Natural Law and Natural Rights

The essays selected here for translation derive largely from Thomasius’s work on Staatskirchenrecht, or the political jurisprudence of church law. These works, originating as disputations, theses, and pamphlets, were direct… more

First published in 1688, Thomasius’s Institutes attempted to draw a clear distinction between natural and revealed law and to emphasize that human reason was able to know the precepts of natural law without the aid of Scripture. His… more

The natural law theory of Johann Gottlieb Heineccius was one of the most influential to emerge from the early German Enlightenment. Heineccius continued and, in important respects, modified the ideas of his predecessors, Samuel… more

This collections contains his philosophical writings on Locke, natural law, Thomas More, and Machiavelli; his historical writings on the Glorious Revolution, his defence of the French Revolution Vindiciae Gallicae; and several of his… more

In this series of letters to Lord Braugham, Hodgskin distinguishes between the natural right of property (based upon Lockean principles of natural law) and the artificial right of property (which is decreed by parliament). He… more

Originally published in German in 1936, The Natural Law is the first work to clarify the differences between traditional natural law as represented in the writings of Cicero, Aquinas, and Hooker and the revolutionary doctrines of… more

Even this is entitled “The First” it is the only part Spooner published. It was meant to be the opening section of a much larger treatise on natural law. It is interesting because Spooner outlines the basic principles of the thinking… more

A translation by F.W. Maitland of part of vol. 3 of Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht (1881) entitled “Die publicistischen Lehren des Mittelalters.” It is a short history of the evolution of modern political thought which emerged… more

The Treatise on the laws is Cicero’s imitation of Plato’s dialogue The Laws where he develops a Stoic theory of natural law as right reason. This book became very influential during the middle ages.

The bulk of the selections in this volume are from A Treatise on Laws and God the Lawgiver (1612). In the Treatise Suárez presented a systematic account of human moral activity in all its dimensions, synthesizing the entire… more

This Liberty Fund publication of Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria is a parallel edition of the English and Latin versions of a book designed by Hutcheson for use in the classroom.

Spencer’s first major work of political philosophy in which he attempts to lay the basis for a limited state on a rigorous development of a doctrine of natural rights. He begins with a defense of his “first principle” ’that every… more

A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, first appeared in 1672 as a theoretical response to a range of issues that came together during the late 1660s. It argued that science might offer an effective means of demonstrating the contents and… more

This was Pufendorf’s first work, published in 1660. Its appearance inaugurated the modern natural-law movement in the German-speaking world. The work also established Pufendorf as a key figure and laid the foundations for his major… more

Locke’s most famous work of political philosophy began as a reply to Filmer’s defense of the idea of the divine right of kings and ended up becoming a defense of natural rights, especially property rights, and of government limited… more

Vol. 2 of a 4 vol. collection of the works of Thomas Paine. Vol. 2 (1779-1792) contains the Letter to Abbey Raynal, Dissertations on Government, The Rights of Man (1 and 2) and various articles.