Abstract

During the last few months of his life James Dundas, first Lord Arniston (c. 1620–79), wrote a monograph on moral philosophy. It appears never to have been mentioned in any work whether academic or otherwise. It includes a discussion promoting three doctrines against Hobbes. First, that something is simply good and something is simply bad, and that the first rule of morals is not self-love, but the glory of God. Secondly, the state of nature is not a state of war. Thirdly, contra Hobbes, the chief point in natural law is not that each person has a right to use all ways and means to preserve himself. This paper probes Dundas's arguments for his three doctrines