Slavery in Early Modern Philosophy 1500-1765: Essential Readings

Slavery in Early Modern Philosophy 1500-1765 contains thirty-four philosophical texts about slavery composed in Europe and America between 1500 and 1765. These readings demonstrate that debates about slavery deserve a central place in the history of philosophy, and are crucial for understanding early modern moral and political philosophy, as well as the development of the concept of race and the history of racism.

Included here are many previously unpublished and newly translated texts that discuss various aspects of slavery and represent many different perspectives. Some treat slavery as a purely theoretical issue, others explicitly examine transatlantic slavery, the enslavement of American Indians, or other specific historical institutions. Some criticize slavery, others defend it. Some focus on ethical or political questions, others on epistemological or psychological ones. Some explore the general permissibility of enslavement, others the morality of slave rebellions or the obligation to pay reparations. Some are by widely known authors -such as Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith-and others may be unfamiliar to most scholars but are at least as important for the history of philosophical debates about slavery. Including an introduction by volume editor Julia Jorati, this volume - along with its companion volume covering the late 18th century - will interest scholars and students exploring the history of philosophical thinking about slavery.

Julia Jorati is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She specializes in early modern philosophy with a focus on metaphysics, political philosophy, and ethics. In addition to numerous articles about early modern philosophers, she has authored the books Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Oxford 2024), Slavery and Race: Philosophical Debates in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford 2024), and Leibniz on Causation and Agency (Cambridge 2017). She is currently working on the companion volume to this anthology, Slavery in Early Modern Philosophy 1765-1800: Essential Readings.