Jean Barbeyrac
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Jean Barbeyrac, the translator of an influential 1724 edition of DJB, would portray Grotius as a great innovator: the first to “break the ice” after “the long dark medieval winter.” Giambattista Vico would even consider Grotius to be one of the four “authors of history,” following in the lineage of such modern trailblazers as Machiavelli and Bacon by introducing the methods of hypothesis and empirical verification into the historical-social sciences."-- Jeremy Seth Geddert in--Concepts of Nature: Ancient and Modern (2016) by R. J. Snell, Steven F. McGuire |
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Jean Barbeyrac (15 March 1674 – 3 March 1744) was a French jurist.
Works
His fame rests chiefly on the preface and notes to his translation of Samuel Pufendorf's treatise De Jure Naturae et Gentium, translated as Of the Law of Nature and Nations, 4th ed., 1729, London, by B. Kennett et al. Barbeyrac's preface appears in this fourth edition with the title: 'Containing an Historical and Critical Account of the Science of Morality, and the Progress It has Made in the World, From the Earliest Times Down to the Publication of This Work'. In the fundamental principles, he follows almost entirely John Locke and Pufendorf; but he works out with great skill the theory of moral obligation, referring it to the command or will of God. He indicates the distinction, developed more fully by Thomasius and Kant, between the legal and the moral qualities of action. The principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and in so doing opposes many of the positions taken up by Grotius. He rejects the notion that sovereignty in any way resembles property, and makes even marriage a matter of civil contract. Barbeyrac also translated Grotius's De Jure Belli et Pacis, Cumberland's De Legibus Naturae, and Pufendorf's smaller treatise De Officio Hominis et Civis.
Among his own productions are a treatise, De la morale des pères, a history of ancient treaties, Histoire des anciens traitez, contained in the Supplement au Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens, and the curious Traité du jeu (1709), in which he defends the morality of games of chance.
See also
