This major contribution to the history of philosophy provides the most comprehensive guide to modern natural law theory available, sets out the full background to liberal ideas of rights and contractarianism, and offers an extensive study of the Scottish Enlightenment. The time span covered is considerable: from the natural law theories of Grotius and Suarez in the early seventeenth century to the American Revolution and the beginnings of utilitarianism. After a detailed survey of modern natural law theory, (...) the book focuses on the Scottish Enlightenment and its European and American connections. Knud Haakonssen explains the relationship between natural law and civic humanist republicanism, and he shows the relevance of these ideas for the understanding of David Hume and Adam Smith. The result is a completely revised background to modern ideas of liberalism and communitarianism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Natural Law and Thomistic Juridical Realism: Prospects for a Dialogue with Contemporary Legal Theory by Petar PopovicPius Pietrzyk O.P.Natural Law and Thomistic Juridical Realism: Prospects for a Dialogue with Contemporary Legal Theory. By Petar Popovic. Foreword by F. Russell Hittinger. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. Pp. xv + 307. $75.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-8132-3550-9.About a decade ago the former Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, (...) H. E. Francis Cardinal George, one of the great theologian bishops of the American episcopate, issued a letter on a piece of pending legislation in the state of Illinois. The focus of the letter was on the teaching of the natural law, and why adherence to the natural law required opposition to the proposed legislation. In response, a well-known law professor at a prestigious secular [End Page 710] law school in the state wrote a public response for an online political website. The focus of his argument was to criticize the notion of natural law according to his understanding of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is not necessary to describe the details of his argument, other than to say it tended to understand natural law as mere naturalism that evinced a fairly glaring misreading of the Angelic Doctor. That is, the secular legal scholar argued, in essence, that since the activity in question was observable by animals in nature, that it was therefore part of the natural law, and could be defended as a right. To this, a Thomistic sed contra is perhaps the most fitting response.As this story makes clear, there is a great ignorance of what constitutes the natural law in the secular consciousness, even among the most respected of secular legal scholars, to say nothing of the application of the natural law to the juridic world of law and politics. Perhaps the last hurrah of natural law, at least in the American public consciousness, was then Sen. Joseph Biden’s famous grilling of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas on the subject in 1991. Since then, legal positivism has become nearly universal, divorcing legal norms from any realistic understanding of a common human nature. It has become the dominant ideology in America’s legal academies, even if some adherents of natural law remain in positions of authority in the judicial system.Although it has faded from the world of secular law in the United States, the tradition of natural law has retained a firm hold in Catholic thought, especially by that religious order dedicated to the teachings of its most brilliant adherent, St. Thomas. Not only Thomistic natural law, but proponents of the so-called new natural law continue to provide a vibrant source of debate and insight into the understanding of the natural law in evaluating the goodness of human action. Pope John Paul II’s famous encyclical Veritatis Splendor represents the magisterial commitment to the natural law approach in moral thinking, even if some might believe that commitment has weakened in recent years.To a lesser degree, there has remained a strong current of natural law thinking within the currents of legal philosophy in canon law, even if the precise connection between natural law and its juridic instantiation has not always been the focus. Among recent ecclesiastical legal theorists, arguably the most influential proponent of a robust natural law approach to legal philosophy was the Spanish canonist Javier Hervada Xiberta, and especially his Introducción crítica al derecho natural, currently in its tenth Spanish edition. A disciple of Jose Maria Escriva’s Opus Dei movement, Hervada was a long-serving and internationally respected dean of the School of Law in Navarre. Through his teaching and the various journals he founded, he insisted on the link between law and justice—lex and ius. Hervada was firmly convinced of the realism of law: law is nothing less than the ipsa res iusta. That notion of ius was not simply an idea, but recognized a real relationship of debt and obligation between persons. [End Page 711]In this, Hervada saw himself as the proponent not of some novel theory, but merely of one... (shrink)

Wharton's Treatise on the Conflict of Laws (1872) established his reputation in the field of international law. In 1884 he produced his Commentaries on Law, a work encompassing both international and constitutional law. His purpose in publishing this was, as he states simply in the Preface, "to give an exposition of what may be called public law. In the first three chapter are considered successively the nature, the source, and the history of law; and it is maintained that law, as (...) a rule of action, is the product of the conscience and need of the nation by which it is adopted.". (shrink)

. The article attempts to show the way in which the notions of “natural law” and “cosmic harmony” have been applied by Western scholars in the interpretation of traditional Chinese thinking about the role of law in society, the extent to which the Western interpretations can be supported by the Chinese sources, and , more specifically, the degree to which official Chinese thought subscribed to a correlation between the occurrence of natural disasters and acts of maladministration or (...) injustice on the part of the emperor and state. Generally it is argued that the extent to which Chinese statesmen and administrators actually believed that errors in the infliction of legal punishment or the sentencing of offenders would produce aberrant natural phenomena has been exaggerated by Western scholars. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’s radical tendency to view natural law as a means of individual self-preservation sparked critical responses among natural law theorists in England and continental Europe. This chapter compares how two of Hobbes’s immediate successors and critics – Richard Cumberland and Samuel Pufendorf – dealt with the potential conflict between self-interest and the requirements of natural law. The chapter shows how both intended to reply to Hobbes in their own distinctive ways by attempting to show that the (...) ultimate aim of natural law, imposed by God, obligated people to promote the common good of humankind as a whole rather than mainly function as the means for individual and social utility. They did not, however, consider self-interest to be merely destructive for social cooperation and natural law. Both argued in their distinct ways that self-interest is the most effective motivation for people to consider the advantage of others and it leads them to promote the common good. This chapter also points out notable differences between Cumberland’s and Pufendorf’s treatment of the relation between the private good and the common good. (shrink)

This is the classic study of the history and continuing philosophical values of the law of nature. D'Entreves discerned three distinct sources that have contributed to the development of natural law: Roman law teachings, Christian beliefs regarding law, and egalitarian and revolutionary theories of the Enlightenment. Now regarded as a classic work, Natural Law has exercised considerable influence over the course of Anglo-American legal theory in the past forty years. The statements of Clarence Thomas during his 1991 (...) Senate confirmation hearings show that the law of nature still holds powerful appeal in defining judicial rules. In the new introduction, Cary J. Nederman points out both the contemporary value and the historical significance of Natural Law. He also provides the biographical as well as intellectual context for d'Entreves immense accomplishments. This volume is essential reading for students of legal history, political theory, and philosophy. It will also be of interest to historians. "Few texts provide as concise or as cogent an introduction to natural theory as Alexander Passerin d'Entreves' Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy.... Transaction Publishers has performed a genuine service by bringing out a new edition of Natural Law. D'Entreves' analysis is clear and penetrating, and will guide the student of natural law to further, fruitful study."¿Mitchell Muncy, The University Bookman. (shrink)

This is the classic study of the history and continuing philosophical values of the law of nature. D'Entrèves discerned three distinct sources that have contributed to the development of natural law: Roman law teachings, Christian beliefs regarding law, and egalitarian and revolutionary theories of the Enlightenment. Now regarded as a classic work, Natural Law has exercised considerable influence over the course of Anglo-American legal theory in the past forty years. The statements of Clarence Thomas during his 1991 (...) Senate confirmation hearings show that the law of nature still holds powerful appeal in defining judicial rules. In the new introduction, Cary J. Nederman points out both the contemporary value and the historical significance of Natural Law. He also provides the biographical as well as intellectual context for d'Entrèves immense accomplishments. This volume is essential reading for students of legal history, political theory, and philosophy. It will also be of interest to historians. "Few texts provide as concise or as cogent an introduction to natural theory as Alexander Passerin d'Entrèves' Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy.... Transaction Publishers has performed a genuine service by bringing out a new edition of Natural Law. D'Entrèves' analysis is clear and penetrating, and will guide the student of natural law to further, fruitful study."--Mitchell Muncy, The University Bookman. (shrink)

Abstract:Natural law theory has a long history, going back to the Stoics. Ernst Bloch, a twentieth-century Marxist theorist, offered a compelling radical reconstruction of natural law, locating its source in the resistance of those whose natural law entitlements are being denied. That resistance, Bloch held, constitutes a critical standpoint, which forms the basis for radical natural law. Bloch restricted the concept to humans, but it is here proposed that animals too have critical standpoints which constitute the (...) basis for radical natural law. (shrink)

This is the classic study of the history and continuing philosophical values of the law of nature. D'Entrèves discerned three distinct sources that have contributed to the development of natural law: Roman law teachings, Christian beliefs regarding law, and egalitarian and revolutionary theories of the Enlightenment. Now regarded as a classic work, Natural Law has exercised considerable influence over the course of Anglo-American legal theory in the past forty years. The statements of Clarence Thomas during his 1991 (...) Senate confirmation hearings show that the law of nature still holds powerful appeal in defining judicial rules. In the new introduction, Cary J. Nederman points out both the contemporary value and the historical significance of Natural Law. He also provides the biographical as well as intellectual context for d'Entrèves immense accomplishments. This volume is essential reading for students of legal history, political theory, and philosophy. It will also be of interest to historians. "Few texts provide as concise or as cogent an introduction to natural theory as Alexander Passerin d'Entrèves' Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy.... Transaction Publishers has performed a genuine service by bringing out a new edition of Natural Law. D'Entrèves' analysis is clear and penetrating, and will guide the student of natural law to further, fruitful study."--Mitchell Muncy, The University Bookman. (shrink)

Modern moral and political philosophy is in debt with natural law theory, both in its ancient and mediaeval elaborations. While the very notion of a natural law has proved highly controversial among 20th Century scholars, the last decades have witnessed a renewed interest in it. Indeed, the threats and challenges as result of multiculturalism, plural societies and global changes have generated a renewed attention to natural law theory. Clearly, it offers solid basis as possible framework to a (...) better understanding of human goods without contradictions and partial bias. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an overview of the history of this concept (Cicero, St. Paul, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Montaigne, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Burke, Kant, MacIntyre, etc.) as well as a deep understanding of ongoing research, both in Europe and in America. Furthermore, the specificity of these studies will be of particular value to philosophers, law-philosophers, historians, anthropologists, sociologists and theologians, and those concerned on such issues as the relation between law and moral norm, law and practical reason, and the presence of the idea of natural law in several prominent thinkers. It includes a selected bibliography on natural law. The book also provides an excellent introduction to several of the major topics in natural law theory making it useful both as a reference text and as a sourcebook for academics alike. Natural law is a rich, complex, and highly disputed term. Since its first appearances in the history of Western civilization, it has been used both to point to God as the source of the moral order and to assert that there is an objective order of justice in nature that men and their laws ought to respect. In modern times, natural law theory gave birth to what we usually call "human rights." Unlike the meaning of the term, the importance of an ongoing debate on natural law and on the theories related to it is undisputable. This is why I welcome today this new collection of essays edited by Alejandro Nèstor Garcìa Martìnez, Mario Å ilar and Josè M. Torralba. Natural Law: Historical, Systematic and Juridical Approaches includes a wide variety of studies, covering key authors and issues in natural law theory. Younger students will appreciate the clarity of the chapters, and more trained readers the detailed and accurate bibliographical references that each of them offers. The editors's choice to go from a historical approach to contemporary theories, and then to theoretical and more practical issues is also commendable. Students in philosophy and in legal theory will greatly benefit from this book. Fulvio Di Blasi, author of God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that the laws of nature that comprise Hobbes’s moral philosophy and both ground and constrain his political philosophy articulate a requirement of reciprocity. Hobbes derives the reciprocity requirement as a theorem of reason from our human nature as rational agents necessarily concerned to make our agency effective. The laws of nature impose a demand to join political society, as well as impose duties on both subjects and sovereigns, and constrain behavior among nations. I explain the (...) relation that the laws of nature bear to civil law and to divine positive law and offer an account of the source of their normativity that contrasts with familiar scholarly accounts. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Recommended readings.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis, and the Moral SenseRobert A. Greene“Instinct is a great matter.”—Sir John FalstaffThis essay traces the evolution of the meaning of the expression instinctus naturae in the discussion of the natural law from Justinian’s Digest through its association with synderesis to Francis Hutcheson’s theory of the moral sense. The introduction of instinctus naturae into Ulpian’s definition of the natural law by (...) Isidore of Seville in the seventh century posed a problem of definition for medieval commentators. Some said that it meant a universal and providential natura naturans; some defined it as the urge to self and species preservation in animals, degenerating in man into sensual and shameful impulses; some advanced the humanistic and paradoxical notion that it referred to a unique exercise of human reason in coming to know the natural law. The contemporaneous revival in the twelfth century of St. Jerome’s puzzling new term “synderesis,” and its gradual definition as the immediate apprehension of the first practical moral principles of the natural law, brought the two terms into proximity and loose association.A half-century later St. Bonaventure made explicit what had remained latent in the thinking of Thomas Aquinas by relocating synderesis in the affective rather than the intellectual part of man’s nature. Accordingly the moral discoveries of synderesis came to be spoken of as not only non-discursive but instinctive in nature—apprehensions for which no reason could be given, apprehensions somehow rooted in affective human experience. During the bilingual early modern period an increasingly secularized, internalized, and reified instinctus [End Page 173] naturae, together with its abbreviated vernacular cognate, “instinct,” came to serve as a substitute and synonym for the obsolescent synderesis. Edward Herbert’s attention to instinctus naturae in his De Veritate (1624), Sir Matthew Hale’s speculations about the place of rational instinct in the natural law, and Francis Hutcheson’s theory of a moral sense all exemplify this semantic legacy.The first entry in Justinian’s Digest has had a disproportionate influence on later speculation about the natural law. It begins a chapter that gives pride of place to general definitions of justice, law, jus naturale and jus gentium, and it is drawn from the writings of the Roman jurisconsult Domitius Ulpianus (d. 223), whose work constitutes forty percent of the Digest. Ulpian defines the natural law, with insistent repetition, as that which nature has taught to, or is common to, all animals:Jus naturale is that which nature has taught to all animals; for it is not a law specific to mankind but is common to all animals—land animals, sea animals, and the birds as well. Out of this comes the union of man and woman [male and female] which we call marriage, and the procreation of children, and their rearing. So we can see that the other animals, wild beasts included, are rightly understood to be acquainted with this law. Jus gentium, the law of the nations, is that which all human peoples observe. That it is not coextensive with natural law can be grasped easily, since this latter is common to all animals whereas jus gentium is common only to human beings among themselves. 1Justinian’s compilers gave Ulpian’s definition striking prominence at the beginning of the Digest and then in the same short chapter quoted the incompatible and more traditional definitions of his contemporaries Gaius and Paulus. They confined the operation of the natural law to mankind and spoke of reason as its source. 2 The compilers had been charged to eliminate just such conflicts; yet here at the very outset they set a conundrum that perplexed commentators [End Page 174] and invited explanation from Isidore of Seville to Hugo Grotius. Their selection of quotations suggests that as lawyers they regarded such general definitions as “for legal purposes no more than ornament to discussion.” 3 For those of a more speculative bent, however, the dilemmas could not have been more fundamental. How was the natural law to be defined in relation to those appetitive and self-preservative urges that man seemed to share with animals? Or did the term law apply only... (shrink)

This paper will try to test the plausibility of interweaving a conception of politics with the nature of the conflict which politics is supposed to regulate, by looking at a specific case in the history of Western political thought. I wish to consider the interpretation of modern social relations that sees conflict as arising from the unequal distribution of (relatively) scarce resources. It is my aim to analyse the origins of this conception. But first I would like to note the (...) success of this line of thought, which permeates both everyday conversations and theoretical works. When we argue that the unequal distribution of scarce resources is the main source of conflict, we use �resources� mainly to refer to all goods and commodities that are indispensable to the production of socially desirable items. The term �resources� carries a distinctive economic flavour; and as the main threat to social cohesion is seen to stem from disagreements over the allocation of those �resources�, the solution to the problem is mainly seen in terms of reaching an equilibrium, by relying on the devices of political economy. (shrink)

Which works and tenets of early modern natural law reached East-Central Europe, and how? How was it received, what influence did it have? And how did theorists and users of natural law in East- Central Europe enrich the pan-European discourse? This volume is pioneering in two ways; it draws the east of the Empire and its borderlands into the study of natural law, and it adds natural law to the practical discourse of this region. Drawing on (...) a large amount of previously neglected printed or handwritten sources, the authors highlight the impact that Grotius, Pufendorf, Heineccius and others exerted on the teaching of politics and moral philosophy as well as on policies regarding public law, codification praxis, or religious toleration. Contributors are: Péter Balázs, Ivo Cerman, Karin Friedrich, Gábor Gángó, Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Knud Haakonssen, Steffen Huber, Borbála Lovas, Martin P. Schennach, and József Simon. (shrink)

Hobbes’ natural law theory has been discussed far and wide. Some interpreters ended up defining Hobbes as a natural law theorist, some others as a legal positivist. In this paper, I analyse the work of two important scholars, Howard Warrender and Norberto Bobbio, whose insights have stimulated an interesting debate about Hobbes’ political theory. Warrender gives God a central function in Hobbes’ political science. On his account, God is a lawmaker, his will is the source of a universal (...) obligation, and civil order is necessary to give force to the natural law that is the expression of divine will. In Bobbio’s interpretation, Hobbes is the first legal positivist of Modern age, as natural law is only ever given content by the sovereign’s will. Finally, I ask which is natural law and God’s function in Hobbes’ political thought, questioning some contemporary scholars in order to clarify Hobbes’ modernity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics and Natural Law: The Relationship in Catholic TeachingJ. Bryan Hehir (bio)In the discipline of Catholic moral theology, bioethics (traditionally described as medical ethics) has held a major place. The systematic development of bioethics has drawn principally upon a natural law ethic, supported by broader religious arguments. The purpose of this essay is to examine the status and role of natural law in Catholic teaching as (...) it bears upon bioethics.Natural Law and Catholic TheologyThe role of natural law in Catholic theology is rooted in a prior conviction about the complementary relationship of faith and reason. The conviction finds initial expression in patristic authors, then preeminently in Thomas Aquinas and consistently in modern papal teaching of the twentieth century. Flowing from this conviction, as a premise of Catholic theology and teaching, is the [End Page 333] notion that a second source of moral wisdom exists along side the revealed wisdom of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. This second source of wisdom is the product of rational reflection upon human nature and experience. In the tradition of natural law ethics (expressed in a plurality of versions), such reflection affirms an objective moral order, accessible to reason and based upon a conception of the person as both spiritual and social. The spiritual nature, expressed in the capacity for reflection and free choice, is the foundation of the natural law ethic, providing the human person a unique status in the created order. The social nature of the person locates each human being in a framework of social relationships, articulated in a complex of rights and duties and finding expression in three basic communities: the family, civil society, and the human community.The fully developed framework of a natural law ethic has five dimensions. It yields a theory of society, a doctrine of the state, a charter of duties and rights, a jurisprudence, and an applied ethic. At each level of this framework, the natural law ethic is contested by other contemporary philosophical positions. In this article, space demands that stress must be placed on the natural law affirmations without trying to engage the critics.The centrality of the social nature of the person yields a theory of society that is organic in character, laying strong emphasis on the social fabric of existence. Hence the theory has traditionally emphasized both order and justice more strongly than claims of freedom. The doctrine of the state, in contemporary natural law arguments, supports a limited yet activist state, limited by constitutional restraints and human rights claims, yet activist in its conception of a broad range of social obligations, particularly to the poor. The charter of rights affirms a range of both political-civil and socio-economic rights; the traditional natural law emphasis on a structure of duties has been complemented in the twentieth century by its stress on the role of human rights. The jurisprudential theory of natural law has been its most prominent aspect; it affirms a moral grounding for civil law, but distinguishes precisely between the comprehensive nature of moral law and the more limited scope of civil law, restricted to the maintenance of public order in society. Finally, the natural law framework finds expression in Catholic teaching in three areas of applied ethics: social ethics (civil society and international relations), sexual ethics, and bioethics.History and StatusWhile a natural law ethic has been a staple of Catholic social and bioethical teaching, it has not held similar status in the wider arena of contemporary philosophical or theological ethics. Through the 1950s, therefore, one could find a strong consensus supporting natural law within the Catholic community and ongoing debates within the wider world of philosophy and bioethics. Since the 1960s, any description of the status and role of natural law must consider the debates within Roman Catholicism itself about the role and status of natural law. [End Page 334]It is possible to distinguish two stages of these internal arguments in the church. In the period from 1960 to 1990, three events in Catholicism directly influenced the standing of a natural law position: John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem In Terris (1963), Paul XI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), and the teaching of... (shrink)

This article considers the relationship between the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suarez. It has been said that Suarez made significant departures from the natural law theory of Aquinas, by putting greater emphasis on divine command as the source of natural law precepts, and by replacing Aquinas’s focus on good and bad with a focus on right and wrong. Hence, Suarez appears to replace Aquinas’s eudaimonist account of ethics with one based in deontology. The article argues that (...) the differences separating Aquinas and Suarez are minimal, and that Suarez can be seen as upholding the central tenets of Aquinas’s doctrine of natural law. This has ramifications for our understanding not only of Suarez, but also of Aquinas himself. (shrink)

The book is divided into two parts, the shorter of which documents and discusses the authoritative and Biblical sources for the Christian, and specifically Catholic, notion of natural law. The second section is taken up with conceptual analyses of such notions as the relation between nature and grace, nature and historical situation, and primary and secondary determinations of the natural law. A final chapter considers the possibility and scope of a Christian Sociology. The, in principle, complete integration (...) of nature and grace is maintained throughout in opposition to what Fuchs types as the postulated antinomy between these two orders that characterizes most Protestant theologies. The major confrontation between the Catholic and Protestant positions takes place in the footnotes, which are consequently of extensive bibliographical value.—E. A. R. (shrink)

IN THE PAST THREE YEARS, TWO IMPORTANT CATHOLIC MORAL THINKERS—both well-respected Thomists—have published books on the natural law. Besides offering their own significant contributions to natural law thought, Jean Porter and Russell Hittinger each insightfully surveys developments in natural law thinking from the scholastics, into the early modern period, through today. In importantly similar narrations of the history of natural law, both Porter and Hittinger claim that natural law in the modern period has been understood (...) as a source of specific moral norms that is independent of belief commitments and compelling to all rational creatures, even shorn of—in fact, precisely because it is shorn of—these authoritative commitments. However, both authors claim that this understanding of natural law is highly problematic. If the goal of natural law inquiry is a set of "independent" and "compelling to all" particular norms existing "free-floating" in an "authority-free zone," impossible demands have been made of natural law. Both Porter and Hittinger must and indeed do honor the notion of natural law as universally applicable and binding. Yet both acknowledge that something is necessary, beyond the specific norms of the natural law themselves, in order to identify and justify those norms. (shrink)

There is an increasingly prevalent view among some contemporary Locke scholars that Locke's political philosophy is thoroughly subordinate to theological imperatives, centered on natural law. This article challenges this point of view by critically evaluating this interpretation of Locke as advanced by some of its leading proponents. This interpretation perceives natural law as the governing principle of Locke's political philosophy, and the primary source of transition and reconciliation within it. This article advances a very different reading of Locke's (...) political philosophy, perceiving within it competing imperatives that cannot be subsumed by natural law, and are, in some respects, at odds with it. In this way, the article shows how the “theological” interpretation of Locke's political philosophy, centred on natural law, fails to account for some of that philosophy's fundamental features, and is unable to explain some of its key outcomes, with the result that this interpretation falls short of its critical ambitions. (shrink)

The question of the moral status of AI and the extent to which that status ought to be recognised by societal institutions is one that has not yet received a satisfactory answer from lawyers. This paper seeks to provide a solution to the problem by defending a moral foundation for the recognition of legal personhood for AI, requiring the status to be granted should a threshold criterion be reached. The threshold proposed will be bare, noumenal agency in the Kantian sense. (...) Agency has been identified by Alan Gewirth as the source of the rights claims of our own species and, at risk of contradiction, is a foundation that must be expanded to all agents or else we contradict the foundation of our own rights. This is something that ought to be recognised through the granting of legal personhood to all noumenal agents by any system that requires such personhood for the enforcement of rights, or else the rule restricting legal personhood cannot be seen as a valid legal norm. Having laid out the case, the paper will move on to defend this natural law conception against the narrower definition of legal personhood proposed by Bryson et al. with regards to AI. It will argue that bare agency is a sufficient, though not necessary, criterion for the ascription of legal personhood in any system that sees the status as necessary for the ascription of legal rights. The paper will conclude by analysing the proposals currently making their way through the legislatures of the UK and European Union. They will be assessed for their compatibility with the claim that a functioning legal system necessarily must recognise the legal personhood of all noumenal agents regardless of their origins, and whether they are future-proofed for the possibility that AI may meet this threshold. (shrink)

I address three key questions in Jewish theology that have come up in readers’ criticism of my book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture: How should we think about God’s revelation to man if, as I have proposed, the sharp distinction between divine revelation and human reason is alien to the Hebrew Bible and classical rabbinic sources? Is the biblical Law of Moses intended to be a description of natural law, suggesting the path to life and the good for (...) all nations? And what should be the role of the Jewish theologian, given the overwhelming prevalence of Christian conceptions of God and Scripture in contemporary theological discourse. (shrink)

In _The Priority of Prudence_, Daniel Mark Nelson proposes a reappropriation of a moral perspective that focuses on the cardinal virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and prudence. The study aims to recover and rehabilitate the virtue of prudence as a way of resuming a moral conversation that has been stalemated for too long. Nelson's main source for reviving the virtue of prudence is St. Thomas Aquinas's account of the cardinal virtues in the _Summa Theologica_. A primary problem with using Aquinas (...) as a source for reviving an ethics of virtue centered on prudence is that he is commonly perceived as the most prominent figure in the conflicting natural-law tradition. According to Nelson's reinterpretation, however, Aquinas teaches that moral understanding depends first and foremost on prudence working in accord with other cardinal virtues and that natural law functions to explain moral reasoning rather than to guide it. This study serves to advance the debate about the contemporary relevance of an ethics of virtue by way of its significantly more detailed explication of prudence. Nelson makes important connections between influential reinterpretations of the ethical theory of Aquinas that have been published during the last thirty years and widespread interest in an ethics of virtue that has been expressed by Alasdair Maclntyre, Stanley Hauerwas, William Sullivan, Robert Bellah, and others. _The Priority of Prudence _represents a significant contribution to the scholarly literature both in the study of Aquinas and in the debate on the ethics of virtue. (shrink)

Liberty and Law examines a previously underappreciated theme in legal history―the idea of permissive natural law. The idea is mentioned only peripherally, if at all, in modern histories of natural law. Yet it engaged the attention of jurists, philosophers, and theologians over a long period and formed an integral part of their teachings. This ensured that natural law was not conceived of as merely a set of commands and prohibitions that restricted human conduct, but also as affirming (...) a realm of human freedom, understood as both freedom from subjection and freedom of choice. Freedom can be used in many ways, and throughout the whole period from 1100 to 1800 the idea of permissive natural law was deployed for various purposes in response to different problems that arose. It was frequently invoked to explain the origin of private property and the beginnings of civil government. Several kinds of permissive natural law were identified. Permission could be positive or negative, depending on whether it was specifically conceded by a legislator or only tacitly allowed. It could free from sin or merely remit some temporal punishment that was due. It could commend some conduct without commanding it or permit some evil without condoning it. Medieval canonists used the concept of permissive natural law to harmonize the discordant texts that they found in their sources; William of Ockham found it a powerful tool in his defense of Franciscan poverty against papal criticisms; for Richard Hooker it justified both the constitutional structure and the ritual practices of the Anglican church; John Selden used it to uphold the inviolability of contracts, most importantly the contract of government; Hugo Grotius made it a central theme in his treatment of the conduct permissible in waging war; in the eighteenth century Jean Barbeyrac and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui associated the idea with the emerging doctrine of natural rights. In Liberty and Law, Tierney has presented us with a magisterial and provocative way of interpreting legal history. (shrink)

Law, we are told, is a system of rules, created by men to govern human behaviour. Students of law, introduced to legal systems, become familiar with varied sources of law – legislative, judicial and executive in character. There are undoubtedly prescriptive human rules that govern men set up by public authorities that are advertised as being for the common good. These appear as visible, socially constructed systems in different jurisdictions and even as international systems across jurisdictions. But is this (...) all there is to law? Is law merely a human construct subject to flux, different according to time and place? Or must law, in its fullest sense, be seen as an activity that needs to be interpreted aright, binds the human conscience and is answerable to certain universal and timeless demands? Is there any natural moral law common to all men, universal and timeless? (shrink)

The weak natural law thesis asserts that any instance of law is either a rational standard for conduct or defective. At first glance, the thesis seems compatible with the proposition that the validity of a law within a legal system depends upon its sources rather than its merits. Mark C. Murphy has nonetheless argued that the weak natural law thesis can challenge this core commitment of legal positivism via an appeal to law’s function and defectiveness conditions. My (...) contention in the current paper is that in order to make good on the challenge, the defender of the weak natural law thesis should appeal explicitly to the common good, understood as the principal normative reason in the political domain. In section I I outline the main implications of the weak natural law thesis and clarify a common misunderstanding regarding its explanatory role. Section II then argues for the indispensability of the common good to the natural law jurisprudential thesis on the grounds that it has an essential role to play in a natural law account of law’s defectiveness conditions and the presumptive moral obligatoriness of legal norms. Finally, in section III I examine the compatibility of a strengthened version of the weak natural law thesis with legal positivism in light of the centrality of the common good to the natural law jurisprudential position. (shrink)

Leibniz beschreibt sein philosophisches Anliegen oft als Versuch, bestimmte Formen, die von den modernen Philosophen verbannt waren, wieder herzustellen. Dieser Aufsatz erörtert den historischen Gang dieser Verbannung und Leibniz' Bemühen um eine Rehabilitierung der Begriffe Natur, Form und Kraft, wobei er jedoch okkulte, “barbarische” und überflüssige Zutaten zur Naturphilosophie vermeidet.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Black Natural Law by Vincent W. LloydDaniel A. MorrisBlack Natural Law Vincent W. Lloyd NEW YORK: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. XV + 180 PP. $49.95Black Natural Law introduces and analyzes a "tradition" (Vincent Lloyd's term throughout the text) of African American natural law reflection. In so doing, Lloyd dismantles stubborn boundaries between Christian ethics, black religion, and American religious history. Black Christian writers such (...) as Frederick Douglass are often confined to the category of "history" and rarely elevated to esteemed intellectual disciplines such as "theology" and "ethics." Lloyd reverses that tendency. Like Catherine Bell, Robert Orsi, Miguel De La Torre, and others, he makes us question the hierarchical dualism between thought and practice, and our habit of associating white Christianities with the former and nonwhite Christianities with the latter. This book is worth reading for that feature alone. But there are many other worthwhile arguments as well.In his surveys of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Anna Julia Cooper, and Martin Luther King Jr., Lloyd identifies a coherent tradition of natural law reflection in African American Christianity that imagines a concentric series of laws, including God's law, moral law, and civic law. The tradition emphasizes the image of God in all human beings and thus the "inherent value of human life" (22). Black natural law reflection is distinctive primarily because it is rooted in black experience. At its core, it is informed by experiences of oppression sponsored by the civic law. Critique of ideology (which Lloyd sometimes uses as a synonym for civic/worldly law) is at the heart of black natural law, as is the organizing of social movements as a practical outgrowth of that critique. Lloyd also shows that black natural law sets itself apart from its white/European counterparts by understanding reason and emotion as mutually informing: emotion does and indeed should inform reason in moral reflection. And because God privileges the oppressed, black natural law also emphasizes its own priority over white theological ethics. Through close readings of black theologians, Lloyd pulls all these features together and persuasively shows that there is a coherent tradition of black natural law thinking in American Christianity. This primary argument is clear and indispensable for scholars of either black theology or natural law (or both).Lloyd also makes a provocative historical argument: the tradition began to decline after the civil rights movement and is currently in a state of disarray. He writes that "elements of black natural law continued to be invoked in various [End Page 199] ways during the decades that followed the civil rights movement—invoked in ways that were disconnected from the tradition" (120). He shows that literary, activist, and political uses of natural law ideas within black communities have lost the coherence and distinctive features that they once had. This argument includes innovative interpretations and critiques of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, and others. This argument is all the more worthwhile for scholars and students of ethics and American religious history because Lloyd notes that a coherent expression of black natural law could help meet the crisis of mass incarceration.The book could, at times, engage secondary sources more effectively; for example, which natural law theories "focus exclusively on the human capacity to reason" (38)? How have other scholars understood Douglass's invocation of natural law concepts? It also offers an underdeveloped critique of pragmatism. These quarrels are trivial, though, in light of the thought-provoking arguments that Lloyd offers. Scholars working on Christian ethics, American religious thought, and black Christianity should all read this book. Black Natural Law would fit well on upper-level and graduate syllabi in these fields.Daniel A. MorrisAugustana CollegeCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The practical, normative dimension of planning is a plausible source of the ‘family resemblances’ noted by a number of legal theorists between Scott Shapiro’s Planning Theory and natural law jurisprudence. Foremost among these resemblances is Shapiro’s contention that the law, necessarily, has a moral aim. The moral aim thesis is at first glance surprising given Shapiro’s intention to defend exclusive legal positivism and unequivocal rejection of what he takes to be the core commitments of natural law theory. Shapiro’s (...) claim, however, is that although the law necessarily has a moral aim, this does not entail that it is successful in satisfying that aim. In order to assess this thesis, it is helpful to compare the Planning Theory with contemporary natural law approaches. Bringing Shapiro’s Planning Theory into dialogue with contemporary natural law theories can demonstrate some of the Planning Theory’s weaknesses as an alternative explanation of the ultimate grounds of the authoritativeness of legal norms. Some of these weaknesses, moreover, are instructive beyond the specific contours of the Planning Theory insofar as they generalise to other legal positivist approaches. In section one I consider Shapiro’s treatment of the so-called ‘Possibility Puzzle’ regarding the grounding relation between authoritative norms and legal authority. Shapiro’s denial of the capacity of earlier jurisprudential theories to resolve this puzzle overlooks what is – I suggest – a plausible solution developed by John Finnis on the basis of Joseph Raz’s theory of practical reason and norms. Section two then demonstrates why Shapiro’s attempt to combine a robust construal of the social facts thesis with a commitment to the thesis that law necessarily has a moral aim is ultimately unsuccessful. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the concept of Heaven and St. Thomas Aquinas I "Summa Theologica" explained the basis of natural law and metaphysics. The philosophy, the I's "Road" was opened on their own, said that the ultimate reality itself; second source that can be raw, such as "Dawson, one two, two three, three things," a phrase below; again , then follow all the rules change. In this regard, I tend to "Heaven", "heaven" statement, basically all things to follow (...) the law is. I focus on is that all things are to follow the law is. As for the man-made law, I tend to be severely criticized, such as saying "Fa Wu Zi-chang, way more than a thief," and the like. Having said that, by Taoism Taoism Taoism and Legalism affect the development of the legislation is still based on natural law is human law theory. Thomas Aquinas's natural law, is given in accordance with the rational nature of God and the law of action, we can see, St. Thomas Aquinas's natural law focused on people, not only contains a real natural , but also ought to include , two related but different. There are words on the surface, natural law is that "people according to their nature are looking for is good." However, the surface should be made, the principle of natural law is: "People should do good to avoid evil." In this paper, to compare the Heaven and the ultimate source of natural law, I inquire of the non-personal God of the Trinity Road and Thomas Aquinas on how chemical and biological weapons or to create things, by the generosity or wisdom and love of order and law generated. Then, on the Heaven and the natural law itself for comparison. Finally, the two can be dealt with through the office, and, and related concepts in Taoism. The basic concern of this paper is to compare Laozi's Heavenly Dao and St. Thomas' natural law for the purpose of bringing them to dialogue. Philosophically speaking, Laozi's concept of Dao means first, the ever self-manifesting and creative Ultimate Reality; second, the Origin giving birth to all things; third, the law of becoming of all things in the universe. For this last meaning, usually Laozi uses the term "Heavenly Dao" to represent laws of nature that all beings in the universe, including human beings , must comply with. As to human laws, he takes a critical position, to the point of saying that "The more legal objects multiply, the more robbers and thieves there will be." Nevertheless, under his influence, Huanglao daoists and legalists have developed their philosophy of positive laws.In Comparison, St. Thomas' natural laws are principles of human action according to human rational nature. The emphasis of St. Thomas is put therefore on the rational nature of human beings, which includes both the aspect of "to be" and that of "ought to be," both being closely related yet distinct. Seen from "to be," the natural law says that all human beings desire goodness by their nature; while as their "ought to be," all human beings should do good and avoid doing evil.This comparative study will focus first on how the generosity of Dao's giving birth to all things in Laozi and the wisdom and love of God in St. Thomas become order and law. Then we will compare Laozi's laws of nature, to which human beings should also live accordingly, with techniques inspired from them, and the principles of St. Thomas' natural laws. We will discuss the possible compatibility and dialogue between St. Thomas thoughts, which are essential to Catholicism , and those of Laozi as followed by lluanlao Daoism and Religious Daoism. (shrink)

This article considers HLA Hart's influence in the making of John Finnis's book Natural Law and Natural Rights. In the style of an intellectual biography it traces the history of the interaction between the two Oxford legal philosophers using their correspondence as a starting point. It also delves into Finnis's years in Africa—a period of his life both crucial for the writing of the book and utterly unknown. It argues that Hart's role was significant not only insofar as (...) he was behind the idea of the book but also because of the restrained way in which he freely chose to conduct his role as editor despite the extent of the reservations he had regarding Finnis's work, fully revealed here. Given the importance of Natural Law and Natural Rights for what has been called the ‘new natural law theory’ the article concludes by awarding Hart his due credit in the making of one of that theory's main sources of inspiration. (shrink)

An important task for metaphysicians and philosophers of science is to account for laws of nature – in particular, how they distinguish themselves from ‘mere’ regularities, and the modal force they are endowed with, ‘natural necessity’. Dispositional essentialism about laws is roughly the view that laws distinguish themselves by being grounded in the essences of natural entities. This paper does not primarily concern how essentialism compares to its main rivals – Humeanism and Armstrongeanism. Rather, it distinguishes and comparatively (...) assesses various brands of essentialism – which mainly differ as to where exactly they take laws to find their essentialist sources, and what they take to be the targets of laws, namely what they apply to. Yet, this internal comparison is not unrelated to the more general debate about laws: the main criteria with which I compare these essentialist views concern how they can deal with some of the main objections faced by essentialism in general, and how they can keep what is arguably the main intuitive advantage of essentialism over its rivals. Thus, the paper also concerns the relative position of essentialism in the larger debate about laws – ultimately bringing support to it. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the work of Sayyid Qutb and in particular his book Milestones, which is often regarded as the Communist Manifesto of Islamic fundamentalism. This paper has four main sections. First I outline Qutb’s political position and in particular examine his advocacy of offensive jihad. In section two I argue that there are a number of tendencies that make his position potentially more liberal that it is often taken to be. I here argue that there are (...) at least six reasons why Qutb’s position is not intrinsically as anti-liberal as it might at first appear. First, many western liberals, influenced by the social contract tradition, regard the legitimacy of their societies as based on popular sovereignty. Qutb, however, regards a society based on popular sovereignty, where law emerges from the will of man rather than the will of God, as a form of tyranny, so it would seem that he is in principle opposed to Western liberal societies. It is not clear, however, that we, or Islamic fundamentalist, need to regard Western liberal societies as based on popular sovereignty, for it is always possible to interpret Western political institutions through the lens of natural law theory, which was one of the main sources of the liberal tradition. In this section I will compare Qutb’s political philosophy with that of Aquinas to illustrate this point and suggest the possibility of secularists and puritan Islamists being able to form an overlapping consensus on the legitimacy of liberal Western societies. Secondly, there is an analogue to the social contract in Qutb’s own position as he believes that legitimate authority requires the free submission of the governed. Thirdly, Qutb is in principle a fallibilist about human reason; this fallibilism extends even to our capacity to interpret divine revelation. Fourthly, Islamic universalism requires that Muslims regard enemies they might be fighting as potential converts. Fifthly, Qutb, like most Sunni fundamentalists, is an implacable enemy of theocracy. And finally, Qutb is a gradualist. In the third section I argue that the real danger for liberal societies from believers in a position like Qutb’s is sociological rather than intrinsic to the ideology – specifically, that there is a danger that such groups may develop in a ‘Leninist’ direction. In the final section I argue that one of the main reasons for this danger is the lack of a consensus in the Islamic world about what it is to be a good, or even a true, Muslim, and that the slow emergence of some sort of consensus will require a vigorous public debate amongst Muslims. Western liberals should welcome such debate rather than fearing such, and should do all they can to ensure that civil society, both in Western societies and in predominantly Islamic societies, is open to such debate. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit nature as a source of normativity for law in the later Hellenistic period, that is beyond the opposition of law and nature in the early classical period, Plato’s and Aristotle’s naturalism, or the early Stoics’ conception of the common law. I will focus on the first century BCE, when the expression ‘natural law’ gained prominence, reconstructing its origins in the interaction between Hellenistic philosophers and the Roman elite, including jurists. I argue that for the (...) jurists the Stoic doctrine of law in nature offered a theoretical underpinning for their unique practice of dispute resolution, whereas for the Stoics this Roman practice offered an unexpected opportunity to instrumentalise their conception of law. (shrink)

Natural law has long been considered the traditional source of Roman Catholic canon law. However, new scholarship is critical of this approach as it portrays the Catholic Church as static, ahistorical, and insensitive to cultural change. In its attempt to stem the massive loss of effectiveness being experienced by canon law, the church has to reconsider its theory of legal foundation, especially its natural law theory. Church Law in Modernity analyses the criticism levelled at the church and puts (...) forward solutions for reconciling church law with modernity by revealing the historical and cultural authenticity of all law, and revising the processes of law making. In a modern church, there is no way of thinking of the law without the participation of the faithful in legislation. Judith Hahn therefore proposes a reformed legislative process for the church in the hope of reconciling the natural law origins of church law with a new, modern theology. (shrink)

This article is based on a Lecture given as part of the Franklin J. Matchette Foundation Lecture Series on Truth at the Catholic University of America, School of Philosophy, in 2002. It explores what theorists in the natural law tradition and modern legal theorists have argued about what makes propositions of morality and law true, focusing on the rubric of "reason" as opposed to "will." It seems probable, and perhaps inevitable, that theorists about the nature of truth in morality (...) must choose between reason and will - that morality, at its core, is either one or the other. What makes law distinctive is that it is, as a practical matter if not by conceptual necessity, a mixture of both. And it is this intertwining of reason and will, of normative system and practical reasoning, which makes assertions about the nature of legal truth, and theories about the nature of law, so difficult. The arguments about truth in law are as much disagreements about what it means to say that a legal proposition is truth as they are about what makes legal propositions true. Are declarations of truth in law statements about legal norms and legal sources, or are they statements about the results of particular disputes or particularized inquiries? There are obvious complilcations in speaking of truth in a context like law, where there is simultaneously an effort to create a coherent normative system and a decision-making procedure that can modify that system in the course of resolving disputes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Light That Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of Natural Law by Stephen L. BrockBrian BesongThe Light That Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of Natural Law by Stephen L. Brock (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2020), xv + 277 pp.Fr. Stephen L. Brock is arguably one of the most important contemporary contributors to the Thomistic understanding of natural law. Hence, the publication of (...) his updated and revised doctoral dissertation on the topic [End Page 289] of the metaphysics of natural law in St. Thomas will be gladly received by Thomistic scholars and moral theorists alike. In The Light That Binds, Brock's central task is to explain the metaphysics of the promulgation of natural law in man. Put differently although extant literature on natural law may be useful for action analysis—why lying is always wrong, say—less attention has been paid to the way in which natural law has been promulgated by God and is present in the human intellect. What literature is available, either as an explanation of St. Thomas or as criticism of the same, has failed to do Aquinas justice, so Brock argues.The book comprises seven chapters and an introduction. In the first chapter, Brock's central goal is to survey the ways in which (especially more recent) commentators of Aquinas have distorted the sense in which natural law constitutes genuine law, as well as the relationship between natural law and God. For, there is a line of thought on natural law, particularly prominent in the "new natural law" tradition, according to which the principles at the heart of the theory do not fully satisfy the four criteria of legitimate law given by Aquinas. Rival views have natural law constituting a real law, but in virtue of an epistemically explicit reliance on God as lawgiver, among other distortions. Figureheads surveyed in the chapter include Dom Odon Lottin, Ernest Fortin, and Francisco Suárez, among others.In the second chapter, Brock outlines and defends his positive view regarding the legal status of the natural law by way of continued discussion of Lottin, particularly Lottin's contention that St. Thomas was heavily influenced by a mid-thirteenth-century Franciscan tract, De legibus et praeceptis. Brock argues that St. Thomas conceives of natural law as having an even closer relationship to eternal law than is posited by the earlier Franciscan tract, and the rest of the chapter is largely focused on unpacking this close relationship. In sum, natural law is law because it involves a rational ordering by God of our intellect to the goods of our nature, a human participation in an eternal ordering of all things to their ends (i.e., the eternal law). We need not discover the source of the ordering—namely, God—in grasping the first principles of his ordering, as Brock explains here and elsewhere. But the strictly legal status of the principles requires that natural law comes from a legitimate authority, among other essential elements.Chapters 3 and 4 tackle the more human side of the metaphysics of natural law. More concretely, in these chapters, Brock explains the wheres and the whats of our possession of the natural law. For, not all ordering of objects to ends implies the sort of normativity we see in the natural law. Brute animals, among others, have natural inclinations too, and yet they are not governed through these instinctual drives by a natural law. Natural law [End Page 290] is present preeminently in the human intellect, Brock argues, and is not to be confused with the prerational drives that we share as part of our animal nature. God instills these rational drives—the light, as it were—into reason in such a way that an individual can grasp its force autonomously, as basic conceptional truths about what right and wrong consist in (72). Here it would have been nice for Brock to reflect briefly on how Aquinas's views on moral knowledge fit within his broader epistemological commitments, as the natural (conceptual) knowledge of right and wrong at first glance shares common ground with the Franciscan tradition on divine illumination as found in figures... (shrink)

Is there a punishment for violating the natural law? This important question has been neglected in the scholarship on Thomistic natural law theory. I show that there is a three-fold punishment proper to the natural law; the remorse of conscience, the inability to be a friend to oneself, and the inability to be a friend to another work in concert to provide a natural penalty for moral wrongdoing. In order to establish these points, I first analyze (...) sources of St. Thomas Aquinas’s natural law theory by discussing St. Augustine’s notion of law and fundamental ideas in Aristotle’s political philosophy. Next, I show how Aquinas unites aspects of Augustinian and Aristotelian thought in his treatment of natural law and thereby provides a framework for answering our question. Finally, I turn to Plato’s Gorgias and to Aristotle’s discussion of self-love in order to integrate these ideas with Aquinas’s natural law theory. (shrink)

This essay identifies the source, and traces both the subsequent use and the changing definition, of the expression instinctu naturae in the early history of natural law discourse. It also examines the later assimilation and endurance of the expression in English, as well as the efforts of Hobbes to proscribe the use, and Locke to limit the meaning, of the term instinct. Initially serving simply to predicate a divine stimulus as the source of human knowledge of the natural (...) law-natura, id est Deus-instinctu naturae was later understood to refer to an instinct of human nature, that is, an instinct of the reason that defined human nature, an intuitive instinct that recognized immediately, in a pre-deliberative, non-discursive way, the self-evident practical principles of the moral order, once their terms were understood. ☆ This essay complements and extends the scope of an earlier article on the same topic in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 58 (1997) 173–98: “Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis and the Moral Sense”. (shrink)

In this short monograph, Riccardo Saccenti surveys the various and competing interpretations of natural law and natural right from the late Middle Ages through the modern period. As “a survey,” the intention of this book is not so much to advance and defend a central thesis about natural law, but rather to paint a picture of how the various interpreters of natural law have responded to the most important primary texts and to one another. One of (...) the issues with which Saccenti is most concerned is the transition from the medieval understanding of natural law inspired by an Aristotelian concept of nature to a modern theory of natural individual rights. Where exactly does this transition begin and where is it more or less consummated? A reader of this book will be impressed by the complexity of this debate and the nuances of difference between its participants. Saccenti’s account of it succeeds in exposing the folly of overly simplistic readings of intellectual history that are ideologically motivated, and reminds us what a careful reading of primary and secondary sources can achieve. (shrink)

This contribution aims at reconstructing the system of legal sources as it can be recognised in all its clarity in the De iure praedae. After pointing out that Grotius applied in this work the mathematical method, it is observed that the law has a clear voluntaristic character: 'voluntas universorum ad universos directa lex dicitur'. Even the 'first notion', quoted in Regula I, that is the lex aeterna, has this specific character: 'Quod Deus se velle significarit, id ius est'. Interesting (...) is also the way in which the issue of the ius naturae is developed. Actually, natural law is consistent with Regula I precisely because it is bound to God as a manifestation of his will: 'Dei voluntas non oraculis tantum et extraordinariis significationibus, sed vel maxime ex creantis intentione apparet'. Thus, the creation of the ius gentium primarium and ius gentium secundarium follows the same pattern: it is always a voluntas that splits into a cascade like a 'baroque fountain'. At the end of the same argument we find finally the ius civile: 'Quidquid respublica se velle significavit', as Regula V states. In conclusion, the system of legal sources in De iure praedae is based on premises that differ in many respects from the legal sources of De iure belli ac pacis. (shrink)

Though he is known primarily for his mathematics, John Wallis was also a prominent natural philosopher and experimentalist. Like many experimental philosophers, including his colleagues in the Royal So­ciety, Wallis sought to identify the mathematical laws that govern natural phenomena. However, I argue that Wallis’s particular understanding of the laws of nature was informed by his reading of a thirteenth–century optical treatise by Robert Grosseteste, De lineis, angulis et figuris, which expresses the principle that “Nature doth not work (...) by Election.” Wallis’s use of this principle in his Discourse of Gravity and Gravitation helps to clarify his understanding of natural laws. According to Wallis, since nature cannot choose to act one way or another, natural phenomena are unfailingly regular, and it is this that allows them to be predicted, generalized, and described by mathematical rules. Furthermore, I argue that Wallis’s reading of Grosseteste reveals one way that medieval scholarship contributed to the “mathematization of nature” in the early modern period: historically–minded scholars like Wallis found insightful philosophical principles in medieval sources, and they transformed and redeployed these principles to suit the needs of early modern natural philosophy. (shrink)