Montesquieu, Charles‐Louis de Secondat, Baron de

AbstractMontesquieu (1689–1755) was arguably the most influential philosopher of the eighteenth century, particularly with respect to his views on morality. His elliptical and aphoristic manner of writing, however, has made it difficult to interpret his thought on this subject and others. In his masterwork,The Spirit of Laws(1748), Montesquieu seems to take part in both the tradition of natural law and the new Enlightenment science of morality, providing accounts of morality in various historical and political circumstances from an intellectual distance. He has been labeled a latter‐day Thomist, a follower of Hugo Grotius's secularized school of natural law, a Stoic, a proto‐sociologist, a critic of Hobbes's reduction of justice to convention, and even a follower of Hobbesian positivism (see Courtney 2001; MacDonald 2001; Manent 1994; Pangle 1973; Waddicor 1970 for important points of view on this matter) (seeNatural Law; Aquinas, Saint Thomas; Grotius, Hugo; Stoicism; Durkheim, Emile; Hobbes, Thomas). Whatever the role of these various strands of thought in his work, an analysis of Montesquieu's ethical stance should begin with the observation that he championed and helped invent a cosmopolitan ethic of gentle mores (doux moeurs). Some of the main hallmarks of this view are moderate government, protection of individual liberties (including property rights and religious toleration), lenient penal law, and peaceful international relations. These are some of the defining characteristics of liberalism, broadly understood (seeLiberalism).