Philosophy, Rights and Natural Law: Essays in Honour of Knud Haakonssen

Contributions to philosophy, rights and natural law inspired by the work of Knud HaakonssenOver his long and illustrious career, Knud Haakonssen has been centrally interested in the role of natural law in formulating doctrines of obligation and rights in accordance with the interests of early modern polities and churches. A hallmark of his approach has been to show how in early-modern Europe natural law was less a unified doctrine than a field of cross-cutting idioms in which competing political and juridical programs were prosecuted for many cross-cutting purposes.The essays collected in this volume range across this exciting and contested field. In doing so they pay tribute to the work of Knud Haakonssen who, over four decades of scholarly activity, uncovered this field in all of its variety and depth. Not only do these studies acknowledge his immense academic achievement but they also offer new insights into the cultural and political role of law and rights in a variety of historical contexts and circumstances.Ian Hunter is Emeritus Professor of Intellectual History in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. Richard Whatmore is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History.