Saturday, March 24, 2012

So much to read

Liberty Fund's Online Library of Liberty is rather useful for someone studying the development of natural law theory and rights?

Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural and Politic Law [1747]
Samuel von Pufendorf, The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature [1673]
Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) 3 vols [1625]

American conservatives are supposed to be familiar with these texts; can they be harmonized with Catholic moral and political theology?

There are some other texts of the Scottish Enlightenment I should read...

Pufendorf condemning anger wholly: "ANGER is the most violent, as well as the most destructive of all the Passions, and is therefore to be resisted with our utmost Strength and Endeavour. It is so far from exciting Men’s Valour, and confirming their Constancy in Dangers, as some alledge, that it has a quite contrary Effect; for it is a Degree of Madness, it renders Men blind and desperate, and runs them headlong into their own Ruin."

2 comments:

W.LindsayWheeler said...

I would NOT recommend any of those books to read about the Natural Law. None of them knew the original Natural Law. What passed for the Natural Law in the so-called Enlightenment was a materialistic physical law called atomism. That was NOT the Natural Law. No one in the whole so-called "Enlightenment" has the original true Natural Law.

papabear said...

While it is useful to rely upon traditional or Catholic critiques of modern natural law accounts and theory, sooner or later some will have to study these on their own terms and determine how problematic they are for themselves. Not all are called to do this, but this is my purpose in reading Pufendorf and the like. I will have some initial impressions of The Whole Duty of Man shortly.