4 - The Rule of Law

Summary

Trying to find intellectual space between theology and raison d’état, the Protestant Hugo Grotius aimed to derive an autonomous sphere of legality from the natural inclination of humans to follow rules even when that might appear against their immediate self-interest. The rules he wrote into De iure belli ac pacis (On the Rights of War and Peace) combined a contractual justification of absolutism with a system of individual rights that he believed underwrote the spectacularly successful commercial practices of his native Holland. This rule-system would accommodate the actual practices of European warfare and government while also appealing to the better natures of European rulers. Unlike Gentili, Grotius viewed law as a moral science that engaged both the external behaviour as well as the conscience of those who govern.