Harmonic Justice

One of the chapters in Divisions of Law will deal specifically with the concept of Harmonic Justice, one of the most central concepts in all of Bodin's theoretical work.  It is a bit of a puzzle why Harmonic Justice should be largely forgotten and ignored in modern scholarship on Bodin.  It was the main normative purpose of his whole theory of state.  And it also became the object of academic criticism in early modern literature - Kepler, in his Harmonices Mundi, notably commented extensively on Bodin's theory of harmony.

One of his first statements of the concept appears in Juris Universi Distributio, at the end.  Not only does he reject the classical approach of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle, he opens the possibility for a synthesis of the two.

 Commentators have sometimes struggled to find a normative message in Bodin's political theory.  This is a good candidate, or at least I will try to make the case for it in the book.