Abstract

The essay analyses the chief meanings of the idea of equality both in the natural law theory and in the theological thought of Samuel Pufendorf, as well as his criticism to the Hobbesian conception of equality, utilitaristically founded. In his natural law Theory Pufendorf, unlike Hobbes, conceives equality not as equality in capacity, but as juridical equality (aequalitas juris). Equality, the second of the three duties to one another, prescribes to every man to treat every other as his equal by nature, respecting his dignity as he is an equally rational and free human being. Equality is also interpreted by Pufendorf both as the equal right and power to self-preservation and as men’s equal subjection to the natural law. In his main theological work Pufendorf, on the contrary, takes his idea of equality from the Lutheran thesis of the universal priesthood of all the faithful.