The Vocation of the Human Being

"Bestimmung des Menschen" is a key term of the German Enlightenment, pointing to the question of the aim of human existence and the rules of behaviour attendant on such an aim. The notion itself was officially introduced in 1748 by the theologian Johann Joachim Spalding, and used to provide a quite specific answer to this question: human beings are given their task by God, and this task consists in self-perfecting and being righteous in this life and continuing this work on themselves in the afterlife. So, humans are made for immortality. Spalding’s text enjoyed enormous success, was republished and translated many times, and gave rise to some crucial controversies. From 1764 to 1766, Thomas Abbt and Moses Mendelssohn entertained an intense debate, both private and public, on the treatise, and not even Abbt’s premature death prevented Mendelssohn from thinking further about the issues raised—his masterpiece "Phädon" (1767) is the most important testimony to this. In 1768–1769, Johann Gottfried Herder cherished the hope that he might take up Abbt’s role as an opponent, and finally succeeded in engaging Mendelssohn in a short, yet very lively epistolary exchange. Across all these controversies, what was at stake were the pillars of Spalding’s viewpoint: namely, the actual capacity of human beings for a never-ending journey of self-perfection, the universal applicability of what seemed to be an ultimately learned answer to a universal question, and last but not least, the suspicion that looking for something after this life—provided it be demonstrable—might not be the best way to care for oneself in this life.