Pufendorf and the Stoic model of natural law

Saastamoinen, Kari

doi:10.1163/016738312x13397477910503

Cited by 3 publications

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“…In Pufendorf's theory, the ultimate epistemological foundation of natural law, the one that gives us its end, is not human nature, but the idea that God wants the human species to survive … That God wants the safety of the whole human species … is the normative principle which Hobbes' [and indeed Grotius's] theory lacked, and which explains why we have an obligation to act peacefully even towards those who are able to hurt us. 64 As noted at the outset of this essay, according to Hont, Pufendorf's intellectual oscillation between Grotius and Hobbes constituted a watershed moment in the developmental history of the modern state. This is because, in Hont's view, Pufendorf's 'Grotian' 'amendment' to Hobbes's state of nature resulted in the 'invention' of society in its recognisably 'modern' guise: namely 'commercial society'.…”

Section: The Language Of Self-love and Sociability In 'Pre-commercialmentioning

confidence: 91%

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Self-love and sociability: the ‘rudiments of commerce’ in the state of nature

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2018

Global Intellectual History

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Istvan Hont's classic work on the theoretical links between the seventeenth-century natural jurists Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf and the eighteenth-century Scottish political economists remains a popular trope among intellectual and economic historians of various stamps. Despite this, a common criticism levelled at Hont remains his relative lack of engagement with the relationship between religion and economics in the early modern period. This paper challenges this aspect of Hont's narrative by drawing attention to an alternative, albeit complementary, assessment of the natural jurisprudential heritage of eighteenth-century British political economy. Specifically, the article attempts to map on to Hont's thesis the Christian Stoic interpretation of Grotius and Pufendorf which has gained greater currency in recent years. In doing so, the paper argues that Grotius and Pufendorf's contributions to the 'unsocial sociability' debate do not necessarily lead directly to the Scottish school of political economists, as is commonly assumed. Instead, it contends that a reconsideration of Grotius and Pufendorf as neo-Stoic theorists, particularly via scrutiny of their respective adaptations of the traditional Stoic theory of oikeiosis, steers us towards the heart of the early English 'clerical' Enlightenment.

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Section: The Language Of Self-love and Sociability In 'Pre-commercialmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…[16][17][18][19][20][21] and 'social' oikeiosis (III. [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71], which Jon Miller elsewhere describes as two 'aspects of one fundamental impulse'. 34 And yet, herein lies the rub.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-love and sociability: the ‘rudiments of commerce’ in the state of nature

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2018

Global Intellectual History

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Liberty and Natural Rights in Pufendorf’s Natural Law Theory

Saastamoinen

Transformations in Medieval and Early-Modern Rights Discourse

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The Normativity of Nature in Pufendorf and Locke

Dawson

2019

Hist. J.

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At the beginning of De jure naturae et gentium (1672), Samuel von Pufendorf proposed a radical dichotomy between nature and morality. He was followed down this arid path by his great admirer John Locke. This article begins by exploring their descriptions of this dichotomy, examining the ways in which human animals were supposed to haul themselves out of the push and pull of the mechanistic world in order to become free moral agents. The article then argues that bubbling up from within this principal account of morality is an alternative account according to which virtue seems to infuse nature, thereby blurring the lines between obligation and motivation, and refiguring the character of moral and political agency. In uncovering this refiguration, I highlight the importance of Aristotelianism and Stoicism for Pufendorf and Locke, suggest continuities rather than breaks between the natural lawyers of the seventeenth century and the theorists of moral sentiment of the next, and gesture towards a hitherto underappreciated discourse in early modern thought: the normativity of nature.

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Pufendorf and the Stoic model of natural law

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Self-love and sociability: the ‘rudiments of commerce’ in the state of nature

Self-love and sociability: the ‘rudiments of commerce’ in the state of nature

Liberty and Natural Rights in Pufendorf’s Natural Law Theory

The Normativity of Nature in Pufendorf and Locke

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