This book centres on Samuel Pufendorf's (1632-1694) moral and political philosophy a subject
of recently renewed interest among intellectual historians philosophers and legal scholars in
the English-speaking world. Pufendorf's significance in conceptualizing sociability in a way
that ties moral philosophy the theory of the state political economy and moral psychology
together has already been acknowledged but this book is the first systematic investigation of
the moral psychological underpinnings of Pufendorf's theory of sociability in their own
right.Readers will discover how Pufendorf's psychological and social explanation of sociability
plays a crucial role in his natural law theory. By drawing attention to Pufendorf's scattered
remarks and observations on human psychology a new interpretation of the importance of moral
psychology is presented. The author maintains that Pufendorf's reflection on the psychological
and physical capacities of human nature also matters for his description of how people adopt
sociability as their moral standard in practice. We see how since Pufendorf's interest in
human nature is mainly political moral psychological formulations are important for
Pufendorf's theorizing of social and political order. This work is particularly useful for
scholars investigating the multifaceted role of passions and emotions in the history of moral
and political philosophy. It also affords a better understanding of what later philosophers
such as Smith Hume or Rousseau might have find appealing in Pufendorf's writings. As such
this book will also interest researchers of the Enlightenment natural law and early modern
philosophy.
