Moral Doctrine of Christian August Crusius

Abstract

Ch.A. Crusius was one of the most original German thinker of the Age of Enlightenment. Being one of the most intransigent opponent of Wolffian philosophy, he became famous for his criticism of Wolffian principle of sufficient reason, in which he saw danger for both molality and religion. Houwever, his own philosophical views, and above all his moral philosophy, are of a great interest. By distinguishing two basic abilities in a human being – will and reason, Crusius insisted that the key role in determining the human behavior belongs to the will, although we can not comprehend exactly how it is possible. In this Crusius disagreed with Wolffian view fundamentally. And it is because of his disagreement that Crusius is known as voluntarist and irrationalist. At the same time, he supposed that both will and reason were corrupted as a result of the Fall. A human being himself is not able to live in accordance with virtue, so he needs the external divine guidance in the form of moral law established directly by God. The moral law prescribes human beings to increase their perfection and the world around them. However, the implementation of this law will be truly moral only if the person has a corresponding internal intention, which, according to Crusius, should be the desire to fulfill this moral law only from obedience to the holy will of his Creator. The basic Crusius’ ethical ideas in many respects are similar to Kantian ones.