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Montesquieu and Empiricism in Natural Law

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Montesquieu and the Philosophy of Natural Law

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Abstract

It is often suggested that Montesquieu’s attitude to natural law was more empirical than that of the School of Natural Law in that it was more firmly based on physical realities and concrete facts and less on metaphysical ideas. This claim merits careful consideration, not only because it has a bearing on his whole conception of natural morality, but also because we find it expressed by some of his most shrewd interpreters.

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Notes

  1. Lois, vol. III, p. 287; cf. also Oudin, Le Spinozisme de Montesquieu, p. 63; Gotta, Montesquieu e la scienza délia società, pp. 356-61; Vernière, Spinoza et la pensée française, vol. II, pp. 456-7.

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  2. M., p. 252.

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  3. See Shackleton’s helpful analysis, M., p. 251.

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  4. Cf. Alengry, op. cit., pp. 393-4.

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  5. Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes [1755], in The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, edited by G. E. Vaughan, Cambridge University Press, 1915, vol. I, pp. 148–52.

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  6. Cf. Ehrard, L’Idée de nature, vol. II, pp. 472–3.

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  7. In particular, he emphasized the dangers and uncertainties of the state of nature, as Hobbes had done: Dn., II, ii, 12, p. 168, and Dv., II, i, 9, pp. 253-4.

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  8. Op. cit., p. 114.

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  9. M. had first criticized this law in the L.p.: Letter GXX, N. I, iii, pp. 239-40, Pl. I, pp. 309-10.

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  10. Op. cit., Part I, III, vi, vol. I, p. 242.

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  11. 1752: 16th Proposition: see Beyer, ‘Montesquieu et la censure religieuse’, p. 127, n. 1.

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  12. W. Stark, Montesquieu, Pioneer of the Sociology of Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960, p. 196.

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  13. In this passage, Pufendorf was talking mainly of crimes where the offender has already offered restitution for the damage done, but he seems to go on to apply the principle to all crimes, as he does in Dn., VIII, iii, 4, vol. II, p. 376.

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  14. Brethe de la Gressaye, Lois, vol. III, p. 438, n. 36, to p. 278.

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  15. See below, Ch. 6, II

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  16. Lois, vol. III, p. 287.

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  17. Cf. P. Vernière, ‘L’Idée d’humanité au XVIIIe siècle’, Studium Generale, 1962, pp. 171. 9.

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  18. Op. cit., Traité des lois, i, I, vol. I, p. i.

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  19. Ibid., Le Droit public, Preface, vol. II, p. [viii].

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  20. Dn., VI, i, 2-5, vol. II, pp. 150-3; cf. Gravina, Origines iuris civilis, II, iv, p. 238.

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  21. Op. cit., Traité des lois, iii, 1-2, vol. I, p. iv.

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  22. In the Latin: “non per modicum tempus, sed diu: vel etiam per totam vitam” (S. Thomœ Aquinatis Summa totius theologiœ, Antwerp, Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1585, Secunda secundæ, p. 303).

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  23. Though Pufendorf did mention that marriage had been instituted by God, it was only in passing (Dn., VI, i, 2, vol.II p. 150).

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  24. Le Spinozisme de Montesquieu, pp. 36–7.

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  25. Montesquieu e la scienza della sociétà, p. 192.

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  26. Dg., II, v, 2-6, vol. I, pp. 279-81; Pufendorf, Dn., VI, ii, 7-12, vol. II, pp. 192-9; T.T., II, vi, 58-65, pp. 324-9.

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  27. The same reasoning is found in S.t., II, ii, Q. 154, A. 9, vol. XIII, pp. 153-4.

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  28. We are here considering only the Lois; in P. 205 (Bkn. 1928), N. II, pp. 74-7, Pl. I, pp. 1463-5, M. did not consider incest to be unnatural, but he did refer to the principle of respect.

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  29. Montesquieu e la scienza della società, p. 368.

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  30. Cf. Crocker, Nature and Culture, pp. 360–1.

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  31. Observations sur le livre de l’Esprit des lois, p. 214.

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  32. Les Confessions, II, in Œuvres complètes, edited by B. Gagnebin and M. Raymond, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, vol. I, 1962, p. 69.

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  33. M., p. 253.

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  34. Ibid., pp. 255-6.

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  35. Ibid., p. 256.

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  36. De finibus bonorum et malorum, III, v–vii; in the Loeb edition, pp. 232-45; St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans, VII, 22-3.

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  37. In S.t., II, i, Q.94, A. 2, vol. VIII, p. 44, he accepts that one kind of natural law is common to man and the animals, but he gives priority to the natural law of reason, found in man alone (cf. also S.t., II, i, Q.I, A. 1, vol. VI, p. 2).

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  38. Hobbes tried to prove that the equality of primitive man, or rather, the ability of even the weakest to kill the strongest, made the state of nature into a state of war (P.R., i, 3, pp. 6-7).

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  39. Montesquieu, I’Esprit des lois, p. 23.

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  40. M., p. 258, n. 1.

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  41. M., p. 259.

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  42. Discours de la méthode, V, pp. 45–6; Traité de l’homme, p. 120; cf. F. Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne, Delagrave, 1868, vol. I, pp. 150 and 163-6.

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  43. Cf. Bouillier, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 148-9.

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  44. At least, he claimed to be following the a priori method, in his attempt to deduce natural law from the principle of benevolence (Traitéphilosophique des lois naturelles, Disc, prél., iv, pp. 6-7 and i, 7, pp. 46-7).

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  45. Diderot and Descartes, A Study of Scientific Naturalism in the Enlightenment, Princeton University Press, 1953: see especially pp. 203–88.

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  46. Some recent exponents of M.’s determinism are: Henry Vyverberg, Historical Pessimism in the French Enlightenment, Harvard University Press, 1958, pp. 158–9; L. G. Crocker, An Age of Crisis, Man and World in Eighteenth-Century French Thought, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959, p. 75. Convincing denials of this interpretation have been made by: C. E. Vaughan, Studies in the History of Political Philosophy Before and After Rousseau, Manchester University Press, 1925, vol. I, p. 271; G. Davy,’ sur la méthode de Montesquieu’, Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 1939, PP-575-82; Sir Isaiah Berlin, ‘Montesquieu’, pp. 286-7; Roger Mercier, ‘La Notion de loi morale chez Montesquieu’, Proceedings of the Sixth Triennial Congress of the International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures, Oxford, Blackwell, 1955, pp. 191-2; Aron, op. cit., p. 36.

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  47. Crocker, Nature and Culture, pp. 28–9, seems to overlook this fact.

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  1. University of Exeter, UK

    Mark H. Waddicor (Lacturer in French)

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© 1970 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Waddicor, M.H. (1970). Montesquieu and Empiricism in Natural Law. In: Montesquieu and the Philosophy of Natural Law. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 37. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3238-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3238-4_3

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