In his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten of 1785, Immanuel Kant tests his moral law on a few cases. In the second case, a man sieht sich durch Not gedrungen, Geld zu borgen. He finds himself forced by need to borrow money. He knows he cannot pay it back, and he is tempted to promise it anyway. Kant asks what would happen if this were a general law. Anyone in need could promise whatever came to mind, mit dem Vorsatz, es nicht zu halten, with the intention of not keeping it. Such a law würde das Versprechen und den Zweck, den man damit haben mag, selbst unmöglich machen. It would make the promise itself impossible, and also the purpose one may have with it. No one would believe that anything had been promised to him. People would laugh at all such statements als eitles Vorgeben, as empty pretense.
philosophy
Socially Necessary Labor Time
In the first volume of Das Kapital, published in 1867, Karl Marx asks what sets the value of a commodity. His answer is a quantity of time. Es ist also nur das Quantum gesellschaftlich notwendiger Arbeit oder die zur Herstellung eines Gebrauchswertes gesellschaftlich notwendige Arbeitszeit, welche seine Wertgröße bestimmt. It is only the amount of socially necessary labor, or the labor time socially necessary to produce a useful thing, that determines the size of its value. Marx defines this time precisely. It is the time needed to make a thing under the normal conditions of production, with the average skill and intensity of the society. A slow or clumsy worker does not make his product more valuable.
Communicative and Strategic Action
In 1981 the philosopher Jürgen Habermas published Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, The Theory of Communicative Action. The book separates two kinds of social action. In strategisches Handeln, strategic action, each person is oriented only toward his own success. In kommunikatives Handeln, communicative action, people try to reach Verständigung, a shared understanding. Habermas wrote: Im kommunikativen Handeln sind die Beteiligten nicht primär am eigenen Erfolg orientiert. In communicative action, the participants are not primarily oriented toward their own success. They still pursue their own goals. But they do so on the condition that they can align their plans with each other.
A Peace With a Secret Reservation
In 1795 Immanuel Kant published Zum ewigen Frieden, Toward Perpetual Peace, in Königsberg. The first article reads: Es soll kein Friedensschluß für einen solchen gelten, der mit dem geheimen Vorbehalt des Stoffs zu einem künftigen Kriege gemacht worden. No treaty of peace shall count as one if it was made with the secret reservation of material for a future war. Kant explained that such a treaty would be ein bloßer Waffenstillstand, Aufschub der Feindseligkeiten, nicht Friede. It would be a mere ceasefire, a postponement of hostilities, not peace. Peace means the end of all hostilities. For that reason, Kant wrote, adding the word perpetual to it is already a suspicious repetition.
Without Anger or Bias
On 28 January 1919, Max Weber gave his lecture Politik als Beruf, Politics as a Vocation, in Munich. In it he described the true civil servant. The official should not engage in politics. He should administer, and above all he should be impartial. Sine ira et studio, „ohne Zorn und Eingenommenheit“ soll er seines Amtes walten. He should carry out his office without anger and without bias. The Latin phrase comes from the opening of the Annals of Tacitus. Weber then named what belongs to the politician instead: Parteinahme, Kampf, Leidenschaft. Taking sides, struggle, passion.
Make the Opponent Angry
Around 1830, Arthur Schopenhauer began a manuscript on the tricks people use to win an argument. It was published after his death, in 1864, and is known as Eristische Dialektik or Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, The Art of Being Right. Trick number 8 reads: Den Gegner zum Zorn reizen: denn im Zorn ist er außer Stand, richtig zu urteilen und seinen Vorteil wahrzunehmen. Make your opponent angry, because in anger he cannot judge correctly or protect his own interests. Schopenhauer explains how it is done. Man bringt ihn in Zorn dadurch, daß man unverhohlen ihm Unrecht tut und schikaniert und überhaupt unverschämt ist. You treat him unfairly in the open, you harass him, and you are generally insolent. Trick number 27 also uses anger. If the opponent suddenly becomes angry at an argument, press that argument hard. The anger suggests that you have touched the weak side of his thinking.
Rhetoric Deserves No Respect
In 1790, Immanuel Kant published the Kritik der Urteilskraft, the Critique of Judgment. In section 53 he ranks the arts, and he separates two things. Speaking well and beautifully belongs to the fine arts. The art of the orator, ars oratoria, does not. Kant defines it as the art of using people’s weaknesses for one’s own purposes, even when those purposes are well meant or really good. Rednerkunst … ist … gar keiner Achtung würdig. It deserves no respect at all. Kant explains why. Such an art moves people to a judgment in important matters als Maschinen, as machines, and it takes away their freedom. He wrote that reading the best speech of a Roman orator, a member of parliament or a preacher was always mixed for him with an unpleasant feeling of disapproval of a deceitful art.
Leisure and Worship
In September 1947, the philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a short book in three weeks. It appeared in Munich in 1948 as Muße und Kult, Leisure and Worship. Its first chapter takes up the theme Der Anspruch der totalen Arbeitswelt, the claim of the world of total work. Muße is a more elevated word for leisure than the everyday Freizeit, free time. The English edition of 1952 appeared as Leisure, the Basis of Culture, with an introduction by T. S. Eliot.
Weber on the Word Beruf
The German word for occupation is Beruf, from berufen, to call. In 1904 and 1905, Max Weber published the essays that became Die protestantische Ethik und der „Geist“ des Kapitalismus, The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism. He wrote that the word, like the English calling, carries a religious idea, a task set by God. In its modern sense, he wrote, it comes from the Bible translations. It appears to have been used first in Luther’s translation of the Book of Sirach.
At the end of the book, Weber drew his conclusion: Der Puritaner wollte Berufsmensch sein, – wir müssen es sein. The Puritan wanted to be a man of the calling. We have to be. He warned that for the last men of this development, a phrase might come true: Fachmenschen ohne Geist, Genußmenschen ohne Herz, specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart.
Kant on the Jack of All Trades
In the preface to his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, of 1785, Immanuel Kant wrote that all trades, crafts and arts have gained from the division of labor. No one does everything. Each person restricts himself to one kind of work, so as to do it with the greatest perfection and more ease. Kant goes on: Wo die Arbeiten so nicht unterschieden und verteilt werden, wo jeder ein Tausendkünstler ist, da liegen die Gewerbe noch in der größten Barbarei. Where work is not distinguished and divided in this way, where everyone is a thousand-artist, the trades still lie in the greatest barbarism. Tausendkünstler is the German word for a jack of all trades.