The history of modern ethics and rational natural law

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 The complete reference is T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. From Suarez to Rousseau, Oxford University Press (Oxford, 2008). 2 T. Irwin, Plato's Ethics Oxford University Press (Oxford, 1995). 3 Irwin, however, has provided a detailed explanation of Aristotle's ethical thought in Aristotle's First Principles, Oxford University Press (Oxford, 1988) and Aristotle: Introductory Readings (with G. Fine), Hackett Publishing Co., 1996. 4 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. I, 4. 5 A classical paradigm is M. Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr 1934. A recent book is R. Münch, The Ethics of Modernity: Formation and Transformation in Britain, France, Germany, and the USA, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield (Lanham, 2001) 68-85. 6 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. I, viii. See also the “prefatory note” to vol. II. 7 Cf. K. Haakonssen, Natural law and moral philosophy. From Grotius to the Scottish Enlightenment Darthmoud (Ashgate, 1999), 15 ss. 8 Pufendorf, S. Of the Law of Nature and Nations. Eight Books. Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Science of Morality, and the Progress It has Made in the World, From the Earliest Times Down to the Publication of This Work (London, 1729) Printed for J. Walthoe, R. Wilkin, [et. al.]. 9 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II, 71. 10 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II, 178. 11 See, for an opposing view, the classical explanation of G. Rodis-Lewis, La Morale de Descartes (Paris, 1962) Presses Universitaires de France. A recent approach is T. Sorell, ‘Morals and modernity in Descartes’, ed. T. Sorell, The Rise of Modern Philosophy: The Tension between the New and Traditional Philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz, 273-88. 12 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 203. 13 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 204. 14 See R. Münch, The Ethics of Modernity, especially chapters 3-5. 15 See the historiographical approaches ed. A. Pagden, The languages of political theory in early-modern Europe (Cambridge, CUP, 1987). 16 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 280. 17 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 343. 18 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 354. 19 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 410. 20 See I. Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England 1660-1780. 2 vols. (Cambridge CUP, 1991, 2000). 21 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 614-17. 22 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 713. 23 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 714-15. 24 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. II. 810. 25 As I write this review, the third volume has not been published, so I cannot be sure of this intuition. 26 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, Oxford University Press (Oxford, 1995), 356-60. 27 A. MacIntyre, ‘In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries episodes in the history of moral philosophy are sometimes treated not primarily in terms of this division into periods, but rather in terms dictated by some philosophical scheme informed by its author's own larger purpose’, 357. 28 H. Sidgwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers, Macmillan (London, 1886). 29 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 358. 30 A. MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (New York, Macmillan, 1966, 1998) 2nd ed. 31 V. Camps (coord.), Historia de la Ética, 3 vol. (Barcelona, Crítica, 1987). 32 Ed. L. C. Becker and C. B. Becker, A History of Western Ethics (New York and London, Routledge, 1992). 33 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. I, 434-652. 34 Irwin changes the sense of J. B. Schneewind's interpretation of Modern moral philosophy. Schneewind comments on the importance of “the Socrates story”, but he does not agree with the idea that a Socratic tradition that unifies the history of ethics exists. See J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1998) 534 ss. 35 T. Irwin, The development of Ethics, vol. I, 9. 36 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 358. 37 See the historiographical approach of J. Inglis, Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy Brill (Leiden, 1998). 38 For example, K. Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy. Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Polite Press (Cambridge, 2007). 39 Ed. V. Mäkinen, P. Korman, Transformations in medieval and early-modern rights discourse, Springer (Dordrecht, 2006). See also A. de Muralt, ‘La structure de la philosophie politique moderne d’Occam à Rousseau’, in Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie (Genève 1978). 40 A classical approach is M. Villey, Formation de la pensée juridique moderne Montchrestien (Paris, 1968

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