Grotius, Stoicism, and Oikeiosis

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
General Structure ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Practical Deliberation ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Close Fit

This chapter turns to Hugo Grotius and to the origins of the modern natural rights tradition in a reworking of Ciceronian Stoicism. It first argues that there is a close fit between the general structure of a Ciceronian Stoic natural law theory and the argument that Grotius builds in his Prolegomena to De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1631). Next, the chapter notes that the Stoic concern with autonomy combined with regulating practical deliberation is what gives us this distinctive argument, in which strong claims about the natural sociability of human beings end up issuing in a theory characterised above all by rights that separate people and their property off from one another. Finally, although Grotius calls oikeiosis (a desire for society) the appetitus societatis, he in fact works far more closely with Stoic sources on the side of personal oikeiosis rather than on the side of social oikeiosis.

On the Artifactual—and Natural— Character of Legal Institutions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corrado Roversi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theory Of Law

Are legal institutions artifacts? If artifacts are conceived as entities whose existence depends on human beings, then yes, legal institutions are, of course, artifacts. But an artifact theory of law makes a stronger claim, namely, that there is actually an explanatory gain to be had by investigating legal institutions as artifacts, or through the features of ordinary artifacts. This is the proposition explored in this chapter: that while this understanding of legal institutions makes it possible to find common ground between legal positivism and legal realism, it does not capture all of the insights offered by these two traditions. An artifact theory of law can therefore be necessary in explaining the law, but it will not suffice to that end. This chapter also posits that legal artifacts bear a relevant connection to certain conceptions of nature, thus vindicating one of the original insights behind natural law theory.

scholarly journals God, New Natural Law Theory, and Human Rights

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Full Theory ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Epistemological Dimension

Critics of the “New” Natural Law (NNL) theory have raised questions about the role of the divine in that theory. This paper considers that role in regard to its account of human rights: can the NNL account of human rights be sustained without a more or less explicit advertence to “the question of God’s existence or nature or will”? It might seem that Finnis’s “elaborate sketch” includes a full theory of human rights even prior to the introduction of his reflections on the divine in the concluding chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. But in this essay, I argue that an adequate account of human rights cannot, in fact, be sustained without some role for God’s creative activity in two dimensions, the ontological and the motivational. These dimensions must be distinguished from the epistemological dimension of human rights, that is, the question of whether epistemological access to truths about human rights is possible without reference to God’s existence, nature, or will. The NNL view is that such access is possible. However, I will argue, the epistemological cannot be entirely cabined off from the relevant ontological and motivational issues and the NNL framework can accommodate this fact without difficulty.

Rights

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Pennington
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Group Rights ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence ◽  
Theological Thought

One of the most notable characteristics of Western societies has been the development of individual and group rights in legal, theological, and philosophical thought of the first two millennia. It has often been noted that thinkers in Non-Western societies have not had the same preoccupation with rights. The very concept of rights is laden with numerous problems. Universality is the most basic and difficult. If human rights are only a product of Western ideas of justice, they cannot have universality. In an age that is dominated by conceptions of law embracing some form of legal positivism, many scholars recognize only individual rights that have been established by the constitutional jurisprudence of individual countries or their legal systems. Historically, the emergence of rights in European jurisprudence is intimately connected with the terms ius naturale and lex naturalis in Western jurisprudence and theological thought. Human beings may never agree on universal rules of a natural law, but they might agree on universal precepts that shape the penumbra of rights surrounding natural rights.

Epilogue and Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 268-272
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Church

This chapter draws together the themes of the book and looks forward to the later-seventeenth century. It argues that for much of the sixteenth century politics was subordinate to religion; temporal authorities needed the additional sanctions provided by religious belief if they were to exert any power over the consciences of individuals. The effect was to entangle temporal power in the deepening conflicts over religious truth, and thus to reveal the brittleness of any conception of political authority which relied on the support of the Church. At the same time, older traditions of political thought did not go away and often became stronger. The circulation of classical ideas, the discovery of new peoples, the growing interest in historical change and development all suggested alternative ways of legitimizing political power, often using natural law and avoiding any reliance on specifically Christian commitments. What happened in the early-seventeenth century, and most obviously in the writing of Hugo Grotius, was a move not only to ground political society in a particular conception of human nature (conceived of juridically, as a source of rights and obligations) but also to detach Christianity from that view of human nature. It was this understanding of human beings which enabled the development of a social contract tradition through the seventeenth century and beyond, and became an important source for modern liberalism. The questions it raised would help to shape the thought of the next century.

PERSONS PURSUING GOODS

Legal Theory ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 285-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
Basic Good ◽  
Theory Of Law

John Finnis's powerfully and deservedly influential modern classic, Natural Law and Natural Rights, expounds a theory of law and morality that is based on a picture of “persons” using practical reason to pursue certain “basic goods.” While devoting much attention to practical reason and to the goods, however, Finnis says little about the nature of personhood. This relative inattention to what “persons” are creates a risk—one that Finnis himself notices—of assuming or importing an inadequate anthropology. This essay suggests that the “new natural law” developed by Finnis suffers in places from the inadvertent adoption of (or, more likely, acquiescence in) a flawed anthropology—an anthropology under the thrall of modern individualistic commitments. To explain this suspicion, this article discusses three difficulties (or so they seem to me) in his natural law theory: difficulties in accounting for the basic good of friendship, for obligations we owe to others, and for legal authority. These difficulties may seem disconnected, but this article suggests that they may all reflect an inadequate anthropology—one that Finnis does not exactly embrace (in fact, I suspect that he would reject it) but that is pervasive today and that in places may affect his theorizing.

FINNIS ON NATURE, REASON, GOD

Legal Theory ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 187-209
Author(s):  
Mark C. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Way

It is often claimed that John Finnis's natural law theory is detachable from the ultimate theistic explanation that he offers in the final chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. My aim in this paper is to think through the question of the detachability of Finnis's theistic explanation of the natural law from the remainder of his natural law view, both in Natural Law and Natural Rights and beyond. I argue that Finnis's theistic explanation of the natural law as actually presented can be, without too much strain, treated as largely detachable in the way that his readers have by and large supposed it to be; indeed, Finnis's account as actually presented really amounts to no explanation of the natural law at all, theistic or otherwise, and that fact accounts in part for the ease with which Finnis's natural law view can be detached from theism of that final chapter. Nevertheless, the considerations raised in that chapter militate in favor of a much more thoroughgoing, largely nondetachable theistic account. And it is just such an account that we find Finnis affirming in the development of his views after Natural Law and Natural Rights.

Law, Justice, and Charity in a Divided Christendom: 1500–1625

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Political Boundaries ◽  
Francisco De Vitoria ◽  
Single Set

During the Reformation, new interpretations of Christianity were developed—with important consequences for international relations. Taking the thought of Thomas Aquinas as their starting point, Catholic scholars like Francisco de Vitoria argued for a natural law for all but they insisted that human beings were also obliged by Christian duties and commitments. These duties could only be fulfilled within the Catholic Church. Protestants rejected these claims and argued instead for one single set of ethical obligations, which were the duties of natural law. For them, natural law included both secular and religious principles, and it applied across national and political boundaries. The radical effects of this concept can be seen in the anonymously written Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos. This chapter considers arguments on both sides of the confessional divide before discussing the Dutch scholar Hugo Grotius and his attempt to provide a new synthesis.

The Universal Rule of Natural Law and Written Constitutions in the Thought of Johannes Althusius

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Witte
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Universal Theory ◽  
Government Contracts ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
Universal Rule

Calvinist jurist Johannes Althusius (1557–1638) developed what he called a ‘universal theory’ of law and politics for war-torn Europe. He called for written constitutions that separated the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of cities, provinces, nations, and empires alike and that guaranteed the natural rights and liberties of all subjects. To be valid, he argued, these constitutions had to respect the universal natural law set out in Christian and classical, biblical, and rational teachings of law, authority, and rights. To be effective, these constitutions had to recognize the symbiotic nature of human beings who are born with a dependence on God and neighbour, family and community, and who are by nature inclined to form covenantal associations to maintain liberty and community. Althusius left comprehensive Christian theory of rule of law and politics that anticipated many of the arguments of later Enlightenment theorists of social and government contracts.

scholarly journals Natural Law and the Chair of Ethics in the University of Naples, 1703–1769

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Felix Waldmann
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Moral Skepticism ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Face ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
The University ◽  
Sacred History

Abstract This articles focuses on a significant change to the curriculum in “ethics” (moral philosophy) in the University of Naples, superintended by Celestino Galiani, the rector of the university (1732–53), and Antonio Genovesi, Galiani's protégé and the university's professor of ethics (1746–54). The article contends that Galiani's and Genovesi's sympathies lay with the form of “modern natural law” pioneered by Hugo Grotius and his followers in Northern Europe. The transformation of curricular ethics in Protestant contexts had stemmed from an anxiety about its relevance in the face of moral skepticism. The article shows how this anxiety affected a Catholic context, and it responds to John Robertson's contention that Giambattista Vico's use of “sacred history” in his Scienza nuova (1725, revised 1730, 1744) typified a search among Catholics for an alternative to “scholastic natural law,” when the latter was found insufficiently to explain the sources of human sociability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document