Customary Law in Suárez: Will of the Sovereign or of the ... Oxford Academic https://academic.oup.com › book › chapter Aquinas sees law as expressing the objective rational and moral order of human life while Suárez sees law as expressing the subjective orders of the legislator.

Customary Law in Suárez: Will of the Sovereign or of the ...

Oxford Academic

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Aquinas sees law as expressing the objective rational and moral order of human life while Suárez sees law as expressing the subjective orders of the legislator. Rights, Political Community, and
Property in Francisco Suárez’s and John Locke’s
Theories of the State of Nature
José Luis Cendejas Bueno
1 Introduction
This chapter provides a comparative analysis of the relationship between natu-
ral law, subjective rights, political community, and property in Francisco Suárez
(1548–1617) (De legibus [On laws (1612)]; De opere sex dierum [On the work of
six days (1621)]) and John Locke (1632–1704) (Second Treatise of Government
[1690]).1 The high degree of congruence between these two authors precludes
any negation of Suárez’s influence on Locke. Apart from the theory of prop-
erty, scholars have found other influences with regard to notions of law and
the origin of the political community.2 Concerning the legitimacy of private
property, both approaches are milestones on an intellectual path that begins
with the Stoic belief in a state of nature (status naturae), which, as a part of the
1 Francisco Suárez, De legibus ac Deo legislatore (Libros I a IV ), ed. Luciano Pereña et al.
(Madrid: CSIC, 1971–81); De opere sex dierum, in R. P. Francisci Suárez e Societate Jesu opera
omnia, ed. Juan Luis Vivès, vol. 3 (Paris: Bibliopolam editorem, 1856). A partial edition in
English is Thomas Pink, ed., Francisco Suárez: Selections from Three Works (Carmel, IN:
Liberty Fund, 2015). John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, in The Works of John Locke,
vol. 4 (London: Printed for Thomas Tegg, 1823).
2 Among the most recent works in this regard are Francisco T. Baciero, “El De legibus de
Suárez y Locke,” Revista Española de filosofía medieval 10 (2003): 387–94; Baciero, Poder,
ley y sociedad en Suárez y Locke: Un capítulo en la evolución de la filosofía política del siglo
XVII (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2008); Baciero, “Francisco Suárez
como gozne entre la filosofía política medieval y John Locke,” in El pensamiento político en
la Edad Media, ed. Pedro Roche (Madrid: Fundación Ramón Areces, 2010), 263–74; Baciero,
“El concepto de derecho subjetivo y el derecho a la propiedad privada en Suárez y Locke,”
Anuario filosófico 45, no. 2 (2012): 391–421; Leopoldo Prieto, “La noción de ley en Suárez y
Locke,” Daimon 71 (2017): 137–56; Catherine S. Kuiper, “Francisco Suárez and John Locke on
Rights and Alienability: A Critical Conversation,” in Francisco Suárez (1548–1617): Jesuits and
the Complexities of Modernity, ed. Robert A. Maryks and Juan A. Senent (Leiden: Brill, 2019),
437–67; Elliot Rossiter, “John Locke and the Jesuits on Law and Politics,” in Jesuit Philosophy
on the Eve of Modernity, ed. Cristiano Casalini (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 426–44.