Thomas Ahnert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265406
- eISBN:
- 9780191760457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265406.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines the German jurist and philosopher Samuel Pufendorf as a theorist of religious intolerance. Usually, Pufendorf is associated with the defence of some degree of religious ...
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This chapter examines the German jurist and philosopher Samuel Pufendorf as a theorist of religious intolerance. Usually, Pufendorf is associated with the defence of some degree of religious toleration. He was a strong critic of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, and it is often argued that Pufendorf intended to deconfessionalize politics by using his natural law theory to separate secular affairs of state from theological controversies over revealed religion. At the same time, however, Pufendorf has seemed a very inconsistent advocate of religious toleration, one who, on occasion, was willing to endorse religious intolerance. The chapter shows that Pufendorf's views are not as inconsistent as they might appear to be. He did not intend to deconfessionalize politics. He was not a principled defender of religious toleration. And the importance of his theory of natural law for his ideas on religious toleration is actually very limited.Less
This chapter examines the German jurist and philosopher Samuel Pufendorf as a theorist of religious intolerance. Usually, Pufendorf is associated with the defence of some degree of religious toleration. He was a strong critic of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, and it is often argued that Pufendorf intended to deconfessionalize politics by using his natural law theory to separate secular affairs of state from theological controversies over revealed religion. At the same time, however, Pufendorf has seemed a very inconsistent advocate of religious toleration, one who, on occasion, was willing to endorse religious intolerance. The chapter shows that Pufendorf's views are not as inconsistent as they might appear to be. He did not intend to deconfessionalize politics. He was not a principled defender of religious toleration. And the importance of his theory of natural law for his ideas on religious toleration is actually very limited.
Simone Zurbuchen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265406
- eISBN:
- 9780191760457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265406.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter suggests that a nuanced account of early Enlightenment natural law theory may have something to offer modern debates that swing between a liberal emphasis on individual rights and a ...
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This chapter suggests that a nuanced account of early Enlightenment natural law theory may have something to offer modern debates that swing between a liberal emphasis on individual rights and a communitarian emphasis upon group rights. An examination of Pufendorf's work reveals that his natural law theory embraces two connected ways of thinking about toleration. One the one hand, his theory underpins the power of the magistrate to tolerate pragmatically for reasons of state. On the other, his account of natural religion defines a sphere that cannot be invaded legitimately by the state. Pufendorf's distinction between churches (as voluntary associations) and states (as guarantors of individual rights) offers resources for rethinking contemporary discussions that struggle to balance claims by religious communities to maintain their identities with the claims of their vulnerable members not to be oppressed.Less
This chapter suggests that a nuanced account of early Enlightenment natural law theory may have something to offer modern debates that swing between a liberal emphasis on individual rights and a communitarian emphasis upon group rights. An examination of Pufendorf's work reveals that his natural law theory embraces two connected ways of thinking about toleration. One the one hand, his theory underpins the power of the magistrate to tolerate pragmatically for reasons of state. On the other, his account of natural religion defines a sphere that cannot be invaded legitimately by the state. Pufendorf's distinction between churches (as voluntary associations) and states (as guarantors of individual rights) offers resources for rethinking contemporary discussions that struggle to balance claims by religious communities to maintain their identities with the claims of their vulnerable members not to be oppressed.
Jon Parkin and Timothy Stanton (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265406
- eISBN:
- 9780191760457
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265406.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book examines the relationship between natural law and toleration during the Early Enlightenment. Modern discussion of tolerationist theories during this period can suggest that such ideas were ...
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This book examines the relationship between natural law and toleration during the Early Enlightenment. Modern discussion of tolerationist theories during this period can suggest that such ideas were articulated in an essentially secular and individualist mode. In fact some of the most important discussions of toleration at this time emerged from writers who were committed to a more complex structure of assumption and belief in which natural law ideas were foundational. The consequences of this fact for theories of toleration have not (until now) been systematically investigated. This book provides new insights into the relationship between natural law and toleration in the work of Samuel Pufendorf, John Locke, Christian Thomasius, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Jean Barbeyrac, and Francis Hutcheson. Taken together the chapters uncover the diverse ways in which the distinctive natural law arguments helped to structure accounts of toleration that remain important for us today.Less
This book examines the relationship between natural law and toleration during the Early Enlightenment. Modern discussion of tolerationist theories during this period can suggest that such ideas were articulated in an essentially secular and individualist mode. In fact some of the most important discussions of toleration at this time emerged from writers who were committed to a more complex structure of assumption and belief in which natural law ideas were foundational. The consequences of this fact for theories of toleration have not (until now) been systematically investigated. This book provides new insights into the relationship between natural law and toleration in the work of Samuel Pufendorf, John Locke, Christian Thomasius, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Jean Barbeyrac, and Francis Hutcheson. Taken together the chapters uncover the diverse ways in which the distinctive natural law arguments helped to structure accounts of toleration that remain important for us today.
Petter Korkman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265406
- eISBN:
- 9780191760457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265406.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Jean Barbeyrac is a seminal figure in the history of natural law doctrine and one who, as a Huguenot refugee, had much to say on the topic of toleration. For Barbeyrac, natural law offered a secular ...
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Jean Barbeyrac is a seminal figure in the history of natural law doctrine and one who, as a Huguenot refugee, had much to say on the topic of toleration. For Barbeyrac, natural law offered a secular rationalist principle of morality that could be used in the battle against Catholic persecution. Barbeyrac took from his seventeenth-century predecessors the natural law idea that the state was an essentially secular body and used that idea to license a much more thoroughgoing form of toleration. If the state had no religious competence then even atheism could be permitted, because it did not constitute an injury to the civil peace. This chapter shows that Barbeyrac's radical account of natural law and toleration made substantial modifications to the arguments of his predecessors, and in doing so moved natural law beyond the theological constraints that structured the defining work in the genre.Less
Jean Barbeyrac is a seminal figure in the history of natural law doctrine and one who, as a Huguenot refugee, had much to say on the topic of toleration. For Barbeyrac, natural law offered a secular rationalist principle of morality that could be used in the battle against Catholic persecution. Barbeyrac took from his seventeenth-century predecessors the natural law idea that the state was an essentially secular body and used that idea to license a much more thoroughgoing form of toleration. If the state had no religious competence then even atheism could be permitted, because it did not constitute an injury to the civil peace. This chapter shows that Barbeyrac's radical account of natural law and toleration made substantial modifications to the arguments of his predecessors, and in doing so moved natural law beyond the theological constraints that structured the defining work in the genre.
Barbara Arneil
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198279679
- eISBN:
- 9780191684296
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198279679.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
John Locke's state of nature, and more particularly his natural man, while derived empirically from the accounts of travellers to the Americas, were created within the tradition of natural law. ...
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John Locke's state of nature, and more particularly his natural man, while derived empirically from the accounts of travellers to the Americas, were created within the tradition of natural law. However, the global context within which both the Two Treatises and 17th-century natural law developed has not been explored in detail. In particular, the extent to which natural-law theorists such as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf were influenced by the colonial interests of their particular countries of origin has been largely overlooked. The development of natural-law theory, which can be traced back to the time of Cicero and beyond, is transformed during the 1600s by the need to answer new questions posed, both on sea and on land, by the expanding colonial empires of Europe. Thus, in considering the natural-law theorists who influenced Locke, this book examines how colonialism influenced both the questions which were posed and the answers that were given.Less
John Locke's state of nature, and more particularly his natural man, while derived empirically from the accounts of travellers to the Americas, were created within the tradition of natural law. However, the global context within which both the Two Treatises and 17th-century natural law developed has not been explored in detail. In particular, the extent to which natural-law theorists such as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf were influenced by the colonial interests of their particular countries of origin has been largely overlooked. The development of natural-law theory, which can be traced back to the time of Cicero and beyond, is transformed during the 1600s by the need to answer new questions posed, both on sea and on land, by the expanding colonial empires of Europe. Thus, in considering the natural-law theorists who influenced Locke, this book examines how colonialism influenced both the questions which were posed and the answers that were given.
Andrew Stewart Skinner
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198233343
- eISBN:
- 9780191678974
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198233343.003.0006
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume should be of continuing interest to the student of political economy, not least because they did not see themselves as economists so much as philosophers ...
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Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume should be of continuing interest to the student of political economy, not least because they did not see themselves as economists so much as philosophers who placed the study of economic phenomena in a broad social context. The basic task was to explain how it was that a creature endowed with both self and other-regarding propensities was fitted for the social state. It appears that social order as a basic precondition for economic activity depends in part upon a capacity for moral judgement. Furthermore, the psychological drives that explain economic activity must be seen in a context wider than the economic. This chapter examines Hutcheson's link to Samuel von Pufendorf in a manner that confirms a debt to the work of W. L. Taylor, as well as the role of subjective judgement as regards the determinants of value in the works of both men.Less
Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and David Hume should be of continuing interest to the student of political economy, not least because they did not see themselves as economists so much as philosophers who placed the study of economic phenomena in a broad social context. The basic task was to explain how it was that a creature endowed with both self and other-regarding propensities was fitted for the social state. It appears that social order as a basic precondition for economic activity depends in part upon a capacity for moral judgement. Furthermore, the psychological drives that explain economic activity must be seen in a context wider than the economic. This chapter examines Hutcheson's link to Samuel von Pufendorf in a manner that confirms a debt to the work of W. L. Taylor, as well as the role of subjective judgement as regards the determinants of value in the works of both men.
Thomas Pink
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199583645
- eISBN:
- 9780191738456
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583645.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
In this essay it is argued that Suárez fundamentally altered the traditional conception of obligation and laid the groundwork for the modern one. According to Suárez the obligatoriness of the moral ...
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In this essay it is argued that Suárez fundamentally altered the traditional conception of obligation and laid the groundwork for the modern one. According to Suárez the obligatoriness of the moral law does not lie in the power of the law-giver as judge and punisher but rather lies in the rationality of the directives of the moral law itself. It is argued that this is best understood as a distinctive kind of justificatory force within practical reason that is inherent to an action, ‘the force of Demand.’ It is this special force that grounds praise and blame. The reception of this model of obligatoriness is traced among seventeenth-century natural law theorists—Grotius, Pufendorf and Locke—and it is argued that although Grotius and Pufendorf accepted Suárez’s account Locke reverted to the traditional conception.Less
In this essay it is argued that Suárez fundamentally altered the traditional conception of obligation and laid the groundwork for the modern one. According to Suárez the obligatoriness of the moral law does not lie in the power of the law-giver as judge and punisher but rather lies in the rationality of the directives of the moral law itself. It is argued that this is best understood as a distinctive kind of justificatory force within practical reason that is inherent to an action, ‘the force of Demand.’ It is this special force that grounds praise and blame. The reception of this model of obligatoriness is traced among seventeenth-century natural law theorists—Grotius, Pufendorf and Locke—and it is argued that although Grotius and Pufendorf accepted Suárez’s account Locke reverted to the traditional conception.
Jason P. Rosenblatt
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199286133
- eISBN:
- 9780191713859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286133.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter examines Grotius’s important influence on Selden as well as their mutual influence on Milton. No history of early modern religious toleration is complete without reference to Grotius’s ...
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This chapter examines Grotius’s important influence on Selden as well as their mutual influence on Milton. No history of early modern religious toleration is complete without reference to Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis and Selden’s De Jure Naturali et Gentium. The implicitly Judaeophilic context of most of their rabbinic references affected not only Milton, but even Grotius’s skeptical editor Jean Barbeyrac as well as the later theorist Samuel Pufendorf. In a tour de force, Selden invents an authentic midrash on Job 31, proving with the help of rabbinic sources, that Job was a righteous Gentile who kept the Noachide laws.Less
This chapter examines Grotius’s important influence on Selden as well as their mutual influence on Milton. No history of early modern religious toleration is complete without reference to Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis and Selden’s De Jure Naturali et Gentium. The implicitly Judaeophilic context of most of their rabbinic references affected not only Milton, but even Grotius’s skeptical editor Jean Barbeyrac as well as the later theorist Samuel Pufendorf. In a tour de force, Selden invents an authentic midrash on Job 31, proving with the help of rabbinic sources, that Job was a righteous Gentile who kept the Noachide laws.
Robin Douglass
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198724964
- eISBN:
- 9780191792441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198724964.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter sets out the intellectual context for Rousseau’s engagement with Hobbes by surveying Hobbes’s French reception during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The chapter ...
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This chapter sets out the intellectual context for Rousseau’s engagement with Hobbes by surveying Hobbes’s French reception during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The chapter first examines how Pierre Nicole and Pierre Bayle drew on Hobbes’s political ideas in their own theories, before assessing the metaphysical and theological elements of Nicholas Malebranche’s critique of Hobbes. It then turns to the natural law context and shows how Jean Barbeyrac and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui helped to establish a somewhat artificial opposition between Hobbesian Epicureanism and Pufendorfian sociability. The final sections consider how Hobbes’s ideas were attacked by Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, and contributors to the Encyclopédie. The chapter reveals that attacks on Hobbes increased as the eighteenth century progressed, even though many of his ideas appear to have diffused into the thought of the time.Less
This chapter sets out the intellectual context for Rousseau’s engagement with Hobbes by surveying Hobbes’s French reception during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The chapter first examines how Pierre Nicole and Pierre Bayle drew on Hobbes’s political ideas in their own theories, before assessing the metaphysical and theological elements of Nicholas Malebranche’s critique of Hobbes. It then turns to the natural law context and shows how Jean Barbeyrac and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui helped to establish a somewhat artificial opposition between Hobbesian Epicureanism and Pufendorfian sociability. The final sections consider how Hobbes’s ideas were attacked by Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, and contributors to the Encyclopédie. The chapter reveals that attacks on Hobbes increased as the eighteenth century progressed, even though many of his ideas appear to have diffused into the thought of the time.
Mark Totten
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300124484
- eISBN:
- 9780300168648
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300124484.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Military History
In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes describes his notion of an international state of nature dominated by the singular right of self-preservation. Samuel Pufendorf offered an alternative to Hobbes's ...
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In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes describes his notion of an international state of nature dominated by the singular right of self-preservation. Samuel Pufendorf offered an alternative to Hobbes's state of war characterized by a nearly unlimited right to strike first. He refuted Hobbes's claim that justice only follows the social contract, insisting that God's will and not mere self-interest produces the obligating force of natural law. He thus presented the law of sociability as harmonious with, but finally independent of, the right of self-preservation. Pufendorf emphasized anticipatory force more than self-defense. The eighteenth century witnessed the rise of the Hobbesian tradition nearly to eclipse the moral tradition on the just war. Emmerich de Vattel agreed with Pufendorf that the natural law lays down a separate principle of sociability that is finally consistent with the right of self-preservation. Kant offered an account of war that, under present conditions, is remarkably Hobbesian. This chapter also examines the views of Carl von Clausewitz on preventive war as well as Edward Hall's arguments about law and morality.Less
In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes describes his notion of an international state of nature dominated by the singular right of self-preservation. Samuel Pufendorf offered an alternative to Hobbes's state of war characterized by a nearly unlimited right to strike first. He refuted Hobbes's claim that justice only follows the social contract, insisting that God's will and not mere self-interest produces the obligating force of natural law. He thus presented the law of sociability as harmonious with, but finally independent of, the right of self-preservation. Pufendorf emphasized anticipatory force more than self-defense. The eighteenth century witnessed the rise of the Hobbesian tradition nearly to eclipse the moral tradition on the just war. Emmerich de Vattel agreed with Pufendorf that the natural law lays down a separate principle of sociability that is finally consistent with the right of self-preservation. Kant offered an account of war that, under present conditions, is remarkably Hobbesian. This chapter also examines the views of Carl von Clausewitz on preventive war as well as Edward Hall's arguments about law and morality.
