Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law

Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law PDF Author: Kody W. Cooper
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268103046
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Has Hobbesian moral and political theory been fundamentally misinterpreted by most of his readers? Since the criticism of John Bramhall, Hobbes has generally been regarded as advancing a moral and political theory that is antithetical to classical natural law theory. Kody W. Cooper challenges this traditional interpretation of Hobbes in Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law. Hobbes affirms two essential theses of classical natural law theory: the capacity of practical reason to grasp intelligible goods or reasons for action and the legally binding character of the practical requirements essential to the pursuit of human flourishing. Hobbes’s novel contribution lies principally in his formulation of a thin theory of the good. This book seeks to prove that Hobbes has more in common with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of natural law philosophy than has been recognized. According to Cooper, Hobbes affirms a realistic philosophy as well as biblical revelation as the ground of his philosophical-theological anthropology and his moral and civil science. In addition, Cooper contends that Hobbes's thought, although transformative in important ways, also has important structural continuities with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of practical reason, theology, social ontology, and law. What emerges from this study is a nuanced assessment of Hobbes’s place in the natural law tradition as a formulator of natural law liberalism. This book will appeal to political theorists and philosophers and be of particular interest to Hobbes scholars and natural law theorists.

Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law

Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law PDF Author: Kody W. Cooper
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268103046
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 413

Get Book Here

Book Description
Has Hobbesian moral and political theory been fundamentally misinterpreted by most of his readers? Since the criticism of John Bramhall, Hobbes has generally been regarded as advancing a moral and political theory that is antithetical to classical natural law theory. Kody W. Cooper challenges this traditional interpretation of Hobbes in Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law. Hobbes affirms two essential theses of classical natural law theory: the capacity of practical reason to grasp intelligible goods or reasons for action and the legally binding character of the practical requirements essential to the pursuit of human flourishing. Hobbes’s novel contribution lies principally in his formulation of a thin theory of the good. This book seeks to prove that Hobbes has more in common with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of natural law philosophy than has been recognized. According to Cooper, Hobbes affirms a realistic philosophy as well as biblical revelation as the ground of his philosophical-theological anthropology and his moral and civil science. In addition, Cooper contends that Hobbes's thought, although transformative in important ways, also has important structural continuities with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of practical reason, theology, social ontology, and law. What emerges from this study is a nuanced assessment of Hobbes’s place in the natural law tradition as a formulator of natural law liberalism. This book will appeal to political theorists and philosophers and be of particular interest to Hobbes scholars and natural law theorists.

Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law Tradition

Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law Tradition PDF Author: Norberto Bobbio
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226062488
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Pre-eminent among European political philosophers, Norberto Bobbio has throughout his career turned to the political theory of Thomas Hobbes. Gathered here for the first time are the most important of his essays which together provide both a valuable introduction to Hobbes's thought and a fresh understanding of Hobbes's place in the theory of modern politics. Tracing Hobbes's work through De Cive and Leviathan, Bobbio identifies the philosopher's relation to the tradition of natural law. That Hobbes must now be understood in both this tradition as well as in the seemingly contradictory positivist tradition becomes clear for the first time in Bobbio's account. Bobbio also demonstrates that Hobbes cannot be easily labelled "liberal" or "totalitarian"; in Bobbio's provocative analysis of Hobbes's justification of the state, Hobbes emerges as a true conservative. Though his primary concern is to reconstruct the inner logic of Hobbes's thought, Bobbio is also attentive to the philosopher's biography and weaves into his analysis details of Hobbes's life and world—his exile in France, his relation with the Mersenne circle, his disputes with Anglican bishops, and accusations of heresy leveled against him. The result is a revealing, thoroughly new portrait of the first theorist of the modern state.

Hobbes and the Law of Nature

Hobbes and the Law of Nature PDF Author: Perez Zagorin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691139806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Zagorin clears up numerous misconceptions about Hobbes and his relation to earlier natural law thinkers, in particular Hugo Grotius, and he reasserts the often overlooked role of the Hobbesian law of nature as a moral standard from which even sovereign power is not immune. Because Hobbes is commonly thought to be primarily a theorist of sovereignty, political absolutism, and unitary state power, the significance of his moral philosophy is often underestimated and widely assumed to depend entirely on individual self-interest. Zagorin reveals Hobbes's originality as a moral philosopher and his importance as a thinker who subverted and transformed the idea of natural law."--Pub. desc.

Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes

Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes PDF Author: S. A. Lloyd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521861675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
In this book, S. A. Lloyd offers a radically new interpretation of Hobbes's laws of nature, revealing them to be not egoistic precepts of personal prudence but rather moral instructions for obtaining the common good. This account of Hobbes's moral philosophy stands in contrast to both divine command and rational choice interpretations. Drawing from the core notion of reciprocity, Lloyd explains Hobbes's system of "cases in the law of nature" and situates Hobbes's moral philosophy in the broader context of his political philosophy and views on religion. Offering ingenious new arguments, Lloyd defends a reciprocity interpretation of the laws of nature through which humanity's common good is secured.

Leviathan

Leviathan PDF Author: Thomas Hobbes
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048612214X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world.

Hobbes and the Law

Hobbes and the Law PDF Author: David Dyzenhaus
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107022754
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
A collection of essays devoted to the legal thought of Thomas Hobbes, arguably the greatest political philosopher to write in English.

Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Natural Philosophy

Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Natural Philosophy PDF Author: Stephen J. Finn
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847143318
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
In 1625, Charles I inherited not only his father's crown, but also his desire to run the country without interference from Parliament. But many members of Parliament opposed the King on issues of taxation, religion and the royal prerogative. It was in this historical context that Hobbes presented a political philosophy that, at least in his opinion, achieved the status of a science, in a nation that was 'boiling hot with questions concerning the rights of dominion and the obedience due from subjects'. In this important new book, Stephen J. Finn argues that, contrary to the traditional interpretation, Hobbes's political views influence his theoretical and natural philosophy and not the other way about. Such an interpretation, it is argued, provides a better appreciation of Hobbes's writings, both philosophical and political.

Natural Law, Religion, and Rights

Natural Law, Religion, and Rights PDF Author: Henrik Syse
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This book discusses some of those ethical and political questions that puzzled several of the great minds of the twentieth century, such as Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, Jacques Maritain, and John Finnis: the question of natural law and its relationship to a teaching of individual freedom and rights. The main aim of the book is to interpret anew the relationship between law and rights in Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, two important founders of modern rights doctrines. But in order to put their teachings into the right perspective, Syse also portrays and discusses other models of law and rights, from Aristotle, through Thomas Aquinas, to John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, with detours to the teachings of Plato, Cicero, and Augustine. Throughout the discussion, the role of religion and revelation is given center stage as a complex, yet fascinating picture of the relationship between natural law, religion, and rights emerges -- one which is neither as simple nor as complicated as often imagined. Natural Law, Religion, and Rights should be of interest both to students struggling with the meaning and contents of the natural law tradition, as well as to teachers and researchers working on the many-faceted problems of natural law and natural rights.

Made with Words

Made with Words PDF Author: Philip Pettit
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691143250
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Argues that it was Hobbes, not later thinkers like Rousseau, who invented the invention of language thesis - the idea that language is a cultural innovation that transformed the human mind.

The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law

The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law PDF Author: Jens Meierhenrich
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108620175
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 715

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Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law introduces students, scholars, and practitioners to the theory and history of the rule of law, one of the most frequently invoked-and least understood-ideas of legal and political thought and policy practice. It offers a comprehensive re-assessment by leading scholars of one of the world's most cherished traditions. This high-profile collection provides the first global and interdisciplinary account of the histories, moralities, pathologies and trajectories of the rule of law. Unique in conception, and critical in its approach, it evaluates, breaks down, and subverts conventional wisdom about the rule of law for the twenty-first century.