Ethico-political imagination in Luther, Kant, and Løgstrup

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Notes

1 Løgstrup, Beyond, 85f. The Danish original reads: “Fordringen er blandt andet formuleret i den gyldne regel: Alt hvad du vil, at de andre skal gøre imod dig, skal du gøre imod dem. Den er alt andet end en lunken regel om at gøre gengæld, selv om den taget efter bogstaven kunne lyde sådan. Den er tværtimod en regel for brugen af vor fantasi. Den forlanger, at vi skal fantasere os til, hvordan vi ville ønske der blev handlet imod os, hvis vi var i den andens sted – for så aktuelt at handle imod den anden på den måde. Altså er den så radikal, som nogen regel kan være” (Løgstrup, Norm og spontaneitet, 20).

2 Philostratos, quoted from Pagnoni-Sturlese, “Phantasia,” 154f.

3 Liao and Gendler, “Imagination.”

4 Løgstrup, Etiske begreber, 30.

5 Kant, Grounding, 14.

6 Ibid., 3.

7 Kant, Practical Reason, 161.

8 Kant, Grounding, 28. As a concept of totality, happiness is indeterminate, which is one of the reasons why for Kant the search for happiness cannot have ethical quality. As is well known, happiness is only ethically legitimate when it is achieved on the condition of morality.

9 Kant, Practical Reason, 108.

10 In Grundlegung, Kant presents what is regarded as a classical objection to the Golden Rule: a criminal could use it against the judge who has him punished. Cf. Kant, Grounding, 37.

11 Kant, Practical Reason, 123.

12 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 200.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Kant, Practical Reason, 250.

18 Kant, Grounding, 3.

19 Kant deals with equity in his philosophy of law. Equity comes into play when a person has a claim that cannot be supported by a judge. Equity does not mean “merely calling upon another to fulfil an ethical duty”. But on the other hand, the claim in question belongs only “to the court of conscience” (Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 27). The important point here is that in Kant’s understanding of ἐπιϵίκϵια, there is no place for imagination.

20 In the Anthropology, Kant defines Einbildungskraft as “a faculty of intuition without the presence of the object”. He distinguishes between reproductive and productive imagination, emphasizing that the latter is not creative, as it depends on previously given sensations. Phantasy (Phantasie) he defines as involuntary imagination. Cf. Kant, Anthropologie, 67f. (my translation).

21 Needless to say, the ideal of beauty is a different idea of imagination than the idea of happiness mentioned above.

22 Kant, Critique of Judgement, paragraph 17.

23 Ibid., 126.

24 Ibid., 127.

25 Ibid., 170.

26 In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant adds to this description that ”he is also an unsociable one” (ungeselliges Wesen). Again, what makes social friendship possible in the end is the one practical reason of humankind. Cf. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 216f. Hannah Arendt emphasizes that Kant gives to imagination the role of taking an impartial viewpoint and constituting intersubjectivity in general. See Arendt, Kant’s Political Philosophy, 42f., 67.

27 Kant, Critique of Judgement, 175.

28 Kant, Grounding, 43.

29 Kant, Critique of Judgement, 99.

30 In his Commentary on Galatians, Luther explicitly asserts that the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself and the Golden Rule as laws of nature say exactly the same thing (idem dicit). But even so, acting according to natural law differs significantly from loving your neighbour. Whereas the former is self-seeking, the latter wants the best for the other, and in sum “the cross is the criterion of love” (crux est probatio […] charitatis. WA 2, 579f).

31 There is a certain ambiguity in Luther’s statements about self-love (seipsum diligare). On the one hand, it has the meaning described above of simply knowing from one’s own expectation what to do to the other. But on the other hand, self-love is marked by sin, so that in its “natural” version, it also means only seeking one’s own and wishing to receive goods (sua quaerens et solum recipere bonum intentus). Accordingly, there is both a right love (amor rectus) and a false love (amor perversus). In this point I think that Søren Kierkegaard differs significantly from Luther. In Works of Love, Kierkegaard, like Luther, regards self-love as a reality that is a presupposition for the love commandment. But he only regards this self-love as amor perversus, to speak in Luther's terms. The love commandment “as with a pick, wrenches open the lock of self-love and wrests it away from a person”. And only a transformed self-love can serve as a model for neighbour love. This one-sidedly negative view of self-love belongs to the self-sacrificial understanding of love and the negligence of natural law. See Works of Love, 17.

32 WA 32, 498.

33 “agat cum proximo suo eo affectu, quasi sua sit propria infirmitas, peccatum, stulticia proximi” (WA 2, 148f).

34 WA 19, 632; LW 46, 102f.

35 LW 45, 128f.

36 WA 39/I, 175.

37 The distinction between earthly life and life before God (coram deo) is also the key to understanding how Luther’s praise of freedom is compatible with his determinism in De servo arbitrio: “free will does a lot, which nevertheless is nothing before God” (liberum arbitrium multa agat, quae tamen sunt nihil coram Deo) (WA 18,751). As examples of free will activities, Luther mentions eating and drinking (WA 18,764).

38 In his Lectures on Genesis, Luther makes a remarkable addition to the Aristotelian definition of humans: “Si igitur Hominem voles vere definire, ex hoc loco definitionem sume, quod sit animal rationale, habens cor fingens” (WA 42, 348. My italics). According to Oswald Bayer, Luther thus supplements the traditional definition with an “Aspekt der Einbildungskraft” (Bayer, Luthers Theologie, 158f., my italics). Whether or not this interpretation is conceptually convincing, I will leave open. But in any case, Luther does not, as far as I can see, connect the idea of cor fingens with ethical imagination.

39 WA 11, 279.

40 Løgstrup, Etiske begreber, 12. The quotation is from the English translation Ethical Concepts and Problems, forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

41 Løgstrup, Ethical Demand, 22 (my italics).

42 Ibid., 105f, 111,114.

43 Ibid., 29.

44 Ibid.,155.

45 Ibid., 105f.

46 Ibid., 56.

47 Ibid., 58.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Løgstrup, Den spontane, 43 (my translation).

51 Løgstrup, Etiske begreber, 22.

52 In stressing the negative aspect of self-love, Løgstrup seems to have been influenced by Kierkegaard. On the roles of Luther and Kierkegaard in the formation of Løgstrup’s ethics, see Andersen, Efterskrift.

53 Løgstrup, Beyond, 85-86.

54 Løgstrup, Etiske begreber, 43.

55 Ibid., 42.

56 Ibid., 55.

57 Løgstrup, Etiske begreber, 16.

58 Løgstrup, Ethical Demand, 107.

59 Løgstrup, Det uomtvistelige, 60 (my translation).

60 According to Løgstrup, imagination plays a role, not only in our real lives, but also in our experience of art, for example, in our identification with persons in fiction. He claims that our unimaginative attitude can thereby be counteracted. I cannot pursue this issue here.