balance Natural Law
Universal moral principles derived from nature and reason
format_quote Quotes
"A sum of money today is worth more than the same sum to be received in the future. This is not only the common estimation of men, but is grounded in reason: present goods are available for present needs; future goods must be awaited, and in the meantime their possession is uncertain."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
View Full Quote"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."
menu_book Book of Exodus
View Full Quote"Europe has never been a producer of origins. It has been a consumer and a transmitter. Its genius lies not in invention ex nihilo but in the capacity to digest what it receives and to pass it on transformed, deepened, made available for new generations."
menu_book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
View Full Quote"If we speak of human dignity, we must be able to say what it is grounded in. It cannot be grounded in mere membership in a biological species. It must be grounded in what is specifically human — in those capacities by which the human being rises above the rest of nature while remaining part of it."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
View Full Quote"Ethics is not one capacity among others. It is the capacity that makes all others specifically human. To reason, to make art, to use language — all these can be done well or badly, and the judgment of well or badly is always already an ethical judgment."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
View Full Quote"The human being is the only animal that asks what it is for. Not what it is good for — that is a question every living thing resolves in practice — but what the whole enterprise of its existence is aimed at, and whether that aim is worthy."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
View Full Quote"The ethical life needs a ground that ethics alone cannot provide. What motivates me to be good — not merely to act well — cannot come from a moral law that I give to myself. It requires a relationship to something prior to me and greater than me."
menu_book On Religion
View Full Quote"Tyrants have never ceased to display great mutual friendship, because they know very well that they themselves spread the seeds of discord, and that the people who bear the burden of their yoke are in a state of mind to be easily stirred up. Good men love each other, and tyrants can only fear one another."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
View Full Quote"It is therefore the inhabitants of countries who allow themselves to be coerced who are unnatural, since freedom is their natural state; and their slavery is born of their own fault, not of any lack of courage, but rather of some scorn of their natural condition and some unaccountable failure of good sense."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
View Full Quote"What difference does it make whether a man is despoiled of his fortune openly and by force, or secretly, by stealth — whether through a bandit on the road or through a prince who debases the currency by which all things are measured?"
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
View Full Quote"The prince is not the owner of the private property of his subjects. To impose new taxes or to increase old ones without the consent of the people is an act of tyranny, contrary to natural law and destructive of the commonwealth."
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
View Full Quote"When a prince seizes sovereign power by force and arms without any legal title, without popular consent, and without the approval of the better part of the commonwealth, he may be killed by any man whatsoever — for he is a public enemy who has broken the bond that holds human society together."
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
View Full Quote"When buyers and sellers are free to act, and neither fraud nor force is present, the price that results from their voluntary agreement is just — for justice in commerce consists in the freedom of exchange, not in the equality of the things exchanged."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"A thing is worth as much as it can be sold for without fraud or coercion. The value of goods is not determined by their intrinsic nature, but by the estimation which men commonly put upon them — and this estimation varies with time, place, and circumstance."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"The just price of things is not determined by the nature or quality of things in themselves, but by the common estimation of men — that is, by what buyers and sellers commonly agree to give and receive in exchange."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"To sell below the just price is loss to the seller; to buy above it is loss to the buyer. The prince cannot without injustice compel men to sell below the common price, for this is to force them to give what is theirs to others without compensation."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"Private ownership of goods is not contrary to natural law, but was introduced by human reason for the utility of human life. For natural law does not forbid private possession; rather, it requires that what is acquired by legitimate means be respected as belonging to its possessor."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
View Full Quote"Not every kind or degree of wrong is sufficient justification for war. The degree of the punishment must be in proportion to the degree of the fault."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
View Full Quote"The whole world, which is in a sense a single republic, has the power to enact laws that are just and convenient for all persons, such as are the rules of the law of nations."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
View Full Quote"The barbarians undoubtedly possessed true dominion, both public and private, before the arrival of the Spaniards among them, just as Christians possess it. Neither their princes nor private persons could be despoiled of their property on the ground that they were not true owners."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
View Full Quoteauto_stories Books
Book of Exodus
The second book of the Bible, recounting the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt under Moses and the covenant at Mount Sinai. It contains the T...
Read MoreComentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
Martín de Azpilcueta's 1556 treatise on monetary exchange, containing the earliest clear statement of what would become the quantity theory of mone...
Read MoreDe Indis (On the Indians)
Francisco de Vitoria's landmark 1532 lecture at the University of Salamanca, laying the groundwork for international law and natural rights theory....
Read MoreDe Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Luis de Molina's six-volume masterwork on justice and law, completed in 1593. Molina's most enduring economic contribution is his clear formulation...
Read MoreDe Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Domingo de Soto's systematic treatment of justice and law, published in 1553. Soto develops a rigorous natural law analysis of property rights, the...
Read MoreDe Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
Juan de Mariana's major work of political theory, published in 1599. Mariana argues that political power originates in the community and is held in...
Read MoreDiscourse on Voluntary Servitude
Written around 1549 by the young French magistrate Étienne de La Boétie and first published posthumously in 1576, this founding text of libertarian...
Read MoreEccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
Brague's foundational work arguing that European culture is fundamentally "eccentric" — it has always received its cultural substance from outside ...
Read MoreWhat Is Distinctive to Man
Brague's inquiry into what distinguishes the human being from all other animals. Drawing on philosophy, biology, and theology, he examines the capa...
Read MoreOn Religion
A philosophical examination of what religion actually is — its essence, structure, and necessity. Brague asks what distinguishes the religious rela...
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