Natural Liberty and Slavery in Suárez

Abstract

Francisco Suárez is typically understood as having believed that all humans are capable of self-rule by virtue of their human nature. I argue that that standard interpretation is mistaken. Unlike most of his predecessors, Suárez understood natural slavery as the absence of a right, not the absence of a capacity. He denied that there are any natural slaves in this revised sense. Suárez's understanding of liberty as a right explains many of his other commitments concerning slavery. He broke radically from the Aristotelian tradition, not in denying that some people are incapable of self-rule but in denying that this incapacity could legitimate enslaving such people.