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Hugo Grotius on Ethics and War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Steven Forde
Steven Forde*
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
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Abstract

Interest in the thought of Hugo Grotius on international law and ethics is justified inasmuch as he attempted to define a theoretical position between an idealism he thought counterproductive and an amoral realism he found unacceptable. Grotius constructed a system in which the moral authority of natural law was combined with the flexibility of human law. This required him to develop a special understanding of the nature and relation of these two types of law. In giving the law of nations, as a product of human will, the authority to suspend provisions of natural law, he provided for a code of international conduct that could permit injustice where necessary, without abandoning moral ideals altogether.

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Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 92 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 639 - 648
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1998

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