The State of Nature and Natural Law

1992 ◽  
pp. 18-40
Author(s):  
George Shelton
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature

“A Trespass against the Whole Species”: Universal Crime and Sovereign Founding in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-585
Author(s):  
Sinja Graf
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Creation

This essay theorizes how the enforcement of universal norms contributes to the solidification of sovereign rule. It does so by analyzing John Locke’s argument for the founding of the commonwealth as it emerges from his notion of universal crime in the Second Treatise of Government. Previous studies of punishment in the state of nature have not accounted for Locke’s notion of universal crime which pivots on the role of mankind as the subject of natural law. I argue that the dilemmas specific to enforcing the natural law against “trespasses against the whole species” drive the founding of sovereign government. Reconstructing Locke’s argument on private property in light of universal criminality, the essay shows how the introduction of money in the state of nature destabilizes the normative relationship between the self and humanity. Accordingly, the failures of enforcing the natural law require the partitioning of mankind into separate peoples under distinct sovereign governments. This analysis theorizes the creation of sovereign rule as part of the political productivity of Locke’s notion of universal crime and reflects on an explicitly political, rather than normative, theory of “humanity.”

On Locke's State of Nature

1978 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Anglim
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Original Condition ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Constant Potential ◽  
Core Condition

John Locke's Two Treatises use the ‘state of nature’ to refer (1) to a core condition in which human persons lack an authoritative, common, human superior, (2) which is the original condition of all human peoples, but which (3) became such an inconvenience for some peoples as their social and economic life develops that they leave it by forming government, but which (4) remains as the condition of some peoples, Locke thought, in his own day, and (5) is a constant potential and actual feature of all human communities in respect of the possibility of tyranny, or absolute monarchy, or revolution, or withdrawal. Closely examining the Treatises suggests that obeying the natural law leads human persons and their communities to pass from usage 2 to usage 3.

From Humanity to Sovereignty

2021 ◽  
pp. 49-76
Author(s):  
Sinja Graf
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The State ◽  
Agricultural Labor ◽  
State Of Nature

Chapter 2 analyzes Locke’s notion of a “trespass against the whole species” in the Second Treatise of Government. It reconstructs his argument for private property and political government through the lens of universal crime in a colonial context. Once humanity is stipulated as the earth’s stakeholder in the state of nature, the failure to enclose land via labor wastes the earth’s potential and instantiates an offense against mankind. Presenting the figure of the Native American as the quintessential universal criminal failing to perform agricultural labor as a dictate of natural law, Locke’s argument reveals an inclusionary Eurocentrism that includes non-European peoples insofar as they violate humanity’s supposedly universal norms. Furthermore, once the introduction of money enables accumulation without spoilage, those wasting the earth’s productivity become scarcely recognizable as universal criminals, and humanity as the natural law’s subject becomes destabilized. Founding separate peoples under sovereign government hence becomes necessary to recreate law-governed collective life.

scholarly journals Grotius’ theory of natural law

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 436-457
Author(s):  
Jelena Govedarica
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Heuristic Principle ◽  
The Way

After analyzing Grotius? formulation of the state of nature and natural law, social contract and international law, the author places emphasis on two insights. First, that a certain heuristic principle plays a central role in Grotius? argument - the analogy between individuals and states in the state of nature. Second, his firm belief that within the international framework the protection of natural law of people and communities comes before respect for state sovereignty. The author will argue that morally unacceptable implications of these characteristics of Grotius? theory, when we take into account the way in which he defines the rights of punishment and property, are in fact legitimation of interventionism and colonialism. The author will also argue that Grotius initiated an influential tradition in international law, characterized by a lack of clear boundaries between legal and moral norms.

The State of Nature and Commercial Sociability in Early Modern International Legal Thought

Grotiana ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Straumann ◽  
Benedict Kingsbury
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
International Legal Order

AbstractAt the same time as the modern idea of the state was taking shape, Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94) formulated three distinctive foundational approaches to international order and law beyond the state. They differed in their views of obligation in the state of nature (where ex hypothesi there was no state), in the extent to which they regarded these sovereign states as analogous to individuals in the state of nature, and in the effects they attributed to commerce as a driver of sociability and of norm-structured interactions not dependent on an overarching state. Each built on shared Roman and sixteenth-century foundations (section I). Section II argues: 1) that Grotius's natural law was not simply an anti-skeptical construction based on self-preservation (pace Richard Tuck), but continued a Roman legal tradition; 2) that Hobbes's account of natural law beyond the state was essentially prudential, not moral (pace Noel Malcolm); and 3) that commerce as a driver of social and moral order (Istvan Hont's interpretation of Pufendorf and Adam Smith) had a substantial and under-appreciated impact on international legal order. Each contributed to the thought of later writers (section III) such as Emer de Vattel (1714-67), David Hume (1711-76), and Adam Smith (1723-90), and eventually to the empirical legal methodologies of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and Georg Friedrich von Martens (1756-1821).

What we own Before Property: Hugo Grotius and the Suum

Grotiana ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Mancilla
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Scholarly Attention

At the basis of modern natural law theories, the concept of the suum, i.e. what belongs to the person (in Latin, his, her, its, their own), has received little scholarly attention despite its importance both in explaining and justifying not only the genealogy of property, but also that of morality and war. In this essay I focus on Grotius’s account of the suum and examine what it is, what things it includes, what rights it gives rise to, and how it is extended in the transition from the state of nature to civil society. I then briefly suggest that reviving this concept could help to illuminate the current discussion on the foundations of basic human rights, and to re-evaluate cases where these seem to clash with property rights.

James Dundas on the Hobbesian State of Nature

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Broadie
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The State ◽  
State Of Nature

During the last few months of his life James Dundas, first Lord Arniston (c. 1620–79), wrote a monograph on moral philosophy. It appears never to have been mentioned in any work whether academic or otherwise. It includes a discussion promoting three doctrines against Hobbes. First, that something is simply good and something is simply bad, and that the first rule of morals is not self-love, but the glory of God. Secondly, the state of nature is not a state of war. Thirdly, contra Hobbes, the chief point in natural law is not that each person has a right to use all ways and means to preserve himself. This paper probes Dundas's arguments for his three doctrines.

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