The moral person of the state: Emer de Vattel and the foundations of international legal order

Emer de Vattel was the first writer systematically to combine three arguments in a single work, namely: that states have a fundamental duty of self-interestedness; that they nonetheless have reason to see themselves as inhabiting a kind of society; and that this society is held together by positive agreements between its members on rules that shall regulate their interactions. This article explores how Vattel arrived at his vision of international order. It points to the significance of his understanding of the state as being a ‘moral person’. This was a description of the state introduced by Samuel von Pufendorf, who argued that the state was a moral person because it possessed the moral faculties of intellect and will. This helped to ground a constitutionalist theory of the state, for intellect and will, being represented by separate institutions of the state, in effect balanced each other. But the notion of the state as a moral person was later taken up in a rival intellectual tradition that allotted no independence to the will. This was the philosophical tradition to which Vattel belonged. In this altered context, the notion of moral personality was transformed. I argue that this was critical to the formulation of Vattel's theory.

• An original interpretation of Emer de Vattel's Law of Nations.
• Shows the critical work done by the concept of the moral person of the state in Vattel's international theory.
• Demonstrates the radical change in the meaning of a term when it migrates from one intellectual tradition to another.
• Places the history of political thought in a broader intellectual context including moral psychology.