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		Natural Rights on the Threshold of the Scottish Enlightenment
		The Writings of Gershom Carmichael (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics) By Gershom Carmichael Edited by James Moore and Michael Silverthorne, with a Foreword by James Moore Translated by Michael Silverthorne Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics, Knud Haakonssen, General Editor
		Table of Contents Publication Date: January 2002 6 x 9. 430 pages. Foreword, editorial note, annotations, bibliography of works cited, index.

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An important figure in the natural law tradition and in the Scottish Enlightenment, Gershom Carmichael defended a strong theory of rights and drew attention to Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke.

Gershom Carmichael was a teacher and writer who played an important role in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His philosophy focused on the natural rights of individuals—the natural right to defend oneself, to own the property on which one
has labored, and to services contracted for with others. Carmichael argued that slavery is incompatible with the rights of men and citizens, and he believed that subjects have the right to resist rulers who exceed the limits of their powers.

Although he appealed to the authority of Grotius and Locke, the grounds on which he defended natural rights were distinctively his own. He drew upon the Reformed or Presbyterian theology to propose that, in respecting the natural rights of individuals, one shows one’s reverence for God’s creation. Inasmuch as all of mankind longs for lasting happiness, which can be found only in worship of or reverence for God, such reverence is the natural law which obliges all to respect the rights of all.

Natural Rights includes Supplements and Observations on Pufendorf (1724), Natural Theology (1729), Logic (1722), two theses, and a manuscript on teaching, all in English for the first time.

Gershom Carmichael (1672–1729) was the first professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, preceding Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid.

James Moore is Professor of Political Science at Concordia University in Montreal.

Michael Silverthorne is Honorary University Fellow in the School of Classics at the University of Exeter.

Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.

Additional Testimonials

". . . this impressive work will be of interest not only to Enlightenment scholars, but also to scholars working in the areas of moral philosophy, the history of political thought, and the history of education and of the Scottish universities."

Eighteenth-Century Scotland



Gershom Carmichael (1672–1729) taught philosophy at the University of Glasgow from 1694 until 1729, first as a regent (tutor), and latterly, from 1727, as the first Professor of Moral Philosophy. He was, without doubt, the ablest Scottish philosopher of his generation; and he established the reputation of his chair, whose subsequent holders in the eighteenth century included Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. This volume is the first modern edition and translation of his published works, all of which were written to aid his teaching. It is the fruit of an unusually congenial scholarly partnership, which has already contributed a series of articles establishing Carmichael’s importance in the histories of Natural Jurisprudence and of the Scottish Enlightenment. A short foreword by James Moore outlines Carmichael’s biography and approach to teaching, and indicates the context in which his thinking should be understood. The translations themselves are the work of Michael Silverthorne, who has previously published translations of both Hobbes and Pufendorf. Here as there his translations are distinguished for the clarity with which he renders complex arguments without recourse to excessive modernization of idiom. In Silverthorne’s hands, Carmichael is a pleasure to read. The accessibility of the texts is further enhanced by editorial annotation that is equally informative and unintrusive. As the first in what promises to be an important and very valuable series by the Liberty Press devoted to Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics, under the general editorship of Knud Haakonssen, this volume sets a high standard.

John Robertson
St. Hugh’s College, Oxford
Eighteenth-Century Thought
2003

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