Von der coactio hypothetica zum kategorischen Imperativ: Was Kants Autonomie-Lehre Achenwalls Naturrecht von 1755 verdankt

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-367
Author(s):  
Bernd Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Free Action ◽  
The Third ◽  
Divine Will

In the first edition of his textbook on Natural Law (1750), Achenwall advocates a theory of obligation which reveals that he was a Wolffian before he came from Halle via Marburg to Göttingen in 1748: Obligation is essentially the connection of a free action with a motive. With the third edition of the textbook (1755), Achenwall changes in terms of obligation theory to the camp of the Pufendorfians, who understood obligation essentially as a relationship between two wills, that of the obliged and that of a superior obligor (whereby in natural law God is this obligor). Achenwall herewith explicitly joins the Wolff-criticism of his Göttingen predecessor Gottlieb Samuel Treuer, who in turn followed Jean Barbeyrac. It is this ‘Pufendorfian’ Achenwall - but not the ‘Wolf­fian’ of 1750 - according to whose textbook Kant gives his lectures since the 1770s. However, in 1785, in the Groundwork, Kant replaces the divine will by the pure legis­lative will of the obligated person himself: Autonomy replaces Theonomy - and Wolff’s idiosyncratic concept of ‘obligation as motivation’ finally drops out of the game again.

Cumberland, Richard (1632–1718)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knud Haakonssen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
The Third ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
Moral Importance ◽  
Modern Natural

Richard Cumberland developed his ideas in response to Hobbes’ Leviathan. He introduced concepts of aggregate goodness (later used in utilitarianism), of benevolence (used in moral-sense theory), of moral self-obligation, of empirical proofs of providence and of the moral importance of tradition à la Burke. The philosophical basis for Cumberland’s views was a theory of natural law which was strongly anti-voluntarist and committed to objective moral values, but recognizing institutions such as governments of state and church as conventional or traditional. Cumberland was often seen as the third co-founder, with Pufendorf and Grotius, of modern natural law.

What is the ‘Problem of Induction’?

Philosophy ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 62 (241) ◽  
pp. 325-340
Author(s):  
E. J. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Problem Of Induction ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Third ◽  
Key Concepts

This paper falls into three parts. In the first I retrace the steps which, have led many to consider that there is a ‘problem of induction’ which may have only a sceptical solution. In the second I explain why I think we cannot rest content with such a solution. In the third I try to show how a new approach to certain key concepts in the philosophy of science—in particular the concept of natural law—may help towards a non-sceptical resolution of the problem.

scholarly journals The Genesis of the Idea and Value of Political Peace in Early Modern Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 33-59
Author(s):  
Raul Raunić
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
The Third ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
The Many

The main intention of this paper is to reconstruct the conceptual and historical‎ genesis of the idea and value of political peace from the point of view of ‎political philosophy at the intersection between late scholasticism and early modernity. The paper consists of three related parts. The first part highlights‎ methodological and contextual reasons why the idea of political peace has ‎been overshadowed throughout history by dominant discourses on war. The ‎second part deals with conceptual clarifications. The nature of war is distinguished ‎from other types of conflict and three interpretative approaches to‎ war are analyzed: political realism, fundamentalist-moralistic view of the holy‎ war, and the many theories of natural law that give rise to conceptions of just‎ war, but also the first abolitionist perspective or idea of ending all wars. Early‎ theoretical articulations of the notion of peace indicated modern-day emancipation‎ of politics from the tutelage of metaphysics and classical ethics, thus‎ separating the value of political peace from its original oneness with cosmic ‎and psychological peace. The third part of the paper highlights key moments ‎in the historical genesis of the value of political peace in the works of Aurelius ‎Augustine, Marsilius of Padua, and William of Ockham.‎

The Repudiation of Rational Natural Law by National-Socialism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst Fraenkel
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Third Reich

The chapter describes how the prerogative state was able to completely abolish the inviolability of the law. Since the doctrine of the inviolability of law is part of the heritage of rational Natural Law, it is argued, its explicit rejection in the legal system of the Third Reich raises the question of the whole attitude of National-Socialism toward Natural Law. The chapter describes how the repudiation of Natural Law was achieved and also the form this repudiation took. Despite the fact that Natural Law has been refuted time and again by political science, until the period when this text was written it had not yet lost its vitality entirely.

Biblical Discourses of Law

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Divine Wisdom ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Law ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Divine Law

This chapter describes biblical discourses of divine law. It begins by examining those biblical texts that emphasize the emergence of divine law from the divine will. These texts stand as resources for later readers who seek to construe biblical divine law as positive law. It then turns to texts that emphasize elements of divine wisdom in the Law. These texts stand as resources for later readers who seek to construe biblical divine law in terms of natural law. Finally, it examines texts that narrate the historical circumstances under which this multifaceted law came into being and its role in the divine plan for Israel and humankind.

The Third Natural Law Institute

1950 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 314-315
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Davitt ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
The Third

scholarly journals Amartia Sen, leitor de Rawls: uma crítica à teoria da justiça enquanto prioridade da liberdade formal (por um novo fundamento da dignidade humana, da autonomia e da justiça)

Problemata ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 60-78
Author(s):  
Damião Benilson Gomes de Melo ◽  
José Roberto de Araújo Freire
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Financial System ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Right ◽  
Sufficient Strength ◽  
Principle Of Maximum

The object of this essay is to examine Amartia Sen’s approach to the justification of substantive rights pointed out in the third chapter of ‘Development as Freedom’ and his critique of the priority of formal freedoms in rawlsian theory. He points out a conflict between liberties (formal freedoms) and freedoms (material freedoms). This opposition will be confronted with Herbert Hart’s polemic in the third part of ‘Essays in Jurisprudence and philosophy’, where he points out a problem of Rawls’ formulation in not reconciling the admission of private property as a basic freedom with the principle of maximum equal freedom. The problem is whether the Sen model better addresses this issue. Our positive hypothesis. By establishing a small number of basic freedoms, Rawls treated the right as a mere formal guarantee. Consequently, the right to private ownership of large portions of land and the extensive control by private individuals over the financial system and over major industrial, commercial, and service goods, in the absence of any greater or consistent justification, end up envisioned by something equivalent to a self-justified natural right. As Marx said, it is not scientifically possible to conceal the original fact of the conquest of private property by covering it up under the diaphanous cloak of natural law, inasmuch as, to oppose the ‘natural right of a few’ it would be enough for the previously dispossessed majority to gather sufficient strength to impose a ‘natural right’ of the reconquest of usurpation. As for the method, it is an exclusively bibliographical research, which can be based, in a merely incidental way, on empirical data.

Worse than Death

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Olsthoorn
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Orthodox Interpretation ◽  
The Third ◽  
General Desire ◽  
In Virtue Of

This article challenges the orthodoxy that Hobbes’s laws of nature, considered as dictates of reason, ceaselessly oblige agents in virtue of the general desire for self-preservation. Hobbes is an internalist about reasons, who refuses reason independent motivational efficacy. The universal prescriptive force of natural law is instead grounded in some desire (or set of desires) which all rational agents share. On the Orthodox Interpretation, this is the desire for self-preservation, as death is considered the worst possible evil that can befall Hobbesian agents. I argue that this interpretation is untenable. A plethora of passages attests that at least one thing is worse than death: loss of eternal life. It is therefore rational, according to Hobbes, to choose to die if doing so is necessary to procure salvation. This article sketches a non-preservationist reading of the psychological underpinnings of Hobbes’s moral philosophy which can account for (but does not presuppose) the superior disvalue of damnation. Three psychological laws, I submit, structure Hobbesian deliberation and desire-formation. The third and perhaps most controversial law states that humans cannot help caring about their own welfare. My contention is that the inescapable desire for bonum sibi better explains the universal normativity of natural law than self-preservation does.

scholarly journals Obedience as a Religious Virtue

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 164-179
Author(s):  
Rudi te Velde
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Human Person ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Theological Virtue ◽  
Made In

Summary This essay explores Thomas’ thoughts about the virtue of obedience (based on STh II-II, q.104), which is particularly valued as a link between the moral virtues and the theological virtue of charity (love of God). Obedience generates in the human person the moral disposition required for all the other virtues, a disposition which consists in the readiness of the will to submit itself to the rule of God’s will. Reflecting on the question whether one should be obedient to God in every respect, Thomas is confronted with an objection pointing to the story of how God commands Abraham to kill his innocent son, which is prohibited by natural law. I use the scarce but intriguing remarks Thomas made in response to this objection to propose a meaningful interpretation of obedience as a religious virtue, essentially different from its distorted imitation which consists in an immediate identification of one’s own will with the presumed divine will.

scholarly journals Augur Anxieties in the Ancient Near East

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Scott B. Noegel
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Near East ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Third ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
Ancient Mesopotamia ◽  
First Offers ◽  
Religious Worldviews

This contribution examines divination in ancient Mesopotamia from the practitioners’ own social, economic, and cosmological perspectives. It maintains that such an approach reveals divination to be an enterprise heavily informed by a number of insecurities, and that attention to these sources of anxiety sheds light on Mesopotamian religious worldviews. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first offers a brief synopsis of Near Eastern divination. The second examines two competing sources of anxiety that diviners negotiated: skepticism from others and their own theological principles. The third investigates the ways that diviners addressed these insecurities. The final portion of the chapter proposes several conclusions based on the combined evidence that concern the legitimation of divination as a means of seeking divine will, the rise of astrology and its impact on other forms of divination, the diviners’ ways of controlling cosmological anxieties, and the depiction of divination in Mesopotamian “literary” texts as a reflection of divinatory ideologies and the codependency of diviners and the royal house.

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