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The 17th century was an important period in the development of natural law theories. The crises and revolutions of the mid-century prompted many thinkers to see civil and economic relations as being based on natural law and natural… more

Up until the 19th century the dominant grounds for defending individual liberty had been that of natural rights. Jeremy Bentham and his followers in the first half of the 19th century shifted the grounds to that of utility, viz. that… more

The Utilitarians were 19th century British political theorists and journalists who believed that the principle which should govern the actions of government is that which will produce “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”… more

The Early Church Fathers consisted of the group of Christian theologians who were active in the first five centuries of the Christian Church. They interpreted Christian doctrine, laid down the canonical texts, and created the… more

Liberty Fund recorded conversations with two dozen of the most original thinkers about liberty of our times, and these conversations are available on audio and/or video online. They included Armen A. Alchian, Manuel Ayau, Jacques… more

The intellectual struggle to articulate the theory of classical liberalism was often as hard fought as the physical battle for its political realization. The Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics Series presents not only some of the… more

The natural law and natural rights tradition emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries and argues that the world is governed by natural laws which are discoverable by human reason. A key aspect of this intellectual tradition is the… more

What does it mean to be a human? What is the best life to live, and how can we live it? These questions, and the texts which explore them, have long guided humanity in its struggle to understand itself.

Puritanism arose in 16th and 17th century England as a continuation of the Protestant Reformation. Adherents believed that the English Reformation had not gone far enough, that many aspects of the Church of England needed further… more

Liberty is an idea and an idealized state of being that can be traced through many of the religious traditions of the world. Across time periods, theological differences, and cultural contexts, many different religious thinkers have… more

The Four Evangelists are the authors of the “gospels”, the first four books of the New Testament.

The Philosophical Radicals were a group of British reformers in the early and mid-19th century who were inspired by the ideas of Jeremy Bentham. Their group included James Mill, Francis Place, George Grote, John Stuart Mill, and… more

The Protestant Reformation was the European religious movement which appeared in the early 16th century and which sought to reform what was regarded as serious problems within the Catholic Church. These problems were doctrinal,… more

The Stoics were originally members of of school of philosophy which emerged in Ancient Greece (the founder was Zeno) and which had a number of important and influential members during the Roman Republic and Empire, such as Cicero,… more