Pufendorf on Passions and Sociability

Samuel Pufendorf is known for his normative natural law philosophy, and particularly for his theory of sociability. This article concentrates on a topic that has received very little attention – his theory of the motivating character of passions in social life. It will demonstrate that individually and politically governed passions play a central role in Pufendorf’s description of the structure of human societies. I argue that for Pufendorf the norms of sociability are effective in social life because social interaction, guided by political governance, enables people to moderate their antisocial passions and habituate themselves to sociable passions.