Natural Law, scholasticism, and church-state relations
| Vitoria, De Indis and De Jure Belli |
Suggested reading
On Natural Law theory
Aquinas, St Thomas, Selected political writings, ed. A.P.
d'Entrèves and J.G. Dawson, Oxford 1970.
[Fundamental texts in European social and political thinking.]
Bowe, Gabriel, The origin of political authority: an essay in
Catholic political philosophy, Dublin 1955.
[Modern - or no longer quite so modern - Irish Thomism.]
Brett, Annabel, Liberty, right and nature: Individual rights in later Scholastic thought, Cambridge University Press 1997.
D'Entrèves, A.P., Natural Law: an introduction to legal philosophy, London 1951.
[Mostly sensible introduction.]
Grotius, Hugo, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Right of War and
Peace), Oxford 1925, (Latin original and English translation).
[Of fundamental importance.]
Hamilton, Bernice, Political thought in sixteenth century Spain,
Oxford1963.
[Good, clear discussion.]
Hunter, Ian and Saunders, David, (eds) Natural
law and civil
sovereignty: moral right and state authority in early modern
political thought, Macmillan, 2002
[A mixed collection of essays, some very
useful.]
Lewy, G., Constitutionalism and statecraft during the golden age of
Spain: a study of the political philosophy of Juan de Mariana, S.J.,
Geneva 1960.
[Good study of an interesting figure.]
Luscombe, D. E, "Natural morality and natural law," and "The state of
nature and the origin of the state," in Norman Kretzmann et al, eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy,
Cambridge1982, 705-19 and 757-70.
[Good, succinct introductions.]
Oakley, Francis, Natural
law, laws of nature, natural rights : continuity
and discontinuity in the history of ideas, New York 2005
[Wide-ranging
recent account]
Skinner, Quentin, The foundations of modern political thought,
2 vols, Cambridge 1978, vol. 2 (The Age of Reformation), especially
113-84.
[Major modern discussion, to be used with some caution.]
Sommerville, Johann P., 'From Suarez to Filmer: a reappraisal',
Historical Journal 25(1982), 525-40.
[Thomist ideas in English perspective.]
Suárez, Francisco, Selections from three works, 2 vols, vol.2
(translation), Oxford 1944.
[Highly important and influential writings by one of the greatest
Thomists.]
Tierney, Brian, The idea of natural rights : studies on natural rights, natural law, and church law, 1150-1625, Grand Rapids 2001
Tuck, Richard, Natural rights theories: their origin and
development, Cambridge 1979.
[original, provocative, and difficult.]
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Questions |
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How democratic is Vitoria's thought? How significant are the differences between Vitoria and later (or earlier) natural law thinkers? How dependent are Vitoria's arguments on religious ideas? |
On church-state relations
Clancy, T. H., Papist pamphleteers: the Allen-Parsons party and the
political thought of the Counter-Reformation in England, 1572-1615,
Chicago 1964.
[Good, clear account.]
Cargill Thompson, W.D.J., The political thought of Martin Luther, Brighton 1984.
Cross, Claire, The royal supremacy in the Elizabethan church,
London1969.
[Discusses English protestant views on church-state relations.]
Figgis, John Neville, 'Erastus and Erastianism', in The divine
right of kings, 2nd edition, Cambridge 1914, 293-342.
[Good discussion of some important ideas.]
Höpfl, H., The Christian polity of John Calvin, Cambridge 1982.
Lecler, Joseph, Toleration and the Reformation, 2 vols, New York 1960.
[Contains much information, but to be used with caution.]
Oakley, Francis, "Almain and Major: conciliar theory on the eve of the
Reformation," in American Historical Review 70(1964-5), 673-90.
[Introduction to two important figures.]
Skinner, Quentin, The foundations of modern political thought, Cambridge 1978, vol.2 (The Age of Reformation).
[Packed with relevant information.]
Tierney, Brian, The crisis of church and state 1050-1300,
Toronto 1988.
[Excellent collection of documents and commentary.]
Wilks, Michael, The problem of sovereignty in the later middle ages,
Cambridge 1963.
[Full discussion of the medieval background.]
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Questions |
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What were the consequences of the Reformation on attitudes towards church-state relations? How convincing are the arguments for and against Vitoria's theory of church-state relations? What is the relationship between Vitoria' theory of natural law and his views on church-state relations? |
On the Indians and their rights
[In addition to works listed below, see also the list in Anthony Pagden's Cambridge Texts ("Blue Book") edition of Vitoria, pp. 383-7, and especially the writings by Pagden]
De las Casas, Bartolomé, In defence of the Indians, translated
by Stafford Poole, De Kalb, 1992.
[Classic defence of the Indians by a contemporary of Vitoria.]
Friede, Juan, and Keen, Benjamin, eds., Bartolomé de las Casas in history, De Kalb, 1971.
Hanke, Lewis, Aristotle and the American Indian, Austin 1959; Bloomington 1970.
Johnson, James T., Ideology, reason, and the limitation of war, Princeton 1975.
Keen M.H., The laws of war in the late middle ages, London 1965.
Klein, Herbert S., Slavery in the Americas, Chicago 1967.
Muldoon, James, Popes, lawyers, and infidels: the church and the
non-Christian world, Liverpool 1979.
[Important survey of late-medieval and sixteenth-century ideas.]
Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man. The American Indian and the Origins of
Comparative Ethnology, second edition, CUP 1986
[contains much important
information.]
Pagden, Anthony, "Dispossessing the Barbarian: Rights and Property in Spanish
America," in his Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination, Yale
1990, 13-36
[Useful overview.]
Russell, Frederick H., The just war in the middle ages,
Cambridge 1975.
[Full discussion.]
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Questions |
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Are Vitoria's views on Spanish conduct towards the Indians coherent? To what extent do Vitoria's ideas about the morality of Spanish actions in America spring from his natural law theory? How successful is Vitoria in showing that it can be just to go to war? |
