Abstract

This dissertation is a study of James Wilson's modern liberal political philosophy as he presents it in the 1790-1791 Lectures on Law. The focus is on Wilson's political philosophy, rather than on his statecraft. By a modern liberal political philosophy I mean that Wilson takes his bearings from a revolution in the science of politics effectuated by Thomas Hobbes. Wilson takes over the terms employed by Hobbes such as "rights," "the state of nature," and the "law of nature." But though following Hobbes, Wilson parts company with the author of the Leviathan in significant ways. I argue that Wilson's agreements and disagreements with Hobbes are almost identical to John Locke's. There are basically four issues raised by Locke's Second Treatise in response to Hobbes's Leviathan around which Wilson frames his political philosophy: the relation between principles and practice, the character of the natural law, the social aspects of human nature, and the separation of powers. There is, however, one salient feature of Wilson's political philosophy that stands outside of the debate between Hobbes and Locke. Wilson affirms the existence of the "moral sense." Unlike contemporary commentators, though, I argue that Wilson's turn to the moral sense or social psychology of the Scottish Enlightenment is consistent with his liberalism and his modernity. Wilson's claim that the human being is a social animal endowed with a moral sense cannot rightly be interpreted as evidence of his debt to classical republicanism or civic humanism. In short, this study advances the thesis that Wilson's political philosophy is properly understood within a debate among Hobbes, Locke, and the Scots about the origins and character of modern liberalism