3 - Interpreting Suárez

INTERPRETING SUAREZ
Francisco Suarez is arguably the most important neo-scholastic

philosopher, and a vital link in the chain leading from medieval
philosophy to that of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Long
neglected by the Anglo-Saxon philosophical community, this
sixteenth-century Jesuit theologian is now an object of intense
scholarly attention. In this volume, Daniel Schwartz brings together
essays by leading specialists which provide detailed treatment of
some key themes of Francisco Suarezs philosophical work: God,
metaphysics, meta-ethics, the human soul, action, ethics and law,
justice and war. The authors assess the force of Suarezs arguments,
set them within their wider argumentative context, single out
influences and appraise competing interpretations. The book is a
useful resource for scholars and students of philosophy, theology,
philosophy of religion and history of political thought, and provides
a rich bibliography of secondary literature.
d a n i e l s c h w a r t z is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International

Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of
Aquinas on Friendship (2007).
INTERPRETING SUAREZ
Critical Essays
edi t ed by
DANIEL SCHWARTZ
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Interpreting Suarez : critical essays / [edited by] Daniel Schwartz.
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1. Suarez, Francisco, 15481617. I. Schwartz, Daniel, 1972
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Contents
Notes on contributors page vii

Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations and method of citation x
1 Introduction 1
Daniel Schwartz
2 Fundamentals in Suarezs metaphysics: transcendentals
and categories 19
Jorge J. E. Gracia and Daniel D. Novotny
3 The reality of substantial form: Suarez, Metaphysical
Disputations xv 39
Christopher Shields
4 Suarez on the ontology of relations 62
Jorge Secada
5 Suarezs cosmological argument for the existence
of God 89
Bernie Cantens
6 Action and freedom in Suarezs ethics 115
Thomas Pink
7 Obligation, rightness, and natural law: Suarez
and some critics 142
Terence H. Irwin
v
vi Contents
8 Suarez on distributive justice 163
Daniel Schwartz
9 Suarez on just war 185
Gregory M. Reichberg
Bibliography 205
Index 214
Notes on contributors
b e r n i e c a n t e n s is Associate Professor at Moravian College, Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in The History of Western Philosophy of
Religion, ed. G. Oppy and N. Trakakis (2009) and Blackwell Companion to Latin
American Philosophy, ed. S. Nuccetelli, O. Schutte and O. Bueno (2010).
j or g e j . e. g ra cia is SUNY Distinguished Professor at the State University,
Buffalo. He is author of sixteen books, including Introduction to the Problem of
Individuation in the Early Middle Ages (1984), Suarez on Individuation (1982),
with D. Davis, The Metaphysics of Good and Evil According to Suarez (1989), and,
with Timothy B. Noone, A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages (2003),
and has also co-edited several volumes.
t e r e n c e i r w i n is Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of
Oxford. He has written several books, including Classical Thought (1989), Platos
Ethics (1995), Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics (1999) and The Development of Ethics
(2007).
d a n i e l d . n o v o t n y is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at St Johns College
in Sv. Jan p. Skalou near Prague, and the University of South Bohemia in Ceske
Budejovice. He is the author of Ens rationis between Suarez and Caramuel: A
Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque Era (forthcoming). He is also the editor-in-
chief of Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism.
t h o m a s p i n k is Professor of Philosophy at Kings College London. He is the
author of The Psychology of Freedom (2007), Free Will: A Very Short Introduction
(2004), and The Will and Human Action: from Antiquity to the Present Day
(edited with M. W. F. Stone) (2003).
g r e g o r y m . r e i c h b e r g is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute
Oslo (PRIO). He has co-edited several volumes, including The Ethics of War:
Classic and Contemporary Readings (2006).
d a n i e l s c h w a r t z is Senior Lecturer in at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He is the author of Aquinas on Friendship (2007).
vii
viii Notes on contributors
j o r g e se c a d a is Professor at the University of Virginia. He is the author of
Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy (2000).
c h ri sto ph e r s hie l ds is Professor of Classical Philosophy at the University
of Oxford. He is the author of Aristotle (2007), Classical Philosophy:
A Contemporary Introduction (2003), The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, with
Robert Pasnau (2003), and Order in Multiplicity: Homonymy in the Philosophy
of Aristotle (1999), and he is editor of Blackwell Guide to Ancient Philosophy
(2002).
Acknowledgements
Many have helped on the long path leading to this volume. Hilary
Gaskin, Philosophy Editor at Cambridge University Press, supported
the project from the outset, and provided valuable (and patient) guidance
and advice throughout. The contributors must be thanked for their
excellent essays, sometimes written under tight deadlines, as well as for
their feedback on general aspects of the enterprise. Thanks are due also to
an anonymous referee of Cambridge University Press for his insights and
salutary corrections, and to James B. South, from Marquette University,
who collaborated in the early stages. I am also grateful to Daphna Perry,
who meticulously and devotedly revised the notes, composed the index
and improved the general presentation of the book, and to Anna Lowe
and Joanna Garbutt at Cambridge University Press for their supervision
of the various aspects of the production process.
ix
Abbreviations and method of citation
The following abbreviations have been used:

Anim. Francisco Suarez, De anima (disputation, question, paragraph)
DDB Francisco Suarez, Disputatio de bello (section, paragraph)
DF Francisco Suarez, Defensio fidei catholicae, et apostolicae adversus
anglicanae sectae errores (book, chapter, paragraph)
DL Francisco Suarez, De legibus ac Deo legislatore (book, chapter,
paragraph)
DM Francisco Suarez, Disputationes metaphysicae (disputation,
section, sub-section)
ID Francisco Suarez, Disputatio de iustitia (section, sub-section)
In ST Commentary on Thomas Aquinass Summa theologiae
IV Francisco Suarez, De incarnatione verbi (disputation, section,
sub-section)
RL Francisco Suarez, Relectio theologica de libertate voluntatis
divinae (section, sub-section)
RM Francisco Suarez, Relectio de merito (chapter, section)
ST Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (i, iii, iiii, iii, Suppl.)
a. article
ad. reply to objection
c. corpus
d. distinction
q. question
sc. sed contra
x
chapter 1
Introduction
Daniel Schwartz
It has often been observed that Francisco Suarez not only transmitted the
achievements of the scholastics to the modern era by influencing
Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Schopenhauer and Kant, among others, but
that he is the very founder of modernity.1 Scholars disagree on whether
this is true,2 and if it is, whether it should be celebrated or regretted.3 The
purpose of this book is not to adjudicate between these views, but simply
to provide a critical exposition of some of Suarezs answers to philosoph-
ical questions of the sort that have traditionally exercised philosophers and
theologians. The standard used to judge the value of Suarezs works turns
not so much on his location within a narrative about the history of
philosophy but on the precise presentation of questions, his fair-minded
and exhaustive consideration of opposing views, and the cogency and
originality of his answers. It is primarily on this score that Suarez deserves
our attention.
1.1 life
Francisco Suarez, son of Gaspar Suarez de Toledo and Antonia Vazquez
de Utiel, was born in Granada on 5 January 1548. Antonia was the sister of
Jesuit theologian and cardinal, Francisco de Toledo (153296). According
to one Inquisitor their converso grandmother and their grandparents were
burned at the stake.4 Suarez had three brothers and four sisters. At the age
1
For a comprehensive discussion on Suarez and modernity and references to comments by Etienne
Gilson, Alasdair MacIntyre, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Alfred Freddoso, John Milibank, Catherine
Pickstock, and others see Miner 2001: 1736; MacIntyre 1990: 73.
2
Alfred J. Freddoso is in the minority who doubt Suarezs modernity. See Freddoso 2002: xixxx.
3
Jorge J. E. Gracia sees Suarezs modernity positively. See Gracia 1991a: 26264. Heidegger, in his
1927 Marburg lectures, condemns it, and after him so does the Radical Theology movement led by
Milibank, Pickstock, and others. See Heidegger 1982: 80.
4
Maryks 2010: 104.
1
2 d a n i e l s c h w a r tz
of sixteen, after studying canon law in Salamanca for three years, he
applied to join the Society of Jesus at their school in Salamanca. The
application was unsuccessful: his health was weak, his intellect unpromis-
ing. Disappointed but resolute, Francisco went to Valladolid to appeal the
decision before the Jesuit Provincial of Castile. Against the opinion of his
advisors, the Provincial gave Francisco a chance. He was admitted to the
novitiate, but only as a lowly ranked indiferente someone whose per-
manent rank within the Society would be determined at a later date.
Initially Suarez failed to make an impression: despite his dedication he
lagged well behind his peers. Franciscos laconic character did not help.
An advanced student was asked to tutor him, to no avail. According to the
story, worried by the lack of progress, Francisco approached Father
Martn Gutierrez: should he simply face the facts, abandon fruitless
intellectual efforts and help the Society merely as a temporal
coadjutor? Gutierrez urged him to pray to the Virgin Mary, which he
did. It did not happen immediately, but something changed: not only did
Suarez catch up with the rest of the students, but he outdistanced them.
Suarezs intellectual landscape was marked by the revival of Iberian
scholasticism triggered in part by Francisco de Vitoria.5 Other significant
features of this landscape included the impact of the Renaissance and
humanist education in Spain, eclectic mystical movements such as the
alumbrados, Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation, and the Council of
Trent, which started in 1545. More directly relevant to Suarezs formation
was the founding of the Society of Jesus in 1534. The Societys schools
soon became a magnet for spiritually inclined and intellectually curious
young men. Ignatius Loyola and some of the first Jesuits, such as Francisco
Xavier, were somewhat unsympathetic to scholastic theology, which they
regarded as too speculative and detached from the pastoral and more
practical orientation that characterized patristic theology.6 Despite this
fact the Society soon produced scholastic theologians of its own. Beyond
5
Labels and periodization are disputed. Some scholars reject the label neo-scholasticism or second
scholastic as being appropriate to Suarez and his milieu and instead locate him within baroque
scholasticism as opposed to Renaissance scholasticism which, in this account, designates the first
post-medieval phase of scholasticism. The former would differ from the latter by a more marked
Scotist influence, a Franciscan presence, and an increasing predominance of Jesuits rather than
Dominicans. Some scholars apply the term neo-scholasticism to the Thomist revival of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Other labels one comes across are later medieval
scholasticism, early modern scholasticism, late Aristotelianism, and Counter-Reformation
philosophy. For a discussion of the appropriateness of these labels, see Novotny 2009: 20933.
See also Pereira 2007: 3766.
6
See OMalley 1994: 251.
Introduction 3
the general exhortation to follow St Thomas7 that we find in Loyolas
Constitutions, Jesuit theologians were more or less free to choose their
own way. Nevertheless, Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Rodrigo de
Arriaga, Francisco de Toledo, Benito Pereira, Pedro de Fonseca and
his circle at Coimbra, Roberto Bellarmine, Francisco Suarez, Luis de
Molina, Gabriel Vazquez, Leonardus Lessius, Gregorio de Valencia,
Francisco Torres, and Juan de Lugo, the leading theologians of the first
two generations of the Society, converged towards some shared pos-
itions. This is partly explained by their solidarity in responding to
outside attacks. Consider the imprisonment in 1601 of four Jesuit
theologians (including Vazquez) by the Inquisition for allowing a stu-
dent to defend the thesis that one need not believe as a matter of faith
that this or that person, for instance Clement VIII, is the Supreme
Pontiff. After interrogation, the Jesuits were given a fortnight to work
together, still imprisoned, on a joint theological defence.
After two years studying philosophy with Andres Martnez, Suarez
commenced his four-year theology course, attending the classes of the
Dominican Mancio de Corpus Christi, a direct disciple of Vitoria and of
the Augustine friar Juan de Guevara, among others. At twenty-three, after
the completion of his theological studies and his fathers death, and
shortly before being ordained, Suarez commenced his teaching career at
the Jesuit School in Segovia. This post would be followed by teaching
positions in Avila, Valladolid, Alcala, Salamanca, the Jesuit School at
Rome (the Collegio Romano), and, for almost twenty years, at
Coimbra. While a poor preacher (his few attempts failed because of a
tendency to digress on the finer points), Suarez proved to be a dedicated
and original teacher, if not always popular. His method departed from the
norm: instead of merely repeating others opinions Suarez believed in
looking a fresh at the problem under consideration, examining the root of
the problem (he advocated mirar las cosas mas de raz).8
Suarez drew criticism from early on in his academic career. Some of
this criticism had to do with opinions on specific doctrinal matters such as
the Immaculate Conception of Mary, or the validity of epistolary
confession in cases of necessity. Others had to do with more fundamental
7
Society of Jesus, Constitutiones Societate Iesu (Rome: Societatis Iesu, 1558), ch. 14, section 1.
8
Scorraille 2005: 156, vol. i. This biographical section is almost entirely based on Scorrailles (1842
1921) still unsurpassed biography. Scorraille makes use of and goes much beyond the earlier
biographies, biographical sketches, and panegyrics such as those by Pedro de Ribanadeira, Juan
Eusebio Nieremberg, Antonio Ignacio Descamps, Bernardo Sartolo, Antonio Garca Ribeiro
Vasconcellos, and others.
views commonly attributed to the Jesuits, for example on the compatibil-
ity between human freedom with divine grace and human freedom with
divine foreknowledge. These were the issues under contention in the
Congregatio de auxiliis, prompted by fellow Jesuit Luis de Molinas
Concordia, which confronted Jesuits and Dominicans in deliberations
held in Rome from 1601 to 1607.
Like many of his fellow Jesuits, Suarez was frequently accused of departing
too often from views attributed to Thomas Aquinas. Father Enrique Henr-
quez (or Enrques), initially a Jesuit and Suarezs teacher, then a Dominican,
then a Jesuit again, secretly denounced Suarez to the Inquisition.9 Another
dogged enemy of the Society, and of Suarez in particular, was the Dominican
Alonso de Avedano.10 He regarded as intolerable Suarezs view that Jesus
way of life was modest rather than austere.
In addition, Suarez wrote a number of polemical tracts motivated by
political upheavals. De immunitate ecclesiastica, written in 1606, defends
ecclesiastical rights against alleged encroachments by the Republic of
Venice. Defensio fidei, a weightier book, published in 1613 under the
auspices of the papal nuncio in Madrid, Decio Caraffa, is a response
to James I of Englands defence of his requirement of Catholic subjects to
make an oath of fidelity. The work went beyond its original purpose to
provide something close to a full-fledged theory of political power. Seen
as undermining the foundations of regal absolute rule, it was publicly
burned not only in London at the end of 1613 but also the following year
in the courtyard of the Parlement de Paris. Even before a Dominican friar
assassinated Henry III in 1589, and an unsuccessful applicant to the
Society of Jesus did the same to his successor twenty-one years later, there
was particular sensitivity in France towards anyone defending any form of
tyrannicide.11
During Suarezs own lifetime and shortly afterwards, allusions to a
Suarista party (here in opposition to the Thomist) became popular.
A document from the eighteenth century stated that not one Doctor
in Theology of those present in Buenos Aires was a Thomist, but they
were all Suarezians. The bishop of Asuncion lamented in 1757 that
[t]he ecclesiastical prelates are all his [Suarezs] . . . and they have
followed his school to such an extent that I have no knowledge of
any Thomist in this land except for Dr Leiva.12 Suarez himself rejected
9 10 11
Scorraille 2005: 248, vol. i. Scorraille 2005: 254, vol. i. Scorraille 2005: 193, vol. ii.
12
Furlong 1952: 211, citing Society of Jesus, Litterae Annuae Provinciae Paraguariae Societates Iesu,
8 vols. (Buenos Aires: Societatis Iesu, 171030), p. 215.
Introduction 5
being seen as the inventor of a new school or in opposition to or
creating a faction against anybody.13
Even within the order not all were happy with Suarezs views. When
later in his life Suarez returned to Salamanca, Miguel Marcos, the prefect
of studies, worried about the novelties that he introduced,14 and more
generally about the reigning climate of liberty of opinion. Unable to
impose order, Marcos refused to be used as a fig leaf (which he might
have been given his conventional views); nor was he willing to endanger
himself by constantly having to defend his more adventurous brothers to
the Inquisition.15
Special mention must be made of the personal rivalry and theological
quarrel between Suarez and fellow Jesuit Gabriel Vazquez. Suarez was
already lecturing at Alcala when Vazquez returned from Rome in 1591.
Vazquez was not only a sharp theologian but was also very popular
because of his charisma and casual ways. Having learned and taught in
Alcala for many years before his spell in Rome, Vazquez had the local
sympathy. Some of the disagreements between the two theologians are
discussed in the chapters by Irwin, Pink and myself. Things soon des-
cended into petty accusations before the General of the Order, Claudio
Acquaviva, in response to his letters urging peaceful communion. Vazquez
would report on Suarezs lack of ascetism: he had annexed a room to his
chamber, kept food stores which he would share only with his disciples,
got better meals, and had a butler. In addition he was alleged to shun
communal life by avoiding the dining hall, the kitchen and even the
communal toilets.
It does not seem that Vazquezs accusations were wholly unfounded, as
Miguel Marcos (not a friend of Vazquez) would make similar complaints
later at Salamanca. Suarezs delicate health may perhaps have justified
some of these special requirements, but not the additional accusation that
Suarez kept too many of the Schools library books in his study.16 The
clash between Suarez and Vazquez had lasting repercussions: in 1624 the
Jesuit Provincial had to write to the Jesuit School of Lima to seek to put
an end to the division between followers of Suarez and those of Vazquez.
Suarez would find somewhat more peaceful surroundings in Coimbra.
Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal), who imposed his rule on the
whole of the Iberian peninsula in 1580, sought to appoint a distinguished
theologian to the most eminent university of this new part of the realm.
13 14
Scorraille 2005: 310, vol. i. Scorraille 2005: 305, vol. i.
15 16
Scorraille 2005: 304, 306, vol. i. Scorraille 2005: 307, vol. i.
After initially accepting Suarezs personally given apologies on health
grounds, Philip changed his mind and insisted. Clearly Suarez could
not decline. He arrived in Coimbra in 1597 to a lukewarm reception.
This was explained not only by patriotic zeal (why a Castilian and not a
Portuguese?), but also because the appointment was made without open
competition and Suarez lacked a doctoral degree. To remedy the latter
fact Suarez was eventually forced to procure a doctoral diploma from the
smaller University of Evora. Exempted from most of the standard formal-
ities, Suarez was only asked to act as patron (padrino) of a certain Gonzalo
Luiz in a theological disputation. Interruptions apart, Suarez would
remain in Coimbra until shortly before his death.
The overall impression one has after reading Scorrailles detailed and
superbly documented biography is that Suarezs dominant desire, and one
which explained many of his academic moves, was simply to be left
undisturbed so as to be able to devote himself completely to his writing
and publishing. University ceremonies, membership in disciplinary aca-
demic committees and pronouncements on the affairs of the day at the
behest of spiritual or secular authorities were for him burdensome
distractions.
Twenty-two of Suarezs works have been published, nine of them
posthumously under the care of his friend Baltasar Alvarez. The Disputa-
tiones metaphysicae (1597), De legibus (1612), and De anima (1621) deserve
special mention. A number of writings have been lost, mostly commen-
taries on Aristotle which Suarez used for his classes during his first tenure
at Salamanca. His oeuvre has been collected, most recently in the twenty-
eight volumes (including indexes) published in Paris by Louis Vives
between 1856 and 1878.17 We also have a collection of responsae on a
variety of matters, such as whether Mass can be celebrated at sea, whether
it is licit to carry out capital punishment on Good Friday, whether a priest
who believes that he is the father of a child must recognize him, and
whether a wife can abandon her home if she feels threatened by her
husband.18
Suarez was both prolific (according to one account he wrote about
twenty-one million words, more than twice the output of Aquinas)19 and
industrious, attending not just to writing but also involving himself in all
17
Francisco Suarez, Opera Omnia, ed. M. Andre and C. Berton, 28 vols. (Paris: Vives, 185678).
18
Francisco Suarez, Conselhos e Pareceres, 3 vols. (Coimbra: Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de
Coimbra, 19481952). These cases are discussed respectively in vol. 1, pp. 14166, 17983, 353.
19
Fichter 1940: 340. In Pereira 2007: 10.
Introduction 7
editorial matters. Suarezs books were quite profitable. Initially the Jesuit
Schools would pay the printers and retain most of the gains. Suarez
obtained a special authorization to divert part of the revenues to his
family.20 At one point the Jesuit General had to intervene to prevent
the Schools from continuing to invest in Suarezs books, as, he argued, it
violated poverty vows. Instead he thought the capital should come only
from booksellers or publishers. More than once Suarez had to borrow
money to pay the printers.21 As soon as a Suarez book was published,
unauthorized copies were printed in places such as Paris, Vienna, Cologne,
Geneva, Lyons or Mainz, some of which were smuggled into Spain.22 This
gives us some measure of his popularity at the time.
Suarez died on 25 September 1617 at almost seventy after convalescing
for two weeks in Lisbon from what may have been dysentery. In his last
days a colleague brought a painter to have Suarez, unbeknownst to
him, portrayed for posterity. Suarez spotted the hidden artist and had
him seen out.
1.2 philosophy
Was Suarez primarily a philosopher or a theologian? What motivates this
question seems to be not so much a matter of zeal for disciplinary
boundaries, but the suspicion that Suarezs fundamental views may not
be based on reason but ultimately on faith and revelation. Whether these
two need be set in opposition is not to be discussed here, but what we can
say without hesitation is that neither Suarez nor his scholastic predecessors
ever thought that citing the Bible in philosophical argument was sufficient
to command the assent of the reader. Someone equipped with philosoph-
ical tools can go a long way in acquiring knowledge of God and his
creation. Hence references to Suarezs philosophy are not to be read as
opposed to Suarezs theology, but as his philosophical engagement with
questions which belong to an overarching theological research pro-
gramme. Not just knowledge of the divine but also revealed doctrine
(such as angels, miracles, transubstantiation, and the Immaculate Con-
ception of Mary) require an intelligible and coherent account of the sort
good philosophers may be able to provide.23
Suarez covered a considerable number of canonical philosophical
problems. His exposition is always thoughtful and compendious. Without
20 21
Scorraille 2005: 351, 245, vol. ii. See Brandao 1974: 295, vol. ii.
22 23
Scorraille 2005: 26, vol. ii. See Freddoso 2000: xvi.
claiming to be exhaustive, I simply select a number of central themes
within Suarezs work, and relate them to the chapters that compose
this book.
1.2.1 Metaphysics
Suarez was convinced that a solid metaphysical background was required
for good theology. He regarded as deficient standard metaphysical treat-
ments consisting of commentaries on Aristotles Metaphysics which
followed Aristotles own somewhat arbitrary order. To remedy this Suarez
set out to provide a reasoned and well-structured exposition of metaphys-
ics as it had developed from Aristotle to his own time. The result is his
monumental Disputationes Metaphysicae, first published in 1597. In it he
collected and thoughtfully assessed the views of about two hundred and
fifty authors, in fifty-four disputations, each divided into various sub-
sections, before offering his own solutions. Not only was this work
enormously useful as a didactic tool, it also challenged readers to think
afresh about old problems. The somewhat standardized scholastic Latin
and the apparent deference to authors of the past are deceptive: behind
this veil we find a creative thinker.
Suarezs most notorious metaphysical innovations comprise the defin-
ition of the subject matter of metaphysics, as being insofar as it is real
being,24 his revision of Aquinass position on the difference between
essence and existence, and his rejection of Aquinass account of individu-
ation. In the Disputationes Suarez also discussed, in typically thorough
manner, transcendentals, causation, finite and infinite being, substance
and accident, categories, Gods existence and his nature, modality, quan-
tity, relations and beings of reason.
In arguing that metaphysics concerns being insofar as it is real being,
Suarez excludes beings of reason and being per accidens from its scope, but
includes immaterial and material being, substances and accidents, crea-
tures and God. This is a considerable expansion of the territory of
metaphysics explored by some of his predecessors. The being of a chair
and that of God are not the same, and are only in some respects similar.
Nonetheless there is in reality a common aspect shared by all these
beings.25 Because of this, although the beings of these things differ in
reality, when we think in terms of being we are employing just one
concept. In Suarezs terminology the formal concept of being (what is
24 25
DM i.Intro. DM ii.2.14.
Introduction 9
represented by the term being) exhibits unity.26 The same is true of the
confusingly named objective concept of being, which is not a concept
but rather what we think about when we think in terms of being.27
Nonetheless Suarez denies that the unity of the formal concept of being
and the unity of actual being in the world is enough to make the term
being univocal; as argued by his predecessors the term remains
analogical.28
For Suarez actually existing essence and actual existence are only
mentally distinct. The essence of an actually existing horse and its exist-
ence do not differ outside the mind. This view has been read by some
interpreters influentially by Gilson as reducing existence to essence
and thereby diminishing the metaphysical importance of creation, the
divine conferral of existence.29 Nonetheless the opposite reading is pos-
sible, and indeed seems more natural: Suarez is actually demoting the
metaphysical status of essences by saying that their existence depends on
the existence of things they are essences of. As Norman Wells has asserted:
a metaphysics . . . which is knowledge of essences or aeternae et necessariae
veritates ha[s] been dealt a mortal blow.30
Suarezs comprehensive discussion of individuation is a salient feature
of his metaphysics. He rejects designated matter, substantial form, and
mere existence as good principles of individuation. Aquinass designated
matter may help to discern between individuals, but it is no help as a
principle of individuation as such (partly because it does not allow us to
distinguish between non-material individuals).31 Form taken on its own
cannot individuate features such as accidents and matter (form is never-
theless declared the primary principle of individuation so, for instance,
human individuals differ more on account of their souls [form] than of
their bodies [matter]).32 Actual existence cannot be the sole principle of
individuation because it would not allow us to distinguish between two
different possible beings which do not yet exist. Suarez posits that it is
entity (entitas) that provides the genuine principle of individuation.33
[T]he whole singular substance does not need any other principle of
individuation in addition to its own entitas or in addition to the intrinsic
26 27
DM ii.2.9. See Gracia 2003: 297.
28
DM ii.2.36: quia ad univocationem non sufficit quod conceptus in se sit aliquo modo unus, sed
necesse est ut aequali habitudine et ordine respiciat multa, quod non habet conceptus entis. See
Ashworth 1995: 5075.
29
This influential interpretation can be easily traced to Gilson 1948: 14853. See also Miner 2001: 1921.
30 31
Wells 1967: 58, cited in Miner 2001: 28; Garca de la Mora 1996: 35. See Gracia 1994: 497.
32 33
Gracia 1994: 497. See Thiel 1998: 217, vol. i.
10 daniel schwartz
principles from which its entitas is constituted.34 In the case of composite
beings, a particular matter and a particular form are united. The same
criterion furnishes the principle of individuation of accidents (for Aquinas
these were individuated by the subject in which they inhere).
An exposition of some of the central tenets of Suarezs metaphysics is
contained in the first three chapters of this volume. Gracia and Novotny
discuss Suarezs treatment of transcendentals and categories. The mark of
a transcendental is that it is included in the notion of every being and
therefore is not exclusively included in the notion of any being or any
kind of being. The transcendentals comprise being and its properties, such
as unity, truth, and goodness. As Gracia and Novotny show, Suarez,
perhaps in the footsteps of Scotus, comes close to proposing an inten-
sional view of transcendentals and transcendence. In the intensional view,
animal transcends horse not because the extension of animal includes
the extension of horse but, roughly, because what we pick when we use
the term horse includes animality. This means that, although these
properties are coextensional (all that is, is also, insofar as it is a being,
one, true, and good), they are intensionally different because they pick
different aspects of being. This view raises a problem that Suarez tackles:
under the accepted account of property can we really say that being qua
being has properties? As Gracia and Novotny show, Suarez proposes a
solution that consists of a middle way between two unattractive options:
(1) that the properties of being are something over and above being as
such, and (2) that these properties are identical to being.
Being and its properties transcend categories insofar as the latter are the
most general kinds of being, but what are categories ontologically speak-
ing, and how many of them are there? Suarezs response to the first
question is that a category is nothing other than the appropriate dispos-
ition and coordination of essential predicates. Gracia and Novotny
unpack the meaning of this assertion. In addition, in response to the
second question Suarez mounts and responds to a number of challenges to
Aristotles division of accidents into nine genera, asking whether his
division is the most reasonable one, whether it is exhaustive, and how
one ought to account for the diversity between categories. The article
closes with an overview of Suarezs discussion on quasi-transcendental
properties of beings of reason and their categories.
In his chapter, Christopher Shields discusses substantial forms.
Substantial forms have been traditionally proposed as conferring unity
34
DM v.6.
Introduction 11
to what would otherwise merely be a random part aggregate. Ever since
Descartes, Locke, Boyle, and Hume it has became commonplace to dismiss
substantial forms as a sort of metaphysical phlogiston. Shields shows that
Suarez anticipated and dealt fairly with many later criticisms against the
existence of substantial forms, such as the claims that we neither experience
them nor need them, that they are incoherent, and that they cannot be
generated. Suarez concedes that we do not experience substantial forms, but
argues that we do need them to make sense of many phenomena. Shields
explains the nature of this claim as well as Suarezs rejoinder to each of the
criticisms before deploying an exposition of two positive arguments (out of,
on one count, fourteen) that Suarez provides in support of the existence of
substantial forms. The arguments are abductive: after observing a phenom-
enon that calls for explanation the arguments postulate an entity (substan-
tial form) as a provisional explanation. The justification for postulation is
then further probed by additional pro and con arguments. The first
argument rests on the need to give a unifying account of the interdepend-
ence between the various properties of a thing (such as a fire producing light
and heat). The second argument notes that the capacities of living beings
interfere with each other in such a way that the intense exercise of one of
them (for instance, deep thought) may prevent the exercise of the other
(hunger, digestion). Hence the need to posit a common principle to explain
this phenomenon. You can doubt that this or similar phenomena exist, or
that they call for an explanation. Yet if you do not doubt it, you do need to
consider Suarezs arguments seriously. Simply to deny substantial forms
because of their not being observable would force you to deny many other
unobservable postulated entities in areas other than metaphysics that we
definitely do not take as drivel.
In his essay, Secada provides a detailed exposition of Suarezs ontology
of relations. Relations were traditionally conceived as an accidental prop-
erty in the subject based on a non-relational feature of it (a foundation)
somehow pointing towards something else (the term). The central
question that Suarez, like his predecessors, had to answer was: is the
relation really different from the foundation? To give an example: is the
similarity of a white object to another white object something over and
above its whiteness? Suarez says no: the difference between foundation
and relation is purely conceptual. Nonetheless, for him, this conceptual
distinction is grounded in reality (after all, we are not at liberty to posit
relations). According to Suarez, saying that the relation is only conceptu-
ally different from the foundation does not preclude saying that it is real.
Suarez attempted to find a middle way between the position of Peter
12 daniel schwartz
Aureol, which denied any reality to relations, and that supported by many
other authorities which, by conferring them with reality seemed implausibly
to imply that any new relation (such as me changing my spatial location)
creates a change in the subject. Secada identifies, analyzes and appraises
Suarezs answers to the sorts of challenges raised by this attempt. In the
course of doing so, he presents and explains some interesting Suarezian
dichotomous distinctions between types of relations (mutual/non-mutual,
reciprocal/non-reciprocal, categorical/transcendental), further demonstrat-
ing the richness and depth of Suarezs influential treatment.
1.2.2 God
A traditional job of theologians and philosophers has always been that of
proposing and refuting demonstrations of Gods existence. Typically such
arguments divide into ontological, teleological and cosmological types.
Ontological arguments, such as that made famous by Anselm of Canter-
bury, prescind from experience and proceed from the concept of God to
deduct his necessary existence. Teleological arguments deduce from the
beauty and order of the universe the existence of a supernatural architect.
Cosmological arguments deduce the existence of a first mover from a
feature of the universe, such as change or movement. In his chapter
Cantens deploys Suarezs own argument which combines versions of the
three types of argument. Suarez does not present his argument as water-
tight, but, for him, the sub-arguments taken together should persuade even
the obstinate among us of Gods existence. In the course of espousing his
argument Suarez contemplates many interesting possibilities, mainly as
alternative explanations for the phenomena that are supposed to require
one God. Consider, for example, the beauty and order of the universe.
These could be the result of concerted action by created beings, or the result
of cooperation between more than one uncreated being. Even if it is due to
just one uncreated being, it may be the case that there are other uncreated
beings responsible for the beauty and order of other worlds.
1.2.3 Mind
De anima is by far the least studied of Suarezs principal works.35 It
discusses the substance of the soul (or mind), its parts and powers, sense
35
Francisco Suarez, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima, ed. Salvador
Castellote Cubells, 3 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 197892).
Introduction 13
perception, cognition, appetite, will, and bodiless souls. Here I will
restrict myself to the main lineaments of Suarezs cognitive psychology.
In Aristotles account, the mechanism behind the acquisition of know-
ledge is similar to the mechanism behind sensing. Sense perception
consists in the reception of an outside form (for instance, the visual aspect
of an object) in a bodily organ (the eye) without reception of its matter.
Intellective cognition is more complicated, but it is also fundamentally
about reception: the reception by the intellect of an object by adopting its
form without assuming its matter. Averroes would interpret Aristotles
active or agent intellect as a separate faculty responsible both for
preparing the outside object for impressing the intellect (as light allows
us to see colours) and for causing the impression. This account presents a
number of problems. One of them, detected by John Peter Olivi, is that
the phenomenon of selective attention indicates that there is an active
dimension to sense perception and perhaps intellectual cognition too.36
We reach out to the outside world by directing our attention to this or
that object. Another problem is that attributing the causation of sensation
and cognition to outside objects does not sit comfortably within a
hierarchical metaphysics in which higher (immaterial, spiritual) causes
are supposed to act on lower (material) beings rather than the reverse.37
Suarez followed some of the main tenets of Olivi in rejecting a purely
passive account of cognition. Species have some material esse and so it is
not the case that their being produced by a material object defies the causal
hierarchy according to which the higher spiritual entities should cause
rather than be caused by lower material objects. He also rejected, following
Toledo, the need to posit an agent intellect to explain the way an image
extracted from the external world became an intelligible species.38
1.2.4 Law and ethics

The best-known and most impressive of Suarezs works on ethics and law
is De Legibus (1612). Its ten books give an exhaustive analysis of the
concept of law as such, followed by natural law, positive law (human
law, canon law, revealed law, customary law), the law of nations, inter-
pretation and mutation in law, and privileges. It is the first three books,
however, that have attracted most philosophical interest.
36 37
On Olivi see Pasnau 1997: 132. Simmons 1994: 25775.
38
See Kessler 1988: 515; Aho 2007: 1934. Also useful: Spruit 1995: 294307; Leijenhorst 2007: 23762.
14 daniel schwartz
Suarez follows the scholastic tradition in conceiving action as directed
to and explained by its goals. Actions are operations of the will. The
scholastics differed on the relation between the will and intellect. Are
these two separate faculties, or is the will a mode of operation of the
intellect? Is the will always subject to reason? Aquinas and Scotus dis-
agreed; the latter accorded more room for the will to maneuver (there was
such room also in Aquinas, but mostly because of the inconclusiveness of
practical judgement given our human earthly imperfections). On this
matter, as in others, Suarez would lean towards the Scotist approach.
Suarezs ethical and legal theory is often depicted as voluntarist because
it holds that obligations belonging to natural law, no less than positive
law, originate in and derive their force from the will of a superior (God or
the political sovereign). But Suarez also believes that acts prescribed by
natural law exhibit a certain fittingness with human nature.39 Their
goodness would then precede or be more basic than the superiors
command.
From this perspective natural law is indicative: it informs us about an
intrinsic moral goodness that it is already there. From the alternative
perspective natural law is preceptive; it extrinsically turns a morally
indifferent act into a morally good one.
As Irwin and Pink note, Suarezs voluntarism contrasts with the views
of Vazquez and of Scotus and his follower, John Punch (Pontius). Suarez
takes on board both perspectives. This strategy presents dangers and has
exposed Suarez to accusations of inconsistency by allegedly conceding the
existence of obligations that do not depend on command but only on
intrinsic goodness and badness.
In his chapter Irwin defends the coherence of Suarezs treatment of
natural law and obligation. John Finnis argued that Suarez, malgre lui,
comes very close to conceding the existence of obligations originating in
nature or reason, rather than in a command. Irwin argues that Thomas
Pinks defence of Suarez against this claim does not entirely remove the
difficulty. His careful and detailed reading of the text disproves, in his
view, the allegation against Suarez. Suarez does not recognize, as charged,
a pre-positive obligation but only a natural duty (debitum). But is there a
genuine difference between duty and obligation such that it would make
Suarezs claim not just verbally coherent but also philosophically pertin-
ent? According to Irwin there is: obligations involve an act of imposition
by an actual person giving an agent a distinct type of reason to act as
39
See Irwin 2007: 8, 2935, vol. ii; and, in general: 169, vol. ii.
Introduction 15
commanded (a reason dependent, for example, on the relation to that
person). Duties do not presuppose such personal acts. Nonetheless, notes
Irwin, Suarezs obligatio seems narrower than our modern concept and
hence Suarez may agree that some of the duties that we now call obliga-
tions do not in fact originate in a command. This means that Suarez
would agree that moral good and bad are not restricted to the field
covered by his narrow obligations. Irwin closes by questioning some of
the contrasts drawn by Finnis between Aquinas and Suarez.
After a characterization of the central shared features of the scholastic
understanding of intentional agency, Pink discusses the differing views of
Aquinas and Scotus on the relation between freedom and rationality. For
both of them freedom requires reason, but they differ in their precise
account of freedom as a power over alternatives. For Aquinas, freedom is
explained at the level of the intellect, whereas for Suarez freedom is more
exclusively a matter of the will. On this matter Suarez leans towards
Scotus. Pink then turns to law. In Suarezs view, law is not opposed to
freedom, but consistent with, and even, in the case of rights to liberty,
constitutive of it. According to Pinks reading of Suarez, central to law is
obligation, which in turn involves a peculiar justificatory force of practical
reason. This force is linked to blame. While failing to follow practical
advice is merely to be foolish, failing to meet our moral obligations
warrants being blamed by others for being bad. The force of obligation
is that of a demand rather than that of recommendation. This notion of a
justificatory force of demand was common to Suarez and other scholas-
tics. Any debate was about whether to restrict the terms natural law and
obligation to cases where this force was generated by divine legislation
(Suarez), or, as opponents such as Vazquez and Punch insisted, to allow
the terms to pick out every case of this justificatory force, even when
considered prior to such divine legislation. Pink closes by contrasting
Suarezs theory of action, freedom and law with that of Thomas Hobbes,
who by denying this late scholastic conception of law in the form of a
distinctive force of demand, left freedom and law by their very nature as
opposed phenomena. This was a fundamental change in the understand-
ing of law and its relation to freedom.
1.2.5 Political power and war

What, if anything, makes political subjection legitimate? For Suarez this
question is more than pertinent given that man is by his nature free and
subject to no one, save only to the Creator.
16 daniel schwartz
Suarez makes the conventional observation that families, the basic unit
of human organization, are not self-sufficient: they contain within them-
selves neither the offices and arts necessary for human life nor the
knowledge of all the things that need be known. The predictable next
step would be to follow Aristotle and to defend the city as a form of self-
sufficient human organization. But Suarez takes an interesting turn: he
intimates the idea of a state of war by arguing that if families were divided
from one another, peace could hardly be preserved among men, nor could
wrongs be duly averted or avenged.40 Hence inhabitants of a pre-political
stage are capable of conceiving of a possible, not yet actualized, political
stage, in which cooperation between the families would take place
for some common purpose. The transition would require a concerted
act of will.
The multitude of mankind should, then, be viewed . . . with regard to the special
volition, or common consent, by which they are gathered together into one
political body through one bond of fellowship and for the purpose of adding to
one another in the attainment of a single political end. Thus viewed, they form a
single mystical body which, morally speaking, may be termed per se one; and that
body accordingly needs a single head.41
The consent that constitutes Suarezs civitas brings about unity by
placing the consenters under a structure of duties and rights that binds
them together.42 Suarez can be classed as contractarian. Just as the
marriage contract protects domestic life, so political consent brings about
a structure of rights and duties which protects and preserves communal
life. Despite the fact that the civitas is brought about by the individuals
consent, power can still be regarded as emanating from God insofar as he
is the author of the laws of moral causation. He has made it the case that
our consent generates duties and rights. By consenting to create a city,
individuals create both the city (the shared moral bonds) and, whether
they want it or not, the citys right to rule over them.
Although the main tenets of Suarezs justification of political subjection
are well known, very little has been written on his views on distributive
justice. This is the topic of my chapter. Contrary to the Aristotelian
tradition, for Suarez distributive justice is not essentially about distribut-
ing proportionally according to some feature of the recipients. Rather
distributive justice is exercised when the sovereign meets and protects the
40
DF iii.1.4. In DL i.17.13. Suarez points out that men are in the greater part perverted to evil and
therefore are guided by their lusts.
41 42
DL iii.2.4. I defend this interpretation in my article: Schwartz 2008: 5981.
Introduction 17
subjects rights to acquire and remain in possession of portions of the
common stock. These rights are created by a pact or conditional promise
that specifies the personal qualities that ground the subjects rights to
shares of the common stock. Not only public, but also private goods come
under the purview of distributive justice. According to the doctrine of
supreme dominium proposed by Suarez the rights of subjects are subor-
dinate to the superior right of whoever has superior lordship in the
relevant sphere (God or the political ruler).
Distributive justice has the public function of contributing to the
peace, stability and harmony of the political community. This aim is
shared by other political virtues, but distributive justice contributes to that
portion of this aim that can be realized by meeting and protecting the
rights which it is in charge of overseeing.
Suarez also contributed to the resurgent theorizing on the justice of
war. He discusses war within a larger treatment of the theological virtues:
faith, hope and charity. In his chapter, Reichberg deploys Suarezs theory
of just war, contrasts it with that of Aquinas and identifies Suarezs debts
to Cajetan and his innovations over previous treatments. Carefully distin-
guishing defensive from offensive war, Suarez directed his attention
principally to the latter. Solely a grave culpable offence could, on his
understanding, justify the initiation of offensive war. This construal of
just cause was narrower and more stringent than the doctrine elaborated
earlier by Vitoria and Molina, neither of whom had envisioned offensive
war as exclusively a matter of vindicative justice. Yet, by so closely linking
war with punishment, Suarez was led to emphasize how charity has an
important role to play in moderating the belligerents behaviour. Suarez
likewise appealed to the idea of vindicative justice when explaining how
one sovereign commonwealth could, by reason of some culpable fault, fall
under the penal jurisdiction of another commonwealth. In this case, the
latter would assume the office of judge over the former. How one
sovereign could act as judge over his adversary generates a number of
problems, the most obvious of which is: can a party legitimately function
as judge in its own case? Suarezs response to this objection is given in
Reichbergs chapter. Reichberg likewise considers a number of related
questions, including whether war can be a legitimate way of resolving
disputes by mutual consent, or whether there can exist a supra-temporal
authority justifying punitive humanitarian intervention on behalf of third
parties (two views, he shows, that were subsequently rejected by Suarez).
Suarezs discussions on being, God, cognition, freedom, morality,
political societies, and war are marked by a common attitude. Tradition
18 daniel schwartz
never exhausts the range of possible views. Suarez finds, or rather makes
room for, new and better solutions where his predecessors saw none. It
was this combination of reverence for and dissatisfaction with tradition
that explains his innovative achievements in these different fields of
philosophical inquiry.
chapter 2
Fundamentals in Suarezs metaphysics:

transcendentals and categories
Jorge J. E. Gracia and Daniel D. Novotny
We think about the world in more or less general terms. Among the less
general are terms such as cat or red, and among the more general,
animal or color. Part of what philosophers do is to establish an order
among the levels of generality expressed by these terms and determine their
relations. The task is not very difficult at lower levels. It is easy to under-
stand that red is a kind of color and therefore that color expresses a higher
level of generality than red. But metaphysicians go beyond these lower
levels of generality and try to establish an ordered list of the highest levels,
turning to items such as substance, quality, being, and unity, and asking
questions such as: How many of these most general levels are there? What
are their members? And how are they related to each other and to lower
levels? For example, they might ask whether substance and being belong to
the same level of generality, and about the identity of the level or levels to
which they belong. And they might do the same with unity and being, or
quality and substance. Once metaphysicians find answers to these ques-
tions, they turn to more specific levels, such as red, color, cat, and animal,
and inquire into how they are related to the more general ones.1
Following the example of Aristotle, scholastic philosophers tried to
establish a map of the most general levels of generality, while determining
their interrelations, status, distinction, and the disciplines where they
should be explored. During the Middle Ages and in the early modern
period, two levels of generality in particular became the subject of consid-
erable attention: transcendentals and categories. Most often scholastics
thought of transcendentals as being and its properties and placed them at
the top. Below this level, scholastics placed categories, which they under-
stood to be divisions of being.
* Novotnys work on this paper was supported by the the Grant Agency of the AS CR (no. IAA
908280801) and the Czech Science Foundation (no. P401/11/P020).
1
Gracia 1999: ch. 9.
19
20 jorge j. e. gracia and daniel d. novotny
In this chapter, we examine Suarezs view of transcendentals and cat-
egories as explored in his most significant work, Metaphysical Disputations.
Even a glance into the contents of this work reveals that both transcenden-
tals and categories lie at the center of Suarezs metaphysics. Disputations 2
to 11 deal with transcendentals (being, unity, truth, good, and the opposites
of the last three, namely, distinction, falsity, and evil; nonbeing, the
opposite of the first, is treated in Disputation 54), and Disputations 32 to
53 concern categories of finite being (substance, accident, and the nine
highest genera of accidents). By formulating and defending a comprehen-
sive and purely systematic theory of transcendentals and categories, Suarez
pushed metaphysics to a new level of sophistication and precision. His
influence on subsequent early modern and scholastic philosophy was
uniquely significant and is a well-established historical fact.2
In this chapter, we turn first to transcendentals, asking what they are
and about their identity, number, and order. Second, we take up categor-
ies, what they are and their identity, number, and relations. And, third,
we add a brief discussion of unreal transcendentals and categories.
2.1 transcendentals
Among the many questions that an inquiry into the transcendentals
should address are the following three:
(1) What is a transcendental?
(2) What transcendentals are there?
(3) What order is there among transcendentals?
These questions help us understand the issues at stake in our inquiry.
We address them through an analysis of transcendentality, and the identity,
number, and order of the transcendentals. We begin with transcendentality.
2.1.1 Transcendentality
Suarez discusses transcendentality only briefly and somewhat indirectly
in section 5 of Disputation 2 (On the Essential Notion or Concept
of Being). The section is entitled Whether the notion (ratio) of
being (ens) transcends every notion . . . of inferior beings, so that it is
2
Pereira 2007. This does not mean, however, that later scholastics of the Baroque era are mere
Suarezians. Suarez brought metaphysics to a new level of sophistication but subsequent authors
tried to develop original systems of their own. See Novotny 2009 and forthcoming.
Fundamentals in Suarezs metaphysics 21
included . . . in them. From this title and from the subsequent elabor-
ation, we gather that Suarez subscribes to the following understanding of
transcendence and transcendentality:
X transcends Y iff the notion of X is included in the notion of Y.
Thus, for instance, animal transcends horse. This in turn provides us
with the conditions transcendentals are required to satisfy:
X is a transcendental iff its notion is included in the notion of every being.
Or, to put it differently, the notion of being is implied by the notion of
every being, such as, for instance, those of cat, tree, white, and Socrates.
That the notion of being is included in the notion of every being can be
demonstrated inductively, according to Suarez, by considering that
every substance and every accident must include it, because to be a
substance or an accident implies having a real essence capable of actual
existence.3 Because the transcendentals are included in the notions of
every being, they are said to transcend the Aristotelian categories in
the sense that they are not circumscribed to any one, or any group, of
them, but extend to all.
Suarezs view of transcendentality and transcendentals might be char-
acterized as intensional (conceptual, notional) and differs from the view
that characterizes them in extensional terms. For the extensional view,
X is transcendental if the extension of its notion includes the extensions of the
notions of every being.
The extensional view seems to be prevalent in the Middle Ages and so it is
possible that Suarezs intensional view is innovative. However, Suarez
does not explicitly raise the issue of extension vs. intension, and this
makes the nature of his contribution unclear.4
Now that we know what transcendentality is, we may ask what items
qualify as transcendentals. Being qua being does so trivially insofar as the
notion of being is obviously included in the notion of every being. But
being qua being has properties (passiones, proprietates, attributi), and these
are transcendental too.5 Suarez discusses these in Disputation 3 (On the
3 4
DM ii.5.16. Gracia 1992b.
5
Suarez uses the terms proprietas (property), attributum (attribute), and passio interchangeably,
although in DM iii.1.5 he seems to suggest a possible terminological distinction between passio/
proprietas and attributum, where passio/proprietas is understood more narrowly as a true and real
attributum. In what follows we adopt the term property to refer to all these for the sake of
simplicity and economy.
Properties of Being in General and its Principles). Apart from questions
concerned with pertinent epistemic principles (section 3), Suarez raises
three nonepistemic issues that are relevant here:
(1) Whether being qua being has any properties.6
(2) What those properties are.7
(3) What relations (ordo) those properties have among themselves.8
Before these questions can be answered, it is necessary to understand
what a property is. So Suarez begins by setting out four minimal condi-
tions required of something (X) to be a true and real property of
a subject (Y):9
(C1) X is (a) thing (res).
(C2) X is distinct ex natura rei from Y.
(C3) X is convertible with Y.
(C4) Y is not intrinsically and essentially found in X.
That a property is a thing means that it is something real. That it is
distinct ex natura rei means that [i]t is found in nature prior to any
activity of the mind, but it is not so great as the distinction between
altogether separate things or entities.10 That it is convertible means
that the terms in question are coextensional (i.e., whatever is one is also
the other), although not cointensional (i.e., they are not the same
thing). And that the property is not intrinsically and essentially found
in the thing of which it is the property means that it is not included in
its definition.
After stating conditions C1C4, Suarez reports some arguments in
their favor:
(A1) X must be a thing, since otherwise it would have to be nothing and
nothing could hardly be a real property.
(A2) X must be distinguished in some way ex natura rei from Y, for if
X were the same in reality with Y, X would be the essence of Y, or a
part of Y, rather than a property of Y.
(A3) X must be convertible with Y, for science (demonstrative know-
ledge) is about the properties of its object.
6 7 8
DM iii.1.113. DM iii.2.17; DM iii.2.1014. DM iii.2.8.
9 10
DM iii.1.1. DM vii.1.16.
(A4) Y cannot be included intrinsically and essentially in the intrinsic
nature or essence of its property X, for this would be an open
contradiction.
The crux of the scholastic controversy, as Suarez understands it, lies in C1:
If X is a thing, then it cannot be either a complete nonbeing (omnino
non ens) or a mere being of reason (solum ens rationis). Hence, it is
intrinsically and essentially a real being (ens reale). This conclusion,
however, seems inconsistent with conditions C2C4 and even leads to
an infinite regress, for the following reasons:
(R1) That Y, as a real essence or real being, is intrinsically and essentially
included in X (a real being) violates C4.11
(R2) That X, as a real being, cannot be ex natura rei distinguished from
Y (another real being) violates C2.
(R3) That X, as a real being, is not being in general (ipsum ens in
communi), and hence is subsumed under being (inferius ad ens)
and, consequently, not convertible with Y, violates C3.
(R4) That X, as a real being, has its own properties, which in turn have
properties, and so on, leads to an infinite regress.
Suarez considers three standard views on the properties of beings, two of
which violate one or more of the conditions C1C4 with which he began.
The first, which he ascribes to Scotus, holds the following: (a) being qua
being has real and positive properties, (b) which are ex natura rei distinct
from it, but (c) which are not intrinsically and essentially beings this
means that Scotus rejects the troublesome consequence of C1.12 The
second position, which Suarez ascribes to some unnamed Thomists,
accepts (a) and (b), but rejects (c). According to that, properties are
intrinsically and essentially beings, and this entails a rejection of C4
insofar as being qua being can be included in its properties.13
Suarez attributes the third position he presents to Thomas Aquinas,
among others. According to that, the properties of being qua being are
not real and positive, but rather each of them adds to being only a
negation or a relation of reason.14 Suarez is not entirely happy with this
formulation, however, noting that, although it is substantially correct, it
needs some explanation.
11
This problem follows if X is a being (an example Suarez has in mind) for then every subject, e.g.
a man or a rose, would be a being and hence included in X.
12 13 14
DM iii.1.2. DM iii.1.3. DM iii.1.4.
He begins the explanation by introducing three distinctions. The first is
a distinction between predicates that are true and real properties of a
subject on the one hand, and predicates which are the result of the way we
conceive or explain the subject on the other. For example, when we speak
of quantity as having the property of being the foundation of equality or
inequality, such a property is the result of the way we think about
quantity, which in reality is nothing but quantity itself. Suarez points
out that conditions C1C4 need to be satisfied only by the properties
in the first, strict sense, i.e., as true and real, and not in the second,
loose sense.15
The second distinction that Suarez introduces holds that it is one thing
for properties to be real beings or beings of reason and another for them to
be distinguished really or only by reason. Thus, it is possible for real
properties to be distinguished only by reason (although it is impossible for
properties of reason to be really distinguished). In our context, it is
possible for a real attribute to be distinguished from its subject only by
reason, thus violating C2.16
Finally, Suarez distinguishes between two senses of being (ens). In
one sense being means, properly and strictly, the entity of a thing. But
in another sense being means anything that can be affirmed of a thing
even in cases where what is affirmed does not refer to any being in the first
sense. According to Suarez, the being that can be affirmed of a thing, even
though what is affirmed refers to no being, comes in two varieties. One
consists of negations and privations, as when we say, for example, that a
thing is indivisible, that an act is evil, or that a man is blind. Another
consists of extrinsic denominations taken from things themselves, as when
God is said to be a creator in time in relation to creatures, and a wall is
said to be seen in relation to someone that sees it.17
With these distinctions in mind Suarez is ready to present the three
main tenets of his view. The first takes into account the first distinction:
(T1) Being qua being cannot have true and completely real [and] posi-
tive properties distinct ex natura rei from it.18
Being qua being cannot be found outside the essence of any being, and
therefore no property of being qua being can be real without being
included in being. Thus, no property of being qua being can be ex natura
rei distinct from being qua being. To this Suarez adds that being
qua being cannot have completely real [and] positive (omnino reales
15 16 17 18
DM iii.1.5. DM iii.1.6. DM iii.1.7. DM iii.1.8.
[et] positivas) properties, for, as we shall see below, there is a sense in
which being qua being does have real properties, although not in a positive
sense. The second tenet of Suarezs view takes into account the second
distinction:
(T2) Being qua being has properties that are not mere products of the
mind, but are truly and really predicated of it.19
To be a mere product of the mind for Suarez is to be a fiction, purely
concocted by the mind and resulting only from mental activity. The
properties of being qua being, however, are not like this, for they can be
truly predicated of it. Thus, Suarez points out, if a being of reason is
understood strictly as what has being only objectively in the mind, that is
as a mental object, the properties of being qua being are not beings of
reason. For, unlike beings of reason, they do not depend on the activity of
the mind, but apply to being absolutely and before any kind of mental
consideration. Nonetheless, they can be called beings of reason if being of
reason means anything that (1) does not posit in the thing to which it is
attributed something real, positive, and intrinsic, over and above what
calling it a being posits, (2) is distinguished from real being, which has
true and intrinsic entity, or (3) is such that the intellect, in order to
conceive clearly and predicate these properties, finds in them the basis
to construct some beings of reason in the strict sense.
But, one may ask, if the properties of being are neither true and
completely real properties distinct ex natura rei from being, nor mere
figments created by the mind, what are they, and how are they to be
distinguished from being qua being? Suarez answers this question in the
third tenet, making use of the third distinction mentioned above:
(T3) The properties of being formally add [to being] either a negation or
a denomination taken from a relation to something extrinsic.20
The properties of being, then, differ from being qua being in that they
involve negations or denominations taken from extrinsic relations of
being, and as such they are neither something real over and above what
being is nor formally the same as being. That they are not something real
over and above being means that, unlike such properties as the capacity to
laugh, which is a reality distinct from the subject that possesses it, say
Socrates, the properties of being are not realities distinct from being.
19 20
DM iii.1.10. DM iii.1.11.
However, that the properties of being are not formally the same as
being means that the intensions of the terms that name them are neither
part of, nor equivalent to, the intension of being. In this they are
different from such features as rationality, which is included in the essence
of the entity Socrates, which has it, and thus is a part of the definition of
human being. As Suarez put it, the properties of being are not synonym-
ous with being.21
This way of understanding the transcendental properties of being does
not completely satisfy all the conditions of true and real properties as
specified by Suarez at the beginning of Disputation 3. C3 and C4 are fully
satisfied: C3 is satisfied because these properties, as understood by Suarez,
are convertible with being insofar as they always and necessarily accom-
pany it; and C4 is satisfied because they are not part of the essence of
being. C2, however, is only satisfied in part, for the transcendental
properties of being are distinct from being only by reason, not ex natura
rei. Finally, C1 appears to be not at all satisfied, for the properties are
not things.
Suarezs answer to the last difficulty is to grant that the transcendental
properties of being are not strictly and rigorously real but, he claims, they
can still be called real because they formally express something which in
its own way is found in reality and can be attributed truly and without
qualification to being, whether as a privation or as a real denomination.22
Negations and privations, similarly to extrinsic denominations, have in
Suarezs metaphysics a double status: insofar as they are real and insofar as
they are fictitious constructs of the mind. In the first, the mind may arrive
at truth or falsity regarding reality through them, for negations and
privations can be truly and absolutely predicated of a thing without
involving any kind of intellectual fictions.23 In this sense, Suarez holds
that the properties of being are to be conceived as real negations or
privations. They are not real in the sense in which such properties as
the capacity to laugh are positively and intrinsically real, but nonetheless
they are not fictitious. Suarez uses two senses of real, then, which allow
him to say that some properties of being are both real (i.e., nonfictitious)
and not real (i.e., neither actual nor possible) without contradiction. The
properties of being, just like negations and privations, have extramental
(nonfictitious) status, but they are not real in the sense in which actual
beings, such as Socrates and his laugh, are.
21 22 23
Ibid. DM iii.1.12. DM liv.5.5.
Not all properties of being, however, are to be conceived as negations
or privations. Indeed, only unity functions in this way. Other properties
have the status of real extrinsic denominations.24 In order to complete the
understanding of Suarezs view of the properties of being, we must look
briefly into extrinsic denominations.
Stated simply, to denominate means to name a thing derivatively.
More precisely, a denomination is the substitution of the name N2 of a
thing T2 for the name N1 of another thing T1 to which T2 is somehow
related. Denominations can be intrinsic or extrinsic. For instance, Socra-
tes (T1) is denominated as the white (N2) instead of Socrates (N1)
because he is intrinsically related to whiteness (T2). But Socrates (T1) is
denominated as the seen (N2) instead of Socrates (N1) because he
is extrinsically related to being seen (T2). What is this being seen? It is
the thing or, as the scholastics put it, the form derived from the founding
relation of sight (R) that somebody has toward Socrates (T1). Hence, we
may say that an extrinsic denomination involves four basic elements:
denomination (N2: the seen), the thing denominated (T1: Socrates),
the denominating form (T2: being seen) and the relation founding the
denomination (R: somebodys seeing Socrates). Central to Suarezs claim
is the view that (normally) extrinsic denominations are real, hence they are
not sufficient conditions of beings of reason.25
When applied to being and its transcendental properties, true and
good, we end up with the following:
True Good
thing denominated (T1): being being

denominating form (T2): act of intellect (being act of will (being desired)
thought about)
denomination (N2): true good
founding relation (R): understanding of being desiring of being by will
by intellect
Thus Suarez can say that being, true, and good, are coextensional and yet
not cointensional, for whatever is a being is capable also of being the term
of a real relation from an intellect or a will to being itself. Such a relation
does not affect being, nor do the transcendental properties true and good
refer to a form in being really distinct from it. True and good express
24 25
DM iii.2.7. DM liv.2.
extrinsic denominations of being founded on relations of an intellect or a
will to being. As such, true and good are neither real properties of being
strictly speaking, nor real or mental relations of being to something else. If
they were real properties or real relations, it would imply a kind of
distinction between being and them, or their foundation (in the case of
real relations). If they were mental relations, it would imply that true and
good are exclusively the result of mental activity, and therefore fictitious.
And neither of these consequences is acceptable.
The question about the distinction between being qua being and
transcendental properties and among particular transcendentals them-
selves is taken up briefly in Disputation 3. It is obvious from what has
been said above that there are no real distinctions among them, but only
distinctions of reason. In subsequent discussions of unity,26 truth,27 and
goodness, Suarez comes back to these questions and discusses them in
greater depth.28
2.1.2 Identity, number, and order

Having identified necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be
a transcendental, we need to ask what satisfies these conditions. This
involves their identity, number, and order. Suarez discusses this question
in section 2 of Disputation 3.
Identity and number

He begins with what seems to be a traditional list of trancendentals: being
(ens), thing (res), something (aliquid), one (unum), true (verum), good
(bonum). He notes two kinds of difficulties with this list. First, are there
not too many items on it? For instance, thing and something seem to be
just what being is.29 Second, are there not too few items? Suarez mentions
several other candidates for the status of transcendentals: (a) duration,
location, and other properties necessarily applying to all beings (Suarez
probably means finite beings)30; (b) finite/infinite, actual/potential,
and other disjunctive properties; and (c) various properties such as self-
identity, possibility, desirability, and intelligibility.31
Nevertheless, to Suarez it is obvious that there are only three transcen-
dental properties for several reasons.32 First, there is a universal agreement
on this point among the authors writing on this subject-matter. Second,
26 27 28 29
DM vvii. DM viiiix. DM xxi. DM iii.2.1.
30 31 32
DM iii.2.2. Ibid. DM iii.2.3.
because one (unum) adds to being (ens) the notion that it is not multiple,
truth (verum) adds a relation to the intellect, and good (bonum) adds a
relation to the will. These are clearly distinct meanings, which is not the
case for other items on the traditional list, such as thing and something.33
Furthermore, Suarez finds textual evidence that Aquinas held this view,34
and points out that in common usage being and thing are almost
synonyms.35 Something, depending on ones preferred etymology, is
either synonymous with one or with being.36
With respect to the other challenge, namely that there could be more
transcendentals, Suarez remains firm. Duration and location are categor-
ies or modes; disjunctive properties are not properties of being, but rather
divisions of being (finite/infinite) or its status (actual/potential);37 and
properties such as self-identity and desirability can be reduced to others,
for instance self-identity to unity and desirability to goodness.38 Hence, it
is clear that Suarez abandons the traditional list of transcendentals.
Some of the arguments that Suarez provides in this section are sketchy,
but he occasionaly points out that more will be said below. And, indeed,
he takes up the problem with duration in Disputation 50 (On the
Category of When), the problem of location in Disputation 51 (On
Where), the question of what is real and fictitious in Disputation 54
(On Beings of Reason), and so on with others. Suarezs approach to
metaphysics is holistic: everything is connected to everything else.
Order
Suarez also deals briefly with the question of order among the properties
of being. First among them is unity, because it is nonrelational insofar as it
follows from being intrinsically, even if negatively.39 Second come truth
and goodness, which are relational insofar as truth is related to the intellect
and goodness to the will. Truth precedes goodness because before we can
will something we need to know it.40 But what kind of order does Suarez
have in mind? Prima facie it would seem to be an order of perfection.
However, Suarez explicitly rules out this possibility, so it remains unclear
what he has in mind. One possibility is epistemic to the extent that
establishing any order among the properties of being requires that we
first know unity, then truth, and finally goodness.
33 34 35 36
Ibid. DM iii.2.4. Ibid. See also DM iii.2.1213. DM iii.2.5.
37 38 39 40
DM iii.2.11. DM iii.2.14. DM iii.2.8. DM iii.2.9.
2.2 categories
Suarez did not publish a commentary on Aristotles Categories, but
categories play a crucial role in his Metaphysical Disputations. The most
extensive general discussion of this topic is found in Disputation 39 (On
the Division of Accidents into Nine Genera). The main purpose of the
Disputation is to defend the traditional list of categories found in Aris-
totle, namely (in Suarezs order): substance, quantity, quality, relation,
action, passion, when, where, position, and habit. The text has three
sections that address the following issues:
(1) Whether accidents in general are immediately divided into the highest
genera of accidents.41
(2) Whether the division of accidents into nine genera is sufficient.42
(3) Whether the division is univocal or analogical.43
Besides these questions, however, there are several other, fundamental,
questions we would like to raise. One of them concerns highest genera:
the scholastics held that, corresponding to the categories, there are ten
highest genera. Suarez mostly uses the expressions supreme genus
(supremum genus) and category (praedicamentum) interchangeably, but
not always. In order to understand categories, then, we need to determine
the kind of distinction that holds between categories and highest genera,
if any.
2.2.1 Categoricity
The ten highest genera, Suarez tells us in the Introduction to Disputation
39, are treated not just by the metaphysician, but also by the logician,
although more deeply they . . . pertain to first philosophy [that is,
metaphysics] . . . because the logician does not consider the ten highest
genera of beings in order to establish exactly their natures and essences.
Logic is merely a certain art directing operations of the intellect. Its
object consists of mental concepts insofar as they are subject to direction
by an art.44 This fact, Suarez continues, has led some authors to consider
categories to be names, and only names. This mistake arises because they
41 42 43
DM xxxix.1. DM xxxix.2. DM xxxix.3.
44
DM xxxix.intro.1. Suarezs claim that logic deals with mental concepts should not be
misunderstood. Logic is not some kind of mental game insofar as mental concepts concern
things and are founded in them (DM xxxix.intro.) Logicians deal with reality indirectly via the
ordering of concepts.
look at categories only from the point of view of the logician, and the
logician qua logician is not concerned with placing things into categories
on the basis of their reality, but on the basis of their name.45
In contrast with the logician, the metaphysician deals with the division
of the highest genera directly in order to inquire upon the proper
character and essences of things. This involves not just dealing with
more abstract and immaterial genera, but also with more material
(and, we might say, concrete) ones.46
From this it follows that, for Suarez, highest genera are real, that is,
nonmental. This is why they are studied in metaphysics rather than logic.
But this does not make clear what he thinks categories are. Unfortunately,
Suarez does not take up this question explicitly, although in passing he
tells us that:
From the logical point of view, a category is nothing other than the appropriate
disposition of genera and species from a supreme genus to individuals.47
This text distinguishes between the notions of category and supreme
genus. A category is said to be a disposition, but probably this should
not be understood in the sense in which disposition is a species of quality
(after years of driving, for example, I have the disposition to engage in
certain actions when I sit in the drivers seat of an automobile). Rather, it
should be taken in the more basic sense of dis-positing: that is, of placing
something in the proper order.48 Suarez has another text that is useful for
determining his understanding of a category:
a category is nothing other than the appropriate disposition and coordination of
essential predicates, of which those which are predicated essentially of the
individual are placed above it, in a direct line, going up from the lower to the
higher; and this line begins with the lowest, that is the individual, and ends with
the highest genus.49
Here, Suarez adds another term to describe categories, namely coordin-
ation. A category is not properly speaking a genus, but rather the
coordination, or we might say arrangement, of genera according to a
pattern of essential inclusion in which each genus includes the essence of
the members of the genera below it, going from the lowest to the highest.
45 46 47
DM xxxix.intro.1. DM xxxix.intro.2. DM xxxix.intro.1.
48
An alternative reading, namely that categories are dispositions in the sense of qualities in the minds
of logicians which enable them to coordinate species and genera, is also possible but seems less
likely.
49
DM xxxix.2.30.
Note that in this text Suarez speaks of predicates rather than genera. All
the same, we are on safe ground if we interpret him as speaking about
genera, because the term predicate was used ambiguously by scholastics,
and also by Suarez. Often they meant to refer to linguistic terms (as many
of us do today), but at other times they meant to refer to the denotations
or connotations of those terms. Predicate, in this context, can very
well stand for what a term denotes or connotes, which for our purposes
is a genus.
Now, we can say that this coordination of genera goes according to a
pattern of essential inclusion which extends from the lowest to the highest
genera. By this Suarez seems to mean that such categories as quantity or
quality, for example, are not themselves genera, but ways in which genera
are coordinated or arranged. A category, then, may be characterized as
follows:
X is a category iff it is an arrangement of essential predicates (species and genera)
in a tree-like structure beginning with the lowest (individual) and ending the
highest genus.
Since the term category originally means any kind of predicate, Suarez
sometimes calls supreme genera categories, for they are the paradigmatic
(most general) kinds of predicates. In a narrower sense, however, categor-
ies are not just the highest predicates (supreme genera), but the different
overall kinds of arrangements of predicates.50
From this one could infer that the highest genera (and lower genera, if
necessary) are studied in metaphysics, whereas categories are studied in
logic, for it is in logic that the arrangement among essential predicates is
carried out. But this way of expressing the point would have to be taken
metaphorically, in that logic for Suarez is an art and not a science.
Metaphysics deals with essential predicates and logic helps to organize
them in the mind.
A frequently posed question concerning categories asks whether they
are arrangements of names, concepts, or things. In other words, what does
50
Antonio Rubio (15481615), who seems to hold many views in common with Suarez (see Novotny
2010), states this explicitly: Although the Greek word category in its primary imposition means
predication or a predicate, there is a consensus among the logicians and philosophers that it is to be
taken for the entire ordination of essential predicates. The word predicamentum has the same
meaning. We may describe it as follows: A predicamentum [i.e. a category] is a disposition of
essential predicates, higher and lower, under one genus, above which there is no higher, ending
with an individual, under which there is no lower. See Antonio Rubio, Commentarii in Universam
Aristotelis Dialecticam (Cologne: Arnold Birckman, 1605), p. 144.
predicates mean in our characterization? The crucial text, to which
reference was already made above, reads as follows:
[B]ecause mental concepts are about real things, and are founded on real things,
[the logician also] treats of real things, although not to establish their essences
and natures, but only in order to coordinate the concepts in the mind; and in
this sense he deals with the ten [supreme] genera in order to establish the
ten categories.51
Here Suarez is concerned with the subject matter of logic, that is, the
kinds of things that the logician studies. He tells us that the logician deals
with the ten highest genera in order to establish the ten categories. This
seems to make clear the place where the ten categories are found, which is
not the world, but rather the logicians mind. Categories are mental in the
sense that they are the ways in which we think of the relations among
genera. Categories are mental, not extra-mental or linguistic entities, and
for this reason the logician properly treats of them, for categories are ways
in which concepts are appropriately arranged in the mind. However,
because these concepts reflect the ways things are outside the mind, that
is, the natures and essences of things in the world, the logician also deals,
albeit only indirectly, with natures and essences to be able to introduce the
proper order among them in the mind.
Considerations relevant to this question come up also in the context of
the distinction among highest genera. For Suarez holds that the distinc-
tion is conceptual but has a foundation in reality. This coheres well with
what we have said, namely that the categories and the highest genera are
something in the mind, but have a foundation in reality.52
2.2.2 Identity, number, and relations

The traditional Aristotelian division of categories was widely accepted by
scholastics and constituted the basis for the discussion of their identity,
number, and relations. But Suarez raises three challenges to it. The first is
the problem of immediacy: Can there be more immediate and basic
divisions than the traditional ten-membered division of categories, with
fewer members in each? The second is the problem of exhaustivity: Are all
51
DM XXXIX.intro.1.
52
Suarez lays stress on concepts. In his view, logic deals primarily with words/concepts and hence also
with things. But this was not a universally accepted view. Rubio, for example, is more Thomistic.
In his view, logic is both a science and an art, and therefore it deals primarily with things. See
Rubio, Commentarii in Universam Aristotelis Dialecticam, p. 144.
categories included in the division? And the third is the problem of
distinction: What is the distinction among categories? The first problem
is taken up by Suarez in section 1 and the other two in section 2.
Immediacy
Suarez points out that being can be divided in many ways other than in
the ten proposed by Aristotle: complete/incomplete,53 primary-individual/
secondary-universal,54 forms/modes,55 spiritual/material, permanent/suc-
cessive, intrinsic/extrinsic, and so on.56 All these seem to be more general
than the traditional division into ten, and hence deserve to be considered
more immediate to being. But Suarez goes on to defend the traditional
division by noting that the ten highest genera are immediate as diverse
genera of beings, even if it is possible to come up with divisions with less
than ten members.57 Divisions based on other kinds of predicates,
although possible, do not qualify as the division of genera of beings.58
Exhaustivity
Suarez likewise builds a powerful case against the traditional division of
categories based on exhaustivity. The objection is that the division into
ten seems to leave out many candidates, such as extrinsic denomin-
ations,59 place, habit, and others,60 artificial and moral denominations,61
movement and other causal relations,62 accidents of angels,63 properties of
categories,64 and postpredicaments.65 Suarez reviews the major historical
attempts at deriving the ten categories, i.e., showing that there must be ten,
and only ten, of them. He explicitly discusses the views of some ancient
philosophers, Augustine, Aquinas, certain Scotists, and Ockham, but in
the end he rejects them. Suarezs own view, which he attributes to
Avicenna, is that by proper reasoning one cannot demonstrate that there
is that given number of highest genera [i.e., ten] and neither more nor
less . . . This is why Aristotle did nowhere attempt to demonstrate it, but
always assumed it to be certain.66 Suarez then makes an empirical
argument in favor of the view he adopts: the sufficiency [i.e., exhaustiv-
ity] cannot be known by us otherwise than as the fact that . . . in our
experience we do not notice more genera of being.67 In Suarezs view, the
53 54 55 56
DM xxxix.1.1. DM xxxix.1.2. DM xxxix.1.3. DM xxxix.1.4.
57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64
65 66
DM xxxix.2.43. DM xxxix.2.18. This is also Scotuss view; see Gracia and Newton 2008.
67
DM xxxix.2.18.
exhaustivity of the division of the categories into ten is indemonstrable,
and its only justification comes from experience.
Distinction
Like his scholastic predecessors, Suarez holds that categories are primarily
diverse, which means that they share no property or genus. Naturally, this
view gives rise to the question as to the source and nature of their
diversity. Suarez rejects two opinions with respect to this issue. According
to one, the diversity involves a real distinction.68 Against this view he
points out that only quantity and quality are really distinct from sub-
stance, so if this position were accurate, the highest genera would be
reduced to three.69 According to another opinion, the diversity involves a
modal, actual, and ex natura rei distinction which precedes in reality the
operation of the mind.70 Against the modal distinction, which is a true
actual distinction ex natura rei anteceding in reality an operation of the
intellect, he argues that this distinction could apply at best to quantity,
quality, action, and some relations, not to other categories. For instance,
time (duratio) is not really distinct from motion, being clothed (habitus)
from quantity, and so on.71
The view Suarez proposes holds that categories are distinguished
according to our way of conceiving, founded in reality. Some call this
distinction of reasoned reason, whereas others call it formal.72 The
justification of this claim is indirect: This view . . . is sufficiently proven
from what has been said against the previous views.73
The distinction of reasoned reason is, according to Suarez, conceptual.
Conceptual distinctions come in two varieties: One is the distinction of
reasoned reason and the other the distinction of reasoning reason. The
second has no basis in reality but is purely a creation of the mind; it arises
out of the intellects activity of comparing, which makes possible its
infinite multiplication.74 The first, however, the distinction of reasoned
reason, has a foundation in reality, even if the distinction itself is merely
conceptual. This is the kind of distinction that we make when we
think about Gods properties, for example. The foundation of this dis-
tinction in the case of categories must be sufficient to allow relations or
modes of denomination of primary substance that are irreducible to one
generic concept.75
68 69 70 71
DM xxxix.2.19. Ibid. DM xxxix.2.20. DM xxxix.2.201.
72 73 74 75
DM xxxix.2.22. DM xxxix.2.23. Ibid. Ibid.
This is not enough to clarify the issue. The question remains: What is
this foundation in reality that is the basis of the denomination? It cannot
be a category itself, because for Suarez categories are concepts and the
product of conception and abstraction.76 And it cannot be a reality
represented by the distinction, for then the distinction would be real
rather than conceptual. The point to consider is that a distinction of
reasoned reason has some basis in reality, even though the distinction itself
is a concept in the mind, resulting from some comparison or thinking
about something.
Now we can go back to categories and apply what we have learned
about the distinction of reasoned reason to them. Categories are ways in
which humans conceive the world based on certain comparisons that the
mind carries out between other concepts, but these other concepts have
reference in the world. An example would help, but the one of God and
his properties, which Suarez gives, is of no great use because of its
uniqueness. Let us try to make up one that perhaps Suarez would accept.
Consider the category quality. For Suarez, quality is a concept which the
mind develops based on its consideration of the relations between
certain concepts, such as red, blue, grammatical, and so on, on the
one hand, and certain other concepts, on the other, such as three meters
long, yesterday, woman, and so on. Quality tells us something about the
first set of concepts and their relations to other concepts. But the
concepts among which relations are established have instances in reality,
outside the mind, although not qua concepts. Red, as universal, is not to
be found outside the mind. Nonetheless, there are red things in the
world and each of them is an individual instance of the universal red.
This means that quality, in spite of being a concept based on the relation
among concepts, is nonetheless related, via those concepts, to the world
outside the mind.
Are Suarezs arguments with respect to the identity, number, and
relations among categories convincing? It is hard to decide on the many
subtle and detailed points Suarez makes. Here are three tentative apprais-
als. First, concerning immediacy: Suarez acknowledges many distinct
transcategorial predicates, such as substance and accident, individual
and universal, and absolute and relative, that do not express categories.
What is their place in metaphysics? Suarez does not address this question
in the Metaphysical Disputations. Hence, even if we were to judge that he
76
Ibid.
succeeds in defending the traditional division of categories into ten, his
discussion opens a topic he does not address adequately. Second, con-
cerning exhaustivity: If experience is the final arbiter of the number and
identity of the categories, how much certainty do we have about this?
Consensus about the experience we have of the ten categories is lacking, as
it is clear in scholastic discussions both in the Middle Ages and subse-
quently after Suarez. Third, concerning distinction: The claim that there
is a conceptual distinction with a foundation in reality for the categories
is appealing, but Suarez does not present a strong case for it, especially
considering that he acknowledges that at least some accidents are
really distinct from substance. Hence, if they are, why are they not also
really distinct from each other?
2.3 unreal transcendentals and categories

To this point we have discussed only transcendentals and categories that
Suarez regards as being part of reality. But he explicitly notes that beings
of reason have quasi-transcendental properties.77 This suggests that,
corresponding to real transcendentals, there are also unreal ones. Suarez
does not develop this idea, but later baroque authors, such as Bartolomeo
Mastri (160273), do.78
In contrast to what Suarez says about transcendentals, he does not refer
to the various kinds of unreal beings he discusses in Metaphysical Dispu-
tations as categories. However, his treatment of these has a structure
similar to that he applies to real categories. This suggests that he is
concerned with categories of unreal being as much as he is concerned
with categories of real being. Indeed, Disputation 54 deals with beings of
reason (unreal entities) in a methodologically similar way to the one
Suarez applies to real beings. After an introduction (Why we deal with
beings of reason in metaphysics79), Suarez discusses their nature,80
causes,81 and division.82 The last topic takes up the most space, and is
subdivided into the questions of the exclusivity83 and exhaustivity84 of the
division, after which he adds sections on particular genera (i.e., negation,
privation,85 and relation of reason86).
77 78 79 80
DM liv.intro.2. Novotny 2008. DM liv.intro.12. DM liv.1.
81 82 83 84 85
DM liv.2. DM liv.36. DM liv.3. DM liv.4. DM liv.5.
86
DM liv.6.
2.4 conclusion
The aim of science from an Aristotelianscholastic perspective is the
possession of certain knowledge of truth, acquired by demonstration. In
demonstrations, something (Y) is shown about something else (X) on the
basis of still something else (Z). How does this apply to Suarezs meta-
physics? Being qua real being (X) is the subject of the science of meta-
physics, and demonstrations show its transcendental properties and
categories (Y). Roughly speaking, then, we have dealt in this chapter with
two aspects of Suarezs metaphysical fundamentals. The third aspect,
namely the basis on which these demonstrations take place (Z) concerns
causes, and will have to wait for another occasion.
We can also express this point as follows: Metaphysics turns around the
questions of nature (what?), causes (why?), and division (what sort?).
A theory of transcendentals addresses primarily the first question: the
nature of reality/being; it concerns what being is and its attributes.
A theory of categories addresses primarily the last question: the division
of reality/being; it concerns the list of the highest kinds of entities. Since
for Suarez the object of metaphysics is being (including its properties) and
being and its properties constitute the transcendentals,87 one might say
that for Suarez metaphysics is the science of the transcendentals, which
was a view first proposed by Scotus. In this Suarezs metaphysics manifests
a fundamentally Scotistic character in spite of many real and apparent
disagreements with Scotus on particular issues.88
87
DM i.1.26.
88
For a more precise statement of where Suarez adopts Scotuss view, where Aquinass, and where he
goes his own way, see Darge 2004. The nature of Suarezs metaphysics is summarized in Heider
2009.
chapter 3
The reality of substantial form: Suarez,

Metaphysical Disputations xv
Christopher Shields
A philosophical being unknown to me. (Descartes)1
3.1 substantial forms: so much drivel?

When Francisco Suarezs contemporary Rene Descartes reports his lack of
knowledge regarding substantial form, he does not mean to lament his
own ignorance so much as to lay blame on the scholastic proponents of a
doctrine he regards as dubious at best: he thinks, in fact, that
there is nothing there to be known.2 In this he was only the first of a
series of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers who sought to
distance themselves from what came to be lampooned as a characteristic-
ally obscure scholastic doctrine.3 Locke, for instance, derided his prede-
cessors for their fruitless Enquiries after substantial Forms, wholly
unintelligible, and whereof we have scarce so much as any obscure, or
confused Conception in general.4 If the doctrine of substantial forms
1
Rene Descartes, uvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery, 11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1996),
vol. ii, p. 367; Rene Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. J. Cottingham et al.,
3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 198491) vol. iii, p. 122.
2
Descartes (letter to Regius, January, 1642) contends, with little sympathy and less understanding:
They [substantial forms] were introduced by philosophers solely to account for the proper action of
natural things, of which they were supposed to be the principles and bases . . . But no natural action
at all can be explained by these substantial forms, since their defenders admit that they are occult,
and that they do not understand them themselves. If they say that some action proceeds from a
substantial form, it is as if they said it proceeds from something they do not understand; which
explains nothing. See Descartes, Philosophical Writings, vol. iii, pp. 2089.
3
Robert Pasnaus excellent study (2004) of the history of substantial forms first called my attention to
the shrillness of some of the rhetoric surrounding the rejection of substantial forms in some early
modern thinkers, and I reproduce some of his citations in this section. In that same article, Pasnau
refers to Suarezs Metaphysical Disputations XV as what must be the most detailed treatment of the
topic ever attempted (2004: 37). This reasonable characterization seemed to me to recommend an
in-depth study of this work. The current paper is one result of that study.
4
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1975), bk. 3, ch. 6, s. 10.
39
40 c h r is t o p he r s h ie l ds
is wholly unintelligible, as Locke contends, then it is hardly surprising
that we have such an obscure and confused conception of it. Knowing a
substantial form would be akin to having de re knowledge of a fastidious
prime number or a bookish colour; such (putative) objects are incoherent,
and so do not admit of even partial or confused conceptions.
Lockes haughty dismissal proved consequential, setting the stage for
many of the English philosophers who followed him. Indeed, by the
middle of the twentieth century, A. J. Ayer regarded himself justified
in dismissing the entire topic of substance-based ontology without
even pretending to offer a modestly informed argument against it. He
thought it enough to remind his empiricist readers that the entire debate
about substance could be set aside as spurious, deriving as it did from
the primitive superstition that to every name a single real entity must
correspond.5
It is hard to know when reading this sort of easy, arch dismissal of an
entire tradition of intricately developed philosophy whether its author is
better regarded as lazy or self-deluded. One would like to believe, at
least, that Ayer and his ilk had never studied the fifteenth of Suarezs
fifty-four Metaphysical Disputations. For what we confront in this work,
On the Formal Cause of Substance, bears no relation in content or
argumentative strategy to sorts of views they feel content to reject without
serious study. Never once, to be explicit, do we find Suarez (or Aristotle,
or Aquinas, or Scotus, or Leibniz) offering the argument that since to
every name a single real entity must exist there are substances, or substan-
tial forms.
On the contrary, as anyone who does study Suarezs brief on behalf of
substantial form will immediately appreciate, Metaphysics Disputations xv
considers and refutes some of the very arguments the later tradition
asserted as conclusive against this doctrine. Moreover, those arguments,
prove only a prelude: Suarez engages the issue armed with a battery of
positive arguments on behalf of the doctrine of substantial form, several of
which far surpass in philosophical nuance and sophistication the fumbling
attempts to account for some of the same phenomena initially dia-
chronic and synchronic unity, but then more subtle matters as well that
the detractors of substantial forms must equally explain. Hume, for his
part, at least had the integrity to admit that without the resources of
substantial forms he found himself flummoxed by the problem of syn-
chronic unity of persons: But upon a more strict review of the section
5
Ayer 1952: 40, 42.
The reality of substantial form 41
concerning personal identity, I find myself involved in such a labyrinth
that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions,
nor how to render them consistent.6
In this paper we trace two sets of arguments given by Suarez in
Metaphysical Disputations xv. In the first set he confronts arguments
intended to show that substantial forms do not, or indeed cannot, exist.
Several of these arguments foreshadow in fairly obvious ways the argu-
ments later deployed by Boyle, Locke, and others writing under their
influence; it is thus instructive to learn that Suarez had not only formu-
lated these arguments crisply, indeed often more crisply than some of
their later advocates, but also refuted them handily.
The treatment of these negative arguments thus paves the way for a
second set of arguments, positive arguments, intended to establish the
existence of substantial forms. Although these arguments are inevitably
more complex and less decisive than the negative arguments they follow,
several of them do have some claim to success. Or, one may say, more
modestly, that several of them provide elegant solutions to real problems,
and thus constitute plausible abductive existence arguments for substan-
tial forms. That is, at minimum, the existential arguments advanced by
Suarez give good grounds for supposing that substantial forms do exist, on
the assumption that various explananda are acknowledged.7 Because these
explananda are fairly minimal and also widely endorsed, it is reasonable
for Suarez to respect them. For they include only the minimal commit-
ment that some entities enjoy privileged forms of unity, both synchronic
and diachronic, in the sense that their unity is neither conventional nor
mind-dependent.
Needless to say, one may dispute these claims: one may say, as many
present-day metaphysicians beholden to an extensional mereology and
accepting a principle of universal mereological aggregation in fact say,
that everything exists on a par with everything else, and that a human
being has no greater claim to synchronic and diachronic unity than the
entity cobbled together out of Felix the Cats rear right paw and the
bottom third of the Hoover Dam. This seems an unnecessary and
unbearable cost to those of us who think there is something right about
substance-based ontology; indeed, it seems at least highly undesirable to
6
David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (Oxford University Press, 1975), Appendix, p. 633.
7
I say more about the character of Suarezs abductive arguments below in Section 3.4. To be explicit,
however, he does not so characterize them; he advances them instead as if they were
straightforwardly deductive arguments.
many who are not otherwise motivated to defend a theory of substance.
Indeed, even many with no special love for substance-based ontology can
feel the tug of this datum. Thus, for instance, Armstrong quite reasonably
contends that One must remain sympathetic to the attempt to find a deep
ontological distinction between unified and arbitrary particulars.8
In this regard, Armstrong joins Suarez in accepting as a pre-theoretic
datum that some complex beings enjoy a privileged form of unity, and
that there is at least a significant cost in simply denying this seeming fact,
as those who accept unrestricted mereological aggregation are prepared to
do. Although this seems reasonable enough, we will not here undertake to
measure such costs or even to defend the pre-theoretic data as data. For, in
one important respect, Suarez and mainstream mereological aggregation-
ists agree on one central thesis, namely that if there are privileged com-
pound unities, then there must be some internal principle of unity
binding them. Universal mereological aggregationists deny that there are
privileged unities and see no need for any such principle, whereas Suarez
contends that the facts of unity recommend some such principle, and thus
argues for the reality of substantial form.
In this respect at least, universal mereological aggregationists are much
more radical than earlier detractors of substantial forms cut out of Lock-
ean or Humean cloth. For Lockeans and Humeans side with Suarez in
supposing that there are unities needing explanation. It is this middle
view, which affirms privileged unity while denying substantial form, that
strikes Suarez as unstable and untenable. Accordingly, our aim is to show
how Suarez makes use of the (putative) data of privileged unity in his brief
for substantial forms. In particular, he argues that we cannot explain the
manifest unity we witness in living beings unless we are prepared to
acknowledge a single unifying principle responsible for the coordination
of their sundry activities and processes. As he says:
The most powerful arguments establishing substantial forms are based on the
necessity, for the complete constitution of a natural being, that all the faculties
and operations of that being are rooted in one essential principle.9
This principle of unity is, according to Suarez, the substantial form. One
may note, then, as an ad hominem matter, that since the explananda
handled by Suarezs postulation of substantial forms are equally recog-
nized by his non-universalist detractors, Suarez emerges, in comparative
terms, in a position superior to theirs.
8 9
Armstrong 1997: 11112, italics as found. DM xv.10.61.
Of course, this last, comparative judgment is both large and unwieldy,
and it is not to be established in a brief discussion. Still, one may aim to
establish a non-comparative conclusion with comparative resonances,
namely that in Metaphysical Disputation xv Suarez presents a formidable
case for the existence of substantial forms. If even this more modest thesis
proves at least partially well motivated, that will suffice to counter the
strident contention of the first Secretary of Great Britains Royal Acad-
emy, Henry Oldenburg, who saw fit to offer his congratulations to Robert
Boyle for his having driven out that drivel of substantial forms which
had, in the view of that Secretary, stopped the progress of true philoso-
phy, and made the best of scholars not more knowing as to the nature of
particular bodies than the meanest ploughmen.10 If substantial forms find
even a single plausible existence argument in Suarez, and it turns out that
the true philosophy leads only to Humes labyrinths, then the compara-
tive judgements may take care of themselves.
3.2 preliminaries
Suarez has a clear if somewhat idiosyncratic conception of substantial
form one articulated, understandably enough, within the framework of
his general Aristotelian hylomorphism. According to that general frame-
work, a living being is a good example of an ontologically privileged basic
being, a substance. Substances are basic and ontologically privileged in
several senses, though the precise forms of priority and privilege they
enjoy are matters of continuing controversy. One may say uncontrover-
sially, however, that Suarez accepts a metaphysical framework within
which entities in non-substantial categories of being depend upon sub-
stances for their existence, while substances do not depend upon them for
their existence or at least do not depend upon them in the fundamental
way in which they depend upon substances. One important issue for this
framework pertains to its ability to specify the precise form of symmetry
obtaining between substances and non-substances, and this is a topic
about which Suarez has a good deal to say. More important to the present
issue, however, is a second thesis about hylomorphic substances, namely
that substances are basic even while being ontological complexes: sub-
stances are composites of matter and form.
The question immediately arises, then, as to how complexes of any
kind can be privileged unities. One standard answer is rejected by Suarez,
10
Oldenburg 1965: 67, vol. iii.
or at least modified crucially by him. This is that because form gives being
(forma dat esse), the unity of the substances is wholly subordinated to the
unity of the form. The idea behind the standard answer is that because
form gives being to the compound, substances are not complexes of two or
more actually existing components, but rather complex entities made
actual by the presence of form to something otherwise existing merely
in potentiality, namely the matter. So, according to what we might call
standard hylomorphic unity, forms are defined more or less functionally as
those beings capable of giving being:
x is a form df x gives being to some y (forma dat esse)
If we distinguish between those forms which give substantial being and
those which do not, then we have:
x is a substantial form df x gives substantial being to some y (forma
dat esse substantiale)
Expanding this slightly, one may say that according to standard hylo-
morphic unity, a form is an internal cause,11 the kind of internal cause in
virtue of which a thing is the thing that it is. A given statue, for instance, is
a statue because the form statue has been realized in some suitable matter;
the matter was potentially a statue (and also potentially many other things
as well) but nothing in actuality before becoming enformed. Moreover, it
is the particular statue that it is, a statue of Pericles, because its internal
cause is the form of Pericles and not the form of Hermes. This is what it
means, in the terms of standard hylomorphic unity, for form to give being
(esse) to a compound substance.
Suarez rejects standard hylomorphic unity, so formulated, because he
thinks that it underestimates the contribution matter makes to a compound
substance. He interprets the Thomists as adhering to standard hylomorphic
unity,12 and he faults them for doing so. For, as stated, he implies, standard
hylomorphic unity might be taken to entail that matter has no existence
beyond the existence it receives from being enformed. Taken this way,
standard hylomorphic unity is taken to mean that form gives being not only
to the compound whose form it is, but also to the matter of that compound;
11
Suarez follows the established practice of distinguishing internal (form and matter) from external
(efficient and final) causes. The distinction is variously marked, though involves minimally the
thought that material and formal causes are constitutive of the substances whose causes they are,
whereas the efficient and final causes are not.
12
Although he ascribes this view to the Thomists, Suarez is rather more circumspect with respect to
Thomas himself (DM xv.8.2).
and whether or not this is charitable to the Thomists to whom it is ascribed,
this is the thesis that Suarez is keen to reject.
He is keen to reject it for two reasons. First, he thinks that matter, as
matter, is not parasitic upon form for its existence.13 Second, he thinks
standard hylomorphic unity also presupposes that form is in its own right
already a complete substance. At least on his interpretation, in order for
form to account for the unity of a complex substance by itself, it must
already be that form is on its own able to account for the unified being of
a hylomorphic compound. This, Suarez suggests, it cannot do.
For the present purposes, we need not attempt to adjudicate this
dispute between the Thomists and Suarez. It is important only to appre-
ciate that both of these concerns are reflected in Suarezs preferred account
of substantial form:
forma est substantia quaedam simplex et incompleta, quae ut actus
materiae cum ea constituit essentiam substantiae compositae.14
x is a substantial form df x is a definite, simple, and incomplete
substance, which, as the actuality of matter, constitutes with it the
essence of composite substance.
This differs from standard hylomorphic unity in two important ways. First,
it denies complete substantiality to form. Second, it specifies that only by
being the actuality of some matter does substantial form constitute along
with the matter (cum ea) the essence of a composite substance. To be clear on
this second point, Suarez does not say that the form constitutes the compos-
ite substance along with the matter, but rather the essence of the composite
substance. As we shall see, this nuance will play a role in his positive account
of substantial form and its role in the unity of the composite substance.
3.3 three anti-existence arguments

With just that much regarding Suarezs approach to substantial form in
place, we can begin to assess his arguments against their coherence and
existence. It is noteworthy that the first of these pretty well sums up
Lockes much later arguments, though Locke gives no evidence of being
aware of this fact.
13
Here it is important to distinguish two claims: (i) matter cannot exist unenformed; and (ii) matter
owes its existence to form. That the two claims are equivalent is shown by the fact that matter is
relative to a level. Bricks are already enformed, and are therefore suitable matter for a house; so they
satisfy (i) but not (ii).
14
DM xv.5.1.
The three arguments considered by Suarez are these: (i) that substantial
forms are otiose; (ii) that substantial forms are positively incoherent; and (iii),
an argument enmeshed more in the dialectic of the sixteenth century of
Coimbra than in the eighteenth century of Lockes England, that substantial
forms cannot be generated. Each of these arguments receives a crisp formu-
lation and refutation at the hands of Suarez. We will consider each in turn.
3.3.1 Substantial forms are otiose15

Suarez begins his consideration of the anti-substantial form position
directly, even rather bluntly. In so doing, he states a simple empiricist
contention directly, and makes a surprising concession to an empiricist
principle one that helps frame Suarezs entire argument for substantial
forms. The first argument is direct:
Ratio dubitandi est primo quia formae substantiales nullo experimento cognosci
possunt, nec sunt necessariae ad omnes actiones et differentias rerum quas
experimur; ergo non sunt sine causa introducendae.16
The first reason for doubting that substantial forms exist is that they cannot be
known by any experience; nor are they necessary [to account for] the actions and
differences in things which we do experience. Therefore, lacking any [sufficient]
reason, they are not to be introduced.
In the first negative argument, Suarez considers the possibility that
substantial forms are not so much incoherent as simply unnecessary. If
we have no grounds, experiential or otherwise, for introducing them, then
they are best set aside.
In schematic form, the first negative argument Suarez considers is this:
1. The existence of substantial forms should be granted only if: (a) they
are immediate items of experience; or (b) their existence is required to
account for the actions and differences we perceive in things.
2. Not (1a): no substantial form is an item of immediate experience.
3. Not (1b): substantial forms are not required to account for the actions
and differences we perceive in things.
4. Hence, we should not grant the existence of substantial forms.
The argument simply seeks to undercut any reason we might have for
postulating substantial forms. In brief, if we have no good reason, then
substantial forms should go the way of phlogiston.
15 16
DM xv.1.1. DM xv.1.1.
Suarez offers a response immediately disarming to his empiricist
detractors. Locke, it seems, is right about one thing: no substantial form
is an immediate object of sense experience. The forthrightness of this
response helps frame Suarezs positive approach. Since he affirms (1a),
Suarez needs to deny (1b), the claim that substantial forms are not needed
to account for the actions and differences in things (omnes actiones et
differentias rerum). How these actions and differences are to be conceived
we shall see when we consider Suarezs positive brief on behalf of substan-
tial form. For now, it is important to note only that at its very inception
Suarezs argument already reflects an indirect approach. What he will
want to argue is that, on the contrary, we do need substantial forms to
account for the actions of differences we perceive in things. This rejoinder
thus paves the way for the abductive existence argument eventually
favoured by Suarez.
3.3.2 Substantial forms are incoherent

Of course, no existence argument, abductive or otherwise, would have a
prayer of succeeding if the second negative argument considered by
Suarez were sound: if, as Locke asserted in common with various of
Suarezs predecessors, the very notion of substantial forms were incoher-
ent, there would be no point whatsoever in arguing for their existence.
Unlike the first negative argument, the second comes from within the
theory of substance, by drawing upon several theses held in common by
most substance theorists. Although complicated in content, the argument
is straightforward in form: it seeks to reduce the doctrine of substantial
forms to self-contradiction twice over. In its most basic form, the argu-
ment is simply that nothing is such that it can be both a form and a
substance: if x is a substance, then x neither inheres nor is an accident; but
if x is a form, x inheres and is an accident. Suarez expresses the argument
in a fuller fashion as follows:
Secundo involvi videtur repugnantia cum dicitur forma informans et substantia-
lis; nam vel est res subsistens et nullo indigens subiecto sustentante vel illo
indiget: si primum habeat, non potest esse forma informans, quia repugnat id
quod subsistens est in alio recipi. Si secundum habeat, est forma inhaerens; ergo
accidentalis; non datur ergo substantialis forma.17
The second [reason for doubting that substantial forms exist] is that there
seems to be a contradiction involved when substantial form is said to be both
17
DM xv.1.2; cf. xv.1.16, xv.1.20.
informing and substantial; for either a form is a subsistent thing needing no
sustaining subject, or it does need one. The first sort of form cannot be an
informing form because it is a contradiction to suppose that something subsistent
is received in something else. Again, the second sort of form is inhering and,
therefore, accidental. Hence, there is no substantial form.18
Basically, the detractor exploits a seeming instability in the doctrine of
formal substance: a form seems a dependent entity, whereas a substance is
independent indeed, from a categorial perspective, paradigmatically so.
Expanded and streamlined for clarity, the second negative argument
may be represented as follows:
1. If x is a substantial form, then either (a) x is a subsistent thing, or (b)
x inheres in some y as its subject.
2. If (1a), then it is not possible that x inheres in some y.
3. Yet if x is a substantial form, then x inheres in some y.
4. Hence, if a substantial form x subsists, then x both inheres and does
not inhere in some y.
5. If (1b), then x is an accident of y.
6. If x is a substantial form, then x is not an accident.
7. Hence, if a substantial form x inheres in some y, x both is and is not
an accident.
8. Hence, if x is a substantial form, then x both inheres and does not
inhere in some y, and x both is and is not an accident (4, 7).
9. (8) is self-contradictory twice over.
10. Hence, there is no x such that x is a substantial form.
Developed in this way, the second of Suarezs negative arguments treats
the very notion of substantial form as contradicting itself twice over.
Both alleged contradictions stem from the same source, however:
substantial forms are, as forms, dependent entities, whereas substantial
forms, as substances, are independent entities. If something is a form,
then, it may seem, it is the form of something. But if of necessity a form is
always a form of something, then form depends for its existence on the
entity whose form it is. In this respect a form might be likened to a shape;
just as there are no shapes which are not shapes of material objects, so
there are no forms which are not forms of substances. It makes no ready
sense to think of a shape as existing independently of the object whose
shape it is; by parity of reasoning, then, forms are dependent entities.
18
DM xv.1.2.
How, then, can they also be substances? Substances are thought to be
independently existing entities, indeed as those entities which are para-
digmatically independent, in the sense that they exist in their own right,
relying on nothing for their being what they are. As Suarez himself says, a
substantial being is precisely what exists in itself and not in another or on
the basis of anything beyond itself.19 Given that, one can see the point of
the current argument.
To some extent, the current negative argument draws on a long
tradition, going right back to Aristotle, of worrying about how form
might qualify as substance.20 He characteristically devotes an extended
discussion to the matter of how substance might be divided into the
complete and the incomplete.21 In the present context, we need recognize
only that Suarez has a ready if concessive rejoinder to hand, one deriving
from his somewhat idiosyncratic conception of substantial form. He
agrees that form is an incomplete substance (forma est substantia . . . incom-
pleta). In effect, Suarez denies (1b), the claim that form, as substance, is
fully subsistent. He therefore concedes that form, even if substantial, can
depend upon something for its existence, so long as it is an incomplete
substance. This concession, whatever its independent merits,22 already
suffices to remove the alleged contradiction of substantial form: a form
may be substantial even while it is not able to exist without matter. As it
will turn out, form may nevertheless qualify as prior to the matter whose
form it is. Although it does not give matter, as matter, its being, form does
provide the synchronic and diachronic identity conditions of the particu-
lar quantity of matter which, along with the form, constitutes the com-
plete natural substance, the living animal.
In this manner, Suarez effectively disarms the second threat to the
notion of substantial form. Unlike the first negative argument, which
might be regarded as motivated by considerations largely external to the
tradition within which he is working, the second argument derives
from considerations squarely internal to that tradition. The third argu-
ment is in this respect closer to the second than to the first; again,
19
Suarez quotes Isidore with approval in this connection: Isidorus, lib. I Differentiarum, c. 4, ubi ait:
Substantia est id quod non ab alio, sed semper ex se est, id est, quod propria in se virtute subsistit.
DM xxxiii.1.1.
20
Shields (2009) discusses this issue in the context of the soul as formal substance in Aristotle. Shields
(forthcoming) investigates this topic in the context of Suarez; the current abbreviated discussion
draws on that fuller discussion.
21
DM xxxiii.1.128; cf. the briefer discussion at xv.1.16.
22
For a brief review of some of the issues pertinent to this matter, see Barnes 2003: 5079.
however, Suarez has the resources to counter it, though now matters
become a bit more complex.
3.3.3 Substantial forms cannot be generated

The final negative argument seeks to show that substantial forms cannot
be generated. If not, then there is a problem. A substantial form of an
individual living human being is supposed to be the soul of that being; the
soul is, however, not something which predates the human whose soul it
is. It follows, then, that if the soul is a substantial form, it must come into
being at some point; so, if substantial forms cannot be generated, they are
ill-suited to discharge one of their most crucial roles.
The argument of concern to Suarez is stated fully, indeed more fully
than either of the earlier two:
Tertio, quia, positis substantialibus formis, non potest intelligi quo modo fiant
rerum transmutationes et generationes nisi aliquid ex nihilo fiat, quod esse non
potest iuxta naturalia principia. Sequela patet, quia vel forma substantialis
praeexistit generationi, aut aliquid eius, vel nihil. Primum dici non potest, alias
infinitae formae praeexisterent in materia, et reipsa nihil de novo fieret, sed
appareret. Neque etiam potest dici secundum, tum quia in eadem parte materiae
non potest esse aliquid formae quin sit tota forma, cum indivisibilis sit; tum
etiam quia, etiamsi pars formae praesit et pars inducenda sit, haec pars fiet ex
nihilo; non enim potest ex peiori parte fieri; restat ergo ut dicatur tertium, quod
tamen repugnat et excedit vim naturalium agentium.23
Third, if substantial forms are posited, it is not possible to understand how cases
of change and generation come about unless something comes to be from
nothing which cannot occur in accordance with natural principles. This
inference is clear because either (i) the [entire] substantial form pre-exists gener-
ation, or (ii) some part of it does, or (iii) none of it does. We cannot say the first
(i), because otherwise an infinite number of forms would pre-exist in the matter
and nothing would come into being de novo, though things clearly do. Nor can
we say the second (ii). For no part of the form can be in the same matter without
the whole forms being present, since form is indivisible; moreover, even if part of
the form were present and the other part were to follow it, this latter part would
come to be from nothing, since it cannot come to be from the prior part. There
remains, therefore, the third possibility (iii), which is, however, absurd and
exceeds the power of natural agents.
In general, if forms were substantial, then since they are not themselves
composites of form and matter, they could not come to be. Because forms
23
DM xv.1.3.
are simple, they must, according to this argument, either always exist or
come to be from nothing.
Expanded for clarity, the argument Suarez sets himself is as follows:
1. If x is a substantial form, then (a) x exists before it is generated, (b) part
of x exists before x is generated, or (c) x is generated ex nihilo.
2. If (1a), then an infinite number of forms would pre-exist matter and no
form would in fact come into being, but would only appear to do so.
3. It is not the case that an infinite number of forms pre-exist matter; and
substantial forms do come into being.
4. Hence, not-(1a): if x is a substantial form, x does pre-exist generation.
5. If (1b), then (1b.i) the form is divisible, and (1b.ii) the non-pre-existing
part either comes from the pre-existing part or from nothing (in which
case this alternative collapses into (1.c)).
6. Not-(1b.i); and not (1b.ii).
7. Hence, (1c): if x is a substantial form, x is generated ex nihilo.
8. Nothing is (non-miraculously) generated ex nihilo.
9. Hence, there is no x such that x is a substantial form.
The argument proceeds by way of a simple disjunctive syllogism. Sub-
stantial forms must either exist before the generation of compounds, or
must partly pre-exist, or must be generated ex nihilo.
Suarez advances a rejoinder to this argument, one which is initially hard
to appreciate.24 He focuses on the proper understanding of (8), the claim
that nothing is (non-miraculously) generated ex nihilo. The parenthetical
remark is required since there is, in principle at least, an option open to
Suarez, namely that each substantial form is generated by the miraculous
intervention of God, whose powers are not limited by natural law. It is
clear, however, that Suarez does not wish to avail himself of this expedi-
ent. He is, on the contrary, keen to give a fully naturalistic account of the
generation of form, as is made clear by his remark that no solution that
exceeds the power of natural agents (excedit vim naturalium agentium) is
acceptable to him.25
His solution, while complex, is effectively to distinguish between
two ways in which something might be said to be generated ex nihilo,
to concede that form could indeed not be generated in one of those
senses, but then to insist that there is nonetheless a perfectly natural
sense in which a substantial form can be generated ex nihilo. It can
be generated, he argues, at the instant the substantial compound is
24 25
DM xv.2.1316. DM xv.1.3.
generated, and by the very act of efficient causation responsible for
the generation of that compound.
He contends that if we understand generation ex nihilo to mean created
out of nothing, then it is true that material substantial forms do not come
to be.26 For, indeed, on this hypothesis, we would land ourselves in an
infinite regress: a form would be itself a compound of form and matter,
and the form of that compound would also need to be generated, but it
too would be a compound of form and matter, and so forth ad infinitum.
Still, if we understand generation ex nihilo to mean created in nothing,
then it is false that material substantial forms do not come to be in that
sense. For there is a wider sense in which the phrase nothing comes to be
ex nihilo is false: something which is not a complete substance might
come to be ex nihilo where this means only that it comes to be in some
matter which is the material cause of the compound. To illustrate, using
an example which in Suarezs view does not capture the complexity of the
rational soul, we may wonder whether a shape comes to be when a cube of
clay is sculpted into a sphere. Fairly clearly, suggests Suarez, a spherical
shape does come to be where none had been before; and it does not come,
so to speak, from the clay, but comes to be, rather, in the clay. The shape is
not generated as a subsistent substance, but as an incomplete and simple
substance. That it comes to be by the same efficient cause which generated
the spherical sculpture is clear: by moulding the clay the sculptor creates
the shape, and does so in a perfectly natural way. As the generation of
shape in the illustration supervenes on the generation of the sculpture, so
the substantial form supervenes on the generation of a compound sub-
stance. In neither case does the generated supervenient form require an
efficient cause separate from the efficient cause of the compound.
Here once again we may recall Suarezs somewhat idiosyncratic char-
acterization of substantial form. A substantial form is a simple and
incomplete substance (substantia quaedam simplex et incompleta), and
both its simplicity and incompleteness play a part in the disarming of
this argument. Since it is simple, a substantial form cannot be a composite
of form and matter; so, it cannot be generated in the manner of a
composite. This is why, according to Suarez, no infinite regress threatens
in its generation. Further, since it is incomplete, it is not generated ex
nihilo in any way at variance with natural law. Substantial forms do come
to be, but do so only in a manner parasitic on the generation of complete
substances. The case, in Suarezs presentation of the issues, is rather like
26
DM xv.2.13.
the emergence of a melody from an arrangement of musical notes.
A soprano does not first sing the notes and then sing the melody; the
melody is brought into being by her singing of the notes. In the same way,
a substantial form follows upon the generation of a complete substantial
compound, and a natural substantial compound is not generated from
nothing, but rather from pre-existing matter.
In their different ways, each of these three negative arguments elicits
from Suarez some positive characterization of substantial form. Each
also reflects an alertness on his part to the sorts of concerns a non-
doctrinaire critic of substantial forms might legitimately mount. Strik-
ingly, only the first, and most feeble, epistemically driven argument
found favour with Locke and those who followed him. It is a pity, then,
that they failed to reflect upon Suarezs treatment of that argument. For
then they might well have been inclined to consider the more sophisti-
cated, perfectly legitimate concerns which Suarez undertook to consider
after dispatching it.
3.4 two existence arguments

So far we might agree with nearly everything Suarez has said about
substantial forms without being in the least inclined to acknowledge their
existence. As for the last two of the three non-existence arguments he
refutes, neither has much purchase outside of the hylomorphic framework
within which Suarez is operating. The first, by contrast, seems perfectly
general. Yet one might regard Suarezs response to that first argument,
indeed to all the negative arguments, as perfectly sound without thereby
embracing substantial forms. What is needed is some manner of positive
existence argument.
Suarez rises to this challenge as well, by advancing a whole series of
positive arguments. Depending on how one individuates these arguments,
there are approximately fourteen of them in Metaphysical Disputations
xv.1 alone; it is, however, difficult to count them exactly, since they tend
to run into one another, at least insofar as they draw upon similar and
overlapping data sets. As I say, these arguments are inevitably less decisive
than Suarezs counterarguments, but two of them in particular merit
development and defence. Minimally, I contend, they deserve a place at
the table of metaphysical discussion; they not only offer a genuine
alternative to universal mereological aggregation, but also provide some
reason for thinking that the doctrine of substantial form was dismissed
pre-emptorily by those among their detractors who nevertheless hoped to
cling to some manner of privileged ontology.
We will here rehearse just two of Suarezs positive arguments, one
drawn from the subordination relations among properties,27 and the
other, initially rather curiously, drawn from the interference patterns of
various powers and properties of substances.28 As indicated earlier, it is
best to regard these arguments as abductive. Each proceeds in precisely the
same way. Suarez first describes some phenomenon, implying that it is
not random and so requires an explanation, and then introduces substan-
tial form as the best or only explanation; the postulated entity then may be
used as the basis for additional deductive arguments, which, to the degree
that they prove to be sound, also tend to confirm the postulation as
correct. Suarezs arguments of course have all the strengths and weak-
nesses of all abductive arguments; in particular, they remain permanently
open to those who think they can propose an additional or superior
explanation of the same phenomenon. It is noteworthy, in the current
dialectical context, that this sort of alternative explanation is conspicu-
ously lacking in Suarezs detractors.
3.4.1 An argument from the subordination relations among properties

The first phenomenon of concern to Suarez focuses on what he terms the
subordination relations among properties. He argues as follows:
in uno ente naturali multae proprietates coniunguntur, quae interdum ita sunt
inter se subordinatae ut una ab altera oriatur, ut voluntas ab intellectu; interdum
vero inter se non habent subordinationem, ut calor et humiditas in aere, albedo et
dulcedo in lacte, vel plures sensus in animali; ergo haec multitudo et varietas
proprietatum, praesertim quando posteriori modo se habent, requirit unam
formam in qua omnes uniantur; alioqui essent mere accidentaliter congregatae
in eodem subiecto, et, una omnino sublata, non propterea recederet alia; at
oppositum constat experientia.29
In one natural being, many properties are conjoined which are at times
subordinated to one another in such a way that one arises from the other, as
will arises from intellect, but at other times they have no subordination to one
another, as is the case with heat and humidity in air or whiteness and sweetness in
milk, or with the variety of senses in an animal. Therefore, this multiplicity and
variety of properties, especially when they are related in the latter manner, require
there to be one form in which they are all united. Otherwise, they would be
merely accidentally clustered together in the same subject, and when one is
27 28 29
DM xv.1.14. DM xv.1.15. DM xv.1.14.
altogether destroyed, another would not disappear as a consequence of that but
experience counsels the opposite.
In this brief argument Suarez infers from the observed facts of property
convergence to the existence of a single unifying form, a substantial form
which best or uniquely explains these facts of convergence.
Suarez alludes altogether to three separate phenomena in this brief
argument. These seem to head in slightly different directions. First, he
is concerned with an intimate relation in which one property flows from
another. As his treatment of similar cases in his De anima commentary
makes clear, Suarez has in mind a situation in which one property gives
rise to another, either, as he says here, as intellect gives rise to will, or, as
he says elsewhere, when an essential property gives rise to a proprium, as
for instance when rationality gives rise to grammaticality or risibility.30
Second, he is concerned with what we might call bare co-incidence, the
mere fact that milk is both white and sweet. If one enjoys Brie topped
with cranberries, then in some sense the cranberries are tart but not
beige, whereas the Brie is both beige and creamy. From Suarezs point of
view, bare co-incidence already requires a grounding explanation;
indeed, Suarez somewhat surprisingly seems to suggest that bare co-
incidence more obviously requires a grounding principle than does
property dependency.
Finally, Suarez appeals to a phenomenon which may be a consequence of
property subordination, though the lack of illustration makes the case
somewhat difficult to judge. Presumably, Suarez has in mind the sorts of
cases beyond bare co-incidence where the destruction of one property
invariably causes the destruction of another. This may occur when we have
property subordination of the first sort, but it may also pertain to properties
which are less intimately connected, where there are only causal and not
conceptual relations obtaining between them. So, for instance, if a subjects
ability to metabolize sugar is destroyed due to diabetes, a consequent
impairment to vision may accrue as a result of retinal detachment. The
powers to metabolize sugar and to see are obviously different powers, but in
an integrated system, loss of one leads to loss of the other. Suarez treats this
as a fact of experience requiring explanation. The explanation, he thinks,
involves the postulation of a principle of ordering and co-ordination and
this principle he introduces as the substantial form.
30
Anim. ii.3.4, 18 (oriantur). Here Suarez relies upon some typically Thomistic language. See ST i
q. 77 a. 6 (Utrum potentiae animae fluant ab eius essentia ).
These three phenomena in their different ways all appeal to facts of unity
and co-ordination. It is noteworthy, however, that Suarez moves well beyond
bare co-incidence. Later philosophers, from Hume to Russell to contempor-
ary trope theorists,31 have focused mainly on the problem of what I have
called bare co-ordination. While he would have agreed that it is appropriate
for them to focus on this problem, Suarez contends that the relevant
phenomena far outstrip bare co-incidence. Instead, data include two forms
of property interaction: property subordination and property destruction.
These later data he regards as facts of experience, and thus in need of
explanation to no greater or lesser degree than any other fact of experience.
These additional phenomena are worth taking seriously, since we do in fact
need to account for more than mere co-incidence or properties. We find
properties systematically interacting, either because they have deep nomolo-
gical relations with one another or because they are, as an observable matter,
causally connected to one another. In the first case, we witness relations
manifested between essential properties and propria or in cases of faculty
emergence, as when (in Suarezs view) the will emerges from the intellect. In
the second sort of case, we see stable and predictable causal interactions
between otherwise discrete properties. In either case, unless we are to regard
these facts as primitive, we require some principle of explanation.
Altogether, then, Suarezs argument takes the following general form:
(i) We experience a variety of kinds of property co-ordination (PC), from
bare co-incidence to property subordination and destruction; (ii) (PC) is
not a primitive fact; (iii) if (ii), then (PC) requires some explanation;
(iv) the only or best explanation of (PC) is the postulation of a substantial
form; hence, (v) there exist substantial forms.
Naturally, Suarezs detractors will focus on (iv), the claim that the only
or best explanation of (PC) is the existence of a substantial form. At this
juncture, however, it is fair of Suarez to request his detractors to announce
and defend their relevant competing explanations.
3.4.2 An argument from interference patterns

Suarezs second argument is broadly similar in strategy to the first, though
it appeals to a phenomenon which impresses Suarez still more:
31
For a sophisticated attempt to deal with the problem of diachronic unity, see Simons 2000. For a
critical assessment of various bundle theories of substance, see Van Cleve 2001.
experimur enim rem aliquam habentem plures operandi facultates, dum intense
per unam operatur, impediri ne per aliam operari possit, aut ne cum tanto
conatu; ergo est signum illas facultates esse subordinatas eidem formae, quae
per eas principaliter operatur; nam si nullam subordinationem inter se haberent
neque cum aliquo communi principio, quaelibet earum haberet suam operatio-
nem independenter ab alia, neque esset ulla ratio cur conatus unius impediret
conatum alterius magis quam si essent in diversis subiectis; at vero ex subordi-
natione ad eamdem formam redditur optima ratio.32
It is a fact of experience that when something with many faculties of operation is
operating intensely through one of its faculties, it is impeded so that it cannot act
through another faculty, or at least cannot act through the other faculty with
equal force. This is, therefore, an indication (signum) that these faculties are
subordinated to the same form, which operates through them in the manner of a
principle. For if they were not subordinated to one another or acted without
any common principle, each would have its operation independently of the
others and there would be no reason why the force of the one would impede
the force of the others any more than if they were in different subjects. But on the
contrary the best explanation (optima ratio) of this is that they are all subordin-
ated to same form.
Once again Suarez thinks that a certain fact of experience requires an
explanation, and moves to offer substantial form as the pertinent explana-
tory factor.
In this case, however, the fact of experience requires some explication,
because it is neither pellucid as stated nor perfectly general. To begin with,
Suarez thinks that the phenomenon in question pertains primarily, or
perhaps even exclusively, to living systems. Inanimate beings, he contends,
simply lack the kinds of sophisticated co-ordination and internal balan-
cing abilities characteristic of living beings. In living beings, however, and
especially in us, we manifestly experience such an effect (in viventibus
autem, et praesertim in nobis, experimur manifeste huiusmodi effectum).33
His sole illustrations in this section of the Metaphysical Disputations
involve the exercise of the faculty of reason. The actual examples are
truncated, but the first seems to involve the fact that when we are deep in
thought, we are unaware of what would otherwise be made known to us
by sense perception. The second is a bit clearer, and concerns the fact that
a long period of meditation impedes the activity of the faculty of nutri-
tion. Again, the precise form of impediment is left unspecified, though
Suarez may mean simply that when meditating we do not notice that we
32 33
DM xv.1.15. Ibid.
are hungry,34 or he may, more likely, intend something more elaborate to
the effect that meditation actively slows down the metabolism and with it
the power to digest food. In either case, his thought is that at times the
exercise of one capacity interferes with the successful operation of another.
Suarezs generic explanation for this sort of phenomenon is that (non-
divine) living beings are finite, and thus limited in their power. His
thought is then, effectively, that living unities manifest a sort of conser-
vation principle: because finite beings are limited, they can at times exert
so much energy in one activity that they are unable to exert the amount
normally required for successful operation of another. In this respect, the
general phenomenon here grows rather complex rather quickly, and so is
less immediately given in experience than the sorts of phenomena to
which Suarez appeals in his first existence argument. It also intersects
with another favourite argument of his, which we will leave mainly
unexplored in the current context, that substantial forms are required to
explain the existence of equilibrium states in organisms and elements.35
Living systems, when unstressed, achieve some level of homeostasis, and
one may explain their behaviour by their tendency to strive to achieve this
condition. For Suarez, the explanation requires the postulation of an
intrinsic cause which is both formal and final, and so the postulation of
a substantial form. His impetus to postulate substantial forms in connec-
tion with patterns of homeostasis help explain his similar impetus in the
present context. His idea is that we experience high-level patterns of
direction, co-ordination, and integration in living substances. This very
fact also requires some explanation. It would be incredible to suppose that
the forms of conservation and patterns of homeostasis in living systems
were due to chance; they thus require some explanation, and the explan-
ation postulated by Suarez is the substantial form.
The general form of his argument is thus once again clear: we appeal to
some experienced phenomenon, observe that it requires explanation, and
then postulate substantial form as the needed basis of that explanation. In
this case, the phenomenon is not mere co-incidence or property
34
See Kronens conjectures in Francisco Suarez, On the Formal Cause of Substance: Metaphysical
Disputation XV, J. Reedy trans., introduction and explanatory notes and J. Kronen, trans.
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2000), p. 40, n. 64. Probably here
uncharacteristically, given the lucidity and learning evident in his helpful notes he missteps.
Suarez says, more directly, that a long meditation impedes the action of the nutritive part, not that
it impedes our awareness of it (actionem nutritivae partis impedire solet diuturna meditatio DM
xv.1.15).
35
Given, e.g., at DM xv.1.8.
subordination relations, but rather systemic equilibrium (SE). Thus we
have, in a style directly analogous to his earlier argument: (i) We experi-
ence in living systems, and especially in ourselves, a kind of (SE); (ii) (SE)
is not a primitive fact; (iii) if (ii), then (SE) requires some explanation; (iv)
the only or best explanation of (SE) is the postulation of a substantial
form; hence (v) there exist substantial forms.
The more abstract kinds of experienced co-ordination appealed to in (i)
impress Suarez greatly. His attitude towards them also, more clearly than
anywhere else in his brief for substantial form, makes clear the abductive
character of his argument. For in reflecting on (SE), he considers a range
of competing alternative explanations ranging from extrinsic causes to
internal vital forces and sets them aside as either explanatorily inad-
equate or as mere postponement strategies. As regards the latter, he
suggests that one might appeal successfully, but not ultimately, to some
kind of material cause of equilibrium. He observes, however, that the
material cause in question will need to operate in accord with some
manner of formal principle; thus, an appeal to this sort of explanation,
while not incorrect, is inferior because incomplete. The ultimate cause, he
declares, will appeal to substantial form as the optima ratio, as the best
explanation, for these activities. He thus concludes that this is justification
enough for accepting the existence of substantial form.
Again, this sort of argument cannot be intended by Suarez to be
conclusive. On the contrary, as Suarez is plainly aware, abductive argu-
ments of this form lay themselves open to challenges from competing
explanations. Nothing Suarez says rules out the possibility of such com-
petitors, and a fair bit of what he does say reflects his awareness of the
existence of some competitors already mooted in his day. When he
forthrightly considers them and sets them aside, he equally sets a challenge
to those following him keen to disparage the existence of substantial form.
He implicitly asks them to name the superior explanation. If they can do
so, his style of argument requires him to consider their candidate; to the
degree that they cannot do so, their strident and self-satisfied denunci-
ations ring hollow.
3.5 conclusions
It is important to bear in mind that Suarezs arguments on behalf of
substantial form may be judged from two radically different vantage
points. There are those who simply deny the phenomena, who think,
for example, that there simply are no data of co-incidence, property
subordination, or systemic equilibrium to be explained. Suarez does little
to counter this sort of response, because he understandably thinks that we
would be hard pressed to accept this point of view with metaphysical
equanimity. It is not that any response to his view is incoherent or
immediately self-contradictory. It is rather that from his perspective this
sort of attitude involves a cure worse than the disease: better substantial
forms than an ontological levelling according to which Socrates has no
more intrinsic unity than that entity exhaustively composed of the hoof
of a camel in Egypt in the seventh century, the sound of Maria Callas
singing Casta Diva, and half of the hydrogen in a Honda fuel cell tank in
California. Let there be such a being; and even give it a name: Hoofsong
Light. To Suarez it seems plain that Socrates manifests a genuine, mind-
independent systemic unity that Hoofsong Light lacks. This is the basic
phenomenon he seeks to explain in his appeal to substantial form.
Those who criticize substantial form from a second vantage point are
on less stable ground. That is, those who eschew universal mereological
aggregationism while accepting the phenomena to which Suarez appeals
face a more daunting chore. They agree that we should be able to explain
the phenomena of unity, but ridicule substantial form as the appropriate
vehicle of explanation. Some who adopt this posture are disposed to reject
substantial forms on rather simple-minded empirical grounds. For them,
Suarez has a ready and forceful reply, one that gains its force partly by dint
of its being initially conciliatory. The empiricist critics are correct: we do
not in fact have any direct perceptual experience of substantial forms. If,
however, this were already enough to show substantial forms to be so
much drivel, then that would equally suffice to show a full range of
postulated entities in disciplines ranging from historical linguistics to
physics equally to be drivel. For in these and many like cases we have no
direct experience, but only abduction. However that may be, and whether
or not we find fault with his conclusions, at least it can be said that the
forthrightness of Suarezs argumentative strategy is to be appreciated, and
no one can complain that he has been obscurantist about his aims or
methods. It is therefore perplexing that Descartes should feel at ease in
remarking in connection with substantial forms that even their defenders
admit that they are occult.36
It is true, in keeping with his overall abductive strategy, that Suarez has
introduced substantial forms as functionally defined entities, as those
features of living beings best or uniquely suited to explain a vast array
36
See n. 2 above.
of phenomena pertaining to unity and integration. One would, then, like
from him more by way of an intrinsic specification of the entity thus
introduced and defined. Any such specification would presumably impli-
cate Suarez in an inquiry into the metaphysics of form but that inquiry
is worth pursuing only if the abductive existence arguments he formulates
pass at least an initial muster. So far, at least, two preliminary conclusions
are warranted. First, the negative arguments arrayed against the doctrine
appear rather thin when laid bare; and, second, Suarezs positive argu-
ments thus have at least a case to be heard. The phenomena to which he
repeatedly appeals bare unity, both synchronic and diachronic, property
subordination, and life homeostasis do indeed call for explanations.
Whether or not these explanations should ultimately tell in favour of
substantial forms, no moderately dispassionate reader could convict
Suarez of speaking drivel when he makes his case.
chapter 4
Suarez on the ontology of relations

Jorge Secada
Relations are puzzling, particularly within ontologies of substances and

properties. They bring together diverse entities, but where are they
themselves to be found? Quasi-ubiquitously in several entities at once?
If only in one of those entities, are the other entities to be found there
also? But how can one entity be found in another if not as a property of it?
Relations, as Leibniz famously puts it, appear to be absurd accidents
present in two subjects [at once], with one leg in one and the other in
the other.1 Indeed, his philosophy embodies a sustained effort to under-
stand relations within an ontology of substances and inherent properties.
It is not surprising that given their strange character, some have attempted
to analyse them away and hold that they supervene on and amount to
nothing more than the non-relational properties of things.2
Several issues suggest themselves here. Supervenience is an ontologically
weak, equivocal notion, and reductions come in many sizes and colours.
Furthermore, a cursory look at relational facts reveals significantly different
kinds. There are mere constructions of a mind which brings together two or
more things that otherwise have nothing to relate them, at least prima facie.
Then there are relations which though appearing to have an extra-mental
reality, still seem to be nothing more than monadic properties in the relata,
*
Versions of this chapter, or of some of its contents, were read at Florida State University in
Tallahassee; at the University of Bristol in the UK; in Lima, Peru, at the Universidad Nacional
Federico Villareal and the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos; and at several seminars on
Suarez at the University of Virginia. I thank my audiences for the enlightening discussions.
1
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, ed. and trans. R. Ariew and D. Garber
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989), p. 337, from the Fifth Reply to Clarke, to sections 8 and 9,
47; the interpolation is from the letter to des Bosses of 29 May 1716, p. 203. See also Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, ed. and trans. P. Remnant and J. Bennett
(Cambridge University Press, 1982), bk. ii, chs. xii, xxii, xxvxxviii; pp. 1456, 21217, and 22653.
These texts are in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Die philosophischen Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt,
7 vols. (Hildesheim: George Olms, 1965; original edn: Berlin: Weidmann, 187590), respectively in
vol. vii, p. 401; vol. ii, p. 517; vol. v, pp. 197201, 1313, 21036.
2
See Bennett 2001: 335ff, vol. i.
62
Suarez on the ontology of relations 63
like being skinnier; while others also appear to be real and independent of
the minds conception but instead seem not to involve any properties,
monadic or otherwise, actually in the relata, like being distant from. There
are also some which at least intuitively and on first approach resist being
thought away without some irreducibly relational residue remaining in the
things so related, like motherhood and other instances of causation. Finally,
there is thought, the subject of dispute regarding whether its relational
character runs any deeper than the surface. It is not clear that all these kinds,
which do not exhaust the range of apparent ontological diversity amongst
relations, will submit to the same analysis.
Relations are a major topic in early modern philosophy, and not only on
account of Leibniz. They are prominently discussed in Lockes Essay, and are
one of the categorical triads of Kants first Critique.3 Less evidently perhaps,
they are at the core of Descartess metaphysics and ontology. Though he
wrote little if anything explicitly about them, he did identify an apparent
relation, thought, as the one principal property [of a substance] which
constitutes its nature and essence, and to which all its other properties are
referred.4 Thought is a relation, at least on the surface: it belongs to a subject
or mind and is about something or other; it is as thought of or about b.
Crowning a rich tradition of Aristotelian treatment of this subject, Suarez
devotes one of his Metaphysical Disputations to relations.5 There he uncon-
troversially identifies Cartesian modes of thought (knowing and seeing, for
instance) as relations. The remarkable fact that Descartes used what was
commonly taken to be a relation to define the nature of a substance has not
been noted or discussed in the secondary literature; but it will not be our
subject here. Instead, we will examine Suarezs views on the ontology of
relations, views which have philosophical interest of their own, and which,
though not much explored by historians of early modern philosophy, have
been recognized to be relevant to our understanding of Leibnizs metaphys-
ics and in fact constitute an indispensable background for the study of early
modern ontology and metaphysics more generally.6
3
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1975), bk. ii, chs. xxvxxviii, pp. 31962; and Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, ed. and trans.
P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge University Press, 1998), A80/B106, p. 212.
4
Rene Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, i, 53, in uvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and
P. Tannery, 11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1996), vol. viii-1, p. 25.
5
See DM xlvii. I am using Francisco Suarez, Disputaciones metafsicas, ed. S. Rabade Romeo,
S. Caballero Sanchez and A. Puigcerver Zanon, 7 vols. (Madrid: Gredos, 19606), and
comparing it with Francisco Suarez, Metaphysicorum disputationum, 2 vols. (Cologne: Helvidius,
1614). Translations are my own.
6
Jan Cover and John OLeary Hawthorne have forcefully demonstrated the importance of the scholastic
background for the understanding of early modern thinking about relations, particularly Leibnizs. See
64 jorge secada
4.1 categorical relations

Following Aristotle, Suarez took some relations to be accidents constitut-
ing a category of their own. Like most scholastic philosophers and
theologians, he considered such categorical relations to be ineliminable
and real properties in their subjects, distinct from any other non-relational
accidents. But he maintained that a merely conceptual distinction
between a relation and some other non-relational property suffices as long
as it has some real grounding.7 He mentions the view that relations are
nothing real in their subjects, that they are all exclusively mental, as
described by Avicenna and Averroes but as adopted only by Peter
Aureol, whom he cites indirectly through John Capreolus.8 He charac-
terizes the view that they are ineliminable and real accidents in their
subjects, distinct from those in the other categories, as the received view
and a sort of philosophical common notion (recepta sententia et quasi
philosophicum et comune axioma).9 The concept of relation is not, he
maintains, fictitious, and that some thing is related (rem aliquam referri)
is not an extrinsic denomination arising exclusively from a mental com-
parison, but is something real (aliquid rei).10 As examples of real relations
he mentions more than, less than, equal to, similar to, close to, far from,
father of, [and] son of .11
Suarez considers only dyadic relations, calling the first member or
relatum the subject of the relation and the second its terminus or term.12
Real relations are intrinsic to their subjects, inhering in and determining
them; and the corresponding predicates are intrinsic denominations. They
require, first, a substantial subject in which to be ultimately found,
accidentally or essentially; second, a non-relational foundation which
may or may not be distinct from the ultimate subject of inherence; and,
third, a really distinct term to which to relate their subject.13 If all three are
given, there will necessarily be a relational accident. When the term exists,
Cover and Hawthorne 1999: 5886. A significant contribution to the study of Suarez on relations is
Professor Salvador Castellotes extensive but unpublished study, Castellote forthcoming.
7
Suarezs account of relations makes use of the well-known scholastic doctrine of distinctions
presented in DM vii.1.
8
DM xlvii.1.8. For Peter Aureols views on relations see Mark G. Henningers valuable study of
medieval doctrines of relations, Henninger 1989: 15073.
9 10 11
DM xlvii.1.10. DM xlvii.1.11. DM xlvii.1.12. See Doyle 1984.
12
If we can understand the ontology of two-place properties, we will be on our way towards an
understanding of that of n-adic properties generally. By the way, n-adic predicates are reducible to
dyadic ones; see Quine 1950: 23741, 40; and Quine 1966, references under relation in the index.
13
See DM xlvii.68.
the foundation makes it present to the subject, so to speak. Consider
similarity with respect to whiteness. This is a real relational accident
inhering in a white thing and having as its term another white thing.
The absolute, non-relational foundation is the white accident in the
subject. If there exists no other white thing, then there is no relation.
But when there is another white thing, there is a real accidental relation in
the subject, in virtue of its being white. The whiteness in the subject refers
to any other real whiteness, thereby, in a sense, bringing all real white
things to the subject and placing it in a relation of similarity to them.
Suarez insists that in the subject the relation is not really distinct from
the non-relational foundation:
similarity . . . is some real form existing in a thing which is denominated similar.
Nonetheless it is not really distinct from the whiteness in so far as what it puts in
the thing which is said to be similar, but only in so far as the term it connotes. So
similarity in the thing is nothing but the whiteness itself as it refers to another
whiteness.14
Arguing against those who claim that a real relation is some entity distinct
from the foundation with an absolute real distinction, or maybe some real
mode which is distinct from the foundation with a lesser real distinction,
Suarez maintains that the subject can suffer no real change when a term
comes into existence and a relation which did not exist comes into being.
But this would not be so if they were right. To deny it and maintain that
with the arrival of a new relation . . . there happens a true real mutation in
the thing itself which is related, he writes, is to affirm something most
difficult to believe and which is not grounded on any sufficient sign or
observation, namely that whenever something becomes white or hot there
arises something new and real in all other white or hot things in the world,
something truly inhering in each one of them.15 Suarez points out that to
suppose such change is not incoherent, though it is most implausible.16
Now, the relational foundation may be the very substance which is the
subject of the relation. This is the case, for instance, with the relation of
fatherhood, which subsists so long as both father and daughter exist.
Causal action is a condition for the relation but not its foundation, since
it usually ceases while the real relation persists.17 The action is a necessary
condition through which [the subject] has exercised influence upon [the
14 15
DM xlvii.2.22. See n. 8 above. DM xlvii.2.17.
16
See the discussion of this argument in Section 4.5 below. When reading this passage in Suarez, it is
difficult not to bring Leibniz to mind.
17
See DM xlvii.7.7; 12.34.
66 jorge secada
term], but it is the father himself which is the foundation of the rela-
tion.18 Suarez argues that if, through Gods power, the father were to
endure separated from any really distinct accident, he would still be the
father of his existing daughter.19 Since the relational accident itself is not
really distinct from its foundation, one may wonder how an accident
could be the same entity as its substance. Suarez replies that some
categorical accidents may be distinct from their substances solely with a
conceptual distinction with some real grounds, as is clear in the case of
duration.20 He explains that relations founded directly on their sub-
stances are not proper and physical accidents, nor are they accidents
on account of their own entity. Instead, they are just categorical acci-
dents on account of a manner of predication, so that according to their
formal nature, they fall outside the nature of substance.
The relation and its foundation, then, are distinct only conceptually:
the being of the relation is not different in reality from the being of the
foundation, but between them there is a distinction of reason in so far as
the same being is conceived as in some way including or connoting the
term to which it refers (ut includens aliquo modo seu connotans terminum
quem respicit).21 This conceptual distinction is grounded in reality and
does not come entirely from the workings of the mind (non est omnino ex
mero opere rationis).22 The absolute foundation includes a reference to the
term, without ceasing to be absolute: a white thing refers to any other
white thing by virtue of its whiteness. When some other white thing
exists, this reference to it on the part of the absolute foundation grounds
an actual and real relational accident. So, whether or not there is anything
to perceive them or think them, given two white things it is absolutely
impossible that they not be similar.23 And though of course two things
may be similar without being white, if they are similar, then there must be
in one an absolute property or form which is the foundation of the
similarity in as much as it refers (ut respiciens) to a form in the other.24
A real relation is a true accident in its subject, an accident whose entire
being is to be towards something, or to direct itself to something, or to
refer to something (ad aliud esse, seu ad aliud se habere, seu aliud
18 19 20 21
DM xlvii.12.4; see 7.12. DM xlvii.12.5. DM xlvii.7.8. DM xlvii.2.23.
22 23
DM vii.1.4. DM xlvii.2.15.
24
DM xlvii.2.22. See Secada 2000b: 11528; see also Secada forthcoming. Suarez is a nominalist
regarding universals. He held that all that exists is wholly individual; so the forms of two
numerically different substances are themselves and taken on their own numerically two.
Though they are formally related, the common real properties of numerically different
substances are in themselves numerically different. See below, Section 4.5.
respicere).25 However, its reality in the subject is that of its non-relational
foundation, which, without losing its absolute character and in fact by
virtue of it, makes reference to, or is disposed or directed towards the term
of the relation it grounds. On its own, the foundation does not give rise to
a relation. Relations require for their reality an appropriate existing term
to which the non-relational foundation refers, in itself and independently
of any mental conception, a term which it thus brings to its subject, as it
were. A real relation is not an [entity] really distinct from the foundation
and added to it, but the very entity of the foundation which as such
characterizes (denominans) the subject . . . [B]eing purely relative, this
character consists only in a certain disposition arising from the coexistence
of the term (quadam habitudine orta ex coexistentia termini).26
The term of a real categorical relation must be an actually existing
entity, according to Suarez, and it must be really distinct from the
foundation and the subject.27 Regardless of our manner of speaking, a
father ceases to be the bearer of a real accidental relation to his daughter if
she were to die while he is left alive.28 More properly and generally,
nothing has a real categorical relation to something which does not
actually exist. Furthermore, nothing is really related to a term which is
not an entity distinct from it. Why these requirements? If the term does
not exist, then a mind is needed to conceive it and establish a relation
between it and the subject; so in reality and independently of any mind
there would not be a relational accident. Paraphrasing Aquinas, whom
Suarez approvingly cites on this matter, all relations between beings and
non-beings are unreal, since they are made by reason which must appre-
hend a non-being as one of the relata.29 Similarly, if subject and term are
not really distinct, they are distinct conceptually and require a mind in
order to be posited as two things; so independently of this mental
operation there would be one relatum only, not two relata, and therefore
there would be no real relation. Notice that though the relational accident
25 26
DM xlvii.5.2. DM xlvii.8.14.
27
Doyle 1998: 191 states: a predicamental relation is ultimately identical with its foundation, as it
exists in both the subject and in the terminus. However, Suarez is clear that the foundation is
found only in the subject; that it is not distinct from the relation; that the relation is an accident
inhering in the subject and not in the term; that the term may in fact not have a corresponding
character similar to the one with which the foundation provides the subject; and finally that indeed
the term may not be itself directed to the subject at all.
28
See DM xlvii.12.6.
29
DM xlvii.8.4. The reference is to ST i q. 13 a. 7, which contains a discussion of the reality of
relations motivated by the claim that names which imply a relation to creatures are said of God
temporally, and not from eternity.
68 jorge secada
itself is only conceptually distinct from the foundation, this does not
similarly impair its reality. Prior to the mental operation distinguishing
the non-relational foundation from the relational accident, there is only
one entity and not two; still this one thing is both a monadic foundation
and a relational accident. On the other hand, if the term does not exist,
there is no relation in reality. In the former case, there is in reality a non-
relational foundation in a subject which is thereby directed to a term, and
a mind is needed only to distinguish this non-relational foundation from
the relational accident; in the other case, there is in reality nothing to
stand as a term of a relation unless a mind conceives it. Similarly, between
the essence of a substance and its existence there is only a conceptual
distinction with some real grounds; but this in no way undermines the
reality of a substances existence. It merely points to the nature of
existence as nothing but the actuality of essence.30 So, too, a real relational
accident is nothing beyond its foundation.
The need for an existing term, Suarez tells us, follows from the
intrinsic nature of a relation . . . [which] is to direct itself to another thing
(ad aliud se habere).31 He argues that since this relation is categorical and
real, it is necessary that its term be real. If there was no need for the term
to exist, then a relation towards it would be given either essentially or as a
result of a mental operation.32 It would, that is, depend on the very nature
of the foundation regardless of whether the term existed or not, or it
would depend on a mind considering the term. But real categorical
relations do not so depend on the mind, and they come upon their
subjects as accidental properties, arising when both an appropriate foun-
dation and a term co-exist and ceasing to be when either no longer exists.
The relational accident is just a reference or directedness to something,
which not even God could make exist without its term existing.33 So it is
not surprising that it could not arise from the foundation alone without
an actually existing term.34 Note that Suarezs argument here is not that
since relation is like a connection (quasi nexus) between extremes, it
cannot therefore be real unless the extremes are real.35 A real relation is
not a real connection or nexus or union between its extremes; it is only a
reference from subject to term. So Suarezs argument relies instead on the
foundation referring to the term only when the latter exists; when, that is,
there is an actual term for the foundation to have a reference, something
which is apparent from the fact that these accidents come to be when both
30 31 32
See DM xxxi and Secada 2000b: 21530. DM xlvii.8.1. DM xlvii.8.7.
33 34 35
See DM xlvii.8.13. DM xlvii.8.14. DM xlvii.8.5.
foundation and term co-exist, being nothing but a pure directedness
(puro respectu) from the one towards the other.36
Again, though he states that the distinction between subject and term
is contained in the very definition of relatives, since they must be for
another (ad aliud ), Suarezs argument for this claim is a little more
elaborate than an immediate inference from the notion.37 If, given a
certain relation, there need be in the term no real relation to the subject,
then evidently subject and term will be different entities. So Suarez
focuses on those cases where, given a real relation in a subject, there is
necessarily also a corresponding one towards it in the term. He argues that
in these cases subjects and their terms, as well as the relational foundations
or the relations themselves and their terms, must be really distinct, since
real correlatives . . . are . . . really opposed to each other, while nothing is
opposed to itself .38 The opposition here is not formal contradiction or
negation between the relations, as is clear when we consider similarity,
whose opposite is similarity itself. The point is rather that a real relation
requires a real disposition or directedness and this involves an entity
different from the subject standing as term.39 If without the mind there
is only one entity, then there cannot be a real disposition of one thing to
another: it is not possible to understand a real and true disposition
(habitudo) holding between things which are not distinguished in reality,
since, as is clear from the term itself, all disposition requires extremes, and
extremes involve plurality and therefore some real distinction.40 In other
words, there are no reflexive real relations. This argument will gain in
clarity shortly, when we examine what it is for relations to be opposed.
4.2 kinds of categorical relations

Relations can be distinguished into those which have a term in which a
corresponding real relation to the subject is found, and those for which
36 37
38
In DM xlvii.2.26 Suarez points out that though a relation and its term are absolutely distinct in
reality, they are not fully separable; that is, if the term is taken, then the relation goes also, since it
cannot exist without the term. Suarez considers this an exception to the general requirement that
things which are absolutely distinct in reality be separable and each capable of independent
existence. He explains that the reason for this is that the relation, as such, depends essentially
and quasi-formally on the term, so it can neither arise nor be preserved without it. Other
exceptions include relations from creatures to God. In both these cases the dependence of the
subject on the term of the relation is not merely causal and external to it, so that it would allow for
their separability in principle; there is instead an essential dependence between them such that one
cannot be conceived without the other.
39 40
See DM xlvii.16.3940. DM xlvii.9.3.
70 jorge secada
this is not the case. Suarez calls the former mutual and the latter non-
mutual.41 Mutual relations are those where the corresponding relations
arise on account of each other, or formally and essentially as Suarez
would put it.42 That is, if you were to understand a relational fact
concerning yourself, then there would be in the term of your understand-
ing a relation to yourself, but this is not an example of mutual relations
since that relation to yourself does not arise on account of your under-
standing it and could be present even if you ceased to do so.43 Below we
will clarify further how mutual relations arise in the subject and in the
term.44 Let us note now that they can be distinguished into reciprocal
and non-reciprocal relations (relationes equiparantiae et disquiparan-
tiae).45 Reciprocal mutual relations arise in their subjects on account of
foundations of the same character, while non-reciprocal relations have
foundations which are of different natures. That is: mutual relations are
converses of each other; reciprocal relations are identical converses or
symmetrical; and non-reciprocal relations are non-identical converses.
We can use such syntactical terminology so long as we are aware that
here we are engaged in an ontological inquiry. For instance, not all
syntactically converse relations are properly mutual: b being seen by a
and a seeing b do not involve mutual relations since there is no real
accident in b which is the relation of being seen by a.
These distinctions map interestingly into Aristotles tripartite classifica-
tion of relations in Metaphysics V, 15. Suarez adopts this Aristotelian
division, maintaining that it is the result of an induction from sufficient
enumeration and is not based on a general principle.46 He articulates it
according to the sort of foundation a relation has.47 The first kind
includes those relations which are said to be grounded in unity or
multiplicity; the second, those which are grounded in the power to act
or be acted upon, or in the corresponding actions or passions; and the
third, those from the measurable to the measure, as are . . . the relations of
41 42 43
DM xlvii.17.12; also see 15.12. DM xlvii.16.5,13,14. See DM xlvii.16.13.
44
There are special cases involving self-reference: if the relation you understand is the relation of your
actually understanding your understanding, then that relation will exist only so long as you do in
fact understand it, and it will exist on account of your understanding it. However, these (the
relation in the subject, your understanding that you understand your understanding; and in the
term, your understanding your understanding) are not mutual relations, as will be clear below.
One way to deal with these cases is by noting the lack of a real distinction between relation and
term. When the opposition between true mutual relations is clarified below, it will become
apparent how these cases are to be treated.
45
DM xlvii.15.2; also see 17.14. See Francisco Suarez, On Real Relation (Disputatio Metaphysica
xlvii), trans. John P. Doyle (Milkwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2006), p. 197, nn. 12.
46 47
DM xlvii.10.16. But see DM xlvii.10.14.
knowledge to the knowable, the understanding to the intelligible, and
sight to the visible.48 Examples of the first two kinds are, respectively, to
be similar to or heavier than or far from; and to be the mother of or to be
cooked or brewed by. Only certain sorts of terms are appropriate to the
corresponding sorts of foundations, so that given one of each a real
categorical relation can arise, as will be evident in a moment when we
examine Suarezs reasoning in favour of the following rule: relations of the
first two kinds generally have corresponding mutual relations, while
relations of the third kind never do; further, mutual relations of the
second kind are generally non-reciprocal, while those of the first kind
can be either reciprocal or not.
Mutual relations are opposing relations relations where the founda-
tion of one is what makes its subject the term of the other relation, and
vice versa.49 This opposition consists in one relation referring to what is
the foundation of the other relation as to its term, and vice versa; or, what
amounts to the same thing, in having opposed natures, since one relation
refers its subject to another thing, while the other relation, on the
contrary, refers this other thing to the subject of the first relation.
Now, what makes something the term of a real relation is not exclusively
in the foundation; it is some intrinsic characteristic of the term itself. As
Suarez explains, some reason or quasi-formal cause is necessarily present
in the term to account for its, so to speak, terminating the relation, since
not any entity can terminate any relation; therefore every term requires
some reason on account of which it is able to be the term of this or that
relation.50 How an entity becomes the term of a real relation determines
whether given a real relational accident in a subject, there is also a real
opposing relation in its term.
If the term is such in virtue of an intrinsic character which in some way
gives rise to a real reference to the subject (which will evidently be the case
if it has the same or similar character to the foundation in the subject from
which the reference to it arises), then the answer is positive. But if it is the
term by virtue of an intrinsic character which is not like the one in the
subject, or which does not otherwise give rise to a reference to the subject,
then the answer is negative. For instance, similarity with respect to shape
or a certain proportionality in weight, as well as fatherhood and other
forms of causation, do require in the respective terms certain characteris-
tics which will make reference to the subjects, either by being formally
identical (as the shape of the interchangeable subject and term), or by
48 49 50
DM xlvii.10.24; also see 17.11. DM xlvii.16.40. DM xlvii.16.2.
72 jorge secada
being numerically comparable (as the different weights of one and the
other), or by being one the cause of the other (as in the daughter we found
a reference to her causes and in the father a reference to his effects).
Opposing relations may arise out of foundations with formally identical
natures or not. If they do, as in our first example, the mutual relations will
be reciprocal; if they do not, as in our second and third examples, they
will be non-reciprocal.51
On the other hand, the relation of seeing does not require in the object
or term anything like what is found in the seer which would direct it, the
object or term, to that subject, or indeed anything else which otherwise
makes reference to the seer. That is, a visible object is seen not by virtue of
any intrinsic character which can ground a real relation to what sees it.
Generally put, relations of the third kind arise from foundations which
have by their nature a disposition towards their objects, to which they are
commensurate; but in this the object does not have any causation of its
own but the character of a specifying terminus . . . As a term of that
relation . . . it is solely that to which [the foundation] is commensurate.52
To appreciate Suarezs point, consider an object which can be seen only in
so far as it will itself see its perceiver; that is, suppose a certain set-up
which makes this the case. Nonetheless, the object is seen in so far as it is
visible and adequately located, not in so far as it can see its perceiver.
Generally put, directability towards another (ordinabilitas ad alium) . . . is
necessary on the part of the foundation so it can ground a relation . . .
However, to terminate a relation it is not necessary that the term be
directable towards another, but that another be directable to it.53
The converse sides of real relations of the third kind, like being seen or
perceived as well as being known or being understood, are not themselves
real accidents in their terms or objects, while the converse sides of real
relations of the first two kinds, like being produced, similar, or larger
(whose mutual relations are, respectively, causing, being similar, and
being smaller), are themselves real relational accidents in their terms.
We must note, however, that Suarez grants that there are exceptions to
this conclusion. In particular, there are some non-mutual real relations of
51
See DM xlvii.10.24; 11.23, passim; 15.12, 8, 1314, 27; 16.67, 1422, 304. See also Francisco
Suarez, Commentariorum ac disputationum in Tertiam Partem Divi Thomae . . . Tomus Secundus
(Madrid: Ioannis Gratiani, 1592), q. xxxv, a. 5; d. xii, ii; pp. 218, col. 2, C-225, col. 2, A; in
particular see p. 222, col. 2, B; this is in Francisco Suarez, Opera omnia, ed. M. Andre and
C. Berton, 28 vols. (Paris: Vives, 185678), vol. xxv, pp. 2018; and the specific reference is to
12, p. 205.
52 53
the first two kinds. This is the case with certain relations in creatures
which refer them to God, without corresponding real relations from God
to them.54 We will not discuss these exceptional cases here and will in
effect put them aside. So, though strictly all relations in the third class are
non-mutual, while those in the other classes are . . . rarely so, for the
purposes of our present discussion we will assume that those in the other
two classes are never so.55
4.3 unreal relations

Suarez distinguished between real relational accidents entities which
exist independently of being perceived or thought about and unreal
relations which are entities of reason things merely thought up,
existing only and entirely as objects of mental acts.56 He characterized
an unreal relation negatively as any relation that is not real and
positively as a relation made up by the understanding as a form directed
to something or putting one thing in reference to another, when in reality
the form is not so directed nor does the thing so refer.57 The subject or
the term of an unreal relation may not exist, or though they both exist,
they may not possess the required properties to ground the relation
attributed to them. So unreal relations lack an existing term or subject,
or both; or they lack a foundation in the subject or the appropriate
intrinsic character in the term; or they are posited between things which
are otherwise incapable of standing in a real relation to each other.
Amongst examples of unreal relations are the relations between a universal
and the individuals which fall under it, and between a genus and its
difference. The universal, being purely nominal, lacks the existence and
unity necessary for a real subject or term; and the genus and its difference,
though both existent in some actual substance of the corresponding
species, are not sufficiently distinct to ground a true relation.
Unreal relations are not what Suarez calls relations according to being
said.58 These are not truly relations at all, whether real or unreal, but
instead involve a mere manner of speaking, when an absolute entity is
explained relatively or by analogy or comparison with something else. For
instance, in order to better understand a spirit one might place it in
54 55
See DM xlvii.15.829; 16.613; 17.12. DM xlvii.15.27.
56
DM xlvii.1; 3.25; liv.6. Nothing can exist independently of Gods awareness of it. The preceding
claim is intended to require only independence from creaturely conceiving. For the idealist
implications of Gods omniscience see Secada 2000a.
57 58
DM liv.6.1. DM xlvii.2.6; see also liv.3.7.
74 jorge secada
relation to a body and think of it as if it were a body, but one is not
thereby conceiving in the spirit a relation either real or of reason. On the
other hand, unreal relations, or relations of reason, are truly relational
things. Though they do not and cannot exist, they are conceived as if
(ac si ) they did, wholly depending for their relational being on the
mental acts of which they are objects.59 Relations of reason, like other
entia rationis, are impossible. They are relations posited in circumstances
where such relations could not exist: there cannot, for instance, be a
relation of similarity as to shape towards something with no shape. In
some cases, however, circumstances might change and a real relation
might then come about which could not have done before. Relations of
reason are hypothetically impossible, not as such absolutely so. Still, there
is never a sufficient foundation for [relations of reason] in the things
themselves, since they are proximately founded on some extrinsic denom-
ination which comes from an act of the intellect.60 Real relational
predicates, on the other hand, are intrinsic denominations which apply
to and characterize their subjects on account of some real feature in them
and to which they refer. Unreal relational predicates are extrinsic denom-
inations which characterize their subjects in virtue of some mental act
which relates otherwise unrelated relata. As is implied, some unreal
relations have absolutely no grounding in reality, while others have some
grounding though not sufficient for a real relation.61
Of particular interest here are relations involving either as subject or
term an unactualized possible entity. For the moment, we deal only with
categorical relational accidents, leaving aside the issue of whether there are
any real non-categorical relations. Granted this caveat, if either subjects or
terms are unactualized possibles, the resulting relations themselves are
unreal, though, as Suarez acknowledges, they may have some grounding
in reality, since their terms are not entirely beings of reason, even though
in so far as they are understood as terms or subjects of relations they are.62
Let us examine this matter more closely.
Something non-existing can have no accidents, so it cannot be the
subject of an actual relational accident.63 This excludes mere possibles
from the first or second kind of relation (since the term of those kinds of
relation must be the subject of a corresponding mutual relation). But it
does not on that count exclude them from relations of the third class.
Further, when I think of my late aunt Narda and when I think of Jimmy,
59 60 61 62
DM xlvii.2.5. DM liv.6.8. See DM liv.6.2. DM liv.6.3.
63
See DM xlvii.8.3.
there are similar intentional acts in me (Suarez would say that my soul is
equally informed by intentional species in both situations), though the
object of my thinking exists at this time in the latter case but not in the
former. It seems strange to maintain that there is no real relational
accident in one case but there is in the other: if a real relation arises when
I think about a certain object and it happens to exist, why would it not
arise if I think about the object and it happens not to exist? The reasons
given earlier for requiring existing terms for real categorical relations do
not settle the worry raised by cases such as this, where the foundation
appears sufficient to wholly ground the relation on its own. There are
perhaps relevant differences here between thought, imagination, know-
ledge, perception and other mental acts. In any event, we will come back
to this in a moment.
Let us consider relations of other kinds. Clearly, some relations involv-
ing non-actual possibles have a certain foundation in reality and are not
arbitrary constructions of the mind. If some possible pink thing came into
existence, then any existing pink thing would be similar to it; one may
take it that, in this sense, an actual pink accident can be rightly considered
to refer to possible pink things. Similarly, though there is no real relation
between an existing subject which is potentially a cause and its possible
but unrealized effects, the relation between such relata is evidently not
without some real grounds. Suarez grants that for certain relations of
reason there exists something real which at least remotely grounds or
provides the occasion for [the] relation while the mind supplies what is
missing in reality for a true relation.64 One might press the point further
and wonder whether in the cases we are considering there may not in
effect be real relations: what indeed is missing for a true relation when
there is in the subject a mind-independent reality which makes reference
to something possible? It may be that this reference is essential to the
absolute foundation as such, as it precisely does not require a really
existing term to arise; but that can be no reason to object to the reality
of the reference. One could argue that these cases generate a further
limitation on the requirement that relations of the first two kinds be
mutual, since one might want to introduce non-existent possibles as terms
of real relations without thereby having to countenance them as subjects
of real converses. Evidently, views about the reality of possibles will be
relevant here. Certain varieties of modal realism may grant reality, if not
full-blooded existence, to unactualized possibles, thereby undermining
64
DM liv.6.2.
76 jorge secada
arguments against the reality of relations with non-existing subjects or
terms.
When discussing whether an existent term is always required for a real
relational accident to be given in a subject, Suarez considers an objection
precisely along these lines:
knowledge (scientia) refers equally to what is knowable when it exists as when it
does not . . . Likewise, the productive is referred to what can be produced . . .
[which] as such need not exist. Also, an image, a phantasm, and the like equally
represent what exists and what does not exist, and an existing whiteness is
essentially similar to another possible whiteness as it is to an existing one, since
it similarly agrees with it in nature and essence.65
His response in effect concedes that in these cases there are real relations
in the respective subjects, though they are not instances of categorical
accidents.66 We will discuss such real non-categorical relations below, in
the next section.
This is perhaps an appropriate place to raise the following question: is
everything real interrelated? That is, do all existing entities stand in real
categorical relations to each other? Every existing entity is an effect of
God, but now we wish to exclude God from consideration and ask
whether, given any two real creatures, they stand in some accidental
relation. It would seem that at least all material entities existing at one
time are related in virtue of their location, size, and other such properties.
What about spiritual entities or non-corporeal entities? Suarez grants that
they have a where, though this may not be related to the location of
corporeal entities.67 This is not the place to discuss Suarezs views that the
where (ubi) and the place (situ) of an entity are only conceptually distinct,
or that they refer to a real mode of the entity; or his views about the reality
of space. All the same, it seems to me that, for Suarez, in virtue of their
respective locations, all co-existing creatures stand in some relation to each
other (which will not necessarily be of proximity or distance but may be
one of lack of such common spatial colocation).68 We could also argue
generally from the fact that any existing entity belongs to some species and
65 66
DM xlvii.8.2. See DM xlvii.8.8.
67
DM li.3, 4; for instance 4.9: this where (ubi) of an angel is not essentially related to (non dicit
essentialem habitudinem ad ) real and corporeal space. As part of his extensive commentary on
Aquinass Summa, Suarez wrote a treatise on angels found in Francisco Suarez, De angelis (Lyons:
I. Cardon, 1630) and Suarez, Opera omnia, vol. ii. See, in particular, the references under distantia,
extensio, instans, locus, simul, situs (under simul ), and ubi in the Index rerum.
68
This is a real relation and not, like a mere privation or negation, one of reason, since it arises from
the positive location of each extreme, not from a lack in either.
is thus informed. So it will stand in a real relation of similarity or
distinction to any other real entity, since any two specific or generic forms
will be either formally identical or formally diverse and this will provide
the foundation for a real accidental relation.69 Matters are complicated
when we consider simultaneity and temporal relations. Duration, though
distinct only conceptually from the enduring entity itself and its existence,
is also a real accident inhering in actual substances.70 Yet, according to
Suarez, there are various temporal orders which are not themselves in a
straightforward temporal relation to each other.71 Unfortunately, here we
can do no more than take note of these views.
Note that the principle that categorical relations hold only between
actually existing things again decides the issue of whether there can be real
relations in these cases. When we ask whether all real entities are inter-
related, however, we are not considering mere possibles but past entities,
things which existed at some time and no longer do, or future ones, things
which will come about, perhaps even necessarily in some cases. If we
generalize our question and move beyond categorical accidents, we are
asking whether there is a real relation of any kind between any two real
entities, considered atemporally. I believe Suarez would have to grant that
there is.
4.4 transcendental relations

As we have noted, Suarez recognizes a kind of real relation distinct from
the categorical. Some relations cut across categories and apply between all
real entities of a certain class of being. Indeed, creatures are all essentially
related to God, all accidents to a subject, all matter to form and all form
to matter. These relations appear to be real, though they do not belong to
a special accidental category of relation but instead are found essentially in
any category or cut across different ones or belong essentially to accidents
in other categories (like the reference to its termini on the part of a
continuous quantity). Furthermore, we found above that there appear
to be relations which are real but do not have existing terms, and cannot
therefore be supposed to be mere references from subject to term which
69
See DM xlvii.11.1419.
70
See Suarezs discussion of imagined spaces and times in DM l.2.1820, where he distinguishes
between duration as nothing real over and above the existence of the enduring substance, and
where (ubi) or local presence (praesentia localis) which is an added mode.
71
See DM l, in particular 13, 5, 1012.
78 jorge secada
arise when both co-exist. Suarez calls these non-categorical relations
transcendental.72
There are a number of different ways of establishing this distinction
which Suarez examines and discards.73 He maintains that categorical and
transcendental relations do not differ in that the ones are real and the
others not, nor on account of the need for a foundation, a subject, and a
term. Just like categorical relations, transcendental relations, in reality
and in their being, include true and real dispositions (habitudines) towards
something.74 And, like categorical relations, they require a foundation in
the subject and also a suitable term, but while categorical relations all
require existing terms, some transcendental relations can be completed by
a non-existent term which is merely possible or represented.
Mere fictions may be the terms of real transcendental relations, for
instance, when they are thought: there can be a transcendental reference
to a being of reason . . . when that reference is to something taken as
object, in which objective being suffices so it can have the nature of a term
of a transcendental disposition.75 This, however, does not undermine
their true relational character:
real transcendental relations can be related to terms which not only do not exist
but which are even essentially not real beings . . . [T]here is no contradiction in a
real being having a transcendental relation to a non-being . . . For . . . potency can
be ordered to possible being . . . Similarly, non-being, in so far as it can be
thought, can complete a transcendental relation (habitudinem) of thought or
science towards it. And in this way, though non-being might in itself seem
unsuitable to be the term of a real disposition, nonetheless, in so far as some
action can be exercised over it, so the action itself or the . . . potency . . . can be
said to have a transcendental disposition to a thing which is not.76
All the same, other transcendental relations do necessitate an existing
term: for instance, an act of vision . . . involves a transcendental relation
(transcendentalem habitudinem) to an actually existing thing, and it cannot
naturally exist or be conserved without it.77 Similarly, real and actual
union involves a transcendental relation between actually existing things.
So, transcendental relations cannot be distinguished from categorical
relations on this count.
Suarez follows Cajetan and maintains that instead they differ in that
transcendental relations involve some real operation (munus) over the
term, causing, or uniting, or representing it, while the categorical
72 73 74
DM xlvii.3, 10; 1.56. See DM xlvii.3.9; 4.28. DM xlvii.3.9.
75 76 77
DM xlvii.4.5. DM xlvii.8.5. DM xlvii.4.5.
relation refers to the term without exercising any operation over it except
the pure reference, as is evident from the relation of similarity between
some white thing and another.78 While a categorical relation is essentially
and exclusively a certain directedness from the subject to the term, so that
it supposes no real reference in its foundation unless there be an appro-
priate term, a transcendental relation results from a foundation which
essentially makes reference to its term. Unlike a categorical relation, a
transcendental relation is not directed to its term purely as term. Of
course, the terms of categorical relations must have a certain character,
appropriate to stand in the given relation, but those relations do nothing
towards those terms, even as such, beyond referring to them (ut circa illus
terminos, etiam ut tales sunt, nullum aliud munus exerceant nisi respiciendi
illos).79 The function of transcendental relations, on the other hand, is
to constitute a form or nature which causes something or in some way
operates upon the thing to which it is directed, or vice versa.
A transcendental relation results from a foundation first and in itself
(per se primo) established to cause or operate in some way over other
things, or inversely in so far as it essentially depends on them.80
A transcendental relation relates subject to term by way of some
operation reducible to a genus of cause, some activity or influence or
tendency which may in fact be constitutive of the term.81 The foundation
must in some way really contain the term, so as to make it present to the
subject even when it does not exist. In mental representation the object in
a sense exists in the foundation since its form is intentionally present in
the understanding or in the sense organ. And in causation, the non-
existent effect is potentially in the cause, or the cause is potentially
directed to it. So an architect is related to the houses she designs, even
if they do not exist; a sculptor and her materials are related to the
sculpture that is only potentially in the steel and the wood; a novelist,
to the impossible fictions she writes; a bitch to her possible puppies; and
motions and forces to the earthquake they will bring about. Transcen-
dental relations are found properly in the second and third kinds identi-
fied earlier, on account of the nature of their foundations, which are
actions, capacities, or powers.82 Earlier we found Suarez granting that
there is a transcendental relation of similarity involving a merely possible
entity.83 I take it that such transcendental similarities presuppose the
quasi-causal foundations which Suarez explicitly identifies as essential to
78 79 80 81
DM xlvii.4.10. DM xlvii.4.11. DM xlvii.4.15. DM xlvii.8.6.
82 83
See DM xlvii.11.20. See DM xlvii.8.2, 8.
80 jorge secada
relations of this kind; for existing forms are potential causes of formally
identical unactualized possibles.
The foundations of these transcendental relations account for the
ordering of their subjects to something. But they are not per se relational.
Nor is the relation, whether transcendental or categorical, merely its
absolute foundation. It is the ordering of the subject to a term, whether
actual or not, in virtue of the absolute foundation. Categorical relations
require the existence of their terms in order for their absolute foundation
to refer to them and ground a real relation. But in the case of transcen-
dental relations, some of which may not have an existing term, the
absolute foundation has, as I interpret Suarez, an in-built reference to
the term, which it brings with it and possesses, so to speak, in virtue of its
absolute character. We should also note that something can be the
foundation of both categorical and transcendental relations.84
4.5 suarezs relational realism

We should now pause and take stock. Let us return to the issues we raised
at the very start of our inquiry. How is the relation present in its subject?
And how does something non-relational make a reference or relate to a
term? With a better grip on Suarezs answers to these questions, we can
appreciate how his account copes with the ontological diversity of
relations.
In reply to the first question there is Suarezs unequivocal assertion
that:
(1) a real relational property is nothing in its subject beyond a non-
relational foundation (FR).
A real relation is indeed something real in its subject, but that is not
something different in reality from its absolute foundation. All the same,
there is a distinction between the two, a distinction which requires a mind
in order to be drawn but which is rooted in reality. So:
(2) the distinction between FR and the relation which it grounds has a
basis in reality.
One way to unpack (2) is to see the foundation as an entity sufficiently
rich to be properly conceived in either of two ways: as an absolute or as a
relation. However, this misses an important aspect of Suarezs view: the
84
See DM xlvii.5.20; 17.27.
non-relational entity is the grounds or foundation for the relation, not
the other way round. This asymmetry is evident from the fact that
though, in principle, the foundation can exist without the relation, it is
impossible for the relation to exist without the foundation. Still, (1) is not
intended eliminatively: the foundation is really related to a term. In a
moment we will discuss how this can be so. Now we are looking only at
what the relation is in its subject. And we find Suarez placed between two
extremes.
On the one hand, there is the view that the relation itself is nothing at
all in the subject, and that there we will find only absolutes. This leads to
an eliminativist conceptualism, according to which what is properly
relational is all in the conception of a mind, and that in reality absolutes
are only absolutes, though they may of course be used to establish certain
relations and not others. This is a view which Suarez does not in any way
concede, as far as I know. In fact, as we saw earlier, in the DM he
attributes it only to Aureol in the course of rejecting it, and he describes
the opposing doctrine that some relations are real accidents distinct from
those in other categories as the received view and a nearly universal
philosophical tenet.85 Whether he succeeds in keeping within this
Aristotelian orthodoxy is precisely what we are assessing now.
John Doyle has written that Suarez comes exceedingly close to a
reduction of a real relation to a simple act of the knower, that is, a
connotation.86 The passage he has in mind is the following:
the relation . . . is in reality some absolute form, not however taken absolutely,
but as referring to another, which is included in or connoted (connotat) by the
relative denomination. So, for instance, similarity is some real form existing in
the thing which is called similar, but it is not really distinct from the whiteness in
so far as what it puts in the thing called similar, but only in so far as the term it
connotes (connotat).87
The use of connoto may give rise to a suspicion of conceptualist
eliminativism, but that seems to me unwarranted. Doyle indirectly refers
to Ockham in this context.88 Ockham held that a relation is either a
conceptual entity or the extension it connotes: that is, a group of pairs of
85
DM xlvii.1.10.
86
Doyle, in the introduction to his translation of DM xlvii, Suarez, On Real Relation, p. 26.
87
DM xlvii.2.22.
88
Doyle refers the reader to the chapter on Relative Terms as Connotative: William of Ockham in
Henninger 1989: 11949; see in particular pp. 12835. See also the excellent account of Ockhams
views on the ontology of relations, to which Henninger is evidently in debt, in McCord Adams
1987: 21576, vol. i.
82 jorge secada
individuals.89 This view is not clearly conceptualist, since it need not
make the existence of the group or relation depend on a mental act. And
Ockham himself maintained that two similar things are similar whether
or not there is some mind that thinks them. The issue is how the group of
couples to which a given relation corresponds is determined, not epistem-
ically but in itself. If by the connotation of the corresponding relational
denomination or concept if, in other words, there is nothing real in the
individuals to ground the connotation and all the work is done by the
contents of a mental act then the position collapses into conceptualist
eliminativism. But if there is some real grounds in the relata independently
of any reference to a mind (a certain similarity or formal identity, for
instance), which is what ultimately determines the group or the relation,
then, as Ockham himself believed, this is not a form of conceptualist
eliminativism.90 Be that as it may, on his part, immediately after the
cited passage Suarez adds that therefore similarity in the thing is nothing
other than this same whiteness as it refers (respiciens) to another whiteness
as of the same or similar nature. For Suarez it is the whiteness itself
which refers or is directed to any other existing whiteness. By the way, in
DM xlvii.2.12, Suarez includes Ockham in his camp, as holding that
between foundation and relation there is a conceptual distinction with
real grounds.
We are now at the opposite boundary of Suarezs position: a form of the
view that relational properties are something really distinct from anything
non-relational in the subject. Given that they appear to depend necessarily
on such absolute foundations, while the latter are separable from them, the
inclination is to maintain that relations are in their subjects as modes or
logically dependent ways of being or determinations of their foundations,
distinct from them only with a lesser real distinction.91 Suarez repeatedly
and explicitly rejects and criticizes this view. Nonetheless, he does perhaps
also appear to show some deference to it.92 It is true that Suarezs writings
display a consistently careful and honest dialectical style, highlighting the
89
Cf. Quine 1987: 73: What is a relation? A class of ordered pairs. And later, p. 90: A relation is now
clearly conceived as consisting of pairs of objects . . . Of course, Quine was indeed engaged in an
eliminativist project. See above n. 12; though I should stress that the logic of relations does not on
its own decide the ontological issues.
90 91
See McCord Adams 1987: 3313, vol. i. See DM xlvii.2.910.
92
The references John Doyle offers in Suarez, On Real Relation, p. 28, n. 94, citing passages in the
commentary on ST iii where Suarez adopts the view that a categorical relation is a mode . . . added
to its foundation, evidently contain typographical errors. See instead n. 38 above. Though I cannot
offer a firm assessment without access to Doyles intended references, I am inclined to treat any
such passage as consistent with my suggestions at the end of this paragraph.
strengths of views he opposes, and regularly qualifying his own opinions as
no more than probable or reasonable.93 This is ostensibly so regarding the
view that relations are modes really distinct from their foundations.94 All
the same, the texts cited earlier make clear that Suarez ultimately rejected
it. Perhaps, like Ockham, he was initially of this opinion and moved away
from it as he considered the subject more carefully; or maybe his caution
expresses an awareness of its proximity to his own position.
Suarez argues against the view that there is a real distinction between
foundation and relation on the grounds that it leads to unnecessary
ontological profligacy. Consider the argument, mentioned earlier, that if
a real relation is a distinct entity or mode in the subject, then a newly
white or hot thing would bring about a real change in every other white or
hot thing in the universe. But it is not just this. It is rather that any change
in some substance would entail a change in all others. Since they are all
formally similar to or different from any other, they all stand in some real
transcendental or categorical relation to each other. The issue is not, for
Suarez, whether there is a coherent ontology which accommodates this
consequence. Perhaps prematurely, he is willing to grant there is. Instead,
he refers to such ontology as a gratuitous and improbable fiction
(gratis . . . et sine probabilitate fingitur).95 He adds further that such
changes require causal accounting and asks how could the term act upon
an almost infinite number of entities however distant from it? If they
instead result naturally from the foundations themselves, this still sup-
poses a proper causal action in each subject to explain the resulting
similarity. If such intrinsic causation in a white subject were somehow
impeded, while remaining white, would it then not be similar to a newly
white thing? Particularly in light of Leibniz, the real issue when we
approach Suarez is not whether one can show that it is incoherent to
hold that relations are really distinct from their foundations, but whether
there is a coherent ontology which denies a real distinction between
foundation and relation, while not making relations ultimately concep-
tual. His aim, that is, is to save appearances and common sense.96
93
To mention only a couple of instances in DM xlvii, see 11.3, 16 where Suarez describes his opinions
as verius (more true) and probabiliter (more probable).
94 95
See, for instance, DM xlvii.2.2; 8.7; 15.19; 17.1820, 27. DM xlvii.2.17.
96
This evidently requires consideration of results in the natural sciences. Doing so, however, involves
taking a stand on various issues regarding the relation between the different sciences and their
respective ontological import. See the suggestive essay by Ladyman and Ross 2007. It is worth
noting that Ladyman and Ross propose an ontology exclusively of relations as what better fits
results in contemporary physics; they do not, however, develop this suggestion or provide even the
beginnings of a treatment of relations without non-relational relata. It is also worth underlining the
84 jorge secada
We have now arrived at our second question: how is the non-relational
foundation able to ground a real relational property? To use an expression
I introduced earlier, how is something absolute able to bring a separate,
distinct entity to the subject, to make it present in it? It is clear that Suarez
believed the foundation is an absolute entity. Indeed, he held that:
(3) FR is either a monadic property or a substance.
But he also maintained that when the term exists there really and inde-
pendently of any mental conception is a reference to it in the foundation;
or, to put it more generally and neutrally,
(4) FR is truly and in itself directed towards a term really distinct from it.
Our question now is whether (3) and (4) are compatible and how. The
question is pressing since they clearly appear inconsistent. For instance,
Suarez writes that the
relational designation arises (consurgere) from the coexistence of several absolutes
without the addition of anything real . . . but in each extreme it is taken from the
corresponding form, in so far as it refers to the other (respiciente aliam) and thus
has a relational nature (rationem relationis), even though in reality it is nothing
but the same absolute form.97
He tells us that there is only one thing, which is absolute and also relational.
The more stress is placed on the absolute nature of the foundation, the less
the reality of the relational accident. The more the reality of the relation is
stressed, the less absolute the character of the foundation.
To start disentangling this rather tight knot we must underscore that
the absolute foundation grounds the relation and not the other way
round. So we need to ask how can it do that? How can something
relational be found in a non-relational entity? Here is what Suarez says
when directly addressing a version of this difficulty:
this disposition (habitudinem) is presupposed fundamentally and quasi-inchoatively
(fundamentaliter et quasi inchoative) in virtue of (ex vi) the foundation, but
is completed by positing the term; is completed (I say) not by an extrinsic
addition, but only by an extrinsic positing of the term. For the very foundation
fact that scholastics such as Suarez, and Aristotelians more generally, were not a priori
metaphysicians (at the very least, not clearly so in the more damning senses of that phrase), nor
was their natural science non-observationally grounded. This of course does not deny that, as just
stated, to defend the relevance of their metaphysical speculations today requires engagement with
contemporary science.
97
DM xlvii.2.25.
is capable of itself of conferring a relative denomination of this kind, and for
this reason it is said to contain a quasi-inchoative relative disposition. An actually
existing term is required for it to actually confer the denomination; so when a
term is posited the denomination is immediately completed without another
intrinsic and real addition . . . [The] relative disposition is nothing other than that
same relative denomination, or the form itself on account of which it is actually
given.98
The best way to understand what this incipient or quasi-inchoative
presence amounts to, is to look at some cases.
Consider a is taller than b or a is similar to b with respect to colour.
What are the truth conditions for such statements? In the first case they
include, say, a being 6 feet tall, b being 5 feet 5 inches tall, and 6 feet being
more than 5 feet 5 inches. In the second, say, a being green and b being
green (or to put it perspicuously, a having colour F, b having colour G,
and F being the same colour as G). One first point to make here is that the
relational item in these truth conditions is determined by the non-
relational facts and is not a new added element. The fact that a is 6 feet
tall (or the fact that it is green) on its own determines that a is taller than
5 feet 5 inches (or that a is the same colour as something green). That fact
contains a reference to any other heights (or colours) just in virtue of
being what it is. The reference is implicit, or perhaps quasi-inchoative,
awaiting a term to become explicit. So it must not be thought that the
inclusion of a relational fact in the truth conditions is problematically
circular. A non-relational fact can give rise to a relation on account of its
quantity or character. In other words, the nature of a quantity or number,
or of a form, is sufficient to determine on its own the numerical relations
to other quantities or numbers, or the relations of identity and difference
between individual forms (what I call formal relations).
The issue whether Suarez can avoid conceptualism will then turn on
whether one must ultimately provide a conceptualist account of numbers
and universals. Suarez does not. His account of formal relations appeals to
what I can best describe as pre-conceptual intelligibility, something suffi-
ciently distinct from empirical association to hope, at least prima facie, to
avoid conceptualism.99 Platonism is of course relevant here, and it would
also suggest a non-conceptualist account of the relations involved, though
it might suppose a basic relation of instantiation (or participation) as a
raw given. In any case, the point is that whether or not Suarez succeeds
here depends on the success of his views on universals and properties.
98 99
DM xlvii.11.21. See the references in n. 24 above.
86 jorge secada
So we have the beginnings of an account of how it is that the founda-
tions of real relations of the first kind can be absolute and give rise to a
real, extra-mental relation. It is easier to appreciate Suarezs position
regarding relations of the second and third kind. As we saw when dealing
with transcendental relations, in both the case of causation and that of
representation, the foundation does in a sense actually contain the term.
Take cases of visual perception or thought. Consider a sees a horse or
a thinks of b. These are true if certain non-relational facts are true of
a: namely, that her eye is relevantly intentionally informed (that the form
of a horse is found in it) or that her understanding is intentionally
informed by b. What is needed is, first, an account of what it is for a
form to intentionally inform an intellect or a sensory organ, which will be
found in his doctrine of mental acts; and also an account of what it is to be
the form of a horse or to be the form of b while not being in a horse or in
b, but this is what his views on formal relations will give us. The relevant
point for us now is that a horse or b are in a sense actually in a, and this is
what provides a foundation for the real relation in a. Suarez also offers
accounts yielding similar results in cases of causation, but with the
pertinent difference that they have the cause present in the effect as much
as the effect present in the cause.
Suarez reasonably denies that all true relational facts require real rela-
tions in their subjects. Consider a true statement like a is seen by b. This
is true if and only if b sees a is true, and, as we saw earlier, the truth
conditions for this statement do not involve a relational foundation in a.
What we have here is a statement which in reality refers only to the fact
that b sees a. Let us now adapt an example from Jan Cover and John
Hawthorne: Yula lives in a world where Socrates drank hemlock.100
I take it that Suarez would hold that there is no real relation in Yula
(who is a German shepherd bitch presently living in Virginia) having that
unfortunate event as term. What is required for there to be this relation is
that Yula lives, that Socrates drank hemlock, and that a mind put those
two facts together. Now, it could be argued that Yula is really related to
Socrates in that, for instance, they both are or have been living animals
with certain sizes and weights and other properties. One might note
further that Yula is also related to Socrates as a fellow drinker; and she
might be really related to him in virtue of not having drank hemlock
(though this would not be directly in virtue of that negative fact but rather
of the characters of what she has drunk and of hemlock). If all this is
100
See Cover and Hawthorne 1999: 76.
granted, then we have here a case of real relation and not a relation of
reason. Suarezian universal interrelation between creatures, if that is
indeed given, requires reference to terms only in so far as that reference
is grounded in the foundations but not necessarily to the individual terms
as such. In other words, if Yulas living in a world where Socrates drank
hemlock is a real relation in Yula, then it is no different than this: Yula
lives in a world such that someone drank a substance unlike any she has
ever drunk so many years ago in a place so many miles away, who was not
a dog and was differently shaped and larger than her, etc., etc. In general,
it is not necessary that there be in a a reference to b as such, for a to be
really related to b.
We have, then, that
(5) FR contains a reference to the term of the real relation it grounds
either (i) on account of the formal relations in which it stands to the
character of the term; or (ii) as cause to effect or vice versa; or (iii) as
mental act to its object.
The success of Suarezs account of the ontology of relations depends on
how (5) is unpacked. When a has a certain height, that height refers to any
other height in virtue of its very nature, of the formal relations between
quantities. Similarly, when a is a cause of b or thinks of b, the causal
activities and mental acts of a are by their very nature related to b. Suarezs
realist treatment of relations relies on his non-conceptualist nominalism,
and his doctrines of causation and mental representation. Assessing these,
of course, is a matter for a different inquiry.
4.6 conclusion
Suarez occupies a very narrow space here but it does not seem to me to
lack the width necessary to accommodate a coherent, even if not trans-
parently clear, doctrine of real relations. It may be argued that its weak
flank is the insistence on the reality of the emerging relation. It could be
argued further that if Suarez succeeds in avoiding the danger of under-
mining the reality of the relation, it is only at the cost of building an
incoherent ineliminably relational reference to its term into the absolute
foundation. I have resisted this charge. Suarez insists on (3). I have argued
that whether he can coherently also hold (4) depends on (5): that is, on
whether the grounding in reality which he provides for the conceptual
distinction between the non-relational foundation and the relational
property can be plausibly unpacked.
88 jorge secada
These Suarezian pairs, intrinsic and extrinsic relational denominations,
real and unreal relations, categorical and transcendental real relations, are
interestingly related to the later and well-known distinction between
internal and external relations, which stands at the very centre of a cluster
of deep and important ontological and metaphysical issues in contempor-
ary philosophy.101 According to Suarez, some true relational predications
refer to mere external relations, relations neither essentially nor acciden-
tally intrinsic to their subjects; and some intrinsic relational properties are
not essential to their subjects but mere contingent accidents in them. As
I hope will be apparent from our discussion, his articulation and defence
of these views will repay serious attention in terms of our understanding
both of the ontology of relations, and of the development of early modern
metaphysics.
101
See Rorty 1967, an interesting and still pertinent survey article.
chapter 5
Suarezs cosmological argument for

the existence of God
Bernie Cantens
The science of cosmology and astrophysics has flourished in the past

century, and today we know a great deal about the universe, its beginning,
and its evolutionary processes. Some of the claims scientists have been able
to confirm about the universe and how it works are quite impressive. For
instance, we know that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and that it is
28 billion light years in diameter. Moreover, we know this with a high degree
of certainty and accuracy. We have learned a great deal about neighbouring
galaxies and suns, acquiring a vast amount of information about the matter
that composes the universe, how it is distributed, and how it was formu-
lated. In addition, we have accumulated a great deal of evidence for the Big
Bang Theory such as an expanding universe, background radiation, the
unification of matter, evolutionary processes of stellar formations, etc. and
this knowledge, coupled with our advances in physics, has opened a door
through which we can begin to get a glimpse of how the universe began, how
it evolved to its present state, and what we should expect in the next several
billion years. Given the growth in our understanding of the universe, it
is reasonable to question whether cosmological arguments for the existence
of God, particularly those prior to the twentieth century, are still relevant
today and whether they still have any cogency whatsoever.
In this essay, I examine Francisco Suarezs cosmological argument for the
existence of God and offer a critical evaluation of the argument. While the
primary concern of this essay is to expound and critically analyse Suarezs
argument, I hope that some of his views and arguments might serve as an
impetus for new ideas that might lead to innovative insights about the
cosmological argument and its historical evolution, particularly changes
from medieval to modern formulations of the argument. First, I analyse
the basic and general structure of Suarezs argument, as compared to the
other traditional arguments for the existence of God and as compared to
the various types of cosmological arguments. Second, I examine in detail
Suarezs argument and its logical structure, as well as proposed objections
89
90 b e r n ie c a n t e ns
and rebuttals to the objections. Third, I situate Suarezs argument historic-
ally by drawing some comparisons with Aquinass cosmological arguments.
Moreover, I explore what contributions Suarezs argument can make, if
any, to the revived and currently ongoing discussion on the cosmological
argument.1 Finally, I conclude by answering how scientific discoveries of
the twentieth century affect Suarezs argument.
5.1 basic structure of suarezs argument 2

Traditional arguments for the existence of God can be divided into three
categories: (1) ontological arguments, (2) teleological arguments, and
(3) cosmological arguments. These categories are based on the kind of
evidence an argument uses as premises in support of its conclusion. The
premises of teleological arguments are claims associated with the order
and harmony found in the universe. The premises of cosmological argu-
ments are claims based on the causal relationship between empirically
observable phenomena and a first cause. The premises of ontological
arguments are claims based on the conception of God. Here is a brief
summary of the characteristics of each of these of arguments.
The ontological argument was first introduced by Anselm of Canterbury
(10331109), and it is unique because its premises are known a priori
and its logical form is valid. The arguments reliance solely on evidence that
is independent of experience is what makes it both interesting and contro-
versial. There are two general forms of the ontological argument, depending
on how the conception of God is formulated. Anselms conception is
negative and comparative, while some of the modern versions are positive
and superlative. Anselms original version begins with the following defin-
ition of God: that than which nothing greater can be conceived (aliquid,
quo nihil maius cogitari possit).3 Later philosophers such as Descartes have
modified the ontological argument and begin with a positive definition of
God as a being supremely perfect. These two versions of the conception of
God have logical implications that affect the arguments cogency.4
1
In the last few decades, there has been a revived interest in the cosmological argument. See Rowe 1975;
Koons 1997; Gale and Pruss 1999; Oppy 1999; Koons 2001; Oppy 2004; Alexander 2008; and Oppy 2009.
2
All references of Suarezs work will be from DM, in Opera omnia, ed. M. Andre and C. Berton,
28 vols. (Paris: Vives, 185677), vols. xxvxxvi; for the English translation of Disputations 2829,
see Francisco Suarez, The Metaphysical Demonstration of the Existence of God, trans. J. P. Doyle
(South Bend, IN: St Augustine Press, 2004).
3
Anselm of Canterbury, Liber Proslogion Accedunt Gaunilonis monachi objectio necnon Anselmi
responsio, ed. F. S. Schmitt, OSB (Bonn: Petri Hanstein, 1931), p. 11.
4
For a detailed discussion on the matter see Gracia 1974.
Suarezs argument for the existence of God 91
The teleological argument for the existence of God is an a posteriori
argument, and therefore at least one of its premises is based on human
observation and experience of the world. Teleological arguments use the
order and harmony, construed broadly, that is perceived in the world as
evidence for the conclusion that the world must have an intelligent
designer or architect. There is a wide variety of teleological arguments,
depending on the kind of order that is emphasized. The order can focus
on a kind of harmony among the elements that gives way to the regularity
we experience via the laws of nature, or the order of the specific distribu-
tion of all matter in the universe so as to bring about a universe with
living, intelligent, and moral beings, or the order that demonstrates a kind
of complex intricacy in natural things (and its constituent parts), directed
at a specific purpose, that is too elaborate to have been produced by
chance or by some other unintelligent cause.
The cosmological argument has two parts. In the first part it attempts to
show that there is a first cause that is uncaused, or a first mover that is
unmoved, or a first necessary being upon which all contingent beings depend.
The second part of the argument attempts to show that the first uncaused
cause is God, or that the first unmoved mover is God, or that the first
necessary being is God. The arguments premises include some general
features of experience from the physical world, usually pertaining to easily
observable facts or events in the universe, such as that there is motion or
change in the world, or that beings are made by other beings, or that there are
contingent beings in the world. It then defends corresponding a priori general
principles, such as everything moved is moved by another, or everything
created is created by another, or not all beings can be contingent beings. From
the simple a posteriori claims about the world and the necessary a priori
general principles, the argument attempts to deduce the conclusion that there
must be a first unmoved mover, or a first uncreated being, or a necessary
being, respectively. The proponent defends the validity of the argument by
arguing that either a temporal infinite regress of causes is impossible (i.e., the
argument of Kalam, the Islamic theological school)5 or a non-temporal
infinite regress of essentially ordered causes is impossible (e.g., Aquinass first
three ways). There is a third type of cosmological argument that does not
depend on denying an infinite regress, but rather argues that a series of
dependent beings, whether finite or infinite, requires an explanation from
outside the series; that is, there must be a sufficient reason for the existence of
the series of dependent beings (e.g., Leibnizs cosmological argument).
5
Craig 1979.
Cosmological argument (Part 1)
(a posteriori argument for the existence of an uncreated being)
Cosmological argument (Part 2)
Teleological model Ontological model

(a posteriori argument for the conclusion (a priori argument for the conclusion
that there can only be one that there can only be one
uncreated being and thus uncreated being and thus
that must be God) that must be God)
Conclusion: God exists

Exhibit I
What kind of argument is Suarezs argument for the existence of God
and what is its basic structure? Suarezs argument can be found in Disputa-
tion 29 of his Metaphysical Disputations.6 He develops a unique and eclectic
cosmological argument in which models of the other two traditional
arguments are incorporated. In the first section, he develops the first part
of the cosmological argument through a metaphysical argument that
attempts to demonstrate the existence of an uncreated being.7 In the second
and third sections, he develops the second part of the cosmological argu-
ment through an a posteriori and an a priori argument for the conclusion
that there can be only one uncreated being and thus that that being must be
God. The first argument for the uniqueness of the uncreated being models
the teleological argument and the second the ontological argument.8 For a
diagram of the structure of Suarezs argument see Exhibit 1.
6
De Deo Primo ente et substantia increata, quatenus ipsum esse ratione naturali cognosci potest.
DM xxix, title.
7
Utrum esse quoddam ens increatum ratione physica vel metaphysica demonstrari possit. DM
xxix.1, title. Utrum a posteriori demonstrari possit Deum esse, ostendendo unum tantum esse
increatum ens. DM liv.2, title.
8
Utrum aliquo modo possit a priori demonstrari, Deum esse. DM xxix.3, title.
5.2 suarezs cosmological argument
5.2.1 An argument for an uncreated being

In the first section of Disputation 29, Suarez addresses two central issues:
(1) whether it can be demonstrated that an uncreated being exists; and
(2) whether such a demonstration can be derived through physical or
metaphysical arguments. Suarez argues for an affirmative answer to the
first question and that this demonstration must be derived through a
metaphysical argument.
5.2.1.1 An argument from natural philosophy for the existence of God

Suarez begins by considering cosmological arguments based on physical
principles such as the motion of the heavens. The cosmological argument
based on motion goes as follows:9
(1) There is movement (or change) in the heavens.
(2) Everything that is moved is moved by another.
(3) Heaven is moved by another.
(4) This causal chain cannot go on infinitely.
Therefore, (5) there must be a first unmoved mover.
Suarez criticizes this Aristotelian argument and Aquinass first way on
various counts. First, he calls into question the necessity of premise (2).
What is the argument for the necessary truth of this principle? Motion
is understood as change, so that if a thing changes, let us say from a state
of being cold to that of being hot, it moves from being potentially hot to
actually hot. Only a thing that is actually hot can be the cause of such a
movement, and, since a thing cannot be both potentially and actually hot
at the same time, the motion cannot be self-caused and thus must be
caused by another.
This argument seems somewhat plausible, however, Suarez denies
that it demonstrates that premise (2) is necessarily true. He claims that
some forms of human behaviour, those that are the result of autonomous
human decisions, constitute movement and change that are uncaused.
9
Cf. Aristotles unmoved moved argument, Physics, viii and Metaphysics, xii, in The Basic Works of
Aristotle, ed. R. McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941); Thomas Aquinas ST i q. 2; and
Summa contra gentiles, i.13. I use these translations: The Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas,
trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vols. (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics,
1981), and Summa contra gentiles, trans. Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1975).
Therefore, some forms of human action could be considered as acts that
are directed by ones will and thus as autonomous acts in which the agent
is the source of his or her own movement. If this is true, then premise
(2) is not universally true and the argument is not deductively valid.
Suarez goes on to argue that self-movement or self-change is even con-
ceivable among inanimate objects, such as the heavens. Contemporary
refutations of the cosmological argument from motion have adopted a
similar position against premise (2), arguing that change might simply
be a brute fact and thus there might not be any explanation or cause for
why a thing changes.10
Suarez concedes that even though the claim is not necessarily true, it is
highly probable; however, he argues that even if we grant the truth of
premise (2), the argument will not succeed in demonstrating the existence
of God, because it cannot demonstrate that the first unmoved mover is an
immaterial being, a perfection necessary of God. Moreover, the argument
from motion cannot demonstrate that there is only one unmoved mover.
If we analyse the argument from motion a little deeper, what will become
apparent is that, to demonstrate the existence of an uncreated, immaterial
being, we will be forced to introduce metaphysical principles.
Suarez argues that if the heavens are moved by another, then either
the mover moves the heavens by impressing internal impetus11 or by a
proximate separate mover.12 In the first way, the mover generates the
heavens and instils it with the intrinsic power of movement. In the second
way, the mover moves the heavens perpetually, as a separate and extrinsic
force. In the first way, Suarez notes that the heavens dependence on the
mover for its existence is presupposed, since the generator of the heavens
instils it with motion; however, strictly speaking, from the argument of
motion nothing about the creation of the heavens can be directly inferred.
If we suppose the mover to move in the second way that is, as a separate,
perpetual mover the most we could conclude about such a mover is that
it is incorruptible (incorruptibilem) and, possibly, because of the harmony
of the heavens, that it is intellectual (intellectualem). However, this does
not show that the mover must be immaterial or uncreated. Suarez con-
cedes that if a being is both incorruptible and intellectual, then it is
probable that the being is immaterial. However, Suarez notes that an
10
Rowe 1975: 17.
11
Uno modo ut ab imprimente internum impetum proxime activum motus, sicut grave dicitur
moveri a generante. DM xxix.1.12.
12
Alio modo ut a proximo movente separato, sicut rota movetur a manu. DM xxix.1.12.
argument based on the incorruptibility and intellectual nature of the first
mover requires metaphysical principles concerning the nature of the
rational soul, and thus it is no longer an argument based solely on physical
principles.
Suarez concludes that arguments from natural philosophy for the
existence of God are invalid. He argues that the principle that everything
that is moved is moved by another is not universally true, and therefore
an argument in which it serves as a premise cannot be logically valid.
In addition, he argues, contrary to Aristotle and Aquinass first way,
that even if we were to concede that this principle is true, and thus that
the heavens required an unmoved mover, there is no reason to conclude
that there is only one mover or that such a mover is an immaterial or an
uncreated being.13 Yet, our argument for the existence of God must entail
these attributes. Suarez finds these objections to be sufficient to abandon
any attempt at constructing cosmological arguments for the existence of
God from natural philosophy. He argues that a successful deductively
sound cosmological argument for the existence of God will necessarily
require metaphysical (ontological) principles and thus belongs properly to
the science of metaphysics. Nevertheless, he maintains that the physical
sciences prepare the way for the metaphysical proofs. In this sense, natural
philosophy and metaphysics can work together towards developing an
argument for the existence of God.
5.2.1.2 A metaphysical argument for the existence of God

The difference between an argument from natural philosophy and one
from metaphysics can be reduced to the basic principles upon which
they rest. An argument from natural philosophy is based on the
principle that everything that is moved is moved by another, while a
metaphysical argument is based on the principle that everything that is
made is made by another (Omne quod fit, ab alio fit). To be made entails
a metaphysical and ontological act of coming into existence. Therefore,
when Suarez says, everything that is made is made by another what he
means is that everything that comes into existence, from non-existence,
depends on something other than itself. In other words, a being cannot
be responsible for its own existence; it cannot be its own efficient cause;
x cannot be the maker of x. But why is this necessarily true for existence
and not motion?
13
ex quibus a fortiori constat ex vi solius motus caeli concludi non posse, dari aliquod primum ens
immateriale, et increatum. DM xxix.1.16.
Suarez argues that the conception of existence is significantly different
from that of motion, because while self-motion implies no logical contra-
diction, the conception of self-made does. How is the conception of a self-
made substance a logical contradiction? The existence of a being can only
have three logical explanations: (1) it is made by another being; (2) it is
self-made; or (3) nothing made it. The last is impossible because some-
thing cannot come from absolutely nothing. The second is also impossible
because the conception of producing a being entails an act of acquiring
existence (acquiret esse). However, for a being to produce another, it must
already exist; therefore, it could never be the cause of its own existence.
Moreover, before a thing exists it is nothing. Therefore, it is evident and
necessary that everything that is produced is produced by another. We can
conclude that the ontological principle that everything that is made is
made by another is logically necessary.14 Let me now describe Suarezs
metaphysical argument.
(1) Every being is either made or not made, that is uncreated.15
(2) But all beings in the totality [of beings] cannot be made.16
(3) Therefore, it is necessary that there be some being which is not made,
or which is uncreated.17
The major premise is evident, because the disjuncts are contradictory and
therefore at least one must be true. The minor is a more complicated
premise. Suarez argues that, if a being is made by another, then the
maker is either made by another (a third being) or it is uncreated. If it
is uncreated, then we have arrived at our desired conclusion. If it is made
by another, then we can ask the same question of this other (third) being.
The result of this continued questioning only has three logically possible
outcomes: (i) to arrive at a first uncreated being, (ii) to go on to infinity,
or (iii) to move in a circle. Suarez defends the view that both (ii) and (iii)
are impossible and therefore (i) must be true.
Why cannot a series of dependent beings be infinitely circular? Reasoning

in a circle or (iii), with respect to efficient causes, is to suppose a
scenario like the following: B1 produces B2, B2 produces B3, and B3
14
There have been philosophers who have historically challenged the a priori necessity of this claim,
such as David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford University Press, 1975) i.iii.3, but it
remains a highly plausible claim.
15
omne ens aut est factum, aut non factum, seu increatum. DM xxix.1.21.
16
sed non possunt omnia entia, quae sunt universo, esse facta. DM xxix.1.21.
17
ergo necessarium est esse aliquod ens non factum, seu increatum. DM xxix.1.21.
produces B1. This, Suarez argues, contradicts the metaphysical principle
that everything produced must be produced by another.18 The effects
caused by a being cannot also be the cause for the existence of that
being, since a beings power to cause anything presupposes its existence.
However, Suarez raises an interesting objection: it is true that if B1
produces B2, then B2 cannot produce B1, if their existences overlap in
time; however, could not B1 produce B2, and B2 produce B3, and, after B1
goes out of existence, B3 produce B1? This is conceivable, given a meta-
physical hypothesis such as the Pythagorean conception of reincarnation,
where souls return to new bodies continuously. However, Suarez argues
that such a metaphysical view is impossible, because it would rest on
the supposition that there can be an infinite series of dependent beings,
or on outcome (ii), which is impossible. In other words, an infinitely
circular series of beings would have no first uncreated being (i), but
would consist in an infinitely circular series of contingent beings (iii),
which in turn presupposes that the chain of creators goes on forever (ii).19
At the heart of Suarezs objection is the distinction between temporal
proximate causes and essentially ordered causes that are simultaneous,
which I discuss below.
Why cannot a series of dependent beings go on infinitely? Suarez delib-

erately excludes arguments that prove the impossibility of an actual infin-
ite; instead, his line of argumentation proves the impossibility that the
whole collection of beings in the world is made or dependent. The
argument, therefore, defends the minor premise (2):
(4) If (2) were false, that is, if all beings in the totality of being were
made, then the world would be made up of a collection of dependent
beings.
18
Hunc ergo circulum dicimus esse impossibilem, et aeque repugnantem illi principio: Omne quod
producitur, ab alio producitur, sicut quod eadem res seipsam producat. DM xxix.1.22.
19
Verumtamen evasio haec non habet locum, nisi simul adjungatur processus in infinitum, nam vel
in illis circulis seu conversionibus generationum sistitur in aliquo primo producente non genito, et
de illo nullo modo dici potest, quod fuerit factus ab aliquo effectu suo, quia supponitur esse ante
omnem suum effectum. Et tunc in illo fit argumentum, quia vel ille primus auctor generationum
est simpliciter non factus, et ita concludimus quod intendimus, dari scilicet aliquod ens simpliciter
non factum; aut ille etiam factus est ab alio, et de illo alio redit eadem inquisitio, quae nunquam
sistet, donec perveniatur ad ens increatum. Quod si in illis circulis et conversionibus generationum
nunquam sistitur in aliquo primo generante, jam adjungitur praeter dictum circulum processus in
infinitum, et praeterea multiplicantur incommoda, scilicet, quod per naturales generationes eadem
individua reproducantur, et similia, sine quibus processus ille in infinitum sufficeret, si dari posset.
DM xxix.1.24.
(5) For it is impossible that the whole collection of beings or of efficient
causes [in the world] be dependent in its being and in its operation.
(3) Therefore, it is necessary that among them there is something
independent.20
The burden of the argument shifts from premise (2) to (5); that is, if (5) is
true, Suarez believes his argument for (3) is sound. Premise (5) emphasizes
the impossibility that the world consists only of a collection of dependent
beings. However, the question remains: why is it impossible that the
whole collection of beings or of efficient causes in the world be dependent
in its being and operation?
Suarez distinguishes between two different ways causes can progress
to infinity: first, as proximate causes or as a succession of causes (inter
causas proximas). In this way, a father is the cause of his son and the
grandfather is the cause of the father, etc. This is how we should under-
stand temporal causes or causes that extend over time. Second, causation
can be understood as between essentially subordinated causes (causas per
se subordinatas).21 These are causes that exist simultaneously and at once.
This distinction is essential for understanding Suarezs argument. If A is
the proximate cause of B, and B is the proximate cause of C, then while
the existence of B and C is dependent on A, in so far as A is the efficient
cause of B, and B is the efficient cause of C, the continued existence of
C does not depend on the continued existence of A or B. Notice also that
these causes are not simultaneous. However, if X is the essentially ordered
cause of Y, and Y is the essentially ordered cause of Z, then the continued
existence of Z requires the continued causal act and thus the existence of
X and Y. The existence of X, therefore, not only brings into existence
Y and Z, but it also conserves the existence of Y and Z; they have to be
simultaneous in act. Suarezs argument entails essentially ordered causes.
He continues:
(6) If, therefore, the whole collection of things [in the world] were
dependent [i.e., (5) were false], it [the whole collection] would neces-
sarily depend upon another.
(7) But this is impossible, since outside the collection [of things in the
world] there is nothing else.22
20
quia impossibile est totam collectionem entium, vel causarem efficientium, esse dependentem in
suo esse et operati; ergo necesse est esse in illis aliquid independens. DM xxix.1.26.
21
DM xxix.1.25.
22
si ergo tota rerum collectio esset dependens, deberet necessario pendere ab alio; id autem est
impossibile, quia extra collectionem non est aliud. DM xxix.1.26.
(3) Therefore, it is necessary that there be some being which is not made,
or which is uncreated.23
His argument therefore hinges on the impossibility of an infinite series of
dependent beings. As a result he needs to demonstrate:
(8) if every being taken separately or distributively would be dependent
and made, the whole collection would also be dependent and made.24
Is a collection of dependent beings dependent? Suarez presents an objec-

tion, arguing that just as a whole composite depends on its parts, yet these
parts are not a whole composite, could not an independent collection of
beings depend on each particular being without any one of them being
independent? A related and more modern way of stating the objection
would be as follows: does not an efficient causal explanation of each part
provide a satisfactory causal explanation of the whole? One problem
with these objections is that they seem to be conflating a temporal
infinite series of causes with an essentially ordered infinite series of
causes. Suarez admits that these objections and their line of reasoning
work for some concepts of causes, namely those that belong to a
temporal series, such as material and formal causes, or what he refers
to as second [order] efficient causes (causa secunda); however, efficient
cause is very different, because to depend efficiently is to receive from
another ones own being distinct from that which is in the cause.
Therefore, if some total multitude as such depends efficiently, it is
necessary that it depend upon something not included in that
multitude.25
Suarez distinguishes between two notions of efficient cause. The first is
understood adequately and according to its whole self (adeaequate et
secundum se totam) and is the one he intends to use in his metaphysical
argument. Let us refer to this notion as total efficient cause. Suarez views
a total efficient cause as having an explanatory value that extends over
the existence of entire species of events and things. The second notion
of cause is understood as a relative efficient cause and its explanatory value
extends only to the events and things it immediately engenders. For
23
ergo necessarium est esse aliquod ens non factum, seu increatum. DM xxix.1.21.
24
si omne ens, divisive, seu distributive sumptum, esset dependens et factum, etiam collectio
omnium entium esset dependens et facta. DM xxix.1.28.
25
dependere autem efficienter, est recipere ab alio suum esse, distinctum ab eo quod est in causa; et
ideo si aliqua multitudo secundum se totam effective pendet, necesse est ut pendeat ab aliquo non
comprehenso in illa multitudine. DM xxix.1.27.
instance, the relative efficient cause of a fire is the previous existing fire
that produced it. A first fire, then, may be said to be the relative efficient
cause of a second fire, if it produced that fire; and a second fire is the
relative efficient cause of a third fire, if it produced that fire. However,
neither the first nor the second fire independently or conjoined can be
said to be the total efficient cause of fire in general. Instead, the total
efficient cause of the fire entails a broader notion of causality, necessarily
requiring an explanation not only of why there is this (e.g., second) or
that (e.g., third) particular fire but why there is fire in general.
The total efficient cause, therefore, encompasses the cause of the first
fire and all subsequent fires, and it is not limited to a particular fire;
it provides an explanation of the making of fire as such; that is, an
explanation of the generator of the fire. This notion of total efficient
cause is evidently different and more fundamental, since
The whole generated fire is said to depend upon a generator, because without the
action of that [generator], in fact the whole [fire] would not have existed . . .
when, therefore, we say that the whole collection of beings cannot be dependent
[and thus there must be an independent being], we understand it in this way,
namely, adequately and according to the whole self .26
This is the key to Suarezs defence of (8). If Suarezs argument is successful
in demonstrating (3), that there must exist an uncreated or necessary
being, then it also demonstrates (30 ), that we cannot go on in that
progression [of causes] to infinity, but we must stop at an unproduced
being which is also independent in its causing.27
5.2.2 The uncreated being is God

Demonstrating that not all beings can be made and thus that there must
be at least one uncreated being is not sufficient for demonstrating that
God exists. The main obstacle, according to Suarez, is that there can be a
plurality of uncreated beings. If there are many uncreated beings, none
could possibly be the being to which the name God refers, because, by
the name God, we mean a first, uncreated being and creator of all things.
However, Suarez argues that, if it can be demonstrated that there can only
26
dicitur enim totus ignis genitus dependere a generante, quia sine actione ejus revera non fuisset
hoc totum . . . Cum ergo dicimus, totam collectionem entium non posse esse dependentem,
intelligimus hoc modo, scilicet adaequate, et secundum se totam. DM xxix.1.27.
27
ergo non potest in illo progressu in infinitum procedi, sed sistendum est in ente improducto, quod
etiam in causando sit independens. DM xxix.1.26.
be one uncreated being, then we can conclude that this uncreated being
is the true God (verum Deum).28 Suarez is careful to distinguish his
argument from theological arguments for Gods unity (unitatem Dei),
which use as part of their premises Gods infinite perfection and divine
nature. Such an argument begs the question and relies on revelation.29
Suarez claims that we must first describe what is meant by the name
God in order to consider Gods existence. He argues that in arriving at a
first definition of God we should be neither too elaborate nor too vague.
If we assign too many attributes to God from the start, we would have to
demonstrate that a necessary being with the said attributes exists, making
matters more difficult than necessary. On the other hand, if we are too
vague, then we leave the door open for many attributes that we would not
consider to be an essential part of a Supreme Being. He proposes the
following middle ground: Therefore, this name [God] signifies a certain
most noble being which both surpasses the rest and from which as a first
author all the rest depend 30 (my emphasis). According to this definition,
then, what is required is to show that the uncreated being that was
demonstrated to exist above is the unique source of all things.
5.2.2.1 A posteriori argument for the oneness of an uncreated being:

teleological model
Suarez formulates an interesting teleological argument for the uniqueness
of the uncreated being, arguing that if we consider the beauty, order,
structure, and intricate connections of parts of the universe, then our
minds will be led to the conclusion that there must be only one uncreated
being. He says, the beauty of the whole universe and the wonderful
connection and order of all things in it do sufficiently declare that there
is one first being, by whom all things are governed and from whom they
draw their origin.31 In order to elaborate this argument further, he
introduces four objections. First, it might be objected that from the visible
28
Si autem ostenderimus, hoc ens increatum ac per se necessarium, tantum esse posse unum numero
secundum naturam et essentiam, fiet plane consequens illud esse primam causam caeterorum
omnium, quae sunt vel esse possunt, atque adeo esse Deum, et consequenter esse verum Deum.
DM xxix.2.1.
29
This method resembles Aquinass argument. Aquinas first argues for a first cause in ST i q. 2, and
later treats of Gods attributes in qq. 311 and in particular of Gods perfection in q. 4 and Gods
unity in q. 11.
30
Significat ergo hoc nomen quoddam nobilissimum ens, quod et reliqua omnia superat, et ab eo
tanquam a primo auctore reliqua omnia pendent. DM xxix.2.5.
31
totius universi pulchritudo, omniumque rerum, quae in eo sunt, mirabilis connexio et ordo, satis
declarant esse unum primum ens, a quo omnia gubernantur et originem ducunt. DM xxix.2.7.
order and harmony of the visible world the most that can be inferred is
that there is one governor of all things, not one creator.32 Second, it
might be objected that the governor might govern through consensus,
and, if this is possible, the argument does not demonstrate necessarily that
the governor is one. Third, there is little evidence as to how the order and
harmony of the visible world relate to spiritual beings; therefore, even if
it could be demonstrated that the physical world must have been created
by one uncreated being, from visible effects, nothing can be demonstrated
with respect to intelligences or spiritual beings. Fourth, it might be
imagined that there are other visible worlds that are distinct and separate
from this one and that they are governed by other uncreated beings.
In response to the first objection, Suarez argues that the connections
and operations of the visible world entail not only one governor but also
one creator. He points out that a governor of such a complex world
requires an exact proportion of things to govern perfectly and towards a
specific end. The form of governance that points to a specific end must
have absolute control of all aspects, including the composition of things
in the world. Consider a much simpler task, such as baking a cake. An
essential part of this process is the ingredients and the proportion of these
ingredients that are used to bake the cake. If the baker cannot control the
ingredients or the proportion of ingredients used, or if there is more than
one baker who independently performs different tasks, the entire process
will lack the cohesiveness required for a successful cake. Suarez argues:
Therefore, it is necessary that the same one be the author of all, otherwise
the proportion and connection could not fall under one intention.33
He concedes that not much else can be known about the process of
creation, and it is possible that God created immediately basic elements
and from these other mixed elements evolved.
Suarez also appeals to the worlds beauty to support the claim that there
can only be one uncreated being:
Again, the beauty itself of the universe declares this, a beauty to which the so
varied creation of mixed things is directed and disposed in such an orderly way,
with the result that it could not by chance or by accident be made so by different
authors, but only by a single universal author who intended this most beautiful
machine of the universe.34
32
unum esse omnium gubernatorem, non tamen conditorem. DM xxix.2.8.
33
necessarium ergo fuit, ut idem esset auctor omnium, alioqui non posset illa proportio et connexio
sub unam intentionem cadere. DM xxix.2.12.
34
Quod etiam declarat ipsa universi pulchritudo, ad quam sine dubio tam varia mistorum procreatio
ordinata est, et tam ordinate disposita, ut non proterit casu aut fortuito a diversis auctoribus ita
He believed that the variety and plurality of things in the world demon-
strated that nature alone could not have been the cause of the world.
He envisioned the essence of nature to be mechanical, working like a
machine, with continuous homogeneous operations and movements. He
reasoned that from such mechanical motion it would be impossible for
nature to produce the variety of things that exist. His view of nature, as
lacking spontaneity and chance, provided another argument for why we
must infer an intelligent being as creator one that could choose to create
different entities and a whole variety of things, connected and working
together towards one central purpose and end.
The second objection states that the order and beauty of the universe
could have been the result of more than one uncreated being. The unity
manifested in the design of the universe could be explained by a kind of
accord or consensus among various uncreated beings. Suarez claims that
either the uncreated beings require the cooperation of the other beings
because none of them is capable of creating everything on their own, or
they are each capable of creating everything but choose to cooperate in
the creation process. In the first case, Suarez notes that the objection
fails, because it assumes uncreated beings with limited creative powers,
which is impossible. According to Suarez, the power of creation entails an
infinite creative power and thus, if a being can create anything from
nothing, then it can create everything.35 This horn of the dilemma has
other difficulties as well. For instance, if each uncreated being has limited
powers to create only certain kinds of things, then the aggregate of these
finite powers can never give us infinite power, which is what is required to
create a perfect universe.36 Moreover, if these uncreated beings are limited
in their creative power, they will also be limited in their wisdom and, as a
consequence, in providence. Finally, an aggregate of finite, uncreated
creators would also have a finite, mutable will, and therefore there is no
assurance that a perfect consensus could ever be achieved among such
beings.37 What Suarez means is that, if the uncreated beings do not have a
fieri, sed ab unico et universali auctore, qui hanc pulcherrimam universi machinam intendebat.
DM xxix.2.14.
35
This argument seems puzzling, but I believe that Suarez understands creative power here as an all or
nothing category as opposed to one that admits of gradations.
36
praeter haec (inquam) omnia, non est in toto illo definito aggregato causarum vis agendi infinita et
ex omni parte perfecta, quia haec perfectio magis consistit in intensione quam in multitudine. DM
xxix.2.24.
37
What Suarez seems to mean here is that, if the uncreated beings do not have a perfect will, then
there is no assurance that an agreement among them, for the planning and designing of creation,
will be carried out.
perfect will, then there is reason to doubt that a plan of creation that
depends on the action of many would be carried out and performed
with perfection. He concludes: Accordingly, governance and providence
for the universe would be extremely imperfect, if it were dependent upon
many heads and many finite and mutable wills without a subordination
to some supreme power, supreme wisdom, and immutable as well as
supremely good will.38
If, on the other hand, the uncreated beings that created the universe
are equal in infinite power, then each one could have created the whole
universe on its own but chose instead to collaborate with others. This
hypothesis, Suarez notes, has no foundation whatsoever; there are no
effects from which we could infer a multitude of infinitely powerful
creators. This hypothesis has a more damaging rebuttal: the unnecessary
duplication of sufficient causes. Suarez says,
Moreover, against him who would imagine that [a multitude of infinitely
powerful creators], reason enough should be that he would have introduced so
many principles needlessly and without sufficient motive. For, if each of those
causes is supposed to be sufficient for the production and the conservation of the
whole universe as it exists now and for every perfection that can be desired in it,
what is the reason why several causes of this kind are imagined?39
The third objection treats of intelligences or spiritual beings and whether
these can be said to be dependent on the first substance and created by it.
Suarez claims that from the visible world the only effect that provides
evidence for the existence of spiritual beings is the motion of the heavens.
However, this deduction entails a spiritual being that is subordinate to the
first cause.40 Suarez claims that there are effects that humans experience
in the mind, which resemble an interior voice and guide us towards good
or evil. These moral mental phenomena do not pertain to the physical
world. However, Suarez argues that they could be caused by ones own
38
Esset igitur imperfecta valde universi gubernatio et providentia, si ex multis capitibus multisque
voluntatibus finitis et mutabilibus penderet sine subordinatione ad supremam quamdam
potentiam, summam sapientiam et voluntatem immutabilem, ac summe bonam. DM xxix.2.25.
39
Praeterea contra eum qui hoc fingeret, sufficiens ratio esse deberet, quod superflue et sine
rationabili motivo tot principia introduceret. Nam, si unaquaeque ex illis causis sufficiens
ponitur ad producendum et gobernandum totum universum, prout nunc est, et secundum
omnem perfectionem, quae in eo desiderari potest, quid est, cur plures hujusmodi primae causae
esse finguntur? DM xxix.2.27.
40
Probatur ergo assertio posita, quia in universo nullus est effectus aut motus, ex quo colligere
possimus intelligentias esse, praeter motus caelorum; sed hic effectus eadem certitudine aut
conjuctura, vel probabilitate, qua indicat intelligentias esse, indicat eas ut subordinatas, atque
adeo ut effectas ab eodem universi auctore. DM xxix.2.33.
soul or even directly by God; therefore, they do not serve as sufficient
evidence for the existence of separate spiritual beings. Nevertheless, even if
they were caused by exterior spiritual beings other than God, they would
be subordinate to God, especially if the mental phenomena had an evil
nature. Suarez concludes: Therefore, leaving aside this moral effect,
which does not belong to either physical or metaphysical consideration,
apart from the motion of the heavens there is no natural effect that leads
us to any cognition of intelligences.41
Finally, Suarez addresses the possibility that there is more than one
universe and more than one first uncreated being corresponding to each
universe. He argues, contra Aristotle, that it is possible that there is matter
distinct from that which is in this universe and that the bodies of distinct
worlds would not have an order between them and therefore neither
would desire to be under another or over another [of a different world].42
He concedes, then, that even if the teleological argument could demon-
strate that there exists only one uncreated being for our world, because it
is possible that there are many unrelated worlds, it is also possible that
there are many uncreated beings, each unique and creator of its own
world. Suarez concludes that the a posteriori argument for the conclusion
that there can only be one uncreated being is not pertinent to all possible
beings, but only to those that belong to the universe of things that can be
empirically experienced by human cognition and can be considered part
of the domain of natural reasoning. It is precisely for this reason that
Suarez believes we need an a priori argument to prove that there can be
only one uncreated being.43
I will not analyse further Suarezs teleological arguments for the
uniqueness of God for several reasons. First, several of his arguments,
such as the argument from diversity and plurality of things, while inter-
esting and worth mentioning, do not have very much force today. Second,
Suarez did not envision these arguments as demonstratively conclusive,
41
Omisso igitur hoc morali effectu, qui ad physicam vel metaphysicam considerationem non spectat,
ex effectibus naturalibus nullus est, qui ad aliquam intelligentiarum cognitionem nos inducat, nisi
caeli motus. DM xxix.2.34.
42
corpora vero distinctorum mundorum non haberent inter se ordinem, et ideo neutrum appeteret
sub alio, vel supra aliud esse. DM xxix.2.37.
43
Fateor tamen ex hac et praecedente objectione convinci, discursum factum ad probandum tantum
esse unum ens improductum, et reliqua omnia entia ab illo facta esse, non concludere absolute de
omnibus entibus, sed de illis tantum quae in humanam cognitionem per discursum seu
philosophiam naturalem cadere possunt; et ideo ut ratio universe concludat necessario adhibenda
est ostensio a priori, quam secundo loco promisimus, et in sequenti sectione persequemur.
DM xxix.2.37.
and we should interpret them as inductive arguments that simply show
that, given the beauty, order, and complexity of the universe, if there is at
least one uncreated being, it is more probable that there is only one than
that there is more than one.
5.2.2.2 A priori argument for the oneness of an uncreated being:

ontological model
The arguments in this section do not constitute a priori demonstrations
for the existence of God in the traditional sense. In fact, Suarez believed
that such a demonstration was impossible.44 However, he did think that
once some attribute is known about God, such as that God is an uncre-
ated being, then we could, through an a priori analysis of the known
attribute, derive other attributes of God. The objective of this section,
therefore, is to demonstrate that, if there is an uncreated being, given
the beings necessary nature, there can only be one. Suarez presents
six arguments. The discussion below is limited to the fourth and fifth
arguments, which he considers to be sufficient for the demonstration
that the uncreated being can be only one and thus must be the one true
God.
Suarezs fourth argument claims that if the property of singularity were
essential to the nature of an uncreated being, then such a nature could not
be multiplied; hence, there could only be one necessary being. Now,
according to Suarez, to be in act entails being singular (esse actu includit
esse singulare).45 Since existence is part of the essence of an uncreated
being,46 and the existence of any being entails its singularity, singularity
is also a part of the essence of an uncreated being. If singularity is part
of the essence of an uncreated being, then it is impossible for there to be
more than one uncreated being.47 To understand the force of the argu-
ment, two things must be kept in mind. First, existence and singularity are
inseparable. Second, since existence is part of the essential properties of a
necessary being, singularity is also part of the essence of an uncreated
being; therefore, a necessary being cannot be multiplied. Compare the
case of God to that of angels. The essence of angels does not entail
existence and thus does not entail absolute singularity; and, therefore,
there can exist various species of angels.
44 45
non posse demostrari a priori Deum esse. DM xxix.3.1. DM xxix.3.11.
46
in ente improducto necesse est, ut ipsum esse existentiae sit de essentia ejus; in eo enim consistit
intrinseca necessitas essendi, quod ex vi essentiae suae habeat esse, ita ut essentialiter sit suum esse.
DM xxix.3.11.
47
ergo impossibile est, ut talis natura sit multiplicabilis. DM xxix.3.11.
Suarezs fifth argument48 claims that if there are two or more uncreated
beings, then they would be either of the same species or of diverse species.49
The first horn of the dilemma cannot be true, because (as was argued
above) the nature of an uncreated being is essentially singular, and thus it
cannot be multiplied.50 The same argument can be made as follows: if two
or more uncreated beings are of the same species, then they would have the
same essence. However, if they have the same essence, then they would
have the same existence, because existence is part of the essence of an
uncreated being. Hence, if they have the same existence, they would be the
same being. On the other hand, if existence is not part of their essence,
then they would not be uncreated beings but created beings. Therefore, it
is impossible to have two or more uncreated beings of the same species.
Suarez also contends that if more than one uncreated being of the
same species exists, then there would have to be an actual infinite number
of uncreated beings, and this is absurd. Suarez reasons that if it is possible
for there to exist more than one uncreated being within the same species
(i.e., the existence of another uncreated being presents no contradiction),
then it would not be less contradictory for there to exist two or three or
four, etc. However, in eternal things, being and being able to be are the
same,51 because an eternal being is pure actuality and has no potency in
being (esse). Suarez puts the argument as follows:
But in these beings which have being from themselves without a cause, in no way
could we stop at a certain number, because a greater number would not be more
contradictory than a lesser one, and by the fact itself that it would not be
contradictory, it would be actual. However, no one would admit that there is
an actual infinity of unproduced beings. Therefore, a stop must be made in one
single particular unproduced being.52
Suarez also rejects the second horn of the dilemma: namely, that there
may be two or more uncreated beings of distinct species. He introduces a
48
Suarez believes this argument supports the fourth and is sufficient by itself to demonstrate that
there can only be one uncreated being. He says: Possumus tandem addere rationem aliam, quae et
per se sufficiat. DM xxix.3.15.
49
si darentur duo entia improducta, aut illa essent ejusdem speciei, vel diversae. DM xxix.3.15.
50
Melior probatio est, quae sumitur ex praecedente discursu, quia natura, quae essentialiter est
singularis, non potest secundum numerum multiplicari; sed natura Dei, seu entis per se necessarii
est essentialiter singularis. DM xxix.3.15.
51
In aeternis idem est esse et posse . DM xxix.3.15.
52
in his vero entibus, quae ex se haberent esse sine causa, nullo modo sisti posset in certo numero,
quia non magis repugnaret major numerus, quam minor, et hoc ipso quod non repugnaret, actu
esset. Nemo autem admittet dari entia improducta actu infinita; ergo sistendum est in uno solo
ente singulari improducto. DM xxix.3.15.
second dilemma: if there are two or more species of uncreated beings,
then the two or more species are either equal in perfection or unequal
in perfection.53 By perfection Suarez understands a things distance from
non-being. Therefore, a distinction between two species entails a differ-
ence in their perfection or in their distance from non-being. Therefore,
following Aristotle, he argues, there cannot be two essences that are
specifically distinct and equal in perfection.54 If they are equal in perfec-
tion, then they cannot be dissimilar. Suarez challenges this argument by
noting that there is a distinction between a relation of equality (aequali-
tatis) and a relation of similarity (similitudinis). The most poignant
example in which this distinction is present is in the divine persons:
Father and Son, who are dissimilar yet equal in their perfection. Suarez
refutes this objection by arguing that dissimilarity as it relates to relatives
is different from dissimilarity as it relates to absolutes. In the former case
the dissimilarity relies on the mutual relations that exist, while in the latter
case it relies on the essence of the entity itself. In the case of uncreated
beings, if they are equal in perfection and they are essentially necessary, it
is difficult to conceive, according to Suarez, how they would be dissimilar.
Suarez introduces a different argument to demonstrate the same con-
clusion. There cannot be two distinct uncreated beings equal in perfec-
tion, because an uncreated being has the greatest perfection of all: it exists
necessarily. Therefore, it must encompass all perfections. If there are two
or more perfect beings of different species, then either they would each
encompass all perfections or they would not. If they each encompass all
perfections, then they would all be identical and the same uncreated
being. If they do not each encompass all perfections, then they would
all have different degrees of perfection but none could be absolutely
perfect. As a consequence, there cannot be two or more necessary beings
of distinct species that are all absolutely perfect.
Let us consider the second horn of the second dilemma: that there are
two distinct uncreated beings unequal in perfection. Suarez introduces
another dilemma: either there is one that is the most perfect of all and is
thus supremely perfect, or there is an infinite multitude of uncreated
beings of distinct species of unequal perfections. In the first case, if there is
one supremely perfect being (i.e., a being that contains all perfections),
then the rest would be less than perfect. However, the idea of a perfect
53
Aut enim illa entia essent aequalia in perfectione, aut non. DM xxix.3.16.
54
quod non pussunt dari duae essentiae specie distinctae aequales in perfectione. DM xxix.3.16. See
Aristotle, Metaphysics, x, 4. 1055a335.
being that is less than perfect is contradictory. In the second case, if there
is an infinite multitude of beings unequal in absolute perfection, then
there could be no being that is supremely perfect (i.e., one that contains
all perfections) and thus they would all be less than perfect. Again, the
idea of a perfect being that is less than perfect is contradictory. We must
conclude, therefore, that if there is an uncreated being, there can only be
one that is absolutely perfect. Suarez concludes that this one uncreated,
perfect being, upon which all other beings depend, is God.
5.3 the historical and contemporary context

of suarezs argument
How does Suarezs argument compare to other cosmological arguments,
and what contributions, if any, can it make to the revived and current
ongoing discussions on the cosmological argument? Comparing Suarezs
argument to Aquinass cosmological arguments, as expounded in his first
three ways, five differences can be discerned. First, Suarez would reject
Aquinass first way, based on change, as a sound argument. Moreover,
even if it were a sound argument, Suarez claims that a first unmoved
mover lacks the necessary attributes to demonstrate the existence of
God.55 Second, Aquinass second and third ways argue for a first efficient
cause and a first necessary being, respectively, by denying the possibility of
an infinite regress of essentially ordered causes. These two metaphysical
cosmological arguments resemble Suarezs argument for an uncreated
being. However, compared to Suarezs version, they both have a serious
problem: even if Aquinas can demonstrate that there must be a first
efficient cause and a first necessary being, there is no reason to conclude
that this being is God. Suarez takes this objection seriously, as we can infer
from the large part of Disputation 29 that he devotes to proving that there
can only be one uncreated being.56 Third, it is unclear whether Aquinas
holds the principle that everything that is made is made by another as an
a priori truth in the same way Suarez does. Aquinas says, In the world
of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case
known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the
55
Joseph Owens interprets Aquinass first way as a metaphysical argument. See Owens 1952.
56
William Lane Craig argues that this interpretation of Aquinas oversimplifies his argument and that
a correct understanding of it should include Aquinass discussion of Gods attributes. While a
comprehensive understanding of Aquinas might call for such a holistic and charitable reading, it
still remains questionable whether an understanding of his cosmological argument should. See
Craig 1980: 159.
efficient cause of itself.57 Why does Aquinas appeal to experience for
the justification of this principle, if it is an a priori truth?58 Suarez makes
no such reference to experience for the justification of the principles
truth.
Fourth, Aquinas proves that there is a first efficient cause and a first
necessary being. How does this relate to Suarezs conclusion of an uncre-
ated being? It is important to note that, in Aquinass third way, his
conception of necessary being is not the same as Suarezs uncreated being.
A necessary being for Aquinas is a being that is not subject to the natural
processes of generation and corruption, but their essence might still
be created. This is why Aquinas argues that every necessary thing either
has its necessity caused by another, or not,59 and since this cannot go on
to infinity we must conclude that there is a being having of itself its
own necessity.60 It seems that what is entailed in Aquinass second and
third ways is that the first cause and first necessary being are uncreated.
Suarezs argument begins with the conception of efficient cause and
progresses to an uncreated being. It appears, then, that Suarez incorporates
both Aquinass second and third ways into his first part of the cosmo-
logical argument.
Finally, according to Suarez, if we consider the existence of the world
as a whole, the idea that the world simply exists as a brute fact is not
possible, because the world, adequately and according to its whole self
(adaequate et secundum se totam) requires an explanation for its existence.
Suarezs formulation of the cosmological argument, in particular his
principle of total efficient cause, has a certain affinity to Leibnizs
principle of sufficient reason (PSR), which is not present in Aquinass
argument.
When we compare Suarezs argument to modern and contemporary
cosmological arguments, we might begin by asking what PSR, if any,
is implicit in Suarezs argument? First, Suarez, like other scholastics,
distinguishes between the being (esse) of propositions and the being (esse)
of essences. Propositions are true and thus real but their being (esse) is not
identical with existence. This is evident because we can say true things of
privations and negations, which have no existence. Therefore, propos-
itions do not have the robust sense of being attributed to essences. As a
57
ST i q. 2 a. 3c.
58
This distinction has come to play an important role in the formulation of Robert Koons new
contemporary cosmological arguments, as he moves from a non-defeasible to a defeasible causal
principle. See Koons 1997.
59 60
ST i q. 2 a. 3c. ST i q. 2 a. 3c.
result, for Suarez, the PSR should be interpreted as stating that only
existent contingent beings require a causal explanation for their existence
and not every fact, event, or state of affairs.
Second, the PSR can be interpreted as either strong (S-PSR) or weak
(W-PSR). Timothy OConnor has interpreted Duns Scotuss first premise
of the cosmological argument as a W-PSR rather than an S-PSR. Duns
Scotuss premise is as follows: Whatever is by definition such that the
possibility of existing from something else is incompatible with it is
such that, if it can exist, it can [my emphasis] exist from itself (a se).61
As OConnor points out, this leaves open the possibility that a things
existence is neither from itself nor from another. For Suarez, this is
impossible, for his metaphysical argument is based on the principle that
everything that is made is made by another, so that everything that
comes into existence must have a cause. Therefore, if it cannot come from
something else, and if it can exist, then it necessarily must be self-caused.
The problem here I believe is connected to William Rowes distinction
between the claims Whatever exists is caused to exist by something else
and Whatever is caused to exist is caused to exist by something else.62
If we begin with the former, it seems that we can accept an W-PSR, but,
if we begin with the latter, as Suarez does, then an S-PSR is necessary.
This leaves Suarezs argument open to many of the criticisms that have
been lodged against the first part of the cosmological arguments that
use the S-PSR.63
The second part of the cosmological argument is essential and it is here,
I think, that Suarez can contribute most to contemporary discussions.
Notice that this is a problematic part of the argument and one that has
not received the attention it deserves. For instance, in his criticism of
Robert Koons argument, Graham Oppy points out: Even if one were
persuaded by Koons argument for the existence of a first cause, one might
still think that he hasnt come at all close to proving the existence of
anything like the familiar God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.64 Suarez
clearly defines the notion of God that he intends to demonstrate before
beginning his proofs for the claim that the uncreated being is one and thus
the one true God.
61
John Duns Scotus, Tractatus de primo principio, c. 3 sec. 19. In OConnor 1993: 18. OConnor is
using an unpublished translation by Norman Kretzmann.
62
Rowe 1975: 22.
63
See Oppy 2009 for taxonomy of the various kinds of cosmological arguments and corresponding
objections.
64
Oppy 1999: 381.
5.4 conclusion
Suarezs argument for the existence of God begins with a metaphysical
cosmological argument for the existence of an uncreated being. He then
defines God as an uncreated being that is the creator of all things. To
complete his proof, he uses a model of the teleological argument and
a model of the ontological argument to demonstrate that there can be
only one uncreated being. The demonstrations that there can be only one
uncreated being also demonstrate that all beings necessarily depend for
their existence on the one uncreated being; and therefore the one uncre-
ated being must be the creator of all things, and hence the one true God.
How do the scientific discoveries of the twentieth century affect Suarezs
argument?
His argument is based on metaphysical principles and therefore scien-
tific facts about the universe have little effect, if any, on the strength of it.
He deliberately avoids the version of the cosmological argument based on
physical principles taken from natural philosophy. Constructing his argu-
ment on metaphysical grounds, specifically the principle that everything
that is made is made by another, places his argument on a metaphysical
plane, distinct from that of the natural sciences. At the conclusion of
Disputation 29, Suarez reminds us:
But if someone attentively considers just the arguments offered, he will find that
also in their regard there is relevant what was said in the first Section, namely,
that just as the task of proving that there is some uncreated being belongs to the
metaphysician, although the physicist in some way begins and prepares the way,
so also to prove that unproduced being is only one, that it is the principle of all
other things which exist, and that therefore, it is the true God, is certainly the task
of the metaphysician.65
This does not mean, of course, that Suarezs argument is unassailable or

immune to all criticism; it simply means that an effective critique will
have to be based on metaphysical principles and arguments. So, while the
sanctuary of metaphysics cannot be immediately penetrated by empirical
theories about the universe, such as the Big Bang Theory, theories from
65
Quod si quis etiam rationes adductas attente consideret, inveniet hac etiam in parte locum habere,
quod 1 sect. dictum est, videlicet, sicut munus probandi dari aliquod ens increatum ad
metaphysicum spectat, quamvis physicus aliquo modo inchoet, vel paret viam ad talem
demonstrationem, ita etiam probare illud ens improductum esse unum tantum, et esse principium
reliquorum omnium, quae sunt, atque adeo esse verum Deum, etiam esse metaphysici opus; per
media enim metaphysica perficitur demonstratio. DM xxix.3.32.
the natural sciences can influence metaphysical principles, which in turn
can affect Suarezs metaphysical cosmological argument.
Moreover, while Suarez believed that the universe was like a machine
that operated through fixed mechanical laws, he did not believe that it was
possible to formulate a theory through natural reason about how the
universe came to its current state. He allows for the possibility that the
universe might have evolved from a more initial primitive state of cre-
ation. He argued that from the existence of a first and unique uncreated
being nothing could be determined through natural reason about the
process through which the world was created, leaving room for some
version of an evolutionary process for the formation of the universe.
Another highlight of Suarezs disputation is his view on alternate
universes. He was sympathetic to the argument that presented the possi-
bility of many universes, each having its own uncreated creator. He felt
that this argument presented a logically possible view, which no a poster-
iori argument could refute, and therefore served as an objection to his
teleological argument for the view that there can only be one uncreated
being. However, he also argued that since it could be shown a priori that
there could only be one uncreated being, the many-universes argument
could be refuted.
It is important to keep in mind that Suarez presents an aggregate of
argument for any one position. Sometimes he presents arguments that
he thinks are only probable and not necessary, and sometimes he presents
various arguments to demonstrate the same conclusion. However, he
believes that even though the same conclusion could be arrived at with
fewer arguments, the superfluity is justified on practical reasons. He claims
that since some people might be persuaded more by some arguments than
by others, it is necessary to present the most comprehensive case possible
for Gods existence. He explains toward the end of the disputation:
From all this, therefore, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that God exists. For
although, perhaps, some arguments from among those which have been given,
taken by themselves or individually, may not convince the intellect to the degree
that an obstinate man or one who is badly disposed could not find evasions,
nevertheless, all the arguments are efficacious and especially when they are taken
together they most sufficiently demonstrate the stated truth.66
66
Ex his igitur omnibus sufficienter demonstratum est Deum esse. Quanquam enim nonnullae
fortasse rationes ex his, quae tactae sunt, per se ac sigillatim sumtae, non ita convincant
intellectum, quin homo protervus, aut male affectus, possit evasiones invenire, nihilominus et
omnes rationes sunt efficacissimae, et praecipue simul sumptae sufficientissime praedictam
veritatem demonstrant. DM xxix.3.32.
Therefore, Suarez intended his argument to be considered holistically.
As a consequence, a proper and charitable reading of his argument for the
existence of God must engage in a comprehensive treatment of the whole
of Disputation 29 and, perhaps, other sections of the other fifty-three
disputations. I hope that this chapter will motivate further work and
analysis of Suarezs argument for the existence of God.
chapter 6
Action and freedom in Suarezs ethics

Thomas Pink
6.1 human action and its place in suarezs ethics

Fundamental to Suarezs ethics is the idea of actus humani of fully
human actions. These are the properly intentional or deliberate
actions that adult humans perform and through which they can
exercise the power of freedom. It is these actions by which humans
conform to or breach law in its various forms, and on the basis of
which they may be deserving of reward or punishment; and it is by
these actions, therefore, that humans determine their final salvation or
damnation.
Human action is understood by Suarez to consist in a distinctive mode
of exercising rationality. But, so understood, the nature of action does
not of itself deliver the reality of or constitute the nature of freedom.
Freedom is something additional to our capacity for rationality, being a
distinctively contingent efficient causal power that we possess as agent-
substances. The existence and reality of this power is revealed to us
directly through our consciousness through our awareness of our
possession and exercise of the power. And it is from its connection with
freedom that action derives its central ethical significance. Our freedom
allows us to be subject to a distinctively practical or action-governing
normativity of law a normativity which importantly both helps deter-
mine our moral status and directs our actions. Law leaves us in possession
of moral rights, but also subject to moral obligations which bind us in
the exercise of our freedom. So freedom provides a moral basis not only
for moral and political liberty, but also for our liability to coercion and
punishment. All these are founded on our subjection, through our
rational and free nature, to various kinds of legal jurisdiction, including,
most fundamentally, the pre-positive or purely moral jurisdiction
involved in natural law.
115
116 t h o ma s p i n k
6.2 agency, goal-directedness and the exercise

of reason in practice-constituting form
Since Aristotle it has been natural to think of agency as involving the
intentional adoption and employment of means to ends. An action is an
event that is intentionally directed to the attainment of an end an end
the real or apparent desirability of which motivates the actions perform-
ance, and that motivates performance of the action as a means to the ends
attainment. Such a model of agency as essentially goal-directed obviously
still applies even when the action is performed for its own sake even
when the actions performance constitutes just of itself the attainment of
the very end at which that performance is directed.
We often refer to the goal of an action as being the object at which both
it and its agent are directed: as we might put it, the agents object in
waving like that was to alert his friends, or his waving had as its object the
giving of an alert. This reminds us that the goal of an action is some sort
of object of the agents thought, to which his action is a response, and one
which by its very nature as action involves the adoption of means to the
objects attainment. So understood, the goal-directedness of agency seems
part of a wider phenomenon. For there is more than one way in which
we can entertain an object of thought and respond to it, with our response
having that object of thought as its object. An object of thought can be
the object of a belief or desire or intention or emotion. And the belief,
desire, intention or emotion is our responding to that object of thought
in a distinctive way; the response might be cognitive, desiderative or
emotional depending on whether we respond to the object as true (belief)
or as desirable or good (desire or intention) or as worthy of the specific
emotion (lovely or fearful and so again as good or bad in some relevant way).
And in the case of all these ways of responding to objects of thought,
we as adult humans are exercising our capacity for reason, for respond-
ing to justifications, in correspondingly various ways. For objects of
thought can be seen as justifying (or failing to justify) the responses we
make to them, the mode of justification corresponding to the kind of
response made. Thus an object of thought justifies belief directed at it by
virtue of that objects truth or likelihood of truth; whereas that same
object would justify the desire for it by virtue of its goodness rather than
its truth. Indeed it might seem that this is what human reason is all
about: the proper exercise of our psychological capacities so as to leave
ourselves directed as we should be both towards what is true and towards
what is good.
Action and freedom in Suarezs ethics 117
If we are to understand action as something goal-directed, and then
understand goal-directedness as a mode of object-direction, then the
theory of action will take the following form. It will characterise action
in terms of a distinctive relation that actions have to their objects, as part
of a wider theory of human rationality in which various modes of
responding to objects of thought and the psychological capacities those
responses involve are similarly characterised through their relation to their
objects. Action will be constituted by being a distinctively practical or
practice-constituting mode of exercising rationality, in which the action is
related to its object not (as in the case of belief) as something true, nor
simply (as in the case of mere desire) as something good, but as a goal as
something good to be attained through the action.
This, we shall see, is the form that the theory of action took within the
scholastic tradition that Suarez inherited. This theory of action was
practical-reason-based in just the way described, action being characterised
as just such a distinctively practical way of exercising rationality as an
exercise of reason which is directed at an object of thought as a goal or end.
6.3 the voluntarium and the practical-reason-based

model of action
Intentional action for Suarez occurs as the voluntarium, which consists in
the occurrence of actions either of the will itself or of other capacities or
faculties motivated by the will. Now Suarezs general conception of action
is one he fully shares with such influential scholastic predecessors as
Scotus and Aquinas. Scotus had already characterised praxis or intentional
action as the exercise of a faculty that has the function of being moved and
directed by reason: specifically, by a practical or praxis-guiding reason as it
directs the operation of faculties besides the intellect itself.
Also note that praxis or practice is an act of some power or faculty other than
intellect, that naturally follows an act of knowledge or intellection, and is suited
by nature to be elicited in accord with correct knowledge if it is to be right.1
In other words action occurs as the exercise of a capacity to be moved or
directed by practical reason to respond motivationally to intellectual
presentations of some goal as good or as bearing some other practical
1
Sciendum etiam est quod praxis est actus alterius potentiae quam intellectus, naturaliter posterior
intellectione, natus elici conformiter intellectioni rectae, ad hoc quod sit rectus. John Duns Scotus,
Lectura, prologue, part 4, qq. 12, in Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, ed. A. B. Wolter
(Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1986), pp. 1268.
value. The exercise of this rational capacity might be defective as well as
competent. What we think of as good might not really be such, or we
might direct our response other than to something we recognise as good;
the practical-reason-based conception of agency allows for action that is
irrational. The status of what we do as fully intentional human action as
what Suarez will call the perfectly voluntarium still depends on the
involvement of what is a genuine capacity for rationality, even if in some
cases this capacity is misexercised.
The faculty where praxis occurs, according to Scotus, is the will. As he
puts it:
From all this it follows that nothing is formally praxis except an imperated or
elicited act of will, because no act other than that of will is elicited in agreement
with a prior act of the intellect.2
For will is the faculty in which we exercise our capacity to respond to objects
intellectually presented to us as good and respond to them motivationally
as goals to be attained. The will is our capacity for decision-making, when
we direct ourselves towards objects of thought possible outcomes as
goals, by deciding to attain them.
Aquinas characterised action in the same way as a rational operation
as the exercise of a capacity for rationality3 in which the agent is moved by
the cognition of an object as a goal or end.4 And actions thus characterised
are clearly to be found in actions of the will: for an act of will is nothing
other than a certain inclination proceeding from an internal cognitive
principle.5
Suarez himself, in his commentary on Aristotles De anima, endorses
Scotuss account, using Scotuss own term praxis. There Suarez distin-
guishes an actus practicus of the intellect an exercise of the intellect
directed at truth that involves arriving at a conclusion about what is to be
done, and which presents that doing as good from praxis or action itself,
in which we aim or direct ourselves at that doing as our goal:
2
Ex hoc sequitur quod nihil est praxis formaliter nisi actus voluntatis imperatus vel elicitus, quia
nullus actus sequitur actum intellectus cui conformiter elicitur nisi actus voluntatis, quia omnes
actus aliarum potentiarum possunt praecedere actum intellectus, sed non actus voluntatis. Scotus,
Lectura, prol. pars 4, qq. 12.
3
voluntarium est actus qui est operatio rationalis. ST i-ii q. 6 a. 1 sc. 1, citing John Damascene, De
fide orthodoxa, xi 24.
4
ad rationem voluntarii requiritur quod principium actus sit intra, cum aliqua cognitione finis. ST
i-ii q. 6 a. 2c.
5
actus voluntatis nihil est aliud quam inclinatio quaedam procedens ab interiori principio
cognoscente. ST i-ii q. 6 a. 4c.
for an actus practicus is that exercise of the intellect which orders or directs some
action, while praxis surely is the action which is regulated and ordered by the
actus practicus.6
Where is action understood in practical-reason-based terms to be found?
It seems to be found at two points. It is certainly to be found as internal or
elicited action at the point of the will itself, in acts of decision or choice;
and it might seem also to be found in external or commanded form in the
actions of other faculties motivated by the will the electio or decision or
choice to perform them.
Elicited actions of the will Commanded or willed actions of other faculties

(actus eliciti or interni ) (actus imperati or externi )
decision/choice to do A doing A
It is clear why decisions or choices should count as actions in

practical-reason-based terms. For decisions or choices have the function
of applying and executing our deliberations about which willed or
commanded actions we should perform, such as about whether we
should give someone alms or not. The object of a decision is the willed
action decided upon; and the point and function of the decision is to
lead to the performance of the action willed something that the
decision has as its goal. Hence decisions are directed at their objects
just as any action is to its goal. And that makes decisions actions in
their own right.
In fact by contrast to modern theories of action, Suarez and his
scholastic predecessors viewed the elicited actions of the will not only as
intentional actions in their own right, but as the form taken by intentional
action in its primary and immediate form. Human intentional action was
conceived, as we have noted, as the exercise of a rational capacity a
capacity to be moved by reason. But for Suarez, this model of agency was
understood in terms of a dualism of reason. There was a clear division
6
Tam forte dissensio est de nomine, nam actus practicus dicitur ille actus intellectus quo ordinat aut
dirigit operationem aliquam, praxis vero dicitur illa operatio quae regulatur et ordinatur per
actionem practicam intellectus, nam praxis nomen graecum est, latine operationem
significans. Et hic videtur communis usus vocabulorum. Et ita communiter praxis est actus
alterius potentiae ab intellectu; actus ver practicus est elicitus ab ipso intellectu. Anim. ix.9.11.
between faculties or capacities such as the intellect or will by which we
deployed general concepts, such as a concept of the good, and so in a way
directly responsive to reason, and other capacities, such as the capacities
for corporeal motion involved in much action of the willed or com-
manded sort. The former faculties, as befitted the dignity that placed
reason and the properly intellectual above matter, were immaterial. They
lacked a bodily organ, and survived bodily death without corruption. In so
far as action involved the exercise of a capacity to respond to intellectually
presented objects as ends or goals, its primary occurrence must be within
an immaterial intellectual faculty the faculty of the will as a rational
motivational power or appetite.
So suppose someone exercises some capacity other than that of the will
itself in the performance of some action perhaps by stretching out a
hand to give alms. Extending ones hand is the exercise of a corporeal
locomotive capacity; and the exercise of such a capacity cannot of itself
constitute an exercise of reason directed at an object as its goal. So we
cannot explain the status of giving alms as an intentional action directly in
terms of the practical-reason-based model.
Instead we have to explain the status as action of the exercise of such a
corporeal capacity in terms of its being in a certain relation to a prior act of
the will to which the practical-reason-based model directly applies. When-
ever I intentionally give alms, the following occurs: first, there is an
intrinsically active event of my willing that I give alms, the status of which
as agency is explained by its very nature as my exercise of my immaterial
capacity to be moved by reason towards an object of thought as my goal.
This is an elicited or internal act of the will elicited in relation to the will
because an act of the very faculty of will itself, and internal because
occurring within the very faculty of will. This elicited act of the will has
as its object the further willed action of giving alms an action which it
then efficiently causes and informs. The alms-giving then occurs as an
imperated or commanded external act of the will as an effect and object of
the first elicited act that occurred within the will itself, and external because
occurring outside the will itself. As a practical mode of exercising reason,
the elicited act counts intrinsically as an instance of the voluntarium;
whereas the imperated act is only extrinsically a case of the voluntarium,
by virtue of its standing as effect and object of the prior eliciting action:
The voluntarium in the way of an imperated act, is nothing else than a certain
character or denomination of the imperated act received from an elicited act, of
which the imperated act is object and effect. For an imperated act is termed
voluntarium simply because it proceeds from an elicited act of the will, and is in a
measure informed by it, and with it constitutes one morally significant act.7
Suarez thus gave a hybrid account of intentional agency. The overall
theory is practical-reason-based. Whenever human action occurs, there
must be some elicited action that occurs as an intrinsically active exercise
of the will of a capacity to be rationally moved by some object as a goal.
And this goal or object is internal to the action itself. But the status of
the willed actions that are exercises of corporeal faculties then has to be
explained in other terms by virtue of their being willed objects and
effects of the elicited actions of the will itself. And the goals of these
commanded actions come from without from the objects of the elicited
acts of the will that are their efficient causes.
6.4 freedom of will

The practical-reason-based theory of action was common property to
scholastic action theorists generally. But this consensus did not prevent
important divisions, both about the nature of the will itself and of the
freedom exercised in and through its elicited acts.
Is the operation of the will tied, as Thomist intellectualism thought, to
that of the intellect? Thus on Aquinass view an act of the will stands as
matter to form provided by judgments of the practical intellect, so that an
act of electio must by its very nature be informed by a practical judgment
that the action chosen is best or is the action that should be performed.
Or is a more voluntarist view to be adopted, as it was within the Scotist
tradition, that leaves the will capable to some degree of opposing the
judgment of the practical intellect? The practical-reason-based model of
action might give the will the function as a rational motivational power or
appetite of responding to judgments of the intellect about the goodness of
various goals or ends. But the model did not of itself resolve the question
of how closely tied the wills actual operation is to that of the intellect.
It is easy to see why there could be dissension about freedom also, and
why the scholastic consensus about the nature of action was not necessar-
ily to be reproduced at the level of the theory of freedom. For freedom is
7
voluntarium per modum actus imperati, nihil enim aliud est, quam habitudo, seu denominatio
quaedam in actu imperato ab actu elicito, cuius est obiectum et effectus, non enim alia ratione actus
imperatus voluntarius dicitur, nisi quia procedit ab actu elicito voluntario, et ab ipso quodammodo
informatur, et cum illo constituit unum actum moralem . . . Tota ergo difficultas revocatur ad actus
elicitos. Francisco Suarez, De voluntario et involuntario in genere, deque actibus voluntariis in speciali,
in Opera omnia, ed. M. Andre and C. Berton, 28 vols. (Paris: Vives, 185678), vol. iv, p. 160.
a capacity or power of self-determination a power of the agent to
determine for himself which actions he performs. So it involves a relation
between the agent as determiner to his action as something determined.
But goal-directedness as explained so far seems to involve something very
different a relation between the action and an object of thought at which
the action is directed, an object of thought which stands to the action as
its goal. And it is simply not clear why a theory of goal-directedness, of the
relation of the action to its object, should either deliver or be delivered by
a theory of self-determination, which would be a theory of a very different
relation that of the agent to the action. Hence the scholastic tradition
could contain a general practical-reason-based consensus about the nature
of human action itself, but nevertheless a considerable dissension about
the nature of freedom the power of the human agent to determine
action that gave action much of its ethical significance. Where freedom
was concerned, Suarez was faced by Thomist and Scotist models that were
very different.
Why was there so much dissension about the nature of freedom? One
factor must be a tension within our understanding of freedom itself. For
we naturally take freedom to be an excellence that comes to us with our
capacity for reason, and specifically with our capacity to exercise reason in
the practical sphere. And it seems that rationality can hardly detract from
freedom. A being such as God who is perfect in his rationality must also
consistently with this perfect rationality be perfect also in his freedom. It
is tempting even to identify freedom with the capacity for reason.
But at the same time we naturally conceive freedom to be a quite
distinctive sort of power to determine for ourselves what we do. And the
form that this power takes, as we ordinarily and intuitively understand it,
is of an at least two-way power over alternatives that leaves it up to us
which actions we perform. The very same power that we exercise to
determine that we give alms is one that we could have exercised to refrain.
For that is the very nature of freedom, and that is how the power leaves us
determining our action for ourselves: it leaves it up to us whether or not
we perform a given action. To have the power to do A freely is of necessity
to have the very same power to refrain.
But then it follows that there is a considerable gap between the power
of freedom so conceived and rationality. For rationality does not inher-
ently depend on any power over alternatives, it might be thought; indeed
it will not do so in any case where there is only one reasonable option, and
any alternative would be unreasonable. In any case, in so far as a theory of
rationality concentrates on the relation between a response we make and
the reason-giving object to which that response is directed, it seems to
bypass the proper subject of freedom which, as we have already noted, is
surely the rather different relation of the agent as determiner to his
response as something he determines.
There is then a tension within scholastic theories of freedom between
approaches that assume a close relation between freedom and rationality,
and which indeed strive to model freedom in terms of some aspect of
practical reason, and approaches which, while perhaps allowing that
rationality is a condition of freedom, emphasise that freedom as a power
over alternatives is distinct from any capacity for rationality.
Aquinass theory of freedom occupies a point towards the rationalist
end. While allowing that freedom is a power over alternatives, the nature of
that power is modelled in terms of a distinctive structure within practical
reason. Practical reason in this life presents us with a variety of possible
ends as finitely and imperfectly good in some respect or other. And it is this
multiplicity of finite goods that gives us freedom and gives it to us both
at the point of the will but also in the judgments of the practical intellect
that, according to Thomist intellectualism, inform the will. For Aquinas,
since the final choice of the will is informed by a judgment on the part
of the agent to the effect that that end should be pursued, the freedom of
the wills choice consequently requires a freedom also in respect of that
informing judgment a freedom provided by the nature of the good,
which is both the object of the judgments cognition and the wills goal.
The will is the subject of freedom, but reason is its cause.8
Whereas Suarez adheres to a more Scotist approach, according to
which, though the structure of practical reason permits the existence of
freedom, it does not actually constitute the presence of that power.
A Thomist structure of reason is taken by Suarez to provide an essential
condition of freedom, but without being of itself sufficient to constitute
freedoms nature. Suarez agreed with Aquinass intellectualism to this
extent, that the willing of a particular object presupposed some judgment
picking out that object as in at least some respect good. So he agreed that
essential to human freedom was the fact that the intellect presents the will
with alternative objects of volition that are represented as each being good
in certain respects.
But then Suarezs account of freedom left Aquinass intellectualism
behind. Suarez insists that the intellect itself is not a locus of freedom.
8
Ad secundum dicendum quod radix libertatis est voluntas sicut subiectum: sed sicut causa, est
ratio. ST III q. 17 a. 1 ad. 2.
Freedom belongs only to the will that the intellect serves to guide. Since
the intellect is not a locus of freedom, and freedom is inconsistent with
being determined by what is not free, the intellect cannot determine the
free operation of the will. So, provided that there are alternatives, each of
which is judged to possess some good, no judgment of the intellect serves
to determine the willing of that particular object. For example, I can
freely will an action that I judge to be worse than alternatives, provided
I judge it to be good in at least some respect. So in general, in this life in
via the operation of the will is free. That will not be true in heaven in
patria where the absolute goodness of the beatific vision will be an offer
the blessed are not free to refuse.
Freedom consists in a distinctive kind of efficient causal power that
certainly presupposes rationality, and indeed without which our capacity
for rationality would have no point. But what finally gives us knowledge
of our freedom is not our knowledge of our own rationality, but our
awareness of the power itself. What tells us that we are free is as Scotus
seems earlier also to have thought9 our direct experience of our posses-
sion of a two-way power to do or to refrain. That we can reason and
deliberate about how to act points us to the reality of freedom, without
which these capacities for reasoning and deliberation would be useless.
But it is experience that informs finally of the actual existence of this
power.
Second we can argue from experience. For it is evident to us from experience that
it is within our power to do a given thing or to refrain from doing it; and we use
reason, discourse and deliberation in order to incline ourselves towards the one
rather than the other. That is why choice is placed in our control. Otherwise as
Damascene correctly observed in the place cited above, this ability to ponder and
deliberate would have been given to us in vain. Consider also the ordinary way of
performing and guiding human actions through advice, through laws and precepts,
through exhortations and censures, through promises of reward and threats of
punishment. All this would be superfluous if human beings operated by a necessity
of nature and not by their own freedom.10
9
Ad secundum, aposteriori probatur. Experitur enim qui vult se posse velle sive nolle, iuxta quod de
libertate voluntatis alibi diffusius habetur. John Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in Metaphysicam, ix,
q. 15 in Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality, p. 152.
10
Secundo argumentari possumus ab experientia; experimur enim evidenter, situm esse in nostra
potestate aliquid agere vel omittere, et ad hoc utimur ratione et discursu ac consultatione, ut in
unam partem potius quam in aliam inclinemur; est ergo electio posita in nostro arbitrio; alioqui, ut
recte dixit Damascenus supra, fuisset nobis data superflue haec deliberandi et consultandi vis. Huc
accedit usitatus modus operandi, et gubernandi humanas actiones per consilia, per leges et
praecepta, per exhortationes ac reprehensiones, per promissiones praemiorum, et comminationes
The power of freedom is causal but its bearer is an agent, it is two-
way, and its exercise is inconsistent with necessity. So there are two kinds
of cause the free causes that are free agents and all other causes which
are necessary. A necessary cause can produce but one effect, which follows
necessarily from it. But a free cause is not governed by any such necessity.
A free cause operates contingently, in that it is antecedently undetermined
whether or not it will produce one given effect or another.
6.5 freedom and law

It is natural for many people nowadays to view freedom and law simply as
phenomena that are opposed or that are at least in profound tension with
each other. On this view, the function of law is to impose necessary
constraints on freedom; and human freedom in turn imposes limits
on the constraints that law can justifiably impose. Following his own
tradition, Suarezs conception of the relationship between freedom and
law was more complex. For Suarez freedom and law are fundamentally
harmonious phenomena. Not only does law presuppose freedom but
freedom, far from being limited by law, is also, in at least one of its
forms, constituted by law.
It is important to note that there are at least two different kinds of
freedom that matter to us in our ethical thinking, and that were addressed
in Suarezs own work. First, there is what we have already been discussing:
freedom as metaphysical freedom a two-way power of control over
decision and action. But, second, there is freedom as a moral right, either
as a right or liberty to do things or, falling short of that, at least as a right
not to be compelled or coerced from doing or attempting them.
For Suarez, the basic or foundational kind of freedom is freedom as a
two-way metaphysical power. According to Suarez, as for the rest of his
tradition, this power of freedom has a definite function. Like the action
that it is used to determine, it serves to attain the good. But because it
leaves its agent free to determine for himself how he pursues that end, and
whether he really manages to attain it at all, the power requires direction.
And the needed direction is provided by reason in the form of law. Law is
a distinctive form taken by practical reason, and one which presupposes
the very metaphysical power of freedom that it directs.
poenarum, quae omnia supervacanea essent, si homo necessitate naturae et non libertate sua
operaretur. DM xix.2.13.
For that which does not fall within the realm of freedom does not fall within that
of law; but what is absolutely impossible does not come within the realm of
freedom, since the latter of its very nature demands power to choose either of two
alternatives; and therefore what is impossible cannot be the subject-matter of law.
Similarly, in cases of transgression or omission which cannot be reckoned as
involving guilt or calling for punishment, it is impossible for law to intervene.
For it is a part of the intrinsic nature of law that it shall contain some intrinsic
element of obligation; but the omission to perform impossible deeds cannot be
accounted guilt (any more than the performance of what is absolutely necessary is
accounted deserving of a reward); and therefore laws cannot be concerned with
matters of this sort.11
Law constitutes a system of obligations and rights. The obligations
address us as free agents and demandingly direct us in the exercise of our
metaphysical freedom. By their very nature obligations leave us respon-
sible for meeting them and deserving of blame and punishment for their
breach. But law also gives normative recognition to our metaphysical
freedom by according us rights which rights therefore include liberties
or rights to determine for ourselves what we do: So also liberty is natural
to man, since he possesses it by virtue of natural law.12
And:
If, however, we are speaking of the natural law of dominion, it is then true that
liberty is a matter of natural law, in a positive, not merely a negative sense, since
nature itself confers upon man the true dominion of his liberty . . . For liberty
rather than slavery is a precept of the natural law, for this reason, namely, that
nature has made men free in a positive sense (so to speak) with an intrinsic right
to liberty, whereas it has not made them slaves in this positive sense, strictly
speaking.13
It is to Suarezs general conception of law that we must now turn, central
as it is to understanding the place of freedom in his ethical thought.
11
Quia quidquid non cadit sub libertatem, non cadit sub legem; quod autem simpliciter impossibile
est, non cadit sub libertatem, cum libertas intrinsece requirat potestatem ad utrumque: ergo nec
potest esse materia legis. Item ubi transgressio seu omissio non potest imputari ad culpam vel
poenam, non potest ibi lex intervenire, quia de intrinseca ratione eius est ut aliquam intrinsecam
obligationem induat: sed omittere quod impossibile est, non potest imputari ad culpam: sicut nec
imputatur ad praemium facere quod simpliciter necessarium est: ergo non possunt leges in
huiusmodi rebus versari. DL i.9.17.
12
Sic etiam libertas est homini naturalis, quia ex vi iuris naturalis illam habet. DL ii.14.6.
13
At vero si loquamur de iure naturali dominativo, sic verum est libertatem esse de iure naturali
positive, et non tantum negative, quia ipsa natura verum dominium contulit homini suae libertatis
. . . Nam hac ratione libertas est de iure naturae, potius quam servitus, quia natura fecit homines
positive (ut sic dicam) liberos cum intrinseco iure libertatis, non tamen ita fecit positive servos,
proprie loquendo. DL ii.14.16.
Law for Suarez is not primarily or simply the law that is the topic of
modern jurisprudence the civil or positive law that is the creation of
contingent human legislation. Law is primarily a distinctive form taken by
reason as it governs the free actions of rational beings, directing what they
do with the force of moral obligation. Reason in this form is law in its
natural form, governing the actions not of this or that group under some
merely local and contingent jurisdiction, but of free and rational creatures
generally.
What distinguishes those normative standards which carry the force
of law which contain moral obligations from those which do not?
There is one very natural answer. A standard that is morally obligatory is a
standard breach of what is not foolish, or merely inept, but blameworthy.
We should understand obligation in terms of its link with the special
kind of criticism that meets breaches of moral obligation the criticism
that is moral blame or blame for doing wrong. The advantage of
appealing to blame is that it does seem to pick out what is so special
about moral obligation namely its demanding nature. Moral obligations
demand our compliance and do not merely advise it, so to speak, in
that breach of the obligation is not merely foolish, but blameworthy.
Blame is a distinctively condemnatory criticism; and that makes moral
obligation a potentially condemnatory, and so demanding, kind of a
standard. Many theories of moral obligation are accordingly blame-
centred. A blame-centred theory of moral obligation takes moral blame
to be a distinctive normative criticism; and then explains moral obligation
by reference to it. Moral obligation is understood as that standard which,
in the absence of excuse, it is blameworthy to breach, and so as a standard
which applies only to that for which we might be morally responsible and
to blame.
As we shall see, at the heart of Suarezs conception of law was just such
a blame-centred conception of moral obligation. Indeed a blame-centred
conception of moral obligation is arguably a general feature of late
scholastic theories of law. But Suarez brings to his account of obligation
a distinctive conception of blame. Many modern theorists of blame, such
as Bernard Williams, have tended to see it as a form of punishment or
sanction, taking moral obligation then to be a standard that by its very
nature is enforced by sanction or pressure.14 But it is important that, as
with others in his tradition, Suarez understood blame in a very different
14
Williams 1985: especially 18593.
way. Though breach of moral obligation might bring with it desert of
punishment, no punishment need actually be imposed. And the blame
that meets breach of moral obligation was not itself a kind of punishment
or sanction, but was instead a form of rational criticism for breach of a
standard of reason. Moral obligation is a distinctive form taken by prac-
tical reason a form in which it directs not simply our reason, but our
freedom or our power of self-determination. And blame, for Suarez as for
other scholastics, is a distinctive rational criticism directed at the misuse of
freedom, and one that asserts a specifically freedom-directive rational or
justificatory force or vis directiva the force of moral obligation. Suarez
used a blame-centred conception of obligation to develop what I shall call
a Force model of moral obligation.
To understand more of what a Force model of moral obligation
involves we need to look in very general terms at the structure of practical
justification or reason, and at what elements it involves.15 Consider what
Suarez termed external or commanded actions actions that, as already
explained, whether mental or bodily are external to the will itself, and that
we intentionally perform, when we do, on the basis of some prior will or
motivating pro attitude towards performing the action, such as a prior
decision or intention to perform it.
Deliberation or reasoning about how to act, practical deliberation, is
principally and centrally about which such external actions to perform
such as about whether to pay someone a sum of money, and the like. In
deliberating we consider the various features which these possible external
actions have. We consider the actions both as possible ends in themselves,
things possibly worth doing for their own sake, and as possible means to
attaining further ends. Certain features of the external actions such as,
say, the fact that paying someone money would fulfil a contract then
generate reasons or justifications for performing this external action rather
than another reasons having a certain kind of force. What kind of force
might this be? Not a causal force, still less one that just determines a
response to it. For people can perfectly well disregard the force of reason,
at the cost of counting as irrational for so doing. But even though no
causal determination is involved, we still use the term force in this
context to convey a kind of directive guidance: one that is not physical
but normative. That is, we use the term force to refer to the kind of
support that a justification provides for what it justifies. We say of a
consideration that gives strong support for a conclusion that it has great
15
What follows expands on material introduced in Pink 2005: 3151.
force, and we talk of the force of an argument. And the nature of this
justificatory force is clearly going to be linked to something else the kind
of criticism that someone is liable to if they disregard the justification
provided. For, as we shall see, that criticism will assert and defend the
force that has been disregarded.
It is important that we immediately respond to the force of this
practical justification, when we do, by deciding or forming an intention
to perform the action concerned. So the force of any practical justification
will apply at two points: to support the external action justified, but also,
at the point of motivation or will, to support a prior decision or intention
to perform that action. Take the fact that paying someone money would
fulfil a contract. Suppose this feature of the external action is a justifica-
tion for performing it for paying the money. If this justification is to
move us to act, it cannot apply to the external action of paying the money
alone. It must also apply to the will or motivation on which the perform-
ance of that external action depends. The justification must also support
deciding to pay the money. Otherwise even a reasonable agent would note
the justification for paying the money, but remain quite unmoved, as he
would lack any justification for deciding or becoming motivated to pay it.
And that would be absurd. Such justifications would no longer be
practical. They would no longer move even rational agents to act.
Motivation or will External action willed

Intention to do A Doing A
Justify with given force Features F, G ... of doing A
There are then two aspects to any practical justification. First there is
a feature of the external action from which the justification arises a
reason or justification-generating feature, such as that to pay the money
would fulfil a contract, a feature which gives us a reason to act. And such
a feature may well be found only at the point of the external action. It
need not apply to the will as well. After all, it is paying the money and
not intending to pay it which fulfils the contract. But then there is the
force of the justification given the kind of support which this feature
gives to paying the money. And, if the justification is to move us to act,
this force must apply, not just to the external action, but to the will to
perform it as well.
What kinds of justificatory force are there? One kind of justificatory
force is what I shall call the force of Recommendation. With this force
reasons recommend the actions which they support, or make the perform-
ance of those actions advisable. In so doing they may defeat rival reasons
for alternative actions and thereby leave the action justified more
advisable or sensible than those alternatives. To ignore the force of
Recommendation is to be liable for criticism as foolish or as less than
sensible. The scholastics were very familiar with this kind of justificatory
force. It is the force of what they called consilia or counsels.
If we think that moral obligation is a kind of rational standard, we have
to fit it into this general structure of practical justification. There is one
obvious way of doing so. This is to adopt what I call a Feature model
of moral obligation. We simply model moral obligatoriness as a reason-
giving feature. Suppose, for example, that I am under a moral obligation
to pay you money because that way I would fulfil my contract with you.
According to the Feature model, this means that because paying the
money would fulfil a contract the action has a further feature the feature
of being morally obligatory. And this feature itself supports the action and
moves us to act with the justificatory force which I have already mentioned
as being essential to rationality the force of Recommendation. The
moral obligatoriness of paying the money makes it advisable or even more
advisable to pay the money. Moral obligatoriness is a feature which adds
to the advisability of doing what is obligatory. So Recommendation, this
force that it is sensible to be moved by, less than sensible to disregard, is
the justificatory force which all reason-giving features generate; and moral
obligatoriness is one reason or justification-giving feature that generates
this force.
This view of obligation as a reason-giving feature would very plausibly
work for obligations that are not strictly moral for obligations that in
themselves are purely legal, or obligations under contingently legislated
civil or positive law. Legal as opposed to moral obligatoriness does seem to
be a legislatively created feature of an outcome the property of being
required by a legislative or legal authority a feature which we often see as
helping justify our production of that outcome, as giving us a reason to
produce it. If the law-abiding are asked why they are now driving below
thirty, they will give as their immediate reason that that is the new speed
limit; that is now what the law requires. The law-abiding will treat the
existence of the legal obligation as part of the reason or justification which
they have for doing what is legally obligatory. People respond to this
justification and obey the law, when they do, by noting the existence of
the legal obligation, deciding to produce the outcome that it makes
obligatory and justifies and by then producing this outcome on the
basis of that decision.
But there is another, quite different way of understanding the rational-
ity of moral obligation. This is to adopt what I have called a Force model of
moral obligatoriness. According to the Force model, moral obligatoriness
is not a further reason-giving feature at all. It is instead something quite
different. It is a new and distinctive kind of justificatory force. In addition
to the force of Recommendation, there is another force within practical
reason another way in which reasons can support actions. We might call
this force the force not of Recommendation but of Demand. And
according to the Force model, for an action to be morally obligatory is
for it to be justified with this force of Demand. Suppose paying the
money is morally obligatory because it would fulfil a contract. Then
according to the Force model, the moral obligatoriness of the action
consists in this: that the action would fulfil a contract is a reason for
performing it, and a reason which does not merely recommend the action,
or make its performance advisable, but demands its performance. And
this different kind of justificatory support or force is evidenced by the
distinctive kind of rational criticism with which disregard of it is met.
Those who disregard the justification are not criticised as merely foolish
or as less than sensible, but are blamed as wrongdoers.
It is clear that Francisco Suarez was committed to the Force model, not
the Feature model. Besides consilia, there is in his view another vis
directiva that guides our actions. This is the force of natural law, the
morally obligatory demands of which are communicated not by consilia or
counsels but by praecepta or precepts. And obligation under preceptive
natural law clearly takes the form not of any reason-giving feature but of a
justificatory force. It is not just that Suarez actually uses the phrase vis
directiva when characterising the binding nature of natural law. He makes
an assumption about moral obligation which only the Force model
validates. He regards it as a condition of moral obligatoriness moving us
to act that it directly apply to the will itself, and not just to the external
action willed. If moral obligation is to move us to pay a sum of money,
then, in Suarezs view, it follows that it is deciding to pay the money and
not just paying the money that must be morally obligatory. Suarez was
very clear about this, and regarded the point as quite uncontroversial in
his tradition. The law of nature speaks to us, he says, as the voice of our
reason; and so it must apply to and direct the will itself:
So teaches Saint Thomas and on this point everyone. And the point is established
because the law of nature is placed in reason, and immediately directs and
governs the will. So it is on the will first and foremost that as it were by its very
nature the obligation of the law is imposed. So the law is not kept unless through
the exercise of the will.16
The assumption makes sense if moral obligatoriness is a kind of justifi-
catory force. That is exactly how the force of a justification moves us to
perform an external action by equally supporting the decision so to
act. Notice that the assumption would not hold at all were moral obliga-
toriness a reason-giving feature. External actions have lots of reason-giving
features that move us to perform them, but which are not also found
applying to the will. An external action might be justified as obeying a
command, or as fulfilling a contract, or as helping the needy, without the
intention to perform the action counting as any of these things. Only the
justificatory support given by these features the justificatory force which
they exert need apply to decisions and intentions of the will.
With this force of moral obligation or Demand comes blame, as the
distinctive kind of rational criticism by which this particular force of reason
is asserted and defended. And the conception of moral blame deployed by
later scholastics generally, Suarez included, is to be found in Aquinas, who
in a passage widely cited within the subsequent tradition saw blame as a
form of rational criticism involving negative evaluation but one of a very
special kind. Blame for an action involves the condemnation of the action
as bad, and the imputation of the actions badness to its agent as his
responsibility: so blame asserts that not only is the action itself bad, but it
was bad of the agent to have performed it. And this imputation of the
actions badness to the agent the agent himself was bad to have acted as he
did is justified by the fact that agency, what we do or fail to do, is
something that we can determine for ourselves through the exercise of
freedom or our control of how we act. The actions badness can fairly be
imputed to us only because as regards our action we ourselves are in control:
16
Modus voluntarie operandi, sub praeceptum legis naturalis cadit, et ideo necessarius est, ut lex
naturalis servetur. Ita docet D. Thomas q. 100 art 9 et ibi omnes. Et probatur, quia lex naturalis in
ratione posita est, et immediate dirigit et gubernat voluntatem; ergo illi imponitur quasi per se, et
principaliter obligatio illius legis: ergo non observatur illa lex nisi mediante voluntate: ergo modus
voluntarie operandi est per se praeceptus, ac necessarius ad observationem talis legis. DL ii.10.4.
Hence a human action is worthy of praise or blame in so far as it is good or bad.
For praise and blame is nothing other than for the goodness or badness of his
action to be imputed to someone. Now an action is imputed to an agent when it
is within his power, so that he has dominion over the act. But this is the case with
all actions involving the will: for it is through the will that man has dominion
over his action . . . Hence it follows that good or bad in actions of the will alone
justify praise and blame; for in such actions badness, fault and blame come to one
and the same.17
Moral blame then asserts and assumes a special or moral responsibility a
responsibility for how we act that is based on our possession of the power
of freedom. In blame the moral character of an action is imputed to its
agent, and imputed to the agent because that agent himself determined,
through exercising freedom, that the action would be performed. That
means that the force of obligation that blame asserts and defends is a
justificatory force which is agency-specific. It applies to how we act and
to how we act in so far as our action is a locus of self-determining
freedom. As Suarez put it, laws, standards with the force of obligation,
govern only free, human action: lex tantum datur de humanis actibus.18
Of course, if moral obligatoriness is a justificatory force that is agency-
specific that applies to our capacity for action as a locus of freedom and
that alone and if any justificatory force must apply to the will, that has
an obvious implication. The will must itself be a capacity for action. And
so as we have seen Suarez believed, along with the rest of his tradition.
As we have already seen, both our freedom and capacity for deliberate
action are exercised first and foremost, not simply in what I have called
our external actions the actions such as paying money, or crossing the
road or thinking about where to go on holiday, that we perform on the
basis of deciding to perform them but also in the prior decisions so to
act. The scholastic conception of moral obligation as an agency-specific
justificatory force required what I have called the practical-reason-based
model of action, where action consists in a distinctively practical exercise
of our capacity for rationality. Only on that model is the response we
17
Ergo actus humanus ex hoc, quod est bonus vel malus, habet rationem laudabilis vel culpabilis
[. . .] nihil enim est aliud laudari vel culpari quam imputari alicui malitiam vel bonitatem sui actus.
Tunc autem actus imputatur agenti quando est in potestate ipsius, ita quod habeat dominium sui
actus. Hoc autem est in omnibus actibus voluntariis: quia per voluntatem homo dominium sui
actus habet . . . Unde relinquitur quod bonum vel malum in solis actibus voluntariis constituit
rationem laudis vel culpae; in quibus idem est malum, peccatum et culpa. ST i-ii q. 21 a. 2c.
18
Suarez is absolutely insistent that precepts of law only address free acts: Addo praeterea, loquendo
de propria lege, de qua nunc agimus, tantum esse posse propter creaturam rationalem: nam lex non
imponitur, nisi naturae liberae, nec habeat pro materia, nisi actus liberos. DL i.3.2.
make at the point of motivation and will to justifications for external
actions, such as those provided with the agency-specific force of obliga-
tion, by its very nature a case of free action itself.
I have been presenting this late scholastic natural law theory as really a
theory of a distinctive justificatory force within practical reason a force
that is agency-specific, just as is moral blame, blame for doing wrong, the
criticism with which it is linked. But was not the natural law also seen as a
moral law in this sense something that arises out of moral legislation,
out of the decrees of God as moral law-giver? So it was by some, Francisco
Suarez very notably included. As Suarez claimed, for law and obligation is
required the legislative will of a superior; and the content of this will is
that those subject to the superior be obligated.
it is necessary that [this will] concern the obligation of subjects, that is that it be a
will to obligate those subjects, for without such a will the subjects will not be
obligated.19
But the view of natural law as arising through divine legislation was not
universal in late scholasticism. There were also those who saw the natural
law as without legislative origin as a law without a law-maker. Such an
account of how natural law exists prior to and independent of any
legislation is to be found in the work of Suarezs fellow Jesuit and
argumentative opponent Gabriel Vazquez.20 And this view of natural law
also had widespread support within the early modern Scotist tradition as
we find in the Franciscan John Punchs synopsis of late scholastic views on
moral obligation, in his supplement to the 1639 Lyons edition of Scotuss
Quaestiones in librum tertium sententiarum.21
The role of moral obligation as an evaluative standard asserted in
blame is used by both Vazquez and Punch to establish the priority of
the natural law over any legislative divine act, whether of the divine
reason or will. To establish the possibility of law prior even to Gods
making an act of judgment or command, Vazquez asserts the possibility
of culpa of blameworthy fault or guilt for breach of law prior to any
such act. Vazquez argues:
19
Per se requiritur ut sit de obligatione subditorum, id est, ut sit voluntas obligandi subditos, quia
sine tali voluntate non obligabit illos. DL i.4.8.
20
See Gabriel Vazquez, Commentarium ac disputationum in Primam secundae Sancti Thomae
(Ingolstadt: Andreas Angermarius, Inheritors of Martini Nutii and Ioannis Hertsroy, 1612).
21
See John Duns Scotus, Opera omnia, ed. L. Wadding, 12 vols. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968)
distinction 37, vol. vii, pp. 85777.
Badness in any action constitutes a fault; and in a free action it constitutes guilt:
so if prior to Gods prohibition we suppose badness in a free act against rational
nature, as must necessarily be granted, by that very fact there ought also to be
supposed moral guilt.22
We find the same approach in Punch:

When we have said that the natural law consists in a harmony or disharmony in
human actions, this should not be understood to mean just any harmony, but
rather that which determines the intellect to judge that to omit such an action
would be bad.23
In Punchs view, this general view of natural law means that, contrary to
Suarez, natural law cannot depend on divine commands:
since even if God never gave any command about the matter, it would still be bad
to kill a human being without reason, to show contempt for ones superiors, or to
expose oneself to clear danger of death, therefore even if natural law did not do so
by way of any particular commandment given by God, natural law would still
forbid such actions . . . for by the natural law we understand that on account of
which some action is good or bad independently of any positive law, and so
insofar as there would still be very many good and bad actions even if there were
no divine commands, there would still be a natural law even in the absence of
such commands.24
Suarez insists that the source of genuine obligation must lie in the will of a
superior. But he shares with Vazquez and Punch the same basic concep-
tion of moral obligation as a justificatory force asserted through blame
understood as a certain kind of negative evaluation of the agent and the
agents action. And so he is aware of the strength of Vazquezs position
indeed he comes close to conceding the substance of it:
22
malitia in quovis actu facit peccatum; in actu autem libero facit culpam: ergo si ante Dei
prohibitionem supponamus malitiam in actu libero contra naturam rationalem, ut necessario
fatendum est, debet etiam supponi hoc ipso culpa moralis. Vazquez, In ST I-II, d. 97 c. 3.
23
quando diximus legem naturalem consistere in convenientia aut disconvenientia operationum
humanarum, non debet hoc intellegi de quacumque convenientia sed debet intelligi de
convenientia tali, quae determinaret intellectum ad iudicandum quod omittere talem actum esset
malum. Scotus, Opera omnia, vol. vii, p. 863, para. 31.
24
quia quamvis Deus non haberet ullam iussionem, esset malum interficere aliquem hominem sine
causa; irreverentium exhibere superioribus; se ipsum exponere manifesto mortis periculo; ergo
quamvis non esset iussio ulla particularis Dei, qua illa prohiberet, aut iuberet, esset lex naturalis.
Probatur consequentia quia per legem naturalem intelligimus illud, propter quod aliqua actio esset
bona, vel mala, independenter a lege positiva, et consequenter quandoquidem darentur plurimae
actiones bonae vel malae, quamvis non daretur iussio aliqua Dei, daretur etiam lex naturalis sine
tali iussione. Ibid., p. 858, para. 4.
I therefore reply that in a human action there is indeed some goodness or badness
by virtue of the object positively aimed at, in as much as that object is compatible
or incompatible with right reason, so that by right reason the action can be
counted as bad, and a fault and blameworthy in that regard, apart from any
relation to law proper. But beyond this a human action has a particular character
of being good or bad in relation to God, when we add divine law forbidding or
decreeing, and in respect of that the human action counts in a particular way as a
fault or blameworthy in relation to God by virtue of its breaching of the genuine
law of God himself, which particular badness Paul seems to have referred to by
the name of transgression when he said, Where there is not law, neither is there
any transgression . . . The natural law precisely prohibits whatever is in itself bad
or disordered in human actions, and in the absence of such a prohibition an
action would not have the complete and unqualified character of a blameworthy
fault and offence against divine law, which character cannot be denied of acts
which definitely violate natural law.25
In arguing for the legislative origin of the natural law as legislated, Suarez
still assumed the consensus view of moral obligatoriness as a justificatory
force linked to evaluation and blame and did so despite the difficulties
this consensus posed for his position. For Suarez moral obligation is still
such a justificatory force. It is just that, in his view, the feature of being
decreed by a legislative superior such as God is necessary to generating
this force. And so moving within the evaluative and blame-centred
consensus this feature of being decreed by a superior is correspondingly
necessary, in Suarezs view, perhaps not to badness in general, but at least
to a special kind of badness: the badness that he takes to be involved in
wrongdoing proper, the badness that is imputed in blame for doing wrong.
So the idea of natural law that was common property to Suarez and
his contemporaries was not the idea of a set of divine decrees the place of
these in relation to natural law was an area of controversy but the idea of
something importantly different. It was the idea of something which gener-
ates a rational demand on action a justificatory force that we are morally
responsible for responding to and in some relevant way bad to disregard.
25
Respondeo igitur in actu humano esse aliquam bonitatem vel malitiam ex vi obiecti praecise
spectati, ut est consonum vel dissonum rationi rectae, ut secundum eam posse denominari, et
malum, et peccatum, et culpabilem secundum illos respectus, seclusa habitudine ad propriam
legem. Praeter hanc vero habet actus humanus specialem rationem boni et mali in ordine ad
Deum, addita divina lege prohibente vel praecipiente, et secundum eam denominatur actus
humanus speciali modo peccatum vel culpa ad Deum, ratione transgressionis legis propriae
ipsius Dei, quam specialem malitiam videtur Paulus significasse nomine praevaricationis cum
dixit, ubi non est lex, nec praevaricatio . . . lex naturalis vere et proprie prohibet quidquid
secundum se malum seu inordinatum est in actibus humanis, et sine tali prohibitione actus non
haberet . . . consummatam vel perfectam rationem culpae et offensae divinae, quae negari non
potest in actibus qui praecise sunt contra legem naturae. DL ii.6.17.
The issue between Suarez and his opponents such as Vazquez and Punch
was not the very existence of a distinctive justificatory force linked to blame
conceived as a negative evaluation and addressing the power of freedom.
Rather it seems that Suarez wished to restrict the extension of law and
obligation to a special case of this force one generated by divine
command, and involving a particular kind of badness, the particular
badness involved in disregard of divine commands whereas the view of
Suarezs opponents was that the involvement of divine commands did not
introduce anything qualitatively new. We simply have a further case of
a phenomenon, a general and already very distinctive mode of ethical
justification and evaluation that, even on Suarezs own admission, would
perfectly well arise even without divine commands. It was this special mode
of justification that was of ethical significance; and so it was this mode of
justification that, in their moral use, terms such as law and obligation
should be used to track.26
Law, then, for Suarez is a distinctive form of normativity a
demanding mode of rational justification and direction immediately
coming to us in natural or pre-positive form from morality itself, and
which fixes equally both moral rights, including normative freedom as
the right to do or at least not to be coerced from doing, and moral
obligations. This distinctive normativity of law addresses and directs the
power of metaphysical freedom a power which it presupposes in the
following four ways:
Law exists to direct freedom only because freedom is a power which we
can exercise in more than one way, and which consequently requires
direction towards the good and away from the bad.
Law by its very nature contains obligations, the demanding nature of
which is linked to blame, a criticism that asserts the force of obligation
26
This seems to be the essence of Punchs view see Scotus, Opera omnia, vol. vii, p. 859, para. 9. In
admitting that actions contrary to the natural law are already bad prior to Gods prohibition of
them, Suarez is effectively conceding Punch says that even prior to any divine command these
actions are already forbidden by natural law. The Suarezian claim that the command of God adds a
specialem malitiam to the action is not to the point. At best it shows that these actions can be made
worse by virtue of contravening a divine command, not that such actions are not, by virtue of being
already bad, already contrary to natural law. Punchs point is that Gods command may add to the
badness of the action it forbids. But it hardly changes the ethical substance of the situation
namely that the action is opposed by reason in a very distinctive way. It is that distinctive form of
rational opposition to the action that deserves the name of natural law. Being forbidden by God is
only one particular form of that opposition, and one that seems in no way normatively distinctive.
Clearly the issue between Suarez and his opponents deserves further discussion. See also the paper
by Terence Irwin, Chapter 7 in this volume.
to us when we disregard it. By its very nature blame addresses us as
free agents: it condemns our actions as bad, and imputes their badness
to us as our responsibility.
Though law need not actually be enforced by punishments or sanc-
tions, breach of law brings at least desert of punishment or sanction.
And desert of sanction presupposes that we are genuinely in control
of whether or not we obey the law or break it. Without that control,
we could not truly deserve punishment for breach of obligation. So
the use of coercion to enforce law, in the form of the threat of
punishments for its breach, serves not to remove but to direct the
power of freedom, a power which the fair imposition of punish-
ments presumes. In that sense, it is the very nature of law in all
its forms to leave us, at basis or fundamentally, metaphysically free
as before.
Law, in according us normative freedom in the form of rights to
determine for ourselves what we do, presupposes metaphysical free-
dom as the very capacity to determine for ourselves what we do. The
right presupposes the general capacity to exercise it.
6.6 the hobbesian critique

The distinctiveness of Suarezs view of freedom and the place he gives it in
his moral theory can be appreciated by contrasting him with Hobbes, whose
influence on subsequent English-language moral theory has been immense.
Hobbes developed his view of freedom and its place in moral theory
most clearly in his debate on liberty, necessity and chance with John
Bramhall, the Anglican bishop of Derry and in many respects a disciple of
Suarez in his own ethics.27 In that debate Hobbes denies that action
occurs as a distinctive mode of exercising rationality. Rather it occurs
simply as what Hobbes terms voluntary action the external action that
occurs outside the will itself as the effect of a prior willing that it be
performed. And since for Hobbes action is by its very nature the effect of a
prior willing of its performance, if the theory is not to prove regressive
those prior willings must themselves be passions or non-actions. The will
ceases to be a locus of action, and becomes merely a seat of passions not
themselves directly of the agents own doing. Action becomes by its very
nature an effect of passion.
27
See Thomas Hobbes, The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, clearly stated between
Dr Bramhall Bishop of Derry, and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (London, 1656).
In Hobbess view, the only power that is exercised in action is not a
power possessed and exercised by the agent to determine his actions for
himself but is instead a power of what following Hobbes we might term
voluntariness a power attaching to passive appetites or desires, within the
agent but distinct from him and not of his own doing, to get that agent to
act as desired. Indeed, the very notion of a power of self-determination is
viewed by Hobbes as viciously regressive:
And if a man determine himself, the question will still remain what determined
him to determine himself in that manner.28
There is then no such thing as a metaphysical power of freedom or liberty.
Blame is no longer a distinctive criticism addressing a power of self-
determination. For, properly understood, our ethical practice of blaming
or holding responsible presupposes no such power of freedom in the agent
blamed. According to Hobbes blame is no more than a form of disap-
proval; and so understood is far from presupposing any power of self-
determination in the person blamed. Why do we blame people?
I answer because they please us not. I might ask him, whether blaming be any
thing else but saying the thing blamed is ill or imperfect.29
Blame merely asserts a fault or imperfection. And there can be imperfection
or fault without any power in the thing that is imperfect to produce or
remove that fault. In which case agents can be blameworthy for evil or fault
in what they do whether or not it was within their power not to do it:
I answer, they are to be blamed though their wills be not in their power. Is not
good good and evill evill though they be not in our power? And shall I not call
them so? And is that not praise and blame? But it seems that the Bishop takes
blame not for the dispraise of a thing, but for a praetext and colour of malice and
revenge against him that he blameth.30
With the restriction of agency to voluntary action or action in its willed
or external form, so that action is left no more than an effect of a prior and
passive willing of it, action ceases to be a distinctively practical mode of
exercising rationality. For there is now no such thing as a distinctively
practical mode of exercising rationality. The exercise of reason that we
make when we respond motivationally to the force of a practical justifi-
cation must, in so far as it involves the will, now straddle the divide
between passion or non-action (at the point of the will) and action proper
(occurring solely at the point of the action willed). In the same way there
28 29 30
Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 40.
can no longer be an agency-specific mode of justification. The force of
any practical justification must equally and in the same way straddle the
activepassive divide:
Passion Action
Intention to do A Doing A
Justify with given force Features F, G ... of doing A
So moral obligatoriness as something agency-specific can no longer

take the form of a special and agency-specific justificatory force. There can
now be no such thing. If moral obligatoriness is to remain something
restricted to agency so that it is action or refraining from action that
alone can be morally obligatory then it must take a form that can be
restricted to external or willed action, which is now the only form of
action there is. And that means that moral obligatoriness must take
broadly the same form as legal obligatoriness or obligatoriness under civil
or positive law. It must occur as a reason-giving property of external
action such as the property of being required by some sanction-backed
set of positive directives addressed specifically to external action.
Freedom survives in Hobbess system but not as a two-way power of
the agent over his action. For Hobbes, as we have noted, freedom cannot
be a power at all. Freedom or liberty survives not as a power itself, but
rather as an absence of obstacles to power, such as to the force of
motivations of the will or indeed to any force:
Liberty is the absence of all impediments to action, that are not contained in the
nature, and in the intrinsecal quality of the agent.31
So the absence of a dam to a river, or of prisoners chains all these are
forms of corporeal liberty or (for Hobbes) liberty in the proper sense.
There is also civil liberty or the liberty of subjects given the absence of
laws forbidding them from doing anything. And it is such an absence of
31
Ibid., p. 285.
constraining laws, which are themselves if enforced a kind of potential
obstacle to the powers of our passions, and not the law itself that gives us a
right. So far from law constituting normative freedom or freedom as a
right in the way that Suarez supposed, law and freedom are completely
opposed phenomena. It is the business of law to impose obligations, so
that law by its very nature simply takes away or constrains liberty.
Whereas liberty is just the absence of restraining law:
The Right of Nature, which Writers commonly call Ius naturale is the Liberty
each man hath to use his own power, as he will himselfe, for the preservation of his
own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing,
which in his own Judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be aptest thereto.
By Liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word,
the absence of externall Impediments; which Impediments, may oft take away
part of a mans power to do what hee would; but cannot hinder him from using
the power left him, according as his judgement, and reason shall dictate to him.
A Law of Nature (Lex Naturalis) is a Precept or generall Rule, found out by
Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life,
or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he
thinketh it may best be preserved. For though they that speak of this subject, use
to confound Ius, and Lex, Right and Law; yet they ought to be distinguished;
because Right, consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbeare; Whereas Law determi-
neth, and bindeth to one of them; so that Law, and Right, differ as much, as
Obligation and Liberty; which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.32
We have then in Hobbes an approach to thinking about freedom that is
metaphysically immensely parsimonious. The core notion of freedom is not of
a power, but rather an absence of obstacles to power. And law is essentially seen as
one such obstacle or potential obstacle. The Suarezian harmony of law with
freedom has been denied, and replaced by a theory of their essential opposition.
Considered more broadly, with Hobbes we see the beginning of a long
tradition in English ethical theory, though one which has taken a variety of
forms besides the strictly Hobbesian. This is the general tradition, which
continues today in (for example) the ethical theory of T. M. Scanlon,33
of attempting to model moral obligations and rights without appeal
to any conception of freedom as a metaphysical power. To this tradition
Suarezs ethical theory is profoundly and systematically opposed.
32
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. R. Tuck (Cambridge University Press, 1996) ch. 14, Of the first
and second Natural Laws, and of Contracts.
33
See Scanlon 1997.
chapter 7
Obligation, rightness, and natural law:

Suarez and some critics
Terence H. Irwin
7.1 commands as the source of obligations

Suarez holds a voluntarist conception of obligation, in so far as he takes
obligation to depend essentially on the will of a superior, and, in the case
of the natural law, on the will of God. He distinguishes two generally
recognized elements of the natural law: (1) One consists in intrinsic
natural facts and properties those that belong to nature in its own right,
independently of Gods legislative will. (2) The other depends on the
exercise of Gods legislative will in the issuing of commands. Theorists
dispute about whether different features of the natural law are intrinsic
natural facts or products of divine legislation.
Suarez accepts a voluntarist thesis about law. In his view, the character
of a law consists partly in a command, and the natural law is a genuine
law, measured by this criterion. According to Suarez, a law is a common
precept, just and stable, sufficiently promulgated.1 A precept implies a
command expressing the will of a superior.
About the eternal law, therefore . . . we say that it has a power of obliging of itself,
if it is sufficiently promulgated and applied. The proof is this: because otherwise
it would not be a true and proper law, since it belongs to the character of law to
oblige . . . Further, because God has the supreme power of commanding, and
therefore of obliging, since the precept of a superior brings in obligation.
Now through his eternal law he commands . . . Therefore through this same
law he obliges.2
1
DL i.12.4. Here he agrees with Aquinas, ST iii q. 96 a. 1 ad 2.
2
DL ii.4.2.De lege igitur aeterna . . . dicimus habere vim obligandi de se, si sufficienter promulgetur
et applicetur. Probatur, quia alias non esset vera et propria lex, cum de ratione legis sit obligare . . .
Item, quia Deus habet supremam potestatem imperandi; ergo et obligandi (nam superioris
praeceptum obligationem inducit). Sed per suam legem aeternam imperat . . . Ergo per eandem
obligat.
142
Obligation, rightness, and natural law 143
In the divine law, the obligation is immediately from God himself; for, in so far
as it is in a human being it does not oblige except in so far as it indicates the
divine reason or will.3
No command can be addressed to non-rational creatures, because they
cannot understand or obey commands as expressions of the reason and
will of a superior.
This connection of law with the will of both the legislator and the subject is
recognized by Aquinas (according to Suarez) in the derivation of lex from
ligare, because the proper effect of law is to bind (ligare) or oblige (obligare).4
This claim about law, and about the nature of obligation, is the basis of
Suarezs view about the natural law. He argues: (1) We are obliged to follow the
natural law. (2) To be obliged is to be bound by the command of a superior. (3)
Hence, we are obliged to follow the natural law in so far as it is commanded
by God. Suarez takes the natural law to be law in the strict sense, and therefore
takes it to express a command coming from the will of a superior.
7.2 obligation and normativity

This conception of obligation has provoked some recent criticism. John
Finnis contrasts Suarezs views with Aquinass views in these terms:
Suarez (and it seems Vazquez) maintained that obligation is essentially the effect
of an act of will by a superior, directed to moving the will of an inferior . . . (We
can call this thesis voluntarist.) Aquinas, on the other hand, treats obligation as
the rational necessity of some means to (or way of realizing) an end or objective
(i.e., a good) of a particular sort.5
Aquinas would deplore . . . the confusion (shared by Hume and Suarez) of
obligation with impulse or influence.6
A neo-Suarezian supposes that the first principle of natural law is Follow nature
and that this principle has normative significance by being the content of an act
of divine will.7
Such an approach to the explanation of obligation . . . invites the question: Why
should I obey Gods will? . . . In the Suarezian tradition . . . such questions cannot
be coherently answered.8
These passages suggest that Finnis anticipates the view of more recent
critics who believe that the treatments of obligation by Suarez and other
3
DL ii.4.8. in divina lege obligatio est immediate ab ipso Deo, nam prout est in homine non obligat
nisi quatenus indicat divinam rationem seu voluntatem.
4 5 6 7 8
DL i.1.9. Finnis 1980: 46. Ibid.: 47. Ibid.: 49. Ibid.: 342.
144 te r e n c e h . i rwi n
seventeenth-century writers are attempts to account for the normativity of
morality; that is to say, they are meant to explain why we ought to do, or
must do, what morality requires of us.9
7.3 a difficulty for suarezs view of obligation?

According to Finnis, Suarezs voluntarist conception of obligation does
not fit everything that Suarez wants to say about obligation. He explains
this difficulty for Suarez by commenting on DL ii.6.
Since Suarez is under pressure from theological tradition to admit that an action
can be identified as contrary to ones obligation, and that the doing of it can be
described as guilty, without reference to Gods will, his effort to be consistent with
his own concept of obligation is only verbally successful; again and again in these
paragraphs he is brought to the brink of saying that even without reference to any
divine precept, acts (or their avoidance) can be obligatory (or guilty/sinful); this is
betrayed in his repeated statement that the obligation imposed by the divine will
underpinning natural law is some sort of additional obligation,10 a special
obligation.11
Finnis suggests that Suarez acknowledges that, apart from divine prohib-
ition, actions can be sinful, and that therefore we are under an obligation
to avoid them.
To see whether Finniss suggestion is right, we can usefully consider
Thomas Pinks fuller discussion of Suarez on obligation.12 Pink sets out
from Suarezs division between indicative and preceptive (or prescrip-
tive) law. The naturalist view opposed by Suarez holds that the natural
law is purely indicative, and not at all preceptive.
In this matter the first opinion is that natural law is not properly a prescriptive
(praeceptiva) law, because it is not a sign of the will of some superior, but that it is
a law indicating what is to be done or avoided, what by its own nature is
intrinsically good and necessary or intrinsically evil. And thus many people
distinguish two sorts of law: one sort indicating, the other prescribing. And they
say that the natural law is a law in the first way, but not in the second . . . And
consequently it seems that these authors will concede that the natural law is not
from God as from a legislator, because it does not rest on the will of God, and
thus by its force God does not behave as a superior prescribing or forbidding.
Indeed, Gregory says (followed by the others), even if God did not exist or did
not employ reason or did not judge correctly about things, even so, if there were
9
The legislator is necessary to make obligation possible, that is, to make morality normative
Korsgaard 1996: 27 (speaking of Pufendorf).
10 11 12
DL ii.6.12, 13. DL ii.6.11, 17, 22. Pink 2005.
in a human being the same dictate of correct reason dictating, for instance, that it
is bad to lie, this would have the same character of law that it has now, because it
would be a law showing the badness that exists intrinsically in the object.13
Suarez agrees with the naturalists that the natural law is indicative, but he
rejects their view that it is purely indicative.
What is wrong with a purely indicative conception of the natural law?
According to Pink, it would reduce the status of the natural law from
command (praeceptum) to advice (consilium). As he understands Suarez,
[1] Simply to point out that some things are good and others are bad, Suarez
argues, is not to speak perceptively, but only indicatively. [2] It is to stay within
the realm of advice, and not to attain that of demand and obligation. As Suarez
says Denique iudicium indicans naturam.14
The passage that Pink quotes supports his first claim. But it does not
support his second claim, since it says nothing about advice. Hence it does
not support the claim that indicative law has only the status of advice.
Still, if command and advice exhaust the possibilities, Pink is right to say
that an indicative law can offer only advice. We will need to see whether
Suarez recognizes any third possibility.
Pink believes that it should be unwelcome to Suarez to have to
conclude that obligation depends on commands. He observes that within
the tradition to which Suarez and Vazquez belong
The demandingness of obligation can equally be illustrated by reference to the
culpability of breaching it a culpability which is based simply on the moral
badness of wrongful actions and their imputability to the agent.15
But if there really is culpability or blameworthy fault prior to any divine prohib-
ition, do we not have enough for obligation? What is an obligation if not a
standard which it is blameworthy to breach?16
13
DL ii.6.3.In hac re prima sententia est legem naturalem non esse legem praecipientem proprie,
quia non est signum voluntatis alicuius superioris, sed esse legem indicantem quid agendum vel
cavendum sit, quid natura sua intrinsece bonum ac necessarium vel intrinsece malum sit. Atque ita
multi distinguunt duplicem legem: unam indicantem, aliam praecipientem, et legem naturalem
dicunt esse legem priori modo, non posteriori. . . . Atque hi auctores consequenter videntur esse
concessuri legem naturalem non esse a Deo ut a legislatore, quia non pendet ex voluntate Dei, et ita
ex vi illius non se gerit Deus ut superior praecipiens aut prohibens. Immo, ait Gregorius, quem
ceteri secuti sunt, licet Deus non esset vel non uteretrur ratione vel non recte de rebus iudicaret, si
in homine esset idem dictamen rectae rationis dictantis v.g. malum esse mentiri, illud habiturum
eandem rationem legis quam nunc habet, quia esset lex ostensiva malitiae, quae in objecto ab
intrinseco existit.
14 15
From DL ii.6.6, quoted above. Pink 2005: 41, reference numbers added. Pink 2005: 41.
16
Ibid.: 43.
Pink cites Aquinass discussion of praise and blame.17 This passage,
however, does not help his claim about obligation. Though Aquinas takes
moral goodness and badness to warrant praise and blame, apart from any
command or prohibition, he does not say that the blameworthiness of an
action by itself creates an obligation to avoid it.
Vazquez offers better evidence for Pinks claim. He believes that a
superiorinferior relationship is inessential to law and obligatoriness.18
According to Pink,
[Suarez] is aware of the strength of Vazquezs position indeed he comes close to
conceding the substance of it, as we see from the following rather tortuous
passage: respondeo igitur in actu humano.19
We will need to examine this passage to see how tortuous it is, and how
close Suarez comes to conceding the substance of the naturalist position
on obligation. The view of obligation that Pink ascribes to Suarez is this:
For Suarez the obligatoriness of the action does follow, though indirectly, from
the badness of not performing it; for that badness, given the existence of rational
created beings, necessarily implies that God had prohibited its performance20. . .
Hence the natural reason by which we determine that our failure to perform the
action would be bad can constitute the sufficient promulgation of the law which
the actions obligatoriness presupposes.21
In Pinks view, then, Suarez takes the natural badness of not-F to indicate
that F is obligatory, because God prohibits whatever is naturally bad.
This answer does not completely remove the difficulty that Pink takes
to arise for Suarez. According to Pink, the difficulty arises because Suarez
accepts or ought to accept all of these claims:
1. I am obliged to do F only in so far as F is required by a preceptive law.
2. A law that indicates the goodness or badness of something is not
preceptive.
3. I am culpable for not doing F only in so far as I am obliged to do F.
4. I am culpable for not doing F in so far as not doing F is naturally bad.
Acceptance of (3) and (4) seems to require the rejection of (1). For facts
about natural goodness and badness require nothing more than an indica-
tive law; they do not require a preceptive law.
17 18 19
ST i-ii q. 21 a. 2. Pink 2005: 42. From DL ii.6.17, quoted below. Pink 2005: 42.
20
Pink quotes from DL ii.6.23: ideo que supposita voluntate creandi naturam rationalem.
21
Pink 2005: 42. Pink quotes from DL ii.6.14 (unde dicitur ulterius ipsummet iudicium rectae
rationis) and from DL ii.5.9 (in natura rationali duo distinguit, unum est natura ipsa).
Pinks suggested answer does not remove this difficulty, because it does
not allow Suarez to accept (4). It allows him to accept only a weaker
claim:
4a. I am culpable for not doing F if not doing F is naturally bad.
(4a) is true only because God prohibits our doing what is naturally bad;
but it is the prohibition by God, not the natural badness itself, that creates
the culpability. If, as Pink suggests, Suarez accepts all of (1)(4), his
position is inconsistent.
Pink seems to imply, therefore, that Suarez faces a conflict, or at least a
tension, in his position, in so far as he accepts, or is inclined to accept, all
of (1)(4). This conclusion agrees with Finniss view that Suarez is
brought to the brink of allowing obligation without divine commands.
Finnis supports his case by referring to remarks about an additional
obligation. Pink relies on claims about blameworthiness, which Suarez
also mentions. They agree that Suarez creates difficulties for himself by
combining his voluntarist account of obligation with his admission that
actions can be blameworthy apart from any command or prohibition.
This admission about blameworthiness creates a difficulty only if
Suarez also believes that I am obliged to refrain from doing whatever it
would be blameworthy to do. Pink and Finnis believe it is reasonable for
Suarez to accept (or to be inclined to accept) this connection between
blameworthiness and obligation. It is reasonable because (in their view)
Suarezs conception of obligation introduces normativity; I am required
to do F, I ought to do F, and I am blameworthy for not doing F, only if
I am obliged to do F.
Are these claims about Suarez correct? We may consider first the claim
about blameworthiness, and then the claims about obligation.
7.4 sin and blameworthiness without

divine commands
To see whether Finnis and Pink are right, we may examine Suarezs
conception of the relation between sin and blameworthiness. He main-
tains that failure to refrain from actions that are wrong by nature is a sin
(peccatum), even if we abstract from a divine prohibition. Both sin and
blameworthiness (culpa) exist apart from divine prohibition. They follow
from the fact that a voluntary act is contrary to right reason; sin, so
understood, is the proper concern of the moral philosopher.
Suarez argues that moral badness follows from contrariety to reason,
apart from any divine command. This moral badness makes it blame-
worthy to perform the action.
I reply, therefore, that in a human action there is some goodness or badness from
the force of the object considered in abstraction (praecise), as it agrees or disagrees
with correct reason. In accordance with that <goodness or badness> [Perena;
Williams22 supplies <correct reason>] it can be called both a sin and blame-
worthy in the respects mentioned, apart from its relation to <its> proper law. [or
law, properly speaking, Perena, Williams.] But beyond this <goodness or
badness> a human action has a special character of good and evil in being directed
towards God, when a divine law is added, either prohibiting or prescribing, and in
accordance with that <character> [Perena; Williams supplies law] a human
action is called a sin or blameworthy action, in a special way, in the sight of God,
by its character of transgression of a law that properly belongs to God himself.23
In that case, therefore, the bad action would be a sin and a fault morally, but not
theologically, or as directed towards God.24
The divine command adds a special sort of sin and blameworthiness that
consists in disobedience to God, but it presupposes the sin and blame-
worthiness that belong to some actions precisely because of their relation
to right reason.
This passage, therefore, supports Finnis and Pink on one point. Suarez
recognizes sin and blameworthiness without any divine command, and
theological tradition supports his claim about sin. But the passage does
not support Finnis and Pink in their other claims. It says nothing about
obligation. Suarez does not say that in so far as an act is blameworthy, we
are obliged to avoid it.
Does he nonetheless assume this connection between blameworthiness
and obligation? Where should we look for evidence of his views on
obligation?
Two answers are worth trying: (1) We might treat obligation as a
simple equivalent to the Latin obligatio. In that case we will take Finnis
and Pink to make claims about Suarezs use of the Latin term and its
cognates, and about the concept, property, or relation that Suarez intro-
duces through this term. (2) But if we find that his use of the Latin term
does not match our use of the English term, we may suppose that Finnis
and Pink make claims about the concept introduced by the English term.
22
Francisco Suarez, Selections from Three Works, vol. i, text; vol. ii, trans. G. L. Williams et al.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944).
23 24
DL ii.6.17. DL ii.6.18. Suarez cites Aquinas, ST i-ii q. 21 a. 12; q. 71 a. 6 ad 45.
In that case, some further inquiry is needed to decide where we should
look for evidence of Suarezs treatment of the relevant concept; we should
not necessarily confine ourselves to his use of obligatio.
Finnis and Pink do not say how they understand their claims about
Suarez on obligation. It will be easiest to begin by treating obligation as
equivalent to obligatio, so that we can examine Suarezs use of the Latin
term. Once we have grasped his use of the Latin term, we can see how far
the relevant concept matches the concept that corresponds to the English
obligation.
7.5 the obligation of the natural law

For evidence of Suarezs commitment to obligation without commands,
Finnis turns to the claim that divine commands introduce some sort of
additional obligation,25 a special obligation.26 Let us examine these
remarks, taking them in the order of the text.
Suarez speaks of special obligation when he affirms that the divine
command presupposes some goodness prior to the command.
This will of God, prohibition or prescription, is not the whole character of [or
reason for, Williams] the goodness and badness that is present in the observance
or transgression of natural law, but it assumes in the actions themselves some
necessary rightness or wrongness, and joins to them a special obligation of divine
law.27
This is the position we have already found in the discussion of sin.
If the passage helps Finnis, the special obligation should be contrasted
with a general obligation that follows from natural goodness and badness.
But we need not import this contrast into the passage. By special obliga-
tion Suarez may mean only the obligation that is special to divine law.
He does not imply that natural goodness and badness involve any previ-
ous obligation.
In the next paragraph Finnis finds Suarez speaking of an additional
obligation.
For the natural law prohibits those things that are bad in their own right.
Therefore it must necessarily result in some additional obligation to avoid that evil
that is evil from itself and by its own nature. Further, there is no contradiction if
25 26
DL ii.6.12, 13. DL ii.6.11, 17, 22.
27
DL ii.6.11.Haec Dei voluntas, prohibitio aut praeceptio non est tota ratio bonitatis et malitiae quae
est in observatione vel transgressione legis naturalis, sed supponit in ipsis actibus necessariam
quandam honestatem vel turpitudinem et illis adiungit specialem legis divinae obligationem.
a thing that is right from itself has added to it an obligation to do it, or if a thing
that is wrong from itself has added an obligation to avoid it. Indeed, when one
obligation already exists, another can be added, especially of a different character,
as is clear about a vow, a human law, and similar things. Therefore also the
natural law, inasmuch as it is genuine divine law, can add its own moral
obligation arising from a precept, beyond the natural (if I may put it so) badness
or rightness that the matter on which this precept falls has from itself.28
This reference in the second sentence to an additional obligation cer-
tainly suggests that an obligation is being added to a prior obligation, as
Finnis says.
But this translation of the second sentence (by Williams) is open to
objection. It represents Suarezs expressions addat obligationem and
addere obligationem. But add an obligation differs from additional
obligation on the point that matters for our purposes. To say that the
natural law adds an obligation is not to say that it adds a further obliga-
tion to a prior obligation.
Admittedly, this passage also mentions the addition of one obligation to
a previous obligation, in the sentence Indeed, when one obligation . . ..
But this mention of two obligations does not show that the addition of an
obligation to intrinsic rightness and wrongness is the addition of one
obligation to another obligation. Suarez argues (as Indeed . . . (Immo . . .)
shows) a fortiori; since we can even add a second obligation to a previous
obligation, we can add an obligation to intrinsic rightness and wrongness,
where we are not adding to a previous obligation. Suarez affirms that the
obligation is added beyond natural . . . badness or rightness (ultra nat-
uralem . . . malitiam vel honestatem). Since he has not said that natural
rightness and wrongness imply any obligation to pursue and avoid, he has
not recognized any obligation prior to the obligation that is introduced by
divine commands and prohibitions.
In the next paragraph Suarez returns to his claim that natural law adds
an obligation.
Although, therefore, that obligation which natural law adds, in so far as it is
properly preceptive, is from the divine will, still that will assumes a judgment
about the badness of, for instance, lying, and similar judgments. Still, because
28
DL ii.6.12.Nam lex naturalis prohibit ea quae secundum se mala sunt . . . Ergo necesse est ut addat
aliquam obligationem vitandi illud malum quod de se et natura sua tale est. Item nihil
repugnatutrei de se honestae addatur obligatio faciendi illam, neque ut rei de se turpi addatur
obligatio vitandi illam . . . Ergo etiam potest lex naturalis, ut est vera lex divina, addere
obligationem propriam moralem ortam ex praecepto ultra naturalem (ut sic dicam) malitiam vel
honestatem, quam ex se habet materia in quam cadit tale praeceptum.
from the force of the judgment alone no proper prohibition and no obligation of
a precept is introduced, since this cannot be understood without will, for that
reason there is added a will to prohibit that action because it is bad.29
No preceptive obligation is possible without a command. Suarez does not
say whether or not any obligations are non-preceptive. He says that the
natural law adds an obligation to a judgment about badness. He does not
say that it adds an obligation to a prior obligation.
After his argument to show that there can be sins apart from divine
commands, Suarez repeats his claim that a divine command adds some-
thing and introduces something special.
But beyond this <goodness or badness> a human action has a special character
of good and evil in being directed towards God, when a divine law is added,
either prohibiting or prescribing, and in accordance with that <character>
[Perena; Williams supplies law] a human action is called a sin or
blameworthy action, in a special way, in the sight of God, by its character of
transgression of a law that properly belongs to God himself.30
The addition of a divine prohibition to a naturally wrong (turpe) action
introduces a special kind of badness. But Suarez does not say that it adds
an obligation to a prior obligation.
Suarez states his view most clearly when he rejects the claim that the
presence of a specific principle in the divine intellect constitutes an
obligation.31 If naturalists who accept this claim are right, the mere fact
that the principles present in Gods intellect as creator have been commu-
nicated to us as creatures makes them obligatory on us. In Suarezs view,
however, these naturalists leave out the distinctive features of obligation.
But this answer cannot be understood, because the dictate of intellect without
will cannot by itself have the character of a command in relation to another, nor
can it bring about in the other a special obligation, because obligation is a certain
kind of moral moving <of someone> towards acting. Now, moving another to
operation is a work of will.32
The condition that his opponents refer to is in his view nothing more
than goodness and badness in the actions themselves. He does not allow
any obligation prior to divine command.
29 30 31
DL ii.6.13. DL ii.6.17. DL ii.6.22.
32
DL ii.6.22.Sed haec responsio intelligi non potest, quia solum dictamen intellectus sine voluntate
non potest habere rationem praecepti respectu alterius, nec inducere in illum specialem
obligationem, quia obligatio est motio quaedam moralis ad agendum. Movere autem alium ad
operandum opus voluntatis est.
The next passage, however, may suggest to us that Suarez does indeed
recognize an obligation prior to divine command.
Further, because that obligation does not go beyond the force of an object that is
good or bad in itself, from which the action has its being good or bad in itself; the
judgment of reason has only the character of applying or showing that sort of object.33
That obligation (illa obligatio) is the obligation alleged by Suarezs
naturalist opponents who take the judgment of the divine intellect about
natural goodness and badness to be sufficient for obligation. If Suarez
agrees that his opponents have found a genuine obligation here, he admits
an obligation prior to a divine command.
But if Suarez concedes this point to his opponents, his argument is
difficult to follow. For he has just said that their view is unintelligible, because
it misunderstands the character of obligation. He would not be entitled to say
this if he allowed that they had identified a genuine obligation.
His argument becomes clear, however, if by that obligation he means
only that alleged obligation of theirs, which he does not take to be a real
obligation. We can confirm that this is what Suarez means if we read the
next part of the paragraph. He argues that the opponents are wasting their
time by appealing to the divine intellect. Recognition by the divine
intellect introduces no more obligation than we already find in intrinsic
goodness.
Finally, rational nature showing good and bad obliges neither further nor more
strongly from the fact that it is a participation in divine reason than it would
oblige considered in its own right and if it were from itself.34
This constitutes an argument against his opponents only on the assump-
tion that rational nature showing good or bad, apart from divine reason,
does not oblige (hence the counterfactual obligaret); Suarez maintains that
the introduction of divine reason makes no difference, because it still does
not oblige.
Suarez confirms this division between intrinsic goodness and obligation
in his discussion of a purely indicative judgment about goodness.
Finally, a judgment indicating the nature of an action is not an action of a
superior, but it can be of an equal or an inferior, who has no power of obliging.
33
DL ii.6.22.Item quia illa obligatio non transcendit vim obiecti per se boni vel mali, a quo actio
habet ut per se bona vel mala sit, et iudicium rationis solum habet rationem applicantis vel
ostendentis tale obiectum.
34
DL ii.6.22.Ac denique ratio naturalis ostendens bonum et malum non plus vel magis obligat eo
quod sit participatio rationis divinae, quam obligaret secundum se spectata ac si a se esset.
Therefore it cannot have the character of a law or a prohibition. If it could, then a
teacher showing what is bad or good would impose a law; but we cannot say that.
A law, therefore, is that command that can bring about an obligation. That
judgment, however, <that we just mentioned> does not bring about an obliga-
tion, but shows the obligation that must be supposed. That judgment, therefore,
in order to have the character of law, needs to indicate some command from
which such an obligation flows.35
One might at first wonder what Suarez means by that judgment does not
bring about an obligation, but shows the obligation that must be sup-
posed (iudicium autem illud non inducit obligationem, sed ostendit illam
quae supponi debet). That judgment refers back to the judgment indicat-
ing the goodness or badness of an action. Does Suarez mean that it shows
an obligation that is prior to a command? If he meant that, he would
destroy his argument; for he would concede that the judgment of intrinsic
goodness or badness reveals, in its own right, an obligation.
The context of his remark, however, suggests that he takes a judgment
of intrinsic goodness to show an obligation that must be supposed, if we
already believe that God commands what is good and prohibits what is
evil. The obligation is only supposed, and is not stated explicitly. The
obligation is explicitly stated in the last sentence of the quotation. This
explicit statement makes it clear that Suarez believes we identify an
obligation only in so far as we identify some act of binding.
Examination of these passages that mention a special or an added
obligation does not show that Suarez faces the difficulties alleged by
Finnis and Pink. He does not admit, and is not brought to the brink of
admitting, that when an obligation is added to natural rightness and
wrongness, a second obligation is added to a previous obligation. He
affirms clearly and consistently that natural rightness and wrongness
introduce no obligation of their own.
7.6 natural obligation?

Some of Suarezs remarks about natural obligation might suggest that
he recognizes an obligation that arises from intrinsic rightness and
35
DL ii.6.6.Denique iudicium indicans naturam actionis non est actus superioris, sed potest esse in
aequali vel inferiore, qui nullam vim habet obligandi. Ergo non potest habere rationem legis vel
prohibitionis. Alias doctor ostendens quid sit malum quidve bonum, legem imponeret, quod dici
non potest. Lex ergo est illud imperium, quod potest obligationem inducere. Iudicium autem illud
non inducit obligationem, sed ostendit illam quae supponi debet. Ergo iudicium illud, ut habeat
rationem legis, debet indicare aliquod imperium a quo talis obligatio manet.
wrongness. He introduces natural obligation in his discussion of the
naturalist claim that obligation is not created by the natural law, but
presupposed by it.
This law forbids something because it is bad. Therefore before that law there is an
obligation of avoiding this sort of bad thing. And the same is true, proportion-
ately, about a command and order to do a good thing because it is good.36
In answer to this naturalist claim Suarez mentions natural obligation.
For if this law forbids something because it is bad, it brings about its own special
necessity of avoiding it, because this is intrinsic to forbidding. At the same time,
however, it proves that this law assumes something which pertains to an intrinsic
natural obligation, because everything in a particular way has the obligation of
doing nothing inconsistent with its own nature. But in addition to this, the law
imposes a special moral obligation, and we say that this obligation is the effect of
this law. The jurists customarily call this a natural obligation, not because it is not
moral, but in order to distinguish it from a civil obligation.37
The italicized phrases imply that natural rightness and wrongness intro-
duce a natural obligation that is prior to any command.
However, the italicized phrases (from Williamss translation) do not
match the Latin. In the second sentence quoted, obligation renders
debitum and debet.38 But if we substitute duty for obligation in the
relevant sentence, Suarez recognizes no natural obligation apart from a
divine command. Divine commands add an obligation to do what we
ought (debere) to do, and they are based on a prior duty (debitum). If we
suppose that he recognizes two obligations, we overlook this distinction
between duty and obligation.
Once we see that the passage on natural duty says nothing about
obligation, we can see that natural obligation (in the last sentence) does
not precede a divine command. The only natural obligation is the
obligation that belongs to the natural law, and therefore depends on
36
DL ii.9.4.haec lex prohibet aliquid quia malum est; ergo ante illam est obligatio vitandi tale
malum. Et idem est cum proportione de imperio et praecepto faciendi bonum quia bonum est.
37
DL ii.9.4.Nam si haec lex prohibet aliquid quia malum, propriam et specialem necessitatem
inducit vitandi illud, quia hoc intrinsecum est prohibitioni. Simul autem probat aliquid hanc
legem supponere, quod pertinet ad intrinsecum debitum naturae, quod unaquaeque res quodam
modo sibi debet ut nihil faciat suae naturae dissentaneum. Ultra hoc vero debitum addit lex
specialem obligationem moralem et hanc dicimus esse effectum huius legis quae a iuris peritis solet
vocari obligatio naturalis, non quia moralis non sit, sed ut distinguant illam a civili.
38
Perena uses deber and obligacion in the appropriate places. Francisco Suarez, Tractatus de legibus ac
Deo legislatore, eds. L. Perena et al., 8 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Cientificas, 197181).
divine commands. This is not the natural duty that precedes divine
commands. This is Suarezs normal account of natural obligation. He
identifies it with the obligation that results from natural law and hence
from divine commands.
This point escapes one of Suarezs earliest English expositors. Nathanael
Culverwell follows Suarez in recognizing natural goodness and badness
in things before any divine command.39 He is right to say that, in
Suarezs view, the height and perfection of a law requires a divine
command. But he claims that Suarez takes natural obligation to precede
a divine command. This reference to natural obligation suggests that
Culverwell refers to the passage we have just discussed.40
We have seen that Suarez does not say what Culverwell attributes to
him. He says that natural law presupposes not a natural obligation, but a
natural duty, to which it adds an obligation that may be called natural, in
contrast with civil obligation. Culverwells allusion to this passage suggests
falsely that Suarez sometimes allows obligation without law as though
Culverwell agreed with Williamss erroneous translation. Since he over-
looks Suarezs division between duty and obligation, he begins from the
true belief that natural duty precedes a divine command, and draws the
false conclusion that natural obligation precedes a divine command.
7.7 the coherence of suarezs position

We can now make up our minds about the judgment of Finnis and Pink,
that Suarezs explanation of his position is a tortuous passage, and that
he is brought to the brink of admitting obligation without divine
commands. This judgment is not warranted. Suarez consistently and
clearly maintains that the natural law obliges only because it expresses
divine commands, and thereby has the character of true law. If we abstract
from divine commands, it remains true that we ought to do what is
39
So that grant only the being of man, and you cannot but grant this also, that there is such a
constant conveniency and analogy which some objects have with its essence, as that it cannot but
incline to them, and that there is such an irreconcilable disconvenience, such an eternal antipathy,
between it and other objects, as that it must cease to be what it is before it can come near them.
Nathanael Culverwell, Of the Light of Nature, ed. J. Brown (Edinburgh: Constable, 1867), p. 77.
Culverwell sums up Suarezs view of natural convenience as follows: This Suarez terms a natural
obligation, and a just foundation for a law; but now, before all this can rise up to the height and
perfection of a law, there must come a command from some superior power, from whence will
spring a moral obligation also, and make up the formality of a law. Culverwell, Of the Light of
Nature, p. 77.
40
DL ii.9.4.
intrinsically right and avoid what is intrinsically wrong, and that we sin,
and are culpable, if we fail to do what we ought to do.
This position is clear and coherent. Since Suarez is not tempted to agree
that blameworthiness implies obligation, he is not tempted to agree with
the aspects of his opponents position that he rejects.
7.8 the character of obligation

But even if Pink and Finnis are wrong about the interpretation of Suarezs
position, they might still be right about its philosophical substance. For,
we might ask, even if he consistently marks his division between duty and
obligation, does his verbal distinction bear the philosophical weight he
rests on it? We may be inclined to suppose that we are under an obligation
to do whatever we ought to do, or are morally required to do. If ought,
duty, and obligation are so closely connected, it may be pointless to insist
on Suarezs division. The division matters to him because divine com-
mands are necessary for obligation, but not for duty. If the division is
merely verbal, it is difficult to see why it should match the presence or
absence of divine commands. This may be what Finnis means when he
says that Suarezs attempt to maintain a consistent position is only
verbally successful.
Another way to express this objection would be to defend the transla-
tion of debere and debitum by obligation. We might argue that since
Suarez is really talking about obligations, we should bring out this fact in
our translation, even if we blur a verbal distinction in his Latin.
For this purpose we still treat obligation as a mere equivalent to
obligatio, without prejudice to the question about whether the sense of
obligatio matches the sense of the English obligation. We need to ask
ourselves what concept Suarez expresses by obligatio, and whether debitum
expresses the same concept or a different concept. If we cannot fix a clear
difference between the concepts, it is indeed, as Finnis says, merely
verbally consistent to affirm that natural rightness introduces a debitum
but not an obligation.
To answer this question, we need to look more closely at Suarezs
remarks on obligation. We know that he thinks obligation requires the
expression of will in a command. But what concept of obligation does he
rely on when he argues for this conclusion? Should we suppose that he
offers an analysis of the concept of obligation, or an account of what
obligation consists in?
The best source for an answer to this question is a passage41 that we
have already discussed in our examination of Suarezs argument against
naturalist views of obligation. His rejection of the naturalist position rests
on two claims:42 (1) Obligatio est motio quaedam moralis ad agendum.
(2) Movere autem alium ad operandum opus voluntatis est. How should
these claims be understood?
Some suggest that we should translate the first claim by Obligation
is a certain moral movement towards acting. Hence Williams renders
motio moralis as moral impulse. If this is what Suarez means, he describes
a feature of the person who is obliged to act. He takes motivation to
be necessary for obligation, so that if S is obliged to do x, S must be
moved or impelled morally (i.e., not purely physically) towards x. We
may reasonably infer, therefore, that Suarez holds a motivational concep-
tion of obligation. This is why Finnis assimilates Suarez to Hume on
obligation.43
But this translation of (1) ignores its context. Suarez maintains that an
indicative judgment cannot have the force of a command in relation to
another, and cannot introduce a special obligation on another, because (1)
obligation is a motio moralis, and (2) moving another to act is a work of
will. If we think he holds a motivational theory of obligation, he argues
that an indicative judgment cannot create an obligation because it does
not necessarily motivate the person who is aware of the judgment. But if
this were what Suarez meant, he could not claim that commands create
obligations; for they do not necessarily create a motive in the recipient of
the command.
We can make better sense of the argument if we notice that in (2)
Suarez talks of moving another to act. Here, then, movere has an active
sense. His two claims are appropriately connected, then, only if motio has
an active sense in the first claim. Hence the first claim means Obliging is
a certain moral moving (namely, causing to move) of someone to act.44
Suarez assumes without question that an obligation requires an act of
obliging. It would not be reasonable to assume this without question if he
used obligation as widely as we used it when we speak of moral obliga-
tion. If we say that we are under some obligations in specific situations, we
do not necessarily refer to any act of obliging. We introduce an act of
obliging when an obligation is laid on us or imposed on us. This, then, is
what Suarez means by obligation.
41 42 43
In DL ii.6.22. Ibid., quoted above. Finnis 1980: n. 47.
44
For moraliter movere cf. DL i.5.5.
On this understanding of obligation, Suarezs claim that obligation
requires a command is not as controversial as it might initially seem; for it
applies only to the sort of obligation that requires an act of obliging. We
should understood his claim that obligation is a certain kind of moral
moving towards acting so that obligation has an active sense. He relies
on the etymological connection between obligare and ligare (bind). Fea-
tures of obligation belong to an act of moral binding. Hence moral
moving means morally setting in motion, not morally being moved.
Since natural law essentially obliges, it essentially includes an act of
obliging; an act of obliging requires a command expressing the will of a
superior; hence the natural law requires a divine command, and so must
express Gods legislative will.
If obligation is a kind of setting in motion, should we say that we are
obliged only if we are actually moved? This result would be unwelcome to
Suarez, who believes that we are obliged to obey the natural law simply
because God has commanded us to obey it. If we are not actually moved
to obey it, it does not follow that we are not obliged to obey it.
Suarezs claims about moral moving avoid any unwelcome result if we
understand motio moralis so that it does not imply success in setting
something in motion. We may compare our conception of moral pres-
sure. If A exerts moral pressure on B, it does not follow that B is actually
pressed into action; for B may not be susceptible to the sort of pressure
that A exerts. But we can say that A exerted pressure, or that A was
pressing, even if A made no actual impression on B. Similarly, then, we
can say that A obliges, and morally moves, B to do x, if A makes B no
longer morally free not to do x. A may oblige B in this way even if A fails
to alter Bs behaviour because B is unmoved by As act of obliging.
If this is the right account of the passage on obligation as moral
moving, we can draw two conclusions:
1. We have no reason to agree with Finniss attempt to assimilate Suarezs

conception of obligation to Humes. Finnis assumes that motio moralis
refers to a motivational state of the person obliged (as moral motion
would suggest). Suarez, however, refers to an action of the obliger, not
to a state of the person obliged.
2. Suarez has a tenable division between duty and obligation. He recog-
nizes duties that do not presuppose anyones having imposed an
obligation. But he also notices that a distinct sort of moral relation
results from the imposition of an obligation. The fact that someone has
expressed their will that I act in a certain way gives me a distinct type of
reason to act in that way. I owe the action to the imposer of the
obligation, and the imposer can also release me from the obligation, so
that I no longer have the relevant reason. If someone imposes on me an
obligation to do something that I ought to do anyhow, I now have two
reasons for doing it.
A complete defence of Suarezs claims about obligation would be a
complex task, and I will not undertake it. I have only tried to show that
he has a reasonable distinction in mind. He recognizes duties without
obligations, because he sees that the expression of will introduces a
distinct type of moral relation that is not reducible to a simple duty. He
marks this distinct type of moral relation by speaking of obligation. His
position is neither inconsistent nor tortuous, but clear, coherent, and
illuminating.
7.9 difficulties about obligation

So far I have assumed that questions about Suarezs view of obligation can
be answered by reference to his use of obligatio. But it is time to relax that
assumption. In the light of what we have found about his use of obligatio,
should we assert or deny that his concept of obligatio matches our concept
of obligation?
This question is complicated by disputes about the character of our
concept of obligation. Obligation has had a complicated history in moral
philosophy in English, and the complications have not always led to
precision or clarity.45 Some relatively recent examples illustrate this point.
At the beginning of Moral Obligation Prichard introduces his topic by
laying down some equivalences that indicate the broad scope he attributes
to obligation.
we, in our ordinary unreflective state of mind, regard statements of the form, X
ought to do so and so, X has the duty of doing so and so, and X is morally
bound to do so and so, as equivalent in meaning.
it is clear that [Hume] would accept the statement, X is under a moral obligation
to educate Y as equivalent in meaning to X ought to educate Y.46
The context shows that Prichard agrees with Hume, and that he takes
bound to and under an obligation to to be equivalent in meaning.
45 46
For some examples see Irwin 20078: 81820, vol. ii. Prichard 1968.
If we agree with Prichard on this point, we ought not to (and we are
obliged not to) regard Suarezs concept of obligatio as our concept of
obligation, since his concept is much narrower. Duties and oughts need
not involve one agents trying to move another. To find Suarezs views on
moral obligation, as Prichard understands it, we need to consider his
remarks about duties (debita) and related aspects of morality. These
remarks show that he does not take obligation (as Prichard understands
it) to require commands and imposition by a superior.
Not everyone agrees with Prichards broad use of obligation. Hart
protests against this broad use, on the ground that it tends to divert
attention from important differences between obligations (in a narrower
sense) and other types of moral requirements and reasons.47 The influence
of Harts protest can be seen in Rawlss division between obligations
and duties.
There are several characteristic features of obligations which distinguish them
from other moral requirements. For one thing, they arise as a result of our
voluntary acts; these acts may be the giving of express or tacit undertakings, such
as promises and agreements, but they need not be, as in the case of accepting
benefits. Further, the content of obligations is always defined by an institution or
practice the rules of which specify what it is that one is required to do. And
finally, obligations are normally owed to definite individuals, namely those who
are cooperating together to maintain the arrangement in question . . . Now in
contrast with obligations, it is characteristic of natural duties that they apply to us
without regard to our voluntary acts. Moreover, they have no necessary connec-
tion with institutions or social practices; their content is not, in general, defined
by the rules of these arrangements.48
Rawls recognizes natural duties that do not depend on any institutional
background, whereas he takes all obligations to depend on such a
background.
We need not explore the similarities and differences between Hart,
Rawls, and Suarez on obligations and duties. I mention them only to
make it clear that we may have no stable use of obligation that allows us
to ask whether Suarezs concept of an obligatio matches our concept of an
obligation. If we agree with Prichard about obligation, we will derive
Suarezs views on obligations from his views on obligatio, debitum, and so
on. If we agree with Hart and Rawls, we will be more inclined to confine
ourselves to his views on obligatio.
47 48
Hart 1958. Rawls 1971: 11314.
If, then, we say that Suarez takes obligations to depend on commands,
we are right if we use obligation in the narrow sense that roughly
matches his use of obligatio. But we are wrong if we use obligation in
the broad sense. And if we want to criticize his claims about obligation,
our criticism may be more or less justified if we use obligation in the
broad or the narrow sense. If we use it in the broad sense, it would be
wrong to say that he takes obligation to require imposition.
7.10 suarez v. aquinas on obligation and duty

Now that we have clarified these questions about obligation, we can
return to the contrasts that Finnis draws between the views of Suarez
and of Aquinas on obligation, to see whether they mark genuine contrasts.
According to Finnis, Suarez disagrees with Aquinas about obligation,
because for Aquinas, obligation is simply a rational necessity of certain
sorts of means to certain sorts of ends. Finnis draws his evidence for
Suarezs view of obligation from the treatment of obligatio. An appropri-
ate comparison with Aquinas, therefore, would rely on Aquinass use of
obligatio.
The evidence that Finnis cites from Aquinas49 can be divided as
follows:
(1) Some passages speak of the relation of means to the ultimate end.
They include neither obligare nor debere.
(2) Some passages50 include debitum.
(3) One passage51 says that since a precept of law imposes an obligation
(sit obligatorium), it has the character of a debitum.
(4) One passage52 says that necessity that is not coaction arises out of the
obligatio of a precept or (sive) from the necessity of an end.
Some of these passages those in (1) and (2) are irrelevant to a com-
parison of views about obligationes. We may therefore confine ourselves to
(3) and (4) to see whether they support Finniss claim, understood as a
claim about obligationes.
From (3) we can infer that an obligatio introduces a debitum. From
(4) we can infer that an obligatio introduces a type of necessity. Neither (3)
nor (4) is inconsistent with Suarezs views on obligatio. In fact as far as
the evidence cited by Finnis goes Aquinas seems to agree with Suarezs
49 50 51
Finnis 1980: n. 46, 341. ST i-ii q. 99 a. 1; ii-ii q. 44 a. 1. ST i-ii q. 99 a. 1.
52
ST ii-ii q. 58 a. 3 ad 2.
view that an obligatio requires a command. If Aquinas claimed that every
debitum introduces an obligation, he would disagree with Suarez; but he
does not claim that in these passages.
These passages, then, do not support Finniss claim about Aquinas on
obligation, if we take the claim to apply to Aquinass use of obligatio. For
Aquinas does not say, in these passages, that obligatio is simply (as Finnis
puts it) a rational necessity of certain sorts of means to certain sorts of
ends. Since the passages that mention an obligatio also mention a precept,
Aquinas agrees (to this extent) with Suarez.53
We might argue, however, that these passages are all relevant to
Aquinass views on obligation, understood not in the narrow sense that
marks Suarezs use of obligatio, but in the broader sense (illustrated by
Prichard) in which ought introduces obligation. In that cases the pas-
sages that Finnis cites all show something about Aquinass views on
obligation. But in that case it is misleading to contrast Aquinass views
on obligation (in the broad sense) with Suarezs views on obligatio.
Suarezs views on obligation in the broad sense must be gathered from
his use of debitum as well as obligatio. Once we compare the range of
evidence that Finnis cites from Aquinas with a similar range of evidence in
Suarez, we no longer find the contrast alleged by Finnis.
53
On Aquinass use of obligatio see Irwin 20078: 303 vol. i; 437, vol. ii.
chapter 8
Suarez on distributive justice

Daniel Schwartz
Suarez departed from Aquinas and Aristotle on a number of issues. Justice

is among these. In this chapter I offer an exposition of Suarezs theory of
distributive justice, which, until very recently, has not been the subject of
scholarly attention.1
While De legibus contains little in the way of a sustained analysis of
justice and its types, such treatment can be found in some of his other
works. Principal among these is his De iustitia Dei, the fruit of a contro-
versy between Suarez and fellow Jesuit Gabriel Vazquez, whose relation-
ship was marked by overt, often bitter, personal rivalry. What triggered
the controversy was Suarezs criticism of some of the views put forth in the
second book of Vazquezs De cultu adoratione of 1593.2 Suarez discussed
divine justice in more detail in a public lecture delivered at Coimbra four
years later,3 which was harshly criticized by Vazquez in his Commentary on
the First Part of the Summa Theologiae.4 Suarez retaliated by including the
lecture that was attacked in his 1599 Opuscula theologica, by reiterating
his views on justice in a Lecture on Merit prepared for the academic year
15989 (undelivered as classes were adjourned because of an epidemic),5
and by writing the Disputatio de iustitia Dei.6
1
This has changed with Izhak Englards excellent recent book which includes a comprehensive
chapter on distributive justice and divine justice among the late scholastics. Englard 2009. Suarez
on distributive justice: 325, on divine justice: 8690.
2
See letter from Suarez to Claudius Acquaviva, the Jesuit General in Scorraille 2005: 455, vol. ii.
Gabriel Vazquez, De cultu adoratione libri tres (Alcala de Henares: Widow of Juan Gracian, 1593). In
a letter that Vazquez writes to Acquaviva in 1593 he attacks thirty-two views that he attributes to
Suarez, among them the view that In Deo vere et proprie est iustitia commutativa in Scorraille
2005: 454, vol. ii.
3
Scorraille 2005: 40, vol. ii. The lecture is De libertate voluntatis divinae in Opera omnia, ed.
M. Andre and C. Berton, 28 vols. (Paris: Vives, 1886) vol. x.
4
Gabriel Vazquez, Commentariorum, ac disputationum in Primam partem S. Thomae: tomus primus
(Ingolstadt: Andreas Angermarius, Inheritors of Martini Nutii and Ioannis Hertsroy, 1609).
Originally published in Alcala de Henares in 1598.
5 6
RM. ID ii.19.
163
164 daniel schwartz
In essence, Suarez supported and Vazquez opposed attributing justice
to God. The view that justice governs the relationship between God and
rational creatures had been doubted or rejected before by, for example,
Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Scotus, Durandus of St Pourcain,
Gabriel Biels disciple Wendelin Steinbach, Petrus Paludanus, Alexander
Pensantius and others.7
In what follows I seek to extricate Suarezs understanding of distribu-
tive justice from the work produced in the context of this controversy.
Although Suarezs immediate preoccupations were theological, there is
a clear political dimension to his treatment. For Suarez politics provides
the perfect platform for testing our intuitions about distributive justice.
Only at the second stage is it asked which features of the political case can
be relevantly transposed to the theological case. The parallel between the
political and theological is grounded on the fact that God himself is a
ruler. If the first virtue of rulers is justice, then surely God must display it
in some fashion.
Suarezs theory of justice remained influential. It was at the centre of
most subsequent neo-scholastic discussions of distributive justice, which
either sided with or criticized it.8 But the impact of Suarezs discussion
went beyond the Catholic world. One example is Grotius, who took the
De iustitia with him to prison at Loevenstein Castle.9 In fact, Suarezs
views on Gods supreme dominium seem to loom behind the notion of
eminent domain (dominium eminens) coined in Grotiuss De mare
liberum.10
In the practical domain, Suarezs theory was used to support political
claims. Writing from colonial Mexico, Juan Zapata y Sandoval invoked
it as a basis for his call for changes in the allocation of ecclesiastical
7
According to Vazquez, In ST i d. 86 c. 2.
8
Examples of criticism are in Antonio Perez, Tractatus de iustitia et iure, de restitutione & de poenitentia:
opus posthumum (Rome: Varesis, 1668), tract. 1 d. 5 c. 1 812, Luis de Torres, Disputationum in
secundam secundae D. Thomae (Lyons: Cardon & Cavellat, 1621), and Louis de Mairat, Disputationes
in Summam theologicam S. Thomae, 3 vols. (Paris: S. Cramoisy, 1633). Suarezs doctrine was reiterated
and defended in Fernando Rebello, Opus de obligationibus iustitiae (Lyons: Cardon 1608), Johannes
Malderus, De virtutibus theologicis et iustitiae et religione commentaria ad secundam secundae D. Thomae
(Antwerp: B. & J. Moretos Fratres, 1616), Juan Dicastillo, De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus
cardinalibus libri duo (Antwerp: Caesarem I. Trognaesium, 1641), Fernando de Castro Palao, Operis
moralis de virtutibus & vitiis contrariis (Lyons: Laurentii Arnauld and Claudii Rigaud, 1651), Francesco
Amico, Cursus theologici (Antwerp: Guilielmum Lesteenium, 1650), John Ponce (Punch), Philosophiae
ad Mentem Scoti (Lyons: Ioannis A. Huguetan & Marci A. Ravaud, 1659), Bartholomeo Mastri da
Medula, Disputationes theologicae (Venice: Paulum Balleonium, 1675) as well as (qualifiedly) in Juan
de Lugo, De iustitia et iure, 2 vols. (Lyons: Laurentii Arnauld and Claudii Rigaud, 1652). For complete
bibliographical information, see Englard 2009: 36, 41, 48, 51, 54, 55, 57, 60.
9 10
Feenstra 1999: 146. Ibid.: 145.
Suarez on distributive justice 165
and civil positions and other benefits to the native Mexicans, Creoles
and peninsular Spaniards.11
Suarezs discussion illuminates aspects of distributive justice too often
overlooked by contemporary theorists. These theorists often take as their
starting point something in need of allocation and their central quest is to
find a just principle of allocation. Suarez rejects the view that what makes
the act of allocation a matter of justice is the principle according to which
we divide the common stock. He argues that we must go one stage back
and inquire about the reasons for giving anything in the first place. For
him, the first question for the distributivist theorist is not how to
distribute but what reasons to distribute x among individuals count as
reasons of distributive justice.
8.1 locating distributive justice

Suarez, following convention, distinguishes between three types of rela-
tionship within political society, each corresponding to one type of
Aristotelian justice. First there are the relationships between private indi-
viduals, and these fall under the purview of commutative or corrective
justice. Then there are the relationships between citizens and the com-
monwealth as ordered by law, which belong to legal justice. Finally there
is the relation, in the opposite direction, of the commonwealth to the
citizens. It is these relationships that fall under the purview of distributive
justice. More specifically, distributive justice oversees the transference of
goods from collective ownership to (absolute or qualified) private owner-
ship. For Suarez, the goods in question are principally honours, prizes,
distinctions and public offices (secular, academic and ecclesiastical).
By concentrating on these goods Suarez follows the Aristotelian tradition.
Only relatively recently have theorists singled out welfare and its causes
as the paradigmatic distribuenda.12 Yet for Suarez, along with modern
theorists, distributive justice also regulates the states imposition of
fiscal burdens.13
In the Aristotelian tradition, what is due under distributive justice is
determined by some non-tradable qualities exhibited by the recipient. By
contrast, the due of commutative justice is determined by characteristics
11
Juan Zapata y Sandoval, Disceptacion sobre justicia distributiva y sobre la acepcion de personas a ella
opuesta, 3 vols. (Mexico City: UNAM, 19949; first edn 1609).
12
See Fleischacker 2004: 20. Puzzlingly Fleischackers history jumps directly from Aquinas to
Grotius, wholly ignoring neo-scholasticism.
13
DL v.16.1.
166 daniel schwartz
pertaining to a separate good (such as a traded good). These types of
justice also differ in the type of equality they pursue. Commutative justice
aims at arithmetic equality. In the case of rights infringement this is
achieved when the loss imposed on the rights violator equals his unlawful
profit. In voluntary exchanges this is met when the value of the freely
exchanged goods is equal. By contrast, distributive justice aims at geo-
metric equality, or equality between ratios. If grants are distributed
according to academic achievement, the ratio of the grant/academic
achievement for one student should be identical to that for another.
Suarezs predecessors (not unlike Hume and Rawls)14 took two beliefs
as axiomatic. First, that distributive justice operates only when total funds
are below a certain ideal standard. In Suarezs times it was customary to
regard that standard as set by requirements of commutative justice. In this
view distributive justice operates in conditions of partial insolvency.15 The
second axiom is that just distribution is a just division and so presupposes
divisible goods and at least two candidate recipients.
These axioms made it very difficult to attribute distributive justice to
God. Insolvency clearly contradicts Gods omnipotence. In addition,
division rules out the possibility that God could give a prize to just one
person as a matter of distributive justice. This was relevant in theology
where Christs merit was, at least partly, considered a matter of distribu-
tive justice.16
One of Suarezs most original claims was that distributive justice must
not necessarily aim at securing geometric equality or proportional allo-
cation. Nevertheless, because most of his contemporaries believed other-
wise, it was important for him to show that even on the assumption that
distributive justice aims at proportional allocation, it does not follow that
it presupposes insolvency.17
Consider, Suarez says, a wealthy king who distributes rewards to his
generals and soldiers according to their effort. Suppose that each of the
recipients got in excess of what was due them as dictated by commutative
justice. Still, on the proportional allocation understanding of distributive
14
Rawls 1971: 126, quoting David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford University Press,
1975), iii.ii.ii.18.
15
ID 3.3. justitiam distributivam tunc solum operari, quando non potest perfecte aequalitas fieri per
divisionem bonorum inter multus.
16
IV. See Vazquez, In ST i d. 86 c. 3.15, 16.
17
ID 3.4. Even if distributive justice in itself aims at proportional equality this does not presuppose
intrinsically and in itself an imperfect arithmetic equality. Licet ergo justitia distributiva per se
respiciat aequalitatem geometricam, non propterea supponit intrinsece ac per se imperfectionem in
arithmetica aequalitate.
justice, if the ratio of reward to effort is not the same, distributive justice
should intervene.18 Hence, even on the accepted (but mistaken) view that
distributive justice aims at proportional allocation there is no intrinsic
connection between the need for distributive justice to intervene and the
impossibility of satisfying the requirements of commutative justice.
Let us now consider multiplicity of recipients and divisibility of dis-
tributed goods. Are these requirements of distributive justice? The repub-
lic allocates according to the the worth and status (dignitas et conditiones)
of the person. Suppose a prize is given to just one soldier in recognition of
service.19 For Suarez this would be an act of distributive justice because
what we have is the allocation of a common good to a member of the
community, not as part of an exchange transaction but in recognition of a
personal quality.
The requirement of divisibility is tested by proposing as an illustration
a university appointment: where we do not distribute according to
proportion, the whole good should go to the worthiest candidate.20
Further this is not a matter of proportion but of right; the right that
the worthiest candidate has to the thing [the chair], in comparison to the
less worthy, which is very different from assigning proportionally.21
Some cases that Suarez takes to be uncontroversial examples of dis-
tributive justice do not involve proportional allocation. The connection
between distributive justice and proportional allocation is further
weakened by Suarezs claim that not only does distributive justice not
necessarily aim at proportional allocation, but other virtues may even have
it as their essential goal.
Mercy, for instance, may recommend distributing available alms pro-
portionally to the needs of the poor. Rawls argued that benevolence is at
sea as long as its many loves are in opposition in the persons of its many
objects.22 Suarez would have replied that discriminating benevolence is not
justice; justice meets rights which the recipients of benevolence may lack.
Suarez argues that it is of no help to suggest, as Molina and Lessius did,
that these other virtues may aim at proportional allocation merely
18 19
ID 3.6. ID 3.12.
20
ID 3.9. Ubi non sit distributio inter multos, cum supradicta proportione, sed totum beneficium
datur digniore.
21
ID 3.9. Sed contra, quia revera ibi nulla servatur proportio geometrica aut arithmetica, sed solum
illa aequitas, scilicet, ut dignior praeferatur, quae non consistit in proportione, sed in jure, quod
habet ad talem rem dignior comparatione minus digni; quod longe diversum est a comparatione
proportionum.
22
Rawls 1971: 190.
168 daniel schwartz
accidentally or instrumentally, while only distributive justice aims at
proportional allocation as an intrinsic end.23 Virtues other than justice
can also aim at proportional allocation as an intrinsic end. Consider
observance the virtue of honouring those worth honouring in propor-
tion to rank.24 For Suarez honours of rank and position constitute what
we now call positional goods: that is, goods whose value is entirely
relative to what others have. When distributing decorations, one aims at
the right proportional allocation, as decorations lack absolute value. This
allocation is not a byproduct of giving each person what is absolutely their
due. Hence, observance, a virtue other than justice, aims at the right
proportional distribution, not accidentally, but as its proper and formal
object. So proportional allocation, however willed, is not the mark of
distributive justice.
But, Suarez asks, could the fact that the allocation of a public office
does not involve proportional allocation indicate that it does not concern
justice in the first place?25 Perhaps what is wrong about cronyism in
appointments to public office is the dereliction of the duty of fidelity or
loyalty of the appointer towards those who have entrusted him with the
selection of the best candidate. Suarez argues that this is not the whole
story, for it cannot be denied that in giving the post to an unworthy
candidate a worthier candidate has been treated unfairly. An injustice
has been committed; someones right has been violated. But what kind
of right?
8.2 distributive justice
8.2.1 The right to common goods

Right (ius) is the object of justice and consists in a sort of moral faculty
that someone has over a thing that is his or is owed to him.26 Justice is the
virtue inclining us to act as prescribed by persons rights. Thus, according
to Suarez, it is wrongheaded to diversify justice according to the pattern of
distribution or type of equality aimed at. Rather, types of justice should be
distinguished by the type of right that they serve.27 For Suarez, justice
both commutative and distributive is essentially remedial. It exists to
23
Luis de Molina, De iustitia et iure (Geneva: Fratrum de Tournes, 1759), vol. i, d. 12.3. Leonardus
Lessius, De iustitia et iure ceterisque virtutibus cardinalibus libri quatuor (Venice: Andrea Baba,
1617). lib. 2. cap. 1. dubium iv. 23.
24 25 26 27
ID 3.8, RM 30.23. ID 3.9. DL i.2.910. ID 3.14.
protect rights and repair their breach. Commutative justice aims to rectify
the infringement of rigorous, particular rights as exemplified by private
ownership rights (dominium) through the instrument of restitution.
But which is the right served by distributive justice? Suarez, following
Aquinas, approaches this question by looking at respect for persons28 or
unfair favouritism, the vice directly opposed to distributive justice.29
Which right of the best candidate for the post is violated when a crony
of the appointer is selected instead? This cannot be a dominium right, for
the job has not yet been granted to the applicant. What is violated is a
right to give to a man not as his own or as rigorous a right. It is a right
founded on some dignity or personal condition, because he is part of a
community or republic and for this reason something is owed him in
proportion to his dignity from the goods of the republic.30
Here, as elsewhere, Suarez uses a legal technical expression to designate
the class to which the rights enforced by distributive justice belong: ius ad
rem.31 The iura ad rem constitute an innovation over Roman law by
medieval lawyers such as Baldus and Maynus with roots in canon and
Germanic law.32 While a ius in rem is a right that is attached to a thing,
such as an ownership right, a ius ad rem is a right against a person who has
the duty to perform an act such as the transferring of a right or a material
thing.33 The type of ius ad rem that Suarez has in mind is that defined by
28 29
ID 3.14. For Vazquez, it is opposed to commutative justice as well: In ST I d. 86 c. 4.22.
30
ID 3.14. praeter hoc jus, dari in hominibus aliud non ita proprium ac rigorosum, fundatum in
quadam dignitate, seu conditio personae, quae est pars alicujus communitatis seu Republicae,
ratione cujus debetur ei aliquid ex bonis Reipublicae, sua dignitati proportionatum.
31
The distinction features in Suarezs central discussion of ius in DL i.2.5 and applied to distributive
justice in IV iv.5.68: Est igitur hoc jus creaturae quoddam ad rem potius in re, et ideo propiissime
pertinet ad justitiam distributivam, ad quam proprie ac formaliter non spectat restituere alteri quod
suum est, vel erat; sed conferre id ad quod habet aliquod jus, ratione alicujus dignitatis seu meriti.
RM 30.29: At vero distributiva respicit quidem jus etiam proprium alterius, non tamen ita
rigorosum, sicut est aliud ad commutativam pertinens, quia neque est jus in re, seu dominium
ejus, nec moraliter illi aequivalens, sed est jus ad rem, fundatum in dignitate vel conditione, ut est
membrum reipublicae, vel communitatis, cujus bona inter ejus membra hanc vel illam
conditionem habentia distribuenda sunt. See also IV iv.5.71, IV.5.69.
32
John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence (London: Murray, 1869), p. 993. See also Rodrguez Puerto
2004; Gomez-Rojo 1999; and Huebner 1818: 163.
33
As another Jesuit, Martin Becanus (Van der Beeck) put it: Ut aliquis acquirat Ius ad rem, non est
necessaria existentia rei, nec traditio, sed legitimus titulus. Hoc patet in exemplis allatis. Nam
ecclesiastici habent ius ad rem respectu omnium fructuum, quos sequenti anno precepturi sunt, etsi
illi fructus non existant. Item emptor habet Ius ad rem respecto praedis quo emit, antequam,
traditio facta sit . . . Ei quo habet Ius in re, conceditur actio realis respectu rei, quae tali Ius est
devincta ad cuiuscumque manus preventiat res illa. Ei vero, qui solum habet Ius ad rem, sola actio
personalis conceditur. Theologiae scholasticae: pars secunda, tomus tertius de iustitia et iure (Paris:
Ioannem Iost, 1634), q. 1.34, p. 11.
170 daniel schwartz
Austin as merely an abridged expression for jus ad rem acquirendam,34 a
right of compelling you to pass me a right in rem.35 Clearly, Suarez should
not be taken to mean that every ius ad rem is a concern of distributive justice
but only those founded on the merit or worth of an action or persons.36
This ius ad rem differs in two ways from ius in rem. First, for Molina,
Suarez and Lessius, iura ad rem are essentially temporary. They are in
force only until one acquires ius in rem over the thing. This normally
happens through legal transmission (traditio), or by formally accepting a
benefit (acceptio). Iura ad rem lapse with the appearance of the ius in rem
which they conceptually presuppose.
Second, while a ius in rem is fixed, a ius ad rem depends on ones
continuous display of a certain relative quality. A citizen may have a certain
right to the thing, because according to a certain equity [or equality], it
should be given to him more than to the others, because among parts of the
community he exhibits more proportion with that thing than other per-
sons.37 By contrast, once dominium rights are granted they are insensitive
to changes in our position relative to others.
While infringements of ius in rem require restitution to the right holder
(in legal terms they give occasion to the action of vindicatio) this is not the
case for ius ad rem. According to Suarez (and Lessius), most theorists agree
that a violation of your iura ad rem does not call for restitution claims, for
you are not an owner of that which has been denied you. For example, if
in a competition for public office the best candidate is not chosen, he has
an actionable claim against the appointment committee, but he cannot
say that he has been deprived of something that was his.38 Restitution is
due only if, after an applicant has been instated in the right over the post,
he is unfairly prevented from exercising this right.39
34 35 36
Austin, Lectures, p. 194. Ibid., p. 193. IV iv.5.7, 68.
37
ID 3.15: jus quoddam ad talem rem, quia secundum quamdam aequitatem ei potius quam alteri
tribuenda est, eo quod, inter partes communitatis, habeat majorem proportionem cum tali re,
quam alia personae.
38
On this also Lessius, De iustitia et iure, cap. 32. dubium 2 and 3; cap. 34. dubium 13.
39
ID 3.14: a debt originating from the violation of an already existing right is much stronger and
more rigorous than a debt originating from the violation of a right that is yet to exist. Clearly, when
one owes a person what is his own, this debt is stronger than when one owes person a portion of the
common good that is due to him, even when he has a right to it because of his dignity or on some
other similar grounds. As to the first type of debt, all the theologians assert that from the
infringement a duty to restitute is born, but that this is true of the second type of debt, many,
and possibly those who adjudge the best, deny. Unde sit etiam ut longe majus et rigorosius sit
debitum, quod ex priore jure nascitur, quam quod ex posteriori; nam magis debetur alicui id quod
est proprie suum, quam id quod est commune, licet ad illud habeat aliquod jus propter dignitatem
personae, vel aliam similem proportionem. Unde de priori debito omnes Theologi affirmant
ex illius laesione nasci obligationem restituendi; de posteriori vero praecise sumpto, quamplures,
8.2.2 Promises and indebtedness
For Suarez, your possession of a ground for a justice claim, such has
having performed some meritorious work, does not make the sovereign
owe you something. Justice operates only if there is a debitum towards
the claimant.40 Without an instrument to indebt God, his creatures can
possess no rights-based claims; they are merely in a state of need or
necessity (which, as such, imposes no duties on the Creator).41 Conse-
quently Gods allocation of properties to his creatures during creation was
not an act of distributive justice, for it was not owed to them.42
In order to create the occasion for justice it is necessary to suppose a
pact or promise so that [justice] exercises its act or service.43 In holding
this view, Suarez went against Cardinal Cajetan, Francesco Romeo of
Castiglione (a Dominican General), and other moderns,44 who denied
the need for pacts or promises for condign merit. That is, for them, the
mere value of an action entitles you to rewards even in the absence of a
previous contract, pact or promise. I will not discuss here the differences
between conditional promises, pacts and contracts. Suffice it to say that,
for Suarez, in order to create a debt of justice, a unilateral contract (which
does not require acceptance by the recipients), such as a reward contract,
is sufficient.45
In the analogy that Suarez proposes, if someone works in your vineyard
without your knowledge or consent, this does not mean that you owe him
wages. You would owe him if you had made a previous promise or
contract, if there is a social convention in place, or if, knowing that he
was working on your vines, you failed to intervene, thus tacitly consenting
et fortasse qui melius sentiunt, id negant. ID 3.15: the pretender of a benefit or a chair, never had
dominium or possession of it, or of some other equivalent thing given to him in lieu of the chair or
benefit. He has, however, if he is worthy of it, some right to this thing, because according to equity
it is to him more than to others that it should be given, as among the parts of his community he
presents more proportion with this thing than the other persons. Nam qui beneficium vel
cathedram praetendit, nunquam habuit dominium vel possessionem ejus, vel alterius rei
aequivalentis, quam pro altera dederit; habet tamen si sit digna persona, jus quoddam ad talem
rem, quia secundum aequitatem ei potius quam alteri tribuenda est, eo quod, inter partes hujus
communitatis, habet majorem proportionem cum tali re, quam alia personae. Vazquez disagrees:
In ST i d. 86 c. 4.21.
40 41 42
ID 3.35. RL 2.39, ID 4.2. ID 3.35.
43
ID 3.36: necessario supponere pactum vel promissionem, ut suum actum seu munus exerceat. Also
RL 2.37, RM 30.24, 25.
44
ID 3.37.
45
IV iv.5.66 Ad inducendam propriam obligationem justitiae commutativae fortasse magis esse
necessariam illam conditionem, quod pactum utrique parti proponatur, et ab utraque acceptetur,
tamen ad debitum justitiae distributivae id necessarium non esse.
172 daniel schwartz
to the performance of the work.46 Only through the device of a contract
or promise can the owner of the vineyard make himself a debtor in such a
way that it would be unjust for him to deny the reward. Suarez, following
Bellarmine,47 gives the example of a ruler who promises to give prizes to
the winners of a contest. Although prior to the promise he has no duty of
justice to give the prize to any of them, once the promise has been made,
he has an obligation which is not merely one of keeping his word, but also
one of paying debts as demanded by justice.48 Distributive justice always
requires a promise by the sovereign, whether explicit or tacit.49 Suarezs
insistence on the need for a promise is supported by the authority of
Cardinal Bellarmine and Stanislaw Hozjusz, a Polish Jesuit archbishop.50
The device of the promise allows Suarez to escape one of the problems
of attributing justice to a superior ruler such as God: he cannot be obliged
to comply with the will of a superior person, since such a person cannot
46
ID 2.38, 70.
47
Roberto Bellarmino, De justificatione, liber V, cap. 9, in Roberti Belermini politiani s.j. Opera
omnia, 12 vols. (Paris: Vives, 18704), vol. vi, pp. 3723.
48
IV iv.5.63: [I]t is clear that the fact that it presupposes a pact and promise does not oppose
distributive justice; rather such a pact or promise is necessary for it. Consider a prince or somebody
else who liberally offers some of his possessions as competition prizes, so that they will be given to
the brave winners. Although this promise is liberal and gratuitous, after it has been made, and the
competition has taken place, the prize is owed to the winner as a matter of distributive justice.
Because even if, on occasion, a ruler must give something out of distributive justice without his
previous promise, this is because he is not the owner of those things that he distributes, but a
dispensator, or he distributes common goods as required by a role assigned to him by the Republic
or the Superior Prince. Hence, with respect of the Superior Lord or the Republic [the distribution
out of distributive justice] is always preceded by a promise, whether express or tacit. [N]am
imprimis non repugnat justitiae distributivae ut supponat pactum et promissionem; quin potius id
necessarium est, quandocumque princeps aut aliquis alius aliquid ex bonis suis liberaliter proponit
ad certamen, ut detur in praemium seu bravium vincenti. Quamvis enim tunc promissio liberalis
sit et gratuita, tamen, postquam illa facta est, et certamen est expeditum, ex justitia distributiva
debetur praemium victori. Quod si interdum tenetur aliquis gubernator ex justitia distributiva
aliquid dare absque propria promissione praevia, id est, quia non est dominus earum rerum quas
distribuit, sed dispensator, seu quia distribuit ex officio bona communia, a Republica vel a
superiori principe ad id muneris deputata. Unde respectu superioris domini vel Reipublicae,
semper antecedit illa promissio, vel expressa vel tacita.
49
RM 18.12: This is true also between men, who do not deserve something out of justice from
somebody else by acting or working in his benefit, unless a pact or promise to receive a reward has
been celebrated, or unless it has been otherwise established by public law. Otherwise someone
would fall under obligation by the private will and action of somebody else, without his consent or
the authority of law, which is absurd. Therefore this promise is necessary for every merit of justice,
and also among men. At vero etiam inter homines non meretur aliquis de justitia apud alium
aliquid agendo, vel operando in gratiam illius, nisi ex pacto seu promissione mercedis factum sit,
vel nisi lege publica aliud sit statutum, ut alibi etiam dixi, alias obligaretur aliquis de justitia per
privatam voluntatem et actionem alterius, sine proprio consensu vel legis auctoritate, quod
absurdum est. Est ergo illa promissio necessaria ad omne meritum de justitia, etiam inter
homines. See also RM 30.27: justice requires debitum legale, not debitum honestatis.
50
ID 3.37.
possibly exist. Since, however, Gods promise is freely given, the debt
incurred is in a way a debt to himself. In fact keeping it is simply a matter
of constancy of will.51 This duty oritur ex intrinseco, et connaturali
rectitudine ipsius divinae voluntate.52 God implements his promise by
carrying out his immutable will (which lies outside time), so in a sense he
is not acting out of the duty generated by the promise.53
The picture that emerges is one in which Suarez posits a background
pact between the owner of the common stock (the community) and its
members governing the transfer of common stock to private hands and
the conditions regulating its enjoyment. This pact defines the criteria that
allow members to have actionable claims to the receipt of a share of the
common stock.
One must distinguish between duties relating to promise-keeping (fide-
litas) and duties of justice. The notion of simple and pure promise does not
include the actual donation of the thing, but only a pure obligation in the
future, hence it does not introduce an obligation of justice, but only of
promise-keeping.54 In order to generate an actionable claim of justice,
the promise needs to be able to effect the actual donation of a thing.55
A promise is therefore required under a condition such that if it is met
by the promisee it can ground a right of justice.56 Hence, Suarez speaks of
promissione onerosa, or promissione sub conditione onerosa.57 And this
is a promise which contains a pact or covenant.58 A simple promise (or
promesa nuda or pura) and a conditional promise or divine pacts have
strikingly different consequences.59 This doctrine corresponds to the
Roman law principle that Nuda pactio obligationem non parit, regulating
the enforceability of promises and unilateral contracts.60
The idea is that by meeting the terms set by a conditional promise of
the right type we ipso facto acquire or purchase some right over the
promised thing. If the promisor retains the promised thing he is not just
failing to keep his word but violating a right we have over the thing.
51 52
IV iv.5.59, RL 2.9. IV iv.5.59
53
IV iv.5.59: postquam aliquid decrevit ac voluit, in ea voluntate immutabilis perseveret.
54
RL ii.19: simplex et pura promissio in ratione sua non includit actualem donationem, sed puram
obligationem in futurum; ergo non inducit obligatione justitiae, sed fidelitatis. IV iv.5.60, RL 2.53.
55
RL 2.19, 20.
56
RL 2.41. Requiritur ergo promissio sub conditione tali, quae, si adimpleatur ab eo cui sit
promissio, possit jus justitiae fundare. RM 30.40.
57 58 59
IV iv.5.37, 58, 59, 60. RL 2.46. RL 2.47.
60
Digest 2.14.7.4. See James Gordley, Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 739. I am grateful to Prof. Gordley for his guidance on this and
related legal doctrines.
174 daniel schwartz
8.2.3 The natural basis of justice
Although rights have a contractual origin they require natural founda-
tions. Action must be of a value commensurate to the reward in order to
ground a debt to that reward. Not all posited conditions indebt the
promisor as a matter of justice, but only those that correspond to a pre-
contractual fittingness or commensurability between the reward and the
action or personal quality. This view has theological underpinnings, for it
accepts that our grace-informed acts are commensurate with the rewards
given by God before a pact or promise is made.61
Suarezs analysis recalls his views on natural law. For Suarez, there are
naturally good and naturally bad actions, but this is insufficient to
generate moral duties. The duty is generated by the divine will command-
ing the naturally good actions and prohibiting the naturally bad ones.
Similarly, antecedent to the contract, we can determine what sorts of
rewards are suitable for a person, but we have no duty to give the reward
in advance of the promise or contract.
8.2.4 The overarching goal of justice: our right to a well-ordered society

We should not lose sight of the primarily societal function Suarez assigns
to distributive justice, which, in his view, rightly earns it the name of
public justice.62 Distributive justice orders the parts to the whole. The
aim is a social order contributing to a more stable, peaceful and beautiful
(pulchrior) republic.63 This beauty seems to consist of or supervene on, at
least in part, the geometric equality resulting from each having what he
deserves. In Suarezs analogy, one of the tasks of the ruler is similar to that
of a person deciding the seating arrangements at a gathering, who places
61
Quando promissio est sub conditione proportionati operis, per ipsum opus, habens condignitatem
et valorem, acquirit homo jus ad rem promissam, quod est illius ita proprium et intrinsecum, ut
verum sit dicere ratione talis operi deberi tale promissum. RL 2.53. RM 19.14: promissionem non
esse necessariam ut actus meritorius sit proportionatus praemio, RL 2.46.
62
ID 3.18.
63
ID 3.18, 3.22: Probatur prior pars, quia, licet Deus per se respiciat in unoquoque quantitatem
meriti, ut ei condignum praemium tribuat, hoc non impedit quominus Deus etiam per se primo
intendat comparationem, seu proportionem inter multos ex singulis resultantem; nam revera
intendit illam distributionem praemiorum tanquam bonum quoddam commune, quod et
unicuique accommodari potest adequatae ad ejus merita, et toti communitati secundum
proportionem geometrica, quae ad ejus pulchritudinem seu ordinem spectat ergo cum opera Dei
omnibus modis perfecta sint, cumque ipse si supremus gubernator ad quem primario spectat
commune bonum, et in eo debitam proportionem respicere, non videtur dubium quin Deus in hac
distributione hoc bonum per se intendat. Also RM 30.23, 33.
the dignitaries closer to the rostrum than the others.64 This person
succeeds when his arrangement produces a climate of peace and stability.
He fails when he produces an arrangement in which people feel uncom-
fortable and unhappy.
While both commutative and distributive justice give to each his due,
the due of distributive justice derives part of its value from its beneficial
social effects. In the absence of social life there will be no occasion for part
of the benefits of giving each what they deserve. There is more reason to
reward a wise person when he belongs to a community than when he has
isolated himself in the desert. This is not to say that whatever is conducive
to social peace is distributively just. The beneficial social effects of giving
each his due are generated by matching allocation criteria and consensual
views about justice as consecrated in the pact between the commonwealth
and its members.
It is clear that when discussing the value of distributive justice Suarez
brings back proportional allocation. Geometric equality its result is
treated as an intrinsically valued end of the activity of distributive justice.
Commutative justice uses proportion only accidentally: it may resort to
proportional allocation merely as a means of trying to give each his due
(for instance as in the case of an insolvent debtor repaying in proportion
to his accrued debt) or as a foreseeable but unintended result of full
repayment. Distributive justice, however, aims at geometric equality
propter se, not solely as a means to something else, or as an unintended
consequence of its exercise. The overarching goal of distributive justice
aims at generating geometric equality among the members of societies in
order to be able to deliver to them a social good that people have a right
to: a justly ordered, stable and peaceful society.
How is this to be reconciled with Suarezs ardent defence of his view
that what is distinctive and essential to distributive justice is its serving ius
ad rem, rather than geometric equality? Suarezs rejection of proportional
allocation as the essential and distinctive mark of distributive justice
applies to the characterization of its acts. These acts need not consist of
apportioning a good by dividing it among more than one recipient.
Hence proportional allocation cannot be essential to or distinctive of
them. This is consistent with saying, as Suarez does, that the cumulative
desired product of acts of distributive justice is a pattern displaying
geometric equality.
64
ID 3.18.
176 daniel schwartz
One may inquire, as Suarez himself does, what makes the production
of a peaceful and stable order an overarching specific goal of justice?
Cannot this goal be aimed at by other virtues? Indeed Suarez makes the
point that other virtues that specifically promote the common good, such
as divine providence and political prudence,65 also aim at producing the
peaceful and stable order that results from geometric equality. Yet provi-
dence (and political prudence) merely imitate justice,66 because although
it seeks the common good it lacks the essential justice element consisting
in its serving pacts and conventions made with rational creatures.67
What is singular about distributive justice is that it seeks the peaceful
and stable order that results from geometric equality that members of the
community have a right to. And they have a right to it if the sovereign
owes it as a consequence of the terms of a social contract. A sovereign may
aim at geometric equality in order to liberally produce a beneficial social
climate, but if he fails to produce such a climate, he cannot be charged
with injustice, unless he was bound by promise, pact or contract.
Distributive justice is a tool that can be used to establish a just, stable
and peaceful order. The fact that the recipients live together in a commu-
nity is a reason to seek justice not simply for individual members, but as a
way of delivering a public good (justice is in itself a public good)68 and the
public goods engendered by it (social peace and stability). Therefore a
citizen can rightfully expect the public authorities to give other citizens
what is due to them, even if he is not a direct victim of injustice. The civil
climate owed him depends not only on his share of the common goods,
but on that of others too.
8.3 distributive justice and property rights
8.3.1 Distributive rights as rights to property rights

The previous section outlined the main elements of Suarezs theory of
distributive justice. This section discusses the manner in which commu-
tative justice, the justice of dominium rights is, for Suarez, subordinated to
distributive justice.
Suarez depicts the reality of justice rights as two-tiered. One tier is that
of property rights (ius in rem), where interactions are monitored by com-
mutative justice. Above this is the overarching tier of distributive rights
(ius ad rem), which determines and sustains the allocation of the right to
65 66 67 68
ID 4.9, 4.13, RM 30.21, 23, 33. ID 4.13. ID 4.14. ID 3.23.
have property rights. Any right over a thing can be looked at in light of
either tier. The lower tier exists by virtue of a contract or pact between the
commonwealth or sovereign and the members determining the qualities
grounding a ius ad rem right to the reception of a ius in rem. In this
section I examine the various components of this conception of justice by
focusing on Suarezs discussion of merit.
For Suarez, merited rewards belong to both commutative and distribu-
tive justice. How can this be so? In order to solve this theological question
Suarez develops a view that applies to secular affairs too: namely, that the
holding of private goods comes, in some fashion, under the purview of
distributive justice. The keystone of his solution is the doctrine that
holds that the rights of rational beings are subordinate to the superior
right the dominium (dominium superius et altum, dominium supremum
et universale) that God has over them and their possessions.69
The modern common law doctrine of eminent domain, by which the
state can take private property if needed for public utility provided just
compensation is given (often called a forced sale or compulsory pur-
chase), is normally traced back to Grotius who coined the term eminens
dominium. However, as Robert Feenstra has argued, Suarez is probably
one of the two unnamed authors in whom Grotius may have found
inspiration (the other is the jurist Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva). Indeed
the phrase eminens dominium bears close resemblance to Suarezs excellens
dominium.
This doctrine of supreme dominium maintains that the supreme
Lord cannot totally alienate what is his. Suarez addresses the
objection that God cannot have duties of commutative justice, because
69
ID 3.31, 2.29: At vero Deus ita est supremus et universalis dominus omnium, ut nullum bonum,
dominium aut jus possit in creatura inveniri, quod non necessario sit sub dominio Dei, altiori et
prefectiori modo; hoc etiam spectat ad supremam Dei perfectionem, et oritur ex intrinseca
dependentia cujuscumque boni a potestate et voluntate Dei. ID 4.6: Ad quam declarandam uti
soleo distinctione vulgata apud Juristas de duplici dominio, scilicet universali seu alto, et particulari
seu inferiori, vel basso, ut ipsi loquuntur. In Republica enim unaquaeque persona habet proprium
suarum rerum dominium . . . Et hoc jus est, quod proprie respicit et servat justitia commutativa in
quacumque persona . . . Praeter hoc vero habet Respublica, vel Rex, quatenus est publica persona,
in quam Respublica jura sua transtulit, habet (inquam) dominium quoddam altum, id est,
superioris ordinis in bona omnium civium, et particularia omnium, quod non excludit privatum
dominium illorum, sed eo non obstante confert ad utendum illis bonis in communem Reipublicae
utilitatem, quando necessitatis articulus id postulaverit. Et ratione hujus juris tenetur quodlibet
Reipublicae membrum sua propria bona non substrahere, vel denegare Reipublicae, quando ad
hujusmodi usum fuerint necessaria. Imo non solum circa res externas habet Respublica hoc genus
dominii vel juris, sed etiam circa ipsas personas et actiones earum, imo et circa vitam ipsam, non ut
illam suo arbitrio possit tollere, sed ut cuicumque morali periculo, si necessarium fuerit, eam
exponere juste valeat. Also RL 2.7, 37, 60, IV iv.5.69, RM 30.34.
178 daniel schwartz
depriving himself of ownership rights would create an imperfection
inconsistent with divine attributes. He answers that God retains superior
right over those things that are given to rational creatures, even when they
are given for reasons of justice. According to Suarez, the same occurs at
the political level: the republic retains a form of superior ownership over
private possessions.70 The sovereign can use private property if needed for
the common good, such as for war preparations, because of its jus
quoddam altius in bona propria singularum.71
Supreme dominium solves the problem of the imperfection that would
attach to God if he were to alienate part of what he owns. [I]f by giving
someone his right he remains the perfect owner of that thing which he
gives, any imperfection on this count ceases.72 Gods giving something to
somebody formally does not have the character of commutative justice as
a consequence of the excellent ownership (excellens dominium) that God
retains always over all things, including those he owes out of justice.73
Hence Gods (and the republics) property are ultimately inalienable: nihil
enim potest Deus a suo dominio abdicare.74
What is the dominium that God as universal Lord has over those things
he has given and how does it relate to our particular dominium? Suarez
construes the relation between supreme and particular dominium as one of
subordination. The conservation of the particular dominium is dependent
on the will of God or the sovereign.75 In this manner Gods ownership is
70
ID 1.12: singulae enim personae, quae sunt membra Reipublicae, habent sua propria bona,
quorum habent particulare, et inferius quoddam dominium quod non excludit quominus
Respublica in eisdem retineat dominium superius, et altum, ratione cujus potest illis interdum
uti quando ad commune bonum reipublicae necessarium fuit. Unde sit ut quando e converso ipsa
Respublica seu Princeps ejus communia bona inter sua membra distribuunt, secundum
distributivam justitiam . . . quia tribuendo illa suis membris, non se privat illo superiori
dominio, quod in illa habebat. DL I.7.7: The state has a certain higher right over the private
goods of individuals, so that it may make use of these goods when it needs them.
71
DL i.7.7. Also DL i.17.11: potestas dominii alti, quod dicitur esse in republica. . . potestas supremi
dispensatoris et administratoris bonorum reipublicae.
72
ID 1.12: Nam si quis tribuendo alteri jus suum, maneat perfectus dominus ejus rei quam tribuit,
cessat ex hac parte omnis imperfectio.
73
RL 1.60: rationem autem commutativae justitiae non habet ita formaliter propter excellens
dominium, semper Deus retinet in quamcumque rem, quamtumvis illa ex justitia debeat. RM
30.34: Quia licet, supposito pacto, et conventione ex parte Dei, justi per sua merita verum jus
justititiae quod inter homines reperitur, quia fundatur in operibus quae magis sunt ipsius Dei
quam hominis merentis, nam Deus illa vulta esse merita in nobis apud ipsum quae sint ipsius dona;
et ita sunt dona ejus, ut semper sub ejus supremo dominio maneant; nihil potest Deus a suo
dominio abdicare. Ex hac ergo parte jus illus ex parte hominis deficit a rigore justitiae
commutativae, quae inter homines intervenit; et consequenter dici potest participare aliquid de
modo juris distributivae justitiae.
74 75
RM 30.34. ID 3.31.
in some way concurrent with particular ownership. God remains owner to
the extent that particular rights can be withdrawn. Hence, the spoliation
of the Egyptians at the hands of the divinely authorized Hebrews as
recounted in the Bible did not constitute theft. God is supreme Lord,
and is able to change and to grant rights of ownership.76
Suarez relies on supreme dominium to explain how rewards belong
simultaneously to commutative and distributive justice. He introduces a
distinction between two perspectives of the right over the reward. Insofar
as the reward is looked at from the viewpoint of commutative justice, it is
considered as private ownership, that is, as ius in rem. Yet once we take
into consideration that the enjoyment of property rights is subject to
Gods will, we can consider the rewards not to be owned by us.77
The right to a reward is the ius ad rem of distributive justice. It is not
grounded on a previously existing debt (which the propertyless cannot
generate), but rather on the qualities of the recipient. This sort of remu-
neration takes into account the dignity of the person and the right
founded on this dignity and the persons merit.78
Suarez invites us to apply a dual perspective on private possessions.
From the point of view of distributive justice these should be looked at
as we look at job allocation. The best candidate has a greater right to the
job because he displays some qualities to a greater extent than the rest.
Similarly, a persons right to property rights (at least in the initial
distribution, before trade begins) belongs to him because he exhibits the
quality of being able to contribute to social utility by having these
property rights.
To see this more clearly, consider the difference between violating
property rights and withdrawing them. If a thief steals your car he has
violated your property rights and must make restitution. The sovereign,
unlike the thief, can withdraw your property rights over the car and
transfer them to someone else (say, to be used for security patrols). You
could lodge a complaint that your private ownership of the car was more
conducive to social utility (say, because you are a doctor), and so you have
a greater right to property rights over the car than the police have. But by
lodging this complaint you are not claiming a violation of your property
rights, but rather, of your right to property rights under agreed, public
criteria regulating their allocation.
To have a ius ad rem over the car in effect means the same as having the
right to be given and preserved in the enjoyment of property rights over
76 77 78
DL ii.14.18, 20; Exod. 7: 356. ID 3.31, RM 30.33, 34. RM 30.34.
180 daniel schwartz
the car (or the things you can trade your car for). This right is established
and protected by a pact with the sovereign specifying the criteria for its
allocation.
We now have a more complete account of distributive justice. It
consists of the sovereigns acting in agreement with a covenant with the
members of the community. This covenant establishes among other
things the arrangement of members rights to dominium rights. While
the infringement of dominium rights (as in theft) is a contravention of
commutative justice, the infringement of rights to dominium rights (as in
unjust expropriation) is a contravention of distributive justice. For this
reason, only the sovereign can be distributively unjust; he alone has the
capacity to expropriate. The distributive covenant donates rights (and so
creates obligations of justice rather than only of fidelity) because of a
natural suitability or equivalence of value between the comparative prop-
erties of the recipients and their rewards. The following section presents
two plausible objections to this view: first the objection that divine or
political omnipotence requires the sovereign to be unbounded by the
prescriptions of distributive justice; secondly, the objection that supreme
dominium cancels the separation between persons that is a precondition
of justice.
8.3.2 Distributive justice and divine omnipotence

It could be objected that supreme dominium is incompatible with dis-
tributive justice as the latter limits Gods sphere of action. This claim may
be grounded on Suarezs identification of supreme dominium with Gods
absolute power (potentia absoluta).79 According to its various late scholas-
tic proponents (Biel, Pierre DAilly), God could by virtue of his absolute
power interfere at any point in the physical, moral or legal order that he
himself has established. Here I will argue that even if supreme dominium
was a form of divine absolute power even on the most intrusive under-
standing of this power, for Suarez, principles of distributive justice are not
under threat of divine arbitrary interference.
Suarez addresses the canonical question of whether God can dispense
moral agents from natural law.80 Purported examples of this possibility
79
See DL ii.15.20 where it is argued that transferring dominium over Gomer to Osee would be an
enactment of potentia absoluta. In DL ii.15.21 we have the phrase absoluta potestate et dominio
which God has (19) as supremus Dominus.
80
DL ii.15.21.
include seemingly immoral divine commands and permissions such as for
Abraham to slay his son, and the prophet Osee to take Gomer, daughter
of Diblaim, as a wife of fornications,81 and authorizing the Hebrews
plundering of the Egyptians.
The view defended by Suarez is that the capacity to alter the moral
status of actions depends on the capacity of the person holding potestas
and dominium in the relevant realm to relocate ownership rights. By
virtue of his absolute potestas and dominium, God has the power to turn
Gomer into Osees wife without her consent, so that Osee would not in
fact be engaging in illicit sexual acts by having intercourse with her.
Suarezs political parallel is usucapione, or prescription, which allows the
political ruler to transfer the ownership of a thing from one person to the
other (for instance to someone who has inhabited someone elses house
for a long period of time): thus while human law remains the same, that
which was formerly a theft can cease to be a theft.82
Is the sovereign free to relocate rights as he pleases at any given time?
This would seem to leave no room for principles of distributive justice:
that is, principles regulating the location of rights to dominium rights. For
example, had Gomer and the Egyptians been innocent, would it have
been legitimate for God to remove their respective rights?83
There are two main variants of the scholastic doctrine of absolute
power. According to one variant absolute power is simply the initial
capacity to freely create a natural or moral order.84 In the other variant
(arguably the dominant one at Suarezs time), absolute power consists
in the coeval capacity to disruptively intrude in the created order at any
given point.85
In neither of these two variants could God by absolute power violate
promissorial duties. In the first interpretation, the promissorial rights
would simply be an enactment or determination of absolute divine power,
which would then cease to constitute a potential threat. Although the
second variant holds that the created order is under continuous threat of
disruption, it allows immunity from disruption if the potential intruder
81
Hosea 1: 2. It is clear that the command is to fornicate as the resulting offspring is depicted as filios
fornicationum and the purpose of the act is to symbolize the depravity of the realm.
82
DL ii.15.21.
83
The case of Isaac is different, for no fault that could justify his loss of the right to life is imputed
to him.
84
Defined as [T]he total possibilities initially open to God, some of which were realized by creating
the established order. Courtenay 1974: 39.
85
Oakley 2002: 13. Alvarez Gomez 2000.
182 daniel schwartz
offers promissorial guarantees to the preservation of the order. This is
Suarezs position. He says, [I]f God makes a promise, He is indeed
bound to keep that promise, not because of positive law, but because
of the natural rectitude which, by virtue of the promise, attends its
fulfilment.86 It would be contradictory for God to break his promises.
His absolute power, however understood, does not enable him to do what
is ex se impossible.87 Distributive justice consists in meeting promise-
generated debts of a particular kind. Supreme dominium, even if it is a
form of absolute power, does not include the capacity to fail to meet
promissorial duties.
It could be counter-objected that the promise binds God solely to
initially provide a right to a particular person, after which the location
of the right is at the mercy of the whims of a free divine will. Yet the
content of the promise that creates distributive rights may include a
commitment to preserve the product of the promise.88 For example, in
De incarnatione verbo, Suarez makes the customary point that rights to
those things that are not yet existent but will exist in the future are iura ad
rem.89 However, even after goods owed to us have been provided, a debt
may remain alive because God may be under a promise-generated duty
to continuously conserve the goods that we now have by right. Hence, he
says, we can have a ius ad rem to those goods which we already own.
Similarly, the ius ad rem can be seen as a personal right that God preserve
ones ownership right (rather than just preserve the thing that is owned).
Suarezs position is that the location of the rights to property rights is
subject to distributive principles generated by freely given promises (or
covenants) which bind the supreme dominus (either God or the republic).
Supreme dominium is expressed not by a capacity on the part of the
supreme dominus to expropriate capriciously, but by the fact that lack of
compliance with conditions freely imposed by the sovereign entails loss of
the right to enjoy property rights.
86
DL ii.2.6.
87
RM 30.14: If God could fail to do what he promised, he would be either deceptive or mutable and
he would therefore fail to be God. Hence to say that God can fail to fulfil his promise implies a
contradiction and, because of this, it is ex se impossible and thus beyond Gods power (without this
really pointing to limited power).
88
DL ii.2.67: if, apart from any general law, God makes a promise, he is indeed bound to keep that
promise, not because of positive law, but because of his natural rectitude which, by virtue of the
promise, attends its fulfillment . . . God is unable to act in opposition to his own decree, not on
account of any prohibition that the decree carries with it, but on account of the repugnant nature
of that act itself.
89
IV iv.5.68.
8.3.3 Supreme dominium and personhood
An Aristotelian axiom says that justice is always towards somebody else.
There is no justice to oneself. But if, given supreme dominium, the actions
that God rewards are in a sense his, then he is rewarding himself, and this
would fail to be an exercise of justice.
The point was made by Durandus of St Pourcain and again by Vazquez
when considering the validity of pacts between lord and slave, father and
son before the age of reason, and God and human beings.90 The objection
is that ownership or lordship of one person over another makes any
present duties those of the superior to himself and hence not duties of
justice. Suarez flatly rejects this claim and argues that for duties of justice
to emerge all that is needed is a personarum distinctione.91 That is, being a
separate person suffices to secure for the person the capacity to acquire
duties and rights through pacts. Moreover, the status of personhood is not
diminished by relationships of subordination. God owns you, but you are
not part of him. Because Gods debt terminates in you, it is not a debt to
him (which it would be if you were part of him).
From the fact that Gods ownership of his creatures does not preclude
them from being bearers of contractually generated rights Suarez infers
that Gods ownership of our actions does not preclude them from being
grounds for those rights either. Just as you remain a separate person
despite being under Gods dominium, so your actions belong to the
separate person that you are, although they too are under Gods domin-
ium. The sovereign is not rewarding himself by giving something to you,
not only because the recipient of the reward is not him, but because he is
not the agent of the actions that are the grounds of the rewards (even
though he owns them). The argument calls for more scrutiny than can be
provided here; nevertheless it seems a plausible and appealing idea to
make personhood a status insensitive to power or property relations.
8.4 summary
Suarez maintains that distributive justice is the sovereigns virtue, consist-
ing in meeting and protecting the subjects rights to acquire and remain in
possession of portions of the common stock. These rights are created by a
pact or conditional promise that specifies the personal qualities that
ground the subjects rights to shares of the common stock. These criteria
90 91
RM 30.39. RM 30.42.
184 daniel schwartz
are not arbitrary. For them to ground claims of justice they must reflect a
natural, pre-contractual suitability between personal qualities and
rewards. Obligations of justice do not come into force until some form
of covenant is celebrated. The aim of distributive justice looks beyond
securing the individuals distributive rights: it has the public function of
contributing to the peace, stability and beauty of the political community.
This aim is shared by other political virtues, but distributive justice
contributes to that portion of this aim that can be realized by meeting
and protecting the rights which it is in charge of overseeing.
Distributive justice governs not only the fresh allocation of shares of the
common stock, but also the conditions under which subjects can continue
to own them. The sovereign retains supreme dominion over private
possessions and is able to withdraw property rights and to transfer them
from one subject to the other. Alterations are not arbitrary. They are
regulated by criteria set up by a covenant or conditional promise between
sovereign and subjects which binds the sovereign. Because the covenant
giving rise to duties of distributive justice reflects the freedom and power
of God as sovereign, the dictates of distributive justice cannot be held to
limit his freedom or power. Finally, the universal dominium attributed to
God as universal lord does not eliminate the separation between persons;
it remains possible to speak about distributive justice between God and
his creatures, even though he owns them.
chapter 9
Suarez on just war

Gregory M. Reichberg
In the pantheon of scholastic just war theorists, a trio stand out: Aquinas,
Vitoria, and Suarez. Of the three, Suarez was by far the most systematic in
his treatment of issues relating to war. Unlike Vitoria, who framed his De
Indis in relation to the social and political events of his day, Suarez
favoured a more abstract and speculative style. And while he found
constant points of reference in Aquinass short Quaestio de bello,1 his
considerably more detailed account moved the saints principles in novel
directions, often as read through the lens of Cajetans commentary, and
sometimes in disagreement with the path marked out earlier by Vitoria.
Suarezs Disputatio de bello (DDB) is part of a larger work on the
theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.2 He followed Aquinas in
placing the discussion of war within the context of the last-mentioned
virtue. Whereas his predecessors Cajetan and Vitoria evinced little interest
in developing the link of just war with charity, prioritizing justice instead,
Suarez took care to illustrate the salience of this connection. This did not,
however, prevent him from also highlighting the exigencies of justice. His
coordination of the two virtues, the one theological and the other car-
dinal, within his account of just war, represented a distinctive contribu-
tion to scholastic thought in this domain.
Aquinass rationale for examining war within his Summa theologiae
treatise on charity was principally negative.3 The goal was to demonstrate
how wrongful war, along with other conflict-causing vices such as discord
1
ST ii-ii q. 40; Translation of the relevant passages may be found in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby
2006: 17682.
2
Francisco Suarez, De caritate, d. XIII from De triplici virtute theologici, in Opera omnia, ed.
M. Andre and C. Berton, 28 vols. (Paris: Vives, 1858), vol. xii. Unless otherwise indicated,
passages are cited according to the translation in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 34070,
which is an emended version of Francisco Suarez, Selections from Three Works, trans. G. L.
Williams et al., 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944), vol. ii.
3
See Reichberg 2011.
185
186 g r eg o r y m. r e i ch b e r g
and schism, stands opposed to the communion of charity. Having thus
taken sinful war as his point of departure, Aquinas was aware that this
could lead to the mistaken impression that each and every resort to armed
force should be condemned on moral grounds. To examine his own
position in relation to this principled pacifism, Aquinas took up the
question Whether any war is licit in the opening articulum of his
Quaestio de bello. Responding affirmatively, he famously explained how
war would be consistent with charity if waged by leaders with the requisite
authority, for a just cause, and with an upright intention.
In line with the reasoning sketched above, Suarez opened the first
section of his DDB by asking whether it is intrinsically evil and contrary
to charity to wage war.4 In a vigorous refutation of pacifism, a standpoint
he characterized as heretical (insofar as it would give an unqualified
affirmative answer to the question above), Suarez grounded his argumen-
tation in an inventory of scriptural passages, and by an appeal to reason.
With respect to the first, he took care to show how the Bible (Hebrew and
Greek) countenanced not only defensive but also offensive warfare, a
distinction not explicitly drawn by Aquinas and to which we shall return
below. Then, apropos of both sorts of war, and on rational grounds, he
explained how just war designated more than a minimal permission to
engage in an activity that might otherwise be avoided; in a much stronger
sense it could also entail an outright obligation, in such a fashion that
abstaining from war could on some occasions be sinful.
Suarez took care to note that the obligation to protect the common-
wealth by resort to force must, however, be exercised in accordance with
the order of charity,5 with the underlying supposition that the role of
charity in this domain was to restrain the urge to justice. Taken as an act
of virtue, the resort to force pertains to justice. The theological virtue of
charity comes into play to limit a natural impulse that if left unchecked
could easily tend to excess. This was an implication not drawn out
explicitly by Aquinas, who in large measure left unexplored the relation-
ship between justice and charity in matters relating to war. And rather
than speaking of charity in terms of moderation, Aquinas suggested
instead that this virtue could positively impel warlike engagements, when
the aim was to repel attacks directed against individuals and communities
unable to defend themselves.6
4 5
DDB 1.1. DDB 1.4.
6
How charity might inspire agents to take up arms in defense of the innocent is not taken up by
Aquinas within the Summa treatise devoted to this virtue; it is however alluded to in a later article
Suarez on just war 187
Moreover, by linking just war expressly to vindicative justice, Suarez
was led accordingly to emphasize the attendant danger of excess and
consequently a need for the restraining influence of charity. Aquinas, by
contrast, did not articulate just war precisely as an instrument of punish-
ment although this was how he was read by Cajetan whose interpret-
ation was later to influence Suarez. Thus we do not find him assigning a
special moderating role to charity vis-a-vis war. In this respect, the Jesuits
treatment is a probable source of some contemporary accounts7 which
argue usually by an appeal to Aquinas but where Suarez would have
been more apposite that Christian charity sets limits on the exercise of
just war. This sort of reasoning appears in a passage of the DDB where he
explains how a declaration of war may be in conformity with justice while
simultaneously violating the exigencies of charity.8 This would happen,
for instance, if force were used to press a legitimate claim against an
offending commonwealth that was materially unable to provide satisfac-
tion for its wrongdoing, and where the satisfaction, if given, would be of
only minor benefit to the commonwealth that had suffered the injustice.
In such circumstances, the latter should be willing to waive its right in
favour of the higher interests of charity. But should this offended party
proceed to war regardless, the resulting violation of charity, while
demanding repentance on the part of the leader who made this decision,
would entail no obligation to make restitution for damages caused by the
war, as the resort to war did not involve a violation of justice.
By thus contrasting the respective exigencies of justice and charity,
Suarez implicitly distinguished between the different operational effects
of wrongful war: proceeding without just cause would entail the fullest
range of legal consequences (obligation of restitution, payment of dam-
ages, subjection to punishment); lack of proper authority (but with just
cause) would require only payment of damages caused by the war; while a
defective intention would be penalized solely within the forum of con-
science. Generally speaking, for Suarez, duties of justice are all enforce-
able, while duties of charity are not (except in the restricted domain of the
confessional).
After the introductory first section, the remainder9 of the DDB is struc-
tured around the tripartite division of legitimate authority (section 2),
on whether a religious order can be directed to soldiering (ST ii-ii q. 188 a. 3); for discussion of this
passage, see Reichberg 2010.
7
See, for instance, Miller 2002, and my critique of this reading of Aquinas in Reichberg 2010.
8 9
DDB 4.89. Apart from the concluding section 8 on sedition.
just cause (sections 26), and due mode (debitus modus) (section 7).10
The first two relate to what is now termed ius ad bellum or norms
governing the resort to armed force, while the third (which Aquinas had
placed under the heading of right intention) is meant to cover ius in
bello or proper conduct in war. Suarez accords just cause (its nature,
subdivisions and epistemic conditions) by far the lengthiest treatment, as
it is the pivot of his account and will accordingly be the focus of this
chapter. It is preceded by the analysis of legitimate authority, since on
Suarezs understanding (in continuity with Aquinas) just cause repre-
sents far more than a purely speculative judgment about a wrong done
which might entitle a reaction of armed force; rather it designates an
authoritative practical judgment which engages the commonwealth on a
path of war.
Given its weighty nature, a determination of just cause is understood by
Suarez to be the special prerogative of the supremus princeps or highest
authority in a commonwealth. Suarez does, however, qualify this assertion
when he suggests, still in the opening critique of pacifism (section 1), that
the requirement of legitimate authority does not cover each and every
resort to force. For, if the requirement had such a universal scope, the
exercise of self-defence by private individuals would be excluded. To
clarify how this was not his intent, and as a prelude to section 2 on
legitimate authority, Suarez provided (in section 1) a short but insightful
account of the difference between defensive and offensive force, under the
supposition that the second alone requires a special mandate from the
highest instance of political leadership.11 The first, by contrast, falls within
the purview of lower authorities and even private individuals.
The distinction between defensive and offensive force was given par-
ticularly clear formulation in relation to legitimate authority by Pope
Innocent IV in his Apparatus on the five books of the Decretals.12 Aquinas,
who wrote the Summa theologiae some twenty years later, did not expli-
citly refer to this distinction, although it was implied by his dissociation of
problems related to self-defence on the one hand, and of war on the other,
to which are devoted separate quaestiones in the Secunda secundae pars.13
Approaching the question De bello with this distinction clearly in mind,
Cajetan, in his commentary on this text, argued that Aquinas, by so
10
This tripartite division is first introduced in 1.7, fourth conclusion: for a war to be honourable, a
number of conditions must be observed, which may be grouped under three heads.
11 12
DDB 1.6. See the chapter on Innocent IV in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 14855.
13
ST IIII qq. 64 and 40, respectively.
strongly emphasizing in article 1 the importance of legitimate authority as
a condition for resort to force, had assumed the reader would understand
that the discussion was in fact about offensive war, and more specifically
about war as a sanction for wrongdoing.14
Picking up where Cajetan left off, Suarez underscored how his own
DDB was chiefly about offensive war,15 with the corollary that legitimate
authority would be a condition indispensable to its exercise. A resort to
force is considered offensive16 when it aims to counter an injustice that is
past and done (facta iam sit). A defensive resort, by contrast, is put up in
opposition to an injustice that is in some measure still underway (in fieri).
With respect to the latter, the agents purpose is accordingly to resist harm
(to his person or his property), while vis-a-vis the former, the goal is to
obtain a remedy (satisfaction) for the injury suffered. Since harm is
especially to be resisted when it occurs in the heat of the moment
(incontinenti, to use the standard term employed by the medieval canon
lawyers), under this urgent immediacy there is no requirement to wait for
an intervention of civil authorities (the police) before resorting to force in
self-defence.17 On the other hand, when satisfaction is sought for past
wrongs, urgency cannot be alleged, and private persons have no entitle-
ment to take this form of justice into their own hands. A civil authority
alone is empowered to administer penalties for wrongdoing, especially
when these involve the imposition of physical harm. Taking for granted
that the punishment inflicted through war is of the severest kind,18
Suarez concludes that it ought to be inflicted with the upmost restraint,19
and not by just anyone in a position of authority, but solely under the
order of a supreme prince.
14
Cajetan, (Tommaso de Vio), In ST II-II q. 40 a. 1, in Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Doctoris Angelici,
Opera omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII, cum commentariis Thomae de Vio Caietani ordinis
praedicatorum, vol. viii (Rome: Typographia Polyglota, 1895), pp. 31314, all translations from
Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 2415.
15 16
DDB 4.1. Suarez uses the adjective aggressivum to designate an offensive resort to force.
17
For a summary on self-defence in medieval canon law and theology, see Reichberg 2008a: 225. In
line with earlier accounts, Suarez explains how the criterion of immediacy permits some elasticity,
so that it need not be interpreted as allowing only defensive action that is strictly contemporaneous
with commission of the injury. Although he does not mention here the issue of forward-looking
(pre-emptive) action, he does note how resort to force can justifiably follow upon an attack, say a
robbery, if without notable delay one attempts to reinstate himself in possession (DDB 1.6). In a
similar vein, he emphasizes how the notion of injury must be construed broadly, to include unjust
seizure of property. Thus, should robbers be attacked upon carrying out a theft, this would present
the appearance of an offensive, although it is in fact a defence (DDB 1.6).
18 19
DDB 7.4. Ibid.
9.1 legitimate war-making authority

Suarez approached the question of legitimate authority in terms that had
been broadly defined by Aquinas.20 Yet, the Jesuits reading of this text
was mediated by Cajetans commentary, and supplemented by Vitorias
analysis of this theme in the De iure belli.
In his brief yet seminal discussion of authority for making war, Aquinas
had given three reasons why this function was reserved to political leaders,
or, in his vocabulary, the office of prince. First of all, satisfaction for a
violated right can be sought through war only when there exist no other
means of redress. This condition obtains only for princes, who have no
superior to adjudicate their disputes, unlike private individuals who can
pursue their right before a court of law. Second, since war is a collective
enterprise, only the prince, as leader of the community, can summon the
multitude to military action. Third, arguing on the basis of a domestic
analogy, Aquinas explained that just as princes are entitled to use the
material sword to suppress internal disturbances as when they punish
malefactors similarly, the same princes may avail themselves of the
sword of war to repel external enemies. Both swords are manifestations
of the chief responsibility incumbent upon the prince: namely, to safe-
guard the common good.
Commenting on this passage,21 Cajetan directed his attention to the
first and third reasons advanced by Aquinas, with an eye to the difficulties
posed by each. With respect to the first, he observed how Aquinas did not
differentiate between princes of different rank. Should all princes be
viewed as having a right to declare war, or is this office reserved only for
the highest among them? By employing the domestic analogy in advan-
cing his third reason, Aquinas would seem to have supported the former
view, as the functions of judge and police are typically distributed between
both lower and higher princes within a single commonwealth. But if by
extension lower princes (e.g., dukes and barons) are thus accorded the
right to wage war against each other, this would cut against Aquinass
central postulate that redress can be sought by resort to force only when
there exists no superior who can adjudicate a dispute. This would be
equivalent to saying that each lower prince is entitled to pronounce in his
own case against another, and the authority of his superior would thereby
be flouted.
20 21
In ST ii-ii q. 40 a. 1. Cajetan, In ST ii-ii q. 40 a. 1.
In mounting his response, Cajetan assumed that Aquinas meant to
draw the domestic analogy precisely on the issue of vindicative justice,
with the implication that just as princes are empowered to punish crim-
inals within their jurisdiction, so too are they authorized to avenge
themselves against external enemies. However, in all exactitude, it must
be said that punishment was mentioned by Aquinas only as an illustration
or instantiation (presumably one among several) of the forcible actions
that could be exercised by the prince ad intra.22 In fact, when he draws the
analogy ad extra, to the princes use of the sword against other polities, no
reference is made to punishment; the emphasis is rather on protective
action, rescuing the poor and delivering the needy.23
Having assumed that Aquinass treatment of legitimate authority was in
sum about the exercise of vindicative justice, Cajetan proceeded to explain
how the saints intent was to restrict this authority to the highest among
princes, namely those with no superior. But to get around the problem
raised by his reading of the domestic analogy, Cajetan noted that this
analogy was advanced within an argument not so much about princes as
about the competence of political communities. It is the very nature of a
perfect commonwealth to possess the vindicative power, ad intra and ad
extra. Such a commonwealth would not be sufficient unto itself (citing
Aristotles Politics, book 3) if it could not avenge injuries committed
against itself by its own members or by a foreign people. The punishment
of criminals ad intra, and of foreign enemies ad extra, are thus two
aspects of one and the same power possessed by the perfect common-
wealth. By contrast, imperfect commonwealths, given their insertion
within a higher juridical order, do not possess this power inherently
as punitive justice is the sole right of the [perfect] commonwealth24
although it can be conferred on them by way of delegation. Since
this delegation is more typically accorded vis-a-vis the punishment
of civil offences than in relation to waging war, Cajetan takes the latter
22
And just as it is licit for them to have recourse to the material sword in defending the common
weal against internal disturbances, as when (dum) they punish malefactors, according to the words
of the Apostle (Romans 13: 4): He beareth not the sword in vain: for he is Gods minister, an
avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil (citation from Reichberg, Syse, and Begby
2006: 177).
23
[S]o too, it is their business to have recourse to the sword of war in protecting the common weal
against external enemies. Hence it is said to those who are in authority (Ps. 81: 4): Rescue the poor:
and deliver the needy out of the hand of the sinner (citation from Reichberg, Syse, and Begby
2006: 177).
24
Cajetan, In ST ii-ii q. 40 a. 1; Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 242.
to be the most visible mark of a complete commonwealth a sovereign
nation, as we would say today.
Adhering closely to the essentials of Cajetans account, Suarez brought
to his own analysis a distinctive legal coloration. This is made clear at the
outset of section 2, when he asserts that war-making authority consists
first and foremost in an exercise of jurisdiction.25 As applied to the ius belli
(the right to wage war), the notion of jurisdiction cuts two ways. On the
one hand, it brings into play a broader range of political institutions than
had originally been envisioned by Aquinas, whose account was organized
around the monarchical office of princeps. While the Angelic Doctor does
recognize that the relevant political entity is the respublica, he does not
speak of war-making authority by reference to regimes other than the
monarchical. Suarez, by contrast, asserts that the vindicative power,
pertaining as it does to perfect commonwealths, will be exercisable by
every kind of regime and thus is not limited to monarchy. Presumably it
would also apply to aristocracy or representative democracy. Moreover,
should the commonwealth confer this power on a monarch, it will no
longer retain a right to declare war against his will. Yet since the vindica-
tive power originated from the commonwealth, the transfer in question
can never be absolute. Thus, if the prince proves to be so
negligent in avenging or defending the commonwealth as to cause public and
very grave harm to that commonwealth . . . the commonwealth as a whole may
take vengeance on the prince, depriving him of his authority, for the common-
wealth is always regarded as retaining this power within itself, if the prince fails
in his duty.26
In this way, Suarez smuggles a robust right of rebellion into what is
otherwise a rather stringent conception of war-making jurisdiction.
The stringency of Suarezs conception can be seen from the principle he
enunciates as the counter-face of the (perfect) commonwealths right of
jurisdiction: To avenge oneself, on ones own private authority, is intrin-
sically evil . . . Therefore [an inferior prince] is not to be granted this
licence [to wage war], save only within the limits of just defence.27 This
principle he applies in a variety of contexts, so as to restrict the authority
for exercising offensive war to all but the most sovereign of agents.
25
The designation of offensive war as an exercise of jurisdiction figures prominently in the account
of Innocent IV; see Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 14862.
26
DDB 2.1. Reichberg, Syse and Begby 2006: 344.
27
DDB 2.2. Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 345 (substituting the words in brackets to exact
vengeance, with to wage war).
He does not go quite so far as to affirm that the emperor has sole
possession of this authority (the canonists are mistaken in saying that
only the emperor is supreme in this fashion28), but he manifestly wishes
to exclude from its scope those princes who are able to appeal their
grievances to a higher instance: for when there is room for an appeal
[this] is the mark of an incomplete commonwealth.29 Although,
following Vitoria, he does concede that not all commonwealths that
are subject to one and the same king are necessarily incomplete,30 thus
allowing for the retention of war-making authority within, for example,
some federal arrangements, he insists, nonetheless, that war between
nations united in this way is rarely just.31
In connection with this narrow construal of war-making authority,
Suarez criticized two views which had earlier been advanced by Vitoria.
Considering the case of a supreme prince who was negligent in prose-
cuting wrongdoing, Vitoria argued that a lower prince could justifiably
step into the breach without the tacit or express authorization of his
superior under the supposition that the licence and authority to wage
[offensive] war may be conferred [downwards] by necessity . . . Otherwise
the injured party would have no adequate self-defence: enemies would not
abstain from harming others, if their victims were content only to defend
themselves.32 Countering that this course of action is not commendable,
especially when the conflict occurs between two parts of the same com-
monwealth . . . since tumults and wars might easily be stirred up within a
commonwealth on this pretext,33 Suarez concludes quite emphatically
that an inferior prince is not to be granted this licence to exact vengeance
under the alleged principle of necessity.34 The same point is affirmed in
still stronger terms apropos of private individuals: if a public person with
28 29 30
DDB 2.4. Ibid. Ibid.
31
DDB 1.5. The reference is to Christian commonwealths united under the spiritual leadership of the
pope.
32
Francisco de Vitoria, Relectio de iure belli; o, Paz Dinamica, ed. L. Perena, V. Abril, C. Baciero,
A. Garca, and F. Maseda (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, 1981), p. 120,
q. ii, proposition 3 (translation in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 313). While Vitoria recognizes
that some constitutions do allow for the conferral of war-making authority on lesser princes, this is
not the context being considered in the present instance, which considers the case of a prince who
does not possess this right de iure, but who de facto, by reason of necessity, assumes a power that is
not ordinarily his own.
33
DDB 2.2.
34
Suarez does allow, however, that under conditions of great urgency when recourse [to the prince]
is not immediately possible, it is sometimes sufficient to interpret his will, particularly if the war is
to be undertaken against foreigners, and above all if these foreigners are on other grounds overt
enemies of the prince. DDB 2.3.
vindicative authority is unable or unwilling to mete out vengeance [for
the benefit of a private person], this individual should patiently endure
the loss.35
Suarez criticized Vitoria even more sharply (although not by name)
apropos of his contention, which has resonated in the recent literature on
forcible humanitarian intervention,36 that the prince has the authority
not only over his own people but also over foreigners to force them to
abstain from harming others: this is his right by the law of nations and the
authority of the whole world.37 Operative in Vitorias reasoning is the
supposition (which would be drawn out explicitly only centuries later)
that one commonwealth is empowered to punish another for wrongdoing
perpetrated against a third, not precisely by its own authority, but rather
insofar as it functions as an organ or instrument of the international
community.38 Denouncing this very expansive conception of war-making
authority as entirely false, Suarez underscores how a wrong done to
another does not give me the right to avenge him, unless he would be
justified in avenging himself and actually proposes to do so . . . since he
who has committed the wrong has made himself subject not to everyone
indiscriminately, but only to the person who has been wronged.39 To
allege otherwise throws into confusion all the orderly distinctions of
jurisdiction; for such power was not [expressly] granted by God and its
existence is not to be inferred by any process of reasoning.40
9.2 just cause

In discussing the notion of causa iusta, Suarez again took his main cue
from Aquinas, who had emphasized how a war will be just only when it is
reactive upon the prior wrongdoing of another party: those who are
attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some
fault.41 Commenting on this phrase, Suarez observes that it excludes what
he terms the old error current among the Gentiles.42 According to this
view, which today would be called realpolitik, the rights of kingdoms
[are] based on arms, and by consequence it [is] permissible to make war
solely to acquire prestige and weath.43 Suarez sees no point in providing a
35 36
DDB 4.7. See Reichberg 2002.
37
Vitoria, Relectio de iure belli, p. 136, q. iv, proposition 5; Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 316.
38
For a careful examination of this theme in Vitoria, including a consideration of its implications for
the development of international law in the twentieth century, see Haggenmacher 1988.
39 40 41
DDB 4.3. Ibid. ST ii-ii q. 40 a. 1; Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 177.
42 43
DDB 4. prologue. Ibid.
sustained refutation of this error for in his eyes it is graspable without the
aid of divine revelation, as most absurd.44
By the time Suarez set out to write his DDB, an extensive body of
literature had already developed on the notion of just cause. He under-
scored how it involved an inherent asymmetry. Originating out of a
wrong done by the opposing party, a just war was necessarily unilateral.45
It was a proceeding in which a belligerent was empowered to take the
initiative in seeking remedies (restitution, compensation, damages, pun-
ishment, or some combination thereof) for its violated right. Given the
severity of this proceeding, it was understood that the resort to force had
to be preceded by an open airing of the grievance, so that the offending
party would have an opportunity to make amends for its wrongdoing
(open declaration).46 By the same token, war should not be undertaken if
its attendant ravages were expected to surpass the dimensions of the
original injury (principle of proportionality).47 And, finally, whoever
initiates offensive war should have a probable expectation of victory,
calculated in proportion to the need of [his] commonwealth.48 Since this
form of war is optional, and if on balance defeat seems the more probable
outcome, in almost every case the war should be avoided49 (reasonable
hope of success).
In developing his account of the unilateral just cause of war, Suarez was
aware that an alternative approach could be found in the legal literature of
his day. This was the idea, first articulated by the ancient Roman juris-
consults, and later by Raphael Fulgosius (13671427), Andreas Alciatus
(14921550) and other civil lawyers of Latin Christianity, that armed
conflict should be viewed as a contest between juridically equal belliger-
ents. Owing to their sovereign status, both belligerents were deemed to
possess a capacity to wage war, regardless of the cause that had prompted
44
Ibid.
45
Suarezs fellow scholastic Domingo Banez (15281604) referred to the idea of a unilateral right of
war (ius belli) as an axiom for jurists and theologians alike (cited by Haggenmacher 1983: 203,
n. 868).
46
This is implied by the statement in DDB 4.7 (Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 350): [P]rior to
the war, the offending party has shown obstinacy in not wanting to give satisfaction. See also DDB
4.3 (Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 361): [B]efore a war is begun the [attacking prince] must
present the opposing commonwealth with the just cause of war, and demand adequate restitution.
47
DDB 4.2; Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 348: For it would be contrary to reason to inflict the
most serious damage because of a slight injury.
48
DDB 4.10. Suarez acknowledges that this principle holds only for offensive war; when war is waged
defensively under conditions of urgent necessity even a low probability of victory is sufficient to
continue the fight.
49
Ibid.
the conflict. As in a legal process in which two litigants are presumed to
have entered the proceedings in good faith, they were likewise entitled to
exercise the same legal prerogatives (in this case resort to armed force) vis-
a-vis each other. By the same token, once war was underway, they were
expected to abide by a uniform code of conduct. To underscore how the
same set of rules (rights and duties) applied to all sovereign belligerents,
regardless of the justice or injustice of their cause, this would later be
referred to as regular war (guerre reglee).50 At its core, the regular war
approach consisted in setting aside the idea of just cause in favour of
bilateral rights of war.51
The first explicit account of this approach may be traced to a short text
by Raphael Fulgosius,52 in which the Italian jurist argued that in a war
between independent peoples or kings, and in the absence of a common
judge over the parties, the very juridical status of the adversaries precludes
reference to a just cause. Each of these belligerents has as much right to
fight as any other; for this reason victory alone will serve as the final
arbiter of the conflict. While Fulgosius did not entirely forgo the vocabu-
lary of just war, he very clearly redefined it so that it became an equivalent
for public war (bellum publicum), a war that is waged between independ-
ent nations or kings, each of which recognizes the sovereignty of the other.
As a corollary to this structural fact of mutual sovereignty, Fulgosius
deduced that just cause will be indeterminable in concrete cases.53
The theory of bilateral rights of war was taken up by Suarez in a passage
of his DDB which envisioned the case of two princes who had failed to
settle their dispute by negotiation.54 Unwilling to relinquish their respect-
ive claims, but still desirous of finding a solution, the two join in a pact to
the effect that the victorious party shall acquire the property of the
vainquished.55 In such a manner they voluntarily engage in war, without
just cause.56 Harshly criticizing this agreement to wage war as a means of
resolving the dispute, Suarez maintained in no uncertain terms that it was
50
The term was coined by Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens: ou Principes de la loi naturelle, appliques a
la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, 2 vols. (Neuchatel: Societe Typographique,
1758), bk. iii, ch. iv, 66 (translation in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 514, n. 10). For a
historical analysis of the regular war idea, see Haggenmacher 1992.
51
See the editors introduction to ch. 20, on Fulgosius in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 2278.
For a fuller account, see Reichberg 2008a.
52
Raphael Fulgosius, In primam Pandectarum partem Commentaria (Lyons: Claudius Servanius,
1554), ad Dig. 1, 1, 5; translation in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 2289.
53
Ibid.: [f]or how can it be known, and who is to be the judge in this matter, deciding that one side
wages a just war, the other an unjust war? or, as he writes at the beginning of the same passage, it
[is] uncertain which side wage[s] war rightfully.
54 55 56
DDB 7.22. Ibid. Ibid.
unjust in the eyes of God . . . because of the homicides actual or
potential which are involved in it.57 But because the pact is entered
into by mutual consent, those who take part in it incur no obligation to
make restitution [to each other] for the losses inflicted; thus, strictly
speaking and vis-a-vis the belligerents themselves, it stands opposed to
charity, but not to justice.58
Having considered the regular war approach, and rejected it, Suarez
was compelled nonetheless to confront the obvious objection that it raised
for his account of just cause, which, as we have seen, was premised on the
key concept of jurisdiction. If two belligerents are each sovereign (perfect
commonwealths), with by definition no superior to judge over them, and
furthermore if resort to war for redress of a grievance is indeed the exercise
of a jurisdiction, this would imply that the just belligerent can legitimately
stand as judge over his opponent a conclusion manifestly inconsistent
with this arguments opening premise.
Suarez exits this dilemma by arguing that the condition of sovereignty
is conditional upon the maintenance of right conduct. Should a com-
monwealth violate the manifest rights of another nation, and refuse to
make amends for its misdeeds, it will subsequently become subject to the
jurisdiction of the offended party:59
[I]n order that diverse commonwealths may dwell in peace, there must exist some
power for punishing injuries inflicted by one upon another. Such a power is not
to be found in any superior, for we assume that these commonwealths have no
commonly acknowledged superior; therefore, the power in question must reside
in the supreme prince of the injured commonwealth, to whom, by reason of that
injury, the opposing prince is made subject. Consequently, war of this kind
[offensive war] has been instituted in place of a tribunal administering just
punishment.60
Central to this theory of conditional sovereignty is the idea, expressed in
the last sentence, that offensive war is akin to a criminal court proceed-
ing. Just as private individuals are sentenced by a judge for their
misconduct, in like manner war can be inflicted on a commonwealth
as a sentence for its wrongdoing. The analogy between just offensive
war and a penalty meted out by a judge as the outcome of a criminal
57 58
Ibid. Ibid.
59
The idea of subjection ratione delicti was used by Aquinas to explain how one bishop could fall
under the jurisdiction of another (ST ii-ii q. 67 a. 1 ad 3), but Suarez appears to be the first to have
applied it expressly to belligerents in war in order to justify their juridical inequality: see
Haggenmacher 1983: 416.
60
DDB 4.5; Reichberg, Syse and Begby 2006: 24950.
trial is borrowed by Suarez from Cajetan. In a handbook written for
confessors, the latter had maintained:
That [the prosecutor of a just war] functions as a judge of criminal proceedings is
clear from the fact that a just combat is an act of vindicative justice (actus
vindicativae iustitiae), which is properly within the power of a prince or judge.
A private person is not empowered to seek vengeance . . . That it is a criminal
matter is clear from the fact that it leads to the killing and enslavement of persons
and the destruction of goods, for all of these things result from a just war . . . It is
also clear that he who has a just war is not a party, but becomes, by the very
reason that impelled him to make war, the judge of his enemies.61
Referring to this passage, Suarez notes that it calls forth an obvious
objection: despite Cajetans contention that the prosecutor of just war
has formally the role of judge and is not as such a party to the dispute, it
cannot be denied that one and the same agent (the prince who has been
wronged) is here both plaintiff and judge, a situation which [appears]
contrary to the natural law.62
In mounting his response, Suarez makes two moves, one substantive,
the other procedural. Substantively, he maintains that it is not exactly true
that one and the same party cannot be judge over his own case, for God,
to whom there is some analogy in the public authority, likewise assumes
this double role.63 Although no further explanation is given for this point,
it would seem to be an allusion to the Catholic theological doctrine that
every sin, whatever its proximate target, is a form of disobedience and thus
a personal affront directed against God, who in turn stands in judgment
over these sins. The incompatibility of the two roles arises, not per se, but
by reason of the deficiencies inherent in the private judgment of individ-
uals, who nearly always exceed the bounds of justice.64 The public power
of commonwealths, by contrast, is guided by public counsel to which
heed must be paid, and consequently authority of this sort may more
easily avoid the disadvantages arising from personal inclination.65 In any
event, even while conceding that the tendency to excess can be mitigated,
yet not entirely eliminated, when vengeance is exercised by public
officials, Suarez avers that the judicial practice of offensive war
should be maintained nonetheless on grounds of its indispensability to
mankind (no more fitting method . . . could, in the order of nature and
61
Cajetan, Bellum quando dicatur iustum, vel iniustum, licitum vel illicitum, in Cajetan, Summula
Caietani (Lyons: A. de Harsy, 1581), pp. 329. Translation in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006:
24550.
62 63 64 65
DDB 4.6. DDB 4.7. Ibid. Ibid.
humanly speaking, be found).66 Were it not possible to wage war
offensively for just redress, injustices committed by one commonwealth
against another would go unchecked, and the proper ordering of society
would be gravely undermined.
Procedurally, Suarez is well aware that adversaries will often have quite
different interpretations of particular grievances. While he will not allow
that a war could be just on both sides simultaneously,67 at the other
extreme he does not assume that every cause for war will so clearly be
manifest that attempts to clarify the contested issues by a process of
negotiation will be otiose.68 To the contrary, he emphasizes how offensive
war can rightly be initiated only after real and not merely disingenuous
efforts are made openly to air the grievance in question. On this under-
standing, when the just belligerent was likened to a judge,69 he was
thereby expected to exercise the probity incumbent upon holders of this
high office. In other words, this image was meant to convey a normative
ideal, and not merely the conferral of a power.
Moreover, Suarez recognized the existence of doubtful causes of war
(today we would speak of hard cases). Under circumstances where
factual claims were disputed it would be extremely difficult to disentangle
which of the two parties to a conflict was effectively possessed of the just
cause. In such an instance, decision-makers would be expected to exercise
due diligence about the issues at stake. Contested land should never be
unilaterally seized, and compromise solutions should be actively sought.
Heads of state should be willing to submit their grievances to arbitration.
In an eloquent passage, Suarez thus asserted how
it is impossible that the Author of nature should have left human affairs,
governed as they are by conjecture more frequently than by any sure reason, in
such a critical condition that all controversies between supreme princes and
commonwealths should be settled only by war; for such a condition would be
contrary to wisdom and the common good of the human race; and therefore it
66
Ibid.
67
See DDB 4.1 (Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 348), where Suarez denies that a war could be just
on both sides, essentially and apart from ignorance.
68
See DDB 6, What certitude as to the just cause of war is required in order that the war may be
just? Largely eschewing Vitorias discussion of simultaneous ostensible justice (based on the
doctrine of invincible ignorance), this section is instead focused on the problem of hard cases
(see Reichberg 2008b: 1821).
69
In this connection, Haggenmacher (1983: 423) points out that the proximate reason why the just
belligerent becomes judge over his unjust adversary ratione delicti relates not to the original fault
which led the two into conflict in the first place. The fault consists rather in a refusal to provide
satisfaction, even after an open airing of the case. The offended party accordingly has no alternative
but to exercise judgment, and then to enforce this judgment by resort to war.
would be contrary to justice. Furthermore, if this condition prevailed, those
persons would as a rule possess the greater right who were the more powerful,
and [this right] would have to be measured by arms, which is manifestly a
barbarous and absurd supposition.70
In considering Suarezs account of just cause, we have focused on a broad
set of rationales defence, reparation, and especially punishment that
would in principle be available to any commonwealth, regardless of its
standing vis-a-vis the Christian faith. Suarez was, however, well aware that
his tradition had long appealed to special religious rationales for resorting
to war, such as during the medieval crusades.71
But as the tradition evolved, normative treatments of war were pro-
gressively detached from an explicit reference to the propagation or
protection of the Christian faith. For example, in Aquinass Quaestio de
bello, a. 1, no reference is made to either heresy or the crusades, and the
aims of war (described in terms of just cause) were enunciated in terms
that could be readily understandable and even endorsed by non-Christians.
The process of detaching reasoning about war from premises of faith
exclusively available to Christians is especially visible in the account given
by Suarez. Section IV of his DDB is entitled What is a just title for war, on
the basis of natural reason? To dispel any doubt that specifically religious
rationales should be excluded from the ius ad bellum, in the following
section V, Suarez asks whether Christian princes have any just title for war
beyond that which natural reason dictates. In this context natural reason
designates an employment of the human mind that is not inherently
dependent on data from positive divine revelation. In contrast to teachings
such as the divinity of Jesus Christ or the Trinity, which are wholly
unknowable to human beings apart from a special divine instruction given
in the New Testament, the truths of natural reason can be known by
virtue of the minds fundamental (created) capacity.
In applying this teaching on natural reason to decision-making about
armed force, Suarez excluded a number of rationales that had been
advanced by earlier thinkers, but which by his time the mainstream
tradition had set aside as inappropriate grounds for war: refusal to accept
the true (i.e., Christian) religion; offence given to God by idolatrous
practices; the alleged incapacity of non-believers to exercise dominion
(self-government or ownership of property); and the alleged universal
70
DDB 6.5; Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 358.
71
For a consideration of Suarezs place within Roman Catholic discussions on religious rationales for
war, see Reichberg 2009: 1548.
jurisdiction of the pope or the Christian emperor. On this basis, Suarez
concluded that there is no title for war so exclusively reserved for
Christian princes that it has not some basis in, or at least some due
relation to, natural law, being therefore also applicable to princes who
are unbelievers.72
Nevertheless, Suarez did recognize one notable exception to his general
rejection of what today is termed holy war. This was a case in which a
people, subject to a non-Christian prince, wished to accept Christianity
against his will. Should the prince forcibly prevent this acceptance, say by
prohibiting the entry of missionaries, then Christian princes ruling over
other lands would have the right to defend (ius defendendi) this innocent
people against their prince, and even punish offences committed by his
regime against them. Suarez will not concede, however, that this line of
argumentation would be generally available to other religions: if a people
wished to submit to the law of unbelievers for example the Moham-
medan [law] and its prince is opposed to this submission, then an infidel
Turkish prince would not have a similar right of war against that other
prince.73 To hinder the preaching of (or conversion to) Christianity, the
true law in Suarezs eyes would constitute a serious injustice, whereas
there is no injury at all in prohibiting the acceptance of another [religious]
law.74 He thus promoted a moderate Christian exceptionalism on matters
relating to just war.
9.3 conclusion
This overview of Suarezs teaching on bellum iustum has sought to
clarify how he approached the core issue of just cause and by
extension legitimate authority in relation to the positions staked out
by his predecessors, most especially Aquinas, Cajetan, and Vitoria.
A fuller account would have examined his contribution within other
sectors of just war theory, including his innovative discussion of
72 73
DDB 5.6. DDB 5.7.
74
DDB 6.7; Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 356. Suarez attenuates this Christian exceptionalism in
the passage that follows, when he notes that the reasoning in question could even apply to infidels
who wished to forgo idolatry, worship the one God and observe the law of nature, but were
impeded from doing so by their rulers. Should another infidel ruler, guided solely by natural
reason come to their aid, his resort to armed force would constitute a just defence of the
innocent. This section of DDB should be read in conjunction with Suarez, De fide, d. xviii, in
De triplici virtute theologici. Translation in Suarez, Selections from Three Works, vol. ii, pp. 73995.
mercenaries,75 as well as an application of double-effect reasoning to the
problem of civilian casualties in war.76
Looking backwards at the relation of Suarezs just war doctrine to that
of his predecessors, I have sought to show how he was especially depend-
ent on Cajetan. To the latters emphasis on punishment as the chief
rationale for offensive war, Suarez added his own distinctive concern with
war-making jurisdiction, which he construed narrowly as a monopoly of
the highest prince, with consequently little or no possibility of delegation
to princes of lower rank under circumstances of necessity. By the same
token, he discounted Vitorias opening for supra-national war-making
authority, which could empower individual heads of state to sanction
patent violations of fundamental ius gentium norms. In this respect,
Suarezs views appear as a regression in comparison to the more progres-
sive approach adopted by Vitoria.
Even while endorsing the penal thrust of Cajetans teaching on just
cause, Suarez was at pains to moderate the practical implications of this
doctrine.77 Paradoxically, the very acceptance of punitive war led Suarez
to emphasize, more so than any of his predecessors, the centrality of
restraint within the doctrine of just war. Although most classical repre-
sentatives of the just war idea endorsed Cajetans theory of just war as a
kind of legal proceeding, unlike Suarez some would take care not to
conflate this form of war with punishment. Already implicit in the
writings of Vitoria, the point would be discussed at some length by
the Jesuit Luis de Molina.78 Distinguishing material from formal
injury, Molina argued that an offensive war could be carried out for ends
other than punishment, say to reclaim stolen goods or otherwise seek
redress for wrongs done, yet without presupposing personal guilt
(mens rea) on the part of the adversary. Hence wars undertaken to recover
stolen property, to force repayment of debts, or even to effect a change
of political regime (for instance, to aid an oppressed people), although
non-defensive in character, were still not to be placed in the category of
punitive war.
Neither Vitoria nor Molina denied that punishment, if merited, could
serve as a legitimate aim of war; yet, unlike Cajetan and Suarez, they
75 76
DDB 4.1012. DDB 7.1519.
77
This is particularly visible in DDB 7.37, where Suarez argues against Cajetans view that once a
war has commenced the just belligerent is under no obligation to accept an adequate offer of
restitution and payment of damages.
78
Luis de Molina, De iustitia et iure opera omnia, 5 vols. (Geneva: M. M. Bousquet, 1733). For a
translation of the relevant passages, see Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 3348.
tended to view this not as an aim that should be achieved during the war
itself but rather as something to be secured afterwards, once the enemy
had been defeated. In other words, the thrust of their teaching was that
war should not be conducted as though it were itself a form of punish-
ment. In this fashion, they established one of the central premises on
which the modern notion of ius in bello would be built.79
Looking forward, from Suarez to the subsequent development of
normative thought about war, it becomes readily apparent that his con-
ception of the just belligerent as judge over his unjust opponent was, on
procedural grounds, doomed to failure.80 No sovereign actor could accept
the premise that, ante bellum, when a grievance was first aired, he might
be subjected to the legal judgment of another sovereign, and by implica-
tion deprived of his sovereignty. It is no surprise that from the mid
seventeenth century onwards, regular war was in the ascendency and the
doctrine of just war in decline. Suarezs teaching on the legal subjection of
the unjust belligerent to his just counterparty would nonetheless continue
to have resonance in matters relating to justice post bellum, such as, for
instance, the Versailles treaty at the close of World War I. But it would
bear as a result a dubious association with the excesses attributed to
victors justice. When the concept of just cause was finally resuscitated
in the UN Charter (1945) and the Nuremberg Proceedings of 1946 (when
several Nazi leaders were prosecuted for crimes against peace), Suarezs
penal subjection theory was largely abandoned in favour of a conception
that placed jurisdiction for offensive war (now termed enforcement
action) into the hands of a supra-national body, in this case the United
Nations, acting through its Security Council, and often by delegation to
its member states. While this new conception can trace its remote ancestry
to Vitoria, the underlying supposition of an international community (a
bonum totius orbis), and its implied authority (totius orbis auctoritate) for
policing offences, with delegation to individual commonwealths, was
treated with considerable reserve by Suarez.
However, it can be said that the core idea behind the rejection of raison
detat in the post-World War II period (anticipated by developments in
the inter-war period such as the League of Nations and the Kellogg
Briand Pact) was very much in keeping with the conception outlined by
79
See Haggenmacher 1983: 40726, for a treatment of the link between war and punishment among
scholastic just war theorists, including Aquinas, Vitoria, Cajetan, Molina, and Suarez.
80
For a discussion of the procedural difficulties inherent to Suarezs doctrine of just cause, with a
contrast to the doctrine of regular war, see Kalmanovitz 2010.
Suarez, namely that the unlawful commencement of war is a grave crime
for which penalties should rightly be meted out. In this vein the promin-
ent legal theorist Hans Kelsen argued quite vigorously, and in opposition
to the regular war view described above, that the theory of bellum iustum
forms the basis of the new regime of international law.81 On this inter-
pretation, once the international community has established norms pro-
hibiting international aggression, a violation of these norms will have the
character of a delict (a legally designated wrong). Counter-war, the
armed response to such a delict, will consequently have the character of
a sanction. Kelsen thus advanced a version of just war theory, the main
goal of which was the enforcement of international law. He did not,
however, equate violations of international law purely and simply with
territorial aggression. For instance, the breach of treaty could, if serious
enough, warrant the application of an armed sanction. Although the
Jesuit scholastic was not expressly mentioned, Kelsen revived a line of
argumentation that bore close resemblance to the approach taken by
Suarez some three hundred years earlier in the DDB.82
81
Kelsen 1945; the relevant passages are cited in Reichberg, Syse, and Begby 2006: 60613.
82
This resemblance is admittedly closest apropos of the idea of sanction; insofar, however, as
sanctions for unlawful commencement of war are to be enforced first and foremost by the
international community, a comparison with Vitoria would be more apposite.
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Index
accident, 8, 20, 21 Baldus de Ubaldus, 169

Acquaviva, Claudio, 5, 163 n. 2 Banez, Domingo, 195 n. 45
action, 115 Barnes, Gordon P., 49 n. 22
goal-directedness of, 11617 beauty, 12, 102, 174
internal and external, 119, 12830, 131, 133 Becanus (Van der Beeck), Martin, 169 n. 33
practical-reason-based model of, being, 20, 24
11721, 133 divisions of, 29
agency, 15, 115, 11617, 121 finite and infinite, 8, 28, 29
Aho, Tuomo, 13 n. 38 formal concept of, 8
Alcala de Henares, 3, 5 necessary, 110
Alciatus, Andreas, 195 objective concept of, 9
Alexander, David, 90 n. 1 of reason, 8, 10, 23, 24, 25, 37, 78
alternative worlds, possibility of, 102, properties, 10, 19, 21, 2330
105, 113 status of, 29
alumbrados, 2 Bellarmine, Roberto, 3, 172
Alvarez Gomez, Mariano, 181 n. 85 benevolence, 167
Alvarez, Baltasar, 6 Bennett, Jonathan, 62 n. 2
Amico, Francesco, 164 n. 8 Biel, Gabriel, 164, 180
angels, 7, 76 n. 67, 106 blame, 15, 1278, 1323, 139, 145, 146, 151, 156
Anselm of Canterbury, 12, 90 and obligation, 147, 148, 156
appetite, 13, 120, 121 and sin, 1479
Aquinas, Thomas, 3, 4, 14, 15, 17, 23, 29, 34, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, 164
44 n. 12, 67, 90, 91, 93, 95, 101 n. 29, Boyle, Robert, 11, 41, 43
10910, 117, 118, 1214, 1323, 143, Bramhall, John, 138
146, 148 n. 24, 161, 169, 18592, 194, Brandao, Mario, 7 n. 21
197 n. 59, 200, 201 Buenos Aires, 4
Aristotle, 8, 16, 19, 30, 33, 34, 49, 63, 70,
81, 93, 95, 105, 108, 116, 118, 165, Cajetan (Tommaso de Vio), 17, 78, 171, 185,
183, 191 187, 18892, 1978, 2013
Armstrong, David, 42 canon law, 13
Arriaga, Rodrigo de, 3 Cantens, Bernie, 12, 89
Ashworth, Jennifer E., 9 n. 28 capital punishment, 6
Asuncion (Paraguay), 4 Capreolus, John, 64
Augustine, St 34 Caraffa, Decio, 4
Aureol, Peter, 12, 64, 81 Castellote Cubells, Salvador, 64 n. 6
Austin, John, 170 Castiglione, Francesco Romeo of, 171
Avedano, Alonso de, 4 Castile, 2
Averroes, 13, 64 Castro Palao, Fernando de, 164 n. 8
Avicenna, 34, 64 categories, 8, 10, 19, 20, 30
Avila, Spain, 3 and highest genera, 303
Ayer, Alfred J., 40 distinction among, 34, 356
214
Index 215
exhaustivity of, 33, 35, 37 incoherence of, 11, 46, 4750
immediacy of, 33, 34, 36 otiosity of, 11, 467
unreal, 378 Freddoso, Alfred J., 1 n. 1, 2, 7 n. 23
causation, 8 freedom
cause and divine foreknowledge, 4
efficient, 95, 96, 98, 99, 109, 124 and divine grace, 4
total and relative, 99100, 110 and intellect. See intellect, relation with
Clement VIII, pope, 3 freedom
cognition, 13 and law. See law and freedom
intellective, 13 as a moral right, 125
passive account of, 13 metaphysical, 125
Coimbra, 3, 5, 6, 163 of the will. See will, freedom
Collegio Romano, 3 Fulgosius, Raphael, 195, 196
confession, epistolary, 3 Furlong, Guillermo, 4 n. 12
Congregatio de Auxiliis, 4
contractarianism, 16 Gale, Richard M., 90 n. 1
Corpus Christi, Mancio de, 3 Garca de la Mora, Jose Manuel, 9 n. 30
Council of Trent, 2 Gilson, Etienne, 1 n. 1, 9 n. 29
Counter-Reformation, 2 God
Courtenay, William, 181 n. 84 arguments for the existence of
Covarrubias y Leyva, Diego de, 177 cosmological, 12, 89
Cover, Jan, 63 n. 6, 86 from diversity and plurality of things, 105
Craig, William L., 91 n. 5, 109 n. 56 from natural philosophy, 935
Culverwell, Nathanael, 155 metaphysical, 95100
ontological, 12, 901, 92, 1069
DAilly, Pierre, 180 teleological, 12, 90, 91, 92, 1016
Damascene, John, 118 n. 3, 124 definition of, 101
Darge, Rolf, 38 n. 88 existence and nature, 8
debitum (natural duty), 14, 153, 171 unity, 101
denomination, 27 Gomez-Rojo, Mara Encarnacion, 169 n. 32
Descamps, Antonio Ignacio, 3 n. 8 good, 20, 27, 28, 29
Descartes, Rene, 1, 11, 39, 60, 63, 90 intrinsic, 144, 150, 152, 153, 156
Dicastillo, Juan, 164 n. 8 positional, 168
Doyle, John P., 64 n. 11, 67 n. 27, 81, Gordley, James, 173 n. 60
82 n. 92 Gracia, Jorge J. E., 1 nn. 13, 9 n. 27, 31, 32,
Durandus of St Pourcain, 164, 183 10 nn. 13, 19 n. 26, 31, 32,
34 n. 66, 90 n. 4
Englard, Izhak, 163 n. 1, 164 n. 8 Granada, 1
equality Grotius, Hugo, 164, 177
and similarity, 108 Guevara, Juan de, 3
essence and existence, 8, 9, 21, 68, 107 Gutierrez, Martn, 2
Evora, University of, 6
Haggenmacher, Peter, 194 nn. 38, 45, 196 n. 50,
faith, 17, 185 197 n. 59, 199 n. 69, 203 n. 79
Feenstra, Robert, 164 nn. 9, 10, 177 nn. 9, 10 Hales, Alexander of, 164
Fichter, Joseph H., 6 n. 19 Hart, Herbert L. A., 160
Finnis, John M., 14, 15, 1434, 147, 153, 1557, Hawthorne, John, 86, 63 n. 6
158, 1612 nn. 58 Heidegger, Martin, 1 n. 3
Fleischacker, Samuel, 165 n. 12 Heider, Daniel, 38 n. 88
Fonseca, Pedro de, 3 Henninger, Mark G., 64 n. 8, 81 n. 88
form, substantial, 10, 11, 39 Henrquez, Enrique (Enrques), 4
arguments for the existence of, 11, 539 Henry III of France, 4
abductive nature, 11, 54, 59 Henry IV of France, 4
as generated by God, 51 Hobbes, Thomas, 15, 138
incapable of generation, 11, 46, 503 hope, 17, 185
216 Index
Hozjusz, Stanislaw, 172 as a distinctive form of normativity, 137
Huebner, Rudolf, 169 n. 32 customary, 13
humanism, 2 divine, 136, 137, 143, 149, 151
Hume, David, 11, 40, 56, 96 n. 14, 157, human, 13
158, 159, 166 interpretation and mutation, 13
hylomorphism, 43, 53 of nations, 13
positive, 13, 14, 127
individuation Leibniz, Gottfried W., 1, 62, 63, 65 n. 16,
of accidents, 10 83, 91, 110
possible principles of Leijenhorst, Cees, 13 n. 38
designated matter, 9 Leiva, Miguel de, 4
entity, 9 Lessius, Leonardus, 3, 167, 170
existence, 9 Lima, 5
substantial form, 9 Locke, John, 11, 39, 40, 41, 45, 47, 53, 63
Innocent IV, pope, 188, 192 n. 25 logic, 30, 33
Inquisition, 3, 4, 5 Loyola, Ignatius, 2, 3
intellect Lugo, Juan de, 3, 164 n. 8
agent (or active), 13 Luiz, Gonzalo, 6
relation with freedom, 15, 1215
relation with will. See will, relation with McCord Adams, Marilyn, 81 n. 88
intellect MacIntyre, Alasdair, 1 n. 1
intellectualism, 121, 123 Mairat, Louis de, 164 n. 8
Irwin, Terence H., 5, 14 n. 39, 142, 159 n. 45, Malderus, Johannes, 164 n. 8
162 n. 53 Marcos, Miguel, 5
Isidore of Seville, 49 n. 19 Martnez, Andres, 3
Mary, Immaculate Conception of, 3, 7
James I of England, 4 Maryks, Robert A., 1 n. 4
just cause of war, 17, 186, 188, 194201 Mass at sea, 6
and religion, 2001 Mastri de Meldola, Bartholomeo, 37,
justice 164 n. 8
commutative, 165, 166, 169, 175, 17683 Maynus, Jason, 169
distributive, 1617, 163 Mendoza, Pedro Hurtado de, 3
and promises, 1714 mercy, 167
and rights, 16871 merit, 166, 177, 179
as attributed to God, 164, 166, 172 metaphysics
goal, 1746 holistic approach to, 29
natural basis, 174 subject matter, 8, 38
legal, 165 Milibank, John, 1 nn. 1, 3
public, 174 Miller, Richard B., 187 n. 7
vindicative, 17, 187, 191, 198 mind
parts, 12
Kalmanovitz, Pablo, 203 n. 80 powers, 12
Kant, Immanuel, 1, 63 substance, 12
Kelsen, Hans, 204 n. 81 Miner, Robert C., 1 n. 1, 9 nn. 29, 30
Kessler, Eckhard, 13 n. 38 modality, 8
Koons, Robert, 90 n. 1, 110 n. 58, 111 modernity, 1
Korsgaard, Christine M., 144 n. 9 Molina, Luis de, 3, 17, 167, 170, 202
Kretzmann, Norman, 111 n. 61 Concordia, 4
Kronen, John, 58 n. 34
natural law, 13, 14, 15, 115, 126, 134,
Ladyman, James, 83 n. 96 14262, 174
law as indicative or prescriptive, 14, 131, 144,
and freedom, 15, 125 146, 151
and practical reason, 125, 127 binding nature, 131
and privileges, 13 legislative origin, 1347
Index 217
Newton, Lloyd, 34 n. 66 Rawls, John, 160, 166, 167
Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio, 3 n. 8 realism, relational, 807
Novotny, Daniel D., 10, 19, 20 n. 2, 32 n. 50, reason
37 n. 78 practical, 15, 11721, 123, 128
relation with freedom and law, 12538
OConnor, Timothy, 111 rebellion, 192
OMalley, John W., 2 n. 6 Rebello, Fernando, 164 n. 8
Oakley, Francis, 181 n. 85 Reichberg, Gregory M., 17, 185 n. 3,
obligation, 14, 15, 126, 142, 186 189 n. 17, 194 n. 36, 196 n. 51,
as moral moving, 1578 199 n. 68
as opposed to duty, 14, 159 reincarnation, Pythagorean conception
civil, 154 of, 97
motivational conception of, 157 relations, 8
natural, 1535 Aristotles tripartite classification of, 70
Ockham, William of, 34, 81, 82, 83 as connotations, 81
Oldenburg, Henry, 43 categorical, 6477
Olivi, John Peter, 13 formal, 85
Oppy, Graham, 90 n. 1, 111 n. 63 internal and external, 88
Owens, Joseph, 109 n. 55 mutual and non-mutual, 6973
ontology, 1112, 62
pacifism, 186 reciprocal and non-reciprocal, 70
Paludanus, Petrus, 164 transcendental, 7780
Paris Parlement, 4 types, 12
Pasnau, Robert, 13 n. 36, 39 n. 3 unreal, 737
patristics, 2 Renaissance, 2
Paul, St, 136 responsibility, moral, 133
Pensantius, Alexander, 164 Ribanadeira, Pedro de, 3 n. 8
Pereira, Benito, 3 rights, 126, 168
Pereira, Jose, 6 n. 19, 20 n. 2 distributive, 176
Perena, Luciano, 148, 151, 154 n. 38 of ownership (dominium), 169, 170,
Perez, Antonio, 164 n. 8 17683
perfection, 1079 to a well-ordered society, 1746
personhood, 183 to common goods, 16871
Philip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal), 5 Rimini, Gregory, 144
Pickstock, Catherine, 1 nn. 1, 3 Rodguez Puerto, Manuel Jesus, 169 n. 32
Pink, Thomas, 5, 14, 15, 115, 128 n. 15, 1449, Rorty, Richard, 88 n. 101
153, 1556 Ross, Don, 83 n. 96
Platonism, 85 Rowe, William, 90 n. 1, 94 n. 10, 111 n. 62
political subjection, justification of, 16 Rubio, Antonio, 32 n. 50
poverty vows, 7 Russell, Bertrand, 56
power, absolute, 1803
Prichard, Harold A., 159, 160, 162 Salamanca, 2, 3, 5
principle of sufficient reason, 11011 Sartolo, Bernardo, 3 n. 8
promises, 1714 Scanlon, Thomas M., 141 n. 33
property interaction, 556 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1
property, inalienable, 177, 178 Schwartz, Daniel, 1, 16 n. 42, 163
Protestantism, 2 Scorraille, Raoul de, 3 n. 8, 4 nn. 911, 6,
Pruss, Alexander R., 90 n. 1 163 nn. 23
psychology, cognitive, 13 Scotus, John Duns, 10, 14, 15, 23, 34 n. 66, 38,
Pufendorf, Samuel von, 144 n. 9 111, 117, 118, 1214, 164
Punch, John (Pontius, Ponce), 14, 15, 1347, Secada, Jorge, 11, 12, 62, 66 n. 24, 68 n. 30,
164 n. 8 73 n. 56
Segovia, Spain, 3
Quine, Willard Van Orman, 64 n. 12, sense perception, 13
82 n. 89 Shields, Christopher, 10, 39, 49 n. 20
218 Index
Simmons, Allison, 13 n. 37 transubstantiation, 7
Simons, Peter, 56 n. 31 truth, 27, 28, 29
sin, 144, 151, 156, 186, 198
and blame, 1479 unity, 20, 27, 28, 29, 40, 41, 56
Society of Jesus, 2 universe, 102, 113
Constitutions, 3 Utiel, Antonia Vazquez de, 1
ranks, 2
soul. See mind Valencia, Gregorio de, 3
Spruit, Leen, 13 n. 38 Valladolid, 2, 3
Steinbach, Wendelin, 164 Van Cleve, James, 56 n. 31
Suarez, Francisco Vasconcellos, Antonio Garca Ribeiro, 3 n. 8
and publishing, 7 Vattel, Emer de, 196 n. 50
death, 7 Vazquez, Gabriel, 3, 14, 15, 1347, 143, 145,
lifstyle, 5 146, 164, 166 n. 16, 169 n. 29,
popularity, 7 171 n. 39, 183
style of writing, 82 Commentary on the First Part of the Summa
teaching, 3 Theologiae, 163
view on Jesuss life, 4 De cultu adoratione, 163
works rivalry with Suarez, 5, 163
De anima, 6, 12 Venice, Republic of, 4
De immunitate ecclesiastica, 4 Vitoria, Francisco de, 2, 3, 17, 185, 190, 1934,
De iustitia Dei, 163 199 n. 68, 2012, 203, 204 n. 82
De legibus, 6, 13, 163 Vives, Louis, 6
Defensio fidei, 4 voluntarism, 14, 142, 143, 144, 147
Disputatio de bello, 185
Disputatio de iustitia Dei, 163 war
Disputationes metaphysicae, 6, 8, 20, 30 and charity, 17, 1857
Lecture on Merit, 163 defensive and offensive, 17, 18690
Opuscula theologica, 163 humanitarian intervention, 17, 194
Suarista, 4 justice of, 17, 185
substance, 8, 20, 21 legitimate authority, 18794
supreme dominium, doctrine of, 17, 164, proportionality, 195
17783 well-ordered society, 1746
Wells, Norman, 9
Thiel, Udo, 9 n. 33 will, 13
Toledo, Francisco de, 1, 3, 13 and human action, 14, 11821
Toledo, Gaspar Suarez de, 1 freedom, 1215
Torres, Francisco, 3 relation with intellect, 14, 1215
Torres, Luis de, 164 n. 8 Williams, Bernard, 127
transcendentality, 208 Williams, Gwladys L., 148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155, 157
transcendentals, 8, 10, 19, 20 Wolff, Christian, 1
identity and number, 289
intensional view, 10, 21 Xavier, Francisco, 2
order, 2930
unreal, 378 Zapata y Sandoval, Juan, 164

3 - Interpreting Suárez

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INTERPRETING SUAREZ

Francisco Suarez is arguably the most important neo-scholastic

d a n i e l s c h w a r t z is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International

# Cambridge University Press 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2012

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

isbn 978-0-521-50965-7 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

Notes on contributors page vii

b e r n i e c a n t e n s is Associate Professor at Moravian College, Bethlehem,

The following abbreviations have been used:

1.2.4 Law and ethics

1.2.5 Political power and war

Fundamentals in Suarezs metaphysics:

thing denominated (T1): being being

2.1.2 Identity, number, and order

Identity and number

2.2.2 Identity, number, and relations

2.3 unreal transcendentals and categories

The reality of substantial form: Suarez,

A philosophical being unknown to me. (Descartes)1

3.1 substantial forms: so much drivel?

3.3 three anti-existence arguments

3.3.1 Substantial forms are otiose15

3.3.2 Substantial forms are incoherent

3.3.3 Substantial forms cannot be generated

3.4 two existence arguments

3.4.1 An argument from the subordination relations among properties

3.4.2 An argument from interference patterns

Suarez on the ontology of relations

Relations are puzzling, particularly within ontologies of substances and

4.1 categorical relations

4.2 kinds of categorical relations

4.3 unreal relations

4.4 transcendental relations

4.5 suarezs relational realism

Suarezs cosmological argument for

The science of cosmology and astrophysics has flourished in the past

5.1 basic structure of suarezs argument 2

Cosmological argument (Part 2)

Teleological model Ontological model

Conclusion: God exists

5.2 suarezs cosmological argument

5.2.1 An argument for an uncreated being

5.2.1.1 An argument from natural philosophy for the existence of God

5.2.1.2 A metaphysical argument for the existence of God

Why cannot a series of dependent beings be infinitely circular? Reasoning

Why cannot a series of dependent beings go on infinitely? Suarez delib-

Is a collection of dependent beings dependent? Suarez presents an objec-

5.2.2 The uncreated being is God

5.2.2.1 A posteriori argument for the oneness of an uncreated being:

5.2.2.2 A priori argument for the oneness of an uncreated being:

5.3 the historical and contemporary context

This does not mean, of course, that Suarezs argument is unassailable or

Action and freedom in Suarezs ethics

6.1 human action and its place in suarezs ethics

6.2 agency, goal-directedness and the exercise

6.3 the voluntarium and the practical-reason-based

Elicited actions of the will Commanded or willed actions of other faculties

It is clear why decisions or choices should count as actions in

6.4 freedom of will

6.5 freedom and law