QuestionsMust we always obey the law?The tyrant may be deposed by the community, and as a last resort killed: Mariana's De rege
Must we always obey the law?The right to revolt

The tyrant may be deposed by the community, and as a last resort killed: Mariana's De rege

Tyrannicide; Mariana's De rege

Juan de Mariana 1536 · 1624Spanish Jesuit, historian and theologian, who writes for the education of a prince that power comes from the community and that a tyrant may be deposed and, as a last resort, killed.
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What it claims

Peoples have the right to resist a tyrant: to depose him by the public route and, as a last resort and on strict conditions, to kill him.

Why

The king's power comes from the community: if he turns against it, it may depose him and, as a last resort, kill him.

The same idea through history
Étienne de La Boétie1548La Boétie proposes to withdraw obedience from the tyrant without fighting him. Mariana, for his part, envisages deposition, and as a last resort killing.
Juan de Mariana1599The version presented here. Mariana, a Spanish Jesuit, wrote this book for the education of the young King Philip III. Chapter 6 of book I discusses whether it is permitted to kill a tyrant, distinguishing the usurper from the legitimate king turned tyrant. After the assassination of Henry IV in 1610, the book was condemned by the Parlement of Paris.
John Locke1689Locke also holds that power is a trust that the people may take back. He does not discuss the killing of the tyrant: he speaks of resistance and overthrow.Immanuel Kant1797Kant is the sharpest opponent: for him no law can authorise the people to resist the supreme legislator, and who would judge the dispute?
In short

"The tyrant may be deposed by the community, and as a last resort killed: Mariana's De rege" is an argument by Juan de Mariana (Juan de Mariana, De rege et regis institutione, Toledo, 1599, book I (ch. 6, "May a tyrant be struck down?"), 1599) on the question "Must we always obey the law?" (answer: the right to revolt). Its claim: Peoples have the right to resist a tyrant: to depose him by the public route and, as a last resort and on strict conditions, to kill him. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Juan de Mariana, De rege et regis institutione, Toledo, 1599, book I (ch. 6, "May a tyrant be struck down?")
Valid with an implicit premise

In 1599 a Spanish Jesuit writes, for the education of the young king, a book that contains a famous and dangerous chapter: "May a tyrant be struck down?". Mariana does not say that anyone may kill any king. He first distinguishes the usurper, who took power without title and whom anyone may strike down, from the legitimate king turned tyrant. For the latter the normal path is public: the community, in assembly, warns, then deposes, by force if necessary. Only if this path is closed and his crimes are notorious does a private person who strikes him down not deserve condemnation. The reasoning starts from a principle: the king's power comes from the community and is for its good. The book was burned in 1610 by the Parlement of Paris, after the murder of Henry IV by Ravaillac.

P1The king's power comes from the community, which entrusted it to him for the common good. He remains subject to the laws and, in the last resort, to the community.
P2A legitimate king who tramples the laws, the property and the religion of the community, and who does not mend his ways in spite of warnings, becomes a tyrant and a public enemy.
P3Against such a tyrant, the assembled community may warn him, then depose him and, if he refuses, fight him by force.
P4If the assembly cannot meet because the tyrant forbids it, his crimes are notorious and the will of the people is clear, a private person who kills him is not to be condemned. Mariana nevertheless recommends caution and the advice of wise men, and discusses the means restrictively, such as poison.
P5 · implicit premiseA power that exists only through the community and for its good is lost when it turns against it: the community may then defend itself against it as against an enemy.
So peoples have the right to resist a tyrant: to depose him by the public route and, as a last resort and on strict conditions, to kill him.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where power comes from the community, a king has become a tyrant, he can be deposed and even killed as a last resort, and yet the subjects have no right to resist: power would come from the community without the community being able to take it back.
Without the hidden premise P5, the premises say where power comes from, what a tyrant is and what Mariana permits. One must add that power is lost when it turns against the community, for resistance to be a right and not a mere factual possibility. This is the central thesis, which his opponents deny (Hobbes, Kant).
Analogy. A co-ownership entrusts the management of the building to a trustee. If he embezzles the funds, ignores the rules and refuses to give an account, the owners assembled can dismiss him. If the assembly is forbidden and everyone knows what he is doing, the situation becomes deadlocked. For the act of a private person, Mariana places himself in this limiting case alone.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Thomas Hobbes 1651 · attacks premise 1

Hobbes holds that the sovereign cannot commit any breach of covenant: it is the people who bind themselves to him, not he to the people. None of his subjects can therefore, under pretence of forfeiture, be freed from obedience. Power does not "revert" to the community.

a defender replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1651, after the author's death (1624).
John Locke defender of the argument · 1689
Locke holds that when legislators endeavour to destroy the property of the people or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Hobbes and Locke write after Mariana, who could not answer them. Hobbes thinks the covenant binds the subjects to a sovereign who is not a party to it, because a power whose abuses could be judged would protect from nothing. Locke and Mariana think power is a revocable trust. Neither camp proves the other wrong.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Hobbes: the sovereign is not bound by the covenant, and a power that could be judged no longer fulfils its function. Locke: a power that destroys what it should protect loses its title. The basic disagreement remains: can the people judge their sovereign without falling back into war of all against all?
Immanuel Kant 1797 · attacks premise 3

Kant asks who would be judge in the dispute between the people and the sovereign. Each believes he is in the right, and there is no external judge. A public law that allowed the people to resist the supreme legislator would contain a clause saying that the supreme legislator is not the supreme. There is therefore no right of active resistance.

Mariana replies
see the argument
Juan de Mariana 1599 · Mariana, in advance
Mariana answers in advance that the judge is not a private person: it is the community assembled, which gave the power and can take it back, and it is this public route that must be followed first. He justifies the act of a private person only if the assembly is forbidden and the will of the people is clear.
John Locke defender of the argument · 1689
Locke answers the same question: the people shall be judge, for he who deputes a trustee is the one who judges whether the trustee acts well and who has the power to discard him if he fails in his trust.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Kant writes nearly two centuries after Mariana and does not discuss his book. Mariana and Locke answer with the community; Kant answers that the community has no legal existence distinct from the sovereign and that its judgment is not an act of law. The disagreement bears on whether a people can act as a subject of law against the state.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Kant: no law can authorise the people to judge the sovereign. Mariana and Locke: the people who gave the power are the natural judge. The basic disagreement remains: can the people be judge without also being a party?
David Hume 1748 · attacks premise 4

Hume judges that where a disposition to rebellion appears among a people, it is one chief cause of tyranny in the rulers: it forces them into violent measures they would never have embraced had everyone been inclined to submission. To admit that a private person may kill the tyrant is to increase that danger.

a defender replies
No reply possible: objection raised in 1748, after the author's death (1624).
John Locke defender of the argument · 1689
Locke affirms that the people, more disposed to suffer than to right themselves by resistance, are not apt to stir until the mischief has grown general and the ill designs of the rulers have become visible or sensible to the greater part.
The debate goes on (our summary) Our summary: Hume and Locke discuss resistance in general, not killing. Both agree that peoples dislike rebelling. They differ on what recognising a right provokes: Hume fears it invites violence, Locke that it protects against it. Mariana exposes himself more than both, since he justifies the act of a private person.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Hume: recognising a right to resist stirs up the tyranny one wants to fight. Locke: peoples rise only after a long train of abuses. Open point: history does not decide between the two effects.