The rise of modern philosophy a new history of western philosophy volume 3 (new history of western philosophy) ( PDFDrive ) (1) 264

ETHICS In his posthumously published treatises, De Indis (1557), Vitoria Wrst of all defended St Thomas’ teaching that the forcible conversion of the heathen was unjust, and went on to deny that either the pope or the emperor had any jurisdiction over the Indians The Indians, he maintained, had ownership and property rights just as if they were Christians: they constituted a genuine political society, and their civil arrangements showed that they enjoyed the full use of reason: There is a certain method in their aVairs, for they have polities which are orderly arranged, and they have deWnite marriage and magistrates, overlords, laws, and workshops, and a system of exchange, all of which call for the use of reason.2 He concluded that there was no justiWcation for conWscating the land and possessions of these heathen peoples on the pretext that they had no genuine ownership of their property The Jesuit Suarez took a similar line in his discussion of the rights and wrongs of war.3 The expansion of overseas exploration and international trade in the sixteenth century forced casuists to examine the ethics of the methods by which maritime ventures were Wnanced On the basis of certain biblical texts, and of an Aristotelian analysis of the nature of money, Thomas Aquinas had issued a severe condemnation of the taking of interest on loans.4 There was however an important diVerence, recognized by Aquinas, between two ways of Wnancing a project One was by making a loan to an entrepreneur (to be repaid to the lender whether the venture succeeds or not); the other was by buying a share in the enterprise (where the Wnancier bears part of the risk of failure) The Wrst was usury, and it was wicked The second was partnership, and it was honourable (ST 2.2 78 ad 5) The prohibition on usury was maintained throughout the Middle Ages: it was repeated by St Antoninus, who in the Wfteenth century was archbishop of Florence, a city that was by then home to great banking houses such as the Medici Antoninus did, however, allow a charge to be made upon a loan in one particular case: if delay in repayment of a loan had led De Indis Recenter Inventis, 1.23; quoted by Bull et al., Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p 46 See below, p 281 It is sad that the views of las Casas, Vitoria, and Suarez did not have more eVect on the actual practice of Christian colonizers See vol II, p 271 249