This study examines the development of natural law theories in the early stages of the Enlightenment in Germany and France. T. J. Hochstrasser investigates the influence of theories of natural law from Grotius to Kant, with a comparative analysis of important intellectual innovations in ethics and political philosophy. This book assesses the first histories of political thought, giving insights into eighteenth-century natural jurisprudence. Ambitious in range and conceptually sophisticated, it will be of great interest to scholars in history, political thought, law and philosophy.

The study of natural law theories in the early Enlightenment continues to be one of the most fruitful areas of research in early modern intellectual history. In recent years there have been substantial reassessments of Grotius, Pufendorf, Thomasius 1 and the whole university-based tradition associated with the Fruhaujklarung. The appeal of the discourse of natural jurisprudence to groups and individuals operating outside conventional educational and political structures - such as the Huguenot diaspora - has also been highlighted? Moreover the contextual understanding of the work of...