Just State

BENJAMIN STRAUMANN is ERC Professor of History at the University of Zurich and Research Professor of Classics at New York University. He is also Alberico Gentili Senior Fellow at New York University School of Law. His publications include Roman Law in the State of Nature: The Classical Foundations of Hugo Grotius’ Natural Law (Cambridge, 2015) and Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution (Oxford, 2016).

"The book is very accessibly written and offers readers both a powerful overview of the grand sweep of western political thought while also suggesting provocative connections between thinkers often considered antithetical… By pressing on some of the less palatable implications of Greek virtue-theory, Straumann pushes us to imagine whether we might prefer the slightly more skeptical and self-restrained Roman vision of politics, which abandons aspirations of perfection in favor of a more attainable notion of political justice."Michael Hawley, Grotiana

• Preface and Acknowledgments xMaps and Figures xiAbbreviations and Text Editions xiiIntroduction: Why Greeks and Romans? Why Ideas? 1The Gradual Encroachment of Ideas 2Why Greeks and Romans? 5The Use and Energy of Ideas and Concepts 10The Cult of Contingency, or: Is Everything Constructed? 12Overview of Contents 13Part I The Greek Debate 151 The Polis, Equality, and the Growth of Political Thought 17The World of Homer’s Poems and the Emergence of Greek Political Life 17Hesiod’s Justice 23The Ancient Near Eastern Context 25The Polis and Greek Colonization 27A Mere Spider’s Web? Solon and the Rise of Written Law 312 Athenian Democracy, Early Antidemocratic and Democratic Thought, and the Sophist Movement 38The Historical Background: Athenian Democracy in Practice in the Fifth Century 42Antidemocratic Sentiment and Early Elements of Democratic Theory 45Accountability 47The Sophists 503 Knowledge, Paternalistic Justice, and Law: Plato 56The Republic, a Theory of Justice? 56The Ideal State: Women, Communism, Rule of Reason 59Plato and Democracy 64Plato, the Law and the Laws 704 The State as Teacher: Aristotle 78The Unity of Politics and Ethics 78Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and His Views on Women and Slavery 80Justice and the Classification of Constitutions 85Is Aristotle’s Best State Just? 91The Second-Best: Democracy, Law, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics 93Aristotle and Liberalism 1015 The Epicurean Contract and Stoic Natural Law 103Epicurean Ideas about Justice as Contract 103The Stoics on Ethics and Politics 108What Goods Are Relevant? 109Stoic Antipolitics? 110Egalitarianism and Cosmopolitanism 111A New Idea: Natural Law 113Did the Stoics Have the Concept of Rights? 115Conclusion 116Part II The Roman Contribution 1196 The Roman Republic and the Origins of Constitutionalism 121Institutional Background: The Popular Assemblies 122Institutional Background: The Magistrates and the Right of Appeal 126Institutional Background: The Senate 130Criminal Courts 131Constitutional Conflict and the Emergence of Constitutionalism 132Polybius on Rome’s Well-Balanced Constitution 137An Ambassador Conception of Representation 141The Constitutional Machine Runs Itself (Until It Does Not) 142Appendix: The Achaean League, an Early Model of Federalism 1437 Justice, Not Happiness: Cicero’s Roman Political Thought 145Does this Egalitarian Anthropology Imply the Equality of Women? 147Cicero’s Theory of the State 148Cicero’s Constitutionalism 149A New Theory of Justice? Cicero on the Just State 150Controlling the State: The State as a Guarantor of Rights 152Controlling the State: Property Rights and Justice in the Strict Sense 155Magistrates as Representatives and Fiduciaries 158Cicero’s Use of the Idea of Natural Law 160Natural Law and Natural (Even Human?) Rights Outside the State 1638 The Principate, the Rise of Christianity, and Augustine’s Peace 166Augustus and the Principate: Autocracy or Legal Order? 166The Rise of Christianity 174Lactantius 177Ambrose 180The Tranquility of Order: Augustine 182Just War and Religious Toleration 184Part III Ancient and Modern Justice: Virtue, Peace, or Rights? 1879 Greek Justice: Virtue and the Common Good 189Thomas Aquinas and Aristotelian Theory 191Property and the Common Good 195Does the Common Good Imply Justice or Justice the Common Good? 198The Legacy of Perfectionism 19910 Roman Justice: Law and Rights 203The Rediscovery of Roman Law 204The State of Nature 207A New Natural Law for the State of Nature 210Sovereignty and Government 214The Roman Tradition in the Eighteenth Century 217Conclusion: Natural Law and Roman Law 21911 Ideas in Action: The Atlantic Revolutions 220The “Real American Revolution” 220Ancient Founders and American Constitution-Making 228The French Experience 236Rousseau, Sparta, and Rome 236Rights Declarations and Constitutions 240Implications and Consequences: Slavery, Women, Property 241Conclusion: The Three Traditions of Virtue, Peace, and Justice 244Bibliography 250Index 260