Dreitzel Reasonofstate

History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187
Reason of state and the crisis of political aristotelianism: an essay on the development of 17th century political philosophy$
H. Dreitzel
Faculty of Historical Science and Philosophy, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany
1. The reception of the category of reason of state In German political theory the career of the concept of reason of state can be dated from the publication of De arcanis rerumpublicarum libri sex (1605) by Arnold Clapmar (15741604), professor of jurisprudence at the University of Nuremberg in Altdorf. In this work he identied arcana dominationis (as distinguished from arcana imperii, arcana domus, or agitia dominationis) with what the Italians and the French called ragio di stato.1 Clapmar tried to translate it either as Reichsstand or geheime Reichssachen, but as these terms have never caught on, the transplantation of the vocabulary of reason of state into the German language failed.2 Apart from facilitating the German acceptance of reason of state, Clapmars treatise offered a
Translated by I. Hont, B. Kapossy, Y. Podbielski and R. Reynolds. Arnold Clapmarius, De arcanis rerumpublicarum libri sex (Frankfurt a.M., 1611), p. 7; and by the same author, Conclusiones de jure publico (Frankfurt a.M., 1617). n. 47: Arcana imperii sunt certae profundae et intimae leges sive privilegia conservandi pristini status sive reipublicae. Sicut arcana dominationis (Italis et Gallis est ragion di stato, Germani non efferunt, nisi forte per Reichsstand vel per Reichssachen) sunt certa et secreta privilegia conservandae dominationis, introducta boni publici causa, quibus opponuit Tacitus agitia dominationis (Itali la cattiva ragione di stato), quibus des et religio violatur. 2 For Geheime Reichssache see A. Clapmarius, De arcanis, ebd.; for other translation attempts see Godofredus de Jena, Fragmenta de ratione status diu desiderata (n.p., 1667), d.3.1. Von Jena used ratio status, jus dominationis, and arcana imperii sive dominationis as synonims and translated them into German as das heimliche Regierungsrecht, das Regimentsrecht, die Wahrnehmung, Beobachtung, Erhaltung des allgemeinen Reiches, Landes, Wesens, Standes vel uno verbo der Staat; Christian Weirach, Della Regione di stato, das ist, von der Geheimen und Ungemeinen Regierungs-Klugheit (Leipzig, 1673); Johann Eberhard Schweling, Concertationis publicae e Literis Politocorum et Jurisconsultorum de Ratione Status (Bremen, 1701), p. 4: Nec sine mente Itali eam vocarunt Ragion di Dominio, di Regno, dImperio, Ragionamento di #t de #tat. Est vero apud Latinos Idem, quod Regnativa Prudentia, Jus Stato. Gallis Raison vel Intere Dominationis, Imperii Secreta vel Arcana etc. ... Germanis Regiment oder dessen Standt, item Regierung oder Regiments-Vernunft etc. Inque Machiavellistis der rasende Staat, item gottlose politische Griffen, politische Finessen und Arglistigkeit etc.. These examples all show that the concepts ofarcana and ratio status were not clearly distinguished from each other, and more often than not were deployed interchangeably.
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H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187
contribution to three further important debates within contemporary discussions of politica: (1) the establishment of an autonomous Staatsrecht, grounded in the categories of Roman law and Bodins theory of sovereignty; (2) Tacitism, i.e. the attempt to use the historical works of Tacitus as the authoritative model for the empirical analysis of the politics of princely states; and nally (3) the development of political Aristotelianism whose hallmark was the subordination of jurisprudence to the science of politics. This last facet of Clapmars work was particularly important, because it helped him to establish a clear distinction between jura and arcana, which then led to the dominant interpretation of reason of state within German Staatsrecht, as the domain of exceptional laws and the exercise of state power during states of emergency (an interpretation that was accepted as valid until the Vormarz . in the run-up to the revolution of 1848).3 Though over time Clapmars work gained the status of a minor classic, we need to consider its doctrines in their contemporary context, in the company of other texts
3 Throughout his entire treatise Clapmar distinguished law (Recht, jus) from politics (arcana). Chapter 1 deals with the sovereign rule (jus imperii), ch. 4 with laws pertaining to states of emergency (jus dominationis): Juris imperii usus proprie est in pacata et tranquilla republica, at vero juris dominationis est in violenta et seditiosa, in qua jus in mancu est positum ..., quo tempore multa unt erique oportet contra jus commune ... Jus dominationes est restrictio quaedam earum legum, quibus solutus est (princeps) earumque limitatio: non enim de omnibus solutus est [The use of the right of power, in the strict sense, is for a pacied and tranquil republic, while the use of the right of domination is appropriate for a violent and seditious republic, in which the right stems from this disgurement ..., during which time many things are done and it is tting that they be done against the common law ... The right of domination is a particular restriction of those laws, from which (the prince) is absolved: but not an absolution from all laws]. On the other hand, chs. 2 and 3 deal with political means appropriate in these legal frameworks, while ch. 5 deals with the concept of arcana inana. For a history of the continued use of reason of state within German public law . see Johann Ludwig Kluber, . Offentliches Recht des Teutschen Bundes und der Bundesstaaten, 4th ed. . (Frankfurt a.M., 1840), pp. 826832: Auerstes Recht in the case of evidenter, dringender Noth des Staates [extreme legal measures (in the case of) evident and strict danger for the state], genannt Jus sive imperium eminens, jus extremae necessitatis, vis potestatis, Staatsnothrecht, Staatsraison (ratio status, sc. . extraordinarii). Kluber made it clear that there was an extensive literature on the subject, reaching back to Aristotle and Grotius. For the legal use of the notion of necessitas see H. Wessel, Zweckmaigkeit als . Handlungsprinzip in der deutschen Regierungs- und Verwaltungslehre der fruhen Neuzeit (Berlin, 1978), Die . . Durchsetzung von Zwecken unter Uberwindung von Rechtsschranken, pp. 114134; J. W. Pichler, Necessitas. Ein Element des mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Rechts. Dargestellt am Beispiel osterreichischer Rechtsquellen (Berlin, 1983); H. Boldt, Ausnahmezustand, necessitas publica, Belager. ungszustand, Kriegszustand, Staatsnotstand, Staatsnotrecht in: Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. by O. Brunner, W. Conze, R. Koselleck, vol. 1 (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 343358. This and other studies reveal what a dynamic function necessitas had in politics (for example in framing laws), although as a legal category its main function was to limit and codify factual circumstances. In those cases where necessity was accepted as part of the legal order, it could be used as an argument for the legality of self-defence, or more precisely, he who acts accordingly will always remain within law. Necessity legitimised only a certain number of very restricted emergency regulations. For the jurists reason of state was almost identical to jus eminens. This interpretation was traced back to Sc. Ammirato (Discursus ad Tacitum, Bk.12 note 1). They tended to identify reason of state also with propriety (aequitas, epikeia), and with potestas extraordinaria as a separate part of governance (see Christoph Besold, De majestate politica (Tubingen, . 1614), n. 36 and 37; Johann Christoph Becmann, De dominio eminente in: Meditationes Politiquae XXIV Dissertationibus Academicis expositae, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt a.O., 1672), d. 21). Naturally necessitas was also used as a category in civil law (Mundraub [theft of comestibles for personal consumption], Durchzug [right of passage], Notwehr [self-defence] etc.).
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which appeared at the same time, and shaped the main trends of German political theory in the rst 30 years of the 17th century. The following works might be considered: the Politica of Johannes Althusius (1st edition 1603); the Doctrina politica in genuinam methodum, quae Aristoteles, reducta of Henning Arniseus (1606); the Politicorum libri decem (1620) by the Jesuit Adam Contzen; the Tractatus de regiminae saecularis et ecclesiastica by the Lutheran minister Diederich Reinking (1619); the Principiorum juris naturae libri quinque (1615) by Benedict Winkler (a syndicus in Lubeck); . the Hof-, Staats- und Regierkunst by Georg Engelhard von . Lohney (16221624), and last but not least, the comprehensive Staatsrecht of the Holy Roman Empire by Johannes Limnaeus (16291634). These books encompassed various discourses, such as the Staatslehre of the monarchomachs; political Aristotelianism; thomist-aristotelian counter-reformation Catholicism; the Lutheran Drei-Stande-Lehre ; Lutheran natural law (as a development of the doctrine of . subjective rights in the status integratis); the pragmatical Regimentslehre of the medieval German Furstenstaat ; and nally Reichsrecht (which became autonomous . both in method and in its choice of legal sources). This list is obviously not quite complete: there were a number of other political discourses, and of course this kind of simple taxonomy always fails to take into account the signicant variations and developments within each political idiom. Nonetheless, it gives us a rough indication of the dominant tendencies of the time. The German reception of reason of state occurred in the context of the emerging new discourses of politica and Staatsrecht in the Empire at the beginning of the 17th century. The new idioms soon entered the curriculum of German universities and also generated widespread public discussion in the pamphlet literature. Their rise was not at all arrested by the 30-Years-War; indeed, they ourished more than ever in the post-war reconstruction period. In the last thirty years of the century, however, new features of political thought emerged in Germany in the shape of divine right theory and natural jurisprudence, the latter gaining a foothold mainly through the reception of Hugo Grotius De jure belli et pacis (1625) and later the inuence of Pufendorfs doctrine of socialitas. The emergence of these two discourses appears to have been connected with the overcoming of the legacy of monarchomach political theory, which since the middle of the century played the role of counterweight to them in polemical debates. If one was to outline the main foci of interest in this development, two central points in particular would have to be highlighted: the debate on the organisational and legitimising function of sovereignty (the sovereign power of the state), and on the respective merits of the monarchomach model of divided (double) sovereignty, Bodins constitutional monism and the pluralism of the Aristotelians. The controversy also included the issues of the separation of powers and the limitation of sovereignty. In the German Empire and its associated territories, the debate naturally focused on the limits and competence of princely power within a political structure composed of estates. The applicability of Staatsrecht for the Empire and the territories was also widely discussed, including the issue of the divine right of kings, and the various issues related to the practical methods of constituting and preserving princely rule. A second, and equally central, plank of the German debate concerned the foundations of the Christian community; that is to say the
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question of a good police (guten Policey), not only as a competition between Catholics and Protestants and their respective notions of politica christiana, but also as a clash between the various Protestant positions, one of which was political Aristotelianism, with its tendency to emphasize the secularised autonomy of politica (according to the maxim nostra respublica quad substantiam non differt a republica ethnicorum).4 This second type of debate focused on the possibility of reforming state and society, as demanded, in their various ways, by Protestantism, Catholicism and humanism alike. The reception of the concept of reason of state was relatively late in Germany. Its rst impact came through the reading of various Italian authors (G. Botero, Tr. Boccalini, Sansovino, Sc. Ammirato, L. Frachetta, H. Zuccoli, L. Settala, F. Bonaventura). After the Thirty Years War German attention had focused on a number of French thinkers (Rohan, Richelieu, Mazarin). Sometimes it is argued that the inuence of Baltasar Gracians writings was crucial, but evidence of this can be found only towards the end of the 17th century.5 The belated reception of reason of state in Germany had three consequences: rst, it had to compete with already well established interpretations of some of its main themes, of problems like that of mutationis rerumpublicarum and secreta politica; secondly, it was merged with several positions which were no more than remnants from earlier phases of the European debate (such as the distinction between a good and a bad reason of state); and nally, several doctrinal positions, which in the West-European context could easily be interpreted as reactions to Machiavelli, and hence count as examples of Antimachiavellism, in Germany were received independently and separately from that context, such as the works of Justus Lipsius and the Tacitists, or even emerged independently, like the catholic Staatslehre of Adam Contzen (15711635). The way the Germans read Machiavelli also ought to be understood in the context of their sluggish response to reason of state: while his Il Principe was more or less consistently cited as a negative reference point in the reason of state controversy, the general absorbtion of his thought (which included his thoughts on republics) had too much of an Aristotelian avour to have any special impact. The reading of Machiavelli in Germany thus failed to generate any kind of republicanism. At best one can say that the Protestants read him not as an anti-Christian, but as an antipapal heretic writer. Despite the growing polarisation within mid-17th century
Christoph Besold, Principium et nis politicae doctrinae (Strassburg 1624), 1.2 note 5; Heinrich Julius Scheuerl, Dissertationum Politicarum Decas (Leipzig 1628), p. 68: Politica christiana non differt a reliquis. 5 Knut Forssmann, Baltasar Gracian und die deutsche Literatur zwischen Barock und Aufklarung , Diss. . phil. (Mainz, 1977), pp. 145 ff.: D. C. von Lohensteins 1672 translation of his Politico had no impact; his inuence can be dated from the French translation of N. Amelot de la Houssaye (1684). This begun with Christian Thomasius lectures at the University of Leipzig in 16871688 uber . des Gratian Grund-Reguln, vernunftig, . klug und artig zu leben [On Gratians maxims concerning an enlightened, prudent and decorous way of life], which were based on J. L. Sauters (1687) German translation of Amelots French version. The debate on political prudence (Weltklugheit) was well on its way before Gracian had any impact in Germany. Similarly, most scholars overestimate the inuence of the doctrine of vita aulica. In German politica tended to distinguish between court and ruling (Regiment), although the term court had often been used to mean both. See also footnote 29.
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political theory of the Empire between Machiavellianism as the right, and Monarchomachism as the left deviation from the generally accepted norms of ruling in a princely state6, there was a residual, though nonetheless tangible, awareness that a distinction had to be made between Machiavellism and Machiavellis own views. This distinction was reected in the oft repeated interpretation of Il Principe as a satire.7 Frequently Machiavelli was not even regarded as the source of Machiavellism: after all Aristotle, Xenophon, and Tacitus had all presented more extensive accounts of tyrannical practice before him. Because Machiavellis mirror-for-tyrants was classied as an exercise in pathological diagnosis, as administering a poison, it could be neutralised as such. His writings were not prohibited in Protestant territories and a number of professors even put them on the list of recommended reading for their university courses in politics. Soon after the publication of Clapmars treatise there were signs that other German scholars also began to deal with the issues of arcana imperii and reason of state, although the bulk of the literature only appeared during the period between the end of the 30-Years War and the 1680s.8 Then the various problems connected to the notion of reason of state were taken up in earnestness within all contemporary discourses of politics; the literature produced was truly immense. In this period (and even later) reason of state became a favourite topic for dissertations and lectures at Protestant universities in the Empire. Arcana and reason of state were also discussed in the pamphlet and periodical literature, and not just as a part of the opposition to the policies of Louis XIV, but in the controversy between Protestants and Catholics about the Peace of Westphalia and the English civil war. In these debates a set of new terms came into widespread use, such as Statista and interests, and, subsequently, these concepts were developed further as independent entities.
6 . See H. Dreitzel, Monarchiebegriffe in der Furstengesellschaft (Koln-Weimar-Wien, 1991), vol. 1, pp. . 253266; and the contemporary judgment of Jacob Thomasius, De Machiavellistas et Monarchomachos (1662), in Dissertationes LXIII varii argumenti, ed. Christian Thomasius (Halle, 1693), pp. 300310; Johann Friedrich Engelmann, De Machiavellistorum et Monarchomachorum dogmatis (Leipzig, 1674); Johann Jakob Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae, vol. 4, 2 (Leipzig, 1744), pp. 784803. The negative interpretation of the term politicus, following the similarly pejorative French use of the word politique, emerged still earlier: Politicus omnis est atheos, et politica est peritia pro utilitate reipublicae Deum religionumque omnem aspernandi (H. Conring, De civili prudentia liber unus (Helmstedt, 1672), c. 2). The politica of the Catholics used the term pseudo-politicus, see Henricus Wangnereck, S. J., Vindiciae politicae adversus pseudopoliticos, qui, Gaspare Scioppio in Paedia Politices suppetias pseudologicas ferente, nem et media verae politices corrumpunt Dillingen, 1636); in Bk. 2 he argues that the pseudopoliticorum et Machiavelli in primis praecepta a vera Politica aliena esse. This notion was used in Protestant versions of politica christiana too. 7 See footnote 32. 8 For an overview of the literature see M. Stolleis, Staat und Staatsrason in der fruhen Neuzeit. Studien . . zur Geschichte des offentlichen Rechts (Frankfurt a.M., 1990), p. 153 ff., and also his Geschichte des . offentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, vol. 1 (Munich, 1988), pp. 200212. A signicant part of the important . ideas on reason of state were not published in dedicated monographs with the telling key-words in the title, but in the relevant chapters of more broadly framed treatises.
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2. The variety of reactions to reason of state and their signicance What were the specic political languages which made up the context of the entry of the category of reason of state into German debates? This very question had already excited 17th century political theorists, and, predictably, it led them to quite different conclusions. Ratio status, like all terms which at one time or another became fashionable in political language, acquired a number of different meanings. Each tract or chapter with de ratione status in its title contained a list of the possible denitions and critical evaluations. The term did not have a clear and well-developed theoretical content (tied to a denite theory of the state or politics). Rather it was understood as a gesture towards acknowledging the presence of a cluster of troublesome questions. It was a provocative notion, presenting a challenge to all existing political theories. Only when embedded in one or another version of the competing political theories of the age, could reason of state acquire a distinctive character.9 Sometimes it was simply referred to as a set of negative techniques of a machiavellian kind (the art of despotical and tyrannical princes10), or it could stand for the art of governing in general.11 It could be limited to practices in casu
H. Conring, Dissertatio de ratione status (1651), n. 10: Quod alius vulgo dicitur, quot capita tot sententiae, id optimo jure dicere possumus de iis, qui rationis status denitionem tradere conati sunt. In the secondary literature the opposite position is the dominant one. See M. Behnen, Arcana-Haec sunt Ratio Status, Zeitschrift fur . Historische Forschung 14 (1987), 130: Without wanting to present an overgeneralised picture, it seems that the intention of most authors who wrote on reason of state can be summarised as follows. They wanted to introduce and establish a useful concept for the legitimation of existing political or religious arrangement, in order to justify the political protection of the particular interests of persons, dynasties or states. No author considered reason of state to be more than a subsection of political theory. It was not thought of as the general legitimation of politics, but primarily as a theory of a particular class of actions. 10 For example: Dietrich Reinkingk, Biblische Policey, das ist: gewisse, au Heiliger Gottlicher Schrift . zusammengebrachte auff die drey Hauptstande: als Geistlichen, Weltlichen und Haulichen gerichtete . . Axiomata oder Schluureden (Frankfurt a.M., 1653), l. 2 ax. 3640: Sweet justice competes strongly with its naughty, nasty step-sister, called ratio status or ones desire to enlarge ones empire or state by any means whatsoever (per fas vel nefas). Reinking contrasts this with justa et vera ratio status which describes the art of governing in general. If reason of state is accompanied by law, truth and justice, it is nothing else but the cautious, prudent and reasonable reection of rulers (Regenten) of a state or commonwealth (gemeinen Wesens) on the means of preserving and improving both, with the help of God, by right and proper means, to place them on a more stable footing and to preserve their true nature, to develop them and make them ourish and at the same time to forestall threatening circumstances through timely and reasonable advice and avert future threats and danger (p. 67). As an important representative of Lutheran politica Reinkingk tried to re-establish the Drei-Stande-Lehre as a sort of Christian realism . which must not be mistaken for pious other worldliness. He put together a catalogue of prudential principles for the preservation of authority (n. 40 ff.) and for the securing the obedience of subjects (n. 104 ff.). He advocated the disarming of subjects and the prohibition of religious innovation. He appeared to identify the state with the normal conditions of the mixed constitution of estates. 11 For example: Wilhelm Ferdinand ab Efferen, Manuale Politicum de ratione status seu Idolo Principum: in quo vera et falsa forma gubernandi rem publicam de religione, de virtutibus principum, de potestate ecclesiastica, de bello et pace compendiose agitur (Frankfurt a.M. 1662) l. 1 p. 1: Quid sit ratio status? Est prudentia gubernandi, augendi et conservandi rempublicam. This Catholic doctrine of governance followed in the footsteps of Adam Contzens scholastic Aristotelian position, as presented in his Politicorum libri decem (Mainz, 1620).
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necessitatis12, or seen as a general guideline13 for prudential behaviour at all levels of political practice. Reason of state sometimes referred to secret or exceptional measures which deviated from ordinary laws and general ethical norms, but sometimes the opposite was the case, when it was seen as the core idea of politics as such.14 From yet another perspective it was either used to signify the particular political prudence of individual states,15 or, in contrast to this, as the principle underlying any political action in general.16 The magnetic attraction of the term was so strong that a whole range of problems, which had been endlessly discussed in political theory at least since the medieval receptions of Aristotle and Roman law, were now speedily subsumed under ratio status (or at least often discussed in this new context), such as the issue of exceptional norms that applied in grave necessity, the priority of the bonum commune (principles of political conduct that could override the bonum privatum), or generally, the relative autonomy of political prudence (regnativa sive civilis prudentia), the determination of the interests of particular states according to their social-economical and geographical conditions and their specic constitutional tradition17, and even the time-honoured questions about the
See footnote 2. For example Christian Weirach, Della Ratione di Stato, das ist, von der geheimen und ungemeinen Regierungsklugheit in X Discurse verfaute Abhandlung (Leipzig, 1673), d. 5: Ratio status was here dened as a kind of irregular governmental prudence required by necessity, place and time; Johann Elias Kessler, Detectus ac a Fuco Politico repurgatus rationis status (Nurnberg . 1678): extraordinary bylaws (extraordinaire Neben- und Bey-Observantz), to preserve or improve the ruling order (Regiment) with all means available at the time (p. 17); T. D. a. Winsheim, Princeps absolutus cum aliis variarum rerum aulicarum, forensium, militarium observationibus politicis (Frankfurt a.M., 1693), p. 65: Prudentia senatoria, rempublicam atque etiam majestatis subjectum extraordinariis ac praesertim occultis consiliis sive rationibus contra malevolos defendendi et conservandi. Weirach and Keler show that the concept of reason of state was integrated into the Protestant doctrine of governing which guided even the medium and small sized German states of the time; their political theory was similar to the doctrines of V. L. von Seckendorffs Teutschem Furstenstaat (1658). See H. Wessel, Zweckmauigkeit als Handlungsprinzip in der . . deutschen Regierungs- und Verwaltungslehre der fruhen Neuzeit (Berlin, 1978), pp. 46150, especially . pp. 126134 (about J. E. Keler). 14 See Hippolithus a Lapide [Bogislav Chemnitz], Dissertatio de Ratione Status in Imperio nostro Romano-Germanico, s. l. 1640, Proleg. p. 3: Nos ergo ratio status populariter describimus, quod sit certus quidam politicus respectus, ad quem tamque ad norman seu cynosuram aliquam omnia consilia omnesque actiones in republica diriguntur, ut eo felicius et expeditius summum nem, qui est salus et incrementum reipublicae, consequatur [Thus we will describe ratio status according to the popular understanding, insofar as it should be a certain kind of politics in which all the counsels and actions in the republic are directed as far as some norm or cynosure, so that by this, the greatest end, which is the safety and prosperity of the republic,might be achieved more felicitously and expeditiously]. 15 For an example of reason of state as politica specialis see for example the treatise of the Duc de Rohan, De ratione status principum et statuum orbis christiani (1640). 16 H. Conring, Dissertatio de ratione status (1651), in Opera omnia (Braunschweig, 1730), vol. 4, pp. 549580, and especially n. 1341 (pp. 554570) argues that the ratio status generalis was one quae uniuscuiusque rerumpublicarum status vel plurium conservationem intendit seu agit, ut respublica omnimode sarta tectaque a periculo corruptionis conservetur [which aimed at the preservation of the state of each and every republic or of many republics; or it acted so that the republic might be preserved intact, by any means, from the danger of corruption]. 17 For contemporary understandings of the concept of the state see H. Dreitzel, Aristoteles Politik im Denken Hermann Conrings in F. Fangiani and G. Valera (eds.), Categorie del Reale e Storiograa.
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preconditions for preserving the stability of a community (which had always included questions related to the role of piety and religion, as well as of justice and the sufciency of the existing economic foundations, and also the various strategies which have to be implemented in order to prevent or contain revolutions). Modern historians have often argued that these concerns were discovered only when the concept of reason of state had arrived on the European scene. Whereas, in fact, these notions had been there already for quite a long time and what really happened in the late-16th and early 17th centuries was simply a refocusing on and crystallising of a broad range of ideas around a newly emerged and highly fashionable catchword. Thus the term reason of state brought under its umbrella a great variety of different problems and concepts, from which contemporary theorists could extract specic categories as they wished. The opposite practice was also present. Problems clearly relevant to reason of state were often theorised without bothering to mention the term. In the 17th century problems of reason of state were closely linked to various theories of preserving the state. Nonetheless, this clearly paramount issue was frequently discussed without the term reason of state having been actually deployed in the text (and sometimes the phrase was avoided quite deliberately).18
(footnote continued) `e Trasformazione nellEuropa Moderna (Milan, 1986), pp. 4551; A. Seifert, Conring Aspetti di Continuita und die Begrundung . der Staatenkunde, in M. Stolleis (ed.), H. Conring (16061681). Beitrage . zu Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1983), pp. 201215; R. Zehrfeld, H. Conrings Staatenkunde (Berlin-Leipzig, 1926). 18 For example: Johannes Althusius discussed the problem of domestic reason of state under the title De studio concordiae conservandae (Politica methodice digesta, 3rd ed. (Herborn, 1614), Ch. 31). Throughout the book he used Gregoire of Toulouse and Jean Bodin as his authorities, as well as Scipione Amirato (Discorsi, n. 10, 15, 16, 17, 25, 70, 75, 78), Botero (n. 28, 30, 32), Lipsius (n. 23, 56, 62), Danaeus (n. 18, 22, 60), and sometimes Clapmar (n. 33) and Gentillet (Antimachiavell; n. 16). His historical examples were overwhelmingly from the Old Testament, and in addition he also referred to Tacitus (n. 25, n. 42), Sallust (n. 41), Xenophon (De republica Athenensium, n. 77) and Valerius Maximus (n. 10, 25, 42). Althusius avoided the terms arcana and ratio status. The measures which he advocated for the domestic preservation of the regime were, among others, to make the subjects powerless and unarmed, to distract from politics by making them preoccupied with the economy, to soften them by education and the studia liberalia, to redirect the energies of ambitious youth by giving them special tasks to perform, to tax and burden the subjects to a degree that they could not enrich themselves, to prohibit gatherings, to provoke feuds among the citizens through employing agent provocateurs, to initiate wars for making the idle busy, etc. In foreign policy he advocated preventive wars against those neighbouring states whose power could become threatening. Adam Contzen, S. J., Politicorum libri decem (Mainz, 1620), considered heresy as a serious threat to the state (2.14); his elaborate programme for the persecution of heresy must therefore also be considered as an instance of reason of state (2.17). His programme included the acceptance of tolerance as a tactical device, the skilful exploitation and indeed support of feuds among Protestants, the persecution of religious leaders while offering protection to simple believers, etc. Nam quod in divinam religionem committitur, in omnia fertur injuriam, quod omnibus nocet, reipublicae periculo nocet, ideoque a republica repelli debet [As far as what is undertaken in divine religion, that considered an injury in all things, that which hurts all, dangerously harms the republic, and likewise it should be repelled by the republic](n. 12). Dietrich Reinkingk in his Biblischen Policey (see note 9) advocated precisely the opposite policy; for him toleration was acting on the demands of reason of state, although he did not actually use the term: When the regime is in upheveal, when weeds take deep root and cannot be eradicated without greatly disturbing and changing the entire spritual and temporal order (Standes und Regiments), it is then that a reasonable authority should consider following Christs teaching: let the weed grow with the wheat, at least until the time of the harvest, for it is better to tolerate the weed than to destroy the pure wheat with
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3. The fundamental problem of ratio status The gist and historical novelty of reason of state becomes much clearer once one turns ones mind towards the moral dilemmas associated with ratio status and Machiavellianism. In this context the term status did not originally signify a state in the modern sense at all (as in the denition of the 20th century Weimar jurist Hermann Heller: the autonomous, and legally grounded, organisation of the common life of a territorially dened community). The difculty of identifying status with respublica was reected in Johannes Limnaeus unavailing attempt in his Notitia Galliae (1654).19 The identication of status, state, with respublica only
(footnote continued) it (Bk. 1, p. 34). Even the right of resistance could be understood as an instrument for preserving the state: Quid si princeps totam rempublicam eversam velit? Defensionem esse licitam; eversio enim sub jure imperii non comprehenditur; ita tamen defensio instituenda, ut vis avertatur, non inferatur [But if the prince should wish the entire republic subverted? Defence is allowed; for destruction is not included under the ius imperii; thus indeed a defence should be established so that power might be turned aside, not brought forward]. (Johann Christoph Becmann, Conspectus Doctrinae Politicae (Frankfurt a.O., 1691), Ch. 23). In Aristotelian political theory the problem of preserving the state was discussed under the heading de mutatione rerumpublicarum and as part of the concept of remedia, see for example the widely used textbook of Balthasar Cellarius, Politicae succinetae, ex Aristotele potissimum erutae ... libri II (Jena, 1653), 6th ed. (Jena, 1661), De rerum publicarum corruptione seu mutatione et conservatione, pp. 321334. Samuel Pufendorf developed his own reason of state interpretation as a via media between the idea that men, like gladiators, were constantly involved in ghts for life and death, and utopian visions, see his De statu naturali, n. 1824 in Politica inculpata (Lund, 1679), Diss. 10; he also avoided the terms reason of state and arcana, but did not shirk from advocating the disarming of citizens, the disempowerment of potentes, forbidding the formation of parties and proscribing any innovation, using trade policy to disadvantage other states and cancelling treaties according to changes in the political situation. 19 Johannes Limnaeus, Notitia regni Franciae (Strasbourg, 1654), l. 1 c. 9: Status pro substantia et corpere reipublicae vel universitatis; non impendit rempublicum statum dicere, quando stat, licet aliquando esse vel stare desinere possit, forma regiminis forma status est, et ab haec forma status nomen qualitatis trahit. Sic ubi monarchica administratio status vel reipublicae est, status vel respublica monarchia dicitur: ex haec enim qualis sit cogniscitur [The state, in view of the substance and body of the republic or whole community; it doesnt pay to call the republic a state (thing established) when it is in existence, although at any time it can exist or cease to be, the form of government is the form of the state, and from this form the name of state derives its nature. Thus where there is monarchical administration of the state or of the republic, it is called either a state or a republican monarchy: from this, indeed, it may know what sort of thing it is]. While Limnaeus used the term status to describe the political community, H. Conring used it to refer to the political system: Breviter nos rationem status utilitatem reipublicae denimus ... Distinguendum putamus inter utilitatem reipublicae et publicam civium salutem et commodum ... Respublica in genere est civitatis ordo, cum in aliis magistratibus, tum in eo maxime, qui omnium est princeps ... Cum autem respublica et administratio publica Idem valent, et administratio sit principis: hinc sequitur principatum esse penes vel unum vel paucos vel multus [We will dene reason of state briey, as the utility of the republic. We think there ought to be a distinction made between utilty of the republic and the public safety and advantage of the citizens. . . The republic is a kind of ordering of the polity, both in some magistracies, and also in that especially, who is the prince of all ... When, morevoer, the republic and the public administration are the same and the admisintration belongs to the prince; hence it follows that the principate belongs to either the one the few or the many]. (De ratione status, n. 10 u. 12). Thus for Conring ratio status means the rules for the preservation of the system of governance, or the political system in general, including the form of government. He argued that reason of state was bad if it was deployed in the interest of a corrupt form of government (n. 44). On the other hand the common thing (respublica) was
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emerged, and even then quite tentatively, towards the end of the 17th century. As Christian Weise wrote in 1690: State-otherwise called a republic or a commonwealth, signies a large society in which there are rulers and subjects. The evolution of the new meaning of status was linked to the birth of a new German terminology for politica in general; the Latin terminology had shown virtually no development at all, and in Latin usage the meaning of status remained much less close to the meaning of respublica. The meaning of status was understood as a derivation of stare, that is of standing: accordingly status was that which had to be preserved, i.e. the current situation. In this sense status stood in contrast to actio and mutatio.20 In political discussions it was deployed to refer to three things: to the power of the ruler (Herrschaft, dominatio, dominium), to the political system or constitution of the commonwealth (forma regiminis), and to the legal and social status of a person (the way that is still common today in the English language). Every one of these interpretations shares a common preoccupation with duration, constancy, and essential forms of existence and with usefulness to the subject in question: Status namque est convenientia propria cuiuslibet rei ac rationes status media sunt, quae hancce convenientiam sartam tectamque servent.21 Ratio status accordingly stands for the ways and means necessary to preserve duration, constancy, and essential forms of existence. The term is characteristically linked to the notion that there is a threat to preservation and existence; hence its obvious connection to the traditional idea of necessitas. It was also linked to notions of improvement, aggrandizement, strengthening and towards the end of the century it nally became associated with perfectio. The primary aim of action was conservatio status, with utility as the criterion of success: Utile autem est, quod conservat reipublicae. Because of the close ties between utile and conservatio status, reason of state and expediency became virtually synonymous with the preservation and improvement of life, including the goal of maintaining or raising the standard of living of particular individuals or groups. As a consequence there was a tendency to
(footnote continued) often identied with the ruler and his status (see note 21). For this conceptual change see P.-L. Weinacht, Staat. Studien zur Bedeutungsgeschichte des Wortes von den Anfangen bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin, . 1968). 20 H. Conring, De ratione status, n. 5: Vox status vulgariter ... sumitur non tantum pro conditione privatorum, sed et per illum presens reipublicae fortunae, conditio et constitutio saepius exprimitur, et status vocabulo omnia ea indigantur, sine quibus respublica consistere nequit. Huc spectat etiam, quando dicimus statum alium esse ecclesiasticum, alium secularem, alium oeconomicum [The expression of state, commonly called, is taken up, not only on account of the condition of private persons, but also the present condition and constitution of the republics fortunes are often expressed by that, and all these things are indicated by the word state, the things without which the repulic could not exist. So far it seems, even, when we say state, that some are ecclesatical, some secular, and some economic]. 21 Chr. Besold, Politica doctrina, 6th ed. (Amsterdam, 1648), l. 1 c. 1 n. 39; J. Chr. Becmann, Meditationes politicae, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt a.O., 1674), d. 3 De ratione status: Status est consistentia et stabilimentum rerum (p. 39); Status vere est, per quem res est et conservatur (p. 42); ratio status est conformitatem cum statu singulorum (ibid.).
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make preservation (conservatio) the leading (if not the sole) principle of the foundations of morality.22 Apart from the rise of a reason of constitution which was above all concerned with the search for methods to preserve the existing constitution of the Empire, the status in reason of state developed a further characteristic, namely an association with the interests of individuals. This development had three important implications: (A) There was a general tendency when invoking the term reason of state to prioritise the problem of preserving the rulers power over all other political tasks. In the context of Aristotelian politica this was easily justied, at least in part, as a precondition for preserving the ordo inter parentes et imperantes (the Aristotelians denition of a respublica in sensu strictu). G. Scoppius, a radical proponent of reason of state theories, asked the following question: quicquid ergo in politica praecipitur, nisi vim habeat efciendum nem eius, qui est status conservatio? [What, therefore, is commanded in politics, except that it should effect that end, which is the conservation of the state?]
22 In ancient ethics self-preservation was the generally accepted starting point, but as a very underdetermined principle insufcient for providing ethics with an overall shape; in Stoic teaching selfpreservation was mans rst nature, in common with other animals: Placet his, inquit, quorum ratio mihi probatur simulatque, natum sit animalhuic enim est ordiendumipsum sibi conciliari et commendari ad se conversandum et suum statum eaque, quae conservantia sunt eius status, diligenda, alienari autem ab interitu iisque rebus, quae interitum videantur offere [It is agreed upon by those, he said, whose thinking is manifestly deceitful in my view, that man is born an animalat this point indeed, discussion should beginthis very animal is made happy in himself and entrusted to himself and ought to return to his state and those things, which conserve his state should be esteemed, he is separted moreover from destruction and from those things, which seem to offer destruction]. (Cicero, De nibus, Bk.3 n.16; see also Bk. 4 n.16 (ars vivendi, ut tueatur quod a natura datum sit), Bk.5 n.24). The rst philosopher who took individual self-preservation as the rst principle of human nature was, I believe, Bernardino Telesio (15091588): For the preservation of world order and the sustaining of the eternal ght between heat and cold God made it the task of all things to preserve themselves and he also gave them the strengh for it (quae agandi operandique facultates entibus eorumque naturis inditae et munera demandata sunt, propterea illae inditae et demandata haec sunt, ut juxta illas agentes operantesque et haec obeuntes, seipsas et quae ab illis constituta sunt entia, conservent ...; [Which faculties of acting and working are placed in beings and their natures and given as gifts, for that reason these are placed and those given, so that men might preserve themselves and whatever entities are constituted by them, (though) nearby those are acting and working and these are dying]. (De rerum natura libri IX (Naples, 1586), l. 2 n. 12, p. 57); also, the function of the spirit (l. 9 n. 2) was to ght corruptio and to ensure conservatio. All virtues were special articulations of selfpreservation; the chief task of the God given soul was to supply internal knowledge of the deity. Society among men was created for improving their chances for self-preservation. In Germany this kind of reductionist moral philosophy was popular mostly in the Protestant territories, for an early example see Ludwig Crocius, Politica Germanorum virtus et libertas (Bremen. 1618): Ex eo enim, quod res omnes sui conservationem tamquam summum bonum quaerunt, et destructionem, ut summum malum, adversantur, bona et mala habent, quod sunt bona et mala ... Omnia igitur sua natura bona sunt, sed homini tantum id, quod eum conservat, bonum est [From this indeed, because all things seek their preservation as the highest good, and avoid their destruction as the worst evil, they consider things good and evil, because they are good and evil ... All things are good therefore according to their nature, but to man only that which preserves him is good]. However, Protestant authors integrated the idea of an eternal soul into the concept of preservation. For other authors see footnote 1 (particularly J.E. Schweling), 26 and 28. The works of B. Telesio which were rst printed only in Venice, Rome and Naples, were also published in Geneva in 1588.
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To which the eminent Aristotelian Conring replied: Nec nis unicus politici est status conservatio, sed felicitas civilis societatis, qua revera absolvitur exercitatione virtutis cum rerum sufcienta conjuncta [Nor is the only end of politics the conservation of the state, but the felicity of civil society, in which respect the end of politics is in fact discharged by the exercise of virtue, joined with a sufciency of things].23 The reduction of princely politics to reason of state (aimed not only against their subjects but also against their rivals in the higher nobility) quickly earned the titles of Machiavellism and despotism. According to Aristotelian doctrine, despotism signied a regime where rule was exercised primarily in the interest of the ruler, and only secondarily for the benet of his subjects. The critique levelled against libido dominandi and this new politics of reason of state was more than mere impractical moralising. Reason of state had indeed implied a serious threat to the idea of reasonable politics as understood in the 17th century. Both in political philosophy and in the art of government, the reduction of politics to reason of state implied a very severe contraction in the justiable goals of the state. Justus Lipsius, just to take one example, had reduced the goals of the state to those of preservation, justice, and the protection of the Church. This move was rst and foremost criticised by the Aristotelians (who clung to the idea of the bene et beate vivere), and by the upholders of the politica christiana (who believed in a gute Policey). When it was perceived that the higher goals of the political community, such as religion, etc., were in the danger of becoming mere instruments to the preservation of the political state, the critique grew even sharper.24 (B) The denition of politics as the use of power or ruling (dominatio) became part of a large set of similar conceptions. It could be easily distinguished from the monarchomachs idea of politics which was grounded in the Roman law idea of universitas, from the polis (civitas) model of the Aristotelians, and from the concept of the magistratus put forward by the older, mainly Ciceronian, humanists. Rather, its orientation was towards the social reality of the patriarchal society of landowners, for example in the Lutheran derivation of obedience to authority from the fourth commandment of the Decalogue, or in the Catholic analogy between princely power and Gods direct authorisation of the spiritual power of the Church (and particularly that of the Popes). This tendency was expressed in the term majestas introduced by Lipsius to summarise the supernatural charisma of the ruler underlying his ability to preserve the state. The various theories of divine right (which can only be mentioned briey here) were also concerned with the ofce and the rights of princes, and with the personal qualities of the ruler or the royal dynasty. For the Lutherans, the theory of divine right was connected to the sacred origins of patriarchy, authority, and of moral theology. Another way to express the same view
Gaspar Scioppius, Paedia Politices (Helmstedt, 1663), p. 7; P. 9: Cum enim Politica in tradendis iis tota occupetur, quae utilia sunt condendo et conservando imperio aut statu publico. H. Conring, Opera omnia (1730), vol. 3, p. 52 u. 24 See Daniel Clasen, De religone politica (Magdeburg, 1655).
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of politicsand this was not conned exclusively to the Catholic part of the Empirewas to represent the hierarchy of power as the reection in the social world of the hierarchy in nature: Ordines enim dignitatum Deus ipse constituit, non modo in hunc mundo, verum etiam in hierarchiis coelestibus [God himself established the degrees of dignity, not only in this world, but truly even in the celestial hierarchies]. The Silesian jurist Christian Gastel in his De statu publico Europae novissimo tractatus (1675) presumed a connection between the concept of a divine hierarchy of power and the technical doctrines of political self-preservation and aggrandisement. He described in detail all the European holders of power (starting with the Pope and the Emperor, continuing with the various kings, and nally down to city councils and the doctors of law), connecting all of them to a mirror-for-princes-style doctrine of reason of state, throughout using the idea that the earthly hierachy of power was a mere continuation of the celestial hierarchy. The model for his mirrorof-rulers was Richelieus Political Testament. He introduced his translation of Richelieus work as follows: having been elected as the highest servant of my king, I wanted rst and foremost to make him the most eminent of kings, wishing him to be the most Christian, the most powerful, the rstborn member of the Church. I wanted him to be the most just, so that he could give himself to the entire world and thus receive the entire world. My rst concern was the loftiness of royal majesty, the second the extent of the realm.25 Gastels work shows how quite modern conceptions, such as the preserving and expanding versions of reason of state, sovereignty and the Stoic focus on princes, could be integrated into the traditional political outlook of the European nobility. Even the most modern state of the times, France, was interpreted and upheld as an ideal in this fashion. (C) Following the common interpretation of status as standing, and continuing both the the Roman law and scholastic doctrines concerning governing and the duty of rulers, reason of state doctrines had, from the beginning, serious implications for the discussions of the principles governing the conduct of subjects and private individuals within society. This enlargement was reected in Clapmars denition of arcana: every science, every conditio in rebus humanis had to have its own arcana; thus there were also arcana privata, hoc est, intima consilia communis privataeque vitae in luce hominum feliciter et decore instituendae [private mysteries, that is, the innermost counsels of communal and private life which ought to be instituted felicitously and decorously before the eyes of men]26, which differed from the secret
Christian Gastellus, De statu publico Europae novissimo tractatus (Nurnberg, . 1675), Pt.1 Ch. 3: De ordine coelestium, p. 28. In his mirror-for-princes Gastel wrote: And it is certain that of all the means through which an empire or princely state can be preserved, there are two of particular signicance; the rst is authority and the effective power of the prince, which rests on his army (Kriegsvolk) and on the alliances he is party to, the other is the reputation and honour that he enjoys abroad (p. 21). 26 A. Clapmarius, De arcanis rerumpublicarum, p. 14; in Bk.6 n.17 he deals with the arcana quaedam communis vitae. The Jesuits developed a rich literature on the arcana; the arcana was a topic for the philosophical schools (sects) too.
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arts of using power, preserving a dynasty, or commanding an army. In 1652 the philosopher and jurist Johann Paul Felwinger (who taught in Altdorf) discussed the question of how a monarchy or principality might be preserved according to these principles. Although his answer had a denite leaning towards absolutism, he nonetheless concluded with the idea of an arcana oboedientia et subitorum, which included advice on how the subjects might successfully resist princely tyranny.27 This was not the only kind of polemic which mattered. The controversy concerning the legal interpretation of the term status was even more inuential: Statum hic nihil aliud est quam consistentia, constitutio, conditio et conservatio imperii ... Sicut jus aut publicum aut privatum: ita et status sic dividi potest ... Privatus status videtur dicendus, qui singulao tangit et per quem singulorum res stat, et est qualitas et conditio hominis privati, ut hoc vel illo jure utatur vel non utatur [State, here, is nothing else than the coming into being, the establishment, the agreement upon, and the conservation of power ... Just as law is either public or private; so also a state can be divided ...The private state seems to be called that which pertains to individuals and through which the affairs of individuals are established, and also the property and condition of the private man, so that a thing can be enjoyed or not, according to that law].28 The real subject matter of this particular polemic was the denition of subjective rights and how they might be deployed for ones own advantage. According to the Brandenburg jurist Gottfried von Jena, the range of such rights extended to liberty, the general rights of citizens, the rights associated with the family and the household, and the legal protection of honour. The mediating link between status privatus and status imperii was dominium in se ipsum, understood as personal liberty. In light of this, von Jena argued that ratio status too had to be divided into two, one that looked after the utility of the state and another quae ad singulorum commodum spectat, et quae privati callide et caute non sine fructu uti solent [which looks to the comfort of individuals, and which private men are accustomed to use cleverly,
Johann Paul Felwinger, Institutionum politicarum libri duo (Frankfurt a.M., 1652), Bk.2. Ch.1: De monarchia sive principatus bene habendi et conservandi proximis rationibus et modis; Ch.3: Arcana obedientiae; Ch.8: Arcana subditorum (mainly against tyrants).-Felwinger comes close to having a republican perspective; he puts political liberty at the forefront of his analysis of constitutional forms: Libertas nihil aliud est quam potestas absoluta summa habens in semetipsa atque intra semetipsa plenum perfectumque imperandi jus [Liberty is nothing else than the absolute highest power, having in itself and within its limits the full and perfect right of commanding]; in a monarchy nobody but the monarch is free, the liberty of the subjects is so limited that it hardly deserves the name of freedom in contrast to democracy, whose institutions Felwinger (16161681) accurately and faithfully described. Nonetheless, in his discussion of inequality among men, Felwinger came out in favour of aristocracy as the best form of government (faithful to the ideals of Nuremberg, at whose university in Altdorf he taught). 28 Godofredus de Jena, Fragmenta de ratione status diu desiderata, (n.p., 1667), p. 15. In the context of status hominis Aquinas also brought up the notion of ratio status: ergo videtur, quod sola obesedientia divinorum sufciat ad rationem status (Summa theologica, 2.2 qu. 183 a. 1); ratio signied a determining principle, a key characteristic. According to Aquinas ratio status was connected to the (civil and spiritual) freedom or unfreedom of man alone. In his doctrine of the forms of government he used the term ratio regiminis (see footnote 10): (ibid., 2.2 qu. 50 a. 1). One of its privileges was the deliberate killing of men (ibid., qu. 64 a. 7).
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carefully, and not without some benet].29 In this way, reason of state became the starting point of an individualistic and utility orientated moral theory. As von Jena explained: Whatever men have done in the past, whatever they do at present, and whatever they might do in future, whatever they have failed to do, and whatever they will fail to do, it had been and always will be done for either private or public reason of state.30 Even Christian piety and ethics could be dened in this fashion as expressions of reason of state. The preservation of the standing of a man as a Christian required on his part a determined quest for salvation and a willingness to defend the Church. The protestant philosopher and historian Johann Christian Becman (16411717), who taught at the university of Frankfurt an der Oder, developed this notion into a subjective ethics of utility and into a systematic theory of natural law and society. His social and political thought combined instrumental rationalism and utilitarian reason of state with the only active reception of Hobbes political theory in 17th century Germany. He broke away from both Aristotle and the transformation of Aristotelian ideas into the natural rights theory of Grotius and Pufendorf.31 It was in his sort of theory that the idea of a specic and concrete social universe as the proper reference point rst gained genuine importance. For Becman many norms which were traditionally regarded as universal were reduced to the level of purely instrumental devices, whose purpose was simply to reveal the various ways whereby
29 Ibid. p. 17. The author, a councellor and envoy of the great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg to the Imperial Diet, combined the interest of the citizens with a strong absolutistic tendency of emphasizing the good of the state: Monarchae neque lios habet neque lias, neque fratres neque uxores, neque similia. Interesse et ratio status omne est, quod habent, et praeter hac plane nihil habent [Monarchs have neither sons nor daughters, neither brothers nor wives, nor anything like them. To be an interested party and reason of state is everything, which they have, and moreover in this clearly they have nothing]. His discussion of reason of state was repeated verbatim by J. Chr. Becmann, Meditationes politicae, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt a.M., 1674), Ch. 3. 30 G. de Jena, Fragmenta, P. 17, and J. Chr. Becmann, Meditationes, Ch.3 n.4 (transl.). 31 J. Chr. Becmann referred to Hobbes as the rst thinker who genuinely derived political philosophy from the principles of reason and social life (Politica Parallela (Frankfurt a.O., 1676), p. 5); he also ! , J. Th. Sprenger, C. explicitly referred to reason of state writers (Machiavelli, A. Clapmarius, G. Naude Lentz, G. von Jena) and to contemporary historical biograhies (Meditationes Politicae, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt a.O., 1674), 1.1 n. 510). He dismissed the idea of natural sociability (socialitas), and with it also Aristotelism in general. In his view all social relations evolve from the endeavour of forever needy men to form a limited association with each other in order to overcome threats to their life and to satisfy their particular wants. He emphasized especially the motivating force of amor sui, propria commoda, and mutuus metus in this kind of sociability. Mans natural state is a state of war, society was established by contract and the mutual transfer of rights. This was the only source of obligation. The state was established by the irrevocable transfer of liberty rights to (libertas est potestas in se) a real, sovereign and autarchic body, whose competence, however, was limited to earthly matters and hence did not amount to a complete extinction of the liberty of the subjects. He rejected the common Aristotelian distinction between society (civitas) and state (respublica). For Becmann a universal duty of man towards others, purely because they were fellow human beings, could only be established in the form of an inner religious commitment.
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a specic group might hope to come to agree on its common interest (thus natural laws were only of use in so far as they were embodied in positive constitutional law). However, this was just one of the constituent parts of the development that led to reason of state being identied with politics, and allied to prudence and utilitas. The other main component in the transformation of the meaning of politics emerged from reections on the deeds of the politicus, who was generally perceived as an associate of the prince or an administrator of his power. In the milieu of traditional political society these unscrupulous, although usually skilfull, politicians, obviously guided by a quest for power and money, were judged even more negatively than the despotic princes of Machiavelli.32 The idea of private politics mainly (although not exclusively) referred to the behaviour patterns prevalent in the princes court and in the conduct of state ofcials. Such positions offered the most important opportunity for social and nancial advancement in traditional society. This sort of reason of state generated the most severe kind of hostile criticism, since it stood in stark contrast to all prevailing idioms of moral reection, as much to the teaching on cardinal virtues and as to the various theories of legal and moral norms, especially the Christian ones. Nonetheless, the individualistic notion of reason of state became integrated into the Christian-Aristotelian education of future ofcials under the rubric of politica personalis or prudence, or how one should conduct oneself as a member of a respublica by the author and educational reformer, Christian Weise (16421708). His argument was characteristic of this tradition: A large society can
32 From the beginning of the 17th century (Johannes Caselius, Propoliticus (Helmstedt, 1600)) Aristotelian political theorists increasingly criticised the extension of political prudence to the whole of social life (for example, J. Althusius and Chr. Becmann) and to intellectual and cultural interaction on the other (see Thomas Sagittarius, Disputationes politicae extraordinariae (Jena, 1605), Ch.2: De conversatione privata, Ch.3: De conversatione publica; Martin Husanus, Politischer Weltmann oder gewisse Anleitung, wie man nach jetziger Zeit ublichen Stylo nicht allein in conversationem und zusammenkunften, . . sondern auch zu Hau mit den seinigen und einem jeglichen, was Standes, Geschlechts und Wurde er auch sei, . sich zu verhalten habe (Cologne, 1643)) and prudential patterns of behaviour in general. See H. Dreitzel, Absolutismus und standische Verfassung in Deutschland. Ein Beitrag zur Kontinuitat . . und Diskontinuitat . der politischen Theorie in der Fruhen Neuzeit (Mainz, 1992), pp. 1015; and V. Sellin, Politik, in Geschichtliche . Grundbegriffe, vol. 4 (Stuttgart, 1978), pp. 814836. See also Emilio Bonfatti, La civil conversazione in Germania. Letteratura de compertamento da Stefano Guazzi al Adolph Knigge 15741780 (Udine, 1979). Before Gracian (see footnote 4) in Latin countries the most successful propagator of political prudence was Hieronymus Cardanus, Arcana politica (Leiden, 1635) (also under the title Proxenata sive de prudentia civilis liber singularis (Leiden, 1627); (Helmstedt, 1668); (Leipzig, 1673 and 1700). A polemical dispute similar to the D. Reinkings critique of Machiavellism (see footnote 9) ared up after the publication of the anonymous Breviarium politicorum secundum rubricas Mazarinicas, 1st ed. (Cologne, 1664), 4th ed. (Cologne, 1691), and the satirical pamphlet of Pacicus a Lapide [Philipp Andreas Oldenburger], Homo Politicus. Das ist: Consiliarius novus, Ofciarius et Aulicus secundum hodiernam praxin (Cosmopoli 1661, 1665, 1668); as well as the long commentary thereon by Christoph Peller, Politicus sceleratus impugnatus. Id est: Compendium novum sub schemata Hominis politici, 1st ed. (Nuremberg 1663), 5th ed. (Nuremberg, 1698); Anon., Rationis status anatomia. Heutiger verkehrter Estaats-Leute Natur, Censur und Cur: nach dero Hertzen, Zungen, Augen, Handen und Gebarden entworfen (Nuremberg 1678). Independently of this . . debate see also Christian Georg Bessel, Neuer politischer Glucksschmied mit allerhand zum Hof- und . Weltleben dienenden und auf gegenwartige Zeiten absonderlich gerichteten heilsamen und hochst notigen . . . Lehren (Frankfurt a.M., 1681). Bessel referred to Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605), l.2.23.
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hardly be conserved if its members fail to concern themselves with their own conservation.33
4. Reason of state and the transformation of aristotelianism into eclectic philosophy In order to understand the impact of ratio status on political Aristotelianism34 one needs to consider its perceived power to clarify certain kinds of political and
33 Christian Weise, Politische Fragen, das ist: Grundliche Nachricht von der Politica (Dresden, 1708), p. . 516. Even before that see Christoph Grimmelshausen, Simplicianischer Zweykopger Ratio Status . (Nuremberg, 1670; reprint Tubingen, . 1968), p. 9: Denn gleich wie ein jedweder einzelner Mensch schuldig . ist, sein eigen Leib und Leben zu erhalten, so lang es ihm immer moglich ist, wessentwegen dann auch jeder herzieht und das treibt, was er vermag; ebenso seynd auch jede Vorsteher und Regenten verbunden, nichts zu unterlassen, was zur Erhaltung ihrer Person, ihres Staats und derer, die solchen Staat machen, gedeyen . mag. Die Ubung solcher selbst Erhaltung ... wird von unserer heutigen Alamode-Welt Ratio Status genannt ... Weil denn nun genugsam bekandt, da kein Stand, kein Haus, je kein einiger vernunftiger . . Mensch ohne die Ratio Status sey oder ohn ihn bestehen konnte. For as much as every individual has the duty to preserve his own body and life, if at all possible, and as long he will be able to do whatever he wants if circumstances permit; in the same way every magistrate and ruler is obliged not to refrain from doing anything which can contribute to the preservation of his person, his state and of those who make up such a state. It is nowadays fashionable to call the practice of such self-preservation ratio status, for it is now commonly accepted that now, no house, not even a reasonable person can preserve himself without ratio status. Grimmelhausen also incorporated this reason of status into Christian ethics.-For an account of Chr. Weise and the so-called political movement, see the work of the literary scholars W. Barner, Barockrhetorik. Untersuchungen zu ihren geschichtlichen Grundlagen (Tubingen, . 1970), pp. 135 ff. and 176219; K. Forssmann, Baltasar Gracian und die deutsche Literatur zwischen Barock und Aufklarung , . Diss. phil. (Mainz, 1977 (with a critical summary of research; on Weise pp. 66113); V. Sinemus, Poetik und Rhetorik im fruhmodernen deutschen Staat. Sozialgeschichtliche Bedingungen des Normenwandels im 17. . . Jahrhundert (Gottingen, 1978), pp. 108206; G. E. Grimm, Literatur und Gelehrtentum in Deutschland. Untersuchungen zum Wandel ihres Verhaltnisses vom Humanismus bis zur Fruhaufkl arung (Tubingen, . 1983), . . . pp. 314346. 34 This term is here exclusively applied to the modernised Aristotelian methods of the later humanists. It appeared in Italy, in the Netherlands (see E. H. Kossmann, Politicke Theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland, Amsterdam 1960, pp. 929) and in Germany (see H. Dreitzel, Der Aristotelismus in der politischen Philosophie Deutschlands im 17. Jahrhundert, in: E. Keler, Chr.H. Lohr und W. Sparn (eds.), Aristotelismus und Renaissance. In memoriam Charles B. Schmitt (Wiesbaden, 1988), pp. 163192; Dreitzel, Protestantischer Aristotelismus und absoluter Staat. Die Politica des Henning Arnisaeus (ca. 1575 1636) (Wiesbaden, 1970)), but only initially in the 16th century in France (Louis Le Roy) and in England (John Case). In Spain and Portugal its development was stopped by the domination of the so-called second scholastics and antimachiavellian political theory. In the Catholic part of Germany its spread was stopped by the Counter-Reformation university reforms initiated by the Jesuits, in its place they tended to teach the Aristotelian doctrines of the Spanish scholastics. The development of Aristotelian political theory was closely linked to the relative autonomy of universities as educational and research institutions serving both the nobility and the bourgeoisie. The career of Aristotelian political theory was, of course, greatly helped by the dominance of Aristotelian philosophy at Lutheran universities, see Walter Sparn, Die Wiederkehr der Metaphysik. Die ontologische Frage in der lutherischen Theologie des fruhen 17. . Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1796); Heikki Mikkeli, An Aristotelien Response to Renaissance Humanism. Jacopo Zabarella on the Nature of Arts and Sciences (Helsinki, 1992); Peter Petersen, Geschichte der aristotelischen Philosophie im protestantischen Deutschland (Leipzig, 1921).-To avoid any misunderstanding, it must be emphasized that the natural in the context of Aristotelian political thought does not refer to naturally determined or instinctive processes (see Samuel Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium (1672), 7.1 n.2),
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conceptual problems, especially the most modern ones. Its thoughtfully developed relativism, for example in relation to the forms of constitution and hence the goals of the state, was an important cause for its success in the fragmented political system of the Empire and in the numerous neighbouring states of Eastern and Northern Europe. A large number of university students from these countries (and also from the Northern Netherlands where political Aristotelianism was dominant in the rst two-thirds of the 17th century) had gone to study at German Protestant universities. The germs for a reason of state doctrine had always been there in Aristotles Politics, but the German Aristotelians made so much out of it that the republican aspects of ancient political thought were almost completely lost. The results of this became manifest in the reception and reworking of Bodins theory of sovereignty; in the ensuing search for historical sources to develop German Staatsrecht (in opposition to the adherents of pure Roman law); in the acceptance of systema civitatum as a meaningful constitutional form; in the idea of a new science which could also be applied to politica; in the analysis of contemporary states by using the categories of Aristotelian natural science; in the reception of Lipsius doctrines of potentia and majestas, and nally in the beginnings of systematic reection on economic policy. Thus the relevance of arcana imperii and ratio status were clearly recognised and their adaptation gathered pace, by Arnisaeus, Besold, Conring, Felwinger, Boecler, Praetorius, Clasen, Geilfu, Christian Thomasius and Hertius. It helped that a few important Italian authors on reason of state, like Ludovico Settala and Antonio Palazzo, were also Aristotelians. Furthermore, topics like the various threats to the state and coups (mutationes rerumpublicarum), as well as their remedies, had been staples of Aristotelian politica for a long time. In this sense reason of state did not represent for Aristotelians such a dramatic theoretical innovation, and even less from the point of view of the empirical recognition of such phenomena. This capacity for absorbing reason of state ideas was also true in regard to Machiavelli, who was mostly regarded and accepted as a quite competent political scientist. His Il Principe was acceptable as a realistic analysis of the politics of a tyrant, but not of course as a true mirror-for-princes piece with normative pretensions. Ratio status was often understood very differently: Felwingers Politica drew a sharp contrast between princely absolutism and the arcana of the subjects who pursue their own interests; Conrings advice to the Danish king, who made himself an absolute monarch via the lex regia (1665), focused on the benets one could expect from a partial restoration of the mixed constitution. The lawyer Johann von Felde in his long chapters on reason of state advocated the realization of
(footnote continued) but must be understood as an anthropological category analogous to the human capacity for speech: it does not exclude the slow and articial historical process of the development of language, speaking and rhetoric: Porro si ars est, qui opus efcit permanens, possit existimari et politica ars esse, utpote quum respublica non minus sit opus aliquod permanens atque sanitas humana, quam efci ab arte medica omnes consentiunt [Moreover, if that is an art, which brings about a lasting achievement, then politics also can be esteemed an art, since with a republic, the work is not any less lasting or healthy for man, than that which all agree is brought about by the medical art] (H. Conring, De civili prudentia, in Opera omnia, vol. 3, p. 334, n. 23).
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Aristotelian principles of justice in an ideal republic of nobles. The perception that amoral actions were unavoidabile in conditions of necessity did not hinder the rise of reason of state doctrines: in its critique of the politica christiana (of all Christian denominations), political Aristotelianism had never put the emphasis primarily on the virtue of governors. In 1662, in his introduction to political science, Conring gave a long list of these amoral actions demanded by necessity. And he added: To sum up, I confess, no state can be founded and none preserved without such actions. On the contrary, he continued: It is not true, that they have to be regarded as unjust in every context. Yes, it is my duty to emphasize that I judge it as a breach of the law when they are not used as soon as the welfare of the public demands them.35 The difference between Conring and Machiavelli was in their different conceptions of what was conducive to the welfare of the people. Conring examined Machiavellis proposals in the light of this criterion, and concluded that many were false or insufcient, while others were downright counterproductive. Despite all this, the emergence of reason of state as a major idiom of political thought contributed to the dissolution of political Aristotelianism in the last 30 years of the 17th century. The decay of Aristotelianism was caused by a number of factors. One was the growing importance of the natural sciences. A second reason was the tendency of Aristotelianism to hold on to late humanistic forms of teaching, which the nobility and the educated bourgeoisie, to whom the politica had been adressed, could not accept anymore. The third was the use of Greek texts and the reliance on the writings of an authority from a quite distant historical epoch, whose ideas (as even the Aristotelians themselves admitted) often contributed precious little to the understanding of important contemporary political problems.36 The Aristotelians could not deal adequately with the following three problems: (A) The Aristotelian politica failed to single out the problem of preserving the rulers power for special analysis. It was capable of distinguishing analytically the system of political rule (the respublica) from the underlying stratum of society supporting it (populus, civitas), but it persisted in putting a great emphasis on their interdependence. In spite of highlighting the functions of authority, it continued to emphasise the point that consensus was the most important device of political integration. The ideas of Aristotelians on reason of state went way beyond seeing it as a technique for the preservation of power. They started from an analysis of the general features of all political systems and the possible forms of government, and
35 De civili prudentia (Helmstedt, 1662), p. 19 (translation). For the clearest expression of Conrings views on Machiavelli see his Animadversiones politicae in Nicolai Machiavelli librum de principe (1661), in Opera, vol. 2. pp. 9731092. See also G. Proccaci, Studi sulla fortuna di Machiavelli (Rome, 1965); . son. Ein Beitrag zu Conrings politischem Denken in his Staat M. Stolleis, Machiavellismus und Staatsra und Staatsrason in der Neuzeit (Frankfurt a.M., 1990), pp. 73105; H. Dreitzel, H. Conring und die . politische Wissenschaft seiner Zeit, in Stolleis (ed.), H. Conring (16061681). Beitrage . zu Leben und Werk, p. 165 ff.; for contemporary commentary see J. F. Buddeus, Compendium historiae philosophiae, ed. J. G. Walch (Halle, 1731) Ch. 31, and J. J. Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae, vol. 4.4,2 (Leipzig,1744), pp. 784793. 36 . t im adligen Bildungsprogramm der Fruhen See rst of all H. Conrads, Tradition und Modernita . Neuzeit, in W. Schulze (ed.), Standische Gesellschaft und soziale Mobilitat . . (Munich, 1988), p. 389.
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this was frequently not connected to a practical theory of ruler behaviour. The favourite constitutional model of the Aristotelians was the mixed constitution, the respublica mixta, and not the absolute monarchy. The mixed constitution came under attack by both theorists of the divine right of kings and Pufendorf. As the last political Aristotelian, J.H. Hertius, confessed, in an age where absolute monarchy became the de facto constitutional standard, the defence of mixed sovereignty was not sustainable. It was for this reason that political Aristotelianism appeared so distinctly old-fashioned in comparison with reason of state. (B) The Aristotelians did not see a wide gap between justum and utile: for them justum equalled the utilitas of the common good. They actually shared this idea with the theorists of reason of state. Their own objections against reason of state, which thus had to come exclusively from the inner terrain of their politica, became subject to an equally harsh critique as the one levelled against Machiavellianism. Alongside the criticism directed against false reason of state stood the equally damning critique of Aristoteles atheus. The difference between justum and utile that the Stoic renaissance, and especially Lipsius, had emphasized, proved to be a better platform in the search for normative, lawlike, immutable and irresistible rights as a guide for political action, than did sticking to conceptions of utilitas, for which both the Aristotelians and the representatives of unbridled reason of state were heavily criticised. The rights-theory direction had also satised Christian moral demands better. Aristotelians had continued to see natural law as nothing more than a set of abstract ethical principles. In contrast, Hugo Grotius and especially Samuel Pufendorf developed a set of natural laws that had a normative force for states as well as for individuals. They started out of the Aristotelian principle of socialitas, but interpreted it as a socialitas inter aequales, following not the spirit of Aristotle, but Ciceros conception of societas. A later generation of Aristotelians, such as J.J. Muller . (16501716), N.H. Hertius (16511710) and perhaps already J.H. Boecler (16111672) the most important political scientist besides Conring (16061681), in the mid-17th century-tried to mix the new natural jurisprudence with Aristotelian politica (eclectic Aristotelianism), by replacing the pars architectonica of Aristotelian politics (the general theory of the state and the forms of government) with the jus publicum universale of the natural lawyers. While the Aristotelians could not compete with the natural jurists in this area, they were not precisely strong in the pars administrativa (the terrain of practical political prudence) either. It was therefore not surprising that already Boecler had decided to follow Lipsius in this area and Christian Weise also turned towards reason of state in his doctrina statistica.37 The political theory of the Aristotelians was weaker as a guidance for practical action than for general structural considerations and for the empirical analysis of actual states. In this latter area they could survive in various guises, such as statistics, Staatenkunde and later as a kind of history of states (Staatengeschichte), and did so in fact up until the rise of historicism in the 19th century. It took centuries for
See also the comments in my, Wann und warum endete der politische Aristotelismus? in Der Aristotelismus in der politischen Philosophie Deutschlands, pp. 184192.
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reason of state and the concept of interests to displace the Aristotelian category of causa nalis. To sum up, reason of state and Aristotelianism had both opposed the primacy accorded to legal norms. If one disregards those quantitative and institutional elds where the politica remained strong38, natural jurisprudence as legalistic political theory had two aspects which gave an advantage to it against Aristotelianism: the rst was its quasi-geometrical epistemology, which enabled it to claim a much higher certainty for its ability to establish moral and political norms than the probabilistic methods of civilis prudentia could ever aspire to. The second element was its successful de-legitimation of despotism as a form of rule. The politica was henceforth divided into a natural law theory of morality and into a utilitarian theory of prudence, and in this divided terrain the discourse of political prudence (either as Regimentslehre or as reason of state) gained the upper hand over Aristotelianism. (C) The Aristotelians had developed their political philosophy only in relation to communities; politics was understood exclusively as a concern with the respublica and they attacked any other interpretation of the purposes of political action.39 Aristotelianism had no answer to questions concerning the special moral code of prudentia vivendi, since it understood private morality simply as a matter of virtue. Ratio status, with its focus on utility rather than virtue, successfully displaced Aristotelianism and destroyed its signicance for practical philosophy. Nobody cares about the virtues any more, wrote Christian Thomasius, the interest of people is in practical advice which can lead them towards a successful life. There was another powerful argument against Aristotelian ethics: that it could only deal with the external behaviour of men, but not with the vices and virtues internal to the soul. This was of course a Christian critique, pressed in its radical form by the pietists and soon transferred into the secular sphere. Aristotelian political and social teleology, whose relative autonomy could only be maintained if it
. See the judgment of the Gottingen jurisprudence professor Johann Jacob Schmau: The chief reason why the jurists, particularly the law professor at Protestant univepsities, had such a high esteem for Pufendorfs Jus naturae, was that it provided the whole of jurisprudentia humana, including both jurisprudentia privata and publica, with an adequate foundation (Neues System des Rechts der Natur . (Gottingen, 1754), p. 274.) 39 See the comprehensive critique of the shortcomings of Aristotelian political theory by Johann Nikolaus Hertius, Elementa prudentiae civilis (Frankfurt a.M., 1703), vol. 2, p. 5. This kind of critique had become part of the commonplaces of Regimentslehre and was aimed against the unwordly and scholastic learning of academics at least since the beginning of the 17th century. Chr. Weise, Politische Fragen (Dresden, 1708) (the preface dated 1690), reported that the political prudence (Staatsklugheit) failed to appear in the most commonly used compendia. But referring to Jacob Thomasius (his own teacher in Leipzig) Weise announced that he overcame this defect by frequently lecturing on Septalium de Ratione Status ... This made me reect, when I started my teaching career in Weienfels [an academy for nobles in Thuringia], on this subject, he wrote, and he indeed published his own statistical ideas (Ideae Statisticae) as an appendix to the German version of his Politica (p. 408 f.). Weise subdivided his Politica into three parts: doctrines concerning the Republique in general and the theory of state forms (in which he basically followed Aristotelian political theory); political prudence (politische Staatsklugheit), otherwise called Raison dEstat, which discussed the issue of preserving the state in general and the various constitutional forms; and nally the politica specialis, including personal-politica and mainly the analysis of the structure and the interests of actual states.
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was kept separate from religious norms, was divided into a transcendental theory of duties, an ethics of inner devotion and, nally, a wordly utilitarianism that became identied with politics40 and was developed into a subjectivised version of ratio status. This disjunction was not sustained primarily either by a hierarchical ordering of the different norms (as in the Catholic-scholastic argument critique of Machiavelli), or by a casuistry of bridging contradictory duties (like in Justus Lipsius prudentia mixta), or through reducing everything to a master-principle (as in J.Chr.Becmanns political philosophy). Rather, it was sustained through developing for each of this class of norms a relatively autonomous area of discourse, or science. These developments led to a reorganisation of philosophy, which became institutionalised in the curricula of the universities of Halle, Jena and Frankfurt an der Oder by the beginning of the 18th century under the name of eclectic philosophy.41 The way Johann Franz Buddeus (16671729) restructured practical philosophy in his phenomenally successful textbook, the Elementa philosophiae practicae (1695), faithfully reected the aftermath of the demise of Aristotelianism. Buddeus divided practical philosophy into three parts: rst ethics, dealing with the summum bonum, i.e. with the peace of the soul and the duties to God; second natural law as the study of lawlike norms for the individual, society and state alike; and third the doctrine of prudence which viewed human actions prout ad nostram statusque nostri conservationem faciunt, et ita prudentiam status seu civilem, sumpta in voce ampliori signicatione, pertinent [just as they are done for our preservation and that of our state, and thus they pertain to the prudence of stateor civil prudence, understood in a more ample sense]. This reason of state dealt with all life-strategies and with every social position; it began with a chapter entitled the many status open for man. The prudentio status oeconomici42 constituted a very important part of it; it was not yet regarded as a
40 See this already in J. Chr. Becmann, Conspectus Doctrinae Politicae (Frankfurt a.O., 1691), Ch. 1 p. 1: Politica est prudentia socialiter vivendi ... adeoque secundum ratiocinia necessitatum et commodorum humanorum [Politics is prudence in living socially ... as far as reasoning about what is necessary and advantageous for men]; ethics ensured, ut homini intresicus bene sit [so that men may be well internally], . and the economics (Okonomie ) ut extrensicus bene sit [so that it may be well externally].-Andreas Rudiger, . Klugheit zu leben und zu herrschen (Leipzig-Coethen, 1733), p. 56: Ethics is preoccupied with the inner workings of mans heart, and wants it to arrange in such a way that it lives in peace with itself in a repose granted by God. The law of nature, however, also deals with the actions of man and wants to arrange them in such a way that men follow their duties towards God and other men. Finally, the doctrine of prudence or politique deals with the same actions, insofar as they concern the preservation of ones reasonable intentions; so that these actions enhance our own utility (Nutzen) or the utility of the whole of human society ... The aim of Staatslehre is to teach man how he can ensure his utmost happiness. 41 See H. Dreitzel, Zur Entwicklung und Eigenart der eklektischen Philosophie, Zeitschrift fur . Historische Forschung 18 (1991), 281343. For an overview of their educational programme Grimm, Literatur und Gelehrtentum, pp. 426446. His interpretation of the so-called politischen Gelehrtenideal has to be corrected in light of the work of K. Forssmann, Baltasar Gracian und die deutsche Literatur (see footnote 4): The educational aim and with it the social ideal of Thomasius is not, as it has often been claimed, the expression of a courtly polite or politically polite man ... but rather it belongs to a far more comprehensive vision of worldly wisdom (Weltweise) (p. 153). 42 The prudential doctrines of the rst phase of the German Enlightenment are described in Forssmann, . ibid, pp. 190233; Burkard Gotthelf Struve, Bibliotheca philosophica (Gottingen, 1740), vol. 1, p. 307:
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separate discipline. Reading the text makes it obvious that conservatio status was identied by Buddeus with felicitas or happiness, and naturally the appropriate doctrine of looking at the utilitas of individuals in society and politics also gures in his book prominently. In these passages he explicitly cited the literature of reason of state. The differentiation between prudentia publica and prudentia privata was set out quite clearly, although the identity of interests between ruler and people was also heavily emphasized, with the new model of princely rule as running an economic enterprise occupying a central area in the discourse. Such typically German versions of reason of state as the security of the throne or the deliverance and welfare of the prince had been further developed by the . Austrian cameralist Wilhelm von Schroder in his Furstliche Schatz- und Rentkammer . (1686). Neither rapport with the nobility, nor the love of the rabble, he maintained, can ensure the security of the prince, and even less the use of those Machiavellian maxims that involve jealousy, mistrust and secret machinations to suppress the subjects. Princes can ensure their security and welfare by keeping a large army, running a successful economy and, in general, through the wealth of their people. As . von Schroder contended: A prince is like a patriarch (Hausvater). ...A father has to fertilize and plough the eld if he wants to harvest. The lakes must be lled with brood if he wants to sh. He must clear out his lifestock if he wants to slaughter it, he must feed the cows if he wants to take their milk. A good prince must therefore feed his people well if he wants to receive income from them. This can be accomplished without the people complaining; and nobody will be able to tell how much a prince received from his land per annum.43 . Schroders programmatic explication of a cameralist reason of state became a bestseller. It was a variation on the theme of the divine right of kings, reminding one of Filmers patriarchalism. He prided himself on having developed a superior alternative to Machiavellis reason of state, with its rather crude devices for preserving power, since his notion, at least partially, was predicated on a common interest between ruler and ruled in maximizing the countrys economic potential.
(footnote continued) Nostro demum saeculo displinae huius (politica privatae s. prudentiae vivendi universalis) solidius atque plenius excultae gloria relicta fuit [Finally, in our generation, the more secure and full glory of this rened discipline (the universal politics of private or of prudential living) was abandoned]. 43 . Wilhelm von Schroder, Furstliche Schatz- und Rentkammer (Leipzig, 1686), 9th ed. (Leipzig, 1552); . Zitat: Vorrede, n. 11; c. 1 n. 8: In a Monarchia it is permitted for a prince to prefer the preservation of his own person to the welfare of his subjects. if nothing else can be done anymore ... while the publicum personam regis oder principis in statu monarchico as personam primariam not at all excluded. For his own political theory see his Disquisitio politica vom allgemeinen Furstenrecht (at rst an appendix to the 1713 . edition of the Schatz- und Rentkammer; later as a separate work with a critical commentary by Gottlieb Samuel Treuer (Wolfenbuttel, . 1719)). For interpretation see: W. Roscher, Geschichte der NationalOekonomik in Deutschland (Munich, 1874), pp. 294300; H. v. Srbik, Wilhelm von Schroder. Ein Beitrag . zur Geschichte der Staatswissenschaften (Vienna, 1910); E. Dittrich, Die deutschen und osterreichischen . Kameralisten (Darmstadt, 1974), p. 63 ff. (Lit.); on his political thought: H. Dreitzel, Absolutismus und standische Verfassung, pp. 8099. .
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Nonetheless his work was hardly more than a slightly veiled legitimization and practical endorsement of the merits of despotic governance. Under the title of the princely art of power (furstliche Machtkunst) this genre enjoyed great popularity at . the end of the 18th century.44 As a consequence the phrase became synonymous with reason of state and it became normal to regard this kind of political rule as serving both the interests of the prince (and his dynasty), and that of his subjects. The magic formula of divitia populi thesaurus regis seemed sufcient to secure this goal. This was not yet the blossoming of political economy, but rather its transformation into an instrument of reason of state.45
5. Conclusion: reason of state and utilitarianism In order to sum up this overview of the subject I would like to advance the following thesis. In the German context the most important contribution of the concept of ratio status was not to the formation of the modern state, although some of its problems acquired a much higher prole when looked at through the optics of reason of state than in other theoretical perspectives. Its real impact was on the evolution of a subjective and utility-orientated moral theory and in facilitating the ssure between justum and utile in practical philosophy. This latter development had played an essential part in the defeat of political Aristotelianism. Compared with this, the assistance of reason of state to the birth of the modern concept of the state was relatively trivial. After all, sovereignty was Bodins idea; the categories of power and power-state (Machtstaat) were introduced by Lipsius; the idea of a constitutional state originates from the monarchomachs and the natural jurists; the relative autonomy of politics and the specicity of the norms applicable to political prudence were understood pretty well at least since the rediscovery of Aristotle in the 13th century, and were nely tuned in subsequent versions of political Aristotelianism.46 The Aristotelians had a sharper analysis of the sources of inner cohesion in political systems than reason of state writers, who often reduced it to the goal of
. See Johann Georg Forderer, Politischer Lust-Garten eines Regenten, darin ein mit klarem Wasser springender Brunnen gezeigt wird, daraus er sich selbst Macht und seinen Unterthanen Reichtum schopfen . kann (Frankfurt a.M., 1709); [Asche Christoph von Mahrenholz], Furstliche Machtkunst oder unersch. opiche Gold-Grube, wodurch ein Furst sich kan machtig und seine Unterthanen reich machen, ed. von . . . Heinrich Boden (Halle, 1702); Johann Georg Leib, Von Verbesserung, Land und Leuten, und wie ein Regent seine Macht und Ansehen erheben konne (Leipzig and Frankfurt, 1708). . 45 See Axel Nielsen, Die Entstehung der deutschen Kameralwissenschaften (Jena, 1911; reprint Frankfurt a.M., 1966). 46 The common assumption that Machiavelli has established the autonomy of politics in modern thoughtthrough the realist separation of politics from ethicscompletely misses, in my view, the unavoidability of moral choice. These ideas often go hand in hand with the accusation that antiMachiavellian political theories which relativise reason of state are hypocritical and unwordly. Machiavelli did not represent the sort of theory they usually attribute to him, but understood politics and the principles of human social life in ethical terms. Whether he lived up more to the high expectations and possibilities offered by such a discourse than, let us say, the Aristotelian doctrine, was generally doubted even from the utilitarian and pragmatic perspective of the 17th century.
44
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preserving a rulers power. Aristotelian political theory was also better at describing the modus operandi of actual states. It is rather questionable whether reason of state had contributed importantly, even in political theory, to the rise of absolutism in Germany. Aristotelian authors regarded limited monarchy a superior option for keeping the state stable and happily contributed to the coining of the pejorative term of Machiavellism in order to discredit the idea of absolute monarchy. Both divine right of kings or sovereignty were more effective intellectual devices for legitimizing absolute monarchy. Reason of state and the fascination with jus et arcana dominationis had their heyday in the periods just before and after the Thirty Years War. At that time the rulers of the various bits and pieces of the Empire were most concerned with putting their newly acquired territorial quasi-sovereignty, a result of the upheveals of the Reformation and the subsequent reorganisation of the Empire, on a more secure footing. Despite all these changes they clung to a selfimage of their states as dynastic and personal systems of rule, in which they shared power only with a privileged estate. While the economy was backsliding in to an agrarian-feudal direction, social climbing and the enhancement of status for most of the rural nobility and for the educated bougeoisie was possible only through offering their service to the political ruling class.47 Natural law based public law seemed to satisfy their craving for a depersonalization and institutionalisation of the political power system. In natural jurisprudence the old controversy about princely reason of state and Machiavellianism was transformed into the Enlightenment debate over despotism. Frederick the Greats Anti-Machiavelli (1740) was a sign of this transition. It was not a book about reason of state, as Friedrich Meinecke assumed. Its aim was, rather, to denounce Machiavellianism in its most traditional sense, as the legitimation of the despotism and tyranny associated with princely rule.
47 This was also the judgment of the 18th century. See Burkhard Gotthelf Struvius, Bibliotheca . philosophica, ed. L. M. Kahle (Gottingen, 1740), vol. 1, p. 249: sed haec potius est status ratio, ex quo emolumenta capiunt summi imperantes, sive ex regulis politicis haec sunt petita sive ex arcano quodum consilio [but rather this is reason of state, through which the greatest powers seize emoluments, and these rewards are sought either according to poltical rules or through some arcane counsel].

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History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

H. Dreitzel / History of European Ideas 28 (2002) 163187

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