Human Dignity in the Thought of Vitoria

Extract

Without falling into the detestable errors of racialism, we can say that national cultures enshrine, at least in a measure, qualities both good and bad truly characteristic of the nation. Thus we may see in Spanish history, literature and art, a great emphasis on man’s natural dignity, an emphasis which at times passes from virtue to vice in the pride which is at present so curiously insisted on by some who pretend to a special understanding of things Spanish. The great Spaniard, Francisco de Vitoria, although far from approving an unhealthy national pride, does in fact bring out very clearly that man, by his own proper nature, is invested with a dignity which is involved in the moral consideration of the most diverse activities.

In his day the Spanish tendency to boasting—pilloried in the Rodomontades—had real and marvellous achievements to rest on, and the reconquest of Christian Spain was at last an accomplished deed. Moralists and theologians were imbued with a feeling for man’s greatness. Vitoria in particular was concerned in his thought with the dignity of man as such, rather than man as Spaniard. In the Relectio de Indis he brings out most clearly that the treatment of barbarians must be governed by what is worthy of man in himself. Nothing does so much credit to Spanish culture as that, even while the baroque style in sentiment and manners was elaborating its less admirable features—ostentatious display, excess of pride, of panache, and the absurdities of pundonor—Spain could still produce a man like Vitoria whose simplicity, austerity, and firm adherence to principle give us the Spanish feeling for dignity in its best form, as expressed by gravedad.