The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy

Filmer, Robert; Sommerville, Johann P.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511812644.009

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For instance, in response to Philip Hunton's conclusion that the decision to resist a monarch that tramples the rights of subjects must be made with an appeal to "the fundamentall Laws of that Monarchy", 84 Sir Robert Filmer declares in The anarchy of a limited or mixed monarchy (1648) that he "would very gladly learn of him, or of any other for him, what a fundamental law is". 85 In a similar vein, Charles I, on the eve of the civil war, repeatedly objects to Parliament invoking a fundamental law to demonstrate the legality of the Militia Ordinance which purported to bring the militias under parliamentary control even though Charles had withheld his assent to the bill. When Parliament maintains that the kingdom was founded on laws allowing legislative acts without royal assent in cases of necessity, Charles retorts that it has failed to give "any direction, that the most cunning and learned men in the Laws may be able to finde those foundations"; 86 the Ordinance could be binding on subjects only if Parliament "would have told Our good Subjects what those Fundamentall Laws of the Land are, and where [they are] to be found".…”

Section: Fundamental Law In Leviathanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hobbes on treason and fundamental law

Apeldoorn

2021

Intellectual History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article considers Hobbes' contribution to the development of constitutionalist thought by contextualizing his treatment of the concepts of treason and fundamental law in De cive (1642, 2nd ed. 1647) and Leviathan (1651). While in Leviathan he adopts the controversial conception of treason as a violation of fundamental law that had been employed to convict Charles I of high treason in 1649, he draws on the original meaning of the term "fundamental law", as outlined in the most influential early analysis of Innocent Gentillet, to deny that fundamental laws can constrain the rights and powers of the sovereign. He bolsters this position by treating fundamental law as natural, not civil, law. While citizens commit treason when they violate the original covenant that establishes the sovereign, citizens cannot appeal to a human court for violations of fundamental law by the sovereign (who must render account for violations of natural law only to God). Hobbes' ingenious reconceptualization of fundamental law, hence, shows that, when understood correctly, the theory of treason embraced by parliamentarians could never support the violent resistance against, and overthrow of, a monarch like Charles I.

show abstract

Section: Fundamental Law In Leviathanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hobbes on treason and fundamental law

Apeldoorn

2021

Intellectual History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…of mankind"-as a "freedom from all subjection"-was an erroneous doctrine with origins in Popery, and its popularity among the political theorists of her day an abject failure to get to grips with the reality of social hierarchy. 33 Moreover, Astell believed that although God created men equally as rational minds, we were far from being created natural equals or peers in ability, even apart from the differences that might arise over time from the unequal cultivation of our talents. 34 There was thus a significant gap for Astell, as for many of her contemporaries, between the species-equality of human beings as a claim to qualitative identity and any further claim to an equally shared juridical status that would therefore entitle us to equal treatment.…”

Section: Astell On Equality: Identity Proportion and Paritymentioning

confidence: 99%

“Since All the World is mad, why should not I be so?” Mary Astell on Equality, Hierarchy, and Ambition

Bejan

2019

Political Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ever since Mary Astell was introduced as the “First English Feminist” in 1986, scholars have been perplexed by her dual commitments to natural equality and social, political, and ecclesiastical hierarchy. But any supposed “paradox” in her thought is the product of a modernist conceit that treats equality and hierarchy as antonyms, assuming the former must be prior, normative, and hostile to the latter. Seeing this, two other crucial features of Astell’s thought emerge: her ethics of ascent and her psychology of superiority. These, in turn, illuminate her lifelong fascination with ambition as a feminine virtue, as well as her curious embrace of Machiavelli. Astell’s politics and ethics are thus doubly worthy of recovery, both as the product of a singularly brilliant early modern mind and as a fascinating but forgotten vision of “equality before egalitarianism” that sheds light on the persistent complexities of equality and hierarchy to this day.

show abstract

“…In late 17th-century British thought, Lacedaemonian kingship could mean different things. For an absolutist like Sir Robert Filmer (1991Filmer ( [1648: 157-8), limited or mixed monarchy was a dangerous concession, and the limited powers of Lacedaemonian kingship represented a defective kind of sovereignty. For British 'republicans' like James Harrington (1977Harrington ( [1656: 273) and Walter Moyle (1727Moyle ( [1698: 51-2, 59-60), however, Lacedaemonian kingship could be invoked approvingly in reference to the equality, tranquillity, and martial vigour of the Spartans.…”

Section: Locke Indian Chiefs and Lacedaemonian Kingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The empire of political thought: civilization, savagery and perceptions of Indigenous government

Buchan

2005

History of the Human Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines the relationship between understandings of Indigenous government and the development of early-modern European, and especially British, political thought. It will be argued that a range of British political thinkers represented Indigenous peoples as being in want of effective government and regular conduct due to the absence of sufficiently developed property relations among them. In particular, British political thinkers framed the ‘deficiencies’ of Indigenous people by ideas of civilization in which key assumptions connected ‘property’, ‘government’, and ‘society’ as the attainments of civilized polities and societies. Accordingly, Indigenous peoples in Australia and elsewhere were perceived to live in associations (rather than ‘societies’) bound by custom and tradition (rather than ‘government’). The paper will thus identify conceptual connections made between property, polity, and sovereignty in European and British political thought, and argue that such understandings provide a useful resource for understanding colonial attitudes to Indigenous people in Australia down to the present day.

show abstract

The Anarchy of a Limited or Mixed Monarchy

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Hobbes on treason and fundamental law

Hobbes on treason and fundamental law

“Since All the World is mad, why should not I be so?” Mary Astell on Equality, Hierarchy, and Ambition

The empire of political thought: civilization, savagery and perceptions of Indigenous government

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About