Sonja Schierbaum – författare

This volume offers collective exploration of major aspects of Christian Wolff's ethics. It focuses on what is arguably Wolff's most important and influential text on moral philosophy, namely his Rational Thoughts on the Action and Omission of Human Beings for the Promotion of their Happiness, originally published in 1720 and commonly referred to as the German Ethics to distinguish it from his later Latin works on ethics.The contributions cover a range of topics, including the systematic structure of the text itself and the relation between Wolff's ethics and the preceding natural law tradition, and many of the chapters consider the development of the basic tenets of Wolff's moral theory in his later Latin writings. Throughout the volume, special attention is given to the core concepts of Wolff's moral philosophy, such as obligation, perfection, the highest good, and happiness. Other notable topics include Wolff's conception of moral judgment and moral education, as well as the role of psychology and anthropology in his ethical thought. The volume also includes discussion of the influence of Wolff's ethics on subsequent figures such as C.A. Crusius, G.F. Meier, and Kant. As a whole, the volume seeks to show the importance of Wolff's German Ethics within the history of ethics as well as inspire others to engage with his thought.

This book considers different forms of voluntarism developed from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries. By crossing the conventional dividing line between the medieval and early modern periods, the volume draws important new insights on the historical development of voluntarism.Voluntarism places a special emphasis on the will when it comes to the analysis and explanation of fundamental philosophical questions and problems. Since the Middle Ages, voluntarist considerations and views played an important role in the development of different theories of action, ethics, metaethics, and metaphysics. The chapters in this volume are grouped according to three distinct kinds of voluntarism: psychological, ethical, and theological voluntarism. They address topics such as the threat of irrationality as the standard objection to voluntarism, incontinent actions and their explanation, the nature of the will as rational appetite, the relationship between intellect and will, the implications of conceptions of the will for political freedom, and the relations between divine freedom and the modal status of eternal truths. The chapters not only consider towering figures of the Middle Ages—Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, William of Ockham, Francisco de Vitoria—and early modern period—René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Samuel Pufendorf—but also engage with less well-known figures such as Peter John Olivi, John of Pouilly, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and Christian August Crusius.Varieties of Voluntarism in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in medieval philosophy, early modern philosophy, the history of ethics, and philosophy of religion.