How to Shape Societies: Pufendorf on Organizing Individual Interests and Social Interaction

Pufendorf uses the notions ‘natural law’ and ‘natural right’ synonymously (Hunger 1991, 51).

Pufendorf (1934 [1672], VII, II, 991–992) describes the underlying problem as follows: “Finally, when there are more than two opinions, the question arises as to whether they are to be voted upon separately, so that the one is carried which commands more votes than each of the others, or whether two or more, though opposed, may be combined to beat a third, upon the elimination of which the others may then be taken up, so that the one of the remaining questions is carried which has the majority of the votes. If we fix our eyes upon mere natural equity, without reference to agreements or special laws, it appears that we should distinguish between opinions which are entirely different from one another, and those where one includes a part of another, or which, in other words, differ only in quantity, so that they can be united on the points in which they agree, while the former cannot. Thus those who fix a fine upon a man, at twenty units of value, may be united with those who fix it at ten units, against such as would acquit him altogether, and the defendant will be fined ten units, because this is agreeable to the majority of the judges, in view of the fact that those in favor of the twenty, are included with those in favor of the ten […] (p. 991) But if, for example, the judges be divided about a defendant, a part voting to banish, a part to execute, and a part to free him, surely those in favor of banishment will not be able to unite with those who would condemn him to death, against those who would free him; nor these last with the one in favor of banishment, against those who would have him die. For these sentences are entirely different from each other, since there is no banishment in death, nor is it a part of death. And although the banishers and acquitters should agree that the accused should not be slain, their sentence does not produce this effect directly, but only by consequence. Yet they are in themselves, as a matter of fact, different, for whoever votes for acquittal frees him of all punishment, while a banisher favors a punishment.”

Gaertner (2005, 236) speaks in this case of a variant of successive pairwise majority voting.

All pairwise possibilities:

All pairwise possibilities: