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Early Modern Natural Law Theories

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Knud Haakonssen discusses the historical identity of natural law, its origins and its significance for moral and political philosophy.

Image courtesy of interviewee. June 14, 2024

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This video is a transcript of a discussion about early modern natural law theories, featuring a conversation likely with a professor specializing in the topic. It begins with an introduction to the subject, noting the historical background and main questions regarding natural law, particularly its identity and relevance.

Key points include:

1. **Historical Context**: The discussion highlights that natural law has roots in ancient philosophy, resurfacing notably in early modernity during the 17th and 18th centuries. It emphasizes the development of distinct natural law theories within predominantly Protestant intellectual contexts before being incorporated into Catholic thought.

2. **The Paradox of Natural Law**: The lecturer addresses the paradox of natural law's identity—whether it's a reiteration of scholastic natural law or a precursor to modern human rights thinking. Many scholars view it as either a continuation of earlier thoughts or a new development.

3. **Academic Discipline**: Early modern natural law emerged as a distinct academic discipline with specialized chairs and texts, differing from its prior incorporation into broader ethical and moral theology contexts.

4. **Transnational Networks**: The spread of natural law theories across Europe, particularly in Protestant and Catholic institutions, is discussed, emphasizing the connections between Scottish Enlightenment thought and American colonial education.

5. **Endurance and Relevance**: The discussion explores the longevity of natural law, noting that post-Kantian philosophy incorporated elements of natural law, leading to a resurgence in its scholarly treatment even into the 19th century.

6. **Relevance Today**: The professor reflects on the relevance of natural law today, particularly in a multicultural society, focusing on navigating political and religious differences. The work of Samuel Pufendorf is highlighted as particularly significant for understanding the distinctions between confessional religion and natural law.

7. **Future Directions**: Finally, suggestions for advancing the field include the need for more sources, translations of key texts, and investigations into the broader implications of natural law beyond politics, such as its impact on social issues like family structure.

Overall, the text portrays a comprehensive examination of early modern natural law, its historical significance, its conceptual complexities, and current scholarly interests.

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Here are some articles and resources that cover similar themes and topics to the discussion on early modern natural law theories as outlined in your video:

1. **"Natural Law: A Historical Overview"** - This article provides a survey of the historical evolution of natural law from antiquity through the early modern period, emphasizing the philosophical and theological developments that shaped its discourse.

2. **"The Influence of Protestantism on Natural Law"** - This piece examines how Protestant thought contributed to the formation and development of natural law theories in the 17th and 18th centuries, highlighting key figures and videos that emerged from this convideo.

3. **"Natural Law and Human Rights: Continuities and Discontinuities"** - This article discusses the relationship between natural law and contemporary human rights theories, exploring whether early modern natural law should be viewed as a precursor or a distinct development.

4. **"Thomas Hobbes and the Foundations of Natural Law"** - An academic paper that delves into Hobbes' contributions to natural law theory, analyzing his views in the convideo of early modern philosophical debates.

5. **"The Transnational Influence of Natural Law in the Enlightenment"** - This article explores how natural law ideas transcended national boundaries, influencing thinkers across Europe and their educational systems, including connections to the Scottish Enlightenment.

6. **"Samuel Pufendorf and the Modern Natural Law Tradition"** - A scholarly review of Pufendorf's contributions to natural law and how his work bridged confessional religion and secular legal theory, shaping future discourse in the field.

7. **"Reassessing Natural Law in Contemporary Multicultural Societies"** - This article discusses the relevance and application of natural law principles in today's multicultural convideos, focusing on the challenges and opportunities in political and legal frameworks.

8. **"The Legacy of Early Modern Natural Law: Implications for Social Ethics"** - A discussion of how early modern natural law has implications beyond legal and political realms, particularly in areas such as family dynamics, education, and social issues.

These articles collectively provide insights into the historical roots, key debates, and contemporary relevance of natural law theory, paralleling the key points raised in your transcription.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The idea of natural law, the idea of, a norm for,

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human behavior collectively

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and individually, is of course ancient

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and comes up again and again in our history.

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Most people today would probably associated with, the,

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philosophy

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and theology, of the Middle Ages, scholasticism

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as we refer to it.

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Others, or perhaps the same people indeed,

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would associate it with the, social

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and moral teaching of the Catholic church,

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especially in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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Uh, the natural law that I have been concerned with

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for quite some years, happens as it were in between.

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Uh, it belongs in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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Uh, often we rounded, off as early modern,

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and that's okay, provided we in early modern include the

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enlightenment,

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and, considered as such.

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Uh, it was part of the breakup, of the,

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unitary Christian culture.

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In other words, the reformation, it develops,

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in stages, during these couple of centuries

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and a bit,

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and it's overwhelmingly initially,

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a Protestant phenomenon,

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that eventually also is adopted, in its modern form

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or early modern form, in Catholic, cultures as well.

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Something we might, be, returning to.

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Um, but I have now, as indeed you did, refer

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to it in as a unitary thing, as natural law,

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implicit definite article here.

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Uh, and there is something paradoxical about the identity of

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what we are talking about here.

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Um, those who have, particularly studied,

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scholasticism that I mentioned earlier,

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and natural law in that form have often found that,

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early modern natural law, really is just repeating

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what has already been said in one form

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or another, during the middle eighties.

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Um, it's sort of the thin beer of a much more potent brew,

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from an earlier period.

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Uh, then on the other hand, modern scholars

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who have been concerned with, the genealogy of,

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human rights, they have often looked

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to early modern, natural law, as a possible,

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or in some, have found it as a likely, ed,

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of, human rights.

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So, in other words,

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was early modern natural law old hat,

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or was it proto proto modernity?

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That's, the one of the paradoxes,

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and it's the one I refer to in the, work that,

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that you, start from.

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But, the oddity of the identity doesn't end there.

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Um, when people have looked more closely at, the series

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of natural law in, in the early modern period,

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have had great difficulties identifying it,

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as a particular doctrine, it seemed

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to be completely amor, very many different, often

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directly contradictory, philosophies,

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of natural law,

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and that, again, hangs together with, so in other words,

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we have the same question again.

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Is it one thing or is it several different things?

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Uh, and that has again, been reinforced by,

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the descendancy to go, for the big names,

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names like Boo Roaches, Thomas HARs, John Locke,

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Samuel Pandor, Christian Valve,

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those are the big names there.

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Uh, now, just those names would already indicate completely

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different attitudes to natural law.

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Uh, and so, one begins to wonder

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what was this all about?

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And that's indeed what I have been wondering.

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Uh, and, now, I might say

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that I myself come originally,

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from a background in philosophy.

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And so I have been, concerned in all these matters

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with orality

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or not, with the big names,

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and so on, with philosophical coherence,

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or lack thereof, et cetera.

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But when I began to look more closely, at,

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other sources in the period, I found that people had no,

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I no doubt at all that something new had begun,

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sometime, after the reformation in the early,

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to mid 17th century, no doubt at all about that.

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Nor had there any difficulties talking about natural law,

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as one thing in one way or another.

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Uh, and indeed they had many, many more names

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to mention than the ones,

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that we were concerned with here.

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Uh, in other words,

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looked at in purely historical terms

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as distinct from philosophical terms.

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Uh, it is a rather different phenomenon,

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and has to be started.

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I decided, and many others with me, it had

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to be started in a different way, than that of a history

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of philosophy,

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or in the old fashioned sense, history of ideas

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with a capital I, in terms of the, the identity,

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the most striking feature of it in many ways, is,

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that it became an academic discipline or sub-discipline.

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This may may sound surprising that it wasn't already,

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but in fact,

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before the reformation in Catholic culture,

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natural law was part of, the teaching of ethics

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as such, and part of moral theology in, in effect,

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it did not have distinctive separate, professorships

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or similar institutional, settings.

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Uh, and that is new,

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and it flourishes right across, Europe,

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first in Protestant lands,

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and then that becomes imitated, in Catholic universities

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and teaching institutions of various sorts.

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Uh, so that is a very basic identifier,

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that early modern natural law is first and last,

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and academic, discipline.

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Um, and with academic disciplines, as we know,

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go a number of other features, textbooks,

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and, other literary genres.

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Uh, of course, there have been, doctoral

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and other kinds of academic dissertations before,

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but this now became a flourishing feature, of not,

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not least, natural law,

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and published lectures, that were used as textbooks

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or became the basis for major treatises,

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so an academic institution with separate professorships,

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with, literary genres, broadly speaking,

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associated with it.

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Uh, and, then also

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as were a common language, that's to say, first of all,

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literally the language was mostly Latin,

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although in this long period that we are talking about,

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it was more and more,

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translated into the vernacular languages of, of Europe,

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but also a common language in a different sense,

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namely drawing upon, first of all, Roman law,

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the classical civil law and its commentaries,

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and, drawing upon classical literature

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and increasingly modern literature as well,

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and using modern methods,

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that is renaissance humanistic methods,

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in the presentation of this.

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So, it's a crossroads of, a number

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of different things, really.

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But what unites it is that it's taught,

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and that it is, packaged as it were,

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systematically in textbooks,

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and in similar academic, genre.

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Uh, and once you begin

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to identify early modern natural law in this way,

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then you have the framework within which you can then place,

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all the very different philosophies

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that I referred to earlier on.

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Uh, and you can see why people at the time would refer

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to natural law as something that had an institutional

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or academic identity.

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What then went on within that?

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Well, that was a different question,

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or an additional question.

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Uh, a a a kind of analogy is,

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when we talk about political science today, for instance,

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well, as we know, it can be very,

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very many different things when we are told, told

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that a given university has a

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department of political science.

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Well, the next question is, well, what sort

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of political science do they pursue?

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Or philosophy or whatever, it might be.

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Uh, that's somewhat analogous.

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Uh, in terms of the, your question of identity,

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that's a very interesting question,

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and it's one of the ones that, so to speak,

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energized me in, in pursuing this.

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Um, partly

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because I realized that this had to be a collective effort,

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a collaborative effort, with people with

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many more talents, not least linguistic talents than I have,

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but also knowledge of different cultures and so on.

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It is very striking that,

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beginning in the 1660s and seventies,

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and up until roughly the first quarter

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of the 18th century, you have the, have establishment

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of distinctive chairs, prof, professorial chairs,

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in natural law, in,

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I think all of the universities in German speaking lands,

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both, Calvinist and Lutheran.

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Um, but then as soon as you look further afield, you find,

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a similar spread.

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You find it all the way across,

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what we today called Eastern Europe, all the way

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to Sylvania,

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and you find it, of course, also

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in the English speaking world.

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And we might return to the, English speaking world

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as far as England is concerned a bit later.

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But for now, particular importance,

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must be ascribed to Scotland.

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Uh, Scotland, had kept its close relations with,

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continental Europe in many respects, including

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that of law.

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Uh, and natural law was taught in Scottish universities,

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from the, closing years of the, of the 17th century,

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and right through, the famous Scottish Enlightenment

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that meant that it was also immediately exported, so

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to speak, to the British colonies in North America.

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And it is a feature of the teaching

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of the colonial colleges.

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And then later in the 18th century,

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after the independence, in the national universities,

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of North America.

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Uh, and so the, if you like, scholarly in-house joke is,

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that this really was an intellectual culture

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that stretched from Sylvania

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to Pennsylvania, quite literally.

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Uh, and, then there is a further aspect

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that you touched upon earlier, namely, the,

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the Catholic world.

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Uh, and very, very quickly, some Catholic institutions

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begin to, establish their own separate,

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tiers devoted to natural law for the first time ever.

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Uh, and that's a complex history,

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which like all the rest of it really has

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to be written locally or for the local, areas.

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It takes different shapes in the different parts

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of the Catholic world.

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But if one had to make a generalization, it would be

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that on the whole, this modern natural law was adopted

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by institutions that try

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to modernize their teaching in general.

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Um, but it became part of, well, ideological,

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or whatever you want to call it, invites,

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in the various institutions, within, the,

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hubs, world empires,

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and, via especially the Hispanic,

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institutions, it became quite big, in South America,

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again, academically.

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And there it survives remarkably long,

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into the 19th century where we find

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textbooks written originally

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for German universities in the 17, thirties

13:58.625 --> 14:03.285
and forties being invoked in anti-slavery,

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debates, in, in South America, in the 1830s

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and forties, which is highly peculiar.

14:10.585 --> 14:13.245
So, in other words, what I'm saying is that there is a,

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both a geographic

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and a temporal spread, of, of this academic culture

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and German speaking cultural spheres in Germany itself,

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in parts of Scandinavia where I'm sitting now.

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Uh, but it also depends on what it, what it means

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to survive, in survive in some places as

14:38.485 --> 14:42.805
a form, so to speak, where you begin to get,

14:43.165 --> 14:44.645
academic courses and books

14:44.705 --> 14:49.005
and so on, that, combine natural law

14:49.585 --> 14:52.175
and philosophy of law in the title.

14:52.635 --> 14:55.215
And in fact, it is, academically speaking,

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a transition from, one to the other.

14:58.885 --> 15:02.735
What, was called a course in natural law would,

15:02.915 --> 15:06.215
during the 19th century, often be changed into a course,

15:06.275 --> 15:08.615
course in the philosophy of law.

15:09.355 --> 15:12.055
Um, and it could signal more

15:12.055 --> 15:14.855
or less change in terms of the actual content.

15:15.395 --> 15:19.615
But I mean, just to take a quite striking, case of, of

15:19.615 --> 15:21.295
how mixed, these things are.

15:21.755 --> 15:26.095
If you go to, to Hagel,

15:26.755 --> 15:30.775
you know, his great work on, Phil

15:31.865 --> 15:36.575
philosophy of law, it has, a al title page,

15:36.725 --> 15:38.535
that calls it natural law.

15:38.755 --> 15:43.255
So even in one of the media idealist, in the 18,

15:43.675 --> 15:47.535
twenties or so, you have a combination with, so,

15:47.535 --> 15:49.695
in other words, it's not as if it, it runs up

15:49.695 --> 15:51.495
to a specific point, then it's dead.

15:51.835 --> 15:56.295
It peters out. What we can say is that one of the,

15:57.365 --> 16:00.585
traditional histories of when it ends

16:00.685 --> 16:05.305
or how it ends, namely that can killed it off,

16:05.815 --> 16:10.305
that is quite definitely not the case to the contrary.

16:10.925 --> 16:13.025
Uh, the 1790s

16:13.325 --> 16:16.905
and the early years of the 18 hundreds,

16:17.085 --> 16:21.185
saw more natural law books being published than at any other

16:21.275 --> 16:23.905
point, point in the whole history,

16:23.925 --> 16:25.465
of early modern natural law.

16:25.735 --> 16:29.745
What had happened was that canan philosophers,

16:30.295 --> 16:33.825
they simply substitute the basic natural law,

16:34.345 --> 16:35.865
whatever it might have been,

16:36.015 --> 16:40.185
with the canan categorical imperative to put it simply,

16:41.795 --> 16:45.935
and, a different story would have to be told about

16:45.935 --> 16:48.695
how it peters out in, in Scotland,

16:49.075 --> 16:50.415
in the American colonies.

16:50.955 --> 16:55.375
But by, the, 1830s,

16:56.045 --> 16:59.535
it's becoming, a somewhat arcane, beast in,

16:59.595 --> 17:00.655
in most places.

17:01.115 --> 17:03.895
It really is. Let me confess first of all, that I'm a bit

17:03.895 --> 17:08.655
of a relevant skeptic, as, well,

17:08.735 --> 17:10.335
I don't know whether most historians are,

17:10.355 --> 17:13.095
but they ought to be, of course, I would say,

17:13.195 --> 17:17.055
in the sense that if you led your work, guide

17:17.235 --> 17:20.975
by the question, of its, its relevance,

17:23.275 --> 17:27.605
then you build in a conservatism into it,

17:27.605 --> 17:30.965
because you are being led by what you know now, namely,

17:30.965 --> 17:32.925
what you know that is relevant to you.

17:33.785 --> 17:38.525
And so too easily you deprive yourself, of,

17:39.145 --> 17:40.525
the surprise.

17:41.025 --> 17:45.045
Uh, that's really what we are also want, from,

17:45.115 --> 17:48.285
from doing history, like doing other kinds of scholarship

17:48.345 --> 17:49.365
for, for that matter.

17:50.065 --> 17:54.885
Um, in some ways, the story I've been telling you about,

17:55.635 --> 17:58.925
looking at a different way in, on, on early,

17:59.065 --> 18:03.405
at early modern natural law is some ways a a little bit

18:03.405 --> 18:05.605
of a rebellion, as it were,

18:05.605 --> 18:08.805
and trying to be more nerdy, if you like, about,

18:08.895 --> 18:10.805
about the questions that you might ask.

18:10.865 --> 18:15.005
But, to take your, welcome question about relevance.

18:15.005 --> 18:19.795
Seriously, in the grand picture of this,

18:20.415 --> 18:24.435
early modern actual law, was a

18:24.995 --> 18:26.795
repeated attempt,

18:28.635 --> 18:32.575
to find some way in which a multiplicity,

18:32.835 --> 18:35.095
of religions could live together.

18:35.915 --> 18:38.335
In other words, again, to put it quite simply,

18:38.675 --> 18:40.935
to get politics out of religion

18:41.275 --> 18:45.095
or vice versa, get religion out politics,

18:45.595 --> 18:49.535
we can say that on the whole,

18:50.035 --> 18:52.695
it became a renewed strife more than an,

18:52.715 --> 18:55.575
an intellectual strife, and in some cases social strife.

18:55.995 --> 18:59.495
But it was, that was the motivation to try and,

18:59.595 --> 19:02.055
and find some way in which we,

19:02.445 --> 19:05.175
despite our many differences in religious

19:05.235 --> 19:08.335
and other such, transcendental matters,

19:08.875 --> 19:10.015
can live together.

19:10.875 --> 19:13.695
Uh, now it's very difficult,

19:13.845 --> 19:17.735
just opening the newspaper any day now to think of anything

19:17.755 --> 19:19.455
that's more relevant than that.

19:20.475 --> 19:25.255
Uh, and, for my money,

19:25.875 --> 19:30.535
the person, the thinker of this whole,

19:30.995 --> 19:32.455
series that I mentioned,

19:33.835 --> 19:37.185
who's most provocatively interesting in that regard,

19:37.365 --> 19:41.665
is the German, the s Samuel Pdo.

19:41.815 --> 19:44.225
Whereas one, the, the sharpest conceptual

19:44.405 --> 19:47.585
and practical distinctions between confessional religion,

19:48.125 --> 19:51.665
and natural law, in other words, between,

19:51.845 --> 19:55.825
institutionalized religion and politics as we would,

19:56.765 --> 20:01.105
and to the extent, that we want to learn from history,

20:01.105 --> 20:03.065
which I'm always very skeptical about.

20:03.405 --> 20:08.345
Um, but there is here, staff of great interest

20:08.445 --> 20:10.265
as a historian, I want more sources.

20:10.925 --> 20:13.945
Uh, and in this case here,

20:14.965 --> 20:19.945
it means sources that are really, derived

20:20.455 --> 20:22.305
from the multiplicity of places

20:22.445 --> 20:24.385
and times that I indicated earlier.

20:25.125 --> 20:28.505
Uh, we simply do not know enough about, for instance,

20:28.565 --> 20:32.345
why Peter The Great was personally virtually hysterical

20:32.345 --> 20:34.345
about getting a short textbook

20:34.445 --> 20:37.465
by poof translated into Russian,

20:37.965 --> 20:41.425
and why natural law was attempted repeatedly to be a part

20:41.425 --> 20:44.865
of the Russian, modern academic institutions.

20:45.005 --> 20:46.985
We just, we know something about it.

20:47.185 --> 20:48.965
We, we don't know enough about it.

20:49.625 --> 20:53.845
Uh, in a series devoted to all of this that I am running

20:53.845 --> 20:56.725
with a couple of colleagues, we have had,

20:56.725 --> 20:59.325
recent volumes on, east

20:59.345 --> 21:02.525
and middle, Europe, how it was adopted there,

21:03.465 --> 21:06.805
and how it was adopted, not only at university level,

21:07.105 --> 21:11.765
but also at somewhat well, not in any derogatory sense,

21:11.985 --> 21:13.725
but, pre university levels.

21:14.105 --> 21:17.005
For instance. We know that it was taught at military

21:17.155 --> 21:20.605
academies, at Eria, and so on.

21:21.345 --> 21:24.885
But we know, precious little about exactly

21:24.995 --> 21:26.045
what went on there

21:26.825 --> 21:29.645
and how it, from there went into a wider culture

21:30.305 --> 21:31.445
so that we can connect.

21:31.445 --> 21:33.925
And this is really continuing my answer to your question.

21:34.065 --> 21:36.365
We need to know more about it in order

21:36.385 --> 21:39.675
to connect productively with other areas

21:39.775 --> 21:44.115
of historical scholarship, in philosophy, in political,

21:44.115 --> 21:47.795
institutional, history and, and and so on.

21:48.415 --> 21:50.355
And that's exactly what we are trying to do.

21:50.695 --> 21:54.355
And particularly, very good younger colleagues.

21:54.895 --> 21:59.395
And we have built up a database, of natural lawyers,

22:00.095 --> 22:02.035
that is searchable.

22:02.295 --> 22:05.195
And so we can follow both in timelines

22:05.375 --> 22:09.835
and geographical lines, the well, the diaspora of this,

22:10.295 --> 22:14.995
and begin to see how it interacts locally with election of,

22:15.175 --> 22:19.315
electoral, systems for kings,

22:19.375 --> 22:22.555
how it is used in city states, that

22:22.555 --> 22:26.035
otherwise are Republican in, in nature and, and so on.

22:26.655 --> 22:29.875
Uh, there's a, there's just a, a treasure trove,

22:30.015 --> 22:33.395
for any one or any one of these that we want to look at.

22:34.135 --> 22:38.435
Uh, and of course, part of the motivation

22:38.535 --> 22:42.995
for this is that it's difficult,

22:43.055 --> 22:44.675
and that's always the motivation.

22:45.135 --> 22:48.395
But then, to just, one more point about,

22:48.655 --> 22:49.715
what we need.

22:49.775 --> 22:50.875
We need translations.

22:51.535 --> 22:53.315
Uh, few people have the Latin,

22:53.495 --> 22:55.675
and it was dominated by Latin.

22:56.295 --> 23:01.155
And so even the very major figures like gs, like,

23:01.255 --> 23:05.675
pdo, they simply, have either not been translated,

23:06.135 --> 23:07.315
at all.

23:07.695 --> 23:09.675
Uh, many of the works haven't,

23:09.895 --> 23:11.835
or the translations are ancient.

23:11.835 --> 23:14.555
They're really old, and we need modern translations

23:14.695 --> 23:19.115
and commentaries on them to make it accessible, for,

23:19.495 --> 23:22.675
well, for, a wider, audience.

23:24.015 --> 23:28.475
And we need, to look outside

23:28.475 --> 23:30.515
of the purely political aspect of this.

23:30.975 --> 23:32.675
Uh, all of these natural lawyers

23:33.345 --> 23:37.315
have very interesting things to say about, well,

23:37.415 --> 23:40.715
the structure of family life, for instance,

23:41.175 --> 23:42.395
et cetera, et cetera.

23:42.395 --> 23:44.875
So, I could go on with,

23:45.465 --> 23:49.285
Uh, a wishlist, for things that, that

23:49.945 --> 23:53.805
are really inviting to do, inviting historically,

23:53.865 --> 23:58.605
but also inviting for, sharpening of our wits about

23:58.985 --> 24:00.605
who we are and how we do things.

"Exploring the Evolution and Paradoxes of Natural Law in Historical Context"

00:00:00 - The idea of natural law, the idea of, a norm for, human behavior collectively and individually, is of course ancient and comes up again and again in our history. Most people today would probably associated with, the, philosophy and theology, of the Middle Ages, scholasticism as we refer to it. Others, or perhaps the same people indeed, would associate it with the, social and moral teaching of the Catholic church, especially in the 20th and 21st centuries. the natural law that I have been concerned with for quite some years, happens as it were in between.
00:00:48 - often we rounded, off as early modern, and that's okay, provided we in early modern include the enlightenment, and, considered as such. it was part of the breakup, of the, unitary Christian culture. In other words, the reformation, it develops, in stages, during these couple of centuries and a bit, and it's overwhelmingly initially, a Protestant phenomenon,
00:01:29 - or early modern form, in Catholic, cultures as well. Something we might, be, returning to. but I have now, as indeed you did, refer to it in as a unitary thing, as natural law, implicit definite article here. and there is something paradoxical about the identity of what we are talking about here. those who have, particularly studied, scholasticism that I mentioned earlier, and natural law in that form have often found that,
00:02:12 - what has already been said in one form or another, during the middle eighties. it's sort of the thin beer of a much more potent brew, from an earlier period. then on the other hand, modern scholars who have been concerned with, the genealogy of, human rights, they have often looked to early modern, natural law, as a possible, or in some, have found it as a likely, ed, of, human rights.
00:02:49 - was early modern natural law old hat, or was it proto proto modernity? That's, the one of the paradoxes, and it's the one I refer to in the, work that, that you, start from. But, the oddity of the identity doesn't end there. when people have looked more closely at, the series of natural law in, in the early modern period, have had great difficulties identifying it, as a particular doctrine, it seemed to be completely amor, very many different, often
00:03:32 - of natural law, and that, again, hangs together with, so in other words, we have the same question again. Is it one thing or is it several different things? and that has again, been reinforced by, the descendancy to go, for the big names, names like Boo Roaches, Thomas HARs, John Locke, Samuel Pandor, Christian Valve, those are the big names there. now, just those names would already indicate completely different attitudes to natural law. and so, one begins to wonder

"The Emergence of Natural Law as an Academic Discipline in Early Modern Europe"

00:04:14 - And that's indeed what I have been wondering. and, now, I might say that I myself come originally, from a background in philosophy. And so I have been, concerned in all these matters with orality or not, with the big names, and so on, with philosophical coherence, or lack thereof, et cetera. But when I began to look more closely, at, other sources in the period, I found that people had no, I no doubt at all that something new had begun,
00:04:57 - to mid 17th century, no doubt at all about that. Nor had there any difficulties talking about natural law, as one thing in one way or another. and indeed they had many, many more names to mention than the ones, that we were concerned with here. in other words, looked at in purely historical terms as distinct from philosophical terms. it is a rather different phenomenon, and has to be started. I decided, and many others with me, it had
00:05:40 - of philosophy, or in the old fashioned sense, history of ideas with a capital I, in terms of the, the identity, the most striking feature of it in many ways, is, that it became an academic discipline or sub-discipline. This may may sound surprising that it wasn't already, but in fact, before the reformation in Catholic culture, natural law was part of, the teaching of ethics as such, and part of moral theology in, in effect,
00:06:21 - or similar institutional, settings. and that is new, and it flourishes right across, Europe, first in Protestant lands, and then that becomes imitated, in Catholic universities and teaching institutions of various sorts. so that is a very basic identifier, that early modern natural law is first and last, and academic, discipline. and with academic disciplines, as we know,
00:07:04 - and, other literary genres. of course, there have been, doctoral and other kinds of academic dissertations before, but this now became a flourishing feature, of not, not least, natural law, and published lectures, that were used as textbooks or became the basis for major treatises, so an academic institution with separate professorships, with, literary genres, broadly speaking,
00:07:42 - and, then also as were a common language, that's to say, first of all, literally the language was mostly Latin, although in this long period that we are talking about, it was more and more, translated into the vernacular languages of, of Europe, but also a common language in a different sense, namely drawing upon, first of all, Roman law, the classical civil law and its commentaries, and, drawing upon classical literature

"Exploring the Academic Evolution of Early Modern Natural Law: A Crossroads of Philosophy and Institutional Identity"

00:08:25 - and using modern methods, that is renaissance humanistic methods, in the presentation of this. So, it's a crossroads of, a number of different things, really. But what unites it is that it's taught, and that it is, packaged as it were, systematically in textbooks, and in similar academic, genre. and once you begin to identify early modern natural law in this way,
00:09:06 - all the very different philosophies that I referred to earlier on. and you can see why people at the time would refer to natural law as something that had an institutional or academic identity. What then went on within that? Well, that was a different question, or an additional question. a a a kind of analogy is, when we talk about political science today, for instance, well, as we know, it can be very, very many different things when we are told, told that a given university has a
00:09:45 - Well, the next question is, well, what sort of political science do they pursue? Or philosophy or whatever, it might be. that's somewhat analogous. in terms of the, your question of identity, that's a very interesting question, and it's one of the ones that, so to speak, energized me in, in pursuing this. partly because I realized that this had to be a collective effort, a collaborative effort, with people with many more talents, not least linguistic talents than I have, but also knowledge of different cultures and so on. It is very striking that,
00:10:31 - and up until roughly the first quarter of the 18th century, you have the, have establishment of distinctive chairs, prof, professorial chairs, in natural law, in, I think all of the universities in German speaking lands, both, Calvinist and Lutheran. but then as soon as you look further afield, you find, a similar spread. You find it all the way across, what we today called Eastern Europe, all the way
00:11:09 - and you find it, of course, also in the English speaking world. And we might return to the, English speaking world as far as England is concerned a bit later. But for now, particular importance, must be ascribed to Scotland. Scotland, had kept its close relations with, continental Europe in many respects, including that of law. and natural law was taught in Scottish universities, from the, closing years of the, of the 17th century,
00:11:51 - that meant that it was also immediately exported, so to speak, to the British colonies in North America. And it is a feature of the teaching of the colonial colleges. And then later in the 18th century, after the independence, in the national universities, of North America. and so the, if you like, scholarly in-house joke is, that this really was an intellectual culture that stretched from Sylvania to Pennsylvania, quite literally. and, then there is a further aspect

"Evolution and Influence of Natural Law in the Catholic Academic Tradition"

00:12:32 - the Catholic world. and very, very quickly, some Catholic institutions begin to, establish their own separate, tiers devoted to natural law for the first time ever. and that's a complex history, which like all the rest of it really has to be written locally or for the local, areas. It takes different shapes in the different parts of the Catholic world. But if one had to make a generalization, it would be that on the whole, this modern natural law was adopted
00:13:16 - to modernize their teaching in general. but it became part of, well, ideological, or whatever you want to call it, invites, in the various institutions, within, the, hubs, world empires, and, via especially the Hispanic, institutions, it became quite big, in South America, again, academically. And there it survives remarkably long, into the 19th century where we find textbooks written originally
00:13:58 - and forties being invoked in anti-slavery, debates, in, in South America, in the 1830s and forties, which is highly peculiar. So, in other words, what I'm saying is that there is a, both a geographic and a temporal spread, of, of this academic culture and German speaking cultural spheres in Germany itself, in parts of Scandinavia where I'm sitting now. but it also depends on what it, what it means to survive, in survive in some places as
00:14:43 - academic courses and books and so on, that, combine natural law and philosophy of law in the title. And in fact, it is, academically speaking, a transition from, one to the other. What, was called a course in natural law would, during the 19th century, often be changed into a course, course in the philosophy of law. and it could signal more or less change in terms of the actual content. But I mean, just to take a quite striking, case of, of
00:15:21 - If you go to, to Hagel, you know, his great work on, Phil philosophy of law, it has, a al title page, that calls it natural law. So even in one of the media idealist, in the 18, twenties or so, you have a combination with, so, in other words, it's not as if it, it runs up to a specific point, then it's dead. It peters out. What we can say is that one of the, traditional histories of when it ends
00:16:05 - that is quite definitely not the case to the contrary. the 1790s and the early years of the 18 hundreds, saw more natural law books being published than at any other point, point in the whole history, of early modern natural law. What had happened was that canan philosophers, they simply substitute the basic natural law, whatever it might have been, with the canan categorical imperative to put it simply,

"Exploring the Relevance of Early Modern Natural Law in a Diverse Religious Landscape"

00:16:45 - how it peters out in, in Scotland, in the American colonies. But by, the, 1830s, it's becoming, a somewhat arcane, beast in, in most places. It really is. Let me confess first of all, that I'm a bit of a relevant skeptic, as, well, I don't know whether most historians are, but they ought to be, of course, I would say, in the sense that if you led your work, guide by the question, of its, its relevance,
00:17:27 - because you are being led by what you know now, namely, what you know that is relevant to you. And so too easily you deprive yourself, of, the surprise. that's really what we are also want, from, from doing history, like doing other kinds of scholarship for, for that matter. in some ways, the story I've been telling you about, looking at a different way in, on, on early, at early modern natural law is some ways a a little bit
00:18:05 - and trying to be more nerdy, if you like, about, about the questions that you might ask. But, to take your, welcome question about relevance. Seriously, in the grand picture of this, early modern actual law, was a repeated attempt, to find some way in which a multiplicity, of religions could live together. In other words, again, to put it quite simply, to get politics out of religion or vice versa, get religion out politics,
00:18:50 - it became a renewed strife more than an, an intellectual strife, and in some cases social strife. But it was, that was the motivation to try and, and find some way in which we, despite our many differences in religious and other such, transcendental matters, can live together. now it's very difficult, just opening the newspaper any day now to think of anything that's more relevant than that. and, for my money,
00:19:30 - series that I mentioned, who's most provocatively interesting in that regard, is the German, the s Samuel Pdo. Whereas one, the, the sharpest conceptual and practical distinctions between confessional religion, and natural law, in other words, between, institutionalized religion and politics as we would, and to the extent, that we want to learn from history, which I'm always very skeptical about. but there is here, staff of great interest
00:20:10 - and in this case here, it means sources that are really, derived from the multiplicity of places and times that I indicated earlier. we simply do not know enough about, for instance, why Peter The Great was personally virtually hysterical about getting a short textbook by poof translated into Russian, and why natural law was attempted repeatedly to be a part of the Russian, modern academic institutions. We just, we know something about it. We, we don't know enough about it.

"Exploring the Adoption and Impact of Natural Law in Eastern and Central Europe"

00:20:53 - with a couple of colleagues, we have had, recent volumes on, east and middle, Europe, how it was adopted there, and how it was adopted, not only at university level, but also at somewhat well, not in any derogatory sense, but, pre university levels. For instance. We know that it was taught at military academies, at Eria, and so on. But we know, precious little about exactly what went on there and how it, from there went into a wider culture
00:21:31 - And this is really continuing my answer to your question. We need to know more about it in order to connect productively with other areas of historical scholarship, in philosophy, in political, institutional, history and, and and so on. And that's exactly what we are trying to do. And particularly, very good younger colleagues. And we have built up a database, of natural lawyers, that is searchable. And so we can follow both in timelines and geographical lines, the well, the diaspora of this, and begin to see how it interacts locally with election of,
00:22:19 - how it is used in city states, that otherwise are Republican in, in nature and, and so on. there's a, there's just a, a treasure trove, for any one or any one of these that we want to look at. and of course, part of the motivation for this is that it's difficult, and that's always the motivation. But then, to just, one more point about, what we need. We need translations. few people have the Latin, and it was dominated by Latin.
00:23:01 - pdo, they simply, have either not been translated, at all. many of the works haven't, or the translations are ancient. They're really old, and we need modern translations and commentaries on them to make it accessible, for, well, for, a wider, audience. And we need, to look outside of the purely political aspect of this. all of these natural lawyers have very interesting things to say about, well,
00:23:58 - et cetera, et cetera. So, I could go on with, a wishlist, for things that, that are really inviting to do, inviting historically, but also inviting for, sharpening of our wits about who we are and how we do things.

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