The Disfigured Face: The War of the Philosophers: St. Thomas on Slavery

THE SCHOOL OF SALAMANCA was the work of the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria. He has been hailed as the "Father of International Law." He was not trapped by a Spanish parochialism or jingoism; his philosophy, and his Faith, allowed him to overcome many of those nationalistic hindrances that bound the ordinary Spaniard to his belief in superiority or exceptionalism of his nation. It was these sorts of intellectual chains that bound up the intellect of that advocate of natural slavery, Sepúlveda, and made him, in an ironical way, a slave to them. Spain in the early 16th century was the glory of the earth. Headed by the Emperor Charles V, Spain was the world power. It was firmly planted in two continents. It took a great man to seek that there was a part of Spain, its earthly glory withal, that was not glorious in heaven. But Vitoria's merits were largely a reflection of his teacher, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Portrait of Emperor Charles V by Titian

It was his appointment to the University of Salamanca, and his promotion of Thomism there, that was Vitoria's greatest, and lasting work. Unusually, he did not publish any work during his lifetime, and the majority of what we have from him are as a result of notes taken from his lectures. Perhaps his most important, certainly the most frequently read, are his Relectio de indis recenter inventis, his lectures on the status of the recently-discovered Amerindians. Many of these notes, at least those on other topics, unfortunately, remain unpublished.

In his Relectio de Indis, Vitoria addressed the issue of whether Spain was justified in conquering the Americas because of the lapse of reason, the "rational insufficiency," of the Amerindians. Despite their social sins and cultural enormities (e.g., human sacrifice, idolatry), were the Amerindians capable of self-government, self-determination? Or were their cultural enormities, the product of the failure of the natural law and reason, justifications for just war and warrant for conquest? It is clear that Aristotle's authority and stature was the biggest impediment to answering the question. Specifically, the Aristotelian doctrine (found in his Politics and in his Nicomachean Ethics) that there were men who were barbarian, who were by nature slaves, and were naturally lacking in the right over themselves and their possessions. Slavery was rampant in the ancient Greek world, and Aristotle addressed the issue of whether it was a natural institution, or rather one that was conventional. Aristotle believed that slavery was a natural institution, that there were some men, who, by reason of their superiority, were naturally masters, and other men, who, by reason of their inferiority, naturally slaves.

But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? This is the question: but it is interesting that he feels the need to ask it. There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.

Politics, I, 2, 1254a. Vitoria was, as may be expected, conservative, and he struggled to find a way around the Aristotelian doctrine without repudiating it. "Aristotle certainly did not mean to say that such men thereby belong by nature to others and have no rights of ownership over their own bodies and possession (dominium sui et rerum). Such slavery is a civil and legal condition, to which no man can belong by nature." Aristotle "certainly did not mean by this that such men had a legal right to arrogate power to themselves over others on the grounds of their superior intelligence, but merely that they are fitted by nature to be princes and guides." Granting, arguendo, that the American Indians were "foolish and slow-witted as people say they are," Vitoria's conclusions were that it was "still wrong to use this as grounds to deny their true dominion (dominium); nor can they be counted among the slaves." Cortest, 37 (quoting Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 233.)

Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas by Félix Parra

Vitoria's effort to circumvent Aristotle without outright repudiation has been criticized by scholars, and probably rightly so. To give to Aristotle such a slant was outside the range of probability of Aristotle's intendment.

On the other hand, Las Casas was much less deferential to the Aristotelian "natural slavery" doctrine. Cortest, 38. Las Casas maintained that there was but one human race, "una denique sola species creaturae rationalis, quae in individuis suis per universum mundum erat dispersa," "besides, there is only one species of rational creature, which is dispersed through the entire world in his individuality." (So in his De unico vocationis modo.) Though there may be differing levels of cultural achievements and though they may be laboring under social or cultural impediments, the Indians remained children of God, redeemed of Christ, and fellow brothers with the Spaniards:

Again, if we want to be sons of Christ and followers of the truth of the gospel, we should consider that, even though these peoples may be completely barbaric, they are nevertheless created in God's image. They are not so forsaken by divine providence that they are incapable of attaining Christ's kingdom. They are our brothers, redeemed by Christ's most precious blood, no less than the wisest and most learned men in the whole world.

Cortest, 41 (quoting Las Casas's In Defense of the Indians) Can one imagine Aristotle, the proud Greek, saying of the Persians or the lesser peoples, "They are our brothers"? Manifestly no. Christianity injected something precious, something magnificent, into the world, a comfort to the poor and downtrodden, and a humbling medicine, perhaps bitter in taste, to the rich and the proud. Oh let us praise the Lord God in unison with Mary for the entry into the world of this thing!

Magnificat anima mea Dominum,
et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salvatore meo . . . .
Fecit potentiam in brachio suo,
dispersit superbos mente cordis sui;
deposuit potentes de sede,
et exaltavit humiles;
esurientes implevit bonis,
et divites dimisit inanes.

Others also addressed the issue of the Amerindians' status as "natural slaves," and weighed in against Sepúlveda. Among these, Cortest cites and discusses the Jesuit José de Acosta, the so-called "Pliny of the New World," who detailed the natural and moral history of the Indies. He discusses the Dominican Domingo Bañez, the proeclarissimum jubar, the "brightest light" of Spain, and confessor to St. Theresa of Avila. He also briefly addresses the view of the Dominican Melchor Cano, that zealous prosecutor of Carranza and author of the famous De Locis Theologicis. But the real focus of his sights is Francisco Suárez, and the teacher of them all, St. Thomas Aquinas.

In his De triplici virtute theologica, fide, spe & charitate, Suárez explicitly confronts the position of Sepúlveda on Spain's right of conquest over the pagan American Indians. The three arguments commonly given were that such conquest was justified by reason of the Indian practice of human sacrifice, which warranted intervention to defend the innocent. The second argument commonly given was that such conquest was legitimated by the cultural benefits that the pagan society would receive from its conquerors' superior civilization. The third argument (which is the one that Cortest in his discussion of Suárez focuses on) is the argument that the Amerindians were, by nature, slaves, and therefore could be compelled to obedience to their superiors. Cortest, 40.

Aztec Human Sacrifice: Did it Warrant Conquest?

In addressing the last argument, Suárez doubted that, in fact, there could be peoples that were so barbarous and uncivilized "that they were neither united in a civil society, nor capable of exercising government." In other words, the capacity to live in common and provide for self-determination and self-government is so intrinsic to humanity, that one ventures into the land of theory to suggest that a people have lost this capacity. In practice, Suárez maintains, such a barbarous people with an absolute inability to self-govern have never been found.

The fact is that all of these men: Vitoria, Las Casas, de Acosta, Bañez, Cano, Suárez, and literally hundreds of others who are lesser lights but remain within the constellation of the School of Salamanca were schooled by St. Thomas Aquinas. "[T]he reason these writers share a common view concerning the doctrine of natural servitude is that Thomas himself rejected this doctrine." Cortest, 42. It is St. Thomas, steeped in the law and teachings of the Gospel, who overcame the Aristotelian "some men are by nature slaves" blight.

Cortest focuses on St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae. Thomas's commentary on Aristotle's Politics is problematic in that it is difficult to tell when St. Thomas is citing Aristotle's text with approval, and when he is not. Moreover, the commentary was never completed. The Summa, though also not fully completed, presents clearly enough St. Thomas's own view on the matter of the institution of slavery. The heart of the Thomistic analysis is Question 57, article 3 of the second part of the second part (IaIIae):

From the bare nature of the case there is no reason for this man rather than that man being a slave. It is only when it is looked at pragmatically in its results that, as Aristotle says, it is expedient for him to be ruled by a wiser man whom he serves. Servitude, which is part of the ius gentium, is natural then in the second sense of our explanation, not the first.

[H]unc hominem esse servum, absolute considerando, magis quam alium, non habet rationem naturalem, sed solum secundum aliquam utilitatem consequentem, inquantum utile est huic quod regatur a sapientiori, et illi quod ab hoc iuvetur, ut dicitur in I Polit. Et ideo servitus pertinens ad ius gentium est naturalis secundo modo, sed non primo [modo].

S.T., IIaIIae, q. 57 a. 3, ad 3. St. Thomas appears, then, to reject the Aristotelian notion that some men, are by nature inferior to others. However, he does not enter into the intellectually vacuous and indefensible territory of those who hold that men are in all things equal. Such a view is, as a matter of empirical fact, untenable. (In fact, in practice, such a belief can cause untold suffering, perhaps even more than the suffering imposed by slavery. One need only look at the sufferings of those under Communism. Wasn't it Gilles Dauvé who said, "Communism believes in equality through force"? Slavery is inequality through force. Communism is equality through force. Both are social and moral evils.) What St. Thomas suggests is that though slavery is not a natural institution, it is natural that some men should be subordinate, but not enslaved, to others, namely, the wiser.

This view is confirmed in another part of the Summa (dealing with the relationship between man and wife). Here, St. Thomas distinguishes between the subordination which is only for the advantage of the master (slavery), and subordination which is for the benefit of the subject (right order):

Subjection is of two kinds; one is that of slavery, in which the ruler manages the subject for his own advantage, and this sort of subjection came in after sin. But the other kind of subjection is domestic or civil, in which the ruler manages his subjects for their advantage and benefit. And this sort of subjection would have obtained even before sin. For the human group would have lacked the benefit of order had some of its members not been governed by others who were wiser.

Ad secundum dicendum quod duplex est subiectio. Una servilis, secundum quam praesidens utitur subiecto ad sui ipsius utilitatem et talis subiectio introducta est post peccatum. Est autem alia subiectio oeconomica vel civilis, secundum quam praesidens utitur subiectis ad eorum utilitatem et bonum. Et ista subiectio fuisset etiam ante peccatum, defuisset enim bonum ordinis in humana multitudine, si quidam per alios sapientiores gubernati non fuissent. . . .

S.T., Ia q. 92 a. 1 ad 3. Slavery, though perhaps prevalent among men, is not a natural institution. It entered the world by reason of man's original sin, and, where it becomes institutionalized, as it did in Ancient Greece, or as it did in Africa, Islam (Islam has the added problem that slavery is justified in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, Mohammed having participated, nay, benefited, nay even relished in orgasmic shudder in the institution, as he had sex with his women slaves. Thus it would appear that slavery, which is against the natural law, has the sanction of Allah, if Muhammad and his Qur'an is to be believed.), or the West during the era of the slave trade and chattel slavery, it is the product of sin: indeed, it is a punishment for having sinned. Slavery does not insinuate itself into a society unless it has compromised the natural moral law:

The difference between a slave and a free man is that a free man is because of himself, as it says at the beginning of the Metaphysics; whereas a slave is geared to the benefit of another. So someone lords over another as a slave when he simply uses him for his own, that is the lord's purposes. And because everyone naturally values his own good, and consequently finds it grievous to surrender entirely to another the good that ought to be his own, it follows that lordship of this kind cannot but be punitive to those subjected to it. For this reason man cannot have lorded over man in the sate of innocence in that sort of way.

Cuius ratio est, quia servus in hoc differt a libero, quod liber est causa sui, ut dicitur in principio Metaphys.; servus autem ordinatur ad alium. Tunc ergo aliquis dominatur alicui ut servo, quando eum cui dominatur ad propriam utilitatem sui, scilicet dominantis, refert. Et quia unicuique est appetibile proprium bonum, et per consequens contristabile est unicuique quod illud bonum quod deberet esse suum, cedat alteri tantum; ideo tale dominium non potest esse sine poena subiectorum. Propter quod, in statu innocentiae non fuisset tale dominium hominis ad hominem.

Ia q. 96 a. 4 ad arg. There is a predisposition in man toward slavery. This is the result not only of the Fall, but also of the natural convenience, the pragmatic benefits to the master from this institution. It is sometimes so entrenched that the removal of it can cause more harm than the tolerance of it. Analogously, it is sometimes better to live, at least for a time, with a tumor, if to remove it would result in certain death. Thus, slavery is something that, though not in accord with nature, is frequently found among human societies. This is because something can be said to be natural in two ways, actively, because nature requires it, and passively, because nature does not appear to forbid the contrary.

You speak of something being according to natural right in two ways. The first is because nature is set that way; thus the command that no harm should be done another. The second is because nature does not bid the contrary; thus we might say that it is of the natural law for man to be naked, for nature does not give him clothes; these he has to make by art. In this way common ownership and universal liberty are said to be of natural law, because private property and slavery existence by human contrivance for the convenience of social life, and not by natural law. . . .

[Q]uod aliquid dicitur esse de iure naturali dupliciter. Uno modo, quia ad hoc natura inclinat, sicut non esse iniuriam alteri faciendam. Alio modo, quia natura non induxit contrarium, sicut possemus dicere quod hominem esse nudum est de iure naturali, quia natura non dedit ei vestitum, sed ars adinvenit. Et hoc modo communis omnium possessio, et omnium una libertas, dicitur esse de iure naturali, quia scilicet distinctio possessionum et servitus non sunt inductae a natura, sed per hominum rationem, ad utilitatem humanae vitae.

IaIIae q. 94 a. 5 ad 3. Thus, slavery was not a natural institution, but one of human origin. It has no divine or natural pedigree. It is one imposed by positive law, by custom, and has entered the world as a result of sin. Though men are, by accidents of birth, culture, education, inheritance unequal, all men are by nature equal, omnes homines natura sunt pares. S.T., IIaIIae q. 104 a. 5 co.

And so it is that this chapter turns to a close:

The philosophical debate concerning the nature of the native peoples of the New World was an important component in the controversy surrounding the legitimacy of the wars of conquest. The legal theory that grew out of this controversy would have a long history. The juridical treatises produced by the members of the School of Salamanca were primary sources for Hugo Grotius and, as such, had a major impact on the development of modern international law. More importantly, the participants in the debate reveal two distinctly different views concerning the dignity of the human person. One one hand, the [strict] Aristotelians (lead by Sepúlveda) defended a hierarchical notion of human worth . . . On the other hand, the strict Thomists defended the idea that no one is a natural slave; all people are children of God and thus, foreign peoples, even if they believe in different gods, are human beings created by God who live in legitimate societies.

Cortest, 47.

From here, Cortest turns to the philosophy of natural right. Specifically, Cortest traces its origin to the 16th century, and, after exploring the origin of modern human rights, will compare it to the classic, specifically Thomist, theory of natural law.

The Disfigured Face: Ontological Morality and Human Rights

THE "NATURE" OF ARISTOTLE AND OF AQUINAS which is the source of the natural law is different from the denuded, one dimensional, materialistic "nature" of the modern day sciences. If the "nature" as understood by Aristotle and Aquinas were an apple, the "nature" as understood by the modern scientist is but a peel. The modern notion of "nature" is lacking both fruit and seed. It is tasteless, fruitless. It is bland of value, composed only of empirical fact. There is no "ought" in it; there is only "is" in it. The Aristotelian/Thomistic concept of nature had and element of design, but not the design of some complex watch, but the design of a quasi-living organism, as it had an inner entelechy, a desire, a yearning toward the God that had brought it out of nothing and that constantly preserved it in being. The entire cosmos, after all, even its raw matter, the chaotic matter over which the Spirit hovered, was a creature of God. God did not act arbitrarily, without reason in creation ex nihilo. It followed that nature had a purpose, a goal, an end, a telos (from the Greek word τέλος, a word meaning "purpose," or "goal," or "end"). Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas (and, for that matter, the entirety of the perennial tradition in between them and after them until this notion was rejected as part of the Enlightenment, Liberal, and Modernist project) was teleological. In this regard, Cortest quotes Ernest Fortin:

The heart of the Aristotelian enterprise is the well-known and now almost universally contested thesis that nature acts for an end.

This teleological view of nature of Aristotle was shared by St. Thomas; however, he nestled it into his unique metaphysics or ontology, which distinguished essence from existence, and which found that existence was the preeminent good, in fact the source of both the true and the good, of perfection. In St. Thomas's view, good and being are exchangeable terms. If a thing is good, it subsists in the fullness of its being (existence); that is, it conforms entirely to its nature which is informed by its end. To the extent that it fails to abide by its being (existence), to the extent that it misses the mark that is its end and which is defined by its nature, it suffers (or does, if the creature has free will and knowledge) evil. St. Thomas, it hardly need be said, also recognized the truths of revelation, particularly those that related to the dignity of man as a creature of God and as a result of his ultimate calling (union with God in the beatific vision). His understanding of the end of nature was informed by the Evangelical revelation.

Aristotle had no inkling of the Gospel. It is for this reason that, "[a]lthough both Aristotle and Aquinas construct ethical and moral systems on metaphysical principles, they have entirely different conceptions of the value of human life." Cortest, 18. So different is that conception, that Aristotle and St. Thomas stand apart each other by a great divide. It is the philosophical analogue of the historical divide between B.C. and A.D. The Lord had not walked among us when Aristotle did his thinking. Aristotle promoted (or at least excused) the killing of deformed children and human chattel slavery, something unthinkable to St. Thomas. So massive is the difference the Gospel made to the Aristotelian underlayment of St. Thomas Aquinas, that if Aristotle alone was relied upon to build a natural law, he would be unable to provide us with a workable morality. "I would argue," says Cortest, "that no credible doctrine of human rights can be based exclusively on an Aristotelian anthropology, since nature shows no compassion for the weak, the innocent, or the 'deformed.'" Cortest, 19. Cortest is right. As great as Aristotle was, he lived without Gospel light, and his teaching is, next to the sublime values of the Gospel, barbaric in some aspects. To return to raw Aristotelianism without the temper of the Gospel would be a giant leap backwards in human development.

While indisputably St. Thomas had a high view of human dignity, it would be a mistake to attribute to him, as some scholars do (John Finnis or Brian Tierney come readily to mind), the modern notion of "human rights." The most fundamental chasm exists between St. Thomas's traditional notions and the modern notions of human right. That chasm arises out of the excessive individualism of modernity, an individualism so excessive that it advances rights that are idiosyncratic, even against human nature and inimical to communal life. St. Thomas always saw rights ensconced within the greater good of the community, and never apart from duty to God and neighbor. He never saw rights as something inhering in free-standing, atomic and autonomous individuals. "In Thomas's system, ius or right is understood in terms of justice, which is itself always understood of others." Cortest, 21. In short, St. Thomas saw ius (right) as coming out of an I-Thou and I-You relationship, one of responsibility to God and to fellow humans. Moderns, on the other hand, see right as coming from the seagull philosophy in Pixar's (Disney's) movie Finding Nemo: "Mine, mine, mine, mine . . . ." I rather think that St. Thomas would have been impatient with the modern advocates of human rights, who now claim things like the right to abortion, the right to homosexual marriage, among a whole slew of rather questionable "rights." Like Nigel in Finding Nemo, he would have told the incessant advocates of autonomy to shut up. To claim St. Thomas as a sort of precursor to the modern notion of rights is not fair to St. Thomas's thought.

The "Seagull Philosophy" of Modern Right: Mine, mine, mine . . .

Three things are without question shared between St. Thomas and Aristotle: (1) a teleological view of nature, (2) a notion that positive laws, or laws particular to the city-state, are distinct from universal or natural law, and, finally, (3) that this natural or universal law is not to be separated from the notion of a natural or universal justice. Cortest, 14, 22.

From St. Thomas, Cortest jumps to the Dominicans at the School of Salamanca, focusing on the works of Francisco Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, and Domingo Bañez. These men were devoted followers of their fellow Dominican, Thomas Aquinas. Cortest also rejects the effort to recruit the Dominicans at the School of Salamanca as advocates of modern, individualistic human rights. "For them, individual or human rights are always understood within the more general context of justice." Cortest, 22. It seems that Brian Tierney is at the forefront of recruiting the Salamancans as advocates of modern human rights. But it would seem that Tierney is not recruiting, but impressing or shanghaiing the Salamancans who would probably be unwilling advocates of the modern, liberal, individualistic vision of human rights that are not based on any notion of nature or reason.

Domingo de Soto of the School of Salamanca

The Salamancans distinguished between the notions ius or right and dominium or lordship or power. De Soto's De iusticia et jure posits a distinction between the two:

Ius is the same as what is just (as Isidore says in Book V). It is the object of justice, the equity which justice establishes between men, dominium is the facultas of a lord (as its name implies) in servants or objects which he can use has he likes for his own benefit. Ius must therefore not be confused with domininium, as it is superior to it, and of wider reference.

Ius namque idem est (ut ait lib. 5 Isid.) quod iustum. Est enim objectum iustitiae: puta aequitas quam iustitia inter homines constituit: dominium autem facultas est domini (uti nomen sonat) in servos vel in res, quibus suo arbitratu, ob suumque commodum utitur. Fit ergo, ut ius no converatur cum dominio, sed sit illi superius et latius patens.

(quoted in Cortest, 23).

The Salamancan jurists, Vitoria, Soto, and, most famously, Bartolomé de las Casas, were very critical of the Spanish Conquista of the New World, and the Conquistadores' treatment, in some cases virtual enslavement, of the indigenous populations. It would seem, then, that the Salamancans were advocating some sort of inherent human rights of the Indian that were being violated. Brian Tierney seizes on the Salamancan notion of dominium or lordship as the source of the Salamancan advocacy of modern human rights. Dominium, Tierney suggests, is nothing but right under another name. Cortest, I think properly, criticizes Tierney's use of dominium as the source of individualistic rights. "[T]he difference between the traditional notions of dominium as Vitoria [and the Salamancans] understood it and a doctrine of 'natural rights' is vast." Cortest, 23. To equate the two would be to wrest the Thomistic objective foundation inherent in the Salamancans' thought and carry it into a subjective realm. It would be analogous to taking the Thomistic intellectual cathedral and moving it from a foundation of rock onto a foundation of sand, watch the cathedral collapse into a pile of rubble, and call the two situations the same. The underlying basis of modern rights theory and Thomistic and Salamancan natural law are simply different. Moreover, as Cortest correctly points out, the notion of dominium related to self-governance of a people, not to a subjective, individual right over one's possessions, and certainly not a subjective, individual right over one's own person against others. Cortest, 24. The Salamancans were not defending the rights of the Indians, but were defending the natural right of the Indian communities to exist and to govern themselves. Cortest, 25.

The only "right" found among the Salamancans that may be said to be an individual right in the strict sense would be the right to self-preservation. "Soto comes closest to defending a notion of personal rights in his treatment of self defense," which builds upon the right to self-preservation. Cortest, 25. But even this right must be understood within the more general framework of justice and the common good, something that is entirely absent from the modern concept of rights, which seem to be, in fact, independent of notions of justice to the entirety, and seem to be pitted against the demands of the common good or the good of the community. Certainly, many of the advocates of modern so-called "human rights" espouse values that are contrary to the very nature of man. Most uncontroversially, the claim to the "right" to procure an abortion is against human nature; indeed, it is foul, not fair, to nature's teaching. A tree, like a legal theory, is known by its fruits. Classical natural law and modern natural rights are two different species.

Now what is true for the Salamancans is not necessarily true for Suárez according to Cortest. In Cortest's view, Suárez appears to hover a bit closer to the modern notion of personal, positive human rights. Cortest, for example, cites to the definition of ius or right in Suárez's De Legibus, ac Deo Legislatore as more attuned to the modern understanding of human rights: According to Suárez, ius is "a certain moral power which ever man has, either over his own property or with respect to that which is due to him . . . . Accordingly, this right to claim (actio), or moral power, which every man possesses with rspect to his own property or with respect to a thing which in some way pertains to him, is called ius, and appears to be the true object of justice." [ius vocari facultas quaedam moralis, quam unusquisque habet, vel circa rem suam, vel ad rem sibi debitam . . . . Illa ergo actio, seu moralis facultas, quam unusquisque habet ad rem suam, vel ad rem ad se aliquo modo pertinentem vocatur ius, et illud proprie videtur esse obiectum iustitiae.] Cortest, 26 (citing Trac. de Leg. ac Deo Leg., I.2.5]

While Suárez may arguably be the source, or at least the harbinger, of modern notion of right, it would stem from his failure to "follow the strict Thomistic line of legal theory followed by the Dominicans at Salamanca." Cortest, 27.

But, in fact, the source of modern human right is more likely to be one who came after Suárez, but who relied heavily upon him: the Dutch Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius. In his De Iure Belli, Grotius seems well on his way to understanding right as a subjective right, positive, rather than negative, in tone:

A legal right (facultas) is called by the jurists the right to one's own (suum); after this we shall call it a legal right properly or strictly so called. Under it are included power, now over oneself, which is called freedom, now over others, as that of the father (patria potestas) and that of the master over slaves; ownership, either absolute, or less than absolute, as usufruct and the right of pledge; and contractual rights, to which on the opposite side contractual obligations correspond.

(quoted in Cortest, 27) While Grotius still bore traces of Aristotelianism, this language of "power . . . over oneself . . . which is called freedom" is recognizable as something new. Here we have a kernel of modern rights theory, one based on alleged autonomy or freedom from restrictions of any kind, including eventually, nature and, what is the same thing since nature contains within it the law of God, even God. Some of Grotius's notions, particularly when seasoned by the Hobbesian notions of nature and right which were wholly outside the pale of the Aristotelian/Thomist tradition, may be the source of modern theories of human right. But by the time one gets to Hobbes and his Leviathan one is clearly outside any notion of morality having an ontological or metaphysical foundation. In Hobbes, right is no longer tied to being, or, for that matter, Being.