Grotius is now widely acknowledged as an important figure in early modern contractual and consensual theories of political authority and legitimacy. However, as his thoughts on these debates are disseminated throughout his works rather than systematically ordained, it remains difficult to assess what, if anything, constitutes his distinctive mark. In the present paper, I will argue that his works contain a combination of two conceptual elements that have come to constitute a salient characteristic of early modern contract and consent theories: (...) first, a strong obligation to keep one’s promises, and second, an account of perfect promises as transferrals of rights. In the political sphere, this means that citizens who have promised their obedience to the authorities are obligated to keep faith, which provides a solid foundation for political obligations. In addition, their promise implies that authorities receive the right to rule over them, which accounts for the legitimacy of these authorities’ power. (shrink)

Gregory Reichberg’s argument against my reading of the classical just war theorists falsely assumes that if just cause is unilateral, then there is no moral equality of combatants. This assumption is plausible if we assume an individualist framework. However, the classical theorists accepted quasi-Aristotelian, communitarian social ontologies and theories of justice. For them, the political community is ontologically and morally prior to the private individual. The classical just war theorists build their theories within this framework. They argue that just war (...) is only waged by supra-individual political communities for irreducibly social ends. War by private individuals for private ends is always unjust. The ends sought in just war presuppose the justice of a hierarchy of authority over war such that the soldier is obligated to serve in war upon the command of his legitimate authority. In this way, the classical theorists accept a unilateral theory of just cause and a division of authority over war that entails the possibility of the moral equality of combatants. (shrink)

Conventional modern just war theory is fundamentally incoherent. On the one hand, the theory contains a theory of public war wherein ethical responsibility for the justice of war belongs uniquely to political sovereigns while subjects, including soldiers, are obligated to serve in war upon the sovereign’s command. On the other hand, the theory contains a theory of discrimination which presupposes that participants in war, including soldiers, are responsible for the justice of the wars they fight. Moreover, these two components are (...) derived from two inconsistent visions of political justice. The theory of public war, it turns out, is derived from a theory of justice that places the value of political society conceived of as a supra-individual communal entity above the value of the private individual. The theory of discrimination, however, is derived from a theory of justice that places the value of the private individual above that of political society. This inconsistency is revealed by analyzing the theories of Vitoria, Grotius, and Walzer. Appreciating this problem also helps situate the recent revisionist critiques of conventional just war theory. (shrink)

From 1922 to 1924, the Iroquois Confederacy — a federal union of six aboriginal nations — sought resolution of a dispute between themselves and Canada at the League of Nations. In this paper, the historical events of the 1920s League are employed as a case study to explore the development of the international society of states in the early 20th century as it relates to the indigenous peoples of North America. Specifically, it will be argued that the early modern practice (...) of excluding Amerindians from international political forums is related to the negative representation of indigenous peoples in the dominant theoretical discourse of the time: social contract theory. The diplomatic activities of the Iroquois, and the members of the League during this time period, demonstrate exactly how social contract theory has relied on presenting indigenous peoples as residing in a non-political and non-sovereign form, thus denying them the right to participate at the international level on par with other peoples. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian] During the last few years, it has become usual to turn to some seventeenth century readings of the traditional idea of an original common possession of the earth for philosophical aid to explain and support the rights of persons in situations of extreme need, including refugees. Hugo Grotius’s conception of this idea is one of the most cited ones. In this paper, I hold that a Grotian reading of the idea of an (...) original common possession of the earth is not a fruitful principle if we want to elaborate a solid defence of the rights of the ones in need. I reconstruct and analyse the role this idea has in Grotius’s theory of private property and present objections to it from a Kantian perspective. (shrink)

RESUMO Trata-se de aproximar Hume e Maquiavel, tomando-os como os expoentes de uma certa corrente não jusnaturalista, formada no início da idade moderna, quanto ao modo de pensar a natureza da lei e, num sentido amplo, a normatividade jurídico-política. Apesar de ter sofrido influência da escola moderna de direito natural, Hume rompe com ela num ponto fundamental - na recusa da noção de pessoa como ponto de partida para pensar a gênese social do ordenamento jurídico-político. No lugar disso, ele pensou (...) essa gênese a partir do jogo das forças sociais e da circulação das opiniões na sociedade, para o que Maquiavel se constituiu numa referência imprescindível. ABSTRACT This paper aims to bring together Hume and Machiavelli by taking both of them as exponents of a certain nonjusnaturalistic current, formed at the beginning of the modern age, which had its own way of thinking the nature of law and, in a broad sense, legal-political normativity. Despite being influenced by the modern school of natural law, Hume breaks with it in a fundamental point - in the refusal of the notion of person as a starting point to think the social genesis of the legal-political order. Instead, he thought of this genesis from the game of social forces and the circulation of opinions in society, for which Machiavelli was an indispensable reference. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 71 - 105 Grotius’s theory of punishment provides a unique lens through which to view his evolving thought on sovereignty between _De Indis_ and _De iure belli ac pacis_ and the implications of that evolution for Grotius’s theory of the ius in bello. Throughout both works, Grotius attempted to leave open the possibility of private punishment and private warfare, a position not easily squared with prevailing views of sovereign authority. Initially, Grotius was content (...) with a theory marrying the private right of punishment with more traditional Scholastic views of sovereignty through a transfer of the private right from individuals into the hands of the sovereign. This theory also adopted traditional views of subject responsibility for sovereign acts—and, by extension, the exposure of subjects to punishment for the acts of their sovereign. By the time of his mature work, however, Grotius turned away from natural law justifications for collective responsibility and collective punishment, denying that subjects had to answer for the acts of their sovereign as a necessary incident of the compact creating civil society. This led Grotius to refer virtually all forms of collective responsibility, such as reprisal or punishment exacted through war, to the law of nations. This sharp reduction of the natural consequences of the creation of sovereign power also enabled Grotius’s argument that the private right of war, and in particular the private right of punishment, remained available after the creation of civil society. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 37, Issue 1, pp 61 - 94 Interchanges between political, juridical and theological thought in the early modern period have been studied extensively during the past decades. Less light has been cast on the corresponding interrelations between politico-juridical thought and biblical hermeneutics. However, this issue deserves some attention, too, as the following case study on Hugo Grotius wants to show by pointing to the mutual adjustment of juridical, theological and biblical arguments in the progress of the core (...) semantics of Grotius’s natural law theory from _De iure praedae_ to _De iure belli ac pacis._. (shrink)

In the chapter entitled ‘Philosophy and the Meaning of Life’ in Robert Nozick’s Philosophical Explanations there is an admonitory passage with many applications. ‘It is a puzzle,’ says Nozick, ‘how so many people, including intellectuals and academics devote enormous energy to work in which nothing of themselves or their important goals shines forth, not even in the way their work is presented. If they were struck down, their children upon growing up and examining their work would never know why they (...) had done it, would never know who it was that did it. They work that way and sometimes live that way, too’. (shrink)

Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) [Hugo, Huigh or Hugeianus de Groot] was a towering figure in philosophy, law, political theory and associated fields during the seventeenth century and for hundreds of years afterwards. His work ranged over a wide array of topics, though he is best known to philosophers today for his contributions to the natural law theories of normativity which emerged in the later medieval and early modern periods. This article will attempt to explain his views on the law of nature (...) and related issues while simultaneously providing some broader assessment of his place in the history of ideas. (shrink)

La posición de Grocio respecto a la guerra es considerada en este artículo como un intento de mediación entre el realismo político y el moralismo pacifista. Aunque la guerra es una consecuencia inevitable del conflicto permanente en las relaciones humanas, puede ser ajustada a los principios y reglas del derecho natural común a los hombres y del derecho de gentes resultante del consenso entre los pueblos. En consecuencia, Grocio expone las condiciones de justificación de la guerra y propone reglas de (...) conducta en la guerra. Sin embargo, persiste una tensión insuperable entre las pretensiones normativas de la moral y el derecho, por un lado, y la lógica de la fuerza propia de la guerra, por otro. (shrink)