Natural Law: A Translation of the Textbook for Kants Lectures on Legal and Political Philosophy

(Hardback)

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As the first translation into any modern language of Achenwalls Ius naturae, from the 1763 edition used by Immanuel Kant, this open access book is an essential work for students and Kant scholars. For over twenty years, Kant used this book as the basis for his lectures on natural law. It has influenced his legal and political philosophy, as well as his ethics, and is indispensable for understanding Kants Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law and his Metaphysics of Morals. Achenwalls Ius naturae focuses on the fundamental principles of legal and political philosophy. It first discusses the natural rights and obligations pertaining to the relations of humans independently of their membership in particular communities, and then discusses those pertaining to the family, the state, and international relations. Articulating his theory with clear definitions, precise distinctions, and instructive comparisons with the work of Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Wolff, and others, Achenwall offers a lucid account that fits squarely in the natural law tradition. His handbook is of interest to scholars of natural law, social contract theory, and the history of political theory more generally. This is a complete English translation of both volumes of the 1763 edition. The volume also includes an Introduction by eminent Kant scholar Paul Guyer, comparing Achenwalls theory to the legal and political philosophy of Kants Doctrine of Right. Moreover, the volume features a concordance correlating the Ius naturae to Kants Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Dutch Research Council.

Reviews

An essential source that will be of great interest to anyone working on Kants political writings, legal history and history of political thought. * Arthur Ripstein, Professor of Law and Philosophy, University of Toronto, Canada *
Corinna Vermeulens translation of Achenwalls work allows us to access this neglected thinkers philosophy. We can use this volume to see how Kant developed his own positions in response, particularly in Kants course lecture using Achenwalls book as a text but also in his published writings. Its important for understanding Kants political philosophy to see that he was responding to others besides Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke. * Frederick Rauscher, Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University, USA *
This is an invaluable volume. No branch of Kants philosophy relies more on historical context than his legal thought, and Achenwall holds the key to it. Scholars interested in the philosophy of law and its history will welcome this book, particularly those whose native tongue is not Latin. * Jens Timmermann, Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of St Andrews, United Kingdom *
This first English translation makes easily accessible to scholars the handbook on which Kant commented in his courses on natural right, providing an indispensable, yet largely overlooked resource for a better understanding of Kants juridical and political thought. Corinna Vermeulens competent translation, which includes helpful emendations to the Latin text, is an important contribution to the studies on the wide-ranging German discussion on natural law theory. * Stefano Bacin, Senior Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy, Universit degli Studi di Milano, Italy *

Author Bio

Pauline Kleingeld is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. She is the author of Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship (2012) and Fortschritt und Vernunft: Zur Geschichtsphilosophie Kants (1995). Corinna Vermeulen (PhD Utrecht, 2007) is a professional translator and has translated Latin works by Grotius, Descartes, and Spinoza. Paul Guyer is the Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at Brown University, USA. He is the author of eleven books on the philosophy of Kant, most recently Virtues of Freedom (2016) and Kant on the Rationality of Morality (2019), as well as of A History of Modern Aesthetics in three volumes (2014).