Christian political theorists have long lamented the alleged poverty of modern moral philosophy. The predominance of the language of individual rights would allow for little ethical guidance, to the detriment of communal values and spiritual enhancement. A return to Aristotelian virtue ethics, with its putatively richer philosophical anthropology, is commonly pleaded for. Jeremy Seth Geddert sympathizes with this litany. Yet he finds unexpected moral inspiration closer to home: in the thought of the Dutch philosopher, statesman, and “secular rights pioneer” Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). Grotius's ethics, Geddert argues in this dense and original monograph, strikes a delicate balance between modern individual rights and ancient virtue. “Grotius provides the concept of individual rights with a secure but limited place that keeps alive the wider horizon of higher goods” (3). Indeed, Grotius would have realized that “rights are only a precondition for virtue” (215).

Grotius is commonly read as having advanced a minimalist and individualist ethics, centred on the protection of individual property rights. Hugo Grotius and the Modern Theology of Freedom is to be applauded for correcting such proto-Hobbist readings. As the laws of a reasonable and sociable nature, Grotius's laws of nature often require favoring communal welfare over individual expediency, sometimes even morally mandating self-sacrifice (e.g., De Jure Belli ac Pacis, 2.1.8–9, 2.25.3.3). Geddert's main thesis is that Grotius's ethics is double-layered. What Grotius calls “expletive justice” would be a deontological norm, found out by natural reason and ordering respect for individual rights. What the Dutchman calls “attributive justice,” by contrast, would point to a “substantive vision of human flourishing” grounded in a partly natural, partly revelatory teleology (57). Attributive justice tells us how and for what end the individual rights protected by expletive justice must be exercised. In doing so, “attributive justice fulfils expletive justice” (59). Grotian rights, Geddert avers, point to responsibilities and thus toward their own transcendence, “direct[ing] the individual bearers of natural rights toward higher realities” (33). His dualist theory of justice thus enabled Grotius to solve “the philosophical problem of the limits of rights” (3).

Hugo Grotius and the Modern Theology of Freedom contains a detailed analysis of Grotius's complex classification of justice and rights (chapters 2–3), followed by chapter-length discussions of five distinct political rights (chapters 4–8). These latter chapters aim to show that attributive justice indeed directs the exercise of individual rights safeguarded by expletive justice. Chapter 4 examines the origin and extent of political authority. Geddert argues that expletive justice leaves individuals free to set up whichever political institutions they fancy. Yet “the right of individuals to consent to their political arrangements implies a responsibility to choose their institutions well”—that is, in accordance with attributive justice (67). Chapter 5 makes a similar argument about the nature of sovereignty and how it ought to be exercised. Chapter 6 deals with rights and responsibilities of punishment, while chapter 7 explores rights of war and humanitarian intervention.

Chapter 8 is arguably the most original of the lot. It offers an insightful analysis of Grotius's atonement theory as expounded in his anti-Socinian De Satisfactione Christi (1617). Albeit a treatise on soteriology, De Satisfactione contains refined reflections on the nature of debt and punishment that help elucidate Grotius's theory of rights. By what right does God grant mercy on sinful humanity? How is divine clemency related to God's right to punish? Geddert argues that “deontology grants God the right to punish, teleology guides his exercise of punishment” (176). The chapter thus nicely develops the book's main thesis, while also making good on the author's aspiration to show how Grotius's sundry theological writings interlock with his better-known natural jurisprudence (14).

What to think of Geddert's bold new interpretation of Grotius's ethical theory? Allow me to sidestep the question whether modern moral philosophy must be salvaged, and if so, whether Grotius is of help. Hugo Grotius and the Modern Theology of Freedom is surely to be commended for signaling the significance of Grotius's theology for his moral theory. With respect to clarifying the structure of that theory, the book is less helpful. Betraying Procrustean tendencies, Geddert maps the Grotian distinction between expletive and attributive justice onto a surprising array of other dichotomies: deontology vs. teleology; calculative reason vs. prudence; meta-ethical naturalism vs. voluntarism; natural law vs. natural Right; universal vs. personal norms; individual choice vs. communal responsibilities; even negative vs. positive liberty. What natural Right exactly is, Geddert does not explain—perhaps because it is “somewhat difficult to communicate to those who do not already have it in their souls” (29). But the author is clearly casting his net widely: “To be truly human, one must go beyond expletive justice” (123).

The exegetical plausibility of Geddert's reading is undermined by his inflationary and rather imprecise understanding of attributive justice. Attributive justice governs imperfect rights: that kind of “moral Quality annexed to the Person” which denotes worthiness or suitability to receive some perfect right (e.g., DJBP 1.1.4, 1.1.8.1, 2.2.20.2). The point of Grotius's distinctions between perfect and imperfect rights, and between expletive and attributive justice, is to demarcate when humans have an actionable claim against others. While liberality is due to the deserving poor and the best candidate merits the job, neither can strictly demand the good they only have an imperfect right to. Attributive justice enjoins conduct in accordance with imperfect rights. Yet its violation neither wrongs the right-holder, nor does it justify taking coercive measures.

Geddert rarely mentions imperfect rights. He prefers to explain the difference between expletive and attributive justice in terms of obligation: what is strictly owed vs. what is fitting (49). That is misleading. Not every moral duty or ideal that does not entail corresponding claim-rights is a matter of attributive justice. De Jure Belli ac Pacis frequently refers to actions that are morally good but not required, such as sparing one's enemies and their possessions. Geddert mistakenly regards all such supererogatory actions as instances of attributive justice (47). While both supererogatory and attributively just actions are beyond human compulsion, only the latter exclusively concern imperfect rights. Imperfect rights (and hence attributive justice) provide some guidance about how we should treat people. Yet certainly not as much as Geddert would have it.

I am equally skeptical about Geddert's contention that Grotian rights are oriented toward the good (169). The author makes much of Grotius's discussion of the proper exercise of rights of punishment, without noting that punishment is exceptional in this respect. Unlike most (all?) other perfect rights, the right to punish expresses no form of ownership (De Satisfactione 2.16). Ownership rights are discretionary since they exist “for the sake of the owner” (DS 2.22). The right to punish, by contrast, is nondiscretionary and possessed for the sake of the common good; its exercise is therefore morally regulated. While the right to punish by its nature entails responsibilities, ownership rights do not.

An original and thought-provoking study, Hugo Grotius and the Modern Theology of Freedom has much to offer; as an exegetical analysis, it must however be consulted with care.