Pufendorf Reduces the Effects of His Doctrine of Moral Beings by the Notion of Hypothetical (or Conditional) Necessity
However, this resolutely voluntarist interpretation of the Pufendorfian doctrine of moral beings, maintained by the authors we have quoted so far, appears to be invalidated in other passages of Dejure naturae et gentium.
By the end of the first chapter devoted to moral beings, Pufendorf already writes:
[T]he imposition which produces real moral persons (personas morales) is not at all a free (libera) thing, but it should presuppose such [natural] qualities (ejusmodi qualitates praesupponere) as are appropriate, so that some real benefit may thereby accrue to mankind; and he who has no respect for this consideration in constituting persons, should be regarded as insulting mankind with his recklessness and folly. So Caligula might have made a worthless and stupid man consul, provided he was a Roman citizen and knew enough to perform at least the routine functions of that office. But to give the consulship to his horse Incitatus, was sheer madÂness and silly impudence.[886] [887] [888] Thus, natural beings do not tolerate the imposition of any moral beings, but only of those that are â€?appropriate'.27 Nonetheless, we will see that natural beings are not only reluctant to have imposed upon them some moral beings which do not suit their condition: natÂural beings go so far as to require the imposition of some moral beings that their nature is in need of: [A]lthough moral entities owe their origin to imposition, and for that reaÂson are not in an absolute sense necessary (absolute necessaria), yet they have not arisen in such a loose and general manner (dissoluto ac vago modo), that scientific knowledge about them is on that account utterly uncertain. For the very condition of man demanded (postulavit ipsa homiÂnis conditio) the institution of most of them, a condition assigned him by the most Good and Great Creator out of His goodness and wisdom?8 Accordingly, the condition that God gave to man by the act of creation â€?postuÂlates' most of the moral beings that God gives to man by the act of imposition. Why are not all moral beings â€?imposed' on men by God â€?postulated' by man's condition which was created by God? Why only â€?most of them'? Because, besides natural divine law - namely, the fundamental moral precepts valid for all men, particularly the Ten Commandments -, we also find in the Old Testament posÂitive divine law, valid only for the people of the Old Covenant: these are, on the one hand, the â€?ceremonial' precepts, setting the rituals of the Jewish religion, and, on the other hand, more specific moral precepts, belonging to the peoÂple of Israel, called â€?judicial' precepts by Aquinas[889] and â€?political' precepts by Calvin.[890] [891] Pufendorf will then specify the way natural beings â€?postulate' moral beings, which causes further - explicit - criticism, against Grotius this time: [Grotius] says that the absolute existence of any natural law is tested by its necessary agreement or non-agreement with rational and social nature. And yet man received this social nature not from any immutaÂble necessity (ex immutabile necessitate), but from the pleasure of God (beneplacito divino). Therefore, the morality of actions as well, whether they do or do not suit him as a social being, must be derived from the same source. And morality is fittingly attributed to these actions, not of an absolute necessity, but of a hypothetical necessity (non ex necessitate absoluta, sed hypothetica), since such a [condition] is posited for man as God freely assigned him (posita ea conditione, quam homini [_] Deus libere assignavit) above all other creatures.31 Hence, between moral beings and the condition of natural beings, there is a link of hypothetical necessity: insofar as God gave, in his goodwill, a specific nature and a specific condition to a specific being, these will then â€?demand' from God the imposition of the moral beings which suit them, rather than any such which would repel them, such as a consulate to Caligula's horse. The hypothetical modality of moral beings' necessity entails a modalization of eternity which normally characterizes the rules of natural law (as opposed to the rules of positive law which are purely contingent): [T]he familiar and oft-repeated saying, â€?The precepts of the natural law are of eternal verity', should be limited to this extent, that such eternity should not reach beyond the imposition of God, or the origin of the race of man (impositionem divinam, aut originem generis humani). Although, as a matter of fact, the eternity which is attributed to natural law should be measured and defined in terms of its opposition to positive laws, which are subject to change.[892] [893] [894] Because of the link of hypothetical necessity, the eternity of the norms of natÂural law goes back - this being a logical regression and not a chronological one - beyond divine imposition, to the creation of natural beings, but not any further (against Grotius33 and, before him, Plato). This link of hypothetical necessity between natural and moral beings is reafÂfirmed by Pufendorf in book 2 of the De Jure naturae et gentium, in its very important chapter 3 devoted to natural law, in a passage where Pufendorf once again confronts the naturalists, starting with exposing their position very honestly: Some writers constitute as the object of natural law such acts as contain in themselves a moral necessity or baseness, which are, therefore, in their own nature (in sua natura) either required or unlawful, and hence necÂessarily (necessario) understood to be commanded or forbidden by God. And in this respect, they say, natural law is distinguished not only from human law, but from the divine voluntary or positive law, which does not command or forbid things which are of their own proper nature obligaÂtory or unlawful, but makes them by its forbidding unlawful, or by its comÂmand obligatory. But things forbidden by natural law are not improper because God forbade them, but God forbade them because they were of themselves improper; while in the same way things commanded by the same law are not proper or necessary because they are commanded by God, but they were commanded because they are of themselves proper^4 Here is what Pufendorf answers to the naturalists: [I]t has already been shown[895] [896] [897] that no acts are of themselves obligatory or unlawful, until they have been made so by law. Nor is it necessary that anyone be perplexed by such a question [raised by naturalists] as the folÂlowing: 'If the entire morality of human actions depends upon law, might not God have been able to decree a law of nature so that He should have commanded just the opposite of what now prevails; so that, for example, among the duties which men owe one another would be murder, theft, fornication, bearing false-witness, and among the things forbidden them would be gratitude, keeping one's agreements, repayment of loans, and the like?36 This is Ockham's question. Here is how Pufendorf defends himself: [O]ne can easily make the reply that the question raised above implies a manifest contradiction. For although God was under no constraint whatÂsoever to create man..., yet, when once (postquam) He had decreed to create him a rational and social animal, it was impossible for the natural law not to agree with his constitution (non poterat lex naturalis ipsi non congruere), and that not by an absolute, but by a hypothetical necessity (non ex necessitate absoluta, sed hypothetica). For if man had been bound to the opposite duties, no social animal but some kind of wild and fearful creature would have been produced. Yet, despite all this, it is still true, that before there was any law, every kind of action was indifferent; for by His decision to create man (dum Deus decrevit creare hominem), that is, an animal whose every act should not be indifferent, God also by the same act (simul) constituted for him a law.37 By the way, Pufendorf explicitly confirms something we suspected from the first chapter devoted to moral beings: the imposition of moral beings and of natural law happens â€?at the same time' (simul) as the creation of natural beings. The creation and the first imposition are two distinct but simultaneous divine acts. At the most there is a logical precedence of creation over imposiÂtion, since the latter implies the first. Pufendorf continues with his defence: But it does not follow from our assertion that all acts of themselves were indifferent before the announcement of a law, that had God so wished, He could have commanded that He be worshipped by blasphemy or conÂtempt, as Vazquez asserts.... Fernando Vasquez de Menchaca (1512-1569)3[899] is a jurist from the School of Salamanca. As a naturalist who inspired Grotius,[900] he brings the voluntarist position to its absurdity[901] [902] If God's freedom is endless, what would prevent him from commanding men to blaspheme against him rather than worship him? Pufendorf answers that it would be contradictory to serve and despise a same being. Similarly, it would be just as contradictory that God could die or lie. Even so, according to Pufendorf, these various impossibilities do not lessen in any way God's omnipotence. This argument is the same as the one traditionÂally developed by naturalist authors (see for instance, Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, ii, 25). By relying on the notion of hypothetical necessity, Pufendorf tries to elaboÂrate a moderate voluntarism, eluding the objections to which Ockham's radical voluntarism exposes itself.42 We may ask whether in doing so Pufendorf ipso facto falls back on a naturalistic position. In the next paragraph of the same chapter 3 in book 2 of Dejure naturae et gentium, we find again the idea - if not the word - of hypothetical necessity: We must remark on the first of these opinions that it was, indeed, within the power of the divine will to produce, or not to produce, an animal such as the law of nature would agree with (congrueret). But after (postquam) man had once been created by God, an animal which could not be preÂserved alive unless he observed the natural law, it is no longer possible to believe (hautquidquam fas est credere) that He will annul or change the law of nature so long as He makes no change in the nature of man.... As Rossiter very justly writes, â€?Pufendorf’s voluntarism is moderated by his view of hypothetical necessity’^ If in the act of creation, God is free to give to beings the nature he wants, as long as it does not imply a contradiction, once he has given to the beings their nature, he is â€?conditionally required’ to impose on them the moral beings suitable to their nature. In the thesis he devoted to this notion, Rossiter opposes hypothetical necesÂsity (necessitas ex suppositione) to strict or absolute necessity. He first gives this general definition: â€?Something is hypothetically necessary if it is the case that it is not strictly necessary, considered by itself, but necessary in virtue of being entailed by something else that is contingent’^5 Later on, he gives a definition specific to the theological context: â€?Hypothetical necessity involves things that could have been otherwise, but which are now necessary based on the suppoÂsition of a free action and the perfection of the divine attributes’^6 Unlike Pufendorf’s commentators quoted here in the first two sections, all those who will be quoted in this third section have clearly seen the moderation of Pufendorfian voluntarism by the notion of hypothetical necessity, and make the law of nature a necessary consequence of â€?the condition of man in general’. This is first the case of Behme, who is not afraid of talking of â€?the persistence of a teleological conception of nature’?7 Pufendorf is said to have broken the metaphysical nexus between physÂical and moral nature characteristic of Aristotelian substance ontology, that had found its classical formulation in the Thomistic dictum ens et bonum convertuntur (being and the good coincide). As a matter of conÂsequence the moral actions of man no longer appear as a realisation of his immanent essence, but as actions according to rules resulting from voluntary imposition according to convenience.[908] [909] Behme assumes that â€?this point of view has to be corrected to a certain extent: Pufendorf claims to have developed his theory of law as a universally binding natural law. This law is recognised by human reason in contemÂplating the human condition [ii.2.14], and has â€?an abiding, and uniform standard of judgement, namely, the nature of things' [ii.2.9], even in the natural state. Pufendorf reconciles this claim with his separation of entia physica and entia moralia by tracing back nature and moral law to God the creator and lawgiver, who guarantees the harmonious conformity and ultimate identity of both realms.... As long as created human nature remains unchanged according to divine will, God's consistency also guarÂantees the eternity and unchangeability of natural law [ii, 3, 5].. This close union of nature and morality based on the integrity of God's origiÂnal act of simultaneous creation and imposition also enables Pufendorf to reintroduce a kind of natural teleology.4≡ Behme is by far not the only one to consider that some commentators have excessively pulled Pufendorf's voluntarism in the direction of pure arbitrariÂness, and points to the harmonious conformity between creation and impoÂsition. Haakonssen, despite stating in 2010 - as already noted - that â€?the core of Pufendorf's voluntarism' is that â€?there is no general theoretical connection between natural and moral goods',[910] was however writing a few years earlier: It should be stressed that Pufendorf's voluntarism in the first instance is ontological. It was in His choice of creation that God exercised His free will. However, once he had included a human nature of the sort He did, a certain set of moral entities was naturally fit to provide guidance for this nature. The standard charge against voluntarism, that it makes God's prescription of natural law appear an arbitrary position, was thus in some measure misconceived....[911] Likewise in Seidler: â€?The voluntarist problem of arbitrariness is avoided by positÂing (Pufendorf thinks proving, through natural theology.) divine benevolence (providence) and consistency: human nature and the law regulating it are willed together by God for human benefit’.[912] [913] Petter Korkman suggests as for him that â€?[t]he term “voluntarism” is often used. in a somewhat misleading manner in discussions of Pufendorf’s theory’. Given that â€?Pufendorf and Barbeyrac do indeed defend a position where it is important that the moral laws are imposed by God’s wilt, the question arises whether â€?God arbitrarily invented all moral distinctions, just as Descartes had claimed that God invented the eternal truths? Can God’s will take precedence over reason and act without it, or even against it? This is the conclusion Leibniz wishes his readers to draw’.53 Actually, as we have seen above, Pufendorf is not as voluntarist as Leibniz claims him to be. Making the distinction between, on one side, the content of the natural law and, on the other side, its form (laws or commands) as well as the source of moral obligation (God’s will), Korkman concludes: The natural laws are therefore based on human nature, as to their conÂtent. This, Barbeyrac concludes, also means that the natural laws are not arbitrary. The natural laws are bound up with human nature in such a way that God could not change these laws without changing human nature. In this sense then, the natural laws are not arbitrary as to their content, on the Pufendorfian theory. Thus Barbeyrac can retort to Leibniz that Pufendorf does not transform morality into a set of arbitrary commands. Pufendorf, as Barbeyrac points out, takes something of a middle position between voluntarism and rationalism.. Without God's decision to create the rational and social animal, the natural law, and morality as we know it, would never have existed.[914] [915] [916] [917] This is a very central cornerstone in the Pufendorfian-Barbeyracian position. The natural laws are contingent in the sense that they depend on the existence of man. The existence of man is contingent. God could very well have decided not to create man. Once he did decide to create man, however, he was bound to impose the laws of sociability on him.55 Is it only the existence of man which is contingent, as Korkman claims? When reading two excerpts by Pufendorf, it seems that not only is existence so, but also essence, as Seve rightly noticed when he points out that â€?conditional necessity not only of existence but [also] of essence' gives God â€?twice as much room for manoeuvre': It appears that [to Pufendorf] man... could have been, according to God's â€?goodwill', a man, always man because rational, but different because not social. In this passage [ι, 2, 6], we indeed observe a progressive shift from the rational nature that Grotius talks about, and that identifies to man like two and two to four, towards the social nature of which Pufendorf can assert. contingency. This interpretation is confirmed when Pufendorf [ii, 3, 4], resuming the issue of the conditional necessity not only of existence but also of essence, mentions the idea of another constituÂtion and other duties in these terms: â€?For if man had been compelled to other duties, it is not a social animal that would have been produced, but another species of a savage and fierce animal.' In other words, according to Pufendorf, God has the freedom of creating man or not, the freedom of making him sociable or not, but not that of imposing other duties than those that necessarily stem from this second choice?6 Seve's interpretation is confirmed both by Schneewind: â€?It was necessary neiÂther that God should create, nor that he should have created beings with our distinctive nature.'57 and by Rossiter: â€?[Pufendorf] thinks that God has the power to fashion human nature in any number of ways according to his pleasÂure. What follows here is that God could have created human beings to be simÂply rational or to be both rational and sociable.’[918] [919] Thus, on the basis of the contingency of man’s creation and man’s nature and condition, the moral imposition is not absolutely necessary but only hypoÂthetically necessary. This hypothetical necessity can be understood as a natural teleology, a natural correspondence, God’s consistency, our distinctive nature, or consequences flowing from the nature of things. 5