Irwin, T. H. --- "Some modern conceptions of natural law" [2019] ELECD 2207; in Crowe, Jonathan; Lee, Y. Constance (eds), "Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 105

Book Title: Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory

Editor(s): Crowe, Jonathan; Lee, Y. Constance

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Some modern conceptions of natural law

Author(s): Irwin, T. H.

Number of pages: 24

Abstract/Description:

Terence Irwin’s chapter examines some divergent conceptions of natural law in the work of early modern authors. He considers the question of whether 17th-century theories should be viewed as making a distinctive - and even ground-breaking - contribution to the natural law tradition. Irwin identifies Jean Barbeyrac as an influential defender of the distinctiveness of 17th-century natural law theorists. Barbeyrac sees Hugo Grotius as a pioneer who radically modernised the natural law perspective. However, Irwin argues that Barbeyrac’s view contains a number of serious errors. First, Barbeyrac misinterprets Grotius, ascribing to him innovations that are better traced to Samuel Pufendorf (and, in the process, disregarding Pufendorf’s criticisms of Grotius). Second, Barbeyrac overlooks flaws in both Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s understandings of the different options in the dispute between voluntarism and naturalism. The true innovator, Irwin argues, was Francisco Suarez, who charted a middle way between extreme versions of these two positions. However, Grotius, Pufendorf, and other early modern thinkers failed to fully grasp the nature and importance of Suarez’s conceptual innovation. They therefore moved natural law thinking backwards, rather than forwards.