Hugo Grotius

For his entry in History of Political Philosophy, Richard A. Cox discusses the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius, one of the more obscure people discussed in Strauss and Cropsey’s book. One of the first things that needs to be understood about Grotius is that even though he is featured prominently in History of Political Philosophy, he did not see himself as a philosopher or political theorist, but rather as a legal theorist. This is particularly true of Grotius’ most famous work, The Law of War and Peace. The work is a general treatise on “the law of nature and nations and also on the main points of public law.” As the work is narrowly, rather than widely focused, it is an important work in understanding legal theory.

Grotius’ book is rooted in the Classical idea that people are by nature a rational and social animal. Considering this point of agreement with Aristotle, it is perhaps not surprising that for Grotius, laws are made by natural right and not by convention. For Grotius, people’s social and rational nature are deeply linked as people’s rational nature gives them a tendency towards self-preservation which in turn leads to people seeking society. What this means for Grotius is that the concepts of right and wrong are rooted in the nature of society, thus that which is wrong is in conflict with the nature of society. This causes Grotius to have several conceptions of “right.” The first kind of right can be easily inferred from his conception of wrong; that with is not in conflict with the nature of society. There are however other conceptions of right in Grotius’ theory. Another one of these conceptions of right is a quality of belonging to persons and usually refers to the rightful power to have or to do something. The third conception of right Grotius introduces is law, which refers to a rule of action which obliges to what is correct and also carries with it some sanction.

Just as there are several conceptions of right, there are also several kinds of right. The first kind of right can be divided into two other kinds. Those kinds are as follows: 1) natural law and 2) volitional law. One of the things to keep in mind about Grotius is that he heavily raises the importance of natural law, to the point that for Grotius, natural law would exist even if there was no God. Because of its importance in his theory, Grotius is careful to lay out two proofs for natural law. The proofs are as follows: 1) an a priori argument focusing on the necessary agreement of an act or thing with the rational and social nature of man and 2) a postpriori focusing on those things believed by all nations. On volitional law, Grotius divides that into two kinds. Those divisions are as follows: 1) human law and 2) divine law. From this, human volitional law is further divided into three kinds. Those kinds are as follows: 1) the law that is not dependent upon civil power (example: the law of fathers, masters, etc.), 2) the municipal or civil law, and 3) the law of nations whose force comes from the will of all or many nations. Though the law of nations is highly elevated in Grotius’ theory, it should not be equated with natural law, for unlike natural law, the law of nations can be changed.

Grotius’ focus on legal theory causes his work of purely political matters to be sketchier and draw heavily from others and simply accept two classical ideas. These ideas are as follows: 1) it is only within civil order that people can fully realize the potential of their rational and social nature and 2) and such, ruling is necessary and natural to the civil body as the rule of reason is necessary and natural to the human body. Grotius also lays out three branches of the civil body. The branches are as follows: 1) the architectonic, which is concerned with the general framing of society, 2) the particular interest in society which are public in nature and 3) the private interest of the citizens and the controversies that may arise from them.

In order to properly understand Grotius, it is important to understand him as a fundamentally classical theorist as power does not reside in the governed nor does it reside in the mutual dependency of the ruled and the rulers. Rather, power for Grotius resides in the natural order. Perhaps not surprisingly then, there is no right to revolution in Grotius’ theory. This is not to say that Grotius supports absolute rule necessarily as he does show some favor to non-absolute forms of rule, but much like Aristotle, for Grotius, the type of government is rooted in who has supreme power. So important is the idea of natural order for Grotius, for him a just war is a war waged to restore the natural order and fall into two categories. The categories are as follows: 1) Those wars waged in the defense of self and property and 2) Those wars waged to correct injustices and give proper punishment.

The last thing that is important to keep in mind with Grotius is that though he came out about the same time as Hobbes, and in fact predated him by a few years and though the two appear to have many superficial agreements, the two cannot be equated. This is because they have two fundamentally different foundations, for while Grotius is a fundamentally Classical thinker, Hobbes is a decidedly modern one. Thus, while Grotius attempted to restore the glory and power of Classical thought, Hobbes sees this attempt as being futile and thus sets out to attempt to make something new. That new path Hobbes sets out on will be explored in the next entry of History of Political Philosophy.