Pedro da Fonseca and Luis de Molina, on Animal Freedom. A Way to Understand Contingency

The question of whether or not there is a vestige of freedom in irrational animals has been present throughout all the stages of the history of philosophy. Yet, in the sixteenth century, the Jesuits deepened their studies on this subject in a rather particular way. In this paper we will show how, by pointing to the possibility of finding a trace of freedom in irrational animals, the Jesuits sought to identify the very basis of the concept of freedom, to make it clear that, while signs of freedom can be found in some developed levels of irrational life, freedom is, in a most singular way, the fundamental characteristic of human beings. In this paper we analyze the Jesuit doctrines on animal freedom that can be found in texts, either published or handwritten, from the teachings of two Jesuits who worked in Portugal during the second half of the 16th century: Pedro da Fonseca and Luis de Molina.