Rousseau,Pufendorf and the eighteenth-century natural law tradition

The relationship between the political theory of Rousseau and modern natural law continues to be the subject of debate, both with regard to Rousseau's faithfulness to the idea of natural law itself and regarding the precise extent of the debt he owed to his predecessors. In this article the author re-examines this relationship by focusing attention on what has been defined as the protestant tradition of natural law. In particular she concentrates on the political and theoretical exercise that Jean Barbeyrac had sought to perform by constructing a particular version of this tradition, namely that of using the science of natural law to promote a policy of tolerance between protestants and to justify the right of citizens to resist catholic sovereigns who denied them religious freedom, as well as the right of protestant countries to come to the aid of persecuted fellow believers. The thesis asserts that Rousseau was fully aware of this exercise, just as he was aware that some of Barbeyrac's ideas had been adopted and reworked by another illustrious Genevan, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, a member of the Small Council, to support anti-populist and antidemocratic politics in Geneva. Viewed in this way it is possible to perceive in Rousseau's political thought not so much a “first crisis” of natural law as an intention to reformulate this science from a republican perspective in order to derive rigorous principles of political law from it. And in developing his republican political theory Rousseau took up and overturned the analysis of democratic sovereignty carried out by Pufendorf, who in opposing the “pro-monarchist” excesses of authors such as Hobbes and Horn had unhesitatingly demonstrated the complete validity of democratic sovereignty.     

Eric Voegelin and the Natural Law Tradition

Eric Voegelin’s criticism of Hans Kelsen’s legal positivism places him closer to the natural law tradition than to other legal traditions. This proximity could be interpreted as a defense of the contemporary relevance, or as an attempt to revive the natural law tradition in the twentieth century. However, Voegelin always avoids using the traditional terminology of natural law in his mature works, and expresses a certain ambiguity regarding its contemporary revival. To understand this problem, this article investigates the evolution of Voegelin's understanding of natural law and his criticism of different natural law traditions from Cicero to John Locke, especially his positive evaluation of Aristotle’s and Thomas Aquinas’s interpretations. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate his position on the contemporary relevance of this topic, as well as to assess some of the recent interpretations that consider Voegelin as a natural law thinker.     

Schmitt and the Sovereignty of Roman Dictators: From the Actualisation of the Past to the Recycling of Symbols

The aim of this article is to analyse the complex roots of Carl Schmitt's theory on dictatorship in the classical world through the lens of classical receptions. It argues that Schmitt was deeply engaged with the classical tradition in formulating his theory on dictatorship. Knowingly or unknowingly, Schmitt legitimates his theory through a foundation in both the Roman idealisation of the virtuous dictators of the early Republic as well as the long tradition of the narrative of the enlightened sovereign as a guarantor of law, present in both Greek and Roman antiquity and in the subsequent European tradition. Schmitt skilfully repurposed the Roman historical tradition on dictators but glossed over the traditional antipathy of Roman republicanism towards sovereign rule. The claim that this article is presenting is that even though it has been overlooked by earlier scholars, Schmitt was both directly and indirectly influenced by the classical tradition of dictatorship and utilised their mythical and symbolic dimensions in the later Roman and the subsequent European legal and political traditions. The reason for this omission was that Schmitt, like his contemporaries, belonged to one of the last generations to be groomed in the classical tradition of literature.     

Here We Go Again: Presidential Elections and the National Media

The fear of death is a major preoccupation in the West. This is not surprising given the debt we owe to Hobbes, who encourages this fear and makes it a central feature of his account of human nature. Rousseau, in contrast, wishes to reduce this fear as much as possible. Amour propre and the humanity Rousseau encourages are incompatible with excessive concern for self-preservation. This accounts for his antipathy to doctors and the medical arts. Rousseau, through his presentation of Emile and the savage, initially claims that the fear of death is unnatural and that humans should take a stoic stance toward it and all human attachments that lead to our "feeling death twice." A closer reading reveals that humans always have an awareness of death and that modern humans cannot entirely avoid these attachments. We can, however, avoid making preservation our highest goal, and this is essential to our happiness and ability to have compassion for others.     

‘Discipline and Interference’: Ruskin's Political Economy,Natural Law,and the Moral Disorder of Victorian England

When Ruskin turned from art and architectural studies towards political economy in the late 1850s works such as Unto This Last, Munera Pulveris and Time and Tide met with negative critical reactions. In these works he attempted to restore to the language of Victorian political economy the moral content which, he argued, had been lost since the time of Adam Smith, under a cloak of misleading scientific terminology associated with utilitarian ‘orthodox political economy’. In doing so, he resorted to pre-Enlightenment sources of political and economic practice. His study of classical, Biblical, medieval and selected renaissance texts led him to gradually embrace older natural law arguments which contrasted sharply with the assumptions of post-Enlightenment positivist forms of natural law and science. These older and more organic natural law based understandings informed the principles by which he established his ideas on economics as well as his late social experiment, the Guild of St George. The charter and oath of the Guild illustrates how Ruskin's early upbringing in the Protestant Evangelical tradition was replaced by a more comprehensive natural law tradition of ethics.     

Genealogical narrative and self-knowledge in Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men

SUMMARY

Why did Rousseau cast the substance of the Second Discourse in the form of a genealogy? In this essay the author attempts to work out the relation between the literary form (genealogical narrative, as the author calls it) of the Discourse's two main parts and the content. A key thesis of Rousseau's text concerns our lack of self-knowledge, indeed, our ignorance of our ignorance. The author argues that in a number of ways genealogical narrative is meant to respond to that lack. In the course of his discussion he comments on Rousseau's puzzling remarks in the Second Discourse about his expository method. Further, given the thesis that we lack self-knowledge, Rousseau owes us an account of his genesis as self-knowing genealogist. He attempts to do so in part through his narrative of the ‘illumination of Vincennes’. The author examines that narrative as well, reading it and the Discourse in light of each other. Can Rousseau resolve the problems of self-reference that the philosophical use of genealogy often leads to? The article discusses this complex metaphilosophical problem, along with views about the value of genealogical accounts, in light of recent work by Robert Guay, John Kekes, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Frederick Neuhouser, among others.     

Young Mr. Lincoln in Ford's Theater

In Young Mr. Lincoln, director John Ford and screenwriter Lamar Trotti engage an issue that is central to Ford's films and to Lincoln's political thought. That issue is the tension between individual greatness and the rule of law, a tension heightened in a democracy by the demos's passion for equality. In the film's portrayal of Lincoln, Ford and Trotti suggest a solution to this tension that is fundamentally consistent with the one Lincoln suggested in the Lyceum Address. To remain within the political community, the great man must hold a sincere reverence for the law and be willing to exhibit humility in declaiming his own superiority. In the context of these characteristics, greatness can be a force that preserves the law and protects the community from harm. The film depicts Lincoln as the paradigmatic combination of these characteristics and alludes to his mature leadership based on these commitments in his later career.     

Le gouvernement de la loi est-il un thème républicain?

Liberty is submission only to laws. This idea, according to Turgot, is a very republican one, and it belongs indeed to the classical republican tradition. It is, nonetheless, a mostly modern idea, not necessarily a republican one. It appears in the criticism of absolute monarchy: the importance of making the law is granted, but that anybody could be above the laws is rejected. For Montesquieu, moderate monarchy is the rule of law, of standing laws which provide the individual action with the conditions its rationality requires. But Rousseau makes a republican system of the rule of law, by identifying self-government and autonomy. By linking liberty and law, he stresses the political existence of liberty: since Turgot, it has been objected, inside liberalism, that such a political device jeopardizes natural rights.     

Decay and the political Gestalt of decline in Bernard Mandeville and his Dutch contemporaries

Rousseau is often seen as the quintessential representative of Swiss republicanism. But to most of his Swiss contemporaries Rousseau's brand of republicanism and his self-professed Protestantism remained deeply suspect. They found his thinking, and especially his discussion of the natural origins of morality, far too sceptical and thus ultimately unsuited for their own attempt to forge a theory of republican reform. The article focuses on the reply by Rousseau's most sympathetic yet also most persistent critics, the Basle secretary of state and author of the famous ‘History of Mankind’.     

The Significance of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue and Holocaust Studies for Catholic Ethics

Abstract

When I survey the vast field of literature on social ethics, including that from progressive Christian scholars, I find little, if any, recognition that the positive development in the understanding of the Christian-Jewish relationship these past forty years have any relevance for shaping Christian perspectives on social ethics today. In this presentation I share some reflections on various areas of study within the context of the Christian-Jewish dialogue, especially the experience of the Holocaust, which in my judgment do make an important difference in the way we present Christian thinking on social ethical questions. The positive impact of the Hebrew Scriptures is one important area as is the enhanced understanding of law in the Hebrew Scriptures and in Judaism generally. Also of significance is the growing body of literature linking Jesus positively to the Jewish tradition of his time, including in terms of his moral teaching. The same holds true for new studies on Paul's positive relationship to Judaism. Finally the Holocaust provides us with important links to contemporary moral issues such as genocide and human rights.     

Botanical exchanges: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Duchess of Portland

In 1766 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in exile from France and Switzerland, came to England, where he made the acquaintance of Margaret Cavendish Harley Bentinck, Duchess of Portland. The two began to botanise together and to exchange letters about botany. These letters contain salient statements about Rousseau's views on natural theology, gardens, botanical texts and exotic botany. This exchange entailed not only discussions about plant identifications and other botanical matters, but most important, reciprocal gifts of books and specimens in the manner of gentlemanly scientific correspondence of the period. Rousseau volunteered his services as the Duchess's ‘herborist’ or plant collector, and collected specimens and seeds in her behalf; these were destined for her own extensive herbaria and other natural history collections. Rousseau, who elsewhere denied female talent for science, admired the Duchess's knowledge of natural history, acknowledging his own as inferior. Their correspondence ended when the Duchess sent him the Herbarium amboinense of Georg Rumpf (Rumphius), an important work of exotic botany. Rousseau considered exotic botany to be the antithesis of the domination-free nature from which he derived solace and inspiration.     

Contests about Natural Law in Early Enlightenment Copenhagen

This article discusses the works of the first two lecturers on natural law in Copenhagen, Henrik Weghorst and Christian Reitzer. Contrary to the existing scholarship which characterises their works as derivative of either Grotius or Pufendorf, the article argues that the character and significance of these works can only be grasped when understood in light of the local intellectual traditions which they built upon. Seen against this background, it becomes clear that Weghorst and Reitzer developed significantly different theories of natural law, disagreeing on such fundamental issues as the definition of law, the moral good, and the role of sociality in natural law. Following a tradition of Christian natural law in Kiel, Weghorst developed a theory of natural law fundamentally critical of the secularising theories of Grotius and Pufendorf, while Reitzer followed Pufendorf and his disciple Christian Thomasius in Halle. The article concludes by indicating how Weghorst’s and Reitzer’s works established the framework for discussions of natural law in the first decades of the eighteenth century, suggesting the need for further research into the significance of natural law for the early enlightenment in Denmark–Norway.     

雷纳德·格尔柯历史地理学思想简论

雷纳德·格尔柯是当代加拿大享有盛誉的历史地理学家 ,在历史地理学理论与方法上颇有建树 ,其学术观点代表了西方现代历史地理学界一种流派。本文旨在通过对其历史地理学主要学术思想和观点的评述 ,以期对国内学者认识和了解当今西方现代历史地理学观点有所帮助     

Shadow and Light: Louis-Xavier Eyma (1816–76) and French Opinion of the United States during the Second Empire

This article is a study of a neglected yet significant French writer on the United States, Louis-Xavier Eyma (1816–76). In the period of the Second Empire (1852–70), Eyma wrote more about the United States than any other author, and was recognised as a reliable and influential guide to US society. What makes his career particularly interesting is that his work defies any simple categorisation. Whilst elements of his writings smack of anti-Americanism, he wrote with admiration about many aspects of US democracy and society. At the same time, he did not belong to the group of liberal writers who, according to some scholars, used praise of the United States as a coded means of criticising repressive government at home. Eyma was a staunch monarchist who opposed the introduction of democracy in his native France. Eyma's career demonstrates the complexity of French attitudes towards the United States, and points towards the need for a comprehensive study of French writing about the United States in the period of the Second Empire.     

Vattel's law of nations and just war theory

It has often been said that Vattel's treatise on the law of nations breaks with the tradition of modern natural law and just war theory. Based on a closer examination of Vattel's justification of preventive war and of his assessment of the balance of power in Europe, the paper argues that this criticism is greatly exaggerated, if not entirely misleading.     

Tibet and the Problem of Radical Reductionism

Abstract:  This article takes issue with a mode of argumentation advanced by a number of left-leaning, radical scholars, including those associated with China's New Left, about the causes of the Tibetan unrest in China in spring 2008. According to this stance, the Tibetan protests were the result of external manipulation by neoconservative, reactionary forces, ranging from the CIA to the Dalai Lama. The unstated premise of this response is that taking a critical stance against western imperialism and neoliberal globalization necessitates a defense of China's policies in Tibet. Such arguments take the form of unfavorable comparisons between Tibetans and Palestinians especially because the former are often romanticized, suggestions that Tibetans are unfortunate ideological victims of US-funded propaganda, and claims that they should be grateful for Chinese state-funded development. This response renders Tibetans incapable of being authentic political subjects. A radical stance on Western imperialism and capitalism should reject such reductionism.     

Law and the Ruining of the Land

Abstract

In his monograph God, Justice, and Society (Oxford University Press, 2011)response to his work uses examples from Deuteronomy, Jeremiah and other prophetic texts to explore the relationship between obedience to God’s law and the wellbeing of the natural world. It concludes that given the complexity and diversity of natural law within the Western philosophical tradition, it seems unwise to draw too direct a comparison with the biblical material, which reflects a very different world view. The close study of the texts suggests that, for the biblical authors, divine law was both commanded at Sinai and written into the fabric of the universe.     

« Ne nous engageons point dans les querelles » : Un projet de guerre perpétuelle ?

This article considers the extent to which a quarrel might be a strategic activity for a writer or philosopher making a bid for posterity. Inveterate quarrellers like Voltaire or Rousseau come to mind, but the case to be examined here is the far less straightforward case of Diderot and in particular the stance of ‘accidental quarreller’ that he fabricates in his Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron et sur les moeurs et les écrits de Sénèque pour servir à l’introduction de la lecture de ce philosophe (1782), the last work he published in his lifetime. The article argues that the Essai constitutes what might be called a « quarrel-text », that is to say a text that stages the quarrel of which it is itself the object and, in so doing, reignites it; it analyses the stance adopted by the philosopher-quarreller as it is revealed in the paradoxical utterance « ne nous engageons point dans les querelles », the performative qualities of which are explored in detail.     

60年代美国对华政策研究现状述评

国内外对于 50年代的中美关系和美国对华政策的研究已经取得了丰富的成果 ,而对 60年代美国对华政策的探讨还远远不够深入。美国学者对这一段外交史的研究带有较大的缺陷 ,其主流观点也经历了三次偏摆 ;相比之下中国学者的研究则相当滞后 ,零星的成果也是相当粗糙的。造成这种局面的原因有两个方面 :首先是大部分学者只关注这一时期的主要事态———越南战争 ,认为这一时期美国对华政策基本上承继了 50年代美国对华政策的遗产 ;其次很重要的一点是 ,决定 60年代美国对华政策的最重要的一部分外交档案———约翰逊政府时期的“美国外交文件集”于年前刚刚解密。本文试图依据已获得的这部分档案材料对 60年代的美国对华政策及中美关系的研究现状做一次综述性探索 ,以期抛砖引玉 ,引起同仁对这一主题的重视 ,并展开争鸣。     

Is less more … or is more less? Scaling the political ecologies of the future

Imagining progressive environmental futures, especially among critical scholars, can be a fraught enterprise. While some theorists and activists turn towards the social emancipatory power of modern technological interventions at scale, others point to the revolutionary power of degrowth, simplicity, and conviviality. These competing political geographical imaginaries are often strident in their response to one another, though they share core materialist commitments. This essay reviews these contrasting approaches in light of the tradition of political ecology, within the context of an Earth economy that is trending towards higher levels of energy and lower levels of human labor, weighing the degree to which the work and conclusions of political ecologists are congruent with either perspective, neither perspective, or both. The conclusions suggest that, while these two traditions have inverse, or at least orthogonal, views of economic scale, they may not be beyond compromise. Socialist modernism and degrowth sprouted from the same seed, share a political ecological tradition, and may indeed require one another. Eschewing both utopian and dystopian aspirations may open the door to progressive reconciliation and action.