In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant presents a table of philosophers who argue that morality is grounded upon what he calls material determining grounds of the will. Kant then offers a series of criticisms for the sake of contrasting these philosophers’ ideas with his own theory of the will’s autonomy.Footnote 1 With this, Kant engages in an argumentative strategy that is at least as old as Aristotle, and which is evident throughout the history of philosophy, namely that of presenting one’s ideas in opposition to those of others and arguing that the former constitute genuine alternatives to the latter.Footnote 2 Advocates of care ethics have, at times, adopted the same strategy. Some care ethicists argue that care is the bedrock concept of a robust normative theoryFootnote 3 in view of which they critique strands of the history of philosophy that stress individual rights and autonomous choice but sideline care, relationality, and dependence.Footnote 4 This is what I will call the independence model of human nature. Care ethicists argue that this model is misguided because it claims that one can understand the human being in isolation from the networks of relations upon which her flourishing depends. As an alternative, they put forward what I will call the dependence model of human nature, which stresses that no human being is self-sufficient but is rather dependent upon others’ care and concern in order to attain her ends.Footnote 5 In view of this model, care ethicists conclude that caring for others is fundamental to morality and the good life.
In recent years, several scholars have sought to complicate care ethicists’ critique of the history of philosophy by highlighting historical figures who, while not care ethicists, nevertheless propose moral theories that adopt models of human nature that share important points of connection with the dependence model. For example, Ruth Groenhout, Sarah Clark Miller, and Vrinda Dalmiya have placed care ethics into fruitful dialogue with Augustine, Levinas, Kant, and the Hindu Mahābhārata.Footnote 6 Through their analyses, these scholars have not only challenged the dominant care ethics narrative, but have also demonstrated that both care ethics and the history of philosophy offer an array of insights from which they can mutually benefit.Footnote 7 Groenhout captures this nicely, saying “it is important to see in what ways care theory fits with, and could perhaps draw on, aspects of the Western tradition, because those connections offer us deeper insights into how [care ethics’s] account of human nature can structure ethical deliberation about the issues that most deeply affect us as human beings.”Footnote 8
This paper seeks to contribute to the growing dialogue between care ethics and the history of philosophy by highlighting the thought of an influential (though largely unknown today) eighteenthth-century German philosopher: Christian August Crusius.Footnote 9 Crusius’s moral philosophy is notable because it operates via strikingly similar conceptual dynamics as care ethics, especially in its adoption of the dependence model of human nature. I argue that, although Crusius does not cleanly fit into the care ethics tradition, the fact that he endorses the dependence model and constructs a moral theory that consistently overlaps with care ethics is sufficient evidence to conclude that Crusius helps to bridge the gap between care ethics and the historical tradition. Furthermore, I argue that dialogue between Crusius and care ethics is philosophically fruitful, for it gives rise to insights that are mutually beneficial. Crusius’s account of dependence can enrich care ethics by stressing the ontological dimensions of human dependence, while care ethics’s focus upon embodimentFootnote 10 can benefit Crusius, for it is with respect to one’s embodied needs that her dependence and the resulting duty to careFootnote 11 find concrete expression. From this, I conclude that Crusius challenges the notion that care ethics is an exclusively feminist project that should take a default critical stance toward the history of philosophy.
I will begin with a discussion of care ethics, focusing upon the normative aspects of care and its relation to the dependence model. Eva Kittay serves as my primary interlocutor for this discussion, although I engage others in the care ethics tradition as well. Next, I will examine Crusius’s moral philosophy and dependence’s role therein, paying particular attention to his argument that dependence upon God is foundational for moral obligation. I will conclude by highlighting the overlaps between care ethics and Crusius, their enduring points of disagreement, and the benefits that accrue to both by engaging one another.
1. Care ethics
1.1. Care as normative
Care ethics emerged on the philosophical scene in the latter part of the twentieth century, primarily among feminist philosophers, for which reason Virginia Held argues that any attempt to bracket care ethics from its feminist roots is ipso facto to misunderstand it.Footnote 12 This is because care ethics’s basic concept, namely care, understood in Kittay’s words as “fully normative,”Footnote 13 stems from social roles traditionally performed by women, such as caring for children, the disabled, and the elderly. Given the feminine, and often domestic, context in which care has traditionally found its footing, it is no surprise that earlier moral theories largely neglect it. Moreover, given that the value and necessity of caring labor is often rendered invisible by gender-based assumptions regarding care’s place among moral and sociopolitical concerns, it is no surprise that care ethics has found expression among feminist philosophers who seek to elevate care to greater philosophical prominence.Footnote 14 For example, in Love’s labor and Learning from my daughter, Kittay employs insights accrued through years of caring for her daughter Sesha both to challenge basic assumptions that have shaped much of the history of philosophy and to develop care ethics into a robust moral theory that is not merely derivative of virtue ethics, deontology, or utilitarianism.Footnote 15
In construing care as a bedrock normative concept—what Held and Kittay call “the most deeply fundamental value”Footnote 16 and “the guiding virtue for a true ethics of care,”Footnote 17 respectively—care ethicists argue that it is imperative not to relegate care to the private sphere, as if it finds expression exclusively within domestic confines and does not bear upon public, political concerns.Footnote 18 Further, they argue that care must not be conceived of under the categories of “the natural” or “the charitable,” for this would construe care as resulting from a merely instinctive impulse or as a supererogatory act, but not as a normatively binding concept that grounds moral obligations such that failing to care would render the agent deserving of moral blame.Footnote 19 To care in the normative sense, Kittay says, is not a “‘natural disposition’ but a process of morally motivated attention, discernment, and response.”Footnote 20
If care is to be a fundamental normative value, then it must be able to prescribe universally binding duties.Footnote 21 However, this raises the question of how care can account for such duties given the seemingly obvious fact that many individuals with whom one interacts are in no need of her care. One may ask: upon what basis is an agent obligated to care for those beyond her realm of immediate concern? Kittay’s answer is that the properly moral (i.e., caring) disposition requires the agent to adopt the maxim that everyone is some mother’s child,Footnote 22 thereby invoking the mother–child relationship, which Kittay characterizes as “ubiquitous in human society and [just] as fundamental to our humanity as any property philosophers have invoked as distinctly human.”Footnote 23 In proposing this maxim, Kittay highlights the fact that human beings are dependent upon others, for without others’ care no one would survive infancy. The mere fact of one’s survival bespeaks one’s need for care and her antecedent reception thereof. Furthermore, as care ethicists emphasize, dependence is an ongoing dimension of human life, inevitably making itself known in moments of illness, disability, and old age.Footnote 24 Given human dependence, all require care, and so Kittay concludes that “everyone is enfolded into the circle of care.”Footnote 25 The maxim that everyone is some mother’s child invokes the universality of dependence and thereby establishes the universal scope of the duty to care. This excavates care from the cramped confines of the private domain and transforms it into a public, properly normative concept.Footnote 26
But what precisely do care ethicists mean by care in a normative sense? What are its defining characteristics as a moral concept? Kittay says that to care for another is to concern oneself with the other’s flourishing, that is, “to promote an individual’s good, as that good is seen through the perspective of the one cared for.”Footnote 27 Miller agrees, defining care as “[promoting] the happiness of those in need by advancing their self-determined ends.”Footnote 28 Put another way, the basic moral duty is to care about the other’s cares (i.e., that which the other cares about).Footnote 29 However, Kittay qualifies this subjective dimension of care by arguing that one’s desire for an end does not a priori establish a duty for another to promote it. Instead, a duty only results if the care is either a “genuine need” or a “legitimate want.”Footnote 30 She explains that a genuine need is one “that, if not attended to, will cause harm or impede the flourishing of the one in need,” and a legitimate want is one “that the cared-for should be able to satisfy without harming others.”Footnote 31 Taking these qualifications into account, care in the normative sense can be defined as the obligation to be concerned with the cares of others—with their genuine needs and legitimate wants—so as to promote their flourishing.Footnote 32
Another dimension of care ethics qua normative theory that Kittay takes into account is avoiding unidirectionality in the relation between the care-giver and the cared-for; that is, she argues that the duty to care is not restricted to the care-giver alone. Instead, care involves the cared-for as a full-fledged member of the caring relation. This involvement on the part of the cared-for is what Kittay, following Nel Noddings, calls “the completion of care,”Footnote 33 which she characterizes as a “duty to receive care graciously if it is offered with a good will and with the requisite attention and competence, insofar as [one has] the capacity to discharge such a duty.”Footnote 34 In completing care—or as Kittay says, in taking it up—the cared-for evidences that she has received care from the care-giver.Footnote 35
However, Kittay also stresses the importance of not overdetermining the duty that the completion of care places upon the cared-for. She explains that not every act of care demands complete reciprocity, as if the cared-for is obligated to express the same manner, degree, or value of care to the care-giver that she has received, which would reduce care to a transaction, or to what Kittay calls an exchange reciprocity.Footnote 36 This is because an agent often finds herself in relations of dependence characterized by an asymmetry of power and ability. For example, an elderly or disabled person may be unable to return the care that she received by caring for her care-giver in the same manner or to the same degree. Consequently, Kittay argues for a relative and indeterminate conception of the completion of care. While this may, at times, take the form of an exchange reciprocity, she argues that an expression of gratitude or even an involuntary act (such as an infant growing or a pain subsiding) can be sufficient evidence that the care-giver has provided care.Footnote 37 What is essential, Kittay concludes, is not that the care-giver expects a mere transaction of care, but, given human interrelatedness and dependence, that one recognizes:
[a] chain of obligations linking members of a community [that] creates a sense of reciprocity between those who give and those who receive that raises the expectation that when one is in the position to give care, one will, and when that person is in need another who is suitably situated to give care will respond.Footnote 38
This is not an exchange reciprocity but is instead a relation in which one conceives of her equality with others in terms of connection and obligation.Footnote 39 It is clear, then, that dependence is an essential dimension of human life that helps to establish care as universally normative. Thus, I will now analyze the dependence model of human nature and its role in care ethics in more detail.
1.2. Care ethics and the dependence model of human nature
In examining care as normative, care ethicists often argue that a defining trait of their moral theory is its rejection of the independence model of human nature, a model that many philosophers of the Western canon have adopted, leading them to give matters such as equality, individual rights, and autonomyFootnote 40 pride of place but also, at times, to ignore concerns about care, which commonly arise within the context of dependency relations among individuals unequal in power and ability.Footnote 41 Because moral philosophers often construct their theories with respect to some conception of the self, as Kittay points out,Footnote 42 care ethicists argue that this tendency is undergirded by an ultimately false conception of the human being.Footnote 43 Consequently, they propose an alternative model of human nature in view of which care takes center stage.
Care ethicists are undoubtedly correct that several canonical thinkers emphasize independence as a defining mark of human life. In the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, for example, a picture of the human being emerges as an atomistic bearer of rights making her way through the world and contracting with others when her ends demand it.Footnote 44 A more contemporary expression of this viewpoint is found in the work of John Rawls, which care ethicists have critiqued.Footnote 45 They argue that the independence model is an idealized, false abstraction that is destined to strike one as foreign to her experience, for human beings are not solitary, independent actors. Rather, they are deeply relational beings who are enmeshed in extensive networks that establish the responsibility to care for others and their needs.Footnote 46 Care ethicists argue that human beings experience and conceive of themselves in terms of their relations with others, such as family members, friends, colleagues, and peers.Footnote 47 As Kittay explains, “An ethics of care begins with embodied selves who are regarded as inextricably connected to other embodied selves.”Footnote 48 Given the undeniably formative role of these embodied relations, it is simply mistaken to bracket them in a futile attempt to understand a person in isolation.Footnote 49 Furthermore, human beings exist in relation to the non-human, natural order and (for those who profess a spiritual consciousness) to transcendent reality. Hence, any model that ignores these relations inevitably results in an impoverished view of human life,Footnote 50 whose rich dynamism shines forth precisely when the human being is viewed through the lens of her relations with others and the world around her. Hence, care ethics breaks from the philosophical tendency to favor independence and, instead, emphasizes relationality over autonomy, and responsibilities over rights.Footnote 51
Moreover, it is not merely the fact of human relationality that fuels their rejection of the independence model but, more precisely, the nature of this relationality, which many care ethicists characterize primarily in terms of dependence.Footnote 52 Stephanie Collins argues that the duty to care in light of the ubiquity of human dependence constitutes the conceptual core of care ethics.Footnote 53 The paradigmatic case of a dependency relation, as previously discussed, is a child’s relation to a parent.Footnote 54 Each human being begins life in a position of utter dependence upon others to meet her basic needs, and although most individuals grow more independent with age, they never cease being dependent beings, even at times of relative health and independence.Footnote 55 For instance, one depends upon the natural world to provide breathable air and nutrition; upon her friends and romantic partners for a sense of community and shared experiences. Then, as she continues to age, she depends upon others to meet her basic needs once again.Footnote 56 As Dalmiya explains:
Taken together, these features constitute a very different conceptual space than the one inhabited by traditional ethical theories. It is a space of embodiment, of vulnerability, of dependence, of needs calling out to be met, and of the labour of meeting them: it is a space inhabited by concrete human beings and the space of care ethics.Footnote 57
Given human dependence, one would not survive if others were not concerned with her good. As Kittay puts it, it is “the chain of dependent relations that make all our lives possible,”Footnote 58 thereby making “caring for dependents a mark of our humanity.”Footnote 59
In order to further specify the nature of dependence, Kittay explains that a dependent individual, qua dependent, relies upon another to attain her end(s). That is, the dependent requires the other’s care. It is precisely because the relation is one of dependence that the members relate to one another as care-giver and cared-for, where the former cares for the latter by assisting in the fulfillment of her end(s), that is, her cares, and thereby promoting her flourishing.Footnote 60 Kittay further explains that, since no relation exists in a vacuum, caring for another simultaneously makes the care-giver dependent upon others. This is because the care-giver also has genuine needs and legitimate wants that her caring act may inhibit, thereby requiring others to concern themselves with her flourishing and promote her end(s), the attainment of which can then allow her to continue to care for the cared-for. For this reason, Kittay characterizes dependency relations as nested, for the care-giving act ultimately depends upon both the cared-for and the care-giver receiving care from others.Footnote 61 Dependence and care, therefore, are tightly intertwined concepts; wherever a dependency relation between conscious beings subsists, care is required.Footnote 62
In light of these conceptual links between dependence and care, establishing the latter as normative requires care ethicists to adopt a model of human nature that emphasizes dependence as fundamental to human life, for doing so opens up the space to argue that care is a bedrock moral concept.Footnote 63 As Collins pithily puts it, the slogan of care ethics is: “dependency relationships generate duties.”Footnote 64 Hence, the proposition that the human being should be conceived of as relational and dependent is foundational to care ethics and constitutes a condition of its coherence.Footnote 65
Now, while care ethicists are correct that numerous moral theories in the history of philosophy are in tension with care ethics in view of their endorsement of the independence model, I caution against painting with too broad of a brush in this regard. This is because the history of philosophy also includes thinkers who embrace the dependence model, resulting in moral theories that notably resemble care ethics, such as those explored by Groenhout, Miller, and Dalmiya.Footnote 66 Groenhout, for instance, demonstrates that Augustine adopts the dependence model, for he “also recognizes the finitude and dependence that mark human existence” and “rejects any sense that humans are independent and self-sufficient beings.”Footnote 67 Following in the spirit of this scholarly vein, I will argue that Crusius’s moral philosophy operates according to strikingly similar conceptual dynamics as care ethics and that these similarities follow from their mutual embrace of the dependence model. In order to make this argument, I will first present an overview of Crusius’s moral philosophy and the role of dependence therein.
2. Dependence in Crusius’s moral philosophy
2.1. The drive of conscience and the formal principle of virtue
In his major work on moral philosophy, the Guide to living rationally from 1744, Crusius argues that the human will is not a singular power but is instead a collection of powers, which includes what he calls the basic drives.Footnote 68 These drives are the fundamental human desires from which all other desires follow,Footnote 69 the first two of which are the drive for one’s own perfection and the drive to unite with external perfections.Footnote 70 Crusius argues that neither of these drives is essential to morality, for this is the distinctive role of the third drive—the drive of conscience.Footnote 71 He argues that conscience has a uniquely moral character because it orients the human being toward God’s commands,Footnote 72 defining conscience as “the natural drive to recognize a divine moral law, that is, to believe in a rule of human actions in which it is determined what God wills to be done and not done out of obedience in view of our dependence, the violation of which God punishes.”Footnote 73 Because the drive of conscience is inherent to the will, every human being possesses an innate desire to conform to God’s moral law.Footnote 74
Crusius identifies the basic principle of the moral law as: “do that which is in accordance with the perfection of God and your relations to him, and that which is in accordance with the essential perfection of human nature, and refrain from the opposite.”Footnote 75 He explains that the moral law places a duty upon all human beings to contribute to human perfection for the sake of fulfilling “God’s ultimate end in the world,” which is “that free actions take place in accordance with the rules of the essential perfection of things.”Footnote 76 Because God cannot force human beings to adopt this end without violating freedom of choice, God establishes a law that obligates, but does not coerce, human beings to it, in view of which God casts moral judgment and either rewards or punishes.
Since the moral law commands perfection, I must briefly clarify how Crusius conceives of this before proceeding. He defines perfection as “the relation of [a thing’s] state to the sum of the effects to which it is suited, and the more things it is suitable for, and the more suited it is for them, the more perfect it is.”Footnote 77 Crusius then distinguishes two kinds of perfections: essential and contingent. An essential perfection is that “through which the thing’s essence becomes more perfect,”Footnote 78 where a substance’s essence is the collection of qualities and powers that endow it with the capacity to engage in its characteristic activities.Footnote 79 On the other hand, contingent perfections are qualities and powers that are not essential to the substance. For example, Crusius explains that a globe that rests upon a valuable stand is a perfection of the globe but this is not essential to what a globe is, thereby rendering the stand a contingent perfection.Footnote 80 The moral law commands one to promote the essential perfection of human nature, not its contingent perfections, and therefore to perform those actions that further perfect one’s essential qualities and powers qua human. The essential perfection of human nature amounts to the realization of one’s rational and moral potential. Moreover, “insofar as it follows from the human essence,” this perfection “is absolutely the same with respect to all men,”Footnote 81 by which Crusius establishes the universal scope of the moral command. Essential human perfection, therefore, is the human metaphysical good,Footnote 82 for the sake of which God endows the human will with a basic drive to seek its fulfillment.
In pursuing their own essential perfection, human beings conform to that which God commands, for “the divine law prescribes to us nothing other than the true means to our happiness and perfection.”Footnote 83 However, Crusius clarifies that the pursuit of essential perfection is not sufficient for virtue (or moral goodness), even though God’s command is fulfilled therein.Footnote 84 If it were sufficient, then the drive of conscience would be redundant since virtue would be attainable in accordance with the first and second basic drives. However, Crusius is clear that God does nothing in vain.Footnote 85 The drive of conscience is distinct from the other drives and is necessary for virtue, Crusius argues, not because it directs the agent to a different object, but because it orients her to the formal principle of virtue.Footnote 86 Qua formal, this principle is not concerned with how an agent acts, that is, whether she meets her obligation to pursue essential perfection or not (for this is the material principle of virtueFootnote 87 ) but rather with why she acts. Crusius argues that the requisite formal principle, that is, distinctively moral motivation, is “the intention to exercise obedience to the divine will.”Footnote 88 By obedience, he means “[observing] the will of our sovereign out of indebtedness,”Footnote 89 and further explains that “all indebtedness follows from dependence.”Footnote 90 Hence, virtue requires the pursuit of essential perfection motivated by the desire to obey God in view of one’s dependence and indebtedness.Footnote 91 The drive of conscience endows the agent with consciousness of dependence, thereby, in Sonja Schierbaum’s words, “[actualizing] the moral desire to act according to divine law.”Footnote 92 In this way, conscience is requisite for virtue.
With both the material and formal principles of virtue in mind, it is clear that the Crusian virtuous individual does not abandon her natural impulses for the sake of obeying God. Instead, she acts upon her desires in light of her dependence and indebtedness. Thus, virtue requires the agent to subject her first two drives to the third, to subject her desires for her own essential perfection and for union with external perfections to her desire to obey God in a spirit of indebtedness, acutely aware of her dependence.Footnote 93
From his treatment of the drive of conscience and the formal principle of virtue, one can understand Crusius’s further distinction between virtue and prudence. Prudence concerns “certain ends that we desire by virtue of our nature, insofar as we desire them, such that the ends cannot be obtained unless we proceed in one way or another,” while virtue concerns “the relation of an action or omission to a divine law, such that the law is violated unless we proceed in one way or another.”Footnote 94 Hence, if an agent pursues her own essential perfection, or seeks union with an external perfection, but only does so in response to her first or second basic drive, then she acts prudently, though not virtuously, because the formal principle of virtue does not determine her choice. In order for her act to qualify as virtuous, the agent must subject her first two basic drives to the authority of the drive of conscience and thereby strive to promote essential perfection because God—upon whom she is dependent and indebted—commands it.Footnote 95
Moreover, the distinction between virtue and prudence grounds Crusius’s distinction between two forms of obligation: obligations of virtue and obligations of prudence. An agent is obligated to promote her own essential perfection and to unite with external perfections insofar as she recognizes that, in doing so, she satisfies her first and second basic drives. However, this is merely an obligation of prudence, for it is based entirely upon the agent’s pursuit of ends she desires by nature. The distinguishing characteristic between a prudential obligation and an obligation of virtue (or a moral obligation) is that the latter results from a command of God. It is precisely because God, upon whom the agent is dependent, commands her to pursue essential perfection via the moral law that a moral obligation to do so follows, for it establishes a duty to pursue the moral good, or “that which is in accordance with God’s moral intentions, that is, what he wills to be promoted through the reason and free wills of created spirits.”Footnote 96 Therefore, obligations of prudence and obligations of virtue are not distinct in terms of what they command (the matter of the obligation) but in their formal principles, that is, the principle to obey the promptings of one’s nature on the one hand, and the principle to obey God on the other. By this, Crusius establishes morality as the distinctive sphere of human action that is explicitly concerned with obedience to God’s will.
2.2. The dependency relation and moral obligation
Given that Crusius invokes dependence upon God throughout his discussion of the formal principle of virtue and moral obligation, it is helpful to explore his understanding of dependence in more detail. Crusius says that “two things depend upon one another insofar as one receives something from the other. Therefore, dependence of spirits upon one another is that relation by virtue of which one receives certain goods from the will of the other, such that if this will were to cease, the goods would also cease.”Footnote 97 With this, Crusius establishes three necessary conditions for a relation to qualify as one of dependence. First, the dependent must receive some good(s) from another, where a good is “that which is in accordance with one’s volition.”Footnote 98 Hence, one receives a good from another insofar as she receives something that accords with her volition, that is, something that she desires and perceives as beneficial. Second, the good that the dependent receives must follow from the other’s will, that is, from the other’s choice to provide it. Hence, if the agent ceases to will the good for the dependent, then the good also ceases. The third condition is that the good received must be a true good, which emerges in light of Crusius’s discussion of true and apparent goods.Footnote 99 He argues that, while being in accordance with an agent’s volition is requisite for a true (or genuine) good, it is not sufficient because a true good results in consequences that are also in accordance with one’s volition. If the latter condition is absent, then the good is merely apparent. As Crusius explains:
If an object is in accordance with our volition, but then consequences follow that are just as, if not more, contrary to our will, then the object does not truly agree with our volition, even if we had previously thought it did … In this case, therefore, the object is an apparent good. On the other hand, if we find that, after considering the sum of the object’s effects that both agree and conflict with the will, if the agreement is greater than the conflict, then the object is a true physical good,Footnote 100 even if it were to cause us distress and pain for a time.Footnote 101
Taking these conditions into account, I summarize Crusian dependence in the following way: one is dependent upon another if she receives a true good from the other that follows from the other’s will and that lies beyond her ability to attain it via her own efforts;Footnote 102 a good which would therefore be absent if the other were to choose not to provide it.
As previously discussed, Crusius understands dependence upon God and moral obligation as tightly intertwined, for it is precisely because God (upon whom human beings are dependent and consequently indebted) issues commands via the moral law that a moral obligation to obey the law follows.Footnote 103 Crusius is keen to clarify that God’s commands are moral obligations precisely because the relation that subsists between human beings and God is one of dependence and not a mere power relation. He says:
From this, we see how true moral dependence is distinct from the mere overwhelming power of one over another, and consequently what the difference is between a sovereign, whose will has a binding power, and one who is more powerful than another, who only compels the other to fulfill his will.Footnote 104
These forms of relation overlap to the extent that, in both cases, the agent is compelled to obey another’s will. However, Crusius claims that, in the power relation, the other’s will cannot morally obligate the agent. To explain this, he provides the example of a thief forcing a victim to surrender her money.Footnote 105 Although the victim indeed does what the thief demands, she is under no moral obligation to do so because her action follows from fear or coercion, not from dependence. The dynamics at work in a relation of mere power fail to satisfy the conditions for dependence, for the thief neither wills a true good for the victim nor provides anything to her. It is only when these conditions are met, and so only within an authentic dependency relation, that a morally obligatory command can follow.
Thus, because human beings are morally obligated to obey God’s law and not merely coerced, it is evident that Crusius conceives of the human being’s relation to God as one of dependence, leading him to conclude that God is a moral sovereign and not simply an overwhelming power that compels obedience. Like many theistic philosophers, Crusius argues that one’s dependence upon God is ontologically basic, that is, it touches upon the core of what it means to be human. This is because he conceives of God as the creator and sustainer of all things. Qua creator, God brings all existing things into being out of nothing; qua sustainer, God continuously wills all existing things to remain in being.Footnote 106 This leads Crusius to conclude that “the only state that is absolutely essential to us”Footnote 107 is the fact that “with respect to [our] being, essence, and complete well-being, [we] are absolutely, solely, and necessarily, and thus most perfectly, dependent upon God.”Footnote 108
Crusius’s three conditions for dependence can be brought to bear to understand why this is the case. First, God’s will is the ground of the most basic ontological goods that human beings need and enjoy, namely their existence (that they are) and their essence (what they are). Existence and essence qualify as goods because they align with human volition. Crusius explains that, “as soon as we become aware of a power within us, the drive for perfection gives rise to a desire to use it, to preserve it, to more skillfully perform a variety of tasks with it.”Footnote 109 Due to the will’s first basic drive, human beings strive to remain in existence and perfect their essence, thereby signaling a conformity between existence and essence on the one hand and human volition on the other, rendering the former goods. Second, these goods follow from God’s choice to provide them, for human beings are incapable of bringing themselves into being or of determining their essential nature. Human beings require these goods and cannot receive them otherwise than through their creator.Footnote 110 As the ontological ground of existence and essence, if God were to cease willing these goods, then they would cease to exist. Third, beyond their accordance with human volition in their own right, the goods of existence and essence are grounds of numerous consequences that human beings also desire, such as physical pleasure, intellectual enrichment, and community, by which existence and essence qualify as true—not merely apparent—goods. Having satisfied the conditions for a dependency relation, Crusius concludes that human beings are dependent and indebted to God.
As this analysis makes clear, Crusius adopts the dependence model of human nature, through which he establishes the moral obligation to obey God’s law. However, given that dependence is a fundamental dimension of human life, Crusius does not limit his view to one’s dependence on God alone but extends it to his understanding of one’s relation to other human beings. It is to this aspect of dependence and its role in Crusius’s moral philosophy that I will now turn.
2.3. The law of nature and human sociability
While morality, at bottom, requires obedience to God’s will, it is important to emphasize that the agent must not only be concerned with her own good but that of others as well, for the law prescribes her to promote the essential perfection of human nature in the broad sense.Footnote 111 Crusius assigns a distinct place in his moral theory to this other-regarding dimension of morality, calling it the law of nature: “the sum total of the natural duties that human beings have with respect to other human beings,”Footnote 112 the basic command of which is to “conduct yourself towards others according to the perfection of their essence and their relation to God, and according to the connection that God has established among human beings.”Footnote 113 Since Crusius invokes the connection between human beings, it is requisite to explore how he situates mutual human relations within the framework of the dependence model in order to understand this aspect of his moral theory.
Crusius stresses one’s need for others’ assistance in order to enjoy the goods of this life, to fulfill one’s ends, and ultimately to flourish, invoking (like the care ethicists) the parent–child relation as the paradigm case of such need.Footnote 114 He calls this fundamental need for others’ assistance sociability,Footnote 115 which he defines as “the arrangement of [the human being’s] condition by virtue of which their ends must be attained through mutual effort.”Footnote 116 He then analyzes sociability under two headings, what I call its active and passive components. The active component of sociability speaks to the fact that God has endowed each human being with some degree of power, by means of which one is meant to contribute to her own essential perfection and that of others.Footnote 117 However, although this is the case, “in many other things … he suffers from a lack of powers that he needs, and with which others must help him.”Footnote 118 This is the passive component of sociability, which highlights the human being’s lack of self-sufficiency, thereby spurring her to seek assistance. In creating human beings as simultaneously active and passive in these respects, God sows the seeds of sociability, and it is precisely in this manner that Crusius understands interdependence.
To make the fact of interdependence all the more evident, Crusius prompts his readers to reflect upon the myriad of ways in which human beings depend upon one another and require their cooperation, saying:
Just consider how much trouble it takes to educate and teach a person. How many human hands must unite in their labors before we can get hold of those things that we use for daily necessity and convenience? Even the people who live in the greatest solitude must first have been begotten and educated by others.Footnote 119
In light of this, Crusius concludes that, in the absence of social cooperation, no human end can be fulfilled,Footnote 120 thereby evidencing the centrality of interpersonal dependence in human life.
Moreover, one can invoke Crusius’s three conditions for dependence to show that human beings depend upon one another in the precise sense. First, they receive a myriad of goods from one another, such as birth and sustenance throughout childhood, language, education, and craft knowledge. Second, these goods are contingent upon others’ choices to provide them, in the absence of which they would not exist since it lies beyond an individual’s capacity to attain them entirely on one’s own. Third, these are true goods insofar as they promote essential perfection and thereby accord with volition. Once again referencing the parent–child relation, Crusius explains,
We are indebted to respect and love our parents because of the order of physical dependence that God has established, by virtue of which he has chosen them to be the instruments for giving us life, which is a kind of connection that can only be acted upon by respecting and loving our parents, because it is only in doing so that we demonstrate that we are mindful of this dependence.Footnote 121
From this, it is clear that the connection that God has established between human beings of which the law of nature speaksFootnote 122 is precisely dependence. Furthermore, because the moral law commands the agent to promote essential perfection, which in view of sociability requires mutual assistance, God places a moral obligation upon the agent to be concerned with furthering both her own essential perfection and that of others. Thus, Crusius invokes dependence to establish the fundamental moral obligation to obey God’s commands and, by extension, to establish one’s duties toward others, thereby framing his moral theory in accordance with the dependence model of human nature.
3. Crusius and care ethics
3.1. Points of overlap and distinction
I have shown that Crusius’s moral philosophy functions according to the same model of human nature as care ethics, namely the dependence model. Given their agreement in this respect, additional points of overlap follow.Footnote 123 First, both moral theories argue that human beings are obligated to promote the flourishing of others. As previously discussed, Kittay conceives of caring for another as contributing to the other’s flourishing by promoting her cares. Although Crusius does not use the language of care, he argues that the moral law, and the law of nature in particular, commands the agent to promote the essential perfection, or metaphysical good, of others. Moreover, just as care ethicists argue that care includes the subjective condition of helping another to flourish as she understands it, Crusius claims that a true good is that which aligns with, and leads to consequences that align with, one’s volition, thereby speaking to a similar subjective element in moral action. In addition, both theories qualify this subjective element. Kittay argues that the other’s cares must be either genuine needs or legitimate wants, while Crusius clarifies that one’s essential perfection necessarily aligns with her volition given the will’s first basic drive.
Second, Crusius and the care ethicists agree that it is precisely the human being’s dependence that beckons others to care for her good. No individual can accomplish her ends entirely on her own, and so flourishing lies outside the purview of individual effort. Consequently, human beings stand in need of others’ assistance, and although Crusius argues that moral obligations follow exclusively from God’s commands, he agrees that the obligation to promote others’ essential perfection is tightly intertwined with the fact that human beings are, at bottom, dependent beings. If, on the other hand, human beings were robustly independent, then there would be no need for care; no need to be concerned with another’s flourishing since one could accomplish this on her own. However, because both Crusius and care ethics reject such a claim and endorse the dependence model, the necessity of caring for others follows for both.
A third and final point of overlap concerns the obligation on the part of the cared-for to respond to the caring act of the other, or to complete the care. As previously discussed, Kittay and Noddings argue that care is not unidirectional. Instead, it calls for some form of response on the part of the cared-for as a full-fledged member of the caring relation. This aspect of care ethics, I argue, shares an affinity with Crusius, for it is precisely because the agent is dependent upon God for her most basic ontological goods that she is obligated to obey God’s commands in a spirit of indebtedness. In this way, Crusius can be interpreted as arguing that morality itself constitutes, in care ethics terminology, the completion of care, for virtue is the only adequate response to the goods that God provides to human beings. It is the proper human mode of showing one’s indebtedness to God’s as creator and sustainer.
However, it would be a mistake to conclude, in light of these points of overlap, that Crusius is a care ethicist, or that care ethics is, at bottom, Crusian, for this would ignore significant points of distinction that demand a more restricted and nuanced interpretation. The first distinction comes to light by, once again, examining Crusius’s moral law: “do that which is in accordance with the perfection of God and your relations to him, and that which is in accordance with the essential perfection of human nature, and refrain from the opposite.”Footnote 124 The order that Crusius assigns to the two clauses of the law is noteworthy, for it speaks to his view that the duty to promote essential perfection (of both oneself and others) is derivative of the first, and more fundamental, duty to obey God. Translating this into the language of care ethics, Crusius argues that care for others is not morally basic; that is, it is not a stand-alone normative concept which can serve as the fundamental value. As I have explained, Crusius holds that promoting the essential perfection of oneself and others is a moral obligation because God commands it, not because care is an intrinsic moral value or because the other’s cares make a moral claim upon the agent independent of God’s law. This is a fault line between Crusius and care ethics that prevents an interpretation that draws a simple identity between the two moral theories.Footnote 125
A second distinction concerns how these theories employ the dependency relation in accounting for obligation. According to Crusius, the agent’s dependence upon God for the true goods of essence and existence places her in a permanent state of indebtedness in view of which she is obligated to obey God’s commands. On the care ethics account, however, the duty to care rests upon the agent upon whom another is dependent. While the dependent agent is required to receive care graciously or take up the other’s care in some way, the central claim is that the agent’s dependence places an obligation upon the other to care. In this way, Crusius and care ethics are opposites. While both establish obligations in view of dependence, the obligation falls upon the dependent member of the relation for Crusius, whereas it primarily falls upon the care-giver for care ethics. However, even with these important differences in play, I nevertheless argue that Crusius and care ethics are fruitful interlocutors. I will now examine how each offers insights that stand to benefit the other.
3.2. The fruits of dialogue
As I have discussed, several scholars have recently conducted comparative analyses between care ethics and various strands of the history of philosophy.Footnote 126 While of notable interest in their own right, these studies more importantly highlight the fact that both care ethics and the historical tradition offer philosophical insights that are mutually beneficial. Consequently, engaging in inter-tradition dialogue stands to enrich the thought of both care ethicists and those working in the history of philosophy.Footnote 127 In this final section, I argue that the comparative analysis I have provided between Crusius and care ethics is similarly fruitful. I will first propose two insights from Crusius’s moral philosophy that can benefit care ethics’s treatment of the dependence model. I will then propose an insight that care ethics can provide to further enrich Crusius’s moral philosophy. Lastly, I will conclude with what I take to be an implication of this analysis for care ethics’s relation to feminism more broadly.Footnote 128
The first insight Crusius can provide to care ethics follows from his treatment of the dependence model. More specifically, Crusius speaks of dependence in a robustly metaphysical way, which provides greater support for the claim that dependence reaches to the core of human life. He does this by emphasizing the agent’s dependence upon God for her most basic ontological goods—her existence and essence. Insofar as care ethicists seek to defend the dependence model against the independence model, they have an ally in Crusius. I believe that extending their analysis of dependence beyond the scope of mutual human need to include matters such as existence and essence would allow care ethicists to argue that dependence is not merely a quality, but the most fundamental quality of the human being, and, consequently, that dependence must inform every dimension of human life. Crusius provides a justification for precisely this position via his argument that existence and essence are true goods given by a benevolent creator, which, in view of the three conditions for dependence, allows him to conclude that human beings are, at bottom, dependent beings. Therefore, engaging Crusius’s account of dependence would contribute to the philosophical depth of care ethicists’ endorsement of the dependence model and their rejection of the independence model.Footnote 129 However, one may object that, because Crusius’s position is grounded in a theistic metaphysics, care ethicists would thereby be required to adopt theism in order to establish dependence in this robustly ontological manner, which they may be unwilling to do.Footnote 130 While I am not able to fully explore this issue here, I believe that an alternative to Crusius’s theistic metaphysics is available to care ethics. This would be to appeal to the myriad of natural factors that are responsible for human existence and essence, such as the precise chemical makeup of the atmosphere, the Earth’s position in relation to the sun, and the evolutionary forces that have contributed to human development. Although this raises the further issue of whether such relations would satisfy Crusius’s conditions for dependence, it is nevertheless the case that framing human dependence in metaphysical terms, as Crusius does, bolsters the dependence model and thereby furthers care ethicists’ philosophical goals.Footnote 131
Secondly, although Crusius is an especially clear example of a figure from the history of philosophy who adopts the dependence model of human nature, he is by no means the only such figure, as scholars such as Groenhout and Dalmiya have demonstrated.Footnote 132 Even within the early modern period, Crusius is not alone in highlighting the fact of human dependence. For example, the seventeenth-century philosopher Samuel Pufendorf emphasizes interdependence in constructing his natural law theory in Of the law of nature and of nations. Moreover, by no means is Crusius alone in emphasizing human sociability or the moral demand to care for the good of others, since philosophers such as Hutcheson, Hume, and Kant also argue for this. Consequently, Crusius is one of several figures who complicate the narrative that at least some care ethicists put forward, namely that the independence model has led some in the historical tradition to ignore the fact of dependence and the moral demand to care for others and to promote their flourishing.
Beyond complicating a narrative, though, Crusius’s treatment of the dependence model should be of particular interest to care ethicists because it is not merely a feature of his moral philosophy but is essential to it, insofar as Crusius argues that human dependence upon God is the basis of all moral obligation. Crusius puts forward a tight conceptual relation between dependence and moral obligation, just as many care ethicists do. Therefore, it is not simply his endorsement of the dependence model that aligns Crusius with care ethics; it is how he puts the dependence model to use. Crusius is a fruitful interlocutor with care ethics because he provides a robust, metaphysical basis for the dependence model of human nature, and because he is a clear instance of a historical figure who argues for some of the central themes of care ethics. Consequently, Crusius helps to bridge the gap between care ethics and the history of philosophy.
Just as Crusius can benefit care ethics not by introducing something entirely new to the latter but by providing further depth to an already-existing point of overlap, care ethics can enrich Crusius’s moral philosophy through its emphasis on the particular mode in which dependence is most concretely expressed, namely embodiment. It is precisely the embodied dimension of dependence that care ethics speaks to so strongly, for when one suffers an injury, is physically or cognitively disabled, or is otherwise incapable of caring for her bodily needs, such as in infancy or old age, the need for (and the duty to) care is particularly acute. Care ethicists have argued that the primacy of embodiment is another mark of distinction between care ethics and much of the historical tradition, in view of the latter’s tendency to understand a human being primarily as a mind, soul, or consciousness. As Groenhout explains, “The human self is not, and is not experienced as, a disembodied intellectual soul. Humans instead develop a sense of self as a particular physical being in a particular physical context, with all of the possibilities and limitations that such embodiment offers.”Footnote 133 Crusius, on the other hand, echoes the historical tendency by identifying the human being as a rational spirit, and defining a spirit as “any substance that has ideas, or, what is the same thing for me, a substance that thinks.”Footnote 134 Rationality, like dependence, is fundamental to what it means to be human for Crusius. However, he is also clear that the body, while distinct from the soul, “is an essential part of the human being that is given to the soul for the sake of its greater perfection.”Footnote 135 He argues throughout the Guide to living rationally that the body is the privileged tool by which the soul moves through and experiences the world and that, because God creates the human being as an embodied soul, a duty follows to care for the body and to promote its perfection. Thus, it is not embodiment itself, but care ethics’s claim that the body gives concrete expression to dependence that enriches Crusius.
As I have shown, Crusius discusses dependence in primarily metaphysical terms. That is, while he clearly speaks to the human being’s dependence upon others, the most fundamental form of dependence is one’s dependence upon God for her essence and existence. Just as this strand of Crusius’s thinking can strengthen care ethics, care ethics’s focus upon the particular needs that follow from particular embodied agents—needs that beckon one to care for others and beckon others to care for her—adds further depth to Crusius’s treatment of the embodied dimension of dependence. In light of this, the moral law’s prescription to promote essential perfection must speak to the needs that follow from one’s nature qua embodied, and to how caring for the body contributes to one’s essential perfection.
Lastly, this discussion of the fruits of dialogue between Crusius and care ethics gives rise to a broader implication regarding care ethics’s relation to both feminism and the history of philosophy. As I have explained, Held makes the case that care ethics cannot be properly understood in isolation from feminism. While I agree with Held regarding the historical roots of care ethics, I caution against the temptation to see care ethics as an exclusively feminist project.Footnote 136 I have shown in this paper that care ethics stands to benefit from engaging with non-feminist thinkers in the history of philosophy. Thinkers like Crusius demonstrate that some of the fundamental themes of care ethics are not feminist ideas alone but are also essential in other, non-feminist moral theories. In this respect, Crusius challenges the notion that care ethics should be understood as an exclusively feminist critique and alternative to the masculinist tendencies in the history of moral philosophy. Although care ethics certainly plays this important role, it is also clear that it shares fruitful points of contact with moral theories beyond the scope of feminism and can therefore profit from greater dialogue with these theories and traditions.
By this, I do not mean that care ethics should deny its significant points of contact with feminism, nor that it should surrender its critical stance toward those aspects of the history of philosophy that exhibit masculinist thinking, which stand in need of correction. Moreover, I do not mean that the benefits flowing from care ethics’s dialogue with the history of philosophy are unidirectional. After all, as in the case of embodiment, those working outside of care ethics and feminism stand to benefit from this dialogue as well. Nevertheless, reaching beyond their feminist roots and embracing ideas from non-feminist philosophers (when appropriate) empowers care ethicists to defend concepts like the dependence model and the duty to care upon even stronger philosophical grounds by showing that such ideas have been endorsed by thinkers across the philosophical spectrum. Not only does this add further support to the arguments of care ethics, but it builds more robust ties between care ethics and the broader philosophical community, thereby allowing more opportunities for inter-tradition dialogue and greater philosophical enrichment.
In conclusion, care ethics finds a strong ally in Crusius for combatting the independence model and establishing dependence as ontologically basic to the human being. Moreover, insofar as Crusius and care ethicists construct moral philosophies in view of dependence, they both robustly account for one’s duty to care for the good of others by tending to their needs and promoting their flourishing. Thus, although they do not agree in every respect, Crusius’s moral philosophy and care ethics nevertheless operate according to strikingly similar conceptual dynamics and share multiple philosophical commitments, thereby warranting further philosophical engagement between care ethics and Crusius’s Guide to living rationally.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Eva Kittay, PhD, for introducing me to care ethics and sparking my interest in constructive dialogue between care ethics and the history of philosophy. I would also like to thank the referees and the co-editors-in-chief of Hypatia whose feedback throughout the review process was essential to this paper’s final form.
Christopher E. Fremaux, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of Philosophy at the University of Scranton in Scranton, PA. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from St Mary’s University (San Antonio, TX), a Master of Arts degree from Boston College, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, under the direction of Dr Jeffrey Edwards. He has also served as a Max Kade Research Fellow at Universität Trier (Germany). His research and teaching focus upon early modern philosophy, especially Kant and his predecessors in the German philosophical tradition.
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