Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (born July 13, 1694 in Geneva , † April 3, 1748 in Geneva) was a Geneva lawyer, philosopher, writer and an important representative of natural law and the natural law school in Western Switzerland . He was a student of Jean Barbeyrac and was known as a promoter of the ideas of various thinkers of natural law philosophy.
Life
Burlamaqui was born in Geneva as the son of Jean-Louis, Kastlan des Mandement Peney and member of the Council of the Two Hundred , and Suzanne Favre de la Croix. His ancestors, the Burlamacchi, originally fled from Lucca, Italy to Geneva for religious reasons . He studied philosophy and law at the Geneva Academy and was admitted to the bar in 1716 . He was married to Renée de Chapeaurouge, daughter of Jacob de Chapeaurouge (1669–1744), Syndic of Geneva. Successful private lessons with sons from wealthy families and foreign aristocrats motivated him to pursue a university career. The request of German students to set up courses in natural law and public law at the academy prompted him to apply for the position and title of honorary professor in 1720, which he then received.
In 1720 he was appointed honorary professor of ethics and natural law by the University of Geneva . Before he began to teach, he visited the most famous writers of his time in England and France in 1720 and 1721 and stayed with Jean Barbeyrac in Groningen . After his return in 1723 he taught as a professor for natural and civil law, natural law according to Pufendorf and Roman law according to the Justinian sources of the Corpus iuris civilis . In 1735 he made a short stay at the court of the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, where he trained the young Prince Friedrich. In 1739 he gave up his professorship for health reasons.
He was elected by his fellow citizens of Geneva in 1721 to the Council of Two Hundred, 1730 to the Council of Sixty and 1742 to the Small Council. During the unrest of 1734 he was commissioned with Pierre Mussard, Michel Lullin de Châteauvieux and Jean-Louis Du Pan to report on the complaints (représentations) of the old citizens (citoyens) and new citizens (bourgeois).
He was interested in sculpture, architecture, music and painting all his life and owned a collection of paintings and engravings. He was the initiator of the public drawing school founded in 1751.
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Burlamaqui was known well beyond the academy for the simplicity of his style of presentation and the clarity of his views. Thanks to his experience as a private teacher, he knew how to present difficult theories to his students in a simple and clear style and to embed the material used in a rational organization. The same style characterizes his books, which were largely based on his own lecture scripts and, in the works published posthumously, on the lecture notes of his students. In what was then Geneva, he tried to present his thoughts in terms of form and content in such a way that he was not chased out of the city - like Barbeyrac - but was honored to hold offices and dignities in his homeland. Burlamaqui, like the British Whigs , did not want a revolution of theory and dogma, but a liberal revolution.
He originally intended to introduce an introduction to a complete system of natural and constitutional law for students and beginners, but in 1747 he was only able to publish the first book on the principles of natural law ( Principes du droit naturel ). He forbade the publication of the second book because he had not yet edited the underlying lecture notes and provided them with quotations and his reflections. The politically daring, the foundation of political law, would appear only after his death. His friend, the academy director and pastor Jacob Vernet , published the principles of political law ( Principes du droit politique ) posthumously in 1751 on the basis of existing lecture notes, which earned Burlamaqui's book the reputation of containing no original ideas.
Burlamaqui's books have been translated into six languages, reached sixty editions and were in international demand as textbooks. 1766–1768, Fortunato Bartolomeo De Felice (1723–1789), editor of the Encyclopédie d'Yverdon , published an eight-volume collection of previously unpublished lecture notes and student notes under the title Principles of natural and human rights ( Principes du droit de la nature et des gens: suite du droit de la nature, qui n'avait point encore paru ).
Theory of the social contract
Burlamaqui distinguished three different stages of natural law: the state of nature, the formation of a political community and the international component. The various stages are nothing other than the situations in which a person finds himself in connection with the people he is surrounded by and the relationships that result from them.
Natural state
In contrast to many of his predecessors and contemporaries, the natural state for Burlamaqui was not that of licentiousness and perpetual war among people because they would pursue personal interests, but the natural state of community. The natural state of man is to be embedded in the community. Community is a state of reality and necessity. People are born to be social because it is their natural state. All were born and would not have been able to survive without someone else's help. This natural community is one of equality and freedom.
Formation of a political community
For Burlamaqui, the natural state was not the best condition for humans and he was looking for a higher degree of integration because the individual goals in community life could be better achieved. This integration process is based on consensus and if each consenting party is equal then the association must be based on contracts. In contrast to Pufendorf, he had an optimistic view of mankind and was of the opinion that people get together to be happy and not out of fear of each other.
The first contract is that each individual agrees to renounce the state of nature in order to unite with all the others in a new community / civil society and the main goals that serve the preservation and security of the community or the main rules around the collective To strive for a state of happiness, to set. The concept of happiness ( eudaemonism ) is central to the Burlamaquis contract theory and the general end purpose of law and the state to guarantee real and sustainable happiness. For him, the pursuit of happiness was a human right based on human nature.
A state can guarantee the happiness of its members as long as it respects natural law and the interests of the whole community. This balance can only be achieved through the establishment of a constitution, which requires a second, fundamental treaty . You need a constitution in order to be able to establish a form of government to ensure public safety and welfare. Legitimate for him were all forms of government in which happiness was elevated to a state purpose. For Burlamaqui, the form of government should keep pace with the development of school education among the people, because good morals are needed for the state to function properly. He shared the skepticism of his time about the feasibility of pure, absolute democracy. Like Bodin, he saw this in Europe as being limited to the Netherlands and the Swiss Confederation .
The third treaty serves to establish a regular state according to the form of government laid down in the constitution and to establish a perfect government. To this end, the people have to choose a government from among its members, to which they hand over their sovereignty and owe complete obedience to it and the laws it has issued. However, the power of government is limited by the peoples in different ways, as Pufendorf's example of the people of Aragon illustrates: We who have as much power as you make you our king, on the condition that you enjoy our rights and freedoms uncompromisingly, and not the other way around .
Consequences of the introduction of the articles of association
As a result of the introduction of the social contract with the three contracts and the transition from the natural state to organized civil society, Burlamaqui sees four main rules and principles for limiting the power of government.
For Locke and Rousseau , if a people revolted against its tyrant, a state would fall into a state of nature and anarchy, while for Burlamaqui the first treaty and with it the people as a political unit would remain in order to order a new government with a new constitution. If a government violated the third treaty, it would lose its legitimacy and the people would no longer have to obey. That does not mean that the people have the right to revolution, but they would reclaim their sovereignty from the government. In this sense, Burlamaqui is for the right to resist within certain limits. For Burlamaqui, the government must represent the people, either through the popular election of a prince or a parliament. But he did not go as far as Rousseau, who could also imagine a direct democracy , because he considered the people to be insufficiently educated and the difficult business of government would need specialists with the necessary care and human caution. He was against an absolute government and wanted to limit the transfer of sovereignty at least with the common good as an overriding right. In order to ensure compliance with the constitution, Burlamaqui formulated the theory of the division or separation of state power . The Senate should be given legal functions and thus maintain the balance between the executive and legislative branches as a counterweight . This form of mixed constitution should become a system of checks and balances , which creates a balance of authorities in order to ensure the common good and individual freedom.
With the transition from the natural state to the state, man gives up his independence in favor of subordination with a common advantage. The right guaranteed by the state gives people the opportunity to pursue their real interests and happiness. It is the duty of the state, in accordance with the purpose for which it was established, to ensure with all its might the happiness of every member of the community, because the public good of the community has been entrusted to it. The positive obligations of the state are regulated, among other things, by the enactment of laws directed at man to enable him to be happy in accordance with the dictates of reason.
The power of the government as supreme authority is limited to Burlamaqui with the constitution as supreme authority. Every government is limited in its authority by the content of the constitution. The constitution is the fundamental law, the foundation of the state on which the structure of government is built.
Burlamaqui's influence on the founding fathers
Burlamaqui's theory has not remained purely academic because it made the organization of society dependent on a series of natural contracts based on a concept of social justice and respect for the personal freedom that would be attainable for everyone with the help of the community, as well as his personal goals in life. That is why the pursuit of happiness is one of the consequences of his social contract concept for the state.
His ideas can be linked to concrete historical events and fundamental legal documents. They were a reliable source for the American founding fathers and found their way into the world's first written declaration of fundamental rights , the Virginia Declaration of Rights of June 12, 1776, which made clear reference in the first article to natural law and the personal image of man. It had a major influence on the formulation of the declaration of independence .
"America's Founders were inspired by the ideas and values of early Swiss philosophers like Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and Emer de Vattel, and the 1848 Swiss Constitution was influenced by our own US Constitution."
“The founding fathers of the United States of America were inspired by the ideas and values that go back to early Swiss philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and Emer de Vattel. [Conversely] the Swiss Constitution of 1848 was influenced by our own US Constitution. "
Burlamaqui's description of the European countries that "would form a kind of republic whose members, independent but bound by common interests, would come together to maintain order and freedom" was given by Michel Foucault in 1978 in his lectures at the Collège de France cited in connection with the discussion on diplomacy and international law .
Fonts
- Principles of natural law ( Principes du droit naturel ), 1747
- Principles of Political Law ( Principes du droit politique ), 1751
- Principles of natural and political law ( Principes du droit naturel et politique ), 1763, comprises the first two works
- Principles of natural and human rights ( Principes du droit de la nature et des gens: suite du droit de la nature, qui n'avait point encore paru ). Fortunato Bartolomeo de Felice (1723–1789, ed.) Verlag Yverdon 1766–1768, 8 volumes. Dupin publishing house, Paris 1820, 5 volumes. Reprint Nabu Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-174-52811-8
literature
- Ray Forrest Harvey: Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui. A Liberal Tradition in American Constitutionalism , University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1937
- Bernard Gagnebin: Burlamaqui et le droit naturel , La Frégate, Geneva 1944
- Alfred Dufour: Le mariage dans l'école romande du droit naturel au XVIIIe siècle . Librairie de l'Université, Georg & Cie, 1976
- Morton White: The Philosophy of the American Revolution : Oxford University Press, Oxford 1978.
- Alois Riklin: Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and the Geneva aristodemocracy . In: In the service of the community, Festschrift D. Schindler, Ed. W. Haller, Basel 1989
Web links
- Publications by and about Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
- Literature by and about Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui in the catalog of the German National Library
- Alfred Dufour / KMG: Burlamaqui, Jean-Jacques Jean. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pirmin Meier : The loneliness of the state prisoner Micheli du Crest . Zurich: Pendo, 1999. ISBN 3-85842-357-2
- ^ Raul Perez Johnston: Jean Jacques Burlamaqui and the theory of social contract, University of Oviedo, 2005
- ↑ Hillary Rodham Clinton : Statement On the Occasion of Switzerland's National Day. In: United States Department of State . July 29, 2011, accessed November 5, 2019 (archival version of the US Department of State).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Burlamaqui, Jean-Jacques |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss lawyer, philosopher and advocate of natural law |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 3, 1694 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Geneva , Republic of Geneva |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 3, 1748 |
| Place of death | Geneva , Republic of Geneva |