Julia Jorati

This chapter focuses on early modern views concerning the special status of human beings and its implications for the right to freedom. More specifically, the chapter examines whether, for several prominent early modern philosophers, it is legitimate for one human being to fully own, or have absolute power over, other human beings. The chapter concentrates on the views of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, though it also discusses several other early modern authors. Its thesis is that of these three philosophers, only Leibniz attributes an intrinsic value to human beings and argues that this special status is incompatible with chattel slavery. In contrast, Hobbes and Locke do not acknowledge such an intrinsic value and view the full ownership of human beings as legitimate in certain circumstances.

Leibniz portrays the most fundamental entities in his mature ontology in at least three different ways: (a) mind-like, immaterial substances that perceive and strive, (b) hylomorphic compounds, (c) primitive and derivative forces. This chapter argues that the third characterization is more accurate than the other two. Thus, Leibniz’s monadological metaphysics is even more radical than it initially seems: his ontology is best understood not as a substance-mode ontology but as a force ontology. At the metaphysical ground floor, we do not find substances that possess force; instead, we just find forces. Interpreting Leibniz as a force ontologist has far-reaching consequences. For instance, it requires us to reconsider the status of time in Leibniz’s system and to revise our understanding of appetitions (or appetites) and perceptions.

The volume’s introduction presents important historical and conceptual background information about early modern debates about slavery. For instance, it discusses various forms of slavery that existed in the early modern world and lays out the conceptual frameworks that were typically used to theorize about slavery. It also provides a thematically organized overview of the primary texts contained in the volume and identifies seven major themes: (1) race and racism, (2) natural slavery, or the theory that some human beings are naturally destined for enslavement, (3) circumstantial slavery, or the theory that enslavement is legitimized not by nature but through specific actions or circumstances, (4) the rights of enslaved people against their enslavers, (5) the suffering resulting from enslavement, (6) the perspectives of Black and Indigenous people, and (7) examinations of slavery from a theological or religious point of view.

The introduction presents important historical and conceptual background information about late eighteenth-century debates about slavery. It also provides a thematically organized overview of the primary texts contained in the volume. For instance, it catalogues various antislavery and proslavery strategies and lists the texts that employ each strategy. Likewise, it explains which texts endorse racist ideas and which texts argue against these ideas, which texts describe the experiences of enslaved people, and which texts explore other important philosophical topics. These other topics include complicity, the epistemic dimensions of oppression, legitimate and illegitimate forms of subordination in society, the right of enslaved people to rebel, and the effects that slavery has on enslaved people and enslavers.

Slavery in Early Modern Philosophy 1500-1765 contains thirty-four philosophical texts about slavery composed in Europe and America between 1500 and 1765. These readings demonstrate that debates about slavery deserve a central place in the history of philosophy, and are crucial for understanding early modern moral and political philosophy, as well as the development of the concept of race and the history of racism. Included here are many previously unpublished and newly translated texts that discuss various aspects of slavery and represent many different perspectives. Some treat slavery as a purely theoretical issue, others explicitly examine transatlantic slavery, the enslavement of American Indians, or other specific historical institutions. Some criticize slavery, others defend it. Some focus on ethical or political questions, others on epistemological or psychological ones. Some explore the general permissibility of enslavement, others the morality of slave rebellions or the obligation to pay reparations. Some are by widely known authors -such as Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith-and others may be unfamiliar to most scholars but are at least as important for the history of philosophical debates about slavery. Including an introduction by volume editor Julia Jorati, this volume - along with its companion volume covering the late 18th century - will interest scholars and students exploring the history of philosophical thinking about slavery.

This volume comprises forty-five philosophical texts about slavery that were composed in Europe and America between 1765 and 1800. The texts, selected and in some cases newly translated by Julia Jorati, discuss various aspects of slavery, and from many different perspectives. Written by enslaved and formerly enslaved antislavery authors, their allies, and a few of their opponents, they demonstrate that the debate about slavery in the late eighteenth century, during the first major transnational abolitionist movement, was remarkably multifaceted and philosophically sophisticated. Some authors base their arguments on the moral principles embraced by revolutionaries in France and America, such as the principle that all men have an inalienable right to liberty; others draw on different moral frameworks such as utilitarianism, natural law theory, social contract theory, and Biblical ethics. In addition to arguments for and against the moral permissibility of transatlantic slavery, the texts in Slavery in Early Modern Philosophy 1765-1800 also examine other related philosophical issues, such as complicity, reparations, racial bias, the right to rebel, the effects of enslavement on the human mind, and the epistemic dimensions of oppression. This volume serves as a companion to Jorati's Slavery in Early Modern Philosophy 1500-1765: Essential Readings and will interest scholars and students seeking a deeper understanding of these underexamined debates.

Black activists made extremely compelling arguments for slavery reparations in Massachusetts 250 years ago. They demanded reparations in the form of cash payments, land, or tax exemption, as compensation for the labor that was stolen from them, their pain and suffering, and to make up for the lack of generational wealth and equal opportunities of Black and multiracial families. Their arguments, and the arguments of many others who continued the fight for reparations, have not yet convinced the government. Nevertheless, those who support reparations for slavery today can learn a lot from these courageous people and their strategies. Indeed, present-day activists can use the fact that there were already demands for reparations in the 1770s to support their argument that the city of Boston, or other political entities, should pay reparations now. And even those who oppose reparations should be aware of the long and fascinating history of pro-reparations activism.

Leibniz sometimes tells us that there are only two fundamental types of mental states: perceptions and appetitions, that is, mental representations and desire-like states. While this may sound like an overly sparse ontology of mental states, the philosophy of mind that Leibniz builds from these elements is surprisingly nuanced and powerful. What makes this possible is that he distinguishes different sub-types of these mental states. Leibniz famously differentiates between unconscious and conscious perceptions, which gives him an advantage over philosophers like Descartes, for whom all perceptions are conscious. He also distinguishes between reflective and unreflective perceptions, as well as between degrees of perceptual distinctness. Leibniz furthermore follows scholastic thinkers like Thomas Aquinas in distinguishing different types of appetitions. Uncovering what those are and what roles they play in Leibniz’s philosophy of mind are the central aims of this chapter.

Many antislavery authors in the eighteenth century contend that enslavement degrades the human mind and causes enslaved people to exhibit inferior moral or intellectual traits. They often use this contention to combat the racist claim that Black people are naturally inferior to Whites and that this natural inferiority justifies enslavement, insisting instead that the disparity is simply an effect of enslavement. After examining this argumentative strategy and what makes it appealing, this paper investigates several ways in which it is problematic. First, this strategy was sometimes used to oppose the immediate abolition of slavery: some eighteenth-century authors argue that many enslaved people have become incapable of living good lives outside of slavery and that immediate emancipation would therefore be detrimental for them and for society. Moreover, this strategy may further marginalize and demonize an already oppressed group and it sometimes blames, or seems to blame, enslaved people for their condition. The paper ends with some reflections on whether the strategy can nevertheless be useful for antislavery purposes.

Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries explores philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that are central to early modern discussions of slavery. Jorati explores a topic that is widely neglected by historians of philosophy: debates about the morality of slavery in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century America and Europe. Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries explores philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that are central to early modern discussions of slavery. It is a companion volume to Jorati's Slavery and Race: Philosophy Debates in the Eighteenth Century (OUP 2023).

This chapter aims to present some of the highlights of the early modern debate about slavery. We will start by exploring theoretical debates about slavery by nature. As we will see, several authors view natural slavery as incompatible with widely held doctrines about human equality and natural liberty. Yet we will also see that many early modern authors are sympathetic to natural slavery—perhaps surprisingly so. Moreover, we will see that even in texts that are not explicitly about transatlantic slavery, natural slavery is often tied to race. Next, we turn to theoretical debates about circumstantial slavery. We will see that most early modern authors accept at least some instances of this type of justification. It is only in the mid-eighteenth century that some prominent philosophers reject circumstantial slavery categorically, though there are earlier philosophers who argue against some forms of it while accepting others. Finally, we will examine the portion of the debate that is explicitly about transatlantic slavery. As one would expect, racial natural slavery plays a major role in this debate. What is surprising, however, is that race enters the debate earlier than one might think. As early as the 1680s, when theories of race were still in their infancy, critics of transatlantic slavery argue that racial bias fuels transatlantic slavery and that proponents of slavery view Black people as subhuman and as natural slaves.

This chapter focuses on the question of what, if anything, early modern philosophers have to say about the special status of human beings and its implications for the right to freedom. As we will see, they have quite a lot to say about it. I will concentrate on the question of whether, for these early modern authors, the special status of human beings makes it illegitimate for one human being to dominate other human beings completely, or to literally and fully own them. In other words, I focus on whether, according to at least some early modern thinkers, human beings can possess the same rights over other human beings as one was thought to have over the brute animals and inanimate objects that one fully owns.

Discussions about the morality of slavery are a central part of the history of early modern philosophy. This book explores the philosophical ideas, theories, and arguments that occur in eighteenth-century debates about slavery, with a particular focus on the role that race plays in these debates. This exploration reveals how closely Blackness and slavery had come to be associated and how common it was to believe that Black people are natural slaves, or naturally destined for slavery. The book examines not just well-known authors like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but also less widely studied philosophers like Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, Lemuel Haynes, and Olympe de Gouges. By presenting philosophically important aspects of debates about slavery in eighteenth-century North America and Europe, the book aims to be a valuable resource for scholars, instructors, and students who are curious about a topic that historians of philosophy have so far neglected.

On the standard interpretation, Samuel Clarke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz endorse fundamentally different theories of free will. Clarke is typically interpreted as a libertarian who holds that freedom requires indeterminism. Leibniz, in contrast, is typically interpreted as a compatibilist who holds that free actions can be determined. This chapter challenges the standard interpretation and argues that Clarke and Leibniz agree almost completely about free will. Both require free actions to be instances of agent causation, and both view freedom as compatible with moral necessity or the determination by motives, reasons, or final causes. Hence, both Leibniz and Clarke should be interpreted as proponents of compatibilism.

Why does a wine glass break when you drop it, whereas a steel goblet does not? The answer may seem obvious: glass, unlike steel, is fragile. This is an explanation in terms of a power or disposition: the glass breaks because it possesses a particular power, namely fragility. Seemingly simple, such intrinsic dispositions or powers have fascinated philosophers for centuries. A power's central task is explaining why a thing changes in the ways that it does, rather than in other ways: powers should explain why an acorn turns into an oak tree, not a sunflower, or why fire burns wood, and wood can catch fire. This volume examines the twists and turns of the fascinating history of a difficult philosophical concept, focusing on the metaphysical sense of "powers"--that is, the powers that are invoked in the explanation of natural changes and activities. Scholars probe the views of thinkers from antiquity to the present day: Anaxagoras, Plato, the Stoics, Abelard, Anselm, Henry of Ghent, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Margaret Cavendish, Mary Shepherd, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and numerous others. In addition, the volume contains four short reflection essays that examine the concept of powers from the perspective of disciplines other than philosophy, namely history of music, West African religions, history of chemistry, and history of art. The history of philosophy brims with controversies surrounding the concept of power, and these controversies have not diminished--particularly as potentialities or powers see a revival in contemporary analytic metaphysics. Hence, telling the history of philosophical theories of powers means exploring the trajectory of a concept whose importance to the past and present of philosophy can hardly be overstated.

Leibniz puts forward an intriguing argument against the moral permissibility of chattel slavery in a text from 1703. This argument has three independent layers or sub-arguments. The first is that slavery violates natural rights. The second is that moral laws such as the principles of equity and piety oppose slavery, or at least severely limit the permissible actions toward slaves. The third and final layer is that slavery can at most be justified if the slave is permanently incapable of conducting herself well. Yet, it is very doubtful that any actual human beings satisfy that description. This paper analyzes and evaluates Leibniz’s argument, which scholars have so far largely neglected. Even though some elements of the argument are not original to Leibniz, it is of considerable importance for the scholarship of early modern philosophy: it sheds light on Leibniz’s views not only on the moral status of slavery itself, but also on moral rights and obligations more generally.

The vast majority of canonical early modern authors reject Aristotelian physics and metaphysics. Instead, many of them are mechanists, that is, they explain all natural change in the material world simply through the motions and collisions of inertial matter in motion. This typically means that they deny that there is immanent teleology in the natural world; sometimes, it even means eliminating purposiveness from natural philosophy altogether. Thus, some writers attempt to provide explanations of natural phenomena that do not rely on teleology. Because this proves enormously difficult, others retain, or reintroduce, teleology in various forms. The section “Rejections of Teleology” explores the reasons why certain early modern authors reject teleology more or less generally. The section “Defenses of Extrinsic Teleology” shows that quite a few writers embrace extrinsic teleology: they hold that many natural things and processes have ends in virtue of being part of God’s plan for the world. Some of these authors also advocate the use of teleology in natural philosophy, for instance, to discover natural laws. Finally, the section “Defenses of Immanent Teleology” shows that there are a few early modern philosophers and scientists who go even further than that, insisting on the need for immanent teleology in the natural world.

My aim in this chapter is to explain how and why all human cognition depends on the body for Leibniz. I will show that there are three types of dependence: (a) the body is needed in order to supply materials, or content, for thinking; (b) the body is needed in order to give us the opportunity for the discovery of innate ideas; and (c) the body is needed in order to provide sensory notions as vehicles of thought. The third type is intimately connected to the faculty of the imagination, which supplies the sensory vehicles of thought. Hence, the paper will also examine Leibniz’s account of that faculty and its operations. Before doing any of this, however, I will address the elephant in the room: Leibniz’s claim that mind and body do not interact at all, metaphysically speaking. The correspondence between mind and body is merely a matter of what he calls ‘pre-established harmony’. At first glance, this Leibnizian doctrine may suggest a radical disembodiment of all human cognition. Yet, I will argue that this is not the case and that, quite to the contrary, pre-established harmony requires that cognition is embodied in one important sense.

The mature Leibniz often describes monads as having two types of modifications: perceptions and appetites. But why would monads need appetites? When reading secondary literature about Leibniz, it can easily look as if appetites are superfluous: some scholars describe the inner workings of monads without saying much, if anything, about appetites. Instead, they focus on perceptions and explain the transition to new perceptions by reference to prior perceptions together with the underlying primitive force or law of the series. These interpretations appear to be doing just fine without invoking appetites. And, in fact, there are texts in which Leibniz himself neglects appetites almost completely. Some passages suggest that perceptions cause other perceptions, and other texts indicate that the monads themselves cause perceptions directly. If that is the case, it is not clear what purpose appetites serve; they do not appear to be needed for explaining monadic change. One possible response to the question why monads need appetites is the following. Appetites, according to Leibniz, are monadic tendencies to transition to new perceptions. Perhaps without such tendencies, no change would occur in a monad. On this interpretation, a full explanation of monadic change needs to invoke tendencies, and those in turn are (or include) appetites. I think that this response is partially correct, as I will argue later. Yet, it does not fully explain the function of appetites. How precisely are appetites (viewed as tendencies) supposed to figure into the explanation—do they function as causes of change, and if so, what kinds of causes? Are they efficient, final, or formal causes, or perhaps causes of yet another type? Or might they figure into the explanation in some non-causal way? This paper explores possible answers to the question what role appetites play in the lives of monads. There is not enough time to discuss these answers in much detail or exhaust the logical space, but I will briefly consider the options that strike me as the most promising contenders. These options are: (1) appetites are superfluous; there is no sense in which they explain or cause monadic change; (2) appetites are formal causes; (3) appetites are final causes; (4) appetites are efficient causes; (5) appetites are ultimately the same as perceptions (or aspects of perceptions), and perceptions in turn cause or explain monadic change; and (6) appetites are not causally involved in monadic change, but they are explanatory in a loose, derivative sense. I will argue for a version of the last option. The resulting picture of monadic change is admittedly radical and strange but there are excellent reasons to embrace it.

Leibniz portrays the most fundamental entities in his mature ontology in at least three different ways. In some places, he describes them as mind-like, immaterial substances that perceive and strive. Elsewhere, he presents them as hylomorphic compounds. In yet other passages, he characterizes them in terms of primitive and derivative forces. Interpreters often assume that the first description is the most accurate. In contrast, I will argue that the third characterization is more accurate than the other two. If that is correct, Leibniz’s monadological metaphysics is even more radical than it initially seems: his ontology is best understood not as a substance-mode ontology but as a force ontology. At the metaphysical ground floor, we do not find substances that possess force; instead, we just find forces. Interpreting Leibniz as a force ontologist has far-reaching consequences. For instance, it requires us to reconsider the status of time in Leibniz’s system and to revise our understanding of appetitions and perceptions.

In February 1686, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz sent a letter to Antoine Arnauld, via their mutual friend Ernst, the Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels. This letter contained a short summary of Leibniz's most recent philosophical work, the Discourse on Metaphysics, and asked Arnauld for his reaction to it. Arnauld's response was extremely harsh: he called Leibniz's views shocking and useless and advised him to stop engaging in metaphysical speculations. Yet, Leibniz did not let this discourage him. In the exchange that followed, Leibniz was intent on convincing Arnauld that the views contained in the Discourse are well supported and less radical than Arnauld initially thought. And while he never convinced Arnauld...

This paper explores the theory of freedom that Emilie du Châtelet advances in her essay “On Freedom.” Using contemporary terminology, we can characterize this theory as a version of agent-causal compatibilism. More specifically, the theory has the following elements: (a) freedom consists in the power to act in accordance with one’s choices, (b) freedom requires the ability to suspend desires and master passions, (c) freedom requires a power of self-motion in the agent, and (d) freedom is compatible with moral necessity but not with physical necessity. While these elements may at first appear disparate, the paper shows that they fit together quite well. The resulting theory is a surprising combination of doctrines that appear to be based on Samuel Clarke’s libertarian account of free will and doctrines that are reminiscent of the compatibilist accounts of John Locke, Anthony Collins, Gottfried Leibniz, and Thomas Hobbes.