Francisco de Vitoria (or Victoria), OP (c. 1480, Vitoria-Gasteiz – 12 August 1546, Salamanca),[1] was a Spanish Renaissance Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian and jurist, founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Salamanca, noted especially for his contributions to the theory of just war and international law. He has in the past been described by some scholars as the "father of international law", though contemporary academics have suggested that such a description is anachronistic, since the concept of international law did not truly develop until much later.[2][3] Because of Vitoria's conception of a "republic of the whole world" (res publica totius orbis) he recently has been labeled "founder of global political philosophy".[4] Still, Vitoria is called one of the founders of international law along with Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius.
Francisco had Jewish converso ancestry and was raised in Burgos.[5] He became a Dominican in 1504, and was educated at the College Saint-Jacques in Paris, where he met Erasmus and went on to teach theology from 1516 (under the influences of Pierre Crockaert and Thomas Cajetan). In 1522 he returned to Spain to teach theology at the monastery of Saint Gregory at Valladolid. In 1524, he was elected to the Chair of theology at the University of Salamanca, where he was instrumental in promoting Thomism (the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas) until 1546.[1]
A noted scholar, he was publicly consulted by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. He worked to limit the type of power the Spanish empire imposed on the Native Peoples. He said, "The upshot of all the preceding is this, then, that the aborigines undoubtedly had true dominion in both public and private matters, just like Christians, and that neither their princes nor private persons could be despoiled of their property on the ground of their not being true owners." Vitoria denied that the native peoples could be understood as slaves by nature in Aristotelian terms.[6] His defense of American Indians was based on a Scholastic understanding of the intrinsic dignity of man, a dignity he found being violated by Spain's policies in the New World. A supporter of the just war theory, in De iure belli Fransico pointed out that the underlying predicate conditions for a "just war" were "wholly lacking in the Indies".[7] The only area where he saw justification for Spanish intervention in native affairs was to protect victims seized for human sacrifice, and because of the inherent human dignity of the victims themselves—whose rights were being violated and thus in need of defense.[7]
Thomas E. Woods goes on to describe how some wished to argue that the natives lacked reason, but the evidence was against this because the natives had obvious customs, laws, and a form of government.[2]
His works are known only from his lecture notes, as he has published nothing in his lifetime. Nevertheless, his influence such as that on the Dutch legal philosopher Hugo Grotius was significant.[8] Relectiones XII Theologicae in duo libros distinctae was published posthumously (Antwerp, 1604).[9]
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Notes of his lectures from 1527-1540 were copied by students and published under the following titles:
