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113. - Law (Political)

from L

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Justin Steinberg
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Law (lex) is a central political concept with several different senses or species. On a rather traditional scheme, there are at least different three senses of law that bear, in some sense, on one’s status as a civil subject: divine revealed law, or what Scripture reveals as obligatory; natural law, or what right reason apprehends as obligatory; and positive civil law, or what an authorized civil authority (i.e., sovereign) makes obligatory. The first two kinds of law were traditionally thought to depend (as laws) on a divine legislator, while the latter depends on a secular legislator.

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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 323 - 326
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Belaief, G. (1971). Spinoza’s Philosophy of Law. Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, S. (2020). Law and sovereignty in Spinoza’s politics. In James, , Spinoza on Learning to Live Together. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, J. (2012). Spinoza and natural law. In Jacobs, J. A. (ed.), Reason, Religion and Natural Law (pp. 201–21). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rutherford, D. (2010). Spinoza’s conception of law: Metaphysics and ethics. In Melamed, Y. and Rosenthal, M. A. (eds.), Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise: A Critical Guide (pp. 143–67). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Santos Campos, A. (ed.). (2015). Spinoza and Law. Ashgate.Google Scholar
Steinberg, J. (2018). Spinoza’s Political Psychology. Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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