Author: WANG Dong, Distinguished Researcher, School of Law, Shenzhen University.
Abstract:
Larry Siedentop’s Inventing the Individual re-examines the origins, character and nature of the early modern world, stresses that the invention of the individual is a key reason for the formation of the modern world, and seeks to defend liberalism. In his historical writing, Siedentop denies the existence of individual “equal liberty” in the ancient world and insists that Christian moral intuitions played a key role in shaping the discourse of early modern liberalism and secularism. Siedentop explains how the Papal revolution brought about a form of European constitution, the centrality of subjective rights in the legal system, and an era in which equality and reciprocity became the criteria for judging positive and customary law. The narrative and physical person was transformed into the moral individual, laying the foundations of modern freedom. This individual, enjoying equality of identity and morality, and with conscience and free will, came to form a central constituent role in society. The book is scholarly and coherent, despite being challenged in terms of detail, concepts, perspectives, academic history, coherence and common sense. It is clear, however, that the book has a long way to go to achieve its aim of reviving liberalism.
Keywords:
individual, invention, liberty, modern world, Christianity
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