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Vitoria: Political Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

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Fransisco de Vitoria is not as well known as many of his contemporaries, but his insights are particularly poignant and relevant today. Vitoria was trained as a theologian and taught theology at the University of Salamanca for two decades. But Vitoria follows closely in the pre-modern line of thought that treats Theology as a branch of rational philosophy, and most of Vitoria's writing treats the philosophical justifications or criticisms for various practices. Vitoria stands in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas (while frequently citing both), and his philosophy is similarly grounded in the empirical.

Vitoria is most notable for his evaluation of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. His chapter, On the American Indians, discusses both legitimate and illegitimate titles the Spanish claimed for themselves in their invasions. Of further relevance is his chapter, On War, in which Vitoria defends a "just war" theory on grounds of protecting the rights of individuals, but he goes further in permitting nations to go beyond necessary means to exert "just punishment" upon wrongdoers.

Much of Vitoria's writing will seem foreign to the modern mind, including his tripartite analysis of every subject, beginning with divine law, moving to natural law, and finally utilizing human law. But Vitoria's thinking is uniquely applicable to a world like ours, in which issues of human rights, colonization, democratization, and just war are part and parcel of daily discussion.