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Human Identity and Otherness
Dierksmeier, Claus
Dierksmeier, Claus
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Abstract
How are we to treat human beings whose moral values, aesthetic ideals, and religious convictions we do not share? In its search for an answer to such questions today‟s globalization ethics stands to benefit from a study of the moral philosophy of Francisco de Vitoria. Criticizing the violent exploitation of the South American natives, Vitoria developed a catalogue of basic moral norms whose validity, he held, reached across any and all cultural boundaries. In the 16th century, that was no minor feat. At the time, it was not uncommon to invoke Aristotle‟s theory of „natural slavery‟ as a probate legitimization of the Christian conquest of South America. In this paper, I first reconstruct Aristotle‟s theory of „natural slavery‟. Second, I sketch how the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas altered the intellectual framework from which Aristotle‟s theory was interpreted in the late middle ages. Third, I show how Francisco de Vitoria repudiated the theory of „natural slavery‟ in defense of the unity of human dignity in the face of the socio-cultural diversity of human life. Last, with a few to contemporary debates, I draw conclusions on the status of religious arguments in the context of globalization ethics.
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