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Franz Jägerstätter as Social Critic: a Response to Donagan

Article · January 2014

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Franz Jägerstätter as Social Critic:
a Response to Donagan

Peter D. Finn∗

a Political
Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore; b War Studies, King’s
College London, London, United Kingdom

Keywords: Jägerstätter, Jaegerstaetter, Donagan, deontology, Sittlichkeit, ethics,

historicism, Nazism, tragedy, Catholicism

Abstract
Alan Donagan’s modern classic A Theory of Morality stands as a an articulate
and cogent apology for deontological ethics. Among Donagan’s important
contributions is the significance he attributes to this rationally-anchored
morality as the most reliable platform for social criticism—particularly in
times of ethical ‘drift’. Donagan rules out Hegel’s alternative by which to
act morally simply means to comport oneself to the prevalent and accepted
normative practices of one’s community. In Donagan’s view this position
risks dreadful ethical failure if such practices already are, or gradually
become, morally pernicious. To illustrate this point, Donagan considers
the historical case of Franz Jägerstätter—an Austrian who’s conscientious
objection to conscription in the German Wehrmacht subsequently led to
his trial and execution. For Donagan, Jägerstätter’s tragic example clearly
illustrates the critical capacity of the deontological moral agent amidst a
grotesquely maligned ‘moral’ community. This essay argues that contrary
to these conclusions, the Jägerstätter case, properly understood, affirms
precisely the type of ethics Donagan thinks it clearly condemns.

∗ Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Block AS1, #04–40, 11 Arts
Link, Singapore 117573; HP: (65) 8626 0493, Fax: (65) 6779 6815; E-mail: p.d.finn@nus.edu.sg,
peter.d.finn@kcl.uk.ac
1
Philosophers of ethics, it seems, are easily and enthusiastically swept away by
contrived moral dilemmas, and this has been so since antiquity.1 In A Theory of
Morality (1977) Alan Donagan correctly notes that some of the most provocative
are irrelevant to ethical theory since they rest on supernatural assumptions
about the world’s causal mechanics (Donagan 1977, 35–6)—the first appearance
of ‘Mephistopheles,’ for example, is usually sufficient to foretell the unlikeli-
hood of anything about to follow actually happening. Such hypotheticals fail
the test of moral relevance; they posit not only a hypothetical scenario, but a
hypothetical world. Other dilemmas—more realistic but no less contrived—
often do little to illuminate an ethical problem as such: their gimmick rests in
pitting deontological against consequentialist moral universes—requirements
that a person act in accord with some notional duty against ‘unacceptably’ costly
outcomes of doing so. Such ‘dilemmas’ serve less to illuminate valid problems
in ethical theory and more to disclose the ethical disposition of respondents. To
rephrase Harold Bloom’s appraisal of a reader’s engagement with Shakespeare:
‘you don’t read a moral dilemma, it reads you.’
In contrast, actual historic cases may merit more study by philosophers.
While the very nature of such cases encumbers them with contextual baggage
the contrived dilemma struggles to discard, that same context carries a wealth
of subtlety which no artificial scenario could provoke. Owing to their thick
particularity, we may not profitably consider them as sources of general moral
guidance, but perhaps they do have something to teach about morality as such.
Donagan cites the case of (the Blessed)2 Franz Jägerstätter—an Austrian
farmer who (after completing conscript training) refused further service in the
German Wehrmacht during the Second World War, and was subsequently put to
death. For Donagan, the case clearly illustrates the ethical superiority of rational
rules and duties (exemplified in Jägerstätter’s decision) over an ethics of learned
moral practices. I intend to argue that this case, properly understood, supports
the very type of ethics which Donagan thinks it clearly condemns.

2
Donagan theorizes morality as a set of rules forming a law binding upon all
rational creatures, and which is itself ascertainable through reason.3 Such rules
are implicit in both Judaeo-Christian religious traditions and philosophical
traditions such as Stoicism, having previously gone by such names as ‘the moral
law’ (lex moralis), the ‘law of nature’ (lex naturae), and ‘natural law’ (lex naturalis)
(6). Though evident in religious thought, this idea of a common moral law
is not in itself religious (6). Kant’s great accomplishment was to formulate
a comprehensive ethical theory entirely a priori: independent of experience,
unqualified by cultural norms, and within the limits of reason alone. Although
certain of Kant’s conclusions have left otherwise admiring moral philosophers
perplexed and dismayed (for example, his categorical prohibition against lying—

2
 even, it would seem, to save innocent life), his theory excels in its cogency,
elegance, and consistency.
Kant’s statement of this universal ethical theory (die Moralität)—binding
on all rational beings in virtue of their rationality—was challenged by Hegel.
Hegel contended that Kant’s theory reduced ethical life to ‘empty formalism,’
‘duty for duty’s sake.’4 The ‘emptiness’ of Kant’s theory, the specific content of
moral practice which it lacked, could be found only in a lived ethical community
or Sittlichkeit. In such a community, Hegel writes:
it is easy to say what man must do, what are the duties he has to
fulfill in order to be virtuous: he has simply to follow the well-known
and explicit rules of his own situation. Rectitude is the general
character which may be demanded of him by law or custom.5
Knowing what is right is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
for doing what is right. (One may do what is right accidentally; one my know
what is right and not do it.) What Oakeshott would call habits ‘of affection and
conduct,’ which one learns only in the midst of fellow practitioners, go a long
way toward achieving unity in ethical thought and action.6
However, Donagan argues that understanding morality as Sittlichkeit
permits this ‘ethical life’ to be filled, in principle, with any contents. Moralität
affords a refuge of reason, which simply cannot admit certain practices as moral—
regardless of their popularity, antiquity, or utility. (Treating people as ‘means to
an end’ was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, morally inadmissible.) In
this capacity, Moralität provides a confident, stable, and incorruptible platform
for moral criticism.

3
To illustrate the triumph of Moralität over Sittlichkeit, Donagan turns to the
historical case of Jägerstätter, whose otherwise obscure life, tragic death, and
critical thought were investigated by American sociologist Gordon Zahn.7 For
Donagan’s argument, it is sufficient that Jägerstätter was a little-educated but
intelligent man, who found himself called upon to fight a war his own reasoning
alone had convinced him was unjust. He was censured by his fellow villagers for
his refusal to serve; both his parish priest and his bishop attempted to convince
him that he possessed neither the position nor intellectual attainment to judge
whether the war was just or not. Immovable in the certainty of his reasoning,
Jägerstätter was criminally convicted for his refusal of military service.8 In what
was perhaps a poetic injustice, he was beheaded on August 9th, 1943.
The ‘ethical communities’ in which Jägerstätter found himself (from his
village, to his Church, to his state) had judged military service in the National
Socialist cause to be, at minimum, morally permissible and legally obligatory.
‘Here’ writes Donagan, ‘what is exposed as empty, as lacking specific content,
as allowing any filling whatever, is not Moralität, but Sittlichkeit’ (Donagan 1977,
17).

3
 There is, however, an alternative reading of these tragic events which goes
a long way toward redeeming the cogency of Sittlichkeit. It requires introducing
a few intriguing details into the story which Donagan omits.9 I do not wish to
argue that Donagan has chosen a poor example—because it is a notably fine
one—but rather that any real example he may have chosen to illustrate his point
is likely to be complicated by similar considerations, if not to the same degree
of plurality and conspicuousness.
Zahn’s account of Jägerstätter’s position challenges Donagan’s view that
it was reached through an exercise in abstract moral reasoning. Jägerstätter’s
stated position was simple: he could not swear loyalty to a political body which
he viewed as actively persecuting his religious community (while acknowledg-
ing his duty as a Catholic to obey even non-Christian secular rulers in civil
matters);(Zahn 1964, 220) which espoused an ideology (National Socialism) his
Church had unequivocally condemned; and, whose local representatives (prior
to the Anschluss) had denied adherents Holy Communion (126–7). He further
expressed concern that as a husband and father, he would be morally imperilled
by participating in barracks life which he thought heightened the temptation for
adultery (57). (While this was a secondary and certainly more minor objection,
it is further evidence that Jägerstätter considered the issue in terms of more than
one set of moral commitments.) Jägerstätter recognized that his Church had
been subject to recurring periods of persecution throughout its history, and that
at such times martyrdom was occasionally the only open course consistent with
devotion (227, 243). Jägerstätter’s defiance is thus clearly situated in what he
considered the authoritative practices of his Church, his sworn familial responsi-
bilities, and an historical understanding of the requirements and consequences
of sincere religious commitment.
Zahn’s account also challenges Donagan’s conclusion that Jägerstätter’s
community was morally empty. While his village priest and local bishop did (it
would appear) sincerely attempt to convince Jägerstätter to enter military service,
priests he consulted outside his community claimed to have done so out of fear
that he was a Gestapo agent attempting to entrap them (58). More outspoken
and rebellious priests he may have consulted had already been imprisoned,
and at least one executed. The arresting police officer in the case ‘pleaded’
with Jägerstätter not to compel the arrest,(60) and wrote to the Jägerstätter’s
tribunal on his behalf, and of his own initiative (60). In an episode Jägerstätter’s
attorney described as a ‘unique’10 exception to trial procedure, two officers of
Jägerstätter’s own military tribunal attempted to argue him out of his defiant
position, and when this failed, extolled him not to ‘force’ them to condemn him
(88). Zahn interprets this unusual concern for an ‘enemy of the Reich’s’ welfare,
as well as the dignity of Jägerstätter’s military incarceration compared with that
of civil political prisoners as a possible expression of sympathetic anti-Nazism
within the community of Germany’s professional military establishment (89–
90). Lastly, Jägerstätter’s village did not object to his decision because of Nazi
party or even national loyalty, but because widowing his wife would violate
community norms by selfishly and unnecessarily creating a burden for others
(184). Zahn notes that Geschlossenheit (the ethic of ‘mutual support’ practised

4
by isolated, rural Austrian communities) proscribed denouncing a community
member for his views (Zahn 1964, 184)—and records how Jägerstätter’s village
later sheltered another community member who deserted service by hiding
him in a local forest until the war’s end.11 Clearly Geschlossenheit united more
strongly than any political loyalty.

4
Thus Jägerstätter can be seen as inhabiting a variety of moral personalities.
He is a husband, a father, a neighbour, a Christian, a Catholic, a Citizen, an
Austrian (as opposed to a member of Greater Germany). These responsibilities
are evoked in the performance of certain acts which demonstrate, for example: a
husband’s fidelity, a father’s love, a Christian’s magnanimity, a citizen’s duties.
Each of these roles—in virtue of being such—bears an internally consistent set of
obligations but (since the obligations they prescribe need not be comprehensively
consistent) there is always the contingent possibility of conflict between them.
As the wedded father of three daughters, Jägerstätter’s fellow villagers
rebuked him in part for forsaking his familial obligations: by choosing a certain
conviction and death sentence, he left his wife a pensionless widow with a farm
to manage and children to raise. His spiritual counsellors, while not defending
the National Socialist cause, attempted to persuade him (as a Roman Catholic,
as sacristan of his parish church, and sworn Tertiary) of his faultlessness (in the
eyes of God) for obligations fulfilled toward legitimate civil authority,12 and
further (in agreement with his neighbours) argued that his first responsibility
was to his family, and that his personal rebellion was a futile waste (58).
In his penetrating letters from prison, Jägerstätter does explicitly state
his reasoning, affirming the value he places on reason’s authority over his con-
science as a faculty of God’s bestowal.13 Significantly, when Jägerstätter reasons,
he does not do so from abstract principles; rather he interprets the inconsistency
of his conscript’s persona with other of his unalienable personae. He further
attempts a reasoned reconciliation of his conflicting ethical commitments. It is in
virtue of being a Catholic that he would be prohibited from participating in an
unjust war—for as a citizen he has no political authority to contest the justice of
any war. Also, as a Catholic, he cannot consistently lend agency to a political
entity which persecutes his Church.
Jägerstätter’s use of reason was an attempt to interpret the responsibilities
of his ethical roles, and an attempt to resolve the conflicts between them which
circumstance had provoked. He was not the member of a single, comprehen-
sive Sittlichkeit which was ethically empty and which he blindly or habitually
obeyed—but a plurality of Sittlichkeiten, some of which (his civic identity) could
potentially admit National Socialism, but others (his religious identities, as he
interpreted their commitments) which could not.

5
5
In theorizing morality, Donagan abstracts it from the particular practices of a
specific moral universe—the Judaeo-Christian tradition. He acknowledges this
tradition as the source, but maintains that its principles are ascertainable by
reason alone, and were evident in pre-Christian Stoic philosophy (Donagan
1977, 6). Jägerstätter’s case shows that actual moral reason requires interpreting
the tradition of moral practice where one participates. Jägerstätter’s case also
reveals how a person may inhabit more than one ethical community (family,
village, state, military, Church) at a time as expressed through the personae
through which one interacts. While a person well-rehearsed in these moral roles
may seldom need to reflect on what he or she ought to do in a given situation,
should the responsibilities of these personae ever conflict, reflection upon them
will be inevitably provoked. The reasoned resolution will require interpreting
and judging between competing obligations. Through this process, Sittlichkeiten
are brought into dialogue; and in the course of this dialogue, the claims of some
personae will prove more morally cogent than others. Provoking this dialogue
is a sufficient and reliable basis for critique.
Thus, where as Donagan seeks a single, unassailable platform of ethical
reasoning—a universal perspective which thus permits identifying Nazism as
universally immoral—and does not seem to consider moral critique reliable
without it, there is a viable alternative in the dialogue between a plurality of
moral personae. What this alternative may lack in its ability to declare Nazism
universally immoral on any specific rational grounds, it makes up for in its
multiplicity of critical perspectives—and perhaps even the capacity to declare
Nazism (more or less) consistently immoral.
This alternative has further strengths. As consistent and compelling as
Moralität may be, if its grounding assumptions were ever to be satisfactorily
refuted one would find oneself in moral perplexity. However, for one whose
conduct is drawn from the multi-valency of Sittlichkeiten, not only is there less
difficulty acting in the absence of an explicit moral law, there is no risk of
systematic moral theory collapse—only a contingent conflict of ethical responsi-
bilities, or an equally contingent challenge of adapting existing moral practices
to changing circumstances.
Lastly, this alternative reading provokes the question of why Jägerstätter
was apparently so isolated in his defiance. How could his numerous ethical
communities serve the National Socialist cause without the ethical malleability
Donagan believes Sittlichkeit capable of? While this is a separate question, and
of a complexity far beyond this essay’s scope and purpose, Jägerstätter himself
suggests a general answer which bears on this essay’s argument: that those who
did not act as he did had simply come to value their own survival (or that of
their parishioners) above a life of consistent ethical integrity; as he writes: ‘If
God had not given me the grace and strength even to die for my faith if I have
to, I, too, would probably be doing the same as most other Catholics’ (Zahn
1964, 233). This affirms that knowing what is right is not a sufficient condition
for doing what is right—especially when doing so has become perilous—and

6
thus the conviction gained by habit and the confidence gained by courage14 are
indispensable to ethical life.

6 Acknowledgments

7
Notes
1 For a discussion of this theme see (Donagan 1977, 172–189).
2 Jägerstätterwas beatified in 2007—thirty years after Donagan wrote A Theory of Morality.
3 See (5–7). For Kant, that the ‘will to do good’ is the only thing ‘good’ without qualification is

true in this world and beyond it. See (Kant 1996, xxii).
4 See (G. W. F. Hegel [1820] 2001, § 153), cited in (Donagan 1977, 9).
5 (G. W. F. Hegel [1820] 2001, §150) as cited in (Donagan 1977, 10).
6 See (10–11) and (Nardin 2001, 192–4) for two secondary accounts this idea in Oakeshott’s

thought.
7 See (Zahn 1964).
8 ‘The death penalty shall be levied against . . . anyone who publicly advocates or incites the

refusal to perform the required service in the German army or undermine the desire of the German
people or any allied with it to maintain its military effectiveness.’ Paragraph 5 [Zersetzung der
Wehrkraft] of the 33 Kriegssonderstrafrechtsverordnung v. August 1938, cited in (89).
9 I do not imply this was a deliberate omission, for Donagan may not have appreciated the

relevance of these additional facts.

10 Zahn quoting Jägerstätter’s attorney Feldmann; see (88–9).
11 This alternative had been offered to Jägerstätter also, but he refused it from fear of reprisals

against his family and village. See (60–1).

12 It was the authorities themselves who would be called to account for their actions.
13 See particularly (223), and (233).
14 What Clausewitz describes as a ‘concern with moral survival,’ as opposed to physical; see

(Clausewitz [1883] 1989, 138).

8
 References
Clausewitz, Carl von. [1883] 1989. On War. Edited and translated by Michael
Howard and Peter Paret. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Donagan, Alan. 1977. The Theory of Morality. The University of Chicago Press.
G. W. F. Hegel. [1820] 2001. Philosophy of Right. Translated by S. W. Dyde.
Batoche Books.
Kant, Immanuel. 1996. “General Introduction.” In The Cambridge Edition of
the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by
Mary J. Gregor, xiii–xxxiii. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nardin, Terry. 2001. The Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott. University Park, PA:
The Pennsylvania University Press.
Zahn, Gordon. 1964. In Solitary Witness. The life and death of Franz Jägerstätter.
Springfield, Illinois: Templegate.

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