Theologians of Salamanca

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Managing the World: The Development of 'Jus Gentium' by the Theologians of Salamanca inthe Sixteenth CenturyAuthor(s): Dominique de CourcellesSource: Philosophy & Rhetoric, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2005), pp. 1-15Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40238198.

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Managing the World:The Development of Jus Gentium by theTheologians of Salamanca in the Sixteenth CenturyDominique de CourcellesIn the sixteenth century, Spain, an imperial power and one of the greatnations of ChristianEurope, discovered and conquered a new world and anew race of men.Spain was, at that moment, a nation that hadjust achieved politicaland religious unification. In 1492 the Catholic kings completed their re-conquest of the IberianPeninsula from the Moors. The last emir of Granadahad definitively crossed the Straits of Gibraltar,taking his followers withhim. Granadahad become a Christiancity and the mosque had been trans-formed into a cathedral. A policy of religious education and of convertingMusliminhabitantshad been immediately begun throughoutAndalusia. Thesame year, 1492, the Jews of Spain were ordered to convert or leave thecountry.1492 was also the year ChristopherColumbus discovered the WestIndies, soon to be named "America."The political and religious authori-ties of Spain that is, the Catholic kings, the bishops of Spain (in particu-lar the powerful archbishopsof Toledo and Seville), and the Inquisitionthen began to concentrate on effectively controlling the subjugated menandterritories.They would no longer permitthe inhabitantsof the Spanishempire not to be Christian.In the sixteenth century,Charles V, Catholic king of Spain and em-peror of the Holy Roman Empire, reigned over Spain, the Netherlands,Franche-Comt,partsof Germanyand Italy, and half the American conti-nent. How can the world from the western Mediterranean o the Atlanticand the Pacific; from Flanders, Germany, Naples, Barcelona, Madrid,andSeville to Veracruz, Mexico, and the Andes- be managed? This was thequestion that the Spanish powers had to answer in order to grow and en-dure.

PhilosophyandRhetoric,Vol.38, No. 1, 2005.Copyright 2005 The PennsylvaniaStateUniversity,UniversityPark,PA.1

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2 DOMINIQUE DE COURCELLES

1. The theological foundations of globalization: The imposition ofuniversal salvationIn the beginning Christianity was a system of beliefs tied to the charis-matic personality of a historic founder, the Christ, put to death because hewas disrupting Roman and Jewish public order and, according to theaffirmations of his disciples, resuscitated, then risen to the heavens, wherehe waits to return andjudge the world. Although the founder never desiredor claimed to be a political leader "My kingdom is not of this world"(John 18:36) l Christianity, as developed by those who modeled them-selves as the Christ's successors, has given Christianstates their doctrinalbasis ever since the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine at thebeginning of the fourthcentury.Thejustice of kings andprinces, powerfuland strong, supportingor supported by the Church(thatis, by the religiousauthorities who stand guardover the interpretationof beliefs and rituals),must consist of guaranteeing, from a Christian perspective, the salvationof every subject. The justice practiced follows a rationality of aneschatological bent. For Charles V, emperorand king of Spain, to managethe world in the sixteenth century was to carryout an eschatological task.Claiming to work on behalf of salvation, humanjustice (as opposed to di-vine) can translate into a struggle against other humans, and induce or le-gitimate the effects of subjugation and domination.The political pragmatism of the masters of the Spanish empiregrounded itself in the sacred texts of Christianity. In 1493, one year afterthe arrival of Columbus on the American continent, the Borgia popeAlexander VI defined the respective zones of influence of Spain and Por-tugal in the New World by the Inter Caetera bull. To the Spanish sover-eigns, the "TrulyCatholic Kings" who hadshown themselves by the captureof Granada,this bull grantedthe mission to evangelize the Indians. In twoyears, from 1519 to 1521, Hernn Cortes conqueredMexico. Over the pe-riod between 1530 and 1534, Francisco Pizarro took control of the Incaempire.The evangelist Luke declared: "For the Son of man is come to seekand to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). Elsewhere Luke relates:

A certainmanmadea greatsupper,and bademany:And sent his servantatsupper ime to say to them that werebidden,Come;for all thingsare nowready.And they all with one [consent]beganto make excuse. . . . Then themasterof the housebeing angrysaid to his servant,Go outquickly nto the



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MANAGING HEWORLD 3streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, andthe halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hastcommanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go outinto the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my housemay be filled. (14:16-24)

With this text and the now-famous expression "compelle intrare," ater in-terpretationsattempted to justify forced conversion; what is to be foundherein most of all is an insistent host. The evangelist Matthew,from whomLuke borrows, recounts the story of the lost sheep whom his master seeksuntiringlyuntilfindinghim;immediatelyafterwardshe mentions the neededfraternalcorrection: "Whatsoeverye shall bind on earth shall be bound inheaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven"(Matt. 18:18). Thus the master of the house who gives a great supper,likethe shepherdwho goes in search of the sheep, can use compelling force tocontrol other people as one controls inertobjects, because both effectivelyhave the power to do so and consider that their cause is just. These textsare fundamental, inasmuch as it is the founder of Christianity who seemsto authorizethe conquest of the New World andthe conversion of the Indi-ans who have become subjects of the Spanish king.The discoverers of the New World and the theoreticians of monar-chical imperial power invoked the philosophy of Saint Augustine as sup-port for this authorization.As Catholic bishop of Hippo, wielding powersboth to preach and to deliver justice in a land still frequently pagan orheretical,Augustine used these same texts to justify his activities of politi-cal and religious conversion and standardization,notably in the struggleagainst the Donatists in the year 408: "One must not consider the obliga-tion in itself, but ratherconsider the purpose of the obligation, if it is to-wards good or evil" (1898, 461, 3).2In Sermon 46, Augustine glosses theparableof the lost sheep, blending in the theme of the guests who must beforced to enter the master's house (1865, 278). In this manner he developsthe concept oijusta persecutio, the Latinpersecutio not having the senseof "violent and unjust pursuit"as it does in the Romance languages or inEnglish: "There is a just persecution which is that which the church ofChrist carries out against the wicked" (1911, 10, 8 ).3 There is clearly aregression into violence here, inasmuch as the Bishop of Hippo enjoys thebacking of political power. Love for sinners and the wayward and the re-lentless desire for their salvation emerge as brutal byproducts of the sav-agery of the struggle against the Donatists. Every action caused by love ofdivine justice is just. But what is a divine justice proclaimed by men?



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In De Civitate Dei, Augustine develops the notion of the "justwar":"Forthe iniquity of those with whom just wars are carried on favours thegrowth of a kingdom" (1993, 123; 4:15). Thus "just wars" seem to favorthe emergence of a Roman empire in which there would be a standardiza-tion of national cultures. Augustine furtherexplains: "The families whichlive by faith look for those eternal blessings which are promised, and useas pilgrims such advantages of time and of earth. . . . This heavenly city,then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gath-ers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about di-versities in the manners, laws, and institutions" (1993, 123-24; 19:17).Globalization is most certainly to be found in this growing integration ofthe constituent partsof the whole of the world population into the celestialcity. This growing integrationis what gives men theirparticulardynamismand vivacity, escaping from the control of sovereign states defined by cus-toms, laws, and institutions, and thereby undermining specific sovereign-ties. In this manner a new planetaryorder might be established, thanks tothe mosaic of the celestial city exiled on earth. However with the questionof the celestial city comes the risk of sliding into utopia.Thomas Aquinas gave an essential role to the virtue of justice in histheological project. For the most part, he borrows the elements of his re-flections from Aristotle and from book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics. Jus-tice orients and rectifies the actions of individuals and is imperative to therelations andinstitutions of social life as an objective requirementof recti-tude. Justice has the distinction of an ultimate value that determines normsand measures in accordance with truth;right4 s the end of justice and ofjust actions. One partof right is given by the natural aw that reflects man'sparticipation in divine, eternal law: this is naturalright. Another part ofright is laid out simultaneously by divine law, divine reason, which is nec-essarily unknown to us; or by the human, which has for its goal to articu-late andput into practicenatural aw: this is positive right.Thejus gentium,or right of the people, emerges as a derivative of the rightof nature, ust asis said that human law derives from natural law: this is a right of custom,supposed to be universal, embracing the habits and practices common todifferent peoples. All men are subject to it; however, while the will of thevirtuous and thejust agrees with it, that of the wicked opposes it.5 Infidelscan only be punished and subjugatedif their government does not respectnatural aw, and is thus tyrannical,and if they show themselves aggressiveagainst Christians.



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MANAGING THE WORLD 5

The protective function of the Churchand Christianprinces towardsociety proves to be proportional o theircoercive power.Violence emergesas a necessary and acceptable means thatguaranteesthe absolute nature ofthe spiritual and temporal powers in Christendom and theirjustice. Hencethe concept of the "justwar"emerges. A war is just by "theauthorityof theprince," by the "justness of his cause," by "righteous intention"; that is,according to divine will, not by "the might that makes right." ThomasAquinas is the first to introduce the question of war andof thejust war intotheology. Although he classifies war as a sin, he establishes moral prin-ciples regardingit. It is not sufficient that a war aims to achieve peace andthe common good; it is also necessary thatthe war itself, that is, the meansemployed, be legitimate. The hegemony of the Christianprinces over thewhole of the world would bring about respect for the jus gentium and thesubmission to natural right, mankind's participation in eternal or divinelaw. A world culture would then emerge, resulting in the domination of aChristian state or an assembly of Christian states, which would then leadto Christian unity, the "celestial city" finally encompassing the world. Inthis mannerthe theologian calls for a way of thinking about the event tocome, the reason yet to come and why not the democracy to come.These are thereligious presuppositionsbehindevery rhetoricof powerin a Christian regime. The foundational and doctrinal texts, inasmuch asevery subjectof the Christian states adheresto them, allow princes to maketheir domination recognized. They are symbolic; they constitute veritabletransitional objects, capable of making known an experience common toall the subjects of an empire. They will soon inspire certain subjects of theSpanish empire to express a new conception of the liberty and the dignityof man.

2. Humandignity and the writing of historyThe "destructionof the Indies" conquered by the Spanish that incalcu-lable andexceptional event- provoked amazement and terror n Spain andin the other Christiannations. It is noteworthy that within the superpowerthat the Spanish empire then was there were men capable of standing upagainst the injuries dealt to the souls and bodies of other men. The Do-minican Bartolome de Las Casas (1474-1566) is famous for his uncom-monpolitical engagement.He denounced the betrayalof the Gospels' words



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about the sheep and the wolves, or about the guests whom one forces toenter the house of the Father. He denounced the abuses and the crueltiescommitted by the Spaniards.He put the concept of naturalright to use inthe service of a radical demand for the liberty of all men and, in particular,of the Indians (cf. Mchoulan 1979, 98-100). Las Casas made himself atonce judge and historian in order to consider the "crimes" committed bythe Spanish conquistadorsagainst the Indians. From the archives, key evi-dence in the proceedings, to the scholarly use he makes of them, interpre-tation proves to have the same scope as the quest for truth. Here moraljudgment intersects with historical judgment, without Las Casas ever be-ing intimidated as an inhabitant of the New World and scholar of the his-tory of the Spanish empire, without him ever being brought to censurehimself. His moraljudgment develops from the base of a critical vigilancethat is always wakeful, a vigilance over reason.Indeed, the Dominican Las Casas holds the conviction that in orderto exist as a nation,Spainand the vice-royaltyof New Spainneed ajust andreasonable history, a history worthy of the economy of salvation, a pluralhistory in which each man has the rights and responsibilities of salvation.If the history of Spain is a sacred history as the reconquest of the IberianPeninsula proved across centuries if the history of Spain is the definitivesite for the construction of national and Christian identity, then it must bepossible to write to fix in writing a history of the Spanish empirewhichgives properplace to its glorious diversity, its glorious multiplicity, to itscosmopolitanism. The enslavement of the Indians and the destruction ofthe Indies unavoidably elicit "reprobacin"6 nd thus the loss of Spaniardsand of Spain. How could a power that kills anddestroys its subjects and itslands, which does not know how to manage the world, secure and maintainits sovereignty? The historiographietreatmentof the unacceptable implies,in time, the end of Spain's history. In order to save Spain and to save itshistory and this is true for every state power it is necessary to clearlyandabsolutely condemn the illegitimate forms of violence that are harmfulto its memory and to its very existence, and to reform the political andsocial administrationof the New World.Theory and practice intertwine.Las Casas denounced the exceptionalness of the harm done in theNew World to an oppressed partof the population in the name of a sover-eign who nonetheless owed that population protection and security. Heexplained thatthis harmhad been perpetratedby an administrationwithoutmorals,tolerated withoutsignificant objections by the leading Spanishelite,and endured without majorresistance by the Indians.All of this is unjusti-



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fiable. In order to survive, Spain must take back its glorious history byallowing all its subjects in the New World Indians and conquistadorsand in the Old World to have access to a shared and collective memory ofthe discovery of the New World. Las Casas believed in the original good-ness of man, in the necessity of a life in accordance with nature,and in theliberty andequality of all men. Being himself a humanist and an admirerofGreekand Latin antiquity,he was convinced that the Indians were particu-larly susceptible to receiving the evangelical message because they are rea-sonable, because they are men still, and more like Christians than theChristiansthemselves. The history written by Las Casas is by no means adesperate enterprise;it seeks to bridge the gap between the representativecapacity of discourse and the demandsof intolerable events; it is consciousof having a beneficial influence on the elaborationof new social norms, onthe one hand,andon collective memory,on the other.To manage the worldthus consists of ensuring the conditions which make it possible to writeone's history.At the edges of this historiographieanxiety, the question of the "goodgovernment"of the Spanish empire, which is also perhaps that of the de-mocracy to come, could take shape. What is "living together"?And espe-cially, "what is a fellow man"? Can one, should one, live together onlywith a fellow man? The accredited or recognized supremacyof a power orforce is implied, enforced, even in the act of positing otherbeings as equals.The writing of history would thus consist of putting and thinking togetherthe values of assembly, of likeness and of making alike, including in simu-lation and assimilation. "Pureethics, if such a thing exists," wrote JacquesDerrida, " begins with the dignity of the other respectable as the absoluteunalike, recognized as not recognizable" (2003, 90).7The discovery of the New World favored the circulation of goodsand services, capital andmen. In this way, it contributedto a certain extentto the expansion of criminality.The zone of operationsbroadenedfor smug-glers; already in the sixteenth century one observes a financial globaliza-tion thatenables the launderingof money derivedfromtraffickingor blatantthefts. This globalization avant la lettre augmentedthe inequalities and thepoverty within the Spanish empire and throughout the world. The litera-ture called "picaresque,"which originated in Spain in the sixteenth andseventeenth centuries, is very representativeof the increase in poverty andof the emergence of the social phenomenonof thepicaros, crooks and ban-dits of all sorts. This globalization was also not without effects on the ex-ternal security of Spain and its empire. The "destruction of the Indies"



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provoked the "Black Legend," a work of violent anti-Spanishpropaganda,and caused problems for Spain in Europe and throughoutthe world. Thestrengtheningof the royal functions of the Spanish monarchical state wasthus legitimated, against the conquistadors, who appearedas vassals dan-gerous to royal power, and against dissidents of every sort, who promotedisorder.Amongst the successive requests made by Las Casas, the LeyesNuevas (New Laws) of November 1542 orderedthe suppressionof the sys-tem of the encomienda,which maintainedthe Indiansin a dependencycloseto slavery (Leyes Nuevas de Indias 1975, 776-77.). The word "conquista"was replaced in official texts by that of "discovery."The enslaved Indianswere liberated in 1530, then again in 1542. They were replaced by blackslaves brought from Africa, which also shows the limits of Las Casas'sreflections. The monarchicpower of Spain primarilywantedto strengthen,with the support of the Church, its administrative control over the con-quered lands; it was a question of limiting the negative effects of the con-quistadors' poor management of the discovery of America. Las Casas'splea in favor of the Indians takes an essentially apologetic and pastoralview: evangelization, the physical and ethnic integrity of the Indians, andthe interests of the Spanish monarchymust be reconciled. At the beginningof his Historia de las Indias, Las Casas cites the sermon given by anotherDominican, FrayAntonio de Montesino on the last Sundayof Advent, 1511.This sermon has been rightly considered a foundational manifesto of whatLewis Hanke has called "theSpanish struggle forjustice in the conquest ofAmerica" (Hanke 1948):

^Con que derecho y con que justicia tenis en tan cruel y horrible servidumbreaquestos Indios? iCon que autoridad habis hecho tan dtestables guerras aestas gentes que estaban en sus tierrasmansas y pacificas, donde tan infinitasdlias, con muerte y estragos nunca oidos, habis consumido? . . . ^Estos noson hombres? ^No tienen animas racionales? ^No sois obligados a amalloscorno a vosotros mismos? . . . Tened por cierto que en el estado que estais noos podis mas salvar que los moros turcos que carecen y no quieren la fe deJesucristo. (Sermon cited in Las Casas 1957, 176)[With what right and with what justice did you keep those Indians in suchcruel and horrible slavery? Under whose authority did you start such detest-able wars with those people in their peaceful and pacific lands, where youhave destroyed so many of them with death and ravages never imagined? Arethey not men? Do they not have rational spirits?Are you not obligated to lovethem as you love yourselves? Be assured that in your current state you will



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MANAGING HEWORLD 9not be able to save more than the Moors or the Turks who lack and do notwant the faith of Jesus Christ.]

And in 1542, in the OctavoRemedio contra la encomienda,Las Casas againasserted, with anguish, "From what I have read in the Sacred Scripture,God will punish those sins with horrible punishments, he will perhapsde-stroy all of Spain"(1958, 119).8It is noteworthy that the first questioningof human rights is theological and comes from not an abstractpretensionto the universal but the very fleshly refusal of the intolerable by a Spanishman, from his desire for a just memory to be shared by all the subjects ofthe king of Spain. This is how the Spanish empire must be managed;this ishow the world must be managed, in view of the dignity of every man"hombrescon animas racionales" in view of ajust and collective memory.What is altogether remarkable n this is that the recognition of the dignityof man, of every human subject, appears tied to the writing of history asthe perpetuationof the sovereign state. The notion of "humanity"consti-tutes the anthropological presupposition necessary to any writing of his-tory in the context of what, already in the sixteenth century, constitutesglobalization. The writingof history is thus, in anunexpectedmanner,para-doxical, and serves to regulate the "logic" of sovereignty, which cannotbut abuse its power, since it tends to reign without sharing power, assign-ing right based on might.The philosopher HannahArendt was particularly interested in thewriting of history as the condition that renderspossible the mastery of thepast and the managementof humanity"if humanity is not to be reduced toan empty phrase or a Phantom." She wrote in Men in Dark Times,Insofaras any"mastering"f the pastis possible,it consistsin tellingwhathappened; ut suchnarration,oo, whichshapeshistory, olves no problemsandassuagesno suffering. . . The question s how muchrealitymust beretained venin a worldbecome nhumanf humanitys not to be reduced oanemptyphraseor a Phantom.1955, 21-22)

Writinghistory is the properwork of critical vigilance in a given time andplace in humanhistory. "Truth,"wroteArendt,paraphrasingLessing, "canonly exist where it is humanizedby discourse, only where each [manspeaksnot] whatjust happens to occur to him at the moment, but what he deems'truth.' But such speech ...belongs to an area in which there are manyvoices and where the announcementof what each deems truth both linksand separates men which together comprise the world." And she defines



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this world as that "whichcan form only in the interspaces between men inall their variety" (1955, 30-31). To manage the world is to manage theintervals, to create a history in many voices, a space of many voices.

3. The doctrinal andjuridical foundations of Spanish imperial power:Thejus gentiumIt was therefore necessary to give Spanish imperial power a well-defineddoctrinal andjuridical framework in order to protectwhat could alreadybecalled its ongoing expansion. It is accurate to speak of an attempt by theSpanish theologians of Salamanca to provide a just framework for global-ization along the lines of some of the convictions held by Las Casas. Theo-logians, like Thomas Aquinas and those after him, know that theologicaldiscourses andprojects also have the task of applying to all thatpertainstoman and the world: "Theprofession of theologian is so wide, that no argu-ment, no discussion, no issue can be considered out of his scope" (Vitoria1986, 122).9There is no world without law.It was the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria (1492-1546), theologianand jurist at the University of Salamanca, teacher in Paris from 1509 to1523, connected to humanist circles and perhaps to Erasmus, who wouldestablish the juridical statute of the conquered people and give them ac-cess not only to humanexistence but to political existence, for the glory ofSpain, its empire, and its king. Profoundly shocked by the brutalityof hiscompatriots in the New World,Vitoria questioned Spanish domination. In1539, with his Relectiones de Indis and De Jure Belli, he confronted, astheologian andjurist, the violence contemporaryto the discovery and con-quest of America (1989). What is a people? How can the right of a peopleto be recognized as such be defined?Vitoria based his reflection on three principles already put forwardby Thomas Aquinas. The first was that civil authority belongs to naturalright and derives immediately from society, even if its first origin comesfrom God: neither the emperornor the pope has universal sovereignty. Thesecond principle was that of the communitatisorbis, the universal commu-nity, in which all people, whetherChristians, infidels, or pagans, have simi-lar rights and duties proceeding from natural law. The third principleconsisted of the restriction of the autonomy of civil society, national andinternational. The Church must incite princes to serve spiritual interests



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MANAGING THE WORLD 1 1

and must make sure that the common good, which is the purpose of civilauthority,allows man to achieve salvation, which is his supernaturalend.In this manner heology undertookto think aboutthe changing of the world,to thinkabout the managementof the worldby the political power of impe-rial Spain.Beginning with these principles, Vitoria condemned the violent con-quest of the West Indies. He argued that the infidels retain ownership oftheir lands. Thejus gentium is a positive right resting on universal consentby all civilized peoples or by a group of Christiannations; it is taken fromhumanunity; it is justified and prescribedtotius orbis auctoritate, "by theauthority of the world." Vitoria's goal, which was not that of ThomasAquinas, was the invention of an international law composed of positive,specific, and stable rules. According to this law, which justified the con-quest of Mexico by Spain, it is natural to intervene to liberate the innocentfrom tyranny, human sacrifices, and cannibalism, considered not as sinsbut serious failures before natural law. These are the "just causes" of theconquest. In the communitasorbis, there is a universal bond between sov-ereignties within a world henceforth fundamentally open to the circulationof men and riches. Vitoria's discourse renderspossible the passage from anarchaicimperialism,of religious origin butemptiedof every spiritualmean-ing, to a modern imperialism of a mercantile and capitalist spirit, whichcould only please the emperorCharles V. Here the alternative to violenceis not only justice in relation to naturallaw, but moreover the regulation ofexchanges. The pragmatismof the Spanish empire thus finds its symbolicbasis. The Spanish empire can survive as a world economic power.

Es licitoa los espanolescomerciar on los indios(sinperjuicio, laroest,desu patria)exportando,por ejemplo,alla mercanciasque ellos no tienenimportando e alii oro, piatau otrascosas en que ellos abundan.Y los ca-ciques indios no puedenprohibira sus subditos que comercien con losespanolesni, al contrario, los espanolescon los indios.(Vitoria1989, 101)[It is legal for the Spanish o do commercewith the Indians they are notdamagingheirowncountry) xportinghere, orexample,merchandisesheydo nothave orimportingrom heregold,silver andother hings heyhaveinabundance. he chiefs cannotprohibit heirsubjects romcommercingwiththeSpanish,norcanthey prohibitheSpanish romdoingcommercewith theIndians.]

The free exchange of merchandise allows each group to have accessto more products:thus there is, avant la lettre, a theory of the increase of



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1 2 DOMINIQUE DE COURCELLES

real world revenues. This free exchange affects emergent products fromdifferent areas. However, it takes place essentially within the Spanish em-pire between the different groups which form it, and is thus regulated bythe imperatives fixed by imperial political power. The existence of an im-portantinternal market is hereby indicated by Vitoria, and supposes a de-mand for goods and for a variety of products whose volume and structureare tied to a standardof living. In time, free exchange would have the sta-tus of an instrumentof domination for the richest over the poorest. Interna-tional commerce cannot necessarily be beneficial to all the participantsinan exchange. The growth of exchanges provoked an increase in produc-tion, for example of gold or silver, which reinforced both state control andthe exploitation of Indian labor. "Throughthe gold he buys or throughthestill that kills him, one does not approachothers face on; the tradetargetsthe anonymous market,"wrote Emmanuel Lvinas (1990, 253). 10The last "justcause" evoked by Vitoria is fairly ambiguous, since itconcerns the right of the civilized to guardianshipover peoples: "TheseIndians, as has been said before, are somewhat insane; but although theyare not entirely sane, they are far from being capable of establishing andmanaging an organized legitimate republic within humane and politicalboundaries" Vitoria 1989, 111). n If Vitoria laid the juridical basis of aninternationalcommunity and of globalization, he also justified Europeancolonial expansion. He gave the Spanish empire the doctrinal basis thatallowed it to maintain its existence.Thus the world is henceforthperceived in it globalness. Naturalrightauthorizes every man to travel, do business, and live in any part of theuniverse. The world is a trade zone for men and merchandise. If this natu-ral right is not recognized by the Indians of the Spanish empire, then re-course to violence against them is legitimate. Violence is not, therefore,excluded from the political sphere. The jus gentium is a guaranteeof jus-tice, but the "justice"in question is essentially mercantile, pragmatic.Thetheological theory of naturalright seems to meet up with Machiavellianrealism. Does justice not exceed thejuridical andthe political? Canjusticebe reduced to calculating reason, to legal distribution, to the norms andrules which determine right, even in its recourse to coercive force, to theforce of power which Kantnoted was inscribed andjustified by the purestconcept of law [droit]V2It is also true that it is in this economic regulation,in this free circulation of goods andpersons within the Spanish empire andin the whole of the world, that people can lean toward a state of mutuallove, of discussion, of loving and respectful polemic. In his 1539 Carta



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Magna de los Indios, Vitoria affirmed that the Indians were men and had tobe treated as free beings, that every people had the right to its own sover-eignty, and that the world had to be ruled by peace and international soli-darity.The Spanish crown had rights and duties towards all its subjects, inparticular he duty to restoregoods and lands unjustly occupied to the con-queredIndians. If justice exceeds law, it is also what motivates the move-ment and history of reasonable theological andjuridical, political thought.There is nojustice withoutappeal ojuridical ulingsandto thestrength f law.In this mannerthe theologians of the Spanish empire in the middleof the sixteenth centurystrived, despite all the ambiguities inherent to theirtimes and to their history, and more generally to the sovereignty and gov-ernmentof men, to reconcile political efficacy and respect for humandig-nity. They elaboratedthe first principles of globalization and of sustainabledevelopment, of a certain liberalization of tradewhich, as the political andeconomic events in the history of Spain and of the New World that wouldfollow would show, was not exempt from danger.These first attempts toprovide a frameworkfor globalization, however approximate,had as theirprincipalmerit thatof defining the rights of peoples and the rights of indi-viduals. The spaces of reference for individuals had been enlarged. It isinteresting to note that, in the thought of the theologians of Salamanca, asin that of Saint Augustine in De Civitate Dei, it was a matter of bringingevery manto the salvation offered by Christianity;in no case was it a ques-tion of realizing a cultural standardization,the abandonmentby differentgroups of their specific cultural traits. Here economic globalization doesnot necessarily imply the standardizationof cultures or the emergence of aworld culture, even if it is clear that the conversion of the world to Chris-tianity was the goal. A community of values was the intellectual basis thatenabled the birth of the right of the people. The responsibility in the rea-soning of the theologians of Salamancalies in this oscillation between theparticularand the universal, in the aporiasurrounding he impossible trans-action between the conditional and the unconditional, the calculable andthe incalculable.A little later,the Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), another theo-logian from Salamanca, would express this admirably in his Tractatus deLegibus:

La totalidad de los hombres no ha llegado a integrarse en un solo cuerpopolitico, sino que mas bien se ha dividido en varios Estados. Pero para questos pudieran ayudarse mutuamente y conservar la paz y la justicia en susmutuas relaciones, que es esencial para el bienestar universal de todos los



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14 DOMINIQUE ECOURCELLESpueblos, fue conveniente que en sus mutuasrelaciones pusieranen vigor, compor acuerdo y comun consentimiento, algunas leyes comunes. Es lo que sellama derecho de gentes. (1986, 786)[The people have not integrated intojust one political body, they have dividedthemselves into separate States. To mutually help one another to conservepeace and justice for the good of their relations, which is essential for theuniversal well-being of all of the villages, it was convenient for them to vig-orously pursue with mutual agreement, some common laws. These laws arecalled the rights of the people.]

Thus Spain, called upon to manage a good partof the world after the dis-covery of the West Indies, gave itself symbolic foundations for its eco-nomic andpolitical pragmatism.If the sacred texts of the Christiantraditionparticipated in its rhetoric of power, the impact of the incalculable andexceptional event of the discovery andconquest imposed an anthropologi-cal presupposition on this rhetoric: the signifier, however floating, "hu-manity."Thanks to this historic crisis, men were able to show themselvesfully and confront the reality of globalization, were capable of judgmentand initiative. They understood that Spain could not continue its existenceas a powerful and sovereign state except throughthe appropriatewriting ofits history,joining the interpretationof sacred texts and the possible inter-pretationof events in a space of many voices. Every pragmatismhas sym-bolic foundations. In this context, the paradoxical elaboration of the jusgentium by the theologians of Salamanca remains one of the majorcontri-butions of history to our own contemporarymoment, emergent from oneof those beginnings that constitute what Arendt qualified as a "miracle ofliberty" (1995, 52).Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueCollge International de Philosophie, Paris, France

NotesProfessor Dominique de Courcelles of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Collge International de Philosophie, Paris, France, presentedthis paperat the Internationalconference, "About an African Athens," held at the University of Cape Town to commemo-rate the tenth anniversary of the South African democracy. The paper was translated intoEnglish by Irit Kleiman. The Spanish passages were translated into English by Linda Scholz.-Ed.1. All Bible quotations are taken from the King James Version.2. "Vides itaque jam, ut opinor, non esse considerandumquod quisque cogitur, sed qualesit illud quo cogitur, utrumbonum an malum" (Augustine 1898).



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MANAGING THE WORLD 153. "Est persecutio justa quam faciunt impiis ecclesiae Christi" (Augustine 1911).4. Translator's note: Except where otherwise indicated, the words droit and loi have beenrenderedas right and law, respectively.5. See Aquinas (1985, la 2ae, q. 95, a. 2, 4; 2a 2ae, q. 57; 2:618-19; 3:361-66).6. This word, chosen by Las Casas, holds a terrible connotation of the supreme punish-ment, damnation.7. "L'thiquepure,s'il y en a, commence la dignit respectablede l'autre comme l'absoludissemblable, reconnu comme non reconnaissable" (Derrida2003, 90).8. "Poraquellos pecados, por lo que leo en la SagradaEscritura,Dios ha de castigar conhorribles castigos e quiz totalmente destruir toda Espana"(Las Casas 1958, 119).9. "El oficio del telogo es tan vasto, que ningun argumento, ninguna disputa, ningunamateria,parecen ajenos a su profesin" (Vitoria 1986, 122).

10. "Mais travers l'or qui l'achte ou l'acier qui le tue, on n'aborde pas autrui de face; lecommerce vise le march anonyme" (Lvinas 1990, 253).11 "Estos indios, aunque, corno se ha dicho antes, no sean del todo dmentes, distan, sinembargo,tanpoco de los dmentes, que no son capaces de fundar administrarunarepublicalgitima y ordenadadentro de limites humanos y politicos" (Vitoria 1989, 111).12. Cf. Kant's Mtaphysiquedes murs,premiers principes mtaphysiquesde la doctrinedu droit, introduction la doctrine du droit (1917, 25).WorksCitedArendt, Hannah. 1955. Men in Dark Times. New York:Harcourt, Brace. . 1995. Introduction la politique II, fragment 3a: La politique a-t-elle finalementencore un sens? Washington,DC, Libraryof Congress, Division of Manuscripts,cont.92: Germantext ed. Ursula Ludz; Frenchtrans. Sylvie Courtine-Denamy. Paris: d. duSeuil.Aquinas, Thomas. 1985. SummaTheologiae.Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cnstianos.Augustine. 1993. The City of God. Trans. Marcus Dods. New York: ModernLibrary. . 1865. Sermo 46. In Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, 278. . 1898. Epistola Ad Vincentium93, 5 (16). In Corpus Scriptorum EcclesiasticorumLatinorum,voi. 34, 2, 461, 3. . 1911. Epistola 185, 2 (11). In Corpus ScriptorumEcclesiasticorum Latinorum,voi.57, 10, 8.Derrida,Jacques. 2003. Voyous.Paris: Galile.Hanke, Lewis. 1948. TheSpanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America. Philadel-phia: U of Pennsylvania P.Kant, Emmanuel. 1917. Mtaphysique des murs,premiers principes mtaphysiques de ladoctrine du droit, introduction la doctrine du droit. Paris: La Renaissance du Livre.Las Casas, Bartolom de. 1957. Historia de las lndias. Ed. JuanPrez de Tudela and EmilioLopez Oto. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles. . Entre los Remedios. 1958. Ed. Juan Prez de Tudela. Madrid: Biblioteca de AutoresEspanoles.Lvinas, Emmanuel. 1990. Totalitet infini, essai sur Vextriorit . Pans: Livre de Poche.Leyes Nuevas de lndias. 1975. Ed. Alberto Garcia Gallo, Madrid: Consejo Superior deInvestigaciones Cientificas, Coll. Antologia de fuentes del antiguo Derecho.Mchoulan, Henri. 1979. Le sang de Vautre ou Vhonneur de Dieu. Pans: Fayard.Suarez,Francisco, 1986. Tratadode las Leyes. Libro 2, cap. 20. InLosfilsofos escolsticosde los sighs XVIy XVII,seleccin de textos, ed. Clemente Fernandez,73 1-809. Madrid:Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos.Vitoria,Francisco de. 1986. "De la potestadcivil." InLosfilsofos escolsticos de los siglosXVIy XVII,seleccin de textos, ed. Clemente Fernandez, 121-38. Madrid:Biblioteca deAutores Cristianos. . 1989. Relectio de Indis, Carta magna de los Indios. Facsimile edition of the Palenciacodex. Spanishtrans,by LucianoPerena,CarlosBaciero, and Francisco Maseda. Madrid:Consejo Superiorde Investigaciones Cientificas.

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