International Relations in Political Thought

FRANCISCO DE VITORIA (1486–1546), a Spanish Dominican, was one of the founders of the revival of scholastic philosophy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Vitoria's ideas are preserved in notes on his lectures at the University of Salamanca, where he held the most prestigious chair of theology in late medieval Spain. Vitoria argued that the rights of sovereigns are derived from the universal laws governing the human community, and that the conduct of sovereigns must be judged by those laws. In his lecture “On the American Indians” (1539), Vitoria considers claims made on behalf of the Spanish conquest from the standpoint of this universal law.

From “On the American Indians”

Relection of the Very Reverend Father Friar Francisco de Vitoria, Master of Theology and Most Worthy Prime Professsor at the University of Salamanca, Delivered in the Said University, a. d. 1539

The text to be re-read is ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’ (Matt. 28: 19). This raises the following problem: whether it is lawful to baptize the children of unbelievers against the wishes of their parents? The problem is discussed by the doctors on Lombard's Sentences IV. 4. 9, and by Aquinas in ST [Summa Theologiae] II–II. 10. 12 and III. 68. 10.