Reconstruction Of Natural Law In Moral World

In the 17 th and 18 th centuries,Pufendorf's theories were the most influential moral philosophy.In the process of classical natural law development,he played a connecting link role and became the first person who established the independent system of the modern natural law theory.After Pufendorf experienced the turbulence and peace of the Thirty Years' War(1618-1648)to the Treaty of Westphalia,he put his theory into the context of Grotius and Hobbes,and completed "Delete Nature" moral transformation of natural law.In the face of broken Christianity,Pufendorf tried to save the European society at the brink of war by constructing new morality.Under the tutelage of Ehud Vigel,he realized the significant distinction between material existence and moral existence,and acquired a rigorous deductive methodology.Compared with the "physical existence" of natural science,Pufendorf found "moral existence" in the human spiritual world and he expected people to pay attention to morality as natural things.In the new morality,he distinguished between "material existence" and "moral existence" through the concepts of identity and diversity,causality and freedom,value-free and value-related concepts.On the basis of moral existence,he deduced the moral attributes of human behavior and obligations.At the same time,under the influence of Hobbes and Cumberland,Pufendorf made a strict distinction between "moral goodness" and "natural goodness".In his discussion of natural goodness,he criticized the tradition that “being” is equivalent to the "good ",and refused to make an absolute assumption of good.And in the discussion of moral goodness,he payed more attention to the legal certainty of moral behavior.Since modern times,the theory of natural law gradually involved in the field of morality,that was regarded as a true moral science.Pufendorf realized the dilemma of the Hobbes and Grotius in the demonstration of morality,so he tried to moralize the natural law theory with the core of "moral obligation",and thus built the natural moral science.Natural State Theory was the starting point of Pufendorf's natural law system.In the connection and development of the theory of natural state,Pufendorf basically inherited Hobbes' s natural state of human nature,and at the same time,Grotius' s self-love and social relations into them.Then,the natural state theory was systematically scattered and reconstructed,and gradually established state of morality that natural law governs the state of nature.Sociality was the core principleof Pufendorf's natural law system.Under the guidance of rationality,he distinguished the utilitarian social from the natural social nature of Grotius and derived the most basic natural law that "every man should cultivate and preserve sociality to the best of his ability".From sociality to socialization,Pufendorf threw out the founding theory of "two contracts and one decree",which laid the foundation for the democratization and the rule of law in modern countries.The natural law obligations were the core of the whole natural law system.Pufendorf regarded obligations as "first phenomenon",and rights were only a derivative of the moral effect of obligation.According to Pufendorf,man's behavior as a moral entity in the moral space was bound by the moral law,which was based on the principle of obligations.The obligation to influence people's will in this moral way enabled one to follow the moral law to regulate individual behavior.Pufendorf reconstructed natural law on the basis of "moral existence".Although this path did not fundamentally get rid of the crisis of modern natural law,it had a great influence on the construction of human rights and citizenship.As we had seen,it was Pufendorf's interpretation of "Delete Nature" moral transformation that explained why people wanted to get the same rights and obligations as others,and re-shaped the people's understanding of the concept of human rights such as natural equality and dignity.Simultaneously,from "people" to "citizens",from "obligation" to "virtue",Pufendorf completed the transcendence of citizenship to society in the process of moral transformation of natural law.