Please join the Global Religion and Politics Research Group as they host Henri Otsing (University of Tartu, Estonia)
The natural law theories of the Enlightenment Swiss école romande - Jean Barbeyrac, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, and Emer de Vattel - are commonly treated as largely secular, rationalist constructions whose confessional background is incidental to their structure. This article challenges that view by arguing that their shared project must be read against the confessional tensions of Swiss Calvinism, especially disputes over predestination, grace, and moral responsibility. In a setting shaped by controversy surrounding the Helvetic Consensus and by the rippling effects of the Edict of Fontainebleau, the three authors all put peculiar focus on the concept of liberty. Conceived as a faculty of the person, this liberty functioned as a theologically informed philosophical device for securing imputability and obligation without collapsing into determinism or sheer voluntarism. By tracing the concept across their writings, this article demonstrates how natural law theory reflects the authors' confessional commitments and political exigencies.
Henri Otsing is a third-year PhD student at the University of Tartu, Estonia, and a Fulbright visiting scholar at Northwestern University this semester. He began his studies in the history of philosophy and later transitioned to intellectual history. His doctoral research focuses on Emer de Vattel and Enlightenment theories of the law of nations. His broader research interests include the concept of liberty, the history of natural law, and the rhetoric of political theory.
Lunch will be provided.
Cindy Pingry
(847) 467-1933
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