Théodore Simon Jouffroy: Course of natural right – Indefinable good

Jouffroy thinks he has by now proven that good is not identifiable with happiness nor with any object of natural instinct. The only solution left, he states, is that good is an a priori concept reason, which is immediately connected with the notion of obligation: what is good ought to be searched for. The next question is to decide within this rationalist notion of good whether the concept of good is indefinable or whether it can be analysed further.

Jouffroy begins to investigate the first of these options. Just like with previous systems, he chooses a prominent example, who this time is Richard Price, a philosopher who reacted against the sentimentalist system of Francis Hutcheson. Jouffroy does admit that Price had predecessors (Ralph Cudworth) and successors (Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart), but thinks that Price set the same idea up in more distinct terms.

Jouffroy notes that like all rationalists, Price rejected the notion that the concept of good could be derived by empirical means and thus concluded that it must be based on intuitive reason. Yet, Jouffroy thinks, Price makes a crucial error in not distinguishing two different notions of good: what is good in itself or absolutely, independent of human beings, and conformity of a voluntary action of a free intelligent being to this absolute good, which could be called virtue or moral good. Indeed, Price states that good is a quality belonging primarily only to actions, although, Jouffroy objects, actions wouldn’t be good without the absolute good.

The confusion makes Price accept an account of how we come to know good that is quite opposite to the way in which Jouffroy imagines the process works. According to Jouffroy, we must at first have at least an implicit concept of absolute good, which we then use to evaluate the goodness of actions. Price, on the other hand, thinks that we have an intuitive grasp of the goodness of actions, and we at most abstract a general notion of good from these individual intuitions of good actions. With Jouffroy’s account, he insists, we must at first be able to define what is good in itself, in order to recognise the goodness in actions, again in opposition to what Price thinks about good.

Jouffroy understands why Price adopted his theory in his historical context. The important element in this context, Jouffroy thinks, was Locke’s rejection of all ideas that were not derived from senses or reflective observation of oneself. When philosophers like Hutcheson tried to explain good in this Lockean framework, they assumed the existence of a new, moral sense, which perceived good and evil as simple qualities of action. When Price rejected the Lockean framework and took reason as another source of ideas, he still inherited the notion of good and evil as simple qualities of actions.

Jouffroy suggests that there are further reasons why Pricean theory seems natural. The things discovered by philosophy, he explains, are later just assumed as axioms by the so-called common sense. Thus, moral truths discovered in the past become later immediately assumed as self-evident. In other words, Jouffroy says, it becomes natural to assume, like Price, that we immediately recognise actions as good or evil. This illusion is strengthened by the fact that educators tend just to teach that some actions are good, but not why they are – often they themselves do not know these reasons.

Furthermore, Jouffroy continues, God has provided us with natural instincts striving for goodness, in order to strengthen our reason. Thus, when we begin to reason about ethical matters, we already have strong emotions about them, and since our idea of good is still obscure, we think we have immediate perceptions about the goodness of actions. In addition, Jouffroy explains, these natural instincts make all people share similar opinions about certain common actions. These common actions have been used as examples by most moral philosophers, and because of the shared opinions about them, their moral quality is imagined to be immediately perceived. Generalisation makes philosophers then extend this idea to the whole of ethics.

If goodness is an immediately perceived simple quality, like Price thinks, reasoning has nothing to do with recognising what is good and how good it is. This means, Jouffroy explains, that there can be no discussion or demonstration concerning goodness: we can only say that we immediately perceive an action to be good or evil. Indeed, it seems impossible even to have any difference of opinions about goodness. Thus, Jouffroy concludes, there can be no experts on the question of goodness, and indeed, no science of natural law. Price cannot even explain, Jouffroy thinks, why we educate children about ethics or why we are more lenient toward criminals whom we consider to not have capacities for moral reasoning.

Jouffroy finds similar problems with Price’s notion that nothing is good independently of actions. Price’s commitment means, Jouffroy says, that good actions are done only because they are good, and the results of these actions are at most only derived goods. Thus, if our health is not a result of an action, it is not good, while a seemingly bad thing, like sickness, is good, if it just is a result of a good action. Indeed, Jouffroy notes, because the same thing can be a result of many actions, we cannot say whether it is good, before we know what action has generated it. In summary, we would not be interested in ends, like knowledge as such, but only of effects. Jouffroy finds all of this ridiculous: surely we must know at first e.g. that the results of just actions tend to be good, before we can conclude that justice is a good thing for actions to show.

When faced with facts not lining up with one’s system, Jouffroy notes, philosophers tend to introduce contradictions. Price makes no exception, he thinks. Thus, in order to account for ethical discussions, Price suggests that these concern circumstances of actions. Circumstances, including motives and ends, become then intrinsic elements of actions, and in separation from such circumstances, actions do not have any ethical character. Hence, Jouffroy concludes, Price has to admit, in the end, that to know an action to be good we have to know independently that its end is good and that we can then define what it means to be a good action.

The closer to truth we get, Jouffroy concludes, the harder it is to find the errors in the systems we investigate. Still, we have managed to make another step forward, he thinks: we now know that good is definable, although we as yet do not know how to define it.

Théodore Simon Jouffroy: Course of natural right – System of sentimentalism

Last time, we saw Jouffroy tackle what he calls an egoist systems of ethics. He notes that at first philosophers had not been interested in the foundation of ethics, but when the question suggested itself, egoism was a natural start, because self-love is so apparent of a motive. When the consequences of egoism were recognised, especially the denial of disinterested motives, egoism was rejected and replaced with two other systems: rationalism, based on the idea that reason intellectually perceives what is good and evil by reason, and sentimentalism, which grounds ethics in sensibility and instinctive impulses.

Jouffroy proceeds first to discuss sentimentalism, and he at once recognises Adam Smith’s idea of basing ethics to sentiment of sympathy as a prime example. Jouffroy suggests investigating Smith’s theory through three questions: what is the ultimate goal of human actions in this life, what is the motive impelling them to act and what is the criteria or rule for determining what actions are good. As an example, he notes that the egoist system regarded pleasure as the ultimate goal of life, desire for happiness as our only motive and the tendency of acts to promote our welfare as the criterion of goodness.

Jouffroy begins his investigation with the third question about the criteria for good and evil actions. He notes that Smith bases the ethical qualities of actions to the qualities of affections producing them and reduces ethical qualities of affections to four basic qualities: affection can be proper or improper, in regard to its cause, and can have merit or demerit, in regard to its effects. Jouffroy reads Smith as stating that the judgement on both propriety and merit of affections is ultimately based on a thought experiment whether an impartial observer feels sympathy for the person having the affection.

Jouffroy finds several problems in Smith’s suggestion. Firstly, Jouffroy asks, what is the impartiality Smith mentions? Smith talks about sympathy as an emotion or instinct, Jouffroy notes, but emotions or instincts cannot really be impartial, since impartial judgment requires more of a stifling of emotions. Furthermore, he continues, sympathy seems a very fluctuating criterion, since different people in different conditions feel very different sympathies. Finally, Jouffroy notes even Smith admitting that sometimes people do good, even if others do not regard their actions good and even feel antipathy toward them.

The ultimate problem with Smith’s theory, Jouffroy thinks, is that sympathy has no authority over other criteria of action, since it is just one instinct among others. Smith tries to make definitions that give sympathy this authority by connecting it to the notion of goodness, Jouffroy admits, but all these definitions just beg the question: for instance, he identifies feeling of sympathy with a judgement approving something as good, yet, the latter is something intellectual and not an emotion.

Moving on to the question of motive, Jouffroys note that Smith defines through his classification of ethical qualities four primary virtues. Thus, Smith says that propriety corresponds to the virtues of self-command – restraining the manifestation of our affections in their proper limits – and benevolence – elevation of sympathetic affections to the level of others, while merit corresponds to justice – repressing of affections that could harm others –  and charity – development of affections that benefit others. He then notes, Jouffroy says, that all of these virtues are based on an instinctive desire to feel sympathy for others and seem sympathetic to others. Jouffroy quickly notes that sympathy is not our only motive: other instinctive emotions, self-interest and motives of reason motivate us also. In fact, Jouffroy states, of all these, only the motives of reason can really obligate us.

Finally, Jouffroy notes that for Smith the final goal of humanity is the production of perfect harmony of sentiments between humans. Jouffroy notes that Smith’s only argument for this position is that such a harmony would be beautiful and very useful to everyone. Jouffroy quickly points out that neither beauty nor utility is identical with goodness.

Jouffrey points out that other examples of the sentimentalist or instinctive system have suggested the existence of a peculiar moral sense that has the particular ability to pick out what is good and evil. Jouffroy admits that this improves Smith’s system in that such a moral sense wouldn’t be as fluctuating as sympathy. Yet, he at once adds, such a system also falls to the problem of how to prove the superiority of such a moral sense in relation to other instincts.

Jouffroy thinks that the sentimentalist system is ultimately better than the egoist system, since it at least acknowledges the existence of disinterested motives. Yet, he states, it fails in trying to regard disinterested motives as instinctual. True, Jouffroy admits, instinctual desire is not consciously interested, but it still has a personal, albeit unconscious motive. In comparison, a truly moral action would involve conscious rejection of selfish motives and a choice of a disinterested motive.

Jouffroy points out that the followers of the sentimentalist system think that only instinct can show what is good and evil, since reason can merely analyse what this decision of the instinct means. Yet, he insists, reason does go beyond this immediate notion of what seems good to us and conceives of an absolute goal of everything. Such an absolute goal is beyond instinct, because it is universal. Thus, Jouffroy says, reason must know by itself that humans have an end, that this end is good and that natural desires reveal our end, before it can move on to evaluating the data from instincts. In other words, we must know absolutely that whatever our nature is, we should strive for our goals, but the determining of our nature and thus our goal is to be decided with the help of our instincts.

All the errors of the sentimentalist system, Jouffroy suggests, are ultimately based on its empiricist outlook: if all ideas are generated by experience, we are left only with an internal observation of our desires and an external observation of their objects. True idea of good, Jouffroy insists, can be justified only through a priori conceptions of intuitive reason. Rejection of this justification leads in a consistent manner to egoism, while in trying to avoid egoism, sentimentalism stumbles on a basic contradiction that disinterested motives exist, but cannot be justified empirically.

Jouffroy finds it easy to understand why people have been attracted by sentimentalism. As he has already indicated earlier, natural instincts do often agree with self-love and even virtue. When a person is interested in the origin of the notions of our morality, they often just pick out the most obvious component of our volitions, that is, natural instincts. This choice is made even more natural, Jouffroy suggests, by the fact that the intuitive reason does not provide moral notions through any reasoning, but spontaneously, like through an intuitive invention, and this immediacy is easily confused with the immediacy of instincts.

Théodore Simon Jouffroy: System of egoism

Systems Jouffroy has studied so far have denied the existence of obligations, because of considerations external to natural right. The rest of the systems he will investigate are more explicitly ethical systems, so that they either reject the existence of proper moral obligations because of ethical considerations or they misunderstand the nature of these obligations. Beginning from the first of the options, Jouffroy notes that such systems must reject proper moral motives and concentrate on one of the two other motives possible for humans: self-interest or primitive instinctual tendencies, that is, passions.

Jouffroy begins from the system emphasising self-interest as the only motive of human actions, calling it the system of egoism. As an example of this system, he first considers Hobbesian philosophy. Earlier Jouffrey considered Hobbes as an example of the system of necessity, because Hobbes denied the possibility of free will. Now Jouffrey concentrates on another aspect of Hobbesian philosophy, namely, the endorsement of well-being or happiness as the only possible motive of human action.

Jouffroy’s main argument against Hobbes is that in endorsing self-interested well-being he has ignored the other two motives of human action, that is, passions and moral obligations. Passions, Jouffroy explains, are not necessarily self-interested, since e.g. we might desire to know the most frivolous things, even if this is not in any way in our interest. Furthermore, he adds, we also acknowledge moral obligations that might be even against our own self-interest and even be detrimental to our very existence.

Jouffroy notes that even as a description of self-interest, Hobbesian philosophy is one-sided. True self-interest strives for our personal good, which might depend on ignoring some types of pleasures, although Hobbes does not recognise this. Furthermore, Jouffroy adds, some forms of pleasure are intrinsically connected with the good of others, such as those deriving from the passion of sympathy.

Jouffroy thinks he has crushed the very principles on which Hobbesian ethics and politics are based on. Still, he wants to go further and show how the more extensive Hobbesian system contradicts itself. Thus, Jouffroy points out that the Hobbesian idea of the state of nature, with every person waging war against others, is inconsistent, because no person would regard it as being in their self-interest to live in such a state. Furthermore, he adds, when Hobbes speaks of everyone having right to everything in this contradictory state of nature, this is a further inconsistency, since no one has a duty to honour such a right, and indeed, anyone can violate such a right.

As unacceptable as the Hobbesian idea of the state of nature, as unconvincing Joffrey finds the description of how people should move to a state of political community in the Hobbesian philosophy. Hobbes cannot explain, Jouffrey emphasises, why people would be obligated to start obeying a government, if they find this disagrees with their self-interest. Thus, the Hobbesian civil contract is something people could break at any moment, if they so wanted. The only glue left to hold the people together as one community is then force, Jouffrey concludes, which means that this is no true community.

Jouffroy lists other thinkers resembling Hobbes in their endorsement of self-interest, such as Larochefoucault and Helvetius. Yet, the only philosopher Jouffroys considers in more detail is Bentham, more so because of his fame than because of his originality. Jouffroy does admit that Benthamian calculus for deciding good legislation is an important invention, but notes that this invention concerns only legal affairs, not ethics.

Indeed, Jouffroy insists that Bentham is more of a jurist than a moralist. In ethics, Bentham does nothing else but state self-interest as the only possible motive of human action, but provides no argument for this statement. Jouffroy admits that all sciences must begin with some unproven axioms, but adds at once that Benthamian principle is not such an axiom, since it would require justification through experience.

Bentham does try to refute all the opposed systems, admitting different principles than his own. Jouffroy considers these refutations very insufficient. Firstly, Bentham recognises only two alternative theories of motives for human action. One of these Bentham calls an ascetical system, thinking that pain is to be always preferred over others. Jouffroy notes that this is a misunderstanding of what he has called mystical system, where pain and pleasure are seen as indifferent states, being both equally unsatisfying.

The only other system Bentham recognises is the so-called system of sympathy and antipathy. Jouffroy notes wryly that under this title Bentham categorises a very diverse number of systems. As for Benthamian strategy for refuting such systems, Jouffroy notes firstly that his own system recognises a motive very different from self-interest, namely, principle of order, since it motivates us to do what is good in itself, not just for us. In comparison, the Benthamian principle of self-interest regards only what is good for an individual and leads merely to anarchy of every person interested merely in their own benefit or then to a despotism of one person having the power to subdue the interests of others.

Jouffroy admits that Bentham tries to move from personal to general interest. Yet, Jouffroy adds, this move is based on nothing more than confusion of these two forms of interest. Indeed, if only personal pleasure and pain guide us, pain and pleasure of others are usually indifferent to us. Even if we suppose that we feel pleasure or sympathy for the well-being of others, we could still calculate that robbing them might still add to our overall private happiness.

Jouffroy states that Hobbes and Bentham exemplify only one form of egoism, because self-interest is a complex phenomenon with many aspects that egoists could emphasise. Thus, some people confuse self-interest with pleasure, being driven by what feels good, even against their own interests. Another confusion leads people to consider means for good results, such as money and fame, as the only motive of their own actions. Finally, some rational egoists might understand self-interest as doing what conforms with our own nature, which with weak minds, Jouffroy suggests, might lead even to excessive prudence.

Jouffroy suggests that some egoists might also emphasise pleasures received from more social and benevolent passions over more selfish desires. Although these egoists resemble true proponents of morality, he points out, they have very different motives for their seemingly good actions: thus, we have people spending money on others, because it makes them feel good, or acting virtuously, because it will have its rewards in the afterlife – or even just because they find unselfish action aesthetically pleasing. Compared to such egoists, Hobbes and Bentham are more honest, Jouffroy thinks, revealing what egoism is really about.

Jouffroy still mentions egoist systems that try to justify actions for general interest on the basis that these actions advance their own interests. Just like with Bentham, Jouffroy is not convinced of such an argument, because it still leaves the possibility that a person acts against general self-interest, if it is against their own interest. In fact, Jouffroy underlines, an egoist system can never be truly moral, even if some egoist systems may resemble proper morality, since egoism cannot prove the existence of any obligations. Indeed, an egoist cannot even argue why we should act for our own interest, but must assume that we instinctually do so.

Théodore Simon Jouffroy: Skepticism

Jouffroy considers skepticism a more prominent opponent of morality than all the systems he has considered thus far. One reason for this judgement is rather suspect: the Western mind is not as prone to mysticism and pantheism, Jouffroy thinks. The other reason is somewhat more credible: there is really only one way to be a pantheist, but there is an infinity of manners to be skeptic.

But how does skepticism then threaten morality? Simply put, Jouffroy suggests that since skepticism denies that we can know anything, it must also deny that we know how to separate right from wrong. If we cannot do that, he concludes, we cannot really have obligations.

As Jouffroy pointed out, skeptical arguments are plentiful, so he concentrates his attention only to the most prominent ones. He begins by noting that these arguments can target three things: the subject of knowledge or the intellect, the object of knowledge or the reality and the knowledge itself or our representations of the reality. Of these, Jouffroy thinks, the objections against the subject are the most dangerous – and some of them even unanswerable.

Jouffroy first presents an account of how we know things. He suggests that we have two sources of knowledge. First of these is the observation that acquires information on the portion of reality we are connected with, either externally, through senses, or internally, through consciousness. The second source is the reason that leads us to the universal principles, like causality and substance. These two sources, Jouffroy explains, are interconnected: the observation must at first produce its own elementary notions (such as perception of something existent), before the reason is awakened to discover its own notions (e.g. noting that what is perceived must have a cause), yet, the principles of reason must always be implicit in our observation (all perceptions whatsoever have a cause).

In addition to observation and reason, Jouffroy adds, our knowledge is based on two other faculties. First of these is reasoning, which derives further truths from results of observation and reason, either through induction or through deduction. The second faculty is memory that preserves all the notions acquired through observation and reasoning and thus makes the reasoning itself possible. Note that Jouffroy does not say that reason would require memory: because reason should always produce the same results, as long as something else is first given, memorising its results would be superfluous.

Jouffroy begins with the greatest objection against our faculties: we can not really prove their veracity, because such a proof would be based on the very faculties and would therefore be circular. He admits that this objection is truly unanswerable, but is still not very concerned about it, since it would work, no matter what our cognitive faculties would be. Even a divine intellect has no other proof for its veracity than unjustified reliance on itself. Thus, Jouffroy concludes, we can do no better than to have faith that our faculties are in principle reliable, and even skeptics actually do this in real life.

Once this major obstacle has been removed, no attack against our cognitive faculties is insurmountable. True, Jouffroy admits, our senses sometimes make faulty observations, and our memory and reasoning do fail us. Yet, he at once adds, all these problems do not cancel the fact that these faculties can work properly. Indeed, many philosophers and especially logicians have published works that aim to improve our use of these faculties and e.g. make reliable deductions and inductions.

One might note that Jouffroy does not list the reason among the faculties that can be at fault. Indeed, he suggests that due to its results being necessary and shared by all humans, reason can never make errors. True, Jouffroy admits, some philosophers have attacked various principles of reason (like Hume did with causality), but these attacks have been just academic and all humans really admit e.g. the validity of the notion of causality. At most some philosophers have had disagreements about the classification of rational principles, but this is just an academic struggle, Jouffroy thinks.

The only remaining weapon against our faculties that the skeptics has, Jouffroy says, is to say that passions and bodily changes can affect and thus disturb these faculties. He readily admits this, but again just points out that these are just known causes for making our faculties unreliable and that we have means to recognise and remove the effects of these abnormal conditions.

The skeptical attack on the objects of knowledge relies on the fact that the things we observe are ephemeral and variable and thus offer no reliable and lasting knowledge. Jouffroy answers this objection by pointing out that we are actually not interested in knowing these transient phenomena, but want to and can reach something permanent, namely, laws governing such phenomena. The question how we can find such hidden laws on basis of mere temporary appearances reduces again to the question of the reliability of our faculties, which Jouffroy thinks he has answered sufficiently.

Jouffroy considers two different objections against knowledge in general. First of them points out that our knowledge is ultimately incomplete, revealing only a small portion of reality. Jouffroy accepts this objection, but thinks it doesn’t really affect our capacity to know: even incomplete knowledge can be reliable, as long as we do not make any unwarranted leaps of induction from what we do know to what we do not yet know.

The second objection concerns the variety of opinions different cultures and even different people within the same culture have. Jouffroy notes that such a variety does not itself tell that any opinion could not be the truth or that the truth would be in principle unknowable. Furthermore, he points out that despite these diverse opinions, there are still many things humans agree upon. In addition, Jouffroy suggests that especially the diversity of opinions in different ages indicates just that human knowledge is constantly improving and becoming more and more reliable.

In addition to this rather academic skepticism, which can never really be endorsed by anyone else, but a scholar, Jouffroy recognises a skepticism of the masses that means nothing more than lack of faith due to ignorance of truth. Indeed, he names his own age one of those times, when such skepticism rules the world. Jouffroy suggests that introduction of this type of skepticism happens regularly: all religion has its faults, and when scholars find them and tell about them to a wider audience, faith in the old religion is gone, without any replacement.

Jouffroy thinks that this development began with the Reformation and that its first phase culminated with the Enlightenment, where Christianity was faced with scorching criticism. Jouffroy himself is not convinced with what was meant to replace the traditional faith – materialism and democracy – and suggests that there has already occurred a counterattack against these novelties. His own time, Jouffroy thinks, is then in an even more disarrayed state, where there is as yet no clear and shared criteria for good and bad.

The lack of consensus on morality has led, Jouffroy thinks, to a cult of individuality and anarchy, bolstered with a disdain toward everything ancient and contempt of reflection and historical study. In his opinion, people at large are weak of character and are enthused about novelties, like constant social and political revolutions, which fail to engage with the true problem of the era: the lack of faith. True solution, Jouffroy insists, would be religious, and political reformations can only succeed religious changes, just like it required the introduction of Christianity to cure the political corruption of the Roman state.

Jouffroy’s advice to his readers is that they should try to take a long view and raise themselves above the concerns of the present day: historical processes have their own cycles, and it took centuries to get from Socrates to the rise of the Christianity. Furthermore, he suggests that the readers should take the stance of the ancient Stoics, who searched for the criteria of morality and taught them to the populace at large. As a part of this enlightenment of the masses, Jouffroy thinks, an important task is to speak against unnecessary political revolutions that cannot really achieve anything before the constitution of a new faith.

Théodore Simon Jouffroy: Systems of necessity, mysticism and pantheism

Jouffroy has indicated that there are three philosophical stances that contradict natural right as he envisions it: firstly, denying the possibility of obligations for reasons independent of moral phenomena, secondly, denying the existence of obligations, because no such things can be found within moral phenomena, and thirdly, accepting the existence of obligations, but misunderstanding their nature. Starting with the first stance, Jouffroy finds four types of philosophical systems exemplifying it: systems of necessity, mysticism, pantheism and skepticism. I shall look in this post three of them and leave skepticism for the next post.

Joyffroy means by a system of necessity any philosophy that explicitly denies the existence of human freedom: if humans aren’t free, they cannot have any obligations. He does not attempt to give a full listing of all philosophical systems of this kind, but only mentions four prominent examples. First of these examples is Hobbesian philosophy, where the true notion of liberty is replaced, Jouffroy thinks, with a fictitious definition of liberty as the power of doing what we will. He dismisses this idea quickly, noting that this definition could make all unrestrained beings free – even rivers and wind – and that true liberty lies in our capacity to make spontaneous resolutions.

Jouffroy is equally quick with his second example or the Humean philosophy. Jouffroy reads Hume as insisting on the illusory nature of causality and thus indirectly also denying human freedom, which hinges on the possibility of humans being causes. Jouffroy’s short answer to Hume is that we do have a notion of cause and that we even can apply it in experience, because we feel ourselves as the cause of our actions.

Jouffroy takes more seriously the third example of such philosophical systems, which says that human volition is constrained by motives, so that the strongest motive inevitably determines human will. He quickly mentions Thomas Reid’s objection that there might be motiveless actions, but is not very convinced about it. Instead, Jouffroy concentrates his critique on the point that motives do not seem like constraints: even if I have a good motive for not throwing myself out of the window, I still could do it. He is especially doubtful about the notion of the strongest motive. Jouffroy reminds the reader about the three kinds of things motivating our actions – passions, motives arising from self-interest and obligations. He suggests that while we can compare the strength of two motives of the same type, we cannot quantitatively compare e.g. the strength of passions and obligations.

Jouffroy brings forward two arguments for the idea of motives determining the will. First, he notes that we often try to guess what a person will do, when we know their motives. Jouffroy admits this, but adds that such predictions are never meant to be fully certain. Secondly, he points out that we often do speak of governing human beings, as if they were just mechanical things. Jouffroy’s answer is that this a case of an analogy and that rewards and punishments used for governing people can at most influence, but never determine their behaviour.

The final example of a system of necessity Jouffroy gives is the idea of divine foreknowledge: because God knows what will happen, for instance, what we will do tomorrow, we cannot really do anything freely. Jouffroy admits that he would be more willing to reject the notion of divine foreknowledge, since the idea of free will seems more certain. Yet, he is doubtful whether the two ideas really contradict one another. Jouffroy emphasises that we should not judge divine foreknowledge by human standards and suggests that it is more like us observing past events: we know what a person has done yesterday and still what they did was freely chosen by them.

Jouffroy moves from the systems of necessity to mysticism. He describes it as an answer to the correct observations that we humans cannot achieve our absolute end in this life and that we can achieve even imperfect good only through great efforts. Mysticism explains these facts, Jouffroy notes, by introducing a Manichean figure of evil, who has ruined the current world, or by interpreting our current life as a punishment for earlier sins (he even thinks that the Christian story of fall merges these two idea by combining the notion of devil with the notion of original sin). The conclusion mysticism draws from the lousy state of the human condition is that there is no reason for us to do anything at all, except wait for a better world.

Jouffroy describes in more detail the consequences of mysticism. Mystics often distance themselves from the world that constantly nullifies all human efforts. Furthermore, he adds, they also abhor the human body, because it makes the human being suspect to the influence of the material world. Mystics also avoid all physical actions with a meaningful goal, Jouffroy notes, although they sometimes do something futile, in order to show how all actions are in vain. In addition, they avoid all human connections, preferring solitude over the affairs of any community, and even reject all scientific efforts. The only form of action they cannot deny of themselves, Jouffroy states, is the passive contemplation of things. Indeed, they even endorse contemplation as the only possible form of fulfilling human desires, holding ecstatic states in high regard.

The necessary consequence of the mystical idea that all actions are futile, Jouffroy thinks, is that there are no moral differences between any of them. A clear result of this stance is the denial of obligations, since no action is inherently better than any other. Jouffroy notes that some mystical schools have thus decided to just engage with mere pleasure seeking, since it is inherently no better than asceticism.

Jouffroy’s argument against mysticism is that the desire to instantly jump to the absolute end of human beings is a childish desire. Indeed, he insists, if we would be instantly happy, when we are born, we would be mere things and not moral persons, with notions of merit and demerit. Thus, Jouffroy concludes, the imperfection of our current world must be explained by a need for a moral proving ground, where we can grow to become good people.

Moving on to pantheism, Jouffroy begins by studying Spinoza’s philosophy, because Joyffroy thinks Spinoza to have been the most consistent pantheist in the history of philosophy. Still, despite this consistency, Jouffroy notes in Spinoza a fundamental contradiction: Spinoza states that human souls follow the laws of necessity and are nothing but combinations of ideas, yet, he appears to hold that human souls can freely affect the ideas they consist of.

Pantheism in general, Jouffroy thinks, leads to a denial of human freedom, because it assumes that only God exists and is free, relegating human beings into mere phenomena that cannot really produce, but only transmit actions. It is thus quite understandable, he says, that pantheism often leads to passivity. Jouffroy tries to explain the lure of pantheism by noting that it is based on the tendency of our reason to regard everything from the standpoint of absolute universality that forgets the existence of individual objects. He suggests as a cure the other method of knowledge, namely, perceptions of real things before us, since they confirm very vividly that there is more to the world than mere abstract universality of being.

Théodore Simon Jouffroy: Course of natural right (1834)

Théodore Simon Jouffroy’s Cours de droit naturel is only an introduction to a planned larger work covering all of natural right. As becomes clear from the first words, the book is based on a series of lectures, which was a part of a larger course of lectures concerning the end of individual humans, human communities and the whole of humankind. This larger lecture course had begun with the question what is the end of humans in the current life. Answering this question had required the investigation of the nature of human beings and of the conditions of present life that worked as obstacles for the attainment of the absolute end of human beings. This had led Jouffroy to the second question: what is the end of human beings before and after this life. His answer had been, firstly, that there was no time before the current life, but secondly, that this life was inexplicable without assuming future life, where human beings could fulfil their absolute end.

The question Jouffroy sets for himself at the beginning of this work is that when the end of human beings is known, what are the rules of proper human conduct. He defines natural right as the study of this question, including also the study of historical customs and laws paralleling the absolutely true rules of proper human conduct.

In one sense, Jouffroy says, there is really only one rule and duty, that is, to fulfil the absolute end of human beings, but, he adds, this duty can be divided according to relations human beings have to other things. The first of these divisions is personal morality that studies the rules of the conduct of humans toward themselves. Indeed, Jouffroy thinks it is the most important part of natural right, since everything else depends on it.

The second part, according to Jouffroy, involves the relation of human beings to things, to which he includes all animate and inanimate creatures, except human beings. He suggests assuming a Robinsonian condition, where a human being is living without any connection to other human beings. The question of this part is whether this human being has the right to use other things and in what limits and whether these limits are different for animate and inanimate things.

The most multifarious part in Jouffroy’s plan is the one concerning relations between human beings, which he notes is often taken solely as natural right. The complexity of this part is shown in that this part has subdivisions of its own. First of these subdivisions, Jouffroy says, concern the state where humans had not joined in civil societies. He notes that even in such a state there were human communities, namely, families. Thus, Jouffroy concludes, state of nature involves two subdivisions, firstly, right of humanity, concerning relations between any individual human beings in a state of nature, and right of family, concerning relations between family members.

The introduction of civil societies modifies the relations studied in the right of humanity and the right of family, Jouffroy says, thus, these modified relations must be investigated by a third subdivision or private right. Furthermore, new kinds of relations are introduced, in other words, those of human beings toward the civil society and its rule, studied by the fourth subdivision or public right. Jouffroy calls private and public right together social right. He also emphasises that the study of social right need not mean the study of laws and customs of a particular civil society, but can be derived from the general nature of all civil societies. The final subdivision or the right of nations involves the study of relations between civil societies.

The highest pinnacle of the natural right, in Jouffroy’s opinion, is to study the relation between human beings and God. This study is, he says, a part of natural religion, but not all of it, since natural religion also includes questions about the nature of God and of the final fate of human beings.

As already implied, Jouffroy never really gets to fill this division with content. Instead, the whole work concentrates on a necessary preliminary question whether there are any duties or obligations at all. Some philosophers, he says, have suggested that duty or obligation is simply an impossibility. Others have insisted that although obligation might be possible, they have never discovered any. Finally, some accept the notion of obligation, but understand it in a false manner.

Before refuting these various systems, Jouffroy suggests studying the nature of human beings. All entities, he says, are organised in different manners and therefore have different ends, fulfilling of which is in their nature to. This means, Jouffroy thinks, that nature must have given them tools for actualising these ends. First of these tools are drives directing all entities to their ends. Thus, Jouffroy concludes, even humans must share some common primitive tendencies or passions, which work as the force moving us from our birth onwards. The second tool is then constituted by the various faculties that are at first moved by the passions.

A human being is born with passions and faculties, Jouffroy states, but a third component of human being is developed, when the faculties meet obstacles. Such obstacles, he thinks, spur human beings to concentrate their forces, for instance, when understanding tries to clear obscurities. This concentration is the first sign of volition, but it is fatiguing, which leads to a constant variation of natural and voluntary states.

Jouffroy notes that human passions aim for real goods, that is, to various ways of fulfilling the human end. As sensitive beings, humans experience gaining these real goods as pleasure. Such a sensible good, Jouffroy emphasises, is not real good, but only a consequence of and a sign for such. Still, he notes, pleasure and the opposed feeling of pain lead us to a secondary set of passions that are explicitly related to some objects that can cause pleasure and pain, which lead to notions of useful and injurious.

The primitive state of human beings, Jouffroy says, is controlled by passions. The passions often conflict with one another, and what happens to be strongest at the moment directs the human. The volition is then active, but not yet properly free. It is made free, Jouffroy suggests, when the fourth aspect of human beings or reason is introduced. He defines reason as the faculty of comprehension, which differs from the faculty of knowledge, since even animals know, but do not comprehend anything.

What reason does, Jouffroy thinks, is that it replaces impulses of passions with motives. Through reason humans understand that all the passions and faculties seek a common end, which the reason designates as good. It differentiates the notion of good from what serves good – useful – and what we sensibly experience as a sign of good – pleasure. It also designates happiness as the confluence of good, useful, and pleasurable.

Reason understands, Jouffroy thinks, that self-control is a necessary condition for attaining greatest possible satisfaction of the nature of an individual, because mere passions cannot regulate themselves and often lead us to great evils. Thus, the volition that was formerly ruled by passions becomes free and finds self-interest as the principle of action. Jouffroy explains that free volition or will does not mean removal of passion, and indeed, self-interest has a passion of its own. Still, instinctive passions remain active, and reason and will find themselves often in conflict with them, which leads to oscillation between following impulses and self-interest. Yet, Jouffroy notes, self-interest is not opposed to the fulfilment of even the primitive passions, but instead means a reasonable fulfilment of passions.

Jouffroy calls this new phase in human development a selfish state. Children in a primitive state, he explains, are not yet selfish, since they still do not have reason for seeking their own interest. Furthermore, Jouffroy adds, the selfish state does not yet have obligations, because we cannot be said to be obligated to seek for our own interest. Indeed, he adds, obligations are found only at the final or moral state, which requires a move from selfish to universal and absolute ideas. Reason is not satisfied with individual good, Jouffroy thinks, but rises to the notion of the absolute good of a universal order covering all individual goods. Thus, a human being understands that the good of others is as sacred as our own. The idea of order, Jouffroy explains, is then the source of all duties, obligations and rules of morality.

The moral state brings with itself a new notion of goodness or moral good, by which Joffroy means compliance of will with an obligation. Moral good, he thinks, is dependent on real good – the absolute end of everything – and it also produces its own sensible good or pleasure. Then again, Jouffroy admits, all human beings will never feel this moral pleasure, since they never advance to the moral state, and indeed, some might even be left in the primitive state of passions.

The moral state, Jouffroy suggests, involves a conflict of obligations or duties with self-interest. Yet, he adds at once, moral obligations do not completely refute primitive passions or self-interest. Some of our passions, Jouffrey thinks, involve sympathy for others, thus, even our self-interest must involve interest for others. Still, although moral duties can guide us to the same actions as self-love and passion, he emphasises, only morality can obligate and command these actions and thus leads to the ideas of esteem and blame or merits and demerits. In any case, morality does not contradict our own good, but fulfils it by connecting it to the highest good.

Jouffroy notes that order is still not the highest notion reason can attain, because it can step further to the concept of God as the creator of universal order. This concept, he suggests, gives the idea of order a religious aspect, although this idea has moral meaning independently of religion. Jouffroy also points out that long before human beings have reason, they feel sympathy for beauty. He suggests that beauty can be analysed to be the material symbol and confused expression of order. Similarly, Jouffroy thinks, the absolute truth is the same order conceived by God. Truth, beauty and good are then for Jouffrey order understood from different viewpoints.

Gustave Fechner: Booklet on life after death (1836)

Fechner’s Das Büchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode is again a book with a more serious tone, and indeed, it bears some similarities with Fechner’s account of living planets as a higher form of existence. While that book contained rather wild speculations, here Fechner admits that what he is discussing - life after death, or as Fechner calls it, the third period of human life after the first in womb and the second between birth and death - is a matter of belief, not of proof. What Fechner is attempting in the booklet is to explain how life after death could be possible.

Fechner begins by noting that in a quite mundane manner we can said to live beyond death in other human beings. A person influences other persons, and this influence, whether it be beneficial or harmful, lives on. Indeed, Fechner notes, with so-called great people this influence can be seen to last considerably long. Even with ordinary people, their influence lasts quite long, if we think that the people they influenced influence again further people.

This radius of influence of a person, Fechner suggests, is what ancient cultures thought of when they talked about spirits both beneficent and maleficent affecting us - it is the spirit of our ancestors affecting us. If some set of radii of influence gets hold of the whole culture of a particular time, it is often called a spirit of the time.

Fechner compares these radii of influence with waves of sound and light, which go through same spaces and still retain their individuality. In terms of more modern physics we might say that Fechner suggests that after the death of a material body certain energy remains. This energy, Fechner seems to say, still retains the individual consciousness, although they all share the same body, namely, the whole Earth, which, as we know from Fechner’s previous work, is a living organism, moving ever closer to a source of its perfection or Sun.

In effect, all these strands of soul energy form in Fechner’s book an intertwined network - what could be called a world soul. In a rather pantheistic fashion, Fechner suggests that there are a lot of these networks, combining to a kind of supernetwork, which or the source of which he calls by the traditional name God. Adding to this vision the idea that life in this world is just preparation and symbol for this life as part of this tree of spiritual energy, Fechner appears to bring new life to the idea that we all live in God.