Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper investigates the role of sociaiblity in Grotius's work. I argue that rather than being peripheral to his overall project, Grotius's principle of sociability is integral to his conception of human nature and the foundations of natural law. While most scholars have emphasized the role of egoism in De Jure Praedae, I argue that Grotius relies heavily on a notion of human nature capable of other-regardingness to explain the creation and sucess of political societies. Because other-regardingness and other-love is so essential to De Jure Praedae, the role of sociability in De Jure Belli should not be understood as an insignficant gloss on an otherwise egoistic theory. Rather, Grotius constructs a natural law from an understanding of human nature that is psychologically marked by sociability as well as self-interest. It is the sociable desire to repudiate self-interest as the governing principle of individual lives that compels people to enter into a mutually obliging social contract and to fulfill the demands of sociability inherent in the state of nature.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Emma Goldman?s and Ayn Rand?s theories of ethical egoism demands unconstrained personal autonomy. Problematic: need for guidance, excesses of freedom. Corrective: social ethic. Problematic: coercive, precepts and conveyance of ethic.