ABSTRACT Francisco Suárez is typically understood as having believed that all humans are capable of self‐rule by virtue of their human nature. I argue that that standard interpretation is mistaken. Unlike most of his predecessors, Suárez understood natural slavery as the absence of a right, not the absence of a capacity. He denied that there are any natural slaves in this revised sense. Suárez's understanding of liberty as a right explains many of his other commitments concerning slavery. He broke radically from the Aristotelian tradition, not in denying that some people are incapable of self‐rule but in denying that this incapacity could legitimate enslaving such people.
Toni Alimi (Tue,) studied this question.