J.P.Sommerville

 

Grotius, Pufendorf and the Modern Theory of Natural Law
 

Read the Prolegomena, and book 1 of the Liberty Fund edition of
Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace

Suggested reading

Brett, Annabel S,  Liberty, Right and Nature. Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought, Cambridge 1997
[Valuable study of pre-Grotian theories]

Bull, Hedley, Kingsbury, Benedict, and Roberts, Adam, eds. (1990), Hugo Grotius and International Relations, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990
[Useful collection of essays; some specific items are listed below].

Chappell, Vere, Grotius to Gassendi, New York 1992.

Draper, G. I. A. D. (1990), 'Grotius' place in the development of legal ideas about war', in Hedley Bull,

Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts, Adam, eds., Hugo Grotius and International  Relations, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990, 177-207,

Edwards, Charles S., Hugo Grotius, the miracle of Holland : a study in political and legal thought, Chicago 1981
[Straightforward introduction, stressing continuity rather than change in Grotius' theories]

Gelderen, Martin Van, "From Domingo de Soto to Grotius:  Theories of monarchy and civil power in Dutch political thought 1558-1598", Il pensiero politico, 19 (1986) pp. 163-81.

Haakonsen, Knud, "Hugo Grotius and the history of political thought," in Political Theory 13(1985), 239-65.

Haakonsen, Knud, Natural Law and Moral Philosophy from Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996. 
[Sees Grotius and Pufendorf as beginning a new school.]

Haggenmacher, Peter (1990), 'Grotius and Gentili', in Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts, eds., Hugo Grotius and International Relations, 133-76.

Keene, Edward, Beyond the anarchical society : Grotius, colonialism and order in world politics, Cambridge University Press 2002.

St Leger, J. (1962), The "Etiamsi daremus" of Hugo Grotius, Rome 1962
[Stresses continuity with earlier, Catholic thinking.]

Scott, Jonathan, "The Law of war:  Grotius, Sidney, Locke and the political theory of rebellion" in Simon Groenveld and Michael Wintle (eds) Britain and the Netherlands, vol. XI The Exchange of Ideas, pp.115-32.

Sommerville, Johann P., "Selden, Grotius, and the Seventeenth-Century Intellectual Revolution in Moral and Political Theory," in Victoria Kahn and Lorna Hutson, eds., Rhetoric and Law in Early Modern Europe, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001, 318-44
[Expresses doubts about the "modernist" thesis on natural law.]

Tierney, Brian, The idea of natural rights : studies on natural rights, natural law, and church law, 1150-1625, Grand Rapids 1997
[Fundamental study]

Tuck, Richard, 'The "modern" theory of natural law', in Anthony Pagden, ed., The languages of political theory in early-modern Europe, Cambridge 1987.
[Excellent statement of the "modernist" thesis -- see also Tuck's Philosophy and Government]

Tuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories, Cambridge 1979

Tuck, Richard, "Grotius and Selden" in J. H. Burns, ed., with the assistance of Mark Goldie, The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp.499-529

 

Questions
 
Did Hugo Grotius develop a novel theory of natural rights?

How "minimalist" are Grotius' political and moral assumptions?

Compare and contrast Grotius and Vitoria.

Was Grotius an absolutist? In what ways did his theories differ from those of the monarchomachs?

 

 

 

Samuel Pufendorf
On the Duty of Man and Citizen.
There is also an online edition of his much fuller De jure Naturae

Suggested reading


(some items on the Vitoria and Hobbes lists are also relevant)

Behme, Thomas, "Pufendorf's Doctrine of Sovereignty and its Natural Law Foundations," in Ian Hunter and David Saunders, eds., Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty, Palgrave Macmillan 2002, 43-58.

D'Entrèves, Natural Law. An introduction to legal philosophy. With a new introduction by Cary J. Nederman, (New Brunswick and London, Transaction Publishers, 1994; originally published in 1951);
[An old classic.]

Dufour, Alfred, "Pufendorf'," in J. H. Burns, ed., The Cambridge history of political thought, 1450-1700, edited by  J.H. Burns with the assistance of  Mark Goldie.

Hunter, Ian, "The love of a sage or the command of a superior : the natural law doctrines of Leibniz and Pufendorf"  in Early modern natural law theories : contexts and strategies in the early Enlightenment, edited by T.J. Hochstrasser and P.Schröder, Dordrecht 2003.

Hont, Istvan, 'The language of sociability and commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the theoretical foundations of the "four stages" theory', in Anthony Pagden, ed., The languages of political theory in early-modern Europe, Cambridge 1987.

Korkman, Petter, " Voluntarism and moral obligation : Barbeyrac’s defence of Pufendorf revisited" in Early modern natural law theories : contexts and strategies in the early Enlightenment, edited by T.J. Hochstrasser and P. Schröder, Dordrecht 2003

Korkman, Petter,"Civil Sovereigns and the King of Kings: Barbeyrac on the Creator’s Right to Rule" in Ian Hunter and David Saunders, eds., Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty, Palgrave Macmillan 2002, 109-122.

Krieger, Leonard, The politics of discretion: Pufendorf and the acceptance of natural law, Chicago 1965

Krieger, Leonard,  "History and law in the seventeenth century: Pufendorf," in Journal of the History of Ideas, 21(1960),190-210

Schneewind, J.B., "Pufendorf's place in the history of ethics," in Synthese, 72(1987), 123-55.

Van Gelderen, Martin, "From Domingo de Soto to Hugo Grotius, Theories of monarchy and civil power in Spanish and Dutch political thought" in Il pensiero politico 32 (1999) pp.186-205

 

Questions

Is Pufendorf a representative of the "modern" theory of natural law?

What was that theory?

How does Pufendorf differ from Vitoria?

What were Pufendorf's political (as opposed to his purely moral) doctrines, and how do they link to historical developments in his time?

Compare Pufendorf with some of the earlier  theorists we have looked at - especially Hobbes, the monarchomachs and the Levellers.