Philosophy, Rights and Natural Law

Richard Whatmore is Professor of History at the University of St Andrews and Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History. He is the author of What is Intellectual History? (Polity, 2015), Against War and Empire (Yale University Press, 2012) and Republicanism and the French Revolution (OUP, 2000). He is the co-editor of Commerce and Peace in the Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Companion to Intellectual History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), David Hume (Ashgate, 2013), Advances in Intellectual History (Palgrave, 2006) and Economy, Polity and Society: Essays in British Intellectual History, 2 volumes (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

No-one has done more than Knud Haakonssen to facilitate and lead the study of Protestant Natural Law in early modern Europe, and to explain its significance for moral and political philosophy. This volume repays that achievement with an excellent set of essays on the subject. A combination of outstanding contributors, well-chosen topics, and broad geographical coverage ensures that the volume is not only an apt tribute to Haakonssen, but will be an essential reference-point for future development of the field.

• Introduction Part I: Rights, Religion and Morality1. Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians: Popular Sovereignty and Natural Rights in Early Modern Political ThoughtJames Moore 2. Truth and Toleration in the Early Modern PeriodMaria Rosa Antognazza 3. The History of the History of Ethics and Emblematic PassagesAaron Garrett4. Natural law and Natural Rights in Early Enlightenment Copenhagen Mads Jensen Part II: Natural Law and the Philosophers5. Natural Equality and Natural Law in Locke’s Two TreatisesKari Saastamoinen 6. Dignity and Equality in Pufendorf’s Natural Law TheorySimone Zurbuchen 7. Theory and Practice in the Natural Law of Christian ThomasiusIan Hunter 8. The 'iura connata' in the Natural Law of Christian WolffFrank Grunert9. Hume’s Peculiar Definition of JusticeJames A. Harris Part III: Rights and Reform10. Economising Natural Law: Pufendorf on Moral Quantities and Sumptuary LegislationMichael Seidler 11. The Legacy of Smith’s Jurisprudence in Late-Eighteenth-Century EdinburghJohn W. Cairns 12. Declaring Rights: Bentham and the Rights of ManDavid Lieberman 13. Rights After the RevolutionsRichard WhatmoreIndex