be specified in some way. Further, a corresponding division between
internal harms and external harms seems as if it would relate to harms internal to
the person and those external to the person; but the imperfect/perfect duty
division does not seem to track this difference, since the effect of stealing food
from a hungry person (violating a perfect duty) and simply not providing food to
a hungry person (violating an imperfect duty) is the same—that hungry person
does not eat. Baumgarten, however, has a more formal rather than a material
conception of harm in mind. In §83, he defines “  ” as
      207

“ (violation)  ,” which is understood as “action opposing

what the law obligates.” This more formal definition of harm is simply violation of
duty itself, not the resulting consequences of a violation of duty. Thus this division
between internal and external simply matches that of the internal/external duties.
A sixth division does have a material element. In §93, Baumgarten distinguishes
internally and externally “owed” goods as follows:

[G]oods either belong to one through internal laws, or through external laws as
well (§§61, 43). The collection of the former is ’   
(broadly considered, internally owed); the collection of the latter is ’ 
    (externally owed, strictly considered), which, in right
and hence in natural right strictly considered, are unqualifiedly called one’s own.
(§§64, 65)

This division rests on the division between internal and external laws, such that
the goods themselves are not necessarily internal or external. And importantly,
Baumgarten allows an overlap in what is targeted or is the subject of the internal
and external laws when he allows that some are “through external laws as well.”
This division between external and internal is based not on the nature or char-
acteristics of the material goods themselves but simply on how those goods are
identified through different types of law. In addition, the division is not exhaustive
but allows for overlap.
A seventh division is about honor in §94 where what is internally honorable is
obedience to internal law and what is externally honorable is obedience to external
law. Here the obedience to the law is in a sense one’s comportment toward the law
and is not itself equitable with the law in the way that duty, obligation, and even
harms are. Rather the honor applies to the person as a result of their response to
these laws in obeying or not. In this way, this division is more similar to “what is
owed” above.
The eighth of the internal/external divisions concerns happiness (BIP §98):
“I  [ . . . ] is to be obtained through internal laws [ . . . ]
 happiness . . . is to be obtained through external laws.” Although this
sounds as if there are two different substantive kinds of happiness, instead, like the
conception of internal and external good, the division is only based on the laws
themselves. But since it refers not to the laws but to the result of the laws, it is like
the previous two divisions.
The final two divisions between internal and external³ appear in §180 when
Baumgarten turns to a court of judgment regarding imputation of deeds:

³ I have examined ten different but interrelated divisions between internal and external but make no
claim here to have exhausted this distinction as presented by Baumgarten. There may be other uses of
the distinction that escaped my notice.
208  

Deeds are called internal (unqualifiedly internal) insofar as they occur in the soul
alone, observable by no signs or anything external, through the body; however,
external deeds are thus harmonic such that they are also indicated by external
signs through the body.

Here the ninth division between internal and external refers to the observability of
the deed, with internal deeds having no apparent expression outwardly through
the body, while external deeds are indicated through some expression through the
body. However, Baumgarten’s “also” indicates that the external deeds do have a
component inside the soul, and the term “harmonic” relates to Baumgarten’s
metaphysics of a pre-established harmony between the soul and the body.
External deeds, then, presumably have their imputable origin in the soul but
their expression in the physical world, while internal deeds relate only to decisions
that originate and affect the soul itself.
In the tenth division two types of courts are divided in relation to deeds: “The
external court is that in which only external deeds can be validly subsumed under
external laws. However the internal court is that in which internal deeds can also
be validly subsumed under internal laws” (BIP §180). The internal court is
identified as either the court of conscience or the court of reason (BIP §182),
with the court of reason also having an external counterpart. (There is also a
divine court described in §185 that will be passed over here.) The external court
can be a civil court, and “rights strictly considered only belong to external courts”
(§186). External and internal courts, then, are correlated with external and
internal deeds. This last division between external and internal also concerns,
like the ninth, the mental and the physical.
In the end we can compare and contrast the ten divisions I have discussed to
identify four different ways that Baumgarten distinguishes internal and external:

1. Internal as the intrinsic or conceptual nature of something, as opposed to the

external as the result of a contingent free choice. E.g. obligation, law, duty, harms.
2. Internal as a kind of material result that corresponds to the above distinc-
tion because it results from internal law, although it is not conceptually
defined, and external as corresponding to the material result of external law.
E.g. what is owed, honorableness, happiness.
3. Internal as the result of one’s one choice, as opposed to external as the result
of another’s choice. E.g. constraint.
4. Internal as taking place only within one’s soul or mind, as opposed to
external as something that is expressed also physically. E.g. deeds, and the
subject of the courts.

We will see which of these Kant ends up referring to in his own division
between internal and external.
      209

I now turn to Baumgarten’s explanation of laws and take a brief look at

freedom. Laws themselves are explained using a tripartite hierarchical arrangement.
Strictly speaking, Baumgarten says, only constraining rules should be called “laws,”
but he accepts that the received view also includes as “laws” moral norms that
are not constraining (BIP §62). The three ways that normative propositions are
described are: 1. Laws most broadly considered (norms), 2. Laws broadly con-
sidered (moral norms), and 3. Laws strictly considered (constraining rules that
can be extorted). The first of these would include even what are called natural
laws, such as laws of motion or certain psychological laws (BIP §60) and is meant
to be inclusive of the others. The second and third are both moral, with the second
inclusive of the third. The third as strict laws that can be extorted is the most
narrowly defined kind of law.
Interestingly, Baumgarten understates his earlier division between internal and
external obligations when he discusses the relation between obligation and law in
§63. There he notes that some laws belong to “natural obligation” as “known
sufficiently from the nature of the action and of the agent” while other laws are
“known from someone’s free choice.” The former are natural laws, the latter
positive. In his earlier division about the source of the obligation as coming
intrinsically from the nature of the action or agent or coming extrinsically from
the choice of another (BIP §29), Baumgarten explicitly identified the former as
“internal” and the latter as “external,” but here in §63 he fails to repeat those
terms. This division between natural and positive laws is certainly related to the
earlier division between natural and positive obligation. Here the way in which
laws are known is related to the kind of obligation they possess.
Baumgarten defines the “natural right” (jus naturae, which is often translated as
“natural law”)⁴ in a way that mirrors his tripartite hierarchical arrangement of law
from §62. Natural right broadly construed includes all natural laws, including
physical, psychological, and moral laws. Natural right somewhat more narrowly
considered is only those natural laws that obligate human beings and is called
“   ” and comprises “both internal and
external moral laws.” Even more narrowly considered is “ 
  (constraining, external), contradistinguished from coun-
sels, internal laws and persuasions, insofar as they are natural” (BIP §65).
Natural right, then, can be considered as both external and internal, depending
on the level at which it is specified. In the strictest sense, natural right is only
external. Baumgarten confirms this in the following section when he says: “The
collection of positive laws is   (§§63, 64) that, 
 (§§63, 64), collects both the internal and external laws; or,
 , it is a collection of the external laws alone” (BIP §66).

⁴ The Fugate/Hymers Baumgarten translation usually construes “jus naturae” as “the right of
nature” but sometimes as “natural right.” For consistency I render them all as “natural right.”
210  

Since the characteristic of external law is that it is known from someone’s free
choice, the distinction is merely in the source of the law.
The section of the Elements called “The Principles of Right ” (§87–99) contains
the place where Kant wrote in his own copy the passage with which I started
this chapter. Baumgarten begins by distinguishing between subjective and objective
principles (the objective principles belong to a discipline inherently, while the
subjective principles are instead used for knowing the discipline), but more
relevant is that he further distinguishes between external and internal objective
principles. “F” principles are external and “do not pertain to a given
discipline as conclusions, i.e. as parts that are only to be taught in that discipline”
and “” principles are internal and “pertain to a given discipline as
conclusions, i.e. especially as parts belonging to it that are only to be taught in
that discipline” (BIP 87). Part of what Baumgarten says in §88 is “do not let the
external be invoked, when it is a question of the internal and the domestic.” This
is the only direct reference to internal or external in §88, and there is no mention
of freedom or laws. The focus of that section is on principles of natural right.
Since natural right was earlier distinguished into natural right broadly or
narrowly construed, Baumgarten has both of these aspects in mind. He notes in
§89 that the first, or highest, principle of natural right narrowly construed,
although something chosen (arbitrarium, that is, a product of a faculty of choice),
is the result not of blind choice but of prudent choice. Baumgarten devotes the
next few sections to providing criteria that should be used to determine that
prudent choice of the first principle; for example, he says to prefer a principle
appropriate to the whole discipline over which it would be first (BIP §90). Using
these criteria, he rejects as too broad the principle “furnish the good or seek
perfection as much as you are able” for natural right narrowly construed; this
principle does serve as the first principle of natural right broadly construed (BIP
§91). Instead of this, Baumgarten identifies in the following few sections three
principles, essentially matching the traditional triad from Ulpian, “you shall harm
nobody (externally)” (BIP §92), “attribute to each (to a human being, negatively at
least) what is known with certainty and without faith to be his own (with regard to
right)” (BIP §93), and “cultivate the (external) honorableness that is to be known
with certainty but without faith” (BIP §94), each of which he identifies as suitable
to be the first principle of natural right narrowly construed.
His argument for the first of these principles is important because it utilizes the
divisions between internal and external duties and internal and external harms
(described above) corresponding to the division between internal and external
laws. As he explains,

since the whole of natural right strictly considered encompasses laws strictly
considered, and external duties (§65), everything will be deduced from the
      211

principle you shall harm nobody (externally), which will be the first domestic
objective principle of natural right, strictly considered. (BIP §92)

Here the broader principle simply to furnish the good or seek perfection, which
was adequate for natural right broadly construed, is rejected as being too broad, as
is the somewhat more narrowly tailored principle “you shall harm nobody (either
internally or externally),” which would apply to more than simply the narrowly
considered natural right focused only on the external. Thus the highest principle
for natural right narrowly construed must match the nature of that narrow
construal, which Baumgarten had identified earlier in relation to the external:
“    (constraining, external), contradistin-
guished from counsels, internal laws and persuasions, insofar as they are natural”
(BIP §65).
Baumgarten sees two different kinds of positive law as correlated with the
internal and external in a different way. In §98, he argues that although the
discipline of natural right is complete in itself, it is not necessarily known as
such to everyone. “Hence,” he writes,

there can be a supplement to this natural right subjectively considered, or there

can be a complement to the internal right of human perfection, i.e. the collection
of the internal laws of perfection in human beings, e.g. divine positive right and
revealed moral theology, and there can be a supplement or a complement to the
external right of human perfection, e.g. particular positive and human right.

This distinction between the internal and external right regarding human perfec-
tion is correlated with internal and external happiness, each of which are said to
stem from the respective internal and external laws.
Regarding freedom—a term that Kant uses in the passage with which I started
this chapter and one that Kant of course makes central to his moral philosophy—
Baumgarten says little in the Elements. He links practical philosophy to freedom
only in the sense that moral beings are those who are free to choose their actions
and thus must use the guidance of moral laws. “Morally possible” things are “free
determinations,” which concern only “persons” described as “free substances”
(BIP §10). Although the being ultimately has free will, this freedom is still subject to
“impelling causes” that determine obligations. Baumgarten does not define free-
dom using the contrast between external and internal. In his Metaphysics, he does
discuss freedom in terms of actions and determinations, but there is no attempt
to discuss a freedom of actions independently of a freedom of determinations.
Instead, determinations are the specific decisions in the superior faculty of desire
that result in actions (BM §721–3). There is also no separate discussion of
freedom of the body when Baumgarten discusses the interaction of soul and body
212  

(BM §733–9). We can conclude that, at least as far as it affects his moral theory,
Baumgarten does not have a conception of external freedom substantially different
from a mere display of internal freedom.

II

Kant on Inner, Outer, Laws, and Freedom. Kant’s notes in his personal copy of
Baumgarten’s Elements range from as early as 1764 through the 1780s. I choose to
focus on the material prior to 1780 because by that time Kant was well on his way
to working out his critical ethical position. I am more interested in how Kant
worked his way toward that position in relation to Baumgarten. Because the
dating of these reflections is not exact, and because they all fall within the pre-
Critical time period, and because they are not formulations Kant intended for
public consumption but only his private working-out of ideas, perhaps to be used
in his course lectures, and finally because they do not reveal systematic compre-
hensive positions that can be compared with one another, I will treat them all as
chronologically equivalent. That is, I will assume that each reflection represents
some idea or ideas Kant had during the fifteen-year period between 1764 and 1780
that can be usefully compared and connected with one another without speculat-
ing about chronological development within that period. I will also refer very
briefly to two sets of student lecture notes for the courses Kant taught on ethics:
the Herder lecture notes of 1764 and the Collins lecture notes of 1784–85, which
are however thought to reflect Kant’s lectures from 1775.
In this section, I will first present a few of the ways in which Kant sought to
divide morality into parts. This will suggest that he approaches practical philos-
ophy broadly and has different possible ways to subdivide it. I will then examine in
more detail his emphasis on the value of freedom—the main way in which he
differs from Baumgarten regarding these divisions. This will then suggest a way to
examine internal freedom and external freedom. Regarding internal freedom,
Kant will be seen to transform Baumgarten’s conception of perfection into a
specific focus on the cultivation of one’s own capacity of free choice. Regarding
external freedom, Kant will be seen to distinguish between a negative and a
positive relation to other individuals’ choices, one which will relate to the distinc-
tion between not interfering with their freedom and helping others use their
freedom. I will pull this together with a suggestion about how different senses of
“internal” and “external” bring about these different divisions.
I will start with a look at the ways that Kant distinguishes morality into different
parts.⁵ The most relevant division is that between right and virtue, corresponding

⁵ Kant’s mature theory, of course, divides morality into parts along several different lines that are
outside the scope of this chapter. Two other ways that Kant divides morality in general but that are not
      213

to the two parts of the published Metaphysics of Morals. That division is explained
in general in terms of lawgiving that has incentives other than duty (mainly
constraint) and internal lawgiving that has only duty itself as the incentive (MS
6:218). One hint of this eventual division is in Refl 7084, where Kant says: “The
whole of natural right is without civil order a mere doctrine of virtue and has the
name of a right purely as a plan for possible external laws of constraint, hence of
civil order” (AA 19:245).
One important note divides the whole of our practical considerations into four:
There are various degrees of the determination of our choice:

1. According to universal laws of choice in general, namely right

2. According to universal rules of the good in general, namely beneficence
3. According to universal rules of private good, namely ([added:] rational) self-
love
4. According to particular rules of a private inclination, namely sensuous
drive. (Refl 6586, 19:96)

This four-fold division uses the concepts of universal and private to pair each
with choice, good, or inclination. There is a movement from the most objective to
the least objective from top to bottom. Starting at the bottom, the fourth of these is
merely individual sensuous drives that can determine choice but only in a
particular way; this element of practical philosophy is not related to objective
grounds and plays no important role. The second and third each refer to “good”
seen as private or general. The private good here is “self-love” and might be
associated with prudence. The “good in general,” or “beneficence,” is contrasted
with the private good and both fall under general rules. Here good is divided into
an individual private good and an unexplained “good in general” that may simply
be the sum total of all the private goods; Kant’s identification of this good in
general with beneficence indicates that he has something like that in mind. At the
top of this list, and presumably the widest degree of determination of choice, is
simply laws of choice in general, equated with right. Importantly here, Kant is
stating that there are laws of choice in general unrelated to any particular or even
general good, or any other consideration. Also important to notice is that there is
no reference to internal or external here, nor relation to self compared with
relation to others (besides the unstated comparison between beneficence and
self-love).
Some other divisions of practical philosophy Kant proposes also involve free-
dom. One of these explanations is Refl 7054 (AA 19:236):

at issue in this chapter are a. the division between critical philosophy (mainly in the Groundwork and
Critique of Practical Reason) and an exposition of duties (mainly in the Metaphysics of Morals), b. the
division between an a priori metaphysics of morals and an empirical moral anthropology.
214  

The practical laws based on the mere idea of freedom are moral. Those based on
the idea of internal freedom concern all actions and are ethical; those based
merely on the idea of external freedom are juridical and concern merely external
actions.

Here the overall highest laws in morality are based on the idea of freedom, which
is then divided into internal and external freedom.
Kant sees another way to distinguish right from ethics as negative from positive.
Refl 6597 defines right and ethics in terms of different ways of implementing
“common will” or “common choice”:

The rule of right is: impede nobody in the use of their free choice contained
under the law of common choice. The rule of ethics is: add that which is sufficient
complement to the [otherwise] inefficacious will of others according to the rules
of the common will. (AA 19:102)

Here right is certainly explained negatively as lack of impediment of others’ uses

of their free choice. But ethics is similarly related to the free choice of others by
obligating agents to aid others in the fulfillment of the choices they have made
with their wills, consistent with the common will (presumably avoiding choices
that violate the negative restriction of not impeding others). Below I will say more
about how this positive ethical relation relates to beneficence.
Finally, I repeat the three-fold division that Kant presents in Refl 7065 with
which I started this chapter: “1. Inner freedom under inner laws, 2. Outer freedom
under inner laws, 3. Outer freedom under outer laws” (AA 19:240). Here the
emphasis is clearly on freedom understood in different ways.
This concept of a free choice itself as the determinant of right seems to be
something that Kant settled on as the basis of all of practical philosophy. We have
seen already in Refl 6586 above that Kant had the highest degree of practical
philosophy in right as “universal laws of choice in general.” It is worth seeing how
Kant defined the highest consideration of practical philosophy in terms of this
freedom.
Kant is often insistent that free choice should harmonize with or not contradict
itself, writing in one case that “[reason] alone determines the conditions under
which free choice stands under a self-standing rule” (Refl 7029, 19:230). In Refl
6958 Kant warns that if reason is not independent but instead in service to the
senses, “then by reason we are placed in greater contradiction with ourselves and
with others” (AA 19:213). He also warns that a “lawless” freedom is a danger:

Freedom is a subjective lawlessness. One does not know according to which rule
one should judge his own actions or those of other human beings. Whims,
peculiar taste, evil or empty fancies can produce effects for which one was not
      215

prepared. Freedom therefore confuses. The whole of nature would be brought

into confusion thereby, if freedom did not subject itself to objective rules, which
however can be none other than the universal conditions of the harmony
of nature in general. Hence without moral laws the human being would
himself be contemptible among the animals and worthier of hatred than them.
(Refl 6960, 19:214)

And the immediately following reflection continues this thought:

In addition to agreement with nature, free will must harmonize with itself in
regard to the internal and external independence from impulses. Without moral-
ity, folly and chance are the masters of human fortune. (Refl 6961, 19:215)

Kant’s point here is that without a rule, freedom would be random or chaotic and
would lead to confusion and self-contradiction.⁶
The potential for contradiction, however, is not identified only with freedom
being in contradiction with itself. Kant does consider that a lawless freedom would
be in contradiction with other things, and those other things turn out to relate to
parts of his final division of morality. One reflection lists a large number of
possibilities:

If your will ought to harmonize with all your inclinations through universally valid
conditions, then it must harmonize with that to which they all refer, namely, your
own self, i.e. personality. Duty towards oneself. Your actions ought to harmonize
with your freedom and ([with] the universality of) your inclinations, with the
freedom of others and ([with] the universality of) their inclinations.
(With your inclination and the inclination of others, with your freedom and
the freedom of others.)
(The universally valid will is a pure will, which is not affected by impulse and
inclination, and its object is the good.) (Refl 6851, 19:179; translation modified)

Here the will must harmonize with (a) one’s own self, (b) your freedom, (c) other’s
freedom, (d) your inclinations, (e) others’ inclinations. It seems to me that Kant is
including some of the latter four options not as an addition to the first but as an
elaboration. Harmonizing with oneself involves harmonizing with one’s own free-
dom and one’s own inclinations. But he also includes harmonization with others.
Harmony with inclinations is also seen in Kant’s claims about a harmony or
maximization of happiness: Refl 6603 declares that right is related to happiness by
coordinating the intentions of all:

⁶ I explore this theme more in Rauscher (2013).

216  

All right has a universal relation to happiness insofar as each brings it about
through themselves in such a way that the rules of private intention do not
contradict one another according to universal laws. All duties of love consist in
the desire to promote universal (not merely one’s own) happiness through one’s
own actions. (AA 19:105)

But when he is clearest Kant separates this sort of rule as tied not to freedom
but only to inclination. Refl 6672 starts with this separation: “Whatever is
possible according to the rule of the pure will, taken universally, is right;
whatever is possible according to the rule of inclination, taken universally.”
But it suddenly breaks off here, as if Kant is hesitant to label a rule of inclination.
He continues: “The universally valid rule of inclinations is a rule of happiness;
for what is universal in all inclinations is agreeableness and its abstraction,
happiness.” Then he finally identifies the universal rule for inclinations
with beneficence in the next paragraph: “The judgments concerning right and
obligation consider the rules of pure will, and so are the easiest; those of
beneficence concern inclinations, circumstances of well-being, and are difficult”
(AA 19:129–30).
Beneficence as concern for the happiness of others is excluded from right:

With respect to the right of another, neither my own need (as in regard to
beneficence), nor the need of others, nor the worthiness of others is taken into
account; indeed, also the certain advantage of the other never gives me a right,
but rather only his will. (Refl 6732, 19:143)

The will of others, which is essentially the same as the choice of others, is the
concern of right. Right, then, is taken to exclude any relation to happiness but to
concern only the relation of wills, and that relation can be only one of maximi-
zation of the harmony of those wills.
What is not included in this approach is that helping other individuals to fulfil
their own choices is a relation of wills, or powers of choice, in a positive way. Kant
has based the most general practical philosophy not on happiness but merely on
freedom understood only negatively as the capacity or opportunity for choice, not
in terms of the actual ends or aims of free choices. A clear statement of this comes
in Refl 7063: “Laws of freedom in general are those that contain the conditions
under which alone it is possible for them to harmonize with themselves: condi-
tions of unity in the use of freedom in general” (AA 19:240). In the Collins lectures
Kant says “[i]n the moral imperative the end is quite undetermined, nor is the
action determined by the end, for it relates only to free choice, be the end what it
may [ . . . ] our free acting and refraining has an inner goodness and thus gives the
human being an immediate inner absolute worth of morality” (MoC 27:247,
translation modified).
      217

There is at least a tension, then, regarding whether the happiness of others, the
fulfillment of their chosen ends, is included in practical philosophy or not. Kant
quite often limits morality, and certainly limits right, to mere conditions of
freedom without relation to actual fulfillment of ends. But he also sometimes
includes beneficence in the broad scope of morality, and even sometimes identifies
ethics, as opposed to right, with the concern for the happiness of others as
fulfillment of their ends.
If freedom is seen as the main concern of practical philosophy, it is not simply
one unitary understanding of freedom. The division of freedom into internal and
external freedom means that there are two types of freedom. How does Kant
characterize them? In general, external freedom is a maximization or harmoniza-
tion of the actual choices of everyone, while internal freedom is the state of the
individual’s own will (or power of choice) being geared toward free choices. Refl
6605 makes this clear:

The chief rule of externally good actions is not that they harmonize with the
happiness of others, but rather that they harmonize with their choice, and just as
the perfection of a subject rests not on its being happy but rather on its state being
subordinated to freedom. (AA 19:106, Kant’s emphasis)

I believe that Kant is taking our duties to be of two main kinds. First is the
consistency of our free actions with the free actions of others understood as the
result of choice. This is purely external. The second is not concerned with others
or with actions but with the capacity for free actions, the state of the individual in
fostering their capacity to choose morally rather than based on inclinations or
happiness; Kant even identifies this latter as perfection, to which I will return
below. This division between internal and external freedom is given using differ-
ent wording in Refl 6795:

The essential laws are those without which freedom would be a dangerous
behemoth; namely, freedom must not be used in such a way that it is contrary
to humanity in itself, 2 is not contrary to the freedom of others. So there are
rights of humanity and rights of human beings: rights of humanity in one’s own
person and the same rights in regard to others. (AA 19:163)

That freedom alone is the consideration for one’s external actions, the harmoni-
zation of free choices not of inclinations or happiness, lies behind this point Kant
makes in Refl 6796:

What restrains freedom is only the universality for choice with respect to all actions.
The pleasure in this rests on the harmony of all actions of choice among one
another through agreement with what is universally valid of them. (AA 19:164)
218  

And Refl 6864 is even more emphatic that freedom’s consistency is of importance:

The principle of moral judgment (the principle of the conformity to reason of

freedom in general, i.e. the conformity to law according to universal conditions of
agreement): the rule of the subordination of freedom to the principle of its
universal agreement with itself (in respect to one’s own personhood as well as
other persons). (AA 19:184)

It is clear, of course, that Kant takes external freedom, as the universal harmony of
one’s free choices with the free choices of others, to be a basis for right. Refl 7054
quoted above, for example, says that laws “based merely on the idea of external
freedom are juridical and concern merely external actions” (AA 19:236). But Kant
equally discusses internal freedom in his reflections, as in the other half of the
contrast given in that same reflection: laws “based on the idea of internal freedom
concern all actions and are ethical.” What precisely does Kant mean by internal
freedom? And how does it relate to his responses to Baumgarten?
Kant was always critical of Baumgarten’s identification of perfection as the basis
for morality and ends up linking inner perfection to the capacity for inner
freedom. For Baumgarten, of course, the laws did relate to something more than
choice itself, namely, perfection. But for Kant, perfection is not a substantial
concept on its own but must be based upon some other consideration. On the
very first surviving page of Herder’s 1764 notes to Kant’s lectures, Kant is recorded
as saying “[t]he disinterested feeling for the welfare, etc., of another has our own
perfection not as an end but as a means” (PrHer 27:3). Perfection is not itself the
aim of morality; rather, one must be perfect in order to fulfil the separate aim of
morality (here identified as the welfare of others, i.e. beneficence). Later in that
lecture Kant calls a claim to seek perfection “objectively speaking an empty
proposition, since it is wholly identical” (PrHer 27:16).
In the Collins lectures Kant provides an argument that perfection is related to
the capacity of the will:

The perfection of a man does not yet signify morality. Perfection and moral
goodness are different. Perfection here is the completeness of the man in regard
to his powers, capacity, and readiness to carry out all the ends he may have.
Perfection can be greater or less; one man can be more perfect than another. But
goodness is the property of making good and proper use of all these perfections:
so moral goodness consists in the perfection of the will, not the capacities.
(MoC 27:265–6)

This argument treats perfection in terms of the completeness of a human being

regarding the powers and capacities for pursuing ends. But that alone does not
relate to goodness since goodness comes only in the good use of the will. Morally
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good perfection, then, is specifically perfection of the will for its own capacities.
Thus the more general conception of perfection that Baumgarten had used is
narrowed by Kant only to the specific perfection of the capacity of the will to will
correctly. And this we will see is to will freedom itself.⁷
In Refl 6980, Kant makes clear that perfection must be aimed at free choice:
“Perfect yourself means: make all your faculties and powers, but proportionally,
greater. Above all the power that directs their employment: the free and rational
choice” (AA 19:219). In another reflection, he explains how this free choice is the
core of perfection:

There is a free choice that has no personal happiness as its intention, but rather
presupposes it. The essential perfection of a freely acting being depends on this
freedom [crossed out: choice] not being subject to inclination or in general not
being subject to any foreign cause at all. (Refl 6605, 19:105–6)

The free choice must not be subject to any foreign cause or inclination but subject
only to itself.
Kant’s discussion of suicide is also related to internal freedom. Suicide is an
extreme example of a lack of harmony of inner freedom: “One who commits
suicide also displays freedom in the greatest conflict with itself, hence in the
greatest ruin of its own delusion” (Refl 6801, 19:165). Suicide is not merely the
taking of a life, it is the contradiction of freedom with itself, a use of freedom to
destroy freedom, hence a disharmony of maximal consistent freedom. This
internal duty to oneself to preserve one’s capacity for freedom and the ability to
choose freely is the way that Kant gives content to the otherwise vague idea of self-
perfection in Baumgarten.
So far I have reviewed Kant’s discussion of internal and external freedom. These
explain that internal freedom is the individual’s capacity to use the power of
choice itself, and harmony or consistency of that internal freedom is the basis of
duties to oneself. External freedom is the effect of one’s choices in actions, so the
mutual effect of everyone’s choices relative to everyone else. Kant does not identify
external freedom with any kind of perfection, or with achieving any end such as
one’s own happiness or the happiness of others. The discussion of internal and
external freedom has touched upon internal and external laws, and I will now
focus on how Kant sees these laws.

⁷ Bacin (2015) suggests that Kant’s acceptance of Baumgarten’s separation of perfection and
happiness is a precursor to the division in the Doctrine of Virtue in the Metaphysics of Morals. “The
coordination of the two objective ends stated later in the Metaphysics of Morals can thus also be tracked
back to Kant’s elaboration on Baumgarten’s greater case in separating perfection and happiness and in
defining the proper meaning of each” (22). This is correct as an explanation of the division in the
Doctrine of Virtue between ends of one’s own perfection and the happiness of others. The story of how
Kant got there is more complicated than it might seem at first.
220  

First, he certainly understands a difference between internal and external laws

in relation to the target of those laws, namely, internal and external uses of choice.
In Refl 6854, for example, Kant distinguishes “[i]nternal choice” governed by
“the a priori rules of the unity of inner choice” and “choice in community” for
which “categorical rules can be given a priori” (AA 19:180). Duties are divided
into “external: towards other human beings, or internal: namely not toward other
human beings” (Refl 7038, 19:232). The external duties in this reflection are
divided into passive (determined by the choice of another, or duties of constraint)
and active (those “free duties” not determined by the choice of another). This
distinction appears to include as external both perfect or negative duties to others
(passive) and imperfect or positive duties to others (active); only the former are
correlated with constraint. Of the internal, Kant identifies two types: active
internal duty as duty to oneself and passive internal duty as duty to God as the
“universal legislator.” This division between internal and external duty or law is
based not on the source but on the target.
Second, he also recognizes that some laws are intrinsic to reason and others are
the result of positive imposition. “Civil law” is said to order action in Refl 7045
(AA 19:234). Baumgarten had discussed constraint as both internal and external,
but Kant appears to see constraint only as external and as associated only with
right rather than with ethics, as in Refl 7050:

Of the duties of human beings in regard to actions: right. In regard to disposi-

tions, i.e. the motives for accomplishing those duties: ethics. The motive in the
latter is internal, in the former is it constraint. Duties of action according to the
letter or according to the spirit (disposition), the latter in ethics. The duty of
dispositions is moral. All morality rests on dispositions. If I perform an act of
obligation, not from the impulse of constraint but instead from dispositions, thus
a spontaneous act, then it is ethically good. (AA 19:235)

And Kant also sees what Baumgarten had called “internal constraint” simply as
duty: “The motive to satisfy obligation (subjective necessitating) is either external
(constraint) or internal (duty). The first is juridical, the second ethical” (Refl 7056,
19:236). Kant here rejects Baumgarten’s use of the term “constraint” both internally
and externally and sees one’s internal obligations not as a matter of constraint but
only of duty. As he says in Refl 7064, “[o]ne can act in conformity to law based on
principles or on constraint: because one wills to or one must” (AA 19:240).
If the source of external laws is outside the agent as a positing of law by a state,
what is the source of internal laws? For Baumgarten, referring to “internal” laws,
like internal duties, obligations, and harms, simply meant that they were intrinsic
to the agent or to the action. Kant does not explicitly reject this understanding of
the internality of non-posited laws, but he does not think that these laws and
moral concepts are independent of reason itself. Kant identifies reason as the
      221

source of laws in many reflections (e.g. Refl 6627, 19:117; Refl 6690, 19:134; Refl
6802, 19:167; Refl 6864, 19:184; and Refl 7029, 19:230) but most clearly stresses
reason in Refl 6760: “the principle of moral judgment is not the divine will, not the
general concept of perfection, not the general concept of happiness, not private
happiness, not the moral feeling and taste, instead reason” (AA 19:151). Reason
itself is able to judge what belongs in practical philosophy.

III

Conclusion. When Kant came to distinguish the different parts of practical

philosophy, he was faced with several different ways to use the contrast between
inner and outer found in Baumgarten’s Elements. We have seen that Kant objected
to Baumgarten’s account of perfection and lack of identification of freedom as of
importance to practical philosophy. Kant instead not only made freedom the key
to practical philosophy, he also recast the emphasis on perfection to make
perfecting oneself a duty not for its own sake but for the sake of the consistency
of free use of one’s own will as a moral being. He also utilized the inner/outer
distinction in several different ways.
First, he separated inner and outer motivation. This distinction certainly
stemmed from Baumgarten, with the outer constraint being equated, by Kant,
with the coercive force of a civil government. This led him to separate duties that
could be subjected to such an external force from others. Inner motivation for
Kant was sometimes discussed in terms of inner constraint but usually in terms of
self-motivation out of duty alone. This distinction between inner and outer
matches the distinction between the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue
in that coercive force from outside the agent is authorized—and more importantly
is able—to motivate a compliance with duty.
Second, he separated the inner and outer targets of the moral laws. The inner
target was always the self, but either it could be construed as “perfection” of the self,
in which case it was a matter of making one’s own will be maximally capable of
doing its duty, which is a maximal freedom of the will, or it could be construed in
relation to one’s own inclinations, in which case the laws are merely pragmatic. The
outer target of moral law was other persons. This too came in two parts, namely, the
mere non-interference with the choice of the other, which meant maximal outer
freedom, or the contribution by oneself to the happiness of the other through
assisting that other in satisfying their own inclinations. This last is beneficence.
How do these different conceptions of the inner/outer contrast relate to Kant’s
ultimate division of moral duties? Here I will exclude pragmatic rules since Kant
denies that they are categorical duties. I think the result is that Kant worked his
way toward a three-fold division of duties that he subsumed under one of the
dichotomies.
222  

1. Duties toward the self—these concern inner freedom, or the perfection of

one’s own will to make one capable of morality. These can be perfect duties
such as avoiding suicide or anything that might serve to destroy the will’s
capacities or imperfect duties to develop one’s virtues or talents. These
duties are all supposed to be motivated internally.
2. Imperfect duties to others—these concern the happiness of other people,
which is related to their use of their freedom in concrete ways. While the
perfect duty not to interfere with others enables them to use their freedom
of choice, these imperfect duties toward those same people actively contrib-
ute to their successful use of their freedom to achieve particular ends.
3. Perfect duties to others—these concern external freedom as a target and are
merely externally motivated as well. They all relate to maximizing the free
choices of a community, or (from one’s own perspective) not interfering
with the choices of others.

When Kant divides duties in the metaphysics of morals, he prioritizes the

division between internal and external motivation and collects the first and second
type of duties (all duties toward self and imperfect duties toward others) under the
Doctrine of Virtue. The third type of duty (perfect duties toward others) is the
content of the Doctrine of Right. But cutting across that divide is a division
between the internal and external targets of morality, and that division does not
play the main role in Kant’s mature division of duties. But that division between
external and internal targets of morality, the relation that the self has to its own
power of choice compared to the relation that the self has to other persons’ powers
of choice, is latent in Kant’s discussion of duties because it provides the basis for
the division in the Doctrine of Virtue between the two ends which are also duties:
one’s own perfection and the happiness of others. What is lost is the connection
between those duties toward others from the Doctrine of Right and the duties to
the happiness of others in the Doctrine of Virtue.
Returning to the passage from Kant with which I started this chapter, we can
clearly identify the first part of morality, that is, “[i]nner freedom under inner
laws” with duties toward self, and “[o]uter freedom under outer laws” with the
duties of right toward others not to interfere with their freedom. The middle part
“[o]uter freedom under inner laws,” I think, could correspond to the relation of
beneficence in which we are to assist other people in the fulfillment of their ends
from our own internal motive of obligation rather than any external constraining
force. Given the paucity of evidence of Kant’s thoughts on these issues, of course,
such a conclusion is mostly speculative. It does, however, highlight that practical
philosophy for Kant is not simply divided into right and virtue but also allows of
other divisions that cut across our moral relations and duties in different ways.⁸

⁸ I would like to thank Courtney Fugate for helpful suggestions that resulted in a clearer chapter.
 12
Three Models of Natural Right
Baumgarten, Achenwall, and Kant
Fiorella Tomassini

The modern tradition of natural right starts from the assumption that the
notion of ius refers not only to the existence of coercive public laws but also to
a possible object of rational knowledge.¹ The idea of ius naturae was well known
in antiquity and the Middle Ages, but its use to describe a systematic doctrine,
the universal principles of which can be determined through reason alone
when using the proper method, did not appear until the seventeenth century
(see Scattola 2003). At the very beginning of the Doctrine of Right, Kant remarks
that his discussion of right is grounded in this tradition. He situates the
Rechtslehre in the realm of “systematic knowledge of the doctrine of natural
right (Ius naturae)” and claims that the purpose of this doctrine is “to establish
the basis for any possible giving of positive laws” (MS 6:230). With that said,
Kant reformulates the idea of ius naturae to the point that the term itself is no
longer used in his moral system: laws of nature (referring to moral laws) are now
called laws of freedom, and the doctrine of natural right (Naturrechtslehre) (i.e.
the system of juridical principles based on reason alone) is now called a meta-
physical doctrine of right.
Since Kant abandons the language of natural right, it remains unclear how,
exactly, his Rechtslehre relates to the natural right tradition. Some historians of the
modern natural right tradition go so far as to state that “Kant wrote little that
directly engaged with the authors of the ‘modern’ natural law tradition, although
he regularly lectured from Achenwall’s Wolffian textbook on natural law”
(Hochstrasser 2004, 197). Others link his work to “the philosophical destruction
of the doctrine of natural right” (Hartung 1999, 167). I contend, by contrast, that
Kant did engage with the authors of the natural right tradition and in fact aimed to
refound the discipline rather than destroy it. The fact that he does not employ the
language of natural right is neither an expression of an intention to “destroy” the

¹ I would like to thank Pauline Kleingeld for her insightful feedback on earlier versions of this
chapter, as well as Janis Schaab, Lu Zhao, Luke Davies, Mike Gregory, Pablo Zadunaisky and Sabina
Vaccarino Bremner for their helpful comments. I am grateful to the Dutch Research Council (NWO)
for supporting this research.

Fiorella Tomassini, Three Models of Natural Right: Baumgarten, Achenwall, and Kant In: Baumgarten and Kant on the
Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press.
© Fiorella Tomassini 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0013
224  

tradition as such nor a mere terminological change. Instead, it reflects the radical
transformation of the discipline.
Moreover, I argue that by considering Kant’s engagement with previous theor-
ists of natural right, we can gain a clearer understanding of how he transformed
the discipline from its foundations. To do this, I will focus my analysis on Kant’s
(Critical) reception of two models of natural right with which he was very familiar:
one from Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Elements of First Practical Philosophy,
the other from Gottfried Achenwall’s Natural Law. The Elements served as a basis
for Kant’s lectures on moral philosophy for over three decades and may thus be
considered as having played an important role in shaping his practical philosophy
as a whole (Allison 2011, 6). Achenwall’s Natural Law was the textbook that Kant
employed in his lectures on natural right for over two decades. I will argue that
Kant distances himself from previous models of natural right in three main
regards: the identification of moral laws with laws of nature; the normative
connection between the principles of right and a natural end; and the place of
God as the author of moral laws. I will then briefly discuss what Kant retains
of Baumgarten’s and Achenwall’s models of natural right. Kant’s Metaphysics of
Morals preserves the view that a rational doctrine of right belongs to a broader
systematic doctrine that comprehends the entire system of duties. I will address
the question of the division of the Sittenlehre into two branches and claim that,
whereas Kant did not consider Baumgarten’s answer to the problem of distin-
guishing juridical from ethical principles to be satisfactory, he found a key piece of
his own solution in Achenwall’s Natural Law, namely the definition of right as a
power to coerce.

Baumgarten. One of the main features that distinguishes Baumgarten’s philoso-

phia practica universalis from Wolff ’s initial version is that he makes the concept
of obligatio the touchstone of the discipline.² While Wolff defines the universal
practical philosophy as the “practical affective science of directing free actions
through most general rules” (WPPU 1:§3), Baumgarten renders it as “the science

² Although Baumgarten is commonly known as a Wolffian philosopher, his philosophia practica

universalis is not a mere repetition of the discipline conceived by his master. As Clemens Schwaiger
shows, this is because Baumgarten’s reception of Wolff ’s practical philosophy was mediated by
Heinrich Köhler, a disciple of Wolff who settled in Jena, which at the time was a center of debate on
Wolffian philosophy. Köhler held lectures on natural right (among other subjects) and wrote his own
doctrine, which departed from Wolffian principles but incorporated elements of an alternative school
of ius naturae, namely that developed by Christian Thomasius. Baumgarten used Köhler’s Seven
exercises in natural law (Iuris naturalis exercitationes septem) (1729) as a basis for his lectures in
Halle and began an unfinished commentary on the book that was posthumously published in 1763
under the title Ius naturae. See Schwaiger (2011a, 129ff.) and Aichele (2005, 4–5).
      225

of obligations of a person that are to be known without faith” (BIP §1). This
reformulation of Wolff ’s programmatic idea of a philosophia practica universalis
brings Baumgarten closer to the modern tradition of natural right—initiated by
Grotius and further developed by Hobbes, Pufendorf, Locke, and Thomasius,
among others—according to which philosophical reflection on human praxis is
primarily organized in terms of obligations, duties, and rights. In opposition to
this, Leibniz’s and Wolff ’s moral philosophies are concerned with the good and
perfection, dealing with duties and obligations solely in an indirect manner (see
Schneewind 1993, 56; Schwaiger 2009).
As stated in the preface to the Elements, Baumgarten hopes to contribute with
this work to “achieving an adequately solid science of natural right” (BIP IX). By
this he is referring not to a doctrine of right and juridical duties but to a broader
discipline. This broader sense of the notion of ius naturae was not uncommon in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Previous authors, such as Pufendorf and
Wolff, used it with different meanings and understood it as primarily referring to
the universal system of duties, and thus as equivalent to moral philosophy.³ For
them, the basic, systematic division in moral philosophy was not that between
right and ethics but that between duties to oneself, duties to others, and duties to
God (see Scattola 2008, 241; Schröder 1995, 337). Baumgarten agrees with this
general account of ius naturae, but instead of conceiving it as a science of duties,
he understands it in terms of obligations.⁴ He believes that, as long as the science
of natural right concerns all kinds of obligations that emerge from the human
beings as such, it coincides with practical philosophy. Therefore, the concepts,
categories, and principles of practical philosophy are, at the same time, the first
elements of ius naturae (see Scattola 2008, 242). Not only was Baumgarten
concerned with the division and classification of duties and obligations, but,
like any modern theorist of natural right, he addressed the question of its
fundamental principle. Following an accurate method, he aimed to establish the
first and universal principles of practical philosophy (or ius naturae) in order to

³ “It is evident that there are three sources of man’s knowledge of his duty, of what he is to do in this
life because it is right <honestum> and of what he is to omit because it is wrong <turpe>: the light of
reason, the civil laws and the particular revelation of the Divinity. From the first flow the most common
duties of a man, particularly those which render him capable of society <sociabilis> with other men; [ . . . ]
Hence there are three distinct disciplines. The first is the discipline of natural law, which is common to all
nations; [ . . . ] Each of these disciplines has its own method of proving its dogmas, corresponding to its
principle. In natural law a thing is affirmed as to be done because it is inferred by right reason to be
essential to sociality <socialitas> among men” (Pufendorf 1991, 8). In the Leviathan, Hobbes also presents
the set of laws of nature as the true content of moral philosophy: “all men agree on this, that peace is good,
and therefore also the way, or means of peace, which (as I have shewed before) are justice, gratitude,
modesty, equity, mercy, & the rest of the laws of nature, are good; that is to say, moral virtues, and their
contrary vices, evil. Now the science of virtue and vice, is moral philosophy; and therefore the true
doctrine of the laws of nature, is the true moral philosophy” (Hobbes 1985, 216).
⁴ In §65, Baumgarten provides the different definitions of ius naturae. Among other meanings, it is
defined in a broad sense as “the collection of natural laws that obligate human beings”; only in a strict
sense does it refer to the sum of natural laws that admit of external coercion (BIP §65; cf. BIN §1–2).
226  

deductively obtain the complete content of the doctrine (cf. BIN §1, 88). I will now
briefly examine these principles as presented in the Elements.

Ia

Natural Right and Laws of Nature. As mentioned above, Baumgarten’s Elements

revolves around the concept of obligation. He defines obligation by appealing to
the internal motivation to act, namely as the “connection of overriding impelling
causes with a free determination” (BIP §15). Later on, he argues that these stronger
motives (to act) are “connected with committing the good” and “omitting evil”
(BIP §39). Good free actions are in turn “related to perfection as means” (BIP §36).
From this, Baumgarten deduces the first imperative of practical philosophy:
“commit or do the good, and indeed omit evil” (BIP §39). This practical law
establishes a universal natural obligation: natural as it “can be known through
reason and without faith” (BIP §39) and universal since it covers “free actions of
every single human being” (BIP §49).
After establishing this general command, Baumgarten presents four additional
principles: (i) “seek perfection,” (ii) “do what is the best for you to do,” (iii) “live
according to nature, as much as you can,” and (iv) “love the best, as much as you
can.” Rather than adding new content to the system of natural right, these
principles would seem to express different formulations of the first moral law,
“commit the good.” If one “commits goods because they are good,” then one
“commits them because perfection is posited” (BIP §43; cf. BM §100). Therefore,
the imperative “commit the good” can be reformulated as “seek perfection, as far
as you can” (BIP §43).⁵ Baumgarten goes on to say that if we should seek
perfection as far as it is possible, then we are obliged not only to do good acts
but to do “the best of the many goods possible for us” (BIP §44). From this he
deduces the second imperative: “do what is the best for you to do.” He then argues
that when someone pursues perfection, he seeks the agreement of his free action
with the natural order, that is, “the consensus of his own merely natural actions,
and the rest of those things both in and outside of himself that are not posited as
within his power, with his own free determinations” (BIP §45; cf. BM §94).
Seeking perfection therefore equates to acting in accordance with the natural
order, and conversely, living according to nature amounts to pursuing the
ends prescribed by nature itself. This leads Baumgarten to conclude that “the
obligation to seek his own perfection is an obligation to live according to nature”

⁵ This can be done in two ways: either by positing perfection in ourselves, becoming more perfect as
ends, or by positing perfection in others, becoming more perfect as means. This implies the obligation
to “omit, as much as you can, those things that render you more imperfect either as an end, or as means,
or in either respect” (BIP §43).
      227

(BIP §46) and that the injunction to “live according to nature, as much as you can”
(BIP §46) is a moral imperative. Here, Baumgarten introduces a Stoic principle
that is found throughout the natural right tradition and may be regarded as one of
its main tenets: the measure of what is right and wrong, the beneficial and the
harmful, is conformity with nature as such (cf. Hespe 2007, 278). Finally, he adds
that pursuing perfection involves being more pleased by the perfection of what is
best and, consequently, loving the best. Thus the universal moral obligation
“quaere perfectionem, quantum potes” can be reformulated as the command to
“love the best, as much as you can” (BIP §48).
Having presented the universal laws of practical philosophy, Baumgarten draws
a distinction within the notion of obligation that will later allow him to delimit the
sphere of right (in a strict sense), namely the distinction between internal and
external obligations. In BIP §56, we read: “an obligation to some free determina-
tion through the exacting <extorsio> permitted to another human being is external
(complete, perfect), and the rest are internal obligations (incomplete, imperfect)”
(cf. BIN §146).⁶ Baumgarten also claims that an external obligation cannot take
place without an internal one. In the case of an external obligation, the free
determination is represented as being exacted by another person, and thus as
morally necessary. This extorsio can be considered a reason to act, but other
motives must occur along with it. These additional motives are occasionally “more
noble, known more truly, more clearly, more certainly” than mere external
coercion (BIP §57). By contrast, internal obligations can apply in the absence of
any external obligation, and the more apt one is to fulfill them, the less one
requires the presence of an external obligation (BIP §58). Furthermore,
Baumgarten distinguishes between external and internal moral laws, on the one
hand, and external and internal duties, on the other. External moral laws are those
“norms of free determinations that are to be exacted” (BIP §61). Accordingly, an
external duty refers to an action’s conforming to an external law (BIP §91). This
delimitation of external obligations, laws, and duties leads us to the domain of
natural right in a strict sense.

Ib

Natural Right in a Strict Sense and Ethics. As was common in the natural right
tradition, Baumgarten identifies the principles of right with the Ulpian formulae:
honeste vive, neminem laede, suum cuique tribue.⁷ In a first move, he introduces
the second classical command, “neminem laede.” Since every transgression of duty

⁶ Translation amended.
⁷ Natural right theorists commonly employed Ulpian’s formulae to explain the principles of
practical philosophy, but they disputed whether the first corresponds to a principle of right or of
ethics. In the Doctrine of Right, Kant holds that Ulpian’s commands correspond entirely to the
228  

is called “wrong” <laesio>, and since natural right (strictly considered) deals
with external duties, its first domestic principle is: “you shall wrong nobody
(externally)” (BIP §92).⁸ Baumgarten then turns to the third Ulpian formula. He
maintains that “one’s own (what is mine, what is yours) is the collection of one’s
good” (BIP §93) and that these goods can be possessed through either internal or
external laws. If one does not attribute to someone else what is their own good,
one harms them and thus acts against a universal law of right. From this
Baumgarten infers that the precept “attribute to each (to a human being, nega-
tively at least) what is his own (with regard to right) can be established as the first
principle of the right of nature” (BIP §93). Finally, he discusses the first Ulpian
precept. If one acts according to the second and third principles of right,
i.e. does not harm anybody (externally) and attributes to each what is his own
(with regard to right), one lives honorably. Baumgarten concludes that “the
proposition live externally honourably [ . . . ] can be established as the first princi-
ple of the right of nature strictly considered” (BIP §94). These three commands are
presented as first, objective, domestic (i.e. belonging to the discipline alone)
principles of natural right, with no seeming preeminence given to any of them.⁹
Furthermore, Baumgarten argues that each of these moral precepts is not exclu-
sive to ius naturae in a strict sense but extends beyond it. Honeste vive, neminem
laede, and suum cuique tribue also hold in the case of internal moral laws, duties,
and obligations. They can therefore be regarded as principles of practical philos-
ophy or natural right, broadly speaking.
According to Baumgarten, the principles of right are not qualitatively different
from the principles of ethics. Rather, they are the same principles restricted to a
specific scope of application (the sphere of free actions that can be constrained by
others). His practical philosophy is devoid of a systematic principle capable of
drawing a clear distinction between right and ethics—or at least this was Kant’s
view, as recorded in the Vigilantius lecture notes: “the principia juris must be
sharply distinguished from the principia ethicis, which Baumgarten has neglected
to do, just as the determination of the supreme principle of distinction, which in
itself is very difficult, has never till now been worked out” (MSVig 27:359). We will
consider this criticism in Section III; before turning to Kant’s position, however,
we must first examine Achenwall’s notion of natural right.

principles of juridical duties. If we look at the fragments, lecture notes, and drafts of published works,
however, we see that Kant seems to have changed his mind when interpreting the first formula. In a
reflection from the pre-critical period (Refl 7078, 19:243), in the lecture notes Naturrecht Feyerabend
(NRFey 27:1336), Mrongovius II (MoM II 29: 631) and Vigilantius (MSVig 27:527, 587), and in the
drafts of the Doctrine of Virtue (AA 23:386), he presents the first command, “honeste vive,” as an ethical
duty and the second, “neminem laede,” as the first juridical duty.
⁸ Translation amended.
⁹ The principles of natural right trace back to the universal principle of practical philosophy “furnish
the good or seek perfection as much as you are able” (BIP §91), and all of them, in turn, to the
absolutely first objective principle that belongs to metaphysics (BIP §87). Cf. Scattola (2008, 261).
      229

II

Achenwall. Achenwall bases his doctrine of natural right on Wolffian grounds, but
he introduces important conceptual changes that take him a step away from the
old ius naturae of the German Enlightenment (Schwaiger 2012, 87). Among other
innovations, he presents a clear distinction between the juridical and the ethical
domain—a distinction that is absent in Baumgarten—by analytically connecting
right and coercion.¹⁰ Like Wolff and many Wolffians, Achenwall characterizes
moral obligation as the connection of a motive with the necessity of an action
(AIN §7; APIN §12). In addition, his doctrine of natural right has the imperative
perfice te as its main principle, although it is combined with the precept of striving
for self-preservation and happiness (AIN §29; APIN §84). Moreover, in an
appendix to his Natural Right, Achenwall offers remarks on the history of natural
right, praising Wolff and Köhler for “shining an excellent light on the discipline”
(AIN Appendix, VII). His doctrine of natural right does not merely repeat
Wolffian arguments, however. In particular, Achenwall equates perfect or strict
right (in a subjective sense) not with a moral capacity to act, as Wolff and
Baumgarten do, but with a moral power to coerce. This, as I will argue next,
had a significant influence on Kant’s account of right.

IIa

Natural Right and Coercion. Achenwall’s Natural Right is devoted to natural right
in a strict sense, namely, to knowledge of external or perfect natural laws, rights,
and obligations. He distinguishes this doctrine from the collection of imperfect
natural laws and duties, which is called “ethics” or “moral philosophy, strictly
considered” (AIN §35).¹¹ In this way, he draws a distinction between right and
ethics that corresponds to the division between perfect and imperfect laws, as
many modern natural right theorists did before him. But then Achenwall goes on
to argue that a perfect obligation (expressed by a perfect law) is characterized by
being “connected to another man’s moral ability to coerce the violator” (AIN §34;
APIN §102). By contrast, imperfect obligations cannot be enforced. This moral
ability to coerce, corresponding to perfect obligations, is called “natural right.”

¹⁰ Klippel holds that the limitation of ius to perfect rights that are enforceable through coercion is a
feature of the “new” conception of German Naturrecht, which according to him appeared in the
textbooks on the discipline of the 1780s (2000, 77). As we will see, however, we can find this definition
of strict right in Achenwall, whose texts are from at least two decades earlier. It is possible that this
conceptual change, which according to Klippel took place in the 1780s, was facilitated by the reception
of Achenwall’s textbook, which was very popular at the time.
¹¹ Achenwall mentions that if we consider natural right in a broad sense, it coincides with moral
philosophy (also considered broadly) (AIN §26). Nevertheless, the text is centered on the discussion of
natural right in a strict sense.
230  

This means that right and obligation are two sides of the same coin: “to every
perfect obligation on my part corresponds a strict natural right on someone else’s,
and vice versa, to every perfect right on my part corresponds a perfect obligation
on someone else’s” (AIN §36). Regarding the normative content of this juridical
relation, Achenwall holds that one’s primary obligation is to seek perfection, and
this includes the obligation to preserve one’s own life and body. Since the latter is
connected to a natural right to coerce others to refrain from committing acts that
hinder one’s preservation, it is a perfect obligation. This in turn means that others
have an obligation not to infringe upon one’s own life and body. Achenwall
concludes the argument by formulating the universal principle of right: “the
natural law Do not do things that go against another person’s preservation can be
called the internal, first, and adequate principle of the perfect laws” (AIN §36).
Achenwall’s position regarding the systematic division between perfect and
imperfect moral laws (or right and ethics) therefore rests on a new understanding
of the concept of right as a power to coerce—one that was absent, as far as I know,
in the Wolffian school of natural right.¹² Indeed, Baumgarten and Wolff conceive
of ius, in the subjective sense (i.e. considered as a potestas or facultas that human
beings have), as a mere capacity to act. In the Elements, Baumgarten defines right,
in the subjective sense, as a “moral faculty granted by laws strictly considered”
(BIP §64; cf. BIN §34). According to this, there is an obligation in the first place
(established by a strict natural law), from which, in the second place, follows a
right: insofar as we have an obligation to pursue an end, we have a right to the
means that are necessary to fulfill that obligation. Subjective right is therefore
conceived of as a moral capacity or power to act with a view to achieving the end
prescribed by the law of nature. Wolff explains this conceptual relationship
between right and obligation as follows: “the capacity, or moral faculty to do, or
to omit, something, is called right. From this it becomes clear that right arises from
the passive obligation, and that there would be no right if an obligation did not
exist; and also that, through the natural law, a right to any action without which
we could not comply with the natural obligation is given to us [ . . . ]. For it is
impossible that one can obtain an end without serving oneself of the means”
(WGNV §46). In the Prolegomena, Achenwall provides a general definition of right
(in a subjective sense) as “a man’s physical ability in as far as it does not go against
any moral law,” that is to say, “his moral ability” (APIN §44). This definition holds
for the whole domain of moral philosophy and retains Wolff ’s and Baumgarten’s

¹² A similar definition of ius in subjective sense can be found in Gottlieb Heineccius’s Elementa iuris
naturae et gentium: “and therefore the former species of obligation is called internal; the latter is called
external [ . . . ] right is the correlate (as it is called in the schools) to both. For if one person be under an
obligation, some other person has a right or capacity to exact something from him” (HIN, I.i.vii,
translation amended). Heineccius, a former pupil of Thomasius, was a well-known jurist and professor
of natural law. Achenwall attended Heineccius’s lectures while he was a student in Halle (cf. Schwaiger
2020, 342).
      231

conception of ius as a moral ability to act according to the laws of nature. But
then he distinguishes between a perfect or strict right (taken subjectively) and an
imperfect right (§AIN 36; APIN §100). A perfect or strict right corresponds
to a perfect obligation and amounts to a moral ability to coerce. Therefore,
this concept belongs exclusively to the doctrine of natural right in a strict
sense. Accordingly, an imperfect right is a “moral ability that is given without
another man’s correlated perfect obligation” (APIN §100). This concept belongs
to ethics or moral philosophy in a strict sense, which, in turn, is defined as
“the knowledge of the imperfect natural laws” (AIN §35).
This definition of strict right as a moral capacity to coerce plays a significant
role in Kant’s doctrine of right. Following Achenwall, he argues that right,
subjectively considered, is a moral capacity to put others under obligations (MS
6:237) and limits the set of juridical duties to those that “correspond to rights of
another to coerce someone (facultas iuridica)” (MS 6:383). Nevertheless, and
despite his agreement with this formal or logical aspect of the relationship between
right and coercion, Kant rejects the foundations of Achenwall’s doctrine of ius
naturae. In the Feyerabend lecture notes, we read: “the author says that I am
bound by my nature to preserve my life; this would be the principle of right [ . . . ].
That is certainly not a juridical proposition. How does his self-preservation
concern me? I am required only not to resist his freedom” (NRFey 27:1334).
From a natural end, whether perfection or preservation, we cannot deduce (nor
justify) any obligation or the power to coerce (cf. AA 8:129). Right, as a rational
doctrine that deals with duties and obligations, must be founded on freedom and
its laws. Let us now examine Kant’s account of natural right more closely.

III

Kant. In the Metaphysics of Morals of 1797, Kant presents his definitive system of
moral philosophy, positioning right as one of the two branches of pure morals.
The old doctrine of ius naturae is now conceived as a metaphysical doctrine of
right, namely as a system of a priori principles through pure concepts, the object
of which is freedom of choice in its external use.¹³ This means that the principles
of right are part of the Sittenlehre but are restricted to the sphere of reciprocal
interactions between persons and to the form of coexistence of their actions,
leaving aside the end of their maxims (MS 6:230). It is on the basis of this notion
of external freedom, i.e. freedom concerning how human beings interact, and not

¹³ “What is metaphysics? The science of a priori principles through concepts, not constructed
through intuition . . . Duty and Right alone are concepts which concern freedom and its laws and do
not belong to nature like cause and effect . . . Thus every doctrine of Right must contain metaphysics”
(AA 23:135–6; my emphasis).
232  

on the basis of some conception of human nature and its ends that our natural (i.e.
innate) right and natural (i.e. supra-positive) obligations are to be determined. In
what follows, I will first present Kant’s critique of previous models of natural right
(IIIa). I will then explore what Kant’s Doctrine of Right retains from them,
focusing on the problem of the distinction between right and ethics (IIIb).

IIIa

Kant’s Critique of Previous Models of Natural Right. We can identify three main
tenets separating Kant’s conception of right, at least regarding its foundations,
from the earlier tradition of natural right: (i) the identification of the Sittenlehre
with a doctrine of laws of freedom, (ii) the disassociation of the moral law from
natural ends, and (iii) the conception of reason as a source and ultimate ground of
the moral law. These conceptual changes brought forth by the Critical philosophy
in turn imply a clear rejection of the account of moral laws, shared in general by
natural right theorists, as laws known through reason that (i) are to be understood
in terms of laws of nature, (ii) are normatively connected to an end ascribed to
human nature, and (iii) have God as their author (see Tomassini 2018). Despite
their several differences, Baumgarten’s and Achenwall’s models of ius naturae fit
this schema, and, through the testimony of the lecture notes and Kant’s own
annotations to his copies of the textbooks, we can see how he engages with them.

IIIb

Laws of Nature as Laws of Freedom. When one begins to trace the notion of
Naturrecht (and the different terms related to it) in Kant’s moral philosophy, it is
immediately apparent that he does not refer to moral laws as laws of nature, although
he does understand them as laws of reason. Rather than constituting a mere termi-
nological shift, Kant’s reformulation of moral laws in terms of laws of freedom
reflects a new paradigm for thinking of moral obligation and its source (cf. Baum
2012, 114). In the Feyerabend lectures notes, we find the following passage:

Laws are either laws of nature or laws of freedom. If freedom is to be under

laws it must give the laws to itself. If freedom took laws from nature then it would
not be freedom. [ . . . ] It must thus itself be a law. Comprehending this appears
to be difficult and on this point all the teachers of natural right have erred.
(NRFey 27:1322)¹⁴

¹⁴ Cf. MSVig 27:523–4: “since all obligation also rests on freedom itself, and has its ground therein
insofar as freedom is regarded under the condition whereby it can be a universal law, Professor Kant
calls all moral laws (i.e. those that lay down the condition under which a thing should happen, as
      233

Teachers of natural right such as Baumgarten and Achenwall conceived of the

laws that impose an obligation on us as laws of nature. In their view, laws of nature
can impose an obligation on us because we are gifted with reason and free will.
Otherwise, if we were not rational and free beings, we could not recognize the
obligation expressed by the law and act in accordance with it (Watkins 2014, 472).
According to Kant, the connection between a free will and the law established by
this reasoning is mistaken. If we consider a free will (e.g. a human will) to be solely
governed by the laws of nature, we come to a contradiction, for a will that is
subject only to mechanical causality is not free. Critical philosophy shows us that
we can think of causality in two ways, as proceeding from nature or from freedom
(A532/B560), and that both kinds of causality, while compatible, are regulated by
different laws. Moral laws are laws of freedom since they express the very ability of
a free being to determine itself through pure reason, independent of inclination
and sensibility. In addition to this, Kant criticizes Wolff and Baumgarten for
assuming that we are not subject to natural necessity merely because we act from
motives. The mere fact of giving rise to an action through “acts of reason” does not
free us from the mechanism of nature (MSVig 27:503). As Kant explains in the
Mrongovius lecture notes, morality emerges when we consider pure motivating
grounds of reason, not motivation in general. And since Baumgarten and Wolff
did not correctly identify pure rational motives, they could not respond, nor
even consider, the central question of moral philosophy: How should we act
(MoM 29:598)?

IIIc

Moral Law and Natural Ends. Kant dismantles the normative connection, present
in the natural right tradition, between natural ends and the moral law. He agrees
with the idea, rooted in Stoicism, that human beings have an end in virtue of their
nature. This end is happiness and “can be presupposed as actual in the case of all
rational beings,” as a “purpose that they not merely could have but [ . . . ] actually
do have by a natural necessity” (GMS 4:415). Rules that indicate how to pursue
happiness express the necessity of an action only in a conditional way, however,
and thus lack universal validity. This type of rule, which natural right theorists
considered a moral command of reason (i.e. a lex naturalis) is, from the perspec-
tive of the Critical philosophy, an imperative of prudence.
According to the students’ notes from his lectures on moral philosophy,
Kant describes the universal principles proposed by Baumgarten in terms of

opposed to leges naturae, physicae, which merely state the condition under which a thing does happen)
leges libertatis, laws of freedom, and includes thereunder the aforementioned leges justi et honesti
(ethicae).”
234  

pragmatic principles and consequently rejects them as principles of obligation. An

example of this can be found in the Collins lecture notes, where Kant discusses
four of the five imperatives presented in paragraphs §39–48 of the Elements.¹⁵
There, he claims that the first moral law presented by Baumgarten, “fac bonum et
omite malum,” is a “vague” and “tautological” principle (MoC 27:264). It is vague
because something good can be good for different purposes. “Do the good” is
mainly a principle of skill, and only if we understand the good with regard to
moral actions can it be indirectly considered a moral principle. It is tautological
because it gives an “empty answer” to the question How ought I to act? Do the
good, says the principle, since “it is good that you do the good” (MoC 27:265).
Kant goes on to argue that the second formula, “quaere perfectionem quantum
potes,” is not completely tautological but is still inadequate. Perfection is defined as
“the completeness of the man in regard to his powers, capacity and readiness to
carry out all the ends he may have” (MoC 27:265–6). Since this precept also tells
us to perfect our talents in order to be more capable of achieving our empirical
ends, it is too broad to be considered a moral imperative. Only if we narrow its
scope to the adoption of moral ends and the perfection of the will can it be
regarded as a moral principle.
Kant also discusses Baumgarten’s formula “vive conventienter naturae.” This
imperative is discarded as tautological, for it commands one to “direct one’s action
according to the physical order of natural things” (MoC 27:266). That is to say, it
tells us to pursue ends that we pursue anyway due to our natural constitution. This
criticism sums up Kant’s diagnosis of the principles proposed by the natural right
tradition in general: they cannot be regarded as principles of obligation because
they express how we actually act, not how we ought to act. As pragmatic rules, they
correspond to our sensible nature, its ends, and in general to the consideration
of ourselves as beings belonging to a phenomenal order. From the point of view of
the Critical philosophy, natural right theorists could not go beyond nature. In
Kant’s view, truly moral principles are based on the capacity to determine
ourselves according to laws of pure reason and to act independently of our natural
desires and volitions. Moral laws reveal to us both our freedom and the possibility
of considering ourselves as noumenal beings, i.e. as beings that in some sense are
not inevitably subject to a phenomenal world ruled by causal laws.¹⁶ Finally, Kant
examines Baumgarten’s formula “ama optimum quantum potes” and holds that it
presents the same problem as the previous ones since we can love perfection from
inclination.

¹⁵ See also the Vigilantius lecture notes: “in his practical philosophy §§39–46, Baumgarten has put
forward various formulae which, as imperative, are supposed to serve for the general principle of all
obligation, though Professor Kant rejects every one of them” (MSVig 27:517ff.)
¹⁶ If the principle were to mean “live according to your rational nature,” it would still be tautological;
it would tell us “do your duty” without answering the question of how we ought to act (MSVig 27:518).
      235

Kant’s rejection of the teleological grounding of moral laws is later completed

with an explanation of the systematic relationship between moral laws and
ends. In the Metaphysics of Morals he claims, focusing on the idea of objective
ends (i.e. ends established by pure reason), that “ends and duties distinguish
the two divisions of the doctrine of morals in general” (MS 06:381).¹⁷ Whereas
the principle of right abstracts from all ends and only concerns the form of the
relation of choices, the principle of ethics connects the concept of duty with
the idea of an end, bringing about duties of virtue, that is, ends that are also a
duty to adopt (MS 6:385). These ends, one’s own perfection and the happiness of
others, are given a priori by pure reason and hence are objectively necessary. In
this way, Kant takes up the idea of normative ends found throughout the natural
right tradition but understands them as being (i) adopted against natural ends (i.e.
ends established on the basis of our inclinations) and (ii) irrelevant within the
sphere of right.

IIId

The Source of the Law. Kant believes that by locating the origin of the law in a will
other than one’s own, previous authors renounced the unconditional character
that a moral command must have (cf. GMS 4:433–4). He calls this capacity of
reason to find the law in itself, independently of external objects (including the
will of God), autonomy (GMS 4:440). This seminal thesis separates Kant’s moral
philosophy from the natural right tradition: moral laws do not have an external or
divine will as their ultimate source.
With regard to the source of obligation, Baumgarten and Achenwall not only
hold that the ground of moral laws lies in God’s reason, in line with classical
rationalism, but also conceive of God as the legislator of the law (cf. Bacin 2015,
26; Schwaiger 2020, 348f.). In the Elements, Baumgarten rejects Grotius’s famous
claim that the natural principles of justice would still be valid even if there were no
God (BIP §71). Baumgarten also affirms that natural right can be derived from the
will of God and argues that he is both the author of obligation and “the legislator of
natural law and the whole of the right of nature broadly considered” (BIP §100,
my emphasis). Furthermore, he argues that since natural laws are also divine
positive laws grounded in the will of God, the principle “act according to the
divine will” can be considered a universal principle of practical philosophy (BIP
§102). Like Baumgarten, Achenwall believes that to act according to natural laws

¹⁷ “The doctrine of this end [i.e. an end that is in itself a duty (FT)] would not belong to the doctrine
of right but rather to ethics, since self-constraint in accordance with (moral) laws belongs to the concept
of ethics alone. Ethics can also be defined as the system of the ends of pure practical reason. Ends and
duties distinguish the two divisions of the doctrine of morals in general” (MS 6:381).
236  

is to act in accordance with the will of God (AIN §20; APIN §43, 60). Moreover, he
endorses the Pufendorfian definition of law as the command of a superior. Natural
laws, says Achenwall, “are made by the superior and obligating the subjects with
the threat of punishment [ . . . ] God thus is the legislator of all natural law, i.e. the
superior who is the creator of the juridical laws” (AIN §44).
As expected, in his lectures Kant rejects Baumgarten’s and Achenwall’s views
regarding the will of God as the ultimate ground of obligation. Interestingly, in the
Vigilantius lecture notes, he relates Baumgarten’s ideas to the voluntarist position
held by Crusius: “although the obligation is established by reason, it is nevertheless
assumed that in the performance of our duty we have to regard ourselves as
passive beings, and that another person must be present, who necessitates us to
duty. Crusius found this necessitating person in God, and Baumgarten likewise in
the divine will, albeit known through reason” (MSVig 27:510).¹⁸ And, according to
Feyerabend’s notes, when explaining the concept of right Kant rejects the identi-
fication of juridical with divine laws, as had been proposed in Achenwall’s
textbook: “here neither happiness nor a command of duty but freedom is the
cause of right. The author has grounded it in his Prolegomena by saying that it is a
divine law and that we would be made happy through it, but that is not needed
here at all” (NRFey 27:1329).¹⁹
In the lectures, Kant criticizes not only the idea that God is the legislator of the
laws of nature but also the thesis, shared by Baumgarten and Achenwall, that he is
their author. In fact, Kant rejects the notion that moral laws have an author
altogether. Only in the case of positive or statutory laws can we think of an auctor
legis, for these kinds of laws need to proceed from the will of the legislator in order
to obtain obligatory force; that is, they “become binding rules merely ex voluntate
superioris” (MSVig 27:546; cf. Refl 6771, 19:156). Since moral laws do not emanate
from a superior will in the first place, they need not have an author.

IIIe

Right and Ethics. Thus far, I have stressed that Kant’s enterprise of establishing a
metaphysics of morals entails a reformulation of the concept of ius naturae that
decisively breaks with the Wolffian tradition of natural right. However, Kant’s
mature and definitive system of pure moral philosophy, as developed in the text of
1797, has some continuities with this tradition. One of them is that the meta-
physics of morals preserves the view, found in Baumgarten and Achenwall, and

¹⁸ Cf. “Kant goes on to maintain, contra Baumgarten, that the moral law does not make it a
condition to acknowledge a God and assume that the laws are His commands” (MSVig 27:546).
Kant also denies the idea that moral laws have an author (MSVig 27:544).
¹⁹ Cf. “the author bases himself on the claim that obligation rests on divine command. But we have
already refuted that by claiming that it would be useless to refer here to God” (NRFey 27:1334).
      237

likely indebted to Wolff ’s philosophia practica universalis, that a rational doctrine

of right is part of a broader systematic doctrine that comprehends the whole
system of duties.²⁰ This system of duties (and obligations) is based on a sole
universal principle or practical law. According to Kant, the supreme principle of
the Sittenlehre is “act on a maxim which can also hold as a universal law”
(MS 6:226) and as such holds both for right and for ethics. This understanding
of moral philosophy as an entire system that rests on only one principle poses the
question of its subsequent division into two branches. This problem indeed
became central to the discussion of natural right toward 1780 and was particularly
relevant to Kant. As I argue next, he clearly did not consider Baumgarten’s
answer to be satisfactory and found a key piece of his own solution in
Achenwall’s Natural Right.
In the Metaphysics of Morals of 1797, Kant presents the old idea of a
Naturrechtslehre (in the strict sense) in the new form of a metaphysische
Rechtslehre, i.e. a system of a priori principles, the object of which is freedom of
choice in its external use. Natural (or innate) obligation(s) and right(s) are
therefore to be grounded in the notion of freedom vis-à-vis reciprocal and external
practical relations between persons. The fundamental juridical obligation is for-
mulated by the universal principle of right: “any action is right if it can coexist with
everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the
freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with
a universal law” (MS 6:230). Kant claims that this principle “is indeed a law that
lays an obligation on me,” one that commands me to “so act externally that the
free use of [my] choice can coexist with the freedom of others” (MS 6:231). The
counterpart of the universal principle of right is the principle of innate freedom.
This principle states that “freedom (independence from being constrained by
another’s choice), insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in
accordance with a universal law,” is our innate right (MS 6:237). The universal
principle of right and the principle of innate freedom are thus two sides of the
same coin: on the one hand we have the (natural) obligation not to infringe on the
freedom of others; on the other we have an innate right to freedom, i.e. a moral
capacity to put others under an obligation not to infringe on our freedom.
This symmetrical relationship between these two fundamental principles
reflects Kant’s conception of right as analytically connected to the authorization
to use coercion. From the subjective perspective of Recht, i.e. considering ius as a
facultas or potestas, he defines it as a moral capacity to put others under obliga-
tions (MS 6:237). And from the objective perspective, i.e. considering ius as lex, he
explains it as “the possibility of a full reciprocal use of coercion” (MS 6:232). As
I indicated above, in establishing an analytic connection between right and

²⁰ On the relationship between Kant’s idea of a metaphysics of morals and the philosophia practica
universalis, see Anderson (1923) and Schwaiger (2001).
238  

coercion Kant is following Achenwall’s doctrine of natural right. To my mind, in

this definition of right Kant found not only a way to justify the power to coerce but
a clear criterion for delimiting the set of juridical duties within the entire system of
duties. In effect, he claims that “to every duty there corresponds a right in the
sense of an authorization or capacity to do something (facultas moralis gener-
atim); but it is not the case that to every duty there correspond rights of another to
coerce someone (facultas iuridica). Instead, such duties are called, specifically,
duties of right” (MS 6:383). Duties of right are thus the subset of duties to which a
“juridical capacity,” i.e. a power or title to coerce, corresponds.
Kant’s division between juridical and ethical duties is more complex than that
proposed by Achenwall because it is also based on a refined view of the relation
between duties, motives, and ends. In particular, the notion of an end plays a key
role in distinguishing right and ethics (cf. MS 6:381). Recall here that Achenwall’s
notion of duties of right (and its corresponding authorization to use coercion)
presupposes a general obligation to pursue the end of self-preservation. As men-
tioned above, Kant not only rejects this thesis but develops his own understanding
of the connection between moral laws and objective ends. This becomes clear in
the Doctrine of Virtue, where, by claiming that there are ends established by pure
reason that give content to the duties of virtue, he affirms that “ends and duties
distinguish the two divisions of the doctrine of morals in general” (MS 6:381).
Roughly speaking, ethical duties involve a form of self-coercion <Selbstzwang> (as
opposed to external coercion) that occurs “in accordance with a principle of inner
freedom, and so through the mere representation of one’s duty in accordance with
its formal law” (MS 6:394). While juridical duties abstract from motives and ends,
duties of virtue must be complied with from the idea of duty itself and require the
adoption of moral ends, that is, ends established by pure reason.
With this general picture of the division of duties in the Metaphysics of Morals
in hand, I wish to return to Baumgarten’s model of natural right and to identify
two main reasons why Kant maintains that the latter, “in explaining ius, [ . . . ]
takes the ethical along with the juridical” (MoC 27:280). First, although
Baumgarten describes juridical duties as those duties that admit of external
coercion, this form of coercion is not properly justified. As Achenwall shows,
for the external obligation to be authorized it must be connected to a right or a
(legitimate) power to coerce. Second, Baumgarten does not circumscribe the
concept of juridical obligation within the sphere of external relations between
persons, as opposed to the sphere of Gesinnung. He even claims that an external
obligation to do X can only exist (i.e. someone can rightfully coerce Y to do X) if
Y also has an internal obligation to do X.²¹ According to Kant, juridical duties are

²¹ In the Collins lecture notes, Kant gives the following example to explain Baumgarten’s position:
“but a person can be morally compelled from without by others, if another exacts from us, according to
moral motives, an action that we do with reluctance. If, for example, I am in debt to someone, and he
says: If you wish to be an honest man, you must pay me; I will not sue you, but I cannot let you off,
      239

independent of ethical obligations and do not include any claims about our
reasons to act. Still, one can always comply with a juridical duty from the idea
of duty itself, turning this duty into an ethical one. This is why Kant holds that “all
duties, just because they are duties, belong to ethics” (MS 6:219). This does not
mean that the distinction between right and ethics is collapsed after all. Rather, it
indicates that the specificity of juridical duties rests not on their content (i.e. the
action prescribed or forbidden) but on “the difference in their lawgiving” or “the
kind of obligation” (MS 6:220). A duty is “that action to which someone is bound,”
“the matter of obligation, and there can be one and the same duty (as to the
action) although we can be bound to it in different ways” (MS 6:222). Juridical
duties thus express a particular way in which we are bound to an action: we ought
to perform (or omit) the relevant action, but we are not required to do so from a
specific motive. In sum, Kant flatly dismisses Baumgarten’s distinction between
ethical and juridical principles, finding in Achenwall’s Natural Right a key concept
for defining juridical duties and thus for distinguishing them from duties of virtue.
However, Kant’s division between right and ethics is also based on the claim that
juridical duties abstract from motives and ends. This claim is completely absent in
the Wolffian school of natural right and relates to Kant’s own reformulation of the
traditional idea of ius naturae.

IV

Conclusion. My aim in this chapter has been to shed light on the relationship
between Kant’s Doctrine of Right and the natural right tradition. I have argued
that Kant did not aim to “destroy” or reject the idea of ius naturae as such but
rather to provide the discipline with a completely new foundation. The whole
enterprise of establishing a rational doctrine of right cannot be abandoned, for
only principles based on reason alone, as Kant states in the Introduction to the
Doctrine of Right, can provide a moral justification of the power to coerce and a
normative standard by which to judge existing positive laws. By analyzing Kant’s
model of right in comparison with Baumgarten’s and Achenwall’s models, we
have reached a clearer picture of what he discards and what he retains from the
tradition of natural right. Kant agrees with them that there are laws of reason that
tell us how we ought to act, but he dismisses the identification of these laws with
laws of nature that are ultimately grounded in a divine will. I have also argued that
Kant’s moral philosophy preserves the view, found in Baumgarten and Achenwall,
that a rational doctrine of right belongs to a broader systematic doctrine (i.e. a
Sittenlehre) that, through its laws, regulates the internal and external sphere of

because I need it—then this is a moral compulsion from without, by the choice of another. The more a
man can compel himself, the freer he is. The less he can be compelled by others, the more inwardly free
he is” (MoC 27:269).
240  

human praxis. To provide an answer to the problem of the separation of right

and ethics, Kant establishes a complex relationship between duties, ends,
and motives. My purpose was not to present an exhaustive explanation of this,
but rather to point out that Kant finds in Achenwall’s doctrine of ius naturae a
clear criterion for delimiting the set of juridical duties within the system of duties
as a whole.
 13
A Case Study of the Right of Nature
War, Violence, and Punishment in Baumgarten
John Hymers

The Contemporary Inherent Right to Defense. The just war tradition is an ancient
and yet living body of thinking that tries to describe in what cases armed force
is morally permissible. As such, it opposes two other main tendencies—“war
realism,” as Michael Walzer terms the first (2015, 4), and pacifism. War realism
holds that expediency, i.e. the interest of the sovereign, alone justifies war, while
pacifism holds that nothing justifies it.¹ Where the first holds that war is excluded
from moral judgment and thus permits violence for victory, the second holds that
because war permits the violence necessary for victory, it is excluded by moral
judgment. Both paradoxically permit wars to be fought à outrance, as Anscombe
argues: the first explicitly so, because the taking of life by armed force needs no
justification beyond expediency; the second implicitly so, because it cannot dis-
tinguish between the taking of innocent life and the taking of any life and so in
practice allows any injustice to occur without any viable means for preventing or
resisting it (1961, 46–50). The just war tradition, to which Alexander Gottlieb
Baumgarten belongs, is the moderating position between these. In essence, it
argues against expediency on the grounds that war requires a moral justification,
and against pacifism on the grounds that wars can be necessary for justice.
Today’s understanding of the legality of war is largely captured by a hodge-
podge of international declarations, treaties, pacts, conventions, judgments, and
charters that comprise the international law of war, all of which determines a
rather restrictive right to go to war (ius ad bellum) and an equally restrictive right
to use force in war (ius in bello). Although there are countless agreements having
impact on the international legality of war, the two most recognized sources of law
with respect to war are the UN Charter, and the Geneva Conventions; the first

¹ Since pacifism is not the matter at stake here, I reduce it to absolute pacifism in the sense of
Anathagoras, Origin, Lactantius, and Menno Simons, ignoring the other sorts of pacifism such as selective
pacifism (e.g. Tertullian) and nuclear pacifism (e.g. Robert Drinan). John Howard Yoder has in fact
identified twenty distinct strains of pacifism (Friesen 2005, 357). Kant, lecturing on Baumgarten’s text,
pithily refers to pacifism as peace-loving, as opposed to peace-making (1997, 416; AA 27:686).

John Hymers, A Case Study of the Right of Nature: War, Violence, and Punishment in Baumgarten In: Baumgarten and
Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy. Edited by: Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, Oxford University Press.
© John Hymers 2024. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192873538.003.0014
242  

governs the right to go to war (the ius ad bellum), and the second largely govern
what is right, or permitted, in war (the ius in bello).
Key to the UN Charter are article 2 (§4) and article 51. The former runs “All
Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of
force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in
any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”; whereas
the latter runs “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of
individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of
the United Nations.” Taken together, these two represent a rather restrictive ius ad
bellum. Article 2 (§4) follows the tradition’s attempt to end war as the sport of
kings,² which is to say along with Christian Wolff and Baumgarten, to stop the
right of war from becoming the license³ to war. With this article, aggression
officially becomes an international crime. But article 51 goes much further than
does article 2 (§4)—for article 51 expressly limits the just war to self-defense. This
limitation is famously already found in Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace, a work
largely taken to have prefigured the United Nations.⁴ In this chapter I will
demonstrate that this limitation—i.e. that self-defense is the sole justifying cause
of war—is found prior to Kant in the works of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten,
and thus that he is a hitherto unacknowledged father of the modern international
view of the ius ad bellum.

II

Punishment and the early modern just war tradition in Grotius and Wolff. Before
we consider Baumgarten’s role in the contemporary understanding of just war, we

² The first attestation of the sport of kings is not to horse racing but to war, and is found in the works
of William D’avenant. See his tragi-comedy The Just Italian: “Oh trivial property of life! Some do attend
the mighty war, and make divinity their yoke; ‘till for the sport of Kings the’ augment the number of the
dead” (1673, 454); see also his song “The souldier going to the Field”: “For I must go where lazy Peace, /
Will hide her drouzy head; / And, for the sport of Kings, encrease / The number of the Dead” (1673,
322; spelling not modernized).
³ Baumgarten defines license as “the state of a person for whom there are no external prescriptive
laws, and this is impossible <status licentiae est status hominis, cui nullae leges externae praescriptae
sunt, et est impossibilis>” (BIN §26). See also Wolff (WIG §630), Achenwall (§78), and Köhler
(KE §920).
⁴ The literature on Kant’s influence is legion, but Carl J. Friedrich’s “The Ideology of the United
Nations Charter and the Philosophy of Peace of Immanuel Kant 1795–1945” (Friedrich 1947) is its
fountainhead. For a far-too-brief reading list, cf. Franck 1995 (especially chapter 2), Musiał 2019,
Thorpe 2019, and Tesón 1992. Jochen Rauber 2009 notes that Kant’s name never appears in the official
records of the UN (2008, 50), but then argues both historically and philosophically for Kant’s paternity.
Nevertheless, carefully tracing Kant’s work, he concludes that the UN in its present form is a rather
imperfect version of Kant’s thinking. For instance, the Security Council essentially excuses five nations
from international censure, and non-democratic nations are equal members of the body alongside
democracies (2008, 76).Thus, he holds that Kant is rather the yardstick against which a cosmopolitan
order must be measured (2008, 76).
         243

need first to look at that of Christian Wolff,⁵ as he is the master of Baumgarten’s

school. Wolff’s work is in turn indebted to the true giant of the field, Hugo Grotius,
whom many identify as the founder of modern international law (e.g. especially
Lauterpacht 1975, but also Van Der Mandere 1925).⁶ My point here will not be to
compose a treatise on Grotius’s magnum opus, nor the substantial contributions
made by Wolff thereto; that would in turn require a rather large book, if not a series
of volumes. Rather, my concern here is with putting forth the early modern argu-
ments of these thinkers insofar as they directly relate to Baumgarten’s own concept of
punishment and violence as found in his works on practical philosophy.
Wolff discusses war in a number of places, most definitively in his multi-
volume Ius Naturae and again in his Ius Gentium, works whose titles alone
indicate that Wolff ’s thinking as such is heavily embedded in concepts so fatefully
developed by Grotius.⁷ Wolff defines the right of nations as “the science of that
right that nations or peoples employ among each other and of the obligations
corresponding to that right” (WIG §1). Accordingly, he conceives of a state in the
model of “individual free persons living in a state of nature” (WIG §2), that is,
individuals governed by no external, civil law. The state in the international
community is then understood completely in parallel to the relation of individual
free persons in the absence of positive law—that is to say, the state of nature as it
applies to nations is such that there is no higher law governing them or their
relations (WIG §3); he calls this right “necessary” insofar as all nations are bound
to it (WIG §4), and “immutable” insofar as the right of nature itself is (WIG §5).
The content of the concept of the right of nature itself, i.e. a natural source of all
law that obligates humans, although it stretches back through St Thomas to the
Stoics and has Platonic and Aristotelian roots, is for Wolff most proximally
summed up by Grotius as the “preservation of society,” which Grotius himself

⁵ Baumgarten’s debt to Wolff is surely too well known to comment upon, and well explained
elsewhere in this volume.
⁶ The eminent British jurist J.L. Brierly tersely considers this opinion as common as it is spurious:
“Few books have won so great a reputation as the De iure belli ac pacis, but to regard its author as the
‘founder’ of international law is to exaggerate its originality and to do less than justice to the writers
who preceded him; neither Grotius, nor any other single writer, can properly be said to have ‘founded’
the system” (1963, 28); and again, on the supposed success of Grotius’s book, he writes “but if by
success is meant that the doctrines of Grotius as a whole were accepted by states and became part of the
law which since his time has regulated their relations, then his work was almost a complete failure”
(1963, 32). Rupp (1924) offers a comprehensive but condensed overview of the history of Grotius’s
reputation, and concludes nothing more than that he was “immensely popular and influential” because
he overcame the scholastic formulation dominating the field (365). Van Ittersum (2016) takes a
formulation typical of the early twenty-first century and considers his fame as founding father to be
a construct concocted by the American delegation to the 1899 Hague Peace Conference within an
imperialist and colonial context.
⁷ The Grotius literature, and that of the just war tradition in general, often but not exclusively
translates ius as “law,” and hence ius naturae and ius gentium as the law of nature and the law of
nations, but here will be translated as “right” not only to keep our vocabulary consistent but also to
delineate it clearly from “law,” i.e. lex, legis. See also the translator’s Introduction to BIP (28) for a
discussion of this difficult-to-translate term. Brierly simply says that the “law of nations” is a “mis-
translation” of ius gentium that has unfortunately become necessary (1963, 30).
244  

tells us he borrows from Seneca: “the preservation of society, which is proper to

the human intellect, is the origin of that right properly called by such a name: to it
pertains abstaining from the property of others, and, if we have such, its restitu-
tion or any profit we gained from it, the obligation to fulfill promises, reparation
for culpable harm done, and merited punishment among men” (GDIB prol. §8).⁸
This “preservation of society” is largely identical to Ulpian’s precepts “live
honourably, harm no other person, and give to each his own <honeste vivere,
alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere>,” and is natural because it flows from
the two gifts of nature that delineate the essence of the human being: rationality
(the human being as ζῷον λόγον) and sociality (the human being as ζῷον
πολιτικόν).⁹ Says Wolff: “if the essence and nature of the human being is posited,
every inborne right is also posited <posita essentia and natura hominis, ponituir
etiam omne jus connatum>” (WIN I §28); “an obligation is called primitive that
has its proximate ground in the essence and nature of the human being <obligatio
primitiva dicitur, quae rationem proximam in essentia atque natura hominis
habet>” (WIN I §40). Now, the state is seen on the model of the individual;
hence, as the individual is subject to the rights and obligations belonging to the
human being qua human being in relation to the nememin laedere, the state is
likewise subject to the same. Hence, the rights and obligations that emerge from
the application of natural right to the right of nations are likewise necessary
and immutable (WIG §6), and no nation can be freed from these, or from the
right of nature, any more than can any individual. In fact, nature itself has
established a sort of super-society on all societies (“all nations are understood to
have come together into a state, whose separate members are separate nations, or
individual states,” WIG §9) that Wolff calls the “greatest state <maxima civitas>”¹⁰
(WIG §10), which, however, does not prefigure Kant’s cosmopolitan federation of
nations, since it remains in the state of nature.

⁸ “Societatis custodia, humano intellectui conveniens, fons est eius iuris, quod properie tali nomine
appellatur: quo pertinent alieni abstinentia et si quid alieni habeamus aut lucri inde fecerimus restitutio,
promissorum implendorum obligatio, damni culpa dati reparatio, et poenae inter homines meritum.”
⁹ For a fuller discussion that addresses Grotius’s Stoic influences, see Straumann’s thorough
“Oikeiosis and appetitus societas” (2003/2004).
¹⁰ The standard translation (Wolff 1934, 13 and passim) calls this the “supreme state,” but this
translation obscures that Wolff is clearly calling it maxima because of the size of the state: “The size of
a state is determined by the number of its citizens. Therefore, a greater state cannot be conceived <maior
itaque civitas concipi nequit> than that whose members are all nations in general, inasmuch as they
together include the whole human race” (WIG §10, zusatz), which is language oddly appropriated from
St Anselm’s ontological argument. Maxima is the superlative corresponding to maior. Köhler condition-
ally considers this paradigm a well-founded fiction and morally useful: “If in the law of nations and
society a society or an entire people is considered to be the same as a human individual, this is a possible
fiction, and it is formed with sufficient ground when it is constructed and arranged conformable to
human nature and other principles of reason, and such that, with its assistance, the natural right of
individuals can be applied to entire communities and nations <Si in jure sociali & Gentium consideretur
societas vel integer populus instar individui humani fictio hæc est possibilis & cum ratione sufficiente
formata cum illa naturæ humanæ & aliis principiis rationis convenienter sit concinnata & ita comparata
ut ope illius jus naturale singulorum ad integras societates & gentes applicari possit>” (KE §45).
         245

War is a particular means that states have to enforce and protect what is their
own against harm. The first and most important distinction in war, think both
Grotius and Wolff, is that among private, public, and mixed¹¹ wars (GDIB Bk I,
Ch 3, Sect. 1, §1; WIG §607–9). Private war is the right granted to individuals in
the state of nature to redress a wrong, and both argue that it remains real even if it
is greatly attenuated by state structures. Public war, accordingly, is the manner
whereby the individual states in this greatest state obtain justice from one another,
and this precisely because there is no competent court found in this greatest state,
as there is any given state. Grotius begins his De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625) by telling
us that war concerns those “disputes between peoples who are not bound by
common civil right” <controversiae eorum quos nulla iuris civilis tenet commu-
nio>” (GDIB Bk. 1, Ch. I, Sect. 1). It is for this reason that Grotius argues that
the laws are silent in war (Cicero’s famed “inter arma silent leges,” Pro Milone
4, 10; 1931, 16), provided that the silent law is restrictively understood as the
positive law summed up in the civil right of any given state; the natural laws
imposed by the right of nature in the form of the right of nations, and embodied
in its rights and obligations, still obtain (GDIBP prol. §26). Thus, in defining war
he explicitly widens the definition of Cicero, to whom he ascribes “contesting by
force <certationem per vim>”:¹² “war is the state of those as such who are
contending by force <bellum status per vim certantium qua tales sunt>” (GDIB
Bk. 1, Ch. I, Sect. 2, §1). By adding the notion of “state” to Cicero, as Wolff
argues, Grotius “improves <emendans>” Cicero in being more faithful to the
true nature of war, as this definition does not limit war to the action, i.e. the
fighting, but rather includes the entire condition of the peoples at war.¹³

¹¹ Mixed war is waged on one side by public authority and on the other by private individuals, and it
does not get much of a treatment in Grotius. Wolff says that the quashing of rebellion is a mixed war:
“an example of a war is when the leader of a state wages war against rebellious subordinates
<Exemplum belli mixti est si Rector civitatis bellum gerit cum subditis rebellibus>” (WIG §609,
Zusatz). A contemporary example is asymmetrical war, in which a state (a public authority) confronts
non-state actors (private actors), such as the just-ended American war in Afghanistan, or the non-
ending war on drugs. Köhler does not seem to address this tripartite distinction in his Exercitiones, and
Baumgarten notices this. In the fragmentary second part of his BIN, Baumgarten, remarking in his
commentary on Köhler’s KE §1646 concerning military occupation, notes: “Here we ask: whether the
term ‘occupation’ is correctly applied to the enemy and hostile objects, when they do not belong to
anyone. Private and public war must be distinguished <Hic quaeritur: an terminus, occupatio, recte
applicetur ad hosticum et res hostiles, cum nullius non sint. Distinguendum bellum privatum et
publicum” (BIN §1646).
¹² Cicero defines war in De Officiis as “contending by force”: “For there are two ways of contending:
one through discussion, and the other through force, and since the former is proper to the human
being, and the latter to beasts, we can only take refuge in the second if we cannot take advantage of the
better <Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim, cumque illud
proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum, confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superior>” (De Off.
I:11; 1913, 36).
¹³ Wolff: “Enimvero loquendi usui convenientius, ut bellum sumatur non de actione, sed de statu”
(WIN 1, §1102). Köhler, on the other hand, has no obsession with the strictness of the definition, and
holds that war can be considered either in terms of the very act of contesting by force or in terms of the
state: “Sumitur bellum vel pro actu ipso certandi per vim vel pro statu” (KE §806, scholion 1). See also
Hobbes, who would famously connect this state with the state of nature in chapter 13 of his Leviathan
246  

Moreover, Grotius’s new definition also moves war more in the direction
of Augustine, who holds that international relations are essentially a state of
war, and peace was just the name we give the relatively brief interlude between
contesting with arms.¹⁴ Wolff, though, likewise attempts to improve Grotius’s
definition by defining war as “the state of persons, in which one pursues
one’s right by force against another <status hominum in quo unus ius suum vi
persequitur adversus alterum bellum dicitur>” (WIN 1, §1102). Wolff holds that
Grotius’s definition, which Grotius himself claims covers all possible wars,
strangely lacks the notion of ius, and thus its absence in the definition seems
to be an important oversight.¹⁵ After all, for Grotius war is always waged in
pursuit of some right, whether real, imagined, or claimed. Wolff thus ties the
definition of war to the right of nature; for, since there is no right in common
between two peoples, as Grotius argues, beyond the right of nature, it is the
natural right that war attempts to ensure. This does not at all mean that Wolff
thinks that war is just by definition, which he begins to clarify in his definition
of the right of war: “the right of war is thus the right of pursuing one’s own
right against the one who does not wish to attribute it to us <Jus itaque belli eft
jus vi persequendi jus suum adversus eum qui idem nobis tribuere non vult>”
(WIN 1, §1103).
Since war thus has what Walzer calls a moral reality, which for Grotius and
Wolff is found in the right of nature, wars may thus be described as just or unjust
according to their causes. Grotius distinguishes between justifying causes (causae
iustificae) and utility (Wolff like Baumgarten will term the causes stemming from

of 1651: “Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all
in awe, they are in that condition [conditionem] which is called war; and such a war as is a war of every
man against every man. For war consists not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time,
where the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known . . . so the nature of war consists not in actual
fighting, but in the known disposition to war during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary”
(1985, 102). The interpolation of conditionem comes from the later and revised Latin translation (1668,
64); conditio is clearly intended as a synonym for Grotius’s status. Köhler partially cites this passage in
KE §806, scholion 1: “Hobbius hac in re ita se explicat: consistit natura belli non in pugna sed in tractu
aliquo temporis quo durante voluntas armis decertandi est manisesta.”
¹⁴ Says Augustine in the City of God: “Such is the instability of human affairs that no people has ever
been allowed such a degree of tranquility as to remove all dread of hostile attacks on their dwelling in
this world. That place, then, which is promised as a dwelling of such peace and security is eternal, and is
reserved for eternal beings” (Augustine 1958, 17: 13). Hobbes likewise famously sees war as primary,
and peace as derived, for the quotation from Leviathan directly above ends: “All other time is peace,”
which has more punch in the Latin translation: “the time devoid of war is peace <tempus bello vacuum
pax est>” (Leviathan, Ch. XIII; 1668, 64). Kant agrees: “A state of peace among men living together is
not the same as the state of nature, which is a state of war” (1991, 98). Vivaldi stirringly set this thought
to music in his motet Nulla in mundo pax sincera sine felle (catalogued as RV 630). Baumgarten will
also define “external peace” in terms of war “the state opposite to war, i.e. the absence of war, is external
peace” (BIN Pr. §161).
¹⁵ Wolff: “By contesting, here he can only understand the prosecution of one’s own right. Whence
[Grotius’s] definition falls together with the one we give, even if ours is more perspicuous <Per
certationem hic intelligi nequit nisi persecutio juris sui. Unde haec definitio cum ea, quam dedimus
coincidit, etsi nostra sit magis perspicua>” (WIN I, §1102).
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utility as rationes suasoriae, i.e. persuasive grounds):¹⁶ “let us now come to the
causes of war that I understand as justifying; for there are other causes that operate
on the ground of utility, which are sometimes distinct from those which operate
on the ground of what is just <veniamus ad causas bellorum: iustificas intelligo:
nam sunt & aliae quae mouent sub ratione utilis, distinctae interdum ab iis quae
mouent sub ratione iusti>” (GDIB Bk. 2, Ch. 1, Sec. 1, §1). Next follows his
historically definitive list of three justifying causes: “Most [authorities] establish
that there are three just causes for wars: defense, recuperation of property, and,
punishment <Plerique bellorum tres statuunt causas iustas, defensionem, recuper-
ationem rerum, & punitionem>” (GDIB Bk. 2, Ch. 1, Sect. 2, §2). Wolff mirrors
Grotius perfectly; he also follows a threefold justification of war, but he unites all
three reasons in one simple justifying ground: iniuria. Only “an injury that has
been, or is bound to be, done <iniuria facta vel facienda>” (WIG §§217, 219) is the
just ground for war. The first justification is (1) seeking after what is or ought to be
our own and has been lost due to injury, which is a vindictive war (WIG §620); (2)
the second is punishing the one who injures, which is a punitive war (WIG §616);
and (3) the third is resisting unjust force, i.e. injury, which is a defensive war (WIG
§615). The defensive war is just if the offensive war is unjust, but offensive war is
not unjust per se; Wolff sees both vindictive and punitive wars as offensive wars,
and they can be just if we have exhausted the Ciceronian injunction to employ all
peaceful options to obtain justice for what is or ought to be our own, or if armed
force alone is an appropriate punishment. Likewise, in the case of a justified
offensive war, the corresponding defensive war is unjust (WIG §629); unlike
with Vitoria, for instance, it is not possible to consider any war just on both
sides (WIG §633), nor, again contrary to Vitoria, does Wolff allow for invincible
ignorance in the case of waging war (WIG §635).¹⁷ As examples of punitive wars,
Wolff offers the punishment by arms for injuries to legates, or the war waged to
demand that a nation give up its idolatry (WIG §616, Zusatz). He considers the
first of these to be legitimate, but not the second; as he explains in WIG §§637 and
638, wickedness, impiety, idolatry, Deism, atheism, and the like fail the sole test
for justifying causes of punitive war: “punitive war is only permitted for the
one who has received irreparable harm and cannot obtain satisfaction for the
same in any other way <Bellum punitivum licitum non est nisi ei qui injuriam

¹⁶ Wolff adds a third category: quasi-justifying causes are causes that are labeled just but in fact are
unjust “when properly reasoned out” (WIG §624). A contemporary example would be Russia’s
preemptive de-Nazification of Ukraine, or perhaps the WMD supposedly concealed by Iraq.
¹⁷ Baumgarten will disagree with Wolff here; in BIN §132 he provides a list of conditions in which a
war can be seen as just on both sides (e.g. “one side may begin a war justly, continue it unjustly, and
perhaps end it justly, while the other begins unjustly, continues it justly, and perhaps ends it unjustly
<initia potest pars vna iuste caepisse continuans iniuste, iuste forsan finiens, altera incipiente iniuste
iuste continuante, finiente forsan iniuste>”), or unjust on both sides (e.g. “if internal justice of a certain
degree be denied to both belligerents <si iustitia interna certi maioris gradus vtrique belligerantium
parti denegetur>”). In the same paragraph, Baumgarten also allows for the invincible ignorance of
Vitoria. On invincible ignorance, see also BIP §187.
248  

irreparabilem accepit ut sibi de eadem satisfiat alio modo obtinere potest>.”

Strictly domestic wickedness and impiety (etc.) themselves do not harm other
nations, and thus give no offense beyond scandal, a point Kant would make in his
Perpetual Peace (1991, 96). This, as Wolff himself points out, controverts Grotius,
who allows impiety and the like as justifying causes for punitive wars on the
grounds of the defense of natural right in the sense that the sovereign is also
responsible for the moral and religious hygiene of the world on the grounds of the
social usefulness of religion and the fear of God (cf. GDIB Bk. 2, Ch. 20, Sect. 44,
§6), which is reminiscent of Augustine and John Calvin’s views of the sovereign as
God’s wrath. Wolff claims he himself cannot find this duty in natural right, which
extends only as far as actual harm.¹⁸

III

Baumgarten’s concept of just war. Baumgarten is located in this tradition repre-

sented by Grotius and Wolff, but is no slavish disciple. For example, as Schwaiger
points out in chapter one above, Baumgarten wrote the BEP precisely because
there was at that point still no corresponding Wolffian text book. He discusses just
war in three places in his oeuvre: first in §§315–27 of his Ethica Philosophica
(1740; third edition 1763) in the section “The pursuit of peace,” and then
throughout his unfinished Ius Naturae (also 1763).¹⁹ Finally, he treats of it briefly
in his posthumous Sciagraphia Encyclopaediae Philosophicae (1769). These loca-
tions each reflect their setting. As ethics concerns right in the state of nature (or
simply: the right of nature, the ius naturae), ethics is “the science of the internal
obligations of the human being in the natural state” (BEP §1). That is, ethics treats
of one’s own obligations arising from the complex of similar internal moral laws,
so here the ius naturae is understood as non-compelling strictly spoken (i.e. as not
externally compelled by means of external sanctions, although it does remain
internally compelling). It is nature understood as the nature of the individual.
Thus, in this first case, Baumgarten’s concern with war is with one’s own duty

¹⁸ See AIN II §264: “And since a wrong is the only cause to justify war, a war is wrongful that is
waged on grounds of profit alone and on the basis of rhetorical arguments alone, since these are derived
from profit; or to persuade another nation to embrace our religion. Hence starting a war against a
nation because of idolatry, atheism and other crimes against God—a punitive war, as it is called—is
forbidden.”
¹⁹ The Ius Naturae is Baumgarten’s commentary on Köhler’s Exercitationes iuris naturalis.
Baumgarten completed the two-chapter prologue (BIN Pr. §1–167), and chapters 1 to 7 of part one
(BIN §1–156). He got as far as the first paragraph of part 1, chapter 8 (BIN §157), before ill health made
him abandon the work. All of the paragraphs after §157 are taken directly from Baumgarten’s notes,
and are undeveloped, uncorrected, and unchanged. Their numbers correspond directly with the
concerned paragraphs in Köhler. Heinrich Köhler was a Wolffian jurist, and Schwaiger points out
that Baumgarten made a number of pilgrimages from Halle to nearby Jena to attend his lectures in
person when teaching Wolff was still forbidden in Halle (2011, 117).
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to be peaceful, which is summed up in one’s own duty toward placability

(placabilitas). In other words, the BEP is only concerned with private war. On
the other hand, the ius naturae as external is externally compelling right con-
forming to laws derived from the study of nature itself but formed into some
less primitive form of right like a ius gentium (the right of peoples, international
right, or, quite loosely speaking, international law), which is the purview of
Baumgarten’s BIN. The ius gentium is to be understood again with the states
playing the roles of individuals, although Baumgarten nowhere adopts Köhler’s
useful fiction of state personality; in fact, Baumgarten’s incomplete commentary
does not discuss that passage in Köhler.²⁰ Hence, likewise for Baumgarten, the
right of war and peace remains governed by the principles of natural right (BIN
§166).²¹ Thus, in this second case, Baumgarten is concerned with the conditions in
which a nation may go to war (the ius ad bellum), and the proper conduct of war,
generally considered (the ius in bello), but all within the ethical framework of
placability, and hence the tranquillitas ordinis. Hence it concerns public war. The
Sciagraphia, i.e. cross-section or “sketch <Entwurf>” (§3), on the other hand, aims
at an overview of what can be distinctly known in the various parts of philosophy,
and how they are to be known (§3).²² The material concerning war in the
Sciagraphia is found in chapter 3 (which concerns practical philosophy), section 3:
“Social right broadly construed <ius sociale late dictum>.” Thus, in this work
Baumgarten treats of war solely insofar as it concerns the interest of a given
society, i.e. politics.

IV

Just war in the Sciagraphia. For Baumgarten, what is right in war, as opposed to
what happens in war, is governed by the right of nature. As we’ve seen, the right of
nature has three precepts: live honorably, do no harm to the other, and render to
each their own. Thus, a just war will follow these three precepts, and, as we will
see, Baumgarten permits no other concept of just war. However, in his Sciagraphia
(BSEP §208–12), Baumgarten does provide a brief and objective description of
international relations and war, which is the closest he comes to anything like a
Realpolitik. Hence, we begin with this account as it is the briefest, and furthest
removed from Baumgarten’s moral judgment of war.

²⁰ On the useful fiction, see note XXX above. In his treatment of the ius gentium in The Metaphysics
of Morals, Kant explicitly adopts the moral personhood of states (MS 6:343–4).
²¹ “Belli et pacis ius plerumque strictius est ius gentium. Latius si dicas ius complexum legum
externarum ius facultatem his concessam circa bellum quodcumque vel pacem externam versantia
naturale cum iure naturae stricte sumto coincidit. Principium adaequatum IN strictissime sumti erit
etiam principium iuris belli et pacis quatenus ad ius naturae strictissme sumtum pertinet.”
²² “Encyclopaedia philosophica . . . vel ita vt quis intendat quid in qualibet philosophiae parte et
quomodo sciri possit distincte cognoscere, et dici potest sciagraphia encyclopaediae philosophicae.”
250  

A state’s public actions either “remain within the state <immanentes ciuitati>,”
and are called domestic; or they “cross over . . . to other states <transeuntes . . . erga
alias ciuitates>” and are called foreign.²³ The right of nations governs actions toward
the latter, and politics the former (BSEP §208). He identifies the “right of public
external war and peace <ius belli et pacis publicae externae>” with “polemical
politics, i.e. the irenical or the grounds for war <politica polemica s. ratio belli et
irenica>” (BSEP §208). Before war, polemical politics weighs the grounds for war;
Baumgarten does not here morally qualify such justifying, persuasive, and dissua-
sive reasons as he does in BIP §137 or BEP §190. The politicians (togata) consider
the ultimate ends of a declared war, and the generals (sagata) the more proximate
ends (i.e. strategy) (BSEP §209). He thus calls “public strategic right <ivs stratege-
ticum publicum>” “the complex of external laws that are to be observed against an
enemy itself ” (BSEP §209). For war leaders, both right and strategic prudence
provides for the right and prudence of building fortifications and other battle
tactics²⁴ (BESP §210), as well as for the right and prudence of blockades (obsidio)
and sieges (poliorcetica) (BESP §211). Finally, the class (status) of those citizens
especially intending external public security is that of the military, and the right and
public politics furnishing the laws of the military class are military, which is not to
be confused with the right of war and the polemical politics of nations.

Just war in the Ethica Philosophica. Unlike in the telegraphic Sciagraphia,

Baumgarten’s treatment of war in the BEP never mentions political entities or
kings or sovereigns and keeps to the language typical of the rest of the work,
referring to “you” or “one” or “the human being.” The BEP is also completely bare
of any mention to the ius gentium, as that is another branch of the ius naturae and
thus the concern of the BIN. In a helpful discussion in the BVEEP, Baumgarten
explains how to keep ethics distinct from the other branches of practical
philosophy:

Lest someone doubt the difference between ethics and economics and politics,
one should attend to the different states and the difference will be clear. For since
economics is the science of the internal obligations of a person in the family state,
and politics is the science of the same in the civil state, the difference is already
clear. Ethics says ‘worship God’ and indeed from the principle ‘perfect yourself,’

²³ Domestic and foreign events are rendered by the classic formulation “res domi forisque
gerendae”—literally, “the affairs that are to be conducted at home and abroad.”
²⁴ In BESP §129, Baumgarten, following an ancient practice, reserves the word “tactics” for the
science of deploying soldiers: i.e. “the science of forming battle lines <hoc nomen scientiae aciem
bellicam constituendi iam proprium est ab antiquis>.”
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without respect to any other particular state but rather, as much as by abstracting
from every particular society I can be considered in the natural state; and
economics teaches the same as well, but thus ‘worship God as a member of a
family,’ and so too politics, but ‘as a member of a civil state.’ (BVEEP §1)²⁵

That is, each branch deals with the same natural law imperative (here: worship
God) within its own realm. So, by extension the art of the ius gentium, which we
might call statecraft, is the art of guiding a nation within that which Wolff calls the
“greatest state,” and concerns the right of nature as it applies to the individual
states. It teaches the same thing as ethics (the fitting imperative here is “be
peaceable”), but in a different realm. Thus, in the BEP, Baumgarten’s just war
doctrine then takes on a much more personal tone, calling for individuals to avoid
war—were sovereigns to follow his doctrine in the BEP, they would do so
according to the dictates of the right of nature, the laws that bind all persons as
persons, and not according to the expediency of politics or national interest—that
is, without concern for statecraft. For ethics concerns the state of nature, and there
are no sovereigns to be found there.²⁶
Baumgarten’s ethics depends on a Wolffian framework of perfectionism. In
brief, for Baumgarten, ethics is the internal obligation to bring about some sort of
perfection. In the Ethica, there is a two-fold specification of perfection: first with
regard to perfect yourself (perfice te) understood in terms of duties toward God
and then toward oneself strictly speaking,²⁷ and second with regard to other
things. Any perfection is to be understood as the successful unity of the various
predicates that determine the ground of a given thing (BM §94), so as to achieve a
harmony in that being that is to be perfected by these essential and grounding
predicates (either the self, or the other, and thus of course their nexus). In the
sense that either something belonging to the self, or to something else, is to be
perfected, both of these poles thus alternately constitute what Baumgarten calls

²⁵ “Ne quis dubitet de discrimine Ethices ab Oeconomica et Politica, attendat modo varios status, et
differentia patebit. Oeconomica enim quum sit scientia obligationum internarum hominis in statu
familiae; et Politica scientia earundem in statu ciuili, discrimen iam adest. Sic Ethica dicit: Cole
Deum: et qui dem ex principio, Perfice Te, sine respetu ad ullum unquam statum peculiarem, sed potius,
quantum ab omni societate peculiari abstrahendo, in statu naturali considerari possum; praecipit et hoc
oeconomica, sed ita: cole Deum, ut membrum familiae, sic et Politica; ut membrum civitatis.”
²⁶ See Kant in Perpetual Peace: “After all, war is only a regrettable expedient for asserting one’s rights
by force within a state of nature, where no court of justice is available to judge with legal authority.”
²⁷ Although the first part, General Ethics, concerns three species of duties (Religion, self, and other),
Baumgarten is clear that God is not a determining ground of perfection in ethics, as God cannot be
perfected: “the glory of God posits a reality in you . . . Therefore religion perfects you as an end” (BEP
§11). The determining ground of perfection in religion remains one’s own perfection, of which the
glory of God (i.e. religion) is one grounding element and is necessary for blessedness, which in turn is
necessary for, but not sufficient, for happiness. The distinction between religion and the self is found
therein that in the first, religion posits realities in you that are to be perfected (e.g. your knowledge and
worship of God), whereas in the second this positing occurs through the obligations to one’s own soul
(e.g. cultivating the intellect or perfecting sensitive desire), body (e.g. health), or external state
(e.g. labor).
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the “determining ground of perfection.” The first two chapters of the general
ethics concern the duties to religion and the self, while the third chapter concerns
the duties to “external things.” Baumgarten locates his ethical treatment of just
war in this third chapter. The first and most general duty of the third chapter is to
universal love, which is, as the general love of the best, the eagerness for the best
possible world (BEP §302). The best possible world clearly involves other people,
so this duty quickly leads to a second duty toward others, which is the universal
love for other people, or panphilia (§§304–14). Panphilia intrinsically implies
friendship, and thus the avoidance of enmity (BEP §313). This then in turn
leads to the duty toward peace, which is the locus of his discussion of just war
within the Ethica.
Thus, following the irenic pattern established by Plato, Cicero, Augustine, and
Thomas Aquinas, in answer to the realist paradigm, Baumgarten frames his just
war theory within the framework of love and peace. Yet, his definition of war in no
way mirrors Cicero, Grotius, or Wolff, who all stress contending by force. Rather,
his definition is closer to his Jena-master Köhler, who had defined war as “the state
of persons who are mutually engaged in an efficacious attempt to inflict evil
on one another <bellum est status hominum qui conatu efficaci sibi invicem
inferendi mala feruntur>” (KE §806). Accordingly, Baumgarten’s first definition
of war runs “the state in which one party has resolved to inflict evil on the other
<inimicitia externa hostilitas et bellum quum sit status hominum quo alter alteri
malum inferre decernit>” (BEP §315, cf. note 21 on p. 185 of the translation,
Baumgarten 2024). However, Baumgarten had revised this definition for the
second and third editions: “external enmity, i.e. hostility and war, is the state of
persons in which one party has declared a resolution of inflicting evil on the other”
(§315).²⁸ This emendation is important as it lines up with Cicero’s insistence that
war be competently declared (De rep. 3:23; 1928, 212). This definition bristles with
technicalities. First, Baumgarten sees war as inflicting evil. Evil is a limitation on
finite reality, which is either necessary, i.e. metaphysical, and involves definition
(e.g. to be a mother is not to be a father), or it is contingent (e.g. a physical
privation like being blind, or a moral privation like murder); cf. BM §§146
and 778. But evil is not the same as harm, which is when a person derogates
one’s own duty to another. Harm is for Baumgarten the only thing that will justify
war, which he will not explain until BIN §144; in BEP §319 Baumgarten indeed

²⁸ In the 2nd and 3rd editions of BEP §315, the Latin of this definition runs “inimicitia externa,
hostilitas et bellum, [est] status hominum quo alter alteri malum inferendi declaratum decretum
habent.” This later formulation closely echoes that found previously in Achenwall: “a declared
statement of inflicting force on the other is called hostility <Propositum declaratum alteri vim inferendi
hostilitas; et is cui est tale propositum hostis nuncupatur>” (AIN I §263). Baumgarten’s most complete
definition runs: “war (hostility, external enmity) is the state of persons within which each party has
declared the resolution of inflicting evils on the other <Bellum (hostilitas, inimicitia externa) est status
hominum quo alter alteri mala inferendi declaratum vterque decretum habent>” (BIN Pr. §161,
emphasis added), a superior definition as it introduces the idea of mutuality.
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exhorts us not to give another the justifying cause of war through harm, but he
never limits harm to the sole justifying cause in that work. Although one is
absolutely obligated to avoid harm, at the same time one can in fact have a
duty to an evil. The latter is covered by Baumgarten’s doctrine of abnegation
(BEP §§238f), whereby one has a duty to an evil that will impede a greater evil,
such as unpleasant medicine for the sake of avoiding a worse illness. Hence for
Baumgarten war is fundamentally an evil that may even be necessary, even
morally so, and is not for that reason something that can be avoided in principle
as pacifism would have it. But war is not by definition harm, again contrary to
pacifism. This is the sense in which Plato, Cicero, Ambrose, and Augustine see
war: as a regrettable way of winning a better peace.
Baumgarten contrasts this definition of war with friendship: “external friends
will be those among whom there is no hostility” (BEP §315). An important, in fact
guiding, distinction within the Initia and the Ethica is that between internal and
external. Roughly, internal has to do with one’s own self as the determining
ground of perfection, and external with the other as the determining ground of
perfection. That is: internal duties involve perfecting oneself, and external duties
both perfecting others and perfecting one’s own nexus with others. In this context,
peace means nothing more than the absence of hostility, which, as we have seen,
Baumgarten terms “external friendship” (BEP §315), as opposed to the higher
perfection of mutual internal friendship, which is when two parties mutually
admire the perfections of each other. Thus, external peace is simply enough love
(i.e. admiration of perfection, BEP §308) to avert hostility, and does not require
any inner conversion. For Baumgarten, we have a duty to this external perfection,
a duty to be peaceful, and to effect peace, as it is a perfection, since we have a duty
to seek perfection in all things, both internally and externally (BEP §301). As such,
the human has a duty to be a pacificus, a peacemaker; consequently, the human
has a duty to being a mediator insofar as it is possible (BEP §315), which is to
say, to encourage and maintain peace among others, not just between oneself
and others.
Being a peacemaker means to eschew harming anyone. The specific duty here
follows from the right of nature, whose premise is the duty to give each one’s own
(BIP §93). Hence, to harm someone is to transgress this duty to give each one’s
own: “ ‘in the natural state, harm nobody externally’ is the first principle of the
whole of the right of nature” (BEP §316). This duty leads to the virtues of justice
and innocence. Justice is when one actually attributes to each one’s own (BEP
§317), and innocence is the bearing whereby one harms nobody (BEP §319). Since
harm is the only justifying cause of war, innocence likewise demands that one
avoid providing the pretext for war by harming others, either internally or
externally. Innocence, though, must not be confused with naivety (“simplicity in
a bad sense,” BEP §319). Baumgarten accordingly defines injury as an evil emer-
ging from harm (BEP §320). Hence, if one injures another, one is obligated
254  

to make good on that injury as soon as possible, either by restitution or by

satisfaction (BEP §320). One must even avoid, as much as possible, causing
imaginary harms, and learn how to deal with those who are too quick to anger
(Baumgarten calls such a person a homo sensibilis, i.e. touchy, or the iracundus):
“The touchier someone is, the more cautiously will the friend of peace move about
him when he must have commerce with a person of this sort” (BEP §321). The
peacemaker has another role: before a war, the peacemaker is to attempt to
dissuade one party from harming, and even merely apparently, the other; to
recommend reparations from the harming party; to excuse the harming party,
either by exculpating that party (demonstrating their innocence) or by arguing
that the harms are not as serious as the harmed party takes them to be; and to
recommend forgiveness to the harmed party, which is to say dissuading the
harmed party from vindication, vengeance, and punishment (BEP §322). The
opposite to the peacemaker is the scandalmonger, and the reader will find
Baumgarten’s contrasting taxonomy of such likewise in BEP §322.
The peacemaker is also to avoid taking something as harmful to oneself that in
fact is not harmful (BEP §324). Here the distinction between offense and harm is
quite important; one can be offended but not harmed. One should also not
exaggerate true harms, and gentleness is this proficiency of not being overly
sensitive to harms. However, this is not to be confused with apathy or foolishness
(BEP §323), since one is in fact obligated to repel true harms to oneself, and in
some cases even to subdue the harming party, albeit temperately in both repelling
and subduing (BEP §324). This temperance is called mildness (animus mitis), and
the obligation to this perfection is a moral and not a legal demand. Hence, in
agreement with Wolff, the repelling of evils per se might not be just, especially if
they are deserved and should be accepted for reasons of what Baumgarten calls the
“mild patience of injuries”: “mildness utterly does not repel direct injuries against
oneself whose repulsion one sees to be a certain impediment of greater goods for
oneself or others . . . and which one foresees to be certain impediments of greater
evils either for oneself or others” (BEP §325). Hence, the mild person does not
forcibly defend injuries against one’s own person or property that in fact would be
more evil to defend than the evil inflicted by the injury, nor should the mild
person forcibly defend against injuries whose commission in fact prevents greater
evils (BEP §325). However, mildness does not eschew force and rather simply
depends on the Ciceronian injunction to use force in the last resort:

Leniency, when it is compelled to repel injuries by itself, and this without force,
can be sufficiently furnished with very stern means and does not descend to
force: if force is necessary, an enemy is made, an external foe (BEP §§324, 315);
it prevents, defends, and avenges strenuously but not violently <vehementer>
(BM §699) with internal enmity (BEP §314), not only within (externally) just but
also (internally) fair limits (BEP §§324, 315), and also from within internal
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innocence (BEP §319), the flight from satisfying one’s own vindictiveness (BEP
§322), and gentleness (BEP §323) in the midst of arms, and indeed always having
peace in mind (BEP §315). (BEP §326)

As we will see in BIN, Baumgarten will explain each of these three actions
(prevention, defense, and avenging) as some form of defense. But let us notice
in anticipation that this trio is not isomorphic with those of Grotius and Wolff.
In sum: we are obligated to leniency (lenitas), which for Baumgarten is the
perfection comprising innocence, gentleness, mildness, and placability (BEP
§327). This is even more the case when our enemy is drawn to harm us due to
the “privilege of necessity,” which is to say along with Achenwall, when the
aggressor “has a certain moral ability to ignore a perfect duty in order not to
perish” (APIN §145).

VI

Just war in BIN. As we saw above, Wolff had claimed that the only justifying cause
of war is iniuria; Baumgarten sees it in laesio. The distinction is purely verbal for
Baumgarten’s Jena-master Köhler: his Exercitationes repeats the phrase injuria vel
laesio here and there, and the index entry for iniuria begins “see laesio.”
Baumgarten agrees, defining “iniuria” in its widest sense as “any sort of harm
<iniuria latissime est laesio quaecunque>” (BIN §112), and laesio as “that which is
opposed to a duty toward somebody <laesio est oppositum officii erga aliquem>,”
where “somebody” is defined as “God, myself, or another person” (BIN §148).
Baumgarten thus formulates the ius laesi, “a right of the harmed,” which is to
“extort reparation” from the one who harms (BIN §123). Whoever has a right to
the end has a right to the means (remedia) (BIN §126). Complete means are those
that are proportionate, i.e. they are as great as is necessary to achieve the end (i.e.
reparation) (BIN §128). Proportionate means are just, even if they are very harsh;
but they may not be harsher than what is required to obtain the end (BIN §130).
Baumgarten like Grotius and Wolff also sees three just cases for war, but he
explicitly refines Wolff ’s bipartite structure of a past inuria facta and future
iniuria facienda into a more complete temporal structure: “Since only harm to
oneself is a justifying cause for a war that is to be taken up by you, and since, like
all actual things in this universe, this harm however can be present, future, or past:
hence there is a threefold justifying cause of war” (BIN §144).²⁹ This is an
innovation, since Köhler like Wolff gives a two-fold temporality: “since harm is
either present or future, i.e. imminent, we conceive of a two-fold cause of just war

²⁹ “Sola laesio tui quum belli sit caussa iustifica a te suscipiendi haec autem vt actualia huius vniuersi
omnia vel praesens sit vel futura vel praeterita triplex hinc enascitur belli caussa iustifica.”
256  

(§1092), which is to say, suffering a harm that either has been inflicted upon us or
is still to be, i.e. one that is imminent” (KE §1109).³⁰ Before we turn to the
temporality, let us first note here that Baumgarten writes laesio tui, which goes
further than Köhler, who writes “harm is the justifying cause of war <laesio sit
causa belli justifica>” (KE, Diss. Prol. §29),³¹ and Achenwall, who likewise writes
“only a harm is a justifying cause of coercion <sola laesio est caussa iustifica
coactionis>” (AIN I, §260; 2020, 93).³² These two both consider laesio simpliciter
as opposed to Baumgarten’s more restricted laesio tui as a justifiable cause. The
consequences of the tui are rather large for Baumgarten; since only harm to
oneself justifies a war, it strictly follows that a harm to others alone does not
justify the taking up of arms: “in this same sense, a war taken up only on behalf of
others constituted in this state together with you is not just, or, at any rate,
mercenary war on behalf of those whom you judge are unjustly waging war”
(BIN §133).³³ Baumgarten’s tui also bans harms against God as a causa iustifica;
thus, like Wolff, his tui bars Grotius’s wars against impiety.
As harm to oneself is the only justifying cause of war, the only just form of war
for Baumgarten is repelling such, which he calls defense. The whole point of
defense is the state of security: “We bring ourselves to the state of security with
regard to someone else if we have activated as many and as great physical
impediments to the harm that he will attempt against us such that it is morally

³⁰ “Cum laesio vel praesens vel futura seu imminens sit, duplicem concipiemus causam belli justificam
(§1092), nimirum laesionem vel illatam vel adhuc nobis perferendam seu imminentem.” Note that
Köhler is ambiguous, slipping between the present (laesio praesens) and the past (laesionem . . . illatam).
This an ambiguity that Baumgarten cleans up.
³¹ In KE §1092, Köhler makes clear that harm is the only justifying cause: “There can therefore be no
other just cause for undertaking war than violation of one’s own (§1091). Now, since a violation of this
kind is called a harm or injury, injury strictly considered alone is the justifying cause of war, i.e. that
cause which causes a war to be taken as just <Causa itaque justa belli suscipiendi nulla esse alia potest
nisi violatio του suum cuique (§1091). Jam cum violatio ejusmodi dicatur læsio seu injuria (§764), causa
belli justifica, quæ efficit, ut bellum habeatur pro justo, sola læsio stricte dicta est>.”
³² The closest I am aware of that Achenwall comes to defining war is “since a nation is a free person,
a nation in a just war has the right to all the coercive means necessary to achieve its right <Quum gens
sit persona libera; genti in bello iusto ius competit in omnia media coactiua, sine quibus ius suum
consequit nequit>” (AIN IV §269; 2020, 197; translation altered here and above to preserve the
vocabulary of the present chapter); the index gives this paragraph as the definition of war. Hence
war is the coercive means for achieving one’s right.
³³ “iustum in eodem non eft hoc significatu susceptum tantum pro aliis tecum in hoc statu constitutis
aut omnino mercenarium pro talibus, quos iniuste bellantes autumas.” Baumgarten’s pro aliis tecum in
hoc statu constitutis indicates a “common harm <communis laesio>” suffered by two or more parties, a
concept which is not found in KE §1092, which BIN §133 glosses. Nevertheless, in his own gloss on KE
§1092, Köhler says that communis laesio is “a common justifying cause of war <communis causa belli
iustifica>” (Köhler 1738, ad §1092, p. 113). Secondly, the brief passage on mercenaries leaves open the
question of whether or not Baumgarten accepts a mercenary war fought on behalf of a just belligerent.
Wolff dedicates a number of paragraphs to the law of mercenary warfare (WIG §765–8), but neither
Köhler nor Achenwall take up the issue of mercenaries, and this is the sole reference in Baumgarten.
Mercenaries are only mentioned in passing in Grotius, but Van Der Mandere suggests that this is
because those are the only soldiers with which Grotius was familiar (1925, 442). In his Perpetual Peace,
Kant speaks lowly of mercenaries, whom he would ban as surely as he did standing armies.
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certain that he will not be harmful” (BIN §124).³⁴ Thus, his threefold system of
temporal justification also delivers a three-fold temporal typology of just war,
which remains solely defensive:

There is an innate right of self-defense, even extortive or violent, for every person
in the natural state against the harm-doer, but not against just anyone who causes
offense. The harm-doer, and so too the offender, consists either in a past harm or
offense, and the defense undertaken against such is called vengeance, which is
not to be confused with vindictiveness; or again consists in a present harm or
offense, and the defense undertaken against such is called defense most strictly
considered; or again consists in a future harm or offense, and the defense
undertaken against such is called prevention. (BIN §149)³⁵

In the first form of defense, i.e. vengeance, we see Baumgarten’s attempt to clean
up an ambiguity in Cicero’s use of vltio which we will see below when we discuss
punishment. For Baumgarten, vengeance (vltio) has the rather restricted meaning
of only “extorting reparation” (BEP §324); in BIN §50, Baumgarten will say
“reparation is the act of adding to what is my own that which the one who
harms had subtracted,” which is consonant with the mathematical strain of his
ethics.³⁶ Reparation is understood in two ways: either as restitution, which is when
the same thing that has been lost is returned, or as satisfaction, which is when the
value of that which has been lost is returned in full (BIN §51).³⁷ This indeed
reflects the classic Roman virtue as extolled by Cicero; a war should seek no more
than to regain what is lost (cf. the repetitis rebus of De Off. 1:36).³⁸ Köhler makes
the standard argument that the right of reparation is “goes to infinity <in
infinitum>,” a legal term which here means that something cannot be determined
in advance, and lasts “until satisfaction has been made for the damage inflicted
<donec ipsi ratione damni illati satisfactum fuerit>” (KE §1079). Baumgarten

³⁴ “In statum plenariae securitatis nos erga hominem redegimus si tot ac tanta impedimenta physica
laesionis ab ipso contra nos tentandae actuauimus vt eum non laesurum moraliter certum fit.” This state
of security toward persons is clearly not the same as the state of security toward God, as described in
BEP §437, which is when a sinner acts with a sense of impunity.
³⁵ “Ius est cuiuis homini connatum in statu naturali defensionis etiam extorquentis etiam violentae
contra laesorem quemcunque non contra offensorem quemcunque. Laesor et offensor nunc est ex laesione
vel offensione praeterita, contra quem suscepta defensio dicitur vltio, non confundenda cum vindicta,
nunc ex praesenti, contra quem suscepta defensio dicitur defensio strictissime dicta, nunc ex futura
contra quem suscepta defensio dicitur praeuentio.”
³⁶ On the mathematical nature of Baumgarten’s thinking in general, see Heidegger (2010, 42–5); see
also my introduction to the translation of the BEP (p. 2), and also note c thereto. See also Buchenau’s
chapter 2 in this volume.
³⁷ “Idem, quod reparando redditur, vel est prorsus idem, tunc reparatio est restititio, vel idem respectu
pretii, s. aesquipollens, et haec reparatio est satisfactio.”
³⁸ Cicero’s sense of justice was particularly offended for instance by Caesar’s treatment of Massilia
(modern Marseilles) and the Aduatuci in that Caesar sought gain and conquest and thus exceeded any
idea of vltio (see Lockwood 2022).
258  

qualifies Köhler’s infinite right, in some detail: “the right of the injured to extort
reparation, (§54) is given to him infinitely, which is to be understood as indefinite
in the natural state, because it weighs (1) the amount of damage, and hence (2) the
amount and (3) manner (§57) of the reparation (§50) to be assessed, (4) and the
manner, place, and time of restitution, which is defined and determined by
external law, and no one beyond the injured party accordingly has the right to
be able to compel someone’s acquiescence by extortion” (BIN §123).³⁹ “Thus,”
says Baumgarten, “let nobody dream that the right of the injured against the
harm-doer is either really infinite, or at least that the use of the same would be
defined and limited by no counsel of conscience” (BIN §123).⁴⁰ Note that this
passage again stresses that one can only defend against harms to oneself.
The second case of just war, which is against present harm, is “defense most
strictly considered” (BIN §149). Typically, Baumgarten gives a layered definition
of defense, ranging from the broadest to the strictest. Defense most broadly
speaking is “the endeavor (1) to hold onto what is good and (2) to repel what is
evil,” i.e. “taking precautions against evils” (BIN §145). More broadly speaking, it
is an “action against another person that repels evils” but more strictly speaking
defense “repels harms.”⁴¹ And thus when an action is taken to repel present harm,
as opposed to past or future harm, and certainly harm but not mere offense, we
have defense most strictly spoken.
Likewise, the third and last form of just war is also a form of defense: preven-
tion. Its temporal ekstase has its own particular difficulty, as unlike a harm that has
occurred, or one that is occurring, it is merely one that is to occur. But that it is to
occur does not imply that it will certainly occur, and hence future harm can only
be judged according to probability. Just as it is wrong to defend oneself against
those who have not harmed, or are not harming, it is also wrong to defend against
those who will not in fact harm (BIN §151). Thus, as the BIP stipulates concerning
imputation of deed, we must apply the fitting degree of probability, and hence
must thus be “moral certainty,” which today we understand under the formula
“beyond reasonable doubt” (BIP §143; see also notes 261 and 262 thereto in the
translation, Baumgarten 2024). “Although it can never be completely certain that
one person will hurt another in the future, the harm, be it either imminent or not,
can be truly and genuinely probable, and through various degrees of certain

³⁹ “Laesi ius extorquendi reparationem, (§54) illi tribuitur in infinitum, quod intelligas indefinitum in
statu naturali, quia (1) quantum damni , et hinc pendens (2) quantum reparationis (§50) taxandi, (3)
huius modum (§57), (4) reposcendi modum, locum, tempus externo iure definiendi, determinandique
nemo ius extra laesum ita habet, vt ipsum ad acquiescendum extorquendo compellere possit (§§22, 23).”
⁴⁰ “Ne quis ergo hinc somniet ius laesi contra laesorem vel realiter infinitum vel saltim nullis
conscientiae consiliis definiendum et circumscribendum eiusdem vsum.”
⁴¹ The final chapter in the published work is “The Right of Defense Most Strictly Considered,” but,
as noted above, he was not able to go beyond the first paragraph (§157) before ill health intervened. BIN
§157 comments on K §1116; there Köhler is interested in allowing the defender, whom he defines as
“the one who will be harmed <laedendus>,” the right of proportionate violent response. On violence,
see below.
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futurity, as long as it is morally certain to the one who will defend; this grants the
right of prevention to this person” (BIN §153).⁴² Hence, it is not defense more
strictly considered to inflict force on those concerning whose harmfulness one
finds, or should find, dubious, or improbable, and thus such prevention is unjust
(BIN §154).⁴³ And finally, even though any preventive act of defense comes before
the harm, Baumgarten still considers the future aggressive act to be the shot across
the bow:

For those who are morally certain about it in the state of nature, there is a right of
prevention against a future harm to oneself, even extortive, violent, or hostile (§150).
Now, the first harm, i.e. the first act of aggression more strictly speaking or the
first hostility that will cause harm is the future harm; therefore, it is what grants the
right of prevention more strictly speaking to those morally certain about the same in
the state of nature, that is, the right of defense before the first harm. (BIN §156)⁴⁴

Whether most broadly or most strictly speaking, and everything between,

defense can employ either milder means (i.e. those that are less evil to the other
party than other means, BEP §324), or threats or persuasions including fear, to
compel the unwilling behavior of the offender. But it can also do so by forcibly
repelling force in general, or forcibly repelling the harmful force of an offender
(BIN §146). The first forcible case here is merely defense more broadly speaking,
since, as we have seen, defense more strictly speaking truly only repels harms.
Hence, all three forms of defense (vengeance, defense most strictly considered,
and prevention) are in fact species of the only moral form of defense, which is
defense more strictly speaking (BIN §152).⁴⁵ This is an innovation in Baumgarten,
which we find neither in Köhler nor in Achenwall.⁴⁶
But in whatever case, to repel force with force is, in Köhler’s terms, a violent or
extortive defense (BIN §146). Baumgarten here says that an extortive and violent

⁴² “Laesio hominis in hominem futura quum nequeat vnquam esse complete certa, possit esse
probabilis vero et genuino significatu, variosque per gradus moraliter certae futuritionis siue sit haec
imminens siue minus modo sit certa moraliter defensuro huic dat ius praeuentionis.” Wolff too warns us
against considering an injury imminent on the grounds that it is not impossible: “Etenim iniuria
nondum spectari potest ut facienda quia non impossibilis” (WIG §640, Zusatz).
⁴³ “Vis illata illi de quo dubium aut improbabile est eum esse laesurum non est iusta defensio strictius
dicta hinc nec iusta praeuentio.”
⁴⁴ “Contra laesionem sui futuram de eodem <sic> moraliter certis in statu naturali ius est praeuentionis,
etiam extorquentis, etiam violentae, etiam hostilis. lam prima laesio primus aggressionis strictius dictae
actus, prima laesura hostilitas est laesio futura, ergo de eadem moraliter certis in statu naturali dat ius
praeuentionis strictius dictum quod est ius defensionis ante primam laesionem.” Reading eodem as eadem.
⁴⁵ “Sola caussa belli iustifica eft defensio strictius dicta iusta, vel vltio vel defensio strictissime dicta vel
praeuentio.”
⁴⁶ Achenwall never thematizes defense as the sole just cause: “Thus violence is licit and war is
rightful if its aim is indemnity, self-defense, security for the present and for the future, §267, 271. The
rightfulness of war is thus extended in the strictest sense as far as the rights to indemnity, self-defense
and security reach” (AIN I §272).
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defense can be unjust, which is when it repels offense most simply speaking, or an
attacking force but one that does no harm, and repels harm with the harshest
force, whereas it is always just when it uses the “mildest of the most proportionate
means for averting harm <remediorum proportionatorum ad auertendam laesio-
nem mititissimum>” (BIN §147).⁴⁷ He is here clarifying Köhler’s claim: “If there-
fore, we endeavor to inflict violent evil on another with the intention of being able
to avert an imminent harm to ourselves, we are said to defend, insofar as this term
is taken most strictly” (KE §1111).⁴⁸ Baumgarten clearly explicates Köhler’s
term violentia as just when force is proportionately arrayed against harm. One
looks in vain for any definition of violentia, and likewise its adjective violentus,
in Grotius,⁴⁹ Wolff, Köhler, and Achenwall, although none shy away from using it
uncritically according to its common usage.⁵⁰ Perhaps Achenwall’s use best
sums up the word’s ambiguous literary reception in this tradition: “now if one
of two parties uses violence <violentiam> and the other tries to avert it with force
<vi> . . .” (AIN I §264).⁵¹ Achenwall, like the tradition before him, clearly takes
violence as a synonym for force. However, we saw that above in BEP §326,
Baumgarten explicitly rejects violence—but not force—as belonging to just war.
Baumgarten in fact is unique in offering a distinction between violence, i.e.
violentia, and force, i.e. vis.⁵² He scarcely uses the term violence, clearly finding it
unsatisfactory. Although he indeed used violentia in the first three editions of the
BM, he programmatically replaced it with coactio, “constraint,” as of the fourth

⁴⁷ See Wolff, who, in his Institutiones iuris naturae et gentium, had limited force in the following
manner: “and since war is waged for the purpose of protecting and obtaining one’s right, in war it is
permissible to use as much force as is required for the achievement of one’s right and to overcome
resistance by just force. And in this way the lawful acts in war are distinguished from the unlawful <Et
cum bellum geratur juris sui tuendi ac consequendi causa; in bello tanta vi uti licet quanta ad
consecutionem juris sui & superandam resistentiam vi justa factam requiritur. Et hoc modo actus in
bello liciti ab illicitis distinguuntur>” (Wolff 1754, §159).
⁴⁸ “Si alteri nos laesuro malum violentum eo animo connitamur ut laesionem imminentem a nobis
avertere possimus nos defendere dicimur quatenus hic terminus arctius sumatur.”
⁴⁹ Grotius at least twice defines vis, force, as taking the law into one’s own hands, which he notes is
forbidden by civil law (e.g. GDIB Bk 1, Ch. 3, Sect. 1, §2), but then says that according to natural law it is
permissible when one has no other means to protect one’s life according to the right of nature (GDIB
Bk 1, Ch. 3, Sect. 2, §1).
⁵⁰ However, Grotius, in his historical answer to the question of whether war could ever be just, is quite
careful to discuss vis and not violentia. He takes his guide from Cicero’s definition of war “decertandum
unum per vim,” quotes his rhetorical question “quid est quod contra vim fieri sine vi possit?,” and
approvingly notes Ulpian’s “vim vi repelle licere Cassius scribit” (GDIB Bk 1, Ch 2, Sect. 2, §6).
⁵¹ “Quodsi duorum alter violentiam adhibet alter eamdem vi repellere molitur . . .”
⁵² Thomas Aquinas also comes close to this distinction and with very similar language; but he never
explicitly contrasts the terms as far as I can tell. He refers to the justified constraint of the state as vis: Cf.
ST I–II.90.3, ad 2: “A private person cannot lead another to virtue efficaciously: for he can only advise,
and if his advice be not taken, it has no constraining force <vim coactivam>, such as the law should
have, in order to prove an efficacious inducement to virtue, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. x. 9). But this
constraining force is vested in the whole people or in some public personage, to whom it belongs to
inflict penalties.” And concerning violence, he writes “violence directly opposes the free will, and nature
<violentia directe opponitur voluntario, sicut enim et naturali>”—“whence it is contrary to the nature
<rationis> of the will’s own act that it be compelled or violated <Unde contra rationem ipsius actus
voluntatis est quod sit coactus vel violentus>” (ST I.II.6.4).
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edition, which Kant used, for example in BM §714 (however, this change was not
effected in the index, where violentia remains). Constraint simply means to effect
another’s action against their wishes (again, BM §714), so this seems to be
Baumgarten’s early and unqualified understanding of violence. Violentia itself
stems from violatio, and violatio denotes injury, as does its English cognate
“violation.” We are forbidden from causing injury, and thus from violence:
“nobody is to be harmed <nemo est laedendus>” (KE §768; repeated in BIN
§150); “you shall harm nobody <neminem laedas>” (BIP §92); but we are also
obligated to repelling injury mildly, and even when applying force. Thus, contrary
to the tradition both preceding and following him, force and violence, when
strictly understood, cannot be synonyms, for the former maps strictly onto evil,
while the latter onto the nexus of harm and injury. Now, in BM §699, to which
Baumgarten refers above, he had defined the violent person, i.e. the vehemens, as
“being faulty in excess” in the use of force, whereas the one who correctly uses
one’s force is strenuous (and the deficient one is weak). Thus, for Baumgarten,
violence is disordered, i.e. excessive, force. It is vicious in Aristotle’s sense. Violence
is then an illicit species of force, as is pacifism (deficient force); the proportionate
use of force is justice. Thus mildness, although it may resort to force, must eschew
violence. As such, mildness may seek vengeance, but only within fair limits and
thus must eschew vindictiveness; such a person is placable (placabilis) (BEP §326).
So, in the BIN, the concept of a putative just violence⁵³ in fact corresponds to
the Metaphysics’s constraint or strenuous use of force—the posthumous BIN,
which Baumgarten never polished for publication, is the only remaining place
in the Baumgarten corpus where the family of words indicating violence is
interpreted so positively or broadly: “Physical evils are those that are either
recognized as such by the very judgment of the senses by the one in whom they
belong or are inferred. If evils of the senses, or more distressing phenomena, arise
in any person due to the force of another person, these are indeed said to be the
result of this person’s force simply speaking, or violence” (BIN Pr. §172).⁵⁴ “Force
simply speaking <vis simpliciter>” is the key term here, for this indicates that force
is only to be called violence when we take force without qualification, or most
broadly. For, as we’ve seen, ethics forbids us not from inflicting evils, which is
forceful constraint, but from inflicting harms, which constitutes violence. This
lesson stretches back to Plato’s Republic and Laws (among other places). In fact,
Baumgarten argues that this precept goes beyond right itself and is among the
first principles of “the whole of practical philosophy” (BIP §92). Harm is a

⁵³ I have argued elsewhere against Weigel that the concept of just violence is an oxymoron, since, as
excessive, violence per se is disordered force. Please see my “Regrounding the Just War’s ‘Presumption
Against Violence’ in Light of George Weigel” (Hymers 2004).
⁵⁴ “Mala physica vel ipso iudicio sensuum agnoscenda pro talibus ab illo, cui insunt, vel inferuntur,
mala sensus sunt. Mala sensus tristiora phaenomena si oriantur alicui homini per vim alterius hominis,
ea quidem huius vis simpliciter seu violentia, dicuntur.”
262  

transgression or violation of law, i.e. violence, and “is the opposite of duty”
(BIP §83), repeated in BIN Pr. § 148.⁵⁵ And just as defense more strictly con-
sidered attempts to prevent harm, offense more strictly considered causes harm
(even if more broadly speaking offense can be understood along with Wolff simply
as inflicting evil). Baumgarten thus greatly nuances Wolff ’s concept of a just
offensive war. Offense more broadly speaking is to inflict an evil on another, but
more strictly speaking, it is to inflict harm (BIN §145). Thus, although offense
more broadly speaking may be just (e.g. a just war of prevention), offense more
strictly speaking is always unjust (BIN §148), a conclusion that Köhler also
reaches on the same grounds (KE §1124–5). More strictly speaking, offense is
aggression, and violent in the stricter sense as it harms, or intends such. So, when
Baumgarten uses the term violentia simply or without qualification, he uses it in
Köhler’s uncareful sense to mean to inflict a constraining evil (which is also its
original meaning in BM). But when he understands violence in a qualified sense,
which for him is a stricter and even strictest sense, he understands it as inflicting
harm—which of course again is forbidden.

VII

Punitive war in Baumgarten. The idea that punishment is a justifying cause of war
is moribund today, although thinkers like George Weigel are trying to resurrect it;
see for instance his “Moral clarity in a time of war” (Weigel 2003). As I noted
above, the relevant sections of the UN charter make no mention of punishment
but only of aggression. International convention in fact currently holds that
punishment is only to be carried out after a war where necessary, but it does not
justify war, and historically punishment concerns only conduct during war,
as both the International Military Tribunal in Nuremburg (IMTN) and the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) testify.⁵⁶ This
seems to be Walzer’s position as well. Contemporary abhorrence to punitive war is

⁵⁵ In his notes to the Elements, Kant in fact glosses this sentence with laesio personae violentia|
offensio laesio juris (E6505)—“violence, harm to a person | offense, harm to right.” In BIN Pr. §148,
Baumgarten writes “Harm is opposed to the duty to someone: (1) to God, (2) to myself, (3) to another
<Laesio est oppositum officii erga aliquem, (1) Dei, (2) mei ipsius, (3) alius>.” With respect to the other,
this harm is either internal (opposed to internal duty) or external (opposed to external duty).
Baumgarten considers the second, external harm to harm strictly considered (BIN Pr. §148).
⁵⁶ The IMTN considered the crime of aggression (the crime of war) to be the most serious charge.
Although individual Germans were indeed held accountable punitively for crimes against humanity
(specifically for the Holocaust), crimes against Jews prior to 1939 (i.e. the beginning of hostilities) were
not imputable; cf. Mouralis 2019, 25. On the other hand, the ICTY nowhere addresses aggression, but
instead is concerned strictly with “serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in
the territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991” (Updated Statute Of The International Criminal
Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia 2009, art. 1). The specific crimes—murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, political, racial and religious persecution, and
other inhume acts—are listed in art. 5; art. 9 clarifies the no crimes before Jan. 1, 1991 are prosecutable.
         263

also demonstrated by a negative: the Iraq war of 2003 itself was so very contro-
versial precisely because it was not widely seen as a defensive war (and even
Weigel tried to stay within the defensive-war paradigm by painting the then-
imminent invasion as defensive on the grounds that Iraq’s supposed possession of
WMD made it a de facto, if not de iure, aggressor). Nevertheless, the US
Congress’s Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of
2002 included among its justifications non-compliance with international treaties,
and the mistreatment of its own population. Hence, Washington justified the
war—at least partially—on punitive grounds.⁵⁷
Weigel and others (e.g. Langan 1984) register slight surprise that our age has
abandoned punishment as a causa justifica. We saw above that both Grotius and
Wolff permit punitive war.⁵⁸ However, the idea that a just war can be punitive
seems to go back as far as Cicero, the co-father of the just war tradition alongside
Plato. Cicero indeed held that the overarching just cause of a war is to live in peace
unhindered, which he shares with Plato. However, he also arguably sees punish-
ment as playing some role, as we read in a fragment of De Off. which Isadore of
Seville preserves: “those wars that are undertaken without a cause are unjust. For
beyond the cause of ulciscendi or repelling an enemy, a just war cannot be waged
<Illa iniusta bella sunt, quae sunt sine causa suscepta. Nam extra ulciscendi aut
propulsandorum hostium causam bellum geri iustum nullum potest>” (Cicero
1869, 309). Ulciscendi can mean either avenging or punishing, and here it is
unclear which Cicero means. But there is no ambiguity in St Augustine, who
famously saw war as primarily punitive, and, as Langan argues, he does so at the
expense of any concept of defense. For Augustine, war is necessary for restoring—
or at least shoring up—the moral order, not protecting national interests.
Although Augustine never delivers a comprehensive declaration of the ius ad
bellum, he nevertheless writes: “It is generally to punish [evils], when force is
required to inflict the punishment, that, in obedience to God or some lawful
authority, good men undertake wars” (Contra Faustum 22: §74, quoted in Langan
1984, 22).⁵⁹ Augustine saw war as the engine of history, like Heraclitus. But unlike
Heraclitus, he saw history as God’s plan. And hence war for Augustine is prov-
idential punishment. Here he is strikingly different than his patron Ambrose, the

⁵⁷ The best overview of a possible renaissance of punitive just war in the early twenty-first century is
O’Driscoll 2008, chapter 3. O’Driscoll takes the Iraq War of 2003 as its point of departure.
⁵⁸ See Luban 2011 for a comprehensive philosophical overview of the history of punitive just war.
⁵⁹ There is ambiguity in Augustine’s position though; he seems to argue for sovereign authority and
defense in Contra Faustum: “A great deal depends on the causes for which men undertake wars, and on
the authority they have for doing so; for the natural order which seeks the peace of mankind, ordains
that the monarch should have the power of undertaking war if he thinks it advisable, and that the
soldiers should perform their military duties in behalf of the peace and safety of the community”
(Augustine 1887, 22:§75). That is, here he argues not for the punishment of wrongdoers, but the
defense of the natural order. Langan quotes this passage too, but sees in it only the question concerning
authority, not defense (1984, 23).
264  

founder of the Christian just war tradition (Swift 1970, 532), who held war was
only justified if it was defensive.⁶⁰
Defense in its three forms provides an exhaustive account of just war for
Baumgarten. Although various writers have long lists of what justifies war, and
Augustine among others even suggests such justifications as divine command
and, like Cicero, defense of honor, Baumgarten never strays beyond his three
temporal forms of defense. Thus, absent from his list of justifications is punish-
ment, which practically every just war writer prior to Baumgarten accepts (an
extremely abbreviated list includes Augustine, Cicero, Grotius, and Wolff); as
such, Baumgarten seems to be among the first notable just-war thinkers to
have struck punishment from the list of causae belli justificae, especially in the
modern period. Grotius, as we saw above, had in fact cemented punishment as a
justification when he claimed that defense, vengeance, and punishment are
accepted by most authorities, without noting the dissenting voices. Köhler how-
ever nowhere seems to discuss punitive warfare, and his sole example of punish-
ment within the context of war concerns the necessity to punish soldiers to
preserve military structure.⁶¹ This absence in Köhler explains its complete absence
from Baumgarten’s commentary, the BIN, which nowhere mentions punitive war.
Rather, he is content to give defense as the exclusive cause, and thereby excluding
all other forms.
But although punitive war is missing explicitly in the texts of both Köhler and
Baumgarten, it is there implicitly. Their works make punitive war impossible
beyond defense taken exclusively, and do so on the grounds that there is no
proper framework for punishment within the right of nature. For, Köhler writes:

In the state of nature nobody is superior. And thus, there is nobody superior in
that state to another, so to speak, who can carry out an evil that is connected with
those actions of his that are to be avoided or carried out. If that evil is called
punishment more strictly considered, in that same state nobody can punish
another. (KE §919)⁶²

⁶⁰ “Ambrose also follows the Roman tradition in spelling out the conditions that must govern the
right to war. These include the provisions that every conflict be defensive in nature (De Off. Min.
1.27.129; cf. 35.I76–7, 4I.201), that agreements be honored (De Off. Min. 2.7.33; cf. 3.14.86–7), that no
unfair advantage be taken of the enemy (De Off. Min. 1.29.139), and that mercy be exhibited to the
defeated (De Off. Min. 3.14.87; f. In Luc. 5.76, In Ps. 38. II). Within such limits war could be considered
not only justifiable but praiseworthy” (Swift 1970, 533).
⁶¹ “What is the proportion between the punishment of hanging and the rape committed by a soldier
and considered in itself? But you will understand the justice of military laws once you compare the deed
of the soldier with the danger into which the army is thrown by the violation of the command <quæ
proportio inter poenam suspendii & rapam a milite ablatam & in se spectatam? sed justitiam legum
militarium concipies si factum militis cum periculo in quod a violatione mandati conjicitur exercitus
comparaveris>” (KE §1119).
⁶² “In statu naturali nullus datur homo superior. Nullus itaque in eodem statu tanquam superior
alteri potest repræsentare malum connexum cum illius actionibus fugiendis vel expediendis. Quod
malum si dicatur poena strictius dicta in eodem statu nemo alterum punire potest.” On the superior
         265

Glossing this paragraph, Baumgarten says that punishment only refers to

law strictly considered: “punishing <punitio> is the actual imposition <connexio>
of punishment <poenae> strictly determined by law upon the condemned”
(BIN §24).⁶³ That is to say, punishment depends on the legally determined right
of a sovereign power in whose name a magistrate can impute a crime, judge a
criminal, and assign a fitting punishment: “someone having the right to declare
what is right either has it through a supreme authority and is a judge, or not
through a supreme authority, and is an arbitrator <Ius iuris dicundi habens vel
habet illud per imperium et est iudex vel non per imperium et est arbiter>”
(BIN §21).⁶⁴ But there can be no arbitrator in the state of nature because there
is no agreement (pactitium) that anybody is obligated to recognize any other’s
judgments (BIN §6 and 22), and there can be no judge in the state of nature
because there is no supreme authority (BIN §23). War, however, strictly belongs
to the right of nature (BIN Pr. §166), in agreement with Köhler (KE §809–10) and
the entire natural-right tradition—including Grotius. Thus, since there is by
definition no obligation to acknowledge another’s judgments in the state of
nature, and since there is no supreme authority or sovereign right in the state of
nature, war cannot justly be used as an instrument of punishment. Hence: “in the
state of nature nobody is condemned, and nobody has the right of punishing
another” (BIN §24).⁶⁵ Baumgarten grants that natural laws have natural punish-
ments (cf. BIP §115f, esp. §118–21), but nowhere does he grant that crimes against
natural laws strictly spoken justify human chosen punishment; rather, natural
punishments accompany natural laws, divine punishments divine laws, and cho-
sen punishments positive law (BIP §120).
However, Grotius had already dismissed this argument of civil jurisdiction,
claiming that the jurisdiction of kings was universal when it comes to crimes
against nature, and against the right of nations (GDIB Bk. 2, Ch. 20, Sect. 40),
since nature under the guise of the social instinct, and without any need of civil
jurisdiction, establishes the right of punishment as a means for preserving society,
which he had established near the beginning of his prologue (GDIB Prol. §8).⁶⁶

and inferior, see BIP §105: “The legislator strictly considered is a human being who has the right to give
laws strictly considered for other human beings; with respect to the laws and to the human beings that
are to be obligated, the same person is a superior strictly considered (a commander, a lord), since the
superior broadly considered is everyone who is more honoured. A human being for whom there is a
superior strictly considered is, with respect to him, an inferior strictly considered (a subject, a
subordinate, a servant), since the inferior broadly considered is he who is less honoured.”
⁶³ See also AIN II §40 for a similar position. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
(2011) follows this, holding that there is nullum crimen sine lege (Part 3, art 22) and especially that there
is nulla poena sine lege (Part 3, art. 23).
⁶⁴ A distinction not found in Achenwall. Köhler refers to both the arbiter and the iudex, but only
alludes to the distinction that Baumgarten so clearly derives.
⁶⁵ Cf. Hobbes: “Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice”
(Leviathan, xiii.13; Hobbes 1985, 188).
⁶⁶ Hence it is strange when Van Der Mandere claims that Grotius rejected war as a judicial means
and located it only within the preservation of the right to exist (1925, 442).
266  

The right to punish emerges from the nature of the crime (GDIB Bk. 2, Ch. 20,
Sect. 2, §3); the criminal, as it were, has voluntarily submitted oneself to the
punishment. Grotius indeed grants that although the right of nature grants the
right of punishment, it does not say precisely who should have it, but nevertheless
the right of nature suggests that it be granted to superiors, and in carrying out a
criminal act, the criminal necessarily makes oneself inferior (GDIB Bk. 2, Ch. 20,
Sect. 3, §1).⁶⁷ This is more an act of hand waving than a strong argument, for it
glosses over precisely the point to which Köhler and Baumgarten consistently
cling—in the state of nature there simply are no superiors or judges (KE §919): “in
the natural state,” writes Baumgarten, “there is neither servant, nor commander”
(BIN §11).⁶⁸ Baumgarten simply cannot find punishment in the right of nature,
but rather only the commands to live honorably, harm nobody, and give to each
one’s own.

VIII

Baumgarten’s contemporary importance. What we have seen so far is that the just
war tradition, especially embodied by Grotius’s pre-eminent position in it, but
stretching back to Cicero and going as far as Wolff, had accepted punishment as a
justification of war, and thus had given us a punitive just war tradition. But
something happened in the twentieth century, as embodied in the fullest attempt
that the world has come to implementing a true ius gentium in the guise of the
international order of the United Nations. The world community has, officially at
least, rejected the punitive just war under the exclusive principle of self-defense.
Under the premise of Kant’s intellectual paternity of the UN, this position can and
has been ascribed to Kant, who, 150 years before the articles of the UN were
drafted in 1945, had written in his Perpetual Peace: “but between states no
punitive war (bellum punitivum) is conceivable, because there is no relation
between them of master and servant,” which he repeats practically verbatim in
the Metaphysics of Morals (MS 6:347); Luban (2011, 315) cites this as the intel-
lectual turning point against punitive just war. But as we have seen, this is
essentially a direction quotation from Baumgarten’s BIN §11 And, like Köhler,

⁶⁷ Luban points out that Cajetan likewise wrestles with this question, arguing “that ‘he who has a just
war embodies a judge of proceedings in vindicative justice against foreign disturbers of the common-
wealth’ ” (2011, 315–6). This is essentially the same response as Grotius.
⁶⁸ See Wolff ’s definition of ethics for a clear statement on the egality of the state of nature: “Now,
elsewhere we give another definition of Ethics, that it is the science of directing free actions in the state
of nature, or insofar as a person is the subject of his own right, and subject to the command of no other”
(WDP §64). See also Meier: “Concerning his duties, a person is chiefly thought to be in a two-fold state:
in a natural and in a social state. In the first, one is merely considered as a human being, without being
regarded as belonging to a particular society in which not all humans belong. In the natural condition,
man is regarded neither as a father nor as a son, neither as a master nor as a servant, neither as a lord
nor as a subject” (MPS §2).
         267

Achenwall, and Baumgarten, who all belong to a school that Schwaiger identifies
as the “Young Wolves <jungen Wölfen>” (2011, 115), Kant also sees punitive war
as impossible precisely because of the leveling essential to the state of nature: “up
to the present, Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel, and many other irritating com-
forters have been cited in justification of war, though their code, philosophically
or diplomatically formulated, has not and cannot have the least legal force,
because states as such do not stand under a common external power.” Thus,
Kant dismisses Grotius et al. as paper tigers (“there is no instance on record that a
state has ever been moved to desist from its purpose because of arguments
backed up by the testimony of such great men”),⁶⁹ and, drawing inspiration
from Hobbes (Kant 1997, 339; AA 27:590), insists on the moral necessity of
leaving the state of nature in order to create a federation of nations for the sake
of peace (1991, 98 and 102f.).
Baumgarten’s own treatises on peace have none of the practical geo-political
detail of Kant’s famous argument. No argument for the importance of republican
government, no separation of powers, no popular sovereignty, no call for a league
of nations, and no School of Salamanca-like call for the freedom of movement,
trade, and communication. No real doctrine of international treaties (although the
subject of good faith, fides, is briefly broached in BIN §96–114, esp. in §102–3, and
BEP §347), and no plan to replace standing armies with ad hoc national militias.
But nevertheless, Baumgarten’s view of war is strongly contemporary. Even
though he stays within the state of nature and does not attempt a Kantian
cosmopolitanism, he limits war to harms committed against oneself and thus
strictly and explicitly limits war to self-defense, distinguishes between force and
violence (accepting the latter and rejecting the former), and rejects punitive wars.
That self-defense becomes the sole justification for war in the twentieth century is
rooted in Baumgarten’s concept of the right of nature, even if only indirectly
through Kant. Kant’s influence on the UN and its position on punitive war did not
emerge ex nihilo. This suggests that an intellectual paternity test of the UN Charter
delivers at least some of Baumgarten’s DNA.

⁶⁹ I ignore here the question of whether or not Kant embraces just war. See Orend 2008 for a
discussion of this problem; Orend holds that Kant indeed has a just war theory. See Eberl 2021 for the
opposing position. Kant’s discussion of the “right to war” in MS §56 (6: 152), although it seems to
contradict his argument in the Perpetual Peace that such a right is unimaginable, seems to make Eberl’s
theory untenable. As such, Orend argues that critics simply choose whichever of these two texts proves
their point. Grotius offered his own bleak assessment of his life’s work: “I have wasted my life by taking
great pains to achieve nothing <ah vitam perdidi operose nihil agendo>!” (Fleming 1699, 74, 5n).
 Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy
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Published: June 2024

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Moral Philosophy

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

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 Baumgarten and Kant on the Foundations of Practical Philosophy
Courtney D. Fugate (ed.), John Hymers (ed.)

https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192873538.001.0001
Published: 2024 Online ISBN: 9780191976162 Print ISBN: 9780192873538

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END MATTER

Index 
Published: June 2024

Subject: History of Western Philosophy, Moral Philosophy

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
p. 285
Index

For the bene t of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on
only one of those pages.
abnegation 252–253
Achenwall, Gottfried 15, 159–160, 223–224, 228–232, 235–236, 242, 259–260
action
external 23n.25, 155, 214, 217–218
free 5, 9–10, 31n.62, 42, 47, 62–65, 68, 75–76, 80–83, 94n.10, 94n.12, 96–97, 101, 141–142, 155–156,
164–165, 168, 175–176, 182, 192–193, 205, 217, 224–226, 228, 266n.68
future 3–4, 146, 154–155, 258–259
in conformity with laws 184, 199–200
moral 23–24, 54, 92, 115–116, 123–124, 127–128, 146, 206–207, 233–234
physical 12–13, 143, 154–155
aesthetics 8–9, 17–18, 26–27, 41n.119, 54–55, 58, 108–109, 177–178
agent (free, moral, or rational) 11–12, 51–53, 57, 111, 117, 134–135, 137–139, 151, 174, 184, 205
Aletheophilus 41
Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret 142, 241
anthropology 38n.97, 57, 71n.4, 106, 129, 212n.5
anti-voluntarism 21, 109, 126–127
aporia 120–121, 142–143, 146–149, 154
Aristotle, Aristotelian 28, 141–142, 243–244, 261–262
arithmetic 43–45
armies 256n.33, 264n.61, 267
arms 246–248, 255–257
astronomy 48, 187–188
atheism 96–97, 100, 104–105, 113, 204n.2, 205–206, 246–248, 248n.18, 248n.18
Augustine, St. 246–248, 252–253, 263–264
aversion 25–26, 40n.113, 43–44, 74–75, 79, 82–83, 253, 259–260
belief 24–25, 124, 130
rational 120, 125
blessedness 251n.27
bliss 42, 47–48
body 78, 80–81, 162–164, 168, 174–180, 208, 211–212, 229–230, 251n.27
cause, impelling 3–4, 33, 40, 49–50, 54, 57–58, 78–84, 88–89, 108, 133, 169–170, 204–206, 211–212, 226
certainty
complete, objective 141–143, 148
mathematical 47n.15
moral 41n.115, 44–45, 99–100, 205–206, 258–259
of cognition 14, 25–26, 39–40
of conscience 136
of natural right 210
subjective 152–158
chastity 178–179
choice, free 86, 96–99, 112, 151, 167, 170–171, 191–192, 201, 204–205, 208–209, 212, 214, 216, 219
Cicero 51, 182–183, 183n.3, 245–248, 252–253, 257–258, 260n.50, 263–264, 266–267
coercion 15, 62–64, 170n.9, 205, 225n.4, 227, 229–231, 237–238, 256–257
cognition (knowledge)
dead 11–12, 24–25
 lifeless 25–26
living 7–8, 11–12, 23–27, 40, 108–109, 111
moral 24–26, 182n.2
moving 25–26
rational 111, 223
self-cognition 40–41, 49–50, 139, 175–177
sensitive 26, 189
command 87, 95–96, 125, 127, 130, 175–176, 226–228, 233, 235–236, 266n.68
divine 11–12, 97, 104–105, 113n.11, 124–126, 129–130, 236n.19, 264
moral 233, 235
con ict 10–11, 20–21, 49–50, 133–134, 154–155, 219, 264n.60
conscience 7, 12, 47–48, 129–140, 148, 175–177, 208, 257–258
best 12, 132
light 135
micrological 135, 138
moral 12, 47–48, 53n.36
p. 286 perfect and imperfect 135
proportionate and disproportionate 135
servile 135
consciousness 27, 37–38, 52–53, 123–125
consensus 45–46, 162, 164–165, 226–227
constraint
external 77, 80–81, 85n.31, 86, 205, 220
external moral 81–82, 205
internal moral 81–82, 88–89, 205
moral 63–64, 81–83, 86–89, 205
physical 80–81
self- 3–4, 9–10, 85–86, 172–173, 235n.17
contradiction 44–45, 66, 67n.21, 87, 112, 118, 125, 147, 214–215, 219, 233
cosmology 181, 183n.4, 198–199
cosmopolitanism 15–16, 242n.4, 243–244, 267
court 130, 134–139, 149, 157, 175–176, 207, 251n.26
competent 245–246
civil 208
divine 208
external 12, 131, 208
internal or inner 131, 136, 138–140, 208
International Criminal Court, the 265n.63
crime 122–123, 138, 242, 265–266
against God 248n.18
of aggression 242, 262n.56
of fortune 132
Crusius, Christian August 60n.7, 89n.36, 114, 163–164, 236
culpability 132, 149–151, 243–244
deduction of moral law 117–121
deed 12, 95–96, 130–133, 135–137, 140, 149–152, 155–157, 175–176, 207
external 208
imputation of 131, 155, 258–259
internal 208
Descartes, René 44–46, 48n.19
determination
free 22–23, 33, 54, 63, 78–82, 97–99, 108–109, 155, 162, 169–170, 191–192, 195n.18, 205, 211–212,
226–227
self- 22–23, 75, 117
determinism, psychological 84, 88–89
dignity 52–53, 57
dilemma
Euthyphro 91, 105
moral 133–134, 139–140
Dio Cassius 11–12, 106, 127
displeasure 9–10, 83
duty
conformity to 148–149, 151
ethical 13–14, 134, 159–160, 168–177, 228, 238
exercise of 23–24, 28, 39–40
external 206–207, 210–211, 220, 227–228, 253, 262n.55
false 23n.28, 34
free 220
imperfect 13–14, 57–58, 159–160, 168–172, 174–179, 206–207, 222
internal 32–33, 206–207, 219–221, 227, 253, 262–263
juridical 13–14, 159–160, 170–172, 174–175, 220, 225–226, 228, 231, 238–240
moral 28, 34, 116, 120, 130, 148, 173, 221
perfect 13–14, 169, 170n.10, 171–172, 174, 176–177, 179, 203, 222, 255
supererogatory 171–172
to oneself 13–14, 24, 39–41, 126, 159–160, 166–168, 171–172, 174–178, 219, 222, 225–226
to others 13–14, 39–40, 126, 220, 222, 225–226
to religion 251–252
to God See God, duties to
Eberhard, Johann August 2, 129
economics 42, 60, 250–251
edi cation 24, 39–40, 44n.4
education 163–164, 167, 188
egoism, moral See also solipsism7–8, 36–39
end(s)
established by pure reason 235, 238
external 57
kingdom of 117, 164–165, 183–185, 199–201
natural 179, 185, 201, 224, 231–233, 235
of pure practical reason 235n.17
rational beings as ends in themselves 164–165, 172–173
enemies 250, 254–255, 263–264
Enlightenment, the 18, 21n.17, 24n.32, 38n.101, 41–43, 45–46, 229
Enlightenment, the Pietist 28, 112
enlightenment, moral 25–26, 186–187
Epicurus, Epicureanism 3–4, 163–164, 167
error
avoidance of 155
in imputation 156–157
 moral, or error in moral judgment 49–52, 132, 136–139, 156
theoretical-speculative of God 122–123
ethics
chimerical 8–9, 23, 34
deceptive 23n.28, 34n.76
sexual 178–179
Euclid 45, 51
Eudaimonism 106
Euthyphro See dilemma, Euthyphro
p. 287 experience 5–6, 25–26, 45, 47–48, 61–62, 76–77, 83, 118, 122–125, 148–149, 157, 177–178, 186–187,
189, 191, 193, 197–198
extortion 169–172, 205–206, 209, 255, 257–260
fables 54–55
faculty
appetitive 20n.12, 22, 32n.69, 175–176, 178–179, 211–212
cognitive 22, 56n.43, 189
faculties of the soul 173
inferior cognitive faculties 22–23
of moral judgment 132, 136–138
faith 11–12, 24n.30, 54n.37
good faith 267
philosophy and ethics as known without 5–6, 11–12, 19–20, 32–33, 53, 60, 99–100, 111–112, 191, 210,
225–226
pure, of reason 123
re ecting 124
feeling
disinterested 218
moral 114, 163–164, 167, 175–176, 220–221
of pleasure 118, 163
of respect 57, 70
physical 163–164
ction(s) 94
useful 244n.10, 248–249
nitude, human 8–9, 10n.18, 40–41, 88–89, 100–101, 119, 153–155, 158, 190, 193n.14
formalism, moral 162, 164n.5
fortune 132–133, 215
Francke, August Hermann 7–8, 40
freedom
exercise of 143, 164–165, 172–173
external 14–15, 211–212, 214, 217–219, 222, 231–232
internal 211–212, 214, 217–219
perfection of 168, 200
gnoseology 11–12, 109, 117, 121
God See also postulate of practical reason
as archetypal 190–191, 197, 205–206
celebration of 39n.106
cognition of 11–12, 24, 39–40, 111, 115–116
duties to 11–12, 24, 39–41, 111n.8, 121, 124–127, 195–197, 225–226, 251–252
fear of 242–248
 idea of 120, 124–125, 175
good, the 6–7, 20–21, 28, 49–53, 62–64, 66–67, 73–80, 84, 101–102, 109–110, 161–163, 182–183, 197–
198, 205, 211, 213, 215, 224–225, 234
imperative to commit, do, or furnish the 49–50, 67–69, 101–102, 109–110, 161–162, 210–211, 226–
227, 228n.9, 233–234
unconditional 4n.9, 199–201
goodness, moral 11–12, 110, 162–163, 195n.18, 197–199, 201, 218
Gottsched, Johann Christoph 27, 60–61, 66–67
government 163–164, 167, 221, 267
gratitude 134, 159–160
Grotius, Hugo 15–16, 97, 169, 224–225, 235–236, 242–249, 252–253, 255–256, 259–260, 263–267
ground, determining 3–4, 22, 109–110, 121, 123, 146, 163–164, 173, 183, 190, 196, 198–200, 251n.27, 253
habituation 49–50, 94–95, 205
happiness 3–4, 11–12, 36, 42, 47–48, 51–52, 57, 113, 125, 168, 171–176, 200, 202, 207–208, 211, 215–217,
219–221, 229, 236, 251n.27
of others 36, 126, 167, 171–174, 216–217, 219, 222, 235
relation to ethics 7–8, 11–12, 19–20, 31–32, 49–50, 107, 109–110, 114, 118–120, 122, 130, 163–164, 168,
233
worthiness of 118, 120, 125, 130, 168, 200, 216
harm 15–16, 139–140, 206–207, 228, 243–249, 252–263
culpable 243–244
external 206–207, 210
future 255–259
imperative to harm nobody 210–211, 253–254, 260–261, 265–266
harmony, pre-established 67–68, 190, 208
hatred, penitential 41
heautophilia 36n.90, 175–176
Helvétius, Claude Adrien 167
heteronomy 69, 114, 116
Hobbes, Thomas 21, 66, 108, 167, 225–226, 245n.13, 246n.14, 265n.65, 266–267
holiness 121–123
honesty 123, 131–132
honor, honorableness 37n.94, 52–53, 57, 207–208, 210, 264
God’s honor 37–38
hostility 252–253, 259, 262n.56
humanity
end or right of in one’s own person 168–169, 172–173, 179–180, 217
Hutcheson, Francis 114, 163–164, 167
idolatry 36–37, 246–248, 248n.18
ignorance 132, 145, 153
invincible 246–248
imagination 173, 177–178
immortality 118–119, 177n.14
p. 288 imperative
as Baumgarten’s innovation 7–8, 33–36
categorical 2–4, 11–12, 61–62, 69–70, 87, 117–118, 120–121, 125, 143, 145–152, 161–162, 164–165, 185,
200
hypothetical 2, 69, 125
Kant’s de nition of 85
 moral 7–8, 86, 88, 91–92, 110, 216, 226–227, 233–234
imperfections, one’s own 36, 175–176
impiety, as cause of war 246–248, 255–256
impossible, morally 7–8, 23, 34, 63, 78–80, 133, 143, 155, 161–162
impulse 23–24, 86–88, 148, 215, 220
natural 50–51
sensitive 7–8, 22–25, 33, 173
imputability 132–133, 155
imputation 7, 52–53, 130–135, 139–140, 142, 154–155, 207
moral 12–14, 47–48, 149–152, 155–158
physical 12–13, 151–152, 155–156, 158
incentives 22, 24–25, 27, 33, 40, 78–79, 82–84, 108–109, 123, 148, 212–213
moral 102–103
inclination 20–21, 28, 66–70, 72–73, 85–89, 114n.12, 144–145, 164–165, 167–168, 199–200, 213, 215–219,
221, 233–235
innocence 12, 131–132, 138, 241, 253–255
intellect 61n.8, 74n.14, 87, 94, 136, 243–244, 251n.27
intellectualism 25–27, 186, 192–193, 201–202
irenicism 250
injury 246–248, 253–254, 256n.31, 259n.42, 260–261
judge, the 121, 131, 134–135, 137–138, 140, 149, 265
judgment
best 12, 137
imputational 151–152, 156–157
moral 12–13, 41n.115, 115, 130–132, 135–138, 141–151, 154–156, 164–165, 182, 218, 220–221, 241, 249
practical 148–149, 149n.4, 151
knowledge See cognition
Köhler, Heinrich 3n.5, 7–8, 15–16, 18–19, 21n.19, 30–35, 36n.89–90, 36n.91, 39–40, 52, 94–95, 98n.23,
108, 112, 224n.2, 229, 242n.3, 244n.10, 245n.11, 246–249, 248n.19, 252–253, 255–258, 258n.41, 259–262,
264–267
Lange, Joachim 35–37
law
author of 114, 115n.14, 116, 125–126
Baumgarten’s de nition of 205–206
civil 220, 225n.3, 243–244, 260n.49
criminal 129
conformity to 63, 184, 199–200, 218, 220
divine 113n.11, 191–192, 204n.2, 236, 265
external 206–213, 219–220, 227–228, 250, 258
external moral 209, 227
internal 207–209, 211, 220–221
internal moral 227–228, 248–249
moral 4–6, 11–14, 47–48, 53, 57–59, 62–63, 68–70, 85–89, 103–104, 112–122, 124, 127–128, 132, 138,
145–149, 151, 155, 162–163, 174–176, 181–183, 185–189, 191–192, 199–200, 204–207, 209, 211–212,
214–215, 221, 223–224, 226–233, 236
natural law 2n.3, 4–7, 11–12, 42, 46–48, 49n.23, 52, 57, 91, 96n.20, 107, 113–114, 150–152, 181, 183n.3,
186–188, 191–192, 195–196, 209, 223–224, 229–231, 235–236, 251, 260n.49
natural laws 5, 56–57, 99n.25, 112–115, 191–195, 195n.18, 200–201, 209, 225n.4, 229–231, 235–236,
245–246, 265
 objective laws of reason 71–72, 84–85, 144
physical 202
practical 4, 120–121, 125, 145–146, 164–165, 214, 226, 236–237
positive 99n.25, 112, 191–192, 204n.2, 209–211, 223, 235–236, 239–240, 243–246, 265
unconditional 123
lawgiver See legislator
laxity, moral 34
legislation 113–114, 125, 139
self- 111–120
legislator (lawgiver) 51n.29, 57, 113–117, 120–121, 123–125, 130, 220, 235–236, 265–266
distinct from author of law 114, 115n.14, 116, 126
supreme 126
Leibniz, Gottfried 9–10, 21–23, 27, 30n.58, 36, 43–47, 48n.19, 59n.2, 60–61, 66–68, 70, 75, 108, 185–187,
192, 225–226
Theodicy 60–61, 67, 75–76, 120–121
leniency 138, 254–255
Locke, John 44–46, 182, 224–225
Mandeville, Bernard 163–164, 167
mathematics 42–46, 48–52, 188
of intensive qualities 109, 192–193, 197
mathesis universalis 43–45, 47, 51
matrimony 178–179
maxim 4, 12–13, 53, 59, 85, 115–116, 123, 144–149, 151, 155, 166–167, 170–173, 179–180, 183–185, 193–194,
231–232, 236–237
Meier, Georg Friedrich 2, 23n.28, 24n.30, 25n.35, 25n.37, 26n.40, 30n.57, 31n.59, 34, 35n.87, 36n.91, 43n.2,
49n.26, 51n.32, 52n.34, 54n.37, 54n.39, 59–61, 65, 68, 91n.2, 94–95, 96n.20, 129, 266n.68
p. 289 Mencke, Otto 43–44, 46–47
Mendelssohn, Moses 160
mildness 254–255, 261–262
Montaigne, Michel de 163–164, 167
moral proof 122–123
morality
external 95
internal 94n.12, 95–98, 181–182
natural 96n.20, 101
objective 10–11, 90–105, 198n.20
subjective 10–11, 91–92, 98–102
motives
internal 222
psychological 57
rational 24–25, 33, 79n.22, 108–109, 233
sensuous 3–4
nature
conformity with 226–227
kingdom of 164–165, 184–185, 201
physical 192
state of 243–246, 246n.14, 248–249, 251, 259, 264–267
supersensible 184–185, 202
necessitation 7–9, 11–12, 20–23, 33–34, 54, 59–73, 80–81, 84–89, 108, 116n.17, 117, 173
necessity
hypothetical 80, 193–194
moral 20–21, 33–34, 63–68, 108, 266–267
natural 155, 233
objective 59
physical 193–194
unconditional 57
Neumann, Caspar 44–45
norms 45–46, 56–57, 149, 227
Baumgarten’s de nition of 190
external and internal 206
moral 101, 141, 205–206, 209
natural 192
practical 12–13, 33–34, 100–101, 141–143, 148–150, 152, 154, 156–158
obligation
active 20–21, 33n.70, 108
author of 11–12, 113, 116, 235–236
ethical 11–12, 172–173, 238–239
external 204–205, 209, 227, 238–239
imperfect 229–230
internal 32n.67, 204–205, 220, 227, 238–239, 248–252
juridical 237–239
moral 3–4, 11–12, 19, 22–23, 33–34, 49–50, 55, 60–62, 68, 72n.5, 77n.20, 88–89, 108–109, 111, 114,
126, 130, 226–227, 229, 232
natural 9–10, 62, 71–75, 74n.16, 77–78, 81–83, 88–89, 100, 209, 226, 230–231, 237
passive 20–21, 20n.16, 33n.72, 230–231
perfect 229–231
positive 51n.29, 78, 157, 209
psychologization of 7–8, 11–12, 21, 34, 108–109
unconditional 4n.9
o ense 246–248, 254, 257–262
ontology 6–7, 31, 50–51, 192–193
order
intelligible 119, 121
natural 184, 191, 226–227, 263n.59
Osawa, Toshiro 72n.7, 110–111, 124
paci sm 241, 252–253, 260–261
peace 15–16, 245–246, 248–255, 263–264, 266–267
peacemaker 253–254
perfection
as agreement 109, 186–188, 190, 198
determining ground of 196, 198, 251n.27, 252–253
external 253
imperative to seek 4, 34–35, 101–102, 109–110, 161–162, 192, 210–211, 218, 226–227, 228n.9, 229–
230, 253
internal 162
moral 86–87, 118–119, 175–177, 186–187, 197–200, 202
natural 14, 159–160, 175–176, 179, 186–188, 190–192, 197, 199–202
principle of 14, 36–37, 110
 self- 13–14, 159–160, 171–176, 179–180, 219
supreme 110
perfectionism, moral 3–4, 6–7, 13–14, 159–164, 167–168, 181–182, 185–186, 195–198, 200–202, 204
Wol an 181–182, 185–186
philautia 36–37, 36n.90, 176–177
philosopher, role of the
Pietism 6–9, 17–18, 24, 27–28, 35–37, 39–41, 112–113
placability 248–249, 255
Plato 252–253, 261–264
poetry 27, 54–55
postulate of practical reason
God as 11–12, 118–120, 123, 125
immortality of the soul as 119, 177n.14
precepts 21, 51–52, 169n.8, 233–234
of right of nature 227–228, 249, 261–262
principle(s)
ethical 123–124, 224
rst 4–6, 31n.62, 34, 34n.81, 42, 47–48, 49n.26, 52–53, 56n.43, 109, 160–164, 190, 192–193, 210, 227–
228, 253–254, 261–262
rst domestic 53, 227–228
juridical 223, 239–240
p. 290 moral 6n.13, 8–9, 12–14, 34–35, 45, 87, 110, 127, 162, 182–183, 185, 187–188, 199–200, 233–234
objective 145, 210–211, 228n.9
of autonomy 59–60, 68–69, 116n.17
of contradiction 66, 112
of ethics 235
of morality 69n.25, 120–121, 129, 144, 159–164, 166–168
of moral judgment 218, 220–221
of obligation 69
of perfectionism 161–162, 200
of self-defense 266–267
subjective 145–147, 210
supreme principle of morality 69, 120–121, 143, 237
probabilism 153–154
proper-love 36
Pufendorf, Samuel 21, 108, 142–143, 169, 193, 224–226, 266–267
punishment 3–4, 15–16, 47–48, 51n.29, 65, 72–75, 77–78, 88–89, 115–116, 149–152, 156–157, 169n.8,
235–236, 242–244, 246–248, 253–254, 257–258, 262–267
fear of 21, 77
natural 265
rationalism 6–9, 41n.119, 53, 119–120, 235–236
moral 112
Wol an 7–8, 24n.30, 90–91, 104, 113n.11
realism
moral 10–11, 95–96, 104
war 241
reason, analogue of 189, 192–193, 197
reward 3–4, 21, 47–48, 51n.29, 57, 65, 113, 115–116, 120–122, 149–150, 152, 156
right
 distinguished from ethics 214
divine positive 112, 120, 211
doctrine of 15, 30, 159n.1, 166–167, 171–172, 178–179, 221, 227n.7, 231–232, 235n.17, 236–237, 239–
240
of humanity 168–169, 172–173, 217
of nations 243–246, 250, 265–266
of nature / natural right 15–16, 19–21, 30–33, 52–53, 107, 112–114, 120, 207, 209n.4, 210–213, 223–
241, 243–249, 251, 253–254, 260n.49, 264–267
of war 242, 245–246, 248–250
positive 32–33
Schiller, Friedrich 72–73, 86–87
self-examination 41, 148
Seneca 243–244
sensibility 18, 24–25, 33, 39, 68–69, 85, 108–109, 150, 162–163, 233
sexual intercourse 178–179
Shaftesbury, Lord (Anthony Ashley Cooper) 167
skepticism 47, 142, 152–153, 158
slavery
moral 41, 188–189
to the senses 52
solipsism See also egoism37–38
stealing 74–75, 75n.18, 77, 206–207
Stoicism 3–4, 45–46, 50, 127, 163–164, 181–183, 187–188, 192, 197, 202, 227, 233, 243–244
Suárez, Francisco 182
suicide 171–172, 174, 178–179, 219, 222
syllogism 45–46, 49n.26, 189
imputational 156–157
tautological, Kant’s criticism of Baumgarten’s ethics as 4, 110, 161–162, 200, 233–234
teleology 99–100, 104, 184, 187–188, 235
temperance 178–179, 254
textbooks
Baumgarten’s use of 19, 30–31
Kant’s use of 1–3, 5n.10, 14–15, 17, 29, 56, 60, 71–72, 129, 162, 172–173, 197, 223–224, 232, 236
theodicy See also Leibniz, Gottfried120, 123
theology 50–51, 126–127
ethico- 24n.32, 39n.106
moral 19–20, 30n.56, 106, 111–113, 113n.11, 120–121, 211
natural 52, 56–57, 71n.4, 99–100, 111–112, 121, 129, 160, 192–193, 197
revealed 124
Thomas Aquinas, St. 147n.3, 243–244, 252–253, 260n.52
Thomasius, Christian 19, 224–225, 224n.2
Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walther von 44–45
Ulpian 210, 227–228, 260n.50
Vitoria, Francisco de 246–248
war 15–16, 241–267
defensive 256–257, 262–264
license to 242
o ensive 246–248, 261–262
punitive 246–248, 262–267
 will
free 3–4, 14, 65, 76–77, 96n.20, 98–99, 118–119, 146, 181, 200–202, 205, 211–212, 215, 233, 260n.52
good 11–12, 59–62, 68–69, 133
holy 59, 68, 85, 145
wisdom 45–46, 49–50, 58, 66n.20, 122–123, 131–132
p. 291 Wol , Christian
adversaries of 10–11, 30–31, 35, 97, 100
Ausführliche Nachtricht von seinen eigenen Schri ten 44n.4, 50n.28, 90–91, 97, 101n.28, 187–188, 194
German Ethics 21n.19, 22n.22, 24n.33, 35n.82, 49–50, 62, 67n.23, 73–77, 97, 100, 101n.28, 108, 109n.6,
111n.8, 112, 187–188, 193, 196
German Metaphysics 6–7, 22n.22, 35n.88, 62, 73–77, 85–86, 194–195
German Logic 24n.33
Ius naturae methodo scienti ca pertractatum 36n.90, 107, 243–246, 245n.13
Philosophia moralis, sive ethica, methodo scienti ca pertractata 32n.69, 36n.90, 109n.6
Philosophia practica universalis, methodo scienti ca pertractata 20n.13, 20n.16, 21n.19, 23n. 27, 24n.33,
25n.36, 33n.70, 34n.81, 45n.9, 49–51, 53, 55n.40, 74–77, 101n.28, 108, 224–225
Preliminary Discourse 20n.12, 32n.69, 43–44, 48n.19, 50–51, 266n.68
Psychologica empirica, methodo scienti ca pertractata 6–7, 22n.22, 35n.88, 74, 109n.5, 189, 194–195
Ratio praelectionum wol anarum in mathesin et philosophiam 24n.33
universam 24n.33, 47–48, 111n.8
Wol anism, Baumgarten’s break from 7–9, 17–18, 110
p. 292 world, intelligible 118, 120–121, 184–185, 202