Salamanca School Research Articles

The School of Salamanca on Value of Money: A Reassessment

Abstract This study endeavors to investigate the theory of the value of money from the vantage point of late scholastic scholars, with a specific focus on the Salamanca School and the two prevailing monetary doctrines: Objectivism (Metallism) and Subjectivism (Chartalism). Our investigation employs the classical works of late scholastic thinkers from the 15th to the 17th centuries to illuminate the perspectives held by the Salamanca School concerning monetary value. The findings affirm that the twofold theory of money value proposed by late scholastic thinkers constitutes a nuanced iteration of the multidimensional approach to money. This comprehensive framework encompasses various facets of value, such as the final, actual, formal, and material dimensions. Moreover, the conspicuous emphasis placed by late scholastic thinkers on the subjective aspects of money value imparts a multifaceted character to their theory, demonstrating striking parallels with modern subjective doctrine.

Was there a Salamanca School of economic issues?

La utilización de la denominación “Escuela de Salamanca” en referencia a los aspectos económicos es confusa y problemática, porque no hay argumentos convincentes para sostener que fuera una auténtica escuela de pensamiento económico (tal como la definen Schumpeter y Stigler). Sin embargo, desde Larraz y Grice-Hutchinson, los historiadores del pensamiento económico han utilizado habitualmente dicha denominación por su poder como “marca comercial” para la divulgación, y también para hacer referencia de forma breve y sencilla a las notables aportaciones analíticas de un conjunto de doctores escolásticos españoles. De hecho, las monografías de los historiadores se han concentrado sobre todo en analizar las contribuciones de estos escolásticos (teoría monetaria, derechos de propiedad, etc.), más que en discutir los criterios que podrían definirles como una escuela en asuntos económicos.

The Political Philosophy of the Salamanca School

Iniciamos com a questão da separação entre o poder civil e a fé, a natureza e a graça, o poder temporal e o poder espiritual, de modo a delimitar o âmbito específico dos dois poderes e a mostrar a autonomia da razão natural como fundamento do poder civil. No segundo ponto expomos a questão da origem, natureza e finalidade do poder civil, mostrando a conciliação entre a origem divina e a origem popular do poder, transversal aos autores desta escola, vincando, ao mesmo tempo, o seu fundamento ético. A fundamentação ética do poder político abre caminho, no terceiro ponto, à análise do direito de resistência à tirania, sublinhando que o poder dos reis é supremo na sua esfera mas não absoluto, porque limitado pelo direito natural e pelo jus gentium. Considerada a circunstância ibérica de abertura ao Novo Mundo, cumpre-nos depois analisar, num quarto momento, a questão da legitimidade das soberanias indígenas e da universalidade do direito à jurisdição política. Finalmente expomos a contribuição desta escola para o conceito de comunidade universal.

Wim Decock. Le marche du merite: Penser le droit et l'economie avec Leonard Lessius (Brussels: Zones Sensibles, 2019), 248

Leonard Lessius was one of the most accomplished philosophers of the Salamanca School whose great contribution to the study of law lies in the use of economic analysis to study legal institutes. The book, which is the subject to the present review, gives account of his scientific achievements. Among many other questions tackled by Lessius, the review discusses the evolution of the pacta sunt servanda principle, the morality and legality of interest, price mechanism, competition as well as the economic aspects of the salvation of one's soul. Attention is also paid to influence of Lessius on contemporary and later authors and timelessness of some of his theories.

The Salamanca School on Slavery: From Naturalism to Culture and Awareness

This article examines the reflections on slavery by a group of 16th-century scholastics considered members or followers of the so-called School of Salamanca. I show that a gradual process of critical awareness developed regarding both the concept of natural slavery and its justifications. After pointing to the fact that Native Americans and Africans were the first victims of the modern application of the concept of natural slavery, I identify the most important milestones leading up to the intellectual dismantling of the concept, effectively leaving it without a recognizable point of reference in the real world. In a further step, I point out that, despite the theory of natural slavery having been abandoned, the practices that protected legal slavery since antiquity persisted in Spanish America, especially when applied to African slaves. Some of these thinkers contributed to a first wave of accusatory pleadings against the persistent deception intentionally used by slave sellers and owners to circumvent the legal clauses dictated by the Spanish Monarchy governing the release of Africans unjustly deprived of freedom. Nevertheless, and despite the pioneering critiques offered by figures such as Bartolome de Las Casas and Tomas de Mercado, the Salamanca scholars were not unanimous in their support of this criticism. In fact, we can identify in the writings of Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto the core of the legal and moral-theological argumentation utilized by many buyers and sellers all the way up to the 19th century. As I show, at this time, an alleged invincible ignorance about the conditions under which a slave brought to the Western Indies had been enslaved was sufficient to warrant a just title, thus granting the ownership to holders in the Americas.

A moeda na Restauração: da prática à política monetária em Portugal (1640-1642)

Changing the value of money was used, from the first moment of the Restoration, as a means of financing war and monarchy. Absent in the Philippine period, when there was stability in the Portuguese monetary standard, the mutationist practice was seen as unwanted, dangerous, and immoral. Nevertheless, the needs of the time led the monarchy to delegate its monetary policy to the Conselho da Fazenda (Treasury Council), where thinking about the currency was not only adequate to the needs of power games, but also adjusted to the new ideas, especially those originating from the so-called Salamanca School. Studying the first mutating initiatives (1640-42) allows us to understand how monetary practices evolved in Portugal to a policy of adjustment and resurgence of the national monetary system.

Just wars of accumulation: the Salamanca School, race and colonial capitalism

This paper explores the links between international law, race and colonial capitalism through the Spanish and Portuguese Conquests of the Americas. Turning to the early modern philosophers of the School of Salamanca, Bohrer argues that economic theories of emergent capitalism are deeply intertwined with the racial theories of colonial conquest. Moreover, through a close reading of these texts, and in particular of the texts of Francisco de Vitoria, this paper argues that the conceptions of international trade, commerce and travel at the heart of liberal notions of international law are themselves suffused with the logics of racism, colonisation, and capitalist accumulation.

The rise of pure economics under a new form of scholasticism in view of the present socio-economic system

The mainstream of economics still stands on the elements of pure economics. On the contrary, new analytical tools outside the field of economics are thriving by focusing on the socio-economics system. We need examinations of new analytical tools and the ideas of equilibria. In modern times, socio-economic factors changing the economic system should no longer be regarded as negligible. The idea of reciprocity will urge to reconsider the traditional rationalism. In the depth of these objections against the mainstream, however, the so-called theological rationalism will be revealed. The bounded rationality principle then is not deviating from the track set by the traditional rationalism, but is rather an extended form of it. In this article, we will identify the mainstream of economics with a new form of scholasticism originated from Neo-Thomism based on the School of Salamanca rising during 16–18th century. Realities in general are distorted from the ideal state. Given such a distortion, in the scholastic view, human free will can be exerted in conformity with God’s will. The bigger the distortion, the more human free will can be justified. However, it requires a lengthier sufficiency proof with additional assumptions and conditions. The proof of ideal states may then require a more complicated modeling. The resulting fact that the degree of complication may be much greater in modeling is very welcome in the sense that this kind of work, occasionally involving mathematical refinements, could a fortiori provide economics with the ideal goal grounded by divine inspiration. The distortion should thus be spiritually purified. Moreover, we also provide a historical note on the formation of the mental sources of capitalism. Prior to the Austrian theory, the Salamanca school definitely took into account the harmony between reality and scholasticus. Here, an interesting pragmatic compatibility between the purity of God and the chaos fabricated by secular human greed arises, but it is well known that Weber (The Protestant ethic and the “Spirit” of capitalism and other writings. Penguin, Westminster, 1905) found the source of capitalism in Protestantism. In this context, however, we learned that another moral source of capitalism was found in Catholicism in the form of scholasticism, although it must be strictly suppressed the idea to summarize scholastic arguments as the main principle of Catholicism. Readers in advance must carefully keep from identify the modern Catholic School’s Charter of bonus commune (the common good) and the personalism with capitalistic individualism. Finally, we notice that bounded rationality is regarded as a sophisticated demonstration to vindicate rationalism in conformity with a traditional scholastic manner.

HUMAN RIGHTS THEORY ROOTED IN THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS AQUINAS

This essay is an analysis of the theory of human rights based on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, with special reference to the Summa Theologiae. The difference between a jus naturale found in Aquinas and the theory of human rights developed by the sixteenth century scholastic philosophers is articulated. The distinction between objective natural rights—“what is right”—and subjective natural rights—“a right”—is discussed noting that Aquinas held the former position and that later scholastic philosophers beginning with the Salamanca School of the Second Scholasticism developed the latter position. The subjective theory of rights evolved into the modern and contemporary account of individual human rights. The essay ends with an argument suggesting that Aquinas’s theory of objective human rights can serve as the ontological foundation for a robust theory of both positive and negative subjective natural rights.

A proposal for improving the KDIGO renal disease risk table

Recent surveys have revealed that the prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD), particularly the hidden mild form (mildly elevated levels of serum creatinine or urinary albumin excretion), is surprisingly high in the general population. In recent years, the global epidemic of type-2 diabetes has led to an alarming increase in the number of patients with CKD. Most patients with CKD (over 50 million individuals worldwide) succumb to cardiovascular events, while each year over 1 million develop end-stage renal failure, which requires costly treatment and in many countries of the world, unaffordable renal replacement therapy by chronic dialysis or renal transplantation [1]. The diagnosis and management of CKD has been made easier in recent years by the Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (K/DOQI) clinical practice guidelines of the US National Kidney Foundation. The K/DOQI guidelines advise that CKD can be defined and appropriately managed by a staging approach that relies on estimating the severity of kidney damage based on the degree of proteinuria and impaired kidney function, the latter assessed as a decrease in the glomerular filtration rate (GFR). CKD is defined as kidney damage for [3 months, with or without decreased GFR, manifested by either pathologic abnormalities or markers of kidney damage such as proteinuria 3.4. If there are no signs of kidney damage, a diagnosis of CKD cannot be made until the GFR is\60 mL/min/1.73 m [2]. Using this standard of measure, the National Kidney Foundation estimates that 20 million Americans have CKD, while an additional 20 million are at risk of the disease [3]. During this time, an increasing recognition has emerged about the definition and classification limitations, leading to a heated debate and calls for revisions, mainly in nephrology subspecialty journals. The leadership of KDIGO (Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes), with the endorsement of K/DOQI, convened a Controversies Conference to provide a forum for an open discussion on this problem [4]. One important issue was whether or not the current classification (based on eGFR) should be modified to include additional factors associated with prognosis. The conference generated a table similar to the one used for the European Hypertension Guidelines [5]. It was drawn by a composite ranking of relative risks that enhances communication about prognosis in which colours indicate groups of patients at progressively higher risk for the major outcomes. This table (Fig. 1) would help clinicians, researchers and public health agencies to describe and prioritise efforts aimed at patients and populations at risk of renal disease. The main improvement in the table is to add the value of urinary albumin excretion categorised by N. R. Robles J. F. Macias J. Alvarez-Gregori Cardiovascular Risk Chair, University of Salamanca School of Medicine, Salamanca, Spain

The Salamanca School (Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers). By André Azevedo Alves and José Moreira

The Salamanca School (Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers). By André Azevedo Alves and José Moreira

The Just Price: Three Insights from the Salamanca School

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, members of the Salamanca School engaged in a sustained and sophisticated discussion of the issue of just prices. This article uses their contribution as a point of departure for a consideration of justice in pricing which will be relevant to current-day circumstances. The key theses of members of this school were that fairness of exchanges should be assessed objectively, that the fair price of an article is one equal to its ‘value’, and that the best indicator of that value is the price that article commonly fetches in an open market. This article tries to bring to light the attractiveness of those views in order to guide current practice by contrasting them with alternative views, showing their connection with intuitively attractive basic standards, and linking them to commonly shared intuitions.

"De sacramentis in genere" en los salmanticenses (s.XVII): un comentario al "Cursus Theologicus"

The research contained in this article is a continuation of the research which we carried out between 2003-2007 into how the so-called Salamanca School (Francisco de Vitoria, Melchor Cano, Domingo de Soto) explained the sacraments. The Salmanticensis mentioned above were theologians who composed the Cursus Theologicus Salmanticensis, which was distinct from the Cursus Moralis Salmanticensis. In this first part of our work, we focus on the Cursus Theologicus, and in particular on the treatise De sacramentis in genere (volume XI), written by Brother Juan de la Anunciacion, rector of the Colegio Salmanticense. It deals with the study of the first part of the treatise, and analizes the concept of sacrament along with its fundamental structure: matter and form, and all the questions which these concepts raise. It is not a translation of the original text, but rather a selection, analysis and commentary of what we judge to be the most important parts. We have done this not only to highlight the theological vision of the author, but also to make the theological reflections of those who were an important part of Hispanic theology in the past, accessible to today's readership.

On the Revival of Natural Law

The last third of the twentieth century witnessed a burst of energy by philosophers sorting out the many-faceted claims of natural theory. Natural theory, rooted in the Nicomachean Ethics with some modifications by the Stoics, was studied in the twentieth century mainly through the writings of Thomas Aquinas, followed by those of the Salamanca school, which was central to the Second Scholasticism. The horrors of the Second World War and the trials following it, with their charges of crimes against humanity, prompted a renewed interested by English-speaking philosophers in natural jurisprudence. Analytic philosophers followed Elizabeth Anscombe's urging to venture beyond the limits of early twentieth-century moral philosophy; Alasdair Maclntyre's writings buttressed the return to ethical naturalism; John Finnis's new natural law theory also contributed to this renaissance. These many avenues form the conceptual backdrop to the eight books reviewed in this essay.

THE ORIGINS OF LIBERTY AND THE MARKET: THE WORK OF MARJORIE GRICEHUTCHINSON (1909–2003)

Marjorie Grice‐Hutchinson, who recently died, was a leading scholar of the Salamanca school of economics. That school anticipated much of the economic thinking which helped underpin the case for liberal markets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Early Business Ethics in Spain: The Salamanca School (1526--1614)

Business ethics is not a novelty: it has important antecedents, among which we find the Spanish "Salamanca School". Its most brilliant period was during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, a historical epoch when Spain was one of the principal centers of commerce in Europe. In this article, we present a panoramic view of business ethics as developed by this school and discuss its potential contributions to new developments in business ethics.

Money, Time and Labour

By now it has been pretty well established that the Flemish Jesuit Leonardus Lessius (1554-1623) was an economist of the highest grade. Joseph A. Schumpeter, perhaps the 20th century’s most important historian of economics, afforded Lessius more than ample mention in his monumental work, History of Economic Analysis. In Interest and Usury, Schumpeter’s pupil, Bernard W. Dempsey, likewise gave Lessius generous attention. The Belgian historian Raymond de Roover, however, who considered Lessius to be primarily a deserving epigone of the famous ‘Salamanca School’, did not completely share their enthusiasm, at least initially. De Roover’s somewhat lukewarm attitude was, nevertheless, drowned out by the laudatory contribution of Barry T. Gordon on the subject in his Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith. Robert Beutels brought respect to Lessius’ work in his bio-bibliographical essay published in 1987 and restored something of the honour due to Lessius which, according to Beutels, he had been unjustly denied, certainly in his own land. The image of Lessius presented by all these authors is uncommonly fresh, yet at the same time surprisingly familiar. In their works they have shown him to be a modern thinker who merits comparison with contemporary economists. His analyses give witness to his profound insight into the economy of his day and are still relevant, thought not directly applicable, for economists today. The market principle, portfolio theory, the quantity theory of money, and much more can, according to the authors we have mentioned, be found in Lessius. But does this rather trendy image of Lessius agree with the historical reality? An appropriate way to begin answering this question would be to examine his discussion on the lending of money and the taking of interest in his monumental tractate of 1605, On Justice and Law (De iustitia et iure). Did Lessius endorse or reject the traditional proscription against usury? When did he consider it permissible to claim interest? To what extent did his moral judgment depend on an economic analysis of the phenomenon of interest? Perhaps the answers to these questions will enable us to judge Lessius as both economist and ethicist, as he rightly deserves. Lessius’ elucidation of the question concerning the lending of money and the taking of interest begins in the traditional manner with a quotation from one of the Fathers of the Church, Basil the Great, who had written a sermon on the problem of usury in the 4th century C.E. and who had thereby provided an arsenal of useful and authoritative statements for future theologians to use in dealing with the problem in their own day. The quotation runs as follows: “By its nature, money is indeed fruitless. Nevertheless, through the industry of greedy individuals it surpasses all living things in productivity (2,20,1).” It is from here that terms ‘fruit’ and ‘product’, foetus or tokos, are used to refer to usurious profit or foenus. The usurer is considered an avaricious person, an avarus, and his money bears fruit like a living thing. The fruitfulness in question, however, is of a special type which Basil represents in the form of an analogy: The fruitfulness of usury is like the fruitfulness of the hare. “The hare is such that it gives birth, raises its young and conceives again all at the same time.” The hare, in fact, is an animal which suffers from superfetation. The same can be said for the money of the usurer or the avaricious person: “At one and the same moment it is lent out for usurious profit, bears fruit and is impregnated once again.”

The Law of Nations and the Salamanca School of Theology

THE LAW OF NATIONS AND THE SALAMANCA SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY* T HE Salamancan theologians followed faithfully the teachings of the Angelic Doctor on the concept of law in general and of the natural law in particular. They were able to give a new actuality to both of them by their dynamic incorporation of the ethical-juridical problems of their time. But their progressive labor and creative genius are most manifest in the field of the law of nations. For here they were able not only to contribute developments and applications in close conformity with Thomistic principles, but to make original advances as well in a doctrine that has always been embodied in philosophical-juridical studies. The names of these great theologians will always be associated with the problems of the law of nations and with international law, since their intellectual fostering of these sciences is universally recognized. To call Vitoria the founder or the father of the law of nations and of international law may perhaps meet with some opposition , since the famous " jus gentium " has been spoken of from the days of antiquity. Therefore, to evaluate the doctrinal originality of the classical theologians it is necessary to compare their interpretations with those that preceded them. As signposts along the way we shall briefly indicate the Roman, Isidorian and Thomistic ideas pertaining to our subject. HmTORICAL ANTECEDENTs t RomanLaw In the Pandects of Justinian, edited in the middle of the sixth century (533), is found the very same matter which had been inherited from the Roman jurists of classical times. One can *In tribute to Francis de Vitoria, 0. P., Founder of International Law, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of his death (August 1~, 1546) . 186 THE LAW OF NATIONS 187 easily recognize a twofold division of law in the doctrine of these jurists, with distinct concepts..in the terms employed. Gaius (160?) established the first twofold division: "All peoples who are governed by laws and customs utilize a law which is partly proper, partly common to all mankind. That law which each people establishes for themselves is proper to each city and it is called civil law, because it is proper to the city itself. But that which constitutes the natural law among all men and which is equally observed by all is called the law of nations, since it governs almost all peoples." 1 Now we have indicated the first distinction between civil law, which is proper to each city, and the law of nations, which is the common inheritance of all mankind, dictated by natura] reason and commonly used in almost an identical manner among all peoples. In this twofold division we see that the law of nations is almost identical with natural law, since it proceeds from natural reason as the directive of a natural order of juridical relations coetaneous with humanity itsel£.2 By nature alone all peoples have been led to give almost identical solutions to the fundamental problems of life before any legislator had established laws in the strict sense. These solutions were the product of natural reason and they remained separate from the domain of positive law.3 The Roman jurist presents varioul;l examples which in our modern terminology have sometimes 'been included in natural law and at other times in the law of nations in the strict sense; for example, the appropriation of abandoned property, the spoils of war, servitude, imprisonment of the conquered, etc., which are commonly considered to be governed by the law of nations.4 Almost a century later Ulpian {228) proposed a new threefold division, which finds foundation in Cicero: natural law, 1 Dig. L. 1, tit. 1, 9. • Dig. L. 41, tit. I, 1: "Antiquius jus gentium cum ipso genere humano proditum est." • Dig. L. 7, tit. 5, 2: "Nee enim naturalis ratio auctoritate Senatus commutari potuit." Dig. L. 4, tit. 5, 8: " Civilis ratio naturalia jura corrumpere non potest." • Dig. L. 41, tit. 1, I & S; L. 41, tit. 1, 5 & 7; L. 1, tit. 6, 1. , 188 JOSE MANUEL DE AGUILAR the law of nations, and civil law. The law of nations as Gaius conceived it, i.e., as distinct from civil law...