The doctrineof natural law 75 mation of this insight in the sources. Yet the cleavage between old and new moral doctrine becomes apparent if you consider their contents. Aristotelian ethics is about virtues, mostly aristocratic virtues like munificence, magnanlmity and liberality, which were appropriate to the gentleman of the Greek polis and an independent nobleman of the early modern era but hardly to the citizen or the subject of the modern centralised state. The ethics of natural law, on the other hand, deals with duties, the officia or debita of man towards God, towards one’s superiors, especially the state authority, and they are shared by every member of society, regardless of estate or rank. Furthermore, everybody is obliged by God to fulfil his duties. The concept of obligatio is crucial in the modern doctrine of natural law, and in Pufendorf’s theory in particular. It is adopted, of course, from Roman law, but has a moral dimension that distinguishes it from its Roman predecessor. In Roman law, obligatio signifies legal force by which one man is bound to fulfil something for another. There is no moral aspect; what you are required to do could be opposed to the dictate of morality. In natural law, by contrast, obligatio is a moral obligation —a qualitas moralis operativa in Pufendorf’s words—that concerns only what is honourable or shameful and exercises a pressure on your conscience and will. And the power that obligates you to fulfil your duties is God. For man—I am still following Pufendorf—is a creature that recognises God as his superior and realises that God wants himto lead a life according to the laws which are laid down in his nature by the Creator, that is to say, to carry out his duties. Thus, duty and obligation are fundamental materials in the new doctrina morum in the latter part of the 17th century, and they fit very well into the framework of the modern, centralised state. There are other topics too in Pufendorf’s doctrine that support the notion of the modern state and are frequently discussed or rather just set out in the sources. Among these is the conviction that man, although he reveres God and has a conscience, still is a weak and wicked being that must be controlled by the power of the state, by positive law, by courts, judges and punishments. (This is a favourite theme in the juristic dissertations.) Another topic is the concept of civitas regularis, the regular state, whose essence is that all power is gathered in one hand so that there is only one will in the body politic. The concept of civitas regularis was directed by Pufendorf against the const!- tution of the fdoly Roman Empire, but this polemical aspect is never touched upon by the cautious Swedish authors of dissertations. Still another cherished Pufendorfian topic is the doctrine of the political use of religion: besides the main purpose of leading man to salvation, religion also has the task of keeping man from violating the laws of nature, by threat-
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