Rights,Relativism,and Religious Faith in Montesquieu

Abstract

There is tension between Montesquieu's determinist science of human behaviour and his moral prescriptions. He believed in natural law and rights, notably the right to liberty. Yet he advanced physical explanations of individual behaviour and a mixture of physical and social explanations of cultural differences in moral and aesthetic attitudes, religious belief and the capacity to sustain liberty. Such explanations conflict with the assertion that human beings can know and follow universal natural laws. Despite his explanations of religious beliefs, Montesquieu resolved the intellectual and emotional tension between his doctrines by recourse to his own religious beliefs—for a working knowledge of moral principles—and the notion of a freely acting, immaterial soul, although his science seems to leave it almost no room for action.