ABSTRACTIf war is an inevitable condition of human nature, as David Hume suggests, then what type of societies can best protect us from defeat and conquest? For David Hume, commerce decreases the relative cost of war and promotes technological military advances as well as martial spirit. Commerce therefore makes a country militarily stronger and better equipped to protect itself against attacks than any other kind of society. Hume does not assume commerce would yield a peaceful world nor that commercial societies (...) would be militarily weak, as many contemporary scholars have argued. On the contrary, for him, military might is a beneficial consequence of commerce. (shrink)

This article explores the debate about the virtues and otherwise of luxury in French eighteenth- and nineteenth political thought. I begin by contrasting the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Jean-Francois Melon. In view of the manner in which this argument was developed by Montesquieu, Diderot, Saint-Lambert, and others, I argue that debates about luxury continued into and beyond the French Revolution of 1789. Then, by looking at the writings of Jean-Baptiste Say and Destutt de Tracy the article demonstrates the coninued (...) prominence of debates about luxury in the early years of the nineteenth century and the enduring nature of the arguments posed by Rousseau against immoderate wealth amongst republicans. It concludes by referring to discussions of luxury in the Second Empire. (shrink)

Montesquieu's respect for moderation is almost universally acknowledged, but not very well understood. In recent scholarship, his moderation has been interpreted as inclusive and pluralistic with a view to the range of regimes that are hospitable to liberty. This paper challenges this currently dominant interpretation of Montesquieu by revisiting his understanding of moderation. On reflection, he does not simply discourage radical change, he even provides advice as to when and how such change is to be enacted. French absolute monarchy requires (...) fundamental change, not least because monarchy as such is not sufficiently accommodating to liberty. While the English commercial republic is better suited to liberty than French monarchy, there is no doubt that monarchy is more attractive than commercial republicanism. Montesquieu offers a profound and perhaps unsettling account of the possible incompatibility of honour, generosity and greatness of spirit, on the one hand, and safety and liberty, on the other. (shrink)

This article focuses on the history of the concept of natural law and the role which Aristotle, and especially his Rhetoric, has to play within it. It is sometimes suggested that the origins of the concept of natural law are to be located in the writings of Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century BCE. The article argues that there is evidence both in Aristotle's Politics and in his Rhetoric to support the view that this is not the case. In (...) these texts Aristotle suggests that the origins of the concept of natural law lie in the writings of the Sophists in the fifth century, some of whom used natural law arguments to question the legitimacy of slavery. (shrink)

Rousseau has recently been situated within the Enlightenment debates over whether increasing commerce would make people more gentle, peaceable and tolerant. This article attempts the first systematic analysis of Rousseau's works in view of this debate, and finds that his response is more complex than has previously been established. His primary aim was not to deny that cultural modernization decreases human harshness, but to show that this results more in a flabby 'softness' than an enlightened 'gentleness'. Nonetheless, he conceded that (...) certain forms of gentleness may result from diversion, weakness and indifference, and that this may be the best cultural strategy for irrevocably corrupt modern states. Distinguishing these two aspects of his response to modernization allows us to forge a middle position between scholars who see Rousseau as overwhelmingly opposed to doux commerce, and more recent contentions that he should be seen as a fundamentally moderate thinker who pragmatically accommodates the conditions of modernity. (shrink)

Il y a une énigme de Montesquieu, puisque ce représentant d'un monde que vinrent démembrer les révolutions successives demeure d'un apport réel dans l'argumentation des grands débats de la modernité. Pour tenter de circonscrire cette énigme, voire de l'élucider, Jean Ehrard prend le parti de presser Montesquieu d'un faisceau de questions originales, touchant la quête du bonheur, l'idée de souveraineté, ou bien encore l'Inquisition et la superstition. Des interrogations précises ainsi multipliées permettent de mieux approcher l'homme et sa personnalité. L'impossible (...) portrait s'affine lorsqu'il saisit Montesquieu dans ses relations avec ses contemporains, précisant par exemple son approche de Voltaire comme, en aval, la lecture que firent de son œuvre Rousseau, Diderot et Condorcet. (shrink)