Abstract
The question of whether the human law obligates consciousness occupies a central position in the philosophy of law of Spanish Scholastic, especially in the works of Domingo de Soto and Francisco Suárez. Soto and Suárez —which mark the beginning and the end of the sixteenth century Salamanca Scholastic— have developed their theory of human law around a kind of general duty of obedience to the Law, including instances where unfair laws must be observed. In this context, I intend to examine the general theory of Soto and Suárez about the binding force of human law. I will focus on two applications of this theory: the question of strictly penal laws and the issue of the mandatory nature of the unfair law.
Domingo de Soto; Francisco Suárez; human law; strictly penal laws; unfair law