Biomedical Engineering Reference
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different motivations for cooperating, including those of Grotius, Hobbes,
and Locke. In the seventeenth century, Hugo Grotius developed a vision on
the interdependence of nations. He argues that moral norms impose restric-
tions to the actions of all nations and individuals in the international society.
Human rights of individuals may justify intervention in the internal affairs
of other states. Determination of ownership of goods requires detailed
examination because this depends on needfulness of the poor in one state
and surplus in another state (Nussbaum 2006, p. 31).
Nussbaum wants to revive the natural law approach of the foundations of
international affairs of Hugo Grotius. This natural law approach also offers
a framework for considering internal affairs. In De jure belli ac pacis , Grotius
(1625) founds the principles of international relations on human dignity
and sociability in the tradition of the Greek and Roman STOA (Seneca and
Cicero). Even though Grotius connects these aspects with a particular meta-
physical theory of human nature, his approach can also form the basis of a
political concept of the person that can be accepted by people with another
vision on metaphysics and religion. Human dignity and sociability form the
basis for certain specific rights and are necessary conditions for a humane
life. Grotius focuses on the space between states, where there is no sover-
eign. This space is still morally ordered and some very specific principles
shape human interactions in it. These principles inspired his interpretation
of the “Ius ad Bellum” and the “Ius in Bello”: starting a war is only justified
in response to an unjustified act of aggression. Preventive war is prohib-
ited as it is a way to use humans as instruments for the interest of others.
During the war, strict rules have to be obeyed: no excessive or cruel punish-
ment, no killing of civilians, minimal damage to property, and prompt res-
titution of property and sovereignty in ending a war. Interestingly, Grotius'
theory starts with an outcome: the fundamental rights of people that must
be respected in the name of justice. If these rights are respected, a society is
minimally justified. This theory is based on an intuitive notion of human
dignity, and explicitly not on mutual benefits (Nussbaum 2006, pp. 44-45).
Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651) holds that there are natural moral laws
that call for “justice, equality, fairness, charity and doing to others as we
want others to do to us.” These natural moral laws cannot form the basis
of a stable political order because they are “in contradiction with our natu-
ral passions that lead us towards partisanship, pride, revenge, etc.” Natural
sociability can be observed among ants but not among humans. The natural
state is a state of war. All humans are equal in capabilities and means in this
natural state. In this state, our passions stimulate us to make peace so as
to live securely to some extent. This social contract does not lead to justice.
Hobbes does not have a clear vision on justice. In some places it can only be
enforced, whereas elsewhere natural principles of justice exist but are inef-
fective, given our natural passions. The social contract generates the funda-
mental principles for a political society, as a mutual agreement to hand over
political rights. Hobbes includes the contracting parties as well as those on
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