Considerations on the German Reception of Scottish Moral Philosophy: C. Garve's Translation Practice of A. Ferguson's Institutes of Moral Philosophy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the German reception of Scottish moral philosophy in the eighteenth century. In contrast to German moral philosophy, which was combined with either metaphysics or theology, Scottish moral philosophy treated morality with the enquiry of human passion, desire, and feeling. In this context, German philosopher Christian Garve (1742–98) imported Scottish moral philosophy into Germany through his translations. However, the motivation behind Garve's translation activity has seldom been discussed in modern research. This paper considers understanding why and how Garve performed his translation to be indispensable to understanding his conception of morality. Hence, this paper investigates Garve's motive for translating Adam Ferguson's Institutes of Moral Philosophy. Garve added to the translation his original comment that emphasized the pursuit of perfection as the main theme of moral philosophy. Garve demonstrated that the only way to achieve perfection was through self-thinking, and the pursuit of virtue was independent of theology since virtue must be something good in itself. This paper concludes that through translation, Garve conceived moral philosophy as a new mindset for the German public to cope with forthcoming economic and social challenges in the age of Enlightenment.