 The concept of a natural state is so important to Pufendorf’s theory that he considered political tracts which ignore it “gravely defective” (Statu #1, 1990, p. 110). The idea is discussed in no less than five of his works (EJU, DJN, DO, DAS, and ES), which basically agree on its characterization and distinctions (Seidler 1990, Fetscher 1960). DJN alone contains two versions: one (II.2) to establish the general need for law and moral authority, and the other (VII.1) to justify civil power or political sovereignty (imperium). These two treatments share a common conception of legal obligation as justified imposition by a beneficent superior with access to sanctions. This does not make them redundant, however, even if the political institutions created to eliminate the second, pre-civil state of nature are enjoined by same natural law that also commands (or induces) humans to leave their prior, pre-cultural (and bestial) states. Civil sovereignty and its mechanisms are needed precisely because the cooperative institutions (e.g., language, contract, property, marriage, family, household) that lift humans out of their previous, natural condition eventually create analogous coordination problems on another level. Indeed, since similar difficulties arise among civil states themselves, in an international state of nature, there is need for yet another solution at that level. In sum, Pufendorf’s conceptions of morality, politics, and international law are set against analogous natural states at each level; this facilitates the respective analyses, though the remaining differences also prevent their standardization.