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Natural Law in Aquinas and Grotius — An Ethics for Our Times?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
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References
1 See e.g. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [hereafter ST] II-II.64.7c.
2 See e.g. ibid, I-II.1-5; Grotius, De veritate religionis Christianae [Of the Truth of Christian Religion], II.9.
3 This directly opposes Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights [hereafter NLNR] (2nd edn, Oxford, Clarendon Press 2011), 437; see also 18, 23, 251, 280, 374. For Grotius's contrary view, see De Iure Belli ac Pacis [hereafter DIBP], I.2.5(1); I.2.6.
4 See e.g. Vreeland, H, Hugo Grotius: The Father of the Modern Science of International Law (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1917)Google Scholar; repeated in e.g. H Bull, Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford, Clarendon 1990), 2-3.
5 See most of all Tuck, R, The Rights of War and Peace (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 For an example stressing Grotius's Protestant doctrines, see Simmonds, NE, ‘Protestant Jurisprudence and Modern Doctrinal Scholarship’ 60 (2001) Cambridge LJ, 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Tuck (n 5) is a prominent recent example of this; the earliest writer to insist on Grotius's break with the past was in fact Samuel Pufendorf. For another example, see Finnis, NLNR, 43-44.
8 Grotius, , The Rights of War and Peace, Tuck ed, (3 vols, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund 2005), I.x-xiGoogle Scholar. All other references will be to the latin text of De Iure Belli ac Pacis [Of the Law of War and Peace]: note Tuck's edition translates (almost everywhere in the text) iure as ‘rights’, not ‘law’. The word can bear both senses, but Grotius's usage remains close to that of the Thomists. Notice also that iure is singular, so Tuck's preferred title, ‘The Rights of War and Peace’ manipulates the expectations of the reader into anticipating a modern, rights-based discussion of morality, as opposed to the virtue-based ethics of the past.
9 See De Iure Belli ac Pacis [hereafter DIBP], Prolegomena §§ XLIII, XLVI & LIII.
10 See for example Brett, A, Changes of State (Princeton, Princeton University Press 2011), 69-86Google Scholar.
11 ST I-II.1-5.
12 On virtues, one should include all of I-II.6-70 & II-II.1-170; on vices see I-II.71-89.
13 See generally ST I-II.90-108.
14 ST I-II.90.2c & ad 3.
15 Apart from his De Veritate, one should also look to Grotius's treatises Via ac Pacem Ecclesiasticam [The Way to Religious Peace], and his two Commentaries on the Old and New Testament.
16 This is essentially Finnis's objection (see the reference in n 7).
17 DIBP I.10.1. The Tuck edition renders ius naturale in this context as ‘natural right’ (presumably to strengthen the case from Grotius's innovation).
18 Ibid, I.10.2 (my emphasis). The Tuck edition (which incorporates an older translation of the French edition of the original Latin text) renders debiti and illiciti as ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful’, which helps to obscure the point that the rightfulness or wrongfulness of actions is not caused by a divine command, but rather the cause of such a command. See also the Prolegomena (preliminary discourse) § XI (the famous etiamsi daremus passage).
19 Ibid, I.2.1(2); De Veritate I.23 & III.12.
20 DIBP, Prolegomena § XI.
21 Ibid, § I.
22 See e.g. ST I-II.95.2c & ad 3; DIBP I.1.10.
23 Finnis, NLNR, 46; see also 34.
24 See ST I-II.92.4 ad 3; I-II.96.4c.
25 Ibid, I-II.96.4 ad 3, also I-II.97.1 ad 2; II-II.117.6c.
26 See I-II.94.2c; on the existence of God, see I.12.1c; on God's love see I.20.2c & ad 1.
27 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.5.1095b-1096a. Tuck regards Grotius as having made a decisive break with Aristotle, despite what Grotius says at DIBP Proleg § XLIII (i.e. that Aristotle holds the most exalted place among philosophers), by rejecting the doctrine of the mean. This overlooks the places where Grotius employs the doctrine, e.g. I.2.1(3), where he carefully explores the types of action which do and do not involve a mean. Nor was this new: see Aquinas, De Virtutibus I.13.
28 See ST I-II.94.2c; I-II.91.2 ad 2; Suppl. 98.1c & ad 2 (evil does not move the will except insofar as it is thought to be good); see also Sent IV.49.1.3.
29 Ibid. I-II.91.2c; also I-II.94.6c & ad 1 (the most basic precepts of natural law cannot be expunged by sin). Grotius also mentions the regulation of instinct by ‘a kind of intelligent extrinsic principle’, as well as ‘an [internal] faculty of knowing and acting’: DIBP Proleg § VII.
30 See in particular DIBP Proleg § VI; also § VIII on care or stewardship of community [societatis custodia]; § XII.
31 See ST I-II.94.2c.
32 On Aquinas, see Finnis, NLNR, 90-91, 422; his later book on Aquinas contains many references to the virtues, but they remain (as NLNR put it) mere ‘modes’ of responding to reasons: Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory (Oxford, Oxford University Press 1998), 124 & 107. For a recent account of Aquinas in which the virtues are restored, see J Porter, The Recovery of Virtue (Louisville, WJKP 1990). As an example of the neglect of virtue in Grotius, see Tuck, , The Rights of War and Peace (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (aside from so-called ‘civic virtue’), or Schneewind, JB, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1997), ch 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 See in particular NLNR, 59, and more generally ch V.
34 See DIBP Proleg § IX; also § XIII; on justice's role, § XLV. See also De Veritate II.14 (on the use of temporal goods).
35 DIBP, I.1.3(1); see also the important explanation of virtue and its end, I.1.17.
36 Ibid, I.1.2(1), I.3.1; I.4.1; II.1.1-2.
37 Grotius is referring not only to ‘particular justice’ (refraining from another's right) but also to ‘legal justice’ in Aristotle's sense, i.e. the virtue which includes all other virtues insofar as they are orientated to the common good: see Proleg § XLV.
38 Ibid, I.1.1. (Recall St Augustine's comment that a ‘people’ is defined by their agreement over the objects of their shared love: De Civitate Dei, XIX.24).
39 Ibid, Proleg § X.
40 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles [hereafter SCG] III.34.2; see also ST II-II.29.3 ad 3; Grotius, DIBP I.2.7.
41 ST II-II.58.7 ad 1 & 2.
42 Ibid, II-II.58.6c.
43 Ibid, I-II.100.5c; II-II.122.6 ad 2.
44 The formulation is Grotius's: ibid, Proleg. § XLIV.
45 See e.g. Aquinas's use of the phrase, ST II-II.58.1c.
46 See DIBP Proleg. § VIII.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid, I.2.5; II.20.9; see also Aquinas's remarks on perjury and false suits, ST II-II.38.1 ad 3.
49 Ibid, I.2.7(9); I.3.6.
50 Ibid, I.3.1.
51 Ibid, I.2.10; also see ST I-II.96.4c.
52 Ibid, II.12.20-21; ST II-II.78.3 ad 2.
53 See e.g. DIBP II.12.18; III.18.4; III.19.3.
54 ST II-II.58.6c 7 ad 4.
55 Ibid, I.4.2 (unless the ruler has become an enemy to all the people: I.4.11); Aquinas, ST II-II.38.1c; II-II.40.1c; II-II.41.c & ad 3; II.II.42.1c.
56 ST II-II.29.3c.
57 See ST II-II.62.2 ad 2 (NB. the dishonourable revelation does not have to be a lie); DIBP I.2.7(5).
58 DIBP II.20.9.
59 For some very useful remarks see Finnis, NLNR, 188-93.
60 See e.g. ST I-II.95.2 ad 3.
61 Thus for example, a scholar who looks for Grotius's views on justice should examine his book, Introduction to the Jurisprudence of Holland.