Natural rights

In der Geisteskultur des Mittelalters existierten vielfältige Vorstellungen einer Überlegenheit kollektiver über individuelle Konzepte des Gütergebrauchs und -besitzes, die Befürwortern von Kollektivökonomien und kommunistischen Ordnungsmodellen in der Neuzeit immer wieder als positive Bezugspunkte dienten. Im folgenden Beitrag wird aus mediävistischer Perspektive geprüft, ob das mittelalterliche Ideengut tatsächlich in eine logische Verbindung zu Modellen moderner Share Economy gebracht werden kann. Hierzu werden zunächst die philosophischen, juridischen und religiösen Traditionslinien zusammengeführt, in deren Bahnen sich das Denken über Gütergemeinschaft im Mittelalter bewegte. Darauf aufbauend, rückt anschließend der englische Philosoph und Theologe John Wyclif in den Fokus. Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts entwickelte dieser eine differenzierte Lehre des dominium, in deren Rahmen er sich für eine Gütergemeinschaft der Gesamtkirche aussprach. Um die Kohärenz der Wyclif’schen Güterlehre sowie ihre Kompatibilität mit den Prinzipien von Share Economy ermessen zu können, wird sie gezielt mit den Regeln erfolgreichen Commonings nach E. Ostrom konfrontiert, aus denen eine Vielzahl gegenwärtiger Allmende-Konzepte ihr Regularium bezieht. Auf diese Weise werden substantielle Unterschiede, aber auch überraschende Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen mittelalterlichen und postmodernen Ideen des Commoning erkennbar.

İnsanlar, çoğunlukla toplum halinde yaşamayı tercih ettiklerinden dolayı devamlı birbirleriyle ilişki halindedirler. Bu toplumsal yapı içerisinde insanın benimsediği davranışlar, ahlakı meydana getirmektedir. Teolojik açıdan düşünülecek olursa dinler de insanlara birtakım ahlaki fonksiyonlar tanımlamaktadır. İslam dini de insanın ahlaklı bir yaşam sürmesini istemektedir. Ancak günümüzdeki Müslüman ülke ve toplumların ahlak konusundaki durumuna bakıldığında toplumda ahlakın hayati bir rolünün olup olmadığı şüphelidir. Bu yüzden İslami bir ahlak teorisinin mümkün olup olmadığı sorusu akla gelmektedir. Bu soruya verilecek cevap, İslam‘ı yorumlama metoduna göre değişiklik göstermektedir.
Bu çalışma, İslami bir ahlak teorisinin mümkün olup olmadığı sorusuna odaklanmaktadır. İslami modernizm geleneğinin İslam‘ı yorumlama yöntemi ahlak temelli olduğundan modernist geleneğin ahlak felsefesi ele alınarak sorunun cevabı araştırılmıştır. Birinci bölümde, İslami bir ahlak teorisi çizmeden önce İslam‘ı yorumlama metodumuzun bu teoriyi etkilediğini göstermek için radikal ve modernist geleneğin İslam‘a bakışlarına değinilmiştir. Bunlarla birlikte modernitenin ortaya çıkması sonucu ihya ve reform hareketlerinin iki gelenek üzerindeki etkisi de ele alınmıştır. İkinci bölümde, ahlak kavramına odaklanılmış ve ahlakın Batı, Doğu ve Uzak Doğu toplumlarındaki tarihsel serüveni ele alınmıştır. Böylece ahlak kavramının geçmişte nasıl ele alındığı ve günümüzde nasıl ele alınabileceği gösterilmek istenmiştir. Üçüncü bölümde, İslami modernizm geleneğinin ahlak felsefesi incelenmiştir ve araştırma sorusuna yanıt aranmıştır. Ayrıca bu bölümde çalışma bir adım daha derinleştirilerek modernist geleneğin çizmiş olduğu ahlak felsefesi ile doğal hukuk arasındaki ilişki irdelenmiştir. Sonuç olarak, İslami bir ahlak teorisinin mümkün olduğu ve modernist geleneğin ahlak felsefesinin buna bir örnek oluşturduğu sonucuna varılmıştır. Buna ek olarak modernist geleneğin ahlak felsefesinin bir doğal hukuk teorisi olduğu ileri sürülmüştür.

Although in the section A chi legge he suggested otherwise, Beccaria owes much to Hobbes. This is evinced by three theses advanced in Dei delitti e delle pene: human beings are by nature unsociable; there is no natural law prior to the establishment of the civil society; natural rights derive from our inborn tendency to self-preservation. From these assumptions, however, Beccaria draws three conclusions that contradict Hobbes: even the most fundamental rights, being guaranteed only by the civil law, are in fact created by it; sovereignty, which is intrinsically limited, is legitimate only insofar as it acknowledges the right to live; the death penalty is illegitimate because it brings men back to the state of permanent war they meant to overcome.

Kant compares a merely empirical doctrine of right to the wooden head in Phaedru’s fable, i. e. a head that has no brain (MS AA 06: 229). An a priori right may be acquired or innate. According to Kant, there is only one innate right (MS AA 06: 237). That only one innate right is freedom. In that context, freedom means “independence from being constrained by another’s choice” (MS AA 06: 237). As a moral right, such a right implies reciprocity. This being so, it is a right to be held “insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law” (MS AA 06: 237). The reason why it is an innate right is that it is a “right belonging to every man by virtue of his humanity” (MS AA 06: 237). This paper aims to clarify a few issues regarding our innate right to freedom. To start with, we need a deeper understanding of the meaning of freedom as independence from being constrained by another’s choice. I will claim that such an independence should be understood as absence from fraud and violence. Following, it is in order to analyze the condition according to which freedom is a right: coexistence with the freedom of every other in accord with a universal law. I will claim that such a condition does not imply political authority. Finally, we have to handle the connection between the innate right to freedom and our humanity. I will claim that the innate right to freedom cannot be disconnected from the second formula of the categorical imperative.

Unveräußerliche Rechte kann man nicht freiwillig aufgeben oder übertragen. Nicht nur Grundrechte können unveräußerlich sein. Unser Rechtssystem schränkt auf unterschiedliche Weisen die Verfügung über gewisse Rechte ein. Weshalb darf aber ein Träger eines solchen Rechts nicht darüber verfügen? Handelt es sich dabei nicht um eine ungerechtfertigte Einschränkung der Vertragsfreiheit oder der möglichen Einwilligung?

This article considers HLA Hart’s influence in the making of John Finnis’s book Natural Law and Natural Rights. In the style of an intellectual biography it traces the history of the interaction between the two Oxford legal philosophers using their correspondence as a starting point. It also delves into Finnis’s years in Africa —a period of his life both crucial for the writing of the book and utterly unknown. It argues that Hart’s role was significant not only insofar as he was behind the idea of the book but also (and this has been little known as of yet) because of the restrained way in which he freely chose to conduct his role as editor despite the extent of the reservations he had regarding Finnis’s work, fully revealed here. Given the importance of Natural Law and Natural Rights for what has been called the ‘new natural law theory’ the article concludes by awarding Hart his due credit in the making of one of that theory’s main sources of inspiration.

Demoktesis is one of the many hypothetical histories in Anarchy, State and Utopy. Here, Nozick not only aims to show that more than a minimum state can only emerge at the cost of violating some citizen’s rights, but he also intends to put forward a criticism of contemporary democracy. The core of this criticism is the claim that democracy entails a progressive loss of self-ownership. In Nozick’s view, this makes democracy a dystopic regime, akin to slavery. In this article I will attempt to pin down the meaning and the reach of this last criticism. I will claim, first, that it should be understood as aimed only against certain conceptions of democracy; and second, that this criticism is overstated, since these very forms of democracy promote many of the liberties defended by Nozick. I will conclude that Nozick’s criticism against these forms of democracy can be explained to a great extent by his reluctance to admit certain idealizations made by the defenders of democracy in demoktesis. This reluctance has consequences on the more general issue of the methodological pertinence of hypothetical histories and, with it, on the problem of the justification of the principles by which those histories are inspired.

Demoktesis es una de las tantas historias hipotéticas de Anarquía, Estado y utopía. Con ella Nozick quiere demostrar no solo que un Estado mayor al Estado mínimo no puede surgir sin violar los derechos de nadie sino, además, hacer una crítica a la democracia contemporánea. El núcleo de la crítica consiste en sostener que el funcionamiento de la democracia supone la pérdida progresiva de la propiedad que cada uno tiene naturalmente sobre sí mismo. Para Nozick, esto hace de la democracia un régimen distópico, asimilable a la esclavitud. En el presente trabajo intentaremos fijar el sentido y alcance de esta crítica. Se sostendrá, primero, que, en rigor, ella se debe entender dirigida sólo contra ciertas concepciones particulares de la democracia; segundo, que la crítica es exagerada porque dichas formas de democracia pro- mueven muchas de las libertades que Nozick defiende. Se concluirá que la crítica de Nozick a tales formas de democracia se explica en buena medida por su renuencia a admitir ciertas idealizaciones de las que parten los defensores de la democracia aludidos en demoktesis. Esta renuencia conduce al problema más general de la validez de las historias hipotéticas y, con ello, al problema de la justificación de los principios que sirven de inspiración a tales historias.

Philosophers in the Lockean tradition have argued that taxation is an - perhaps sometimes permissible - infringement of moral property entitlements. The article discusses whether, or in what form, this charge is defensible. In doing so, it will explore the truth in and the limits of Murphy and Nagel's conventionalist reply to Lockean challenges to taxation. It argues that there is a moral rationale for property conventions that is independent from the question whether and how one can acquire natural, pre-conventional property rights in the state of nature, that this rationale sets a moral standard for how good property conventions are and whether they are justifiable at all, and that once property conventions are in place, people’s moral property entitlements are at least partly determined by these conventions, sometimes even by unjustifiable ones that ought to be reformed. The upshot is that taxation cannot be understood as theft, and that taxation is not as such an infringement of moral property entitlements, but that some taxation does infringe upon moral property entitlements, even though these entitlements are only in part non-conventional, and even though it is to some extent indeterminate at what rate taxation starts to infringe upon such entitlements.

There are many calls for tourism rights. An influential example is the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (WTO, 1999) which explicitly declares ‘The Right to Tourism’ in its Article 7. But are such calls legitimate? And if they are, what are the implications for governments and the tourism industry? What duties correlate with this alleged right? Are these duties legally obligatory, or are they merely moral duties? And who are the duties imposed upon? Such questions interweave with the more fundamental philosophical question: is the right to tourism ethically justified? This review article critically engages with this question. It considers the presence of the right to tourism in the major international human rights treaties, before turning to enlightenment political theorists Locke, Jefferson and Mill to develop philosophical arguments for the right. In making this case for the right to tourism, we overview what we see as its five key layers, and describe what we argue is its fundamental nature: the human right to pursue tourism.

Michael Zuckert's dismissal of Burlamaqui and Hutcheson as inspiration for the Declaration of Independence is fatally flawed.  Burlamaqui said exactly what Zuckert doubts that Burlamaqui could have said regarding the purpose of government (to secure rights).  Zuckert's attempt to explain the "pursuit of happiness" in terms of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding fails, because Zuckert's two chosen examples of parallel documents both echo Hutcheson and Burlamaqui (but not Locke) on obtaining happiness; and the 1776 congressional definition of happiness includes virtue, in common with the Ciceronian tradition of Hutcheson and Burlamaqui, in opposition to Locke.  In this Ciceronian tradition, rights are derived from duties, and virtue is the "perfection" of human nature, with happiness as the result.  This view is prominently expressed by Burlamaqui's student Vattel, whose "The Law of Nations" was carefully followed by the Continental Congress as it went through the procedure of establishing and then declaring independence.

The title alludes, of course, to Herbert Hart’s classic study ‘Are There any Natural Rights?’, but all (or almost all) parallels end here.
In my paper, I will examine whether or not Aquinas complemented his theory of natural law with a conception of natural rights. First I shall present a kind of ‘conceptual algebra’, describing Aquinas’s different usages of the term ius, and then I will turn to the very question of my investigation.

This essay details the role played by Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Spanish Dominicans in their defence of the rights of the Amerindians and in their struggle to overturn the Encomienda system that threatened the existence of the natives following the Spanish Conquest of the Americas.

This paper examines Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence not only as an expression of natural rights, but also as a justification of the first anti-colonial revolution. It also shows how Jefferson's declaration influenced Lafayette's draft of the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens. However, Lafayette, who fought alongside Washington in the American Revolution, sided with the royalists during the French Revolution, favoring a constituional monarchy. The paper also explores the similarity in thought between Jefferson and Thomas Paine, both being Deists as well as republicans. Like Lafayette, Paine who took part in both the American and French Revolutions, but he broke with the Jacobins over the issue of regicide. Finally, the paper explores how the French Revolution influenced the Haitian Revolution, even though in the complicated politics of this French colony in the Caribbean, Toussaint L'Ouverture navigated a course between the British, the Spaniards (who occupied the eastern part of the island of Hispanola), and the French. Since it was in part a slave rebellion, rather than an anticolonial revolution, Thomas Jefferson refused to recognize formally the legitimacy of the Haitian Revolution. When Napoleon overturned Toussaint and sought to reinstitute slavery, the island finally achieved its independence. It was Napoleon's failure to retain control over Haiti that convinced him to sell Lousiana to the United States.

Modern human rights proclaimed at the end of the eighteenth century are based on a specific image of humanity that has developed through a process of subjectivisation that begins in Greek antiquity. The present study argues that the respective advances in human rightshistory–in the field of juridical, moral-philosophical and political thinking–cannot be adequately correlated and understood without a reflection on this process.

It is commonly held that the idea of natural rights originated with the ancient Greeks, and was given full form by more modern philosophers such as John Locke, who believed that natural rights were apprehensible primarily to reason. The problem with this broad position is threefold: first, it is predicated on the presumption that the idea of rights is modern, biologically speaking (only twenty three hundred years separates us from the Greeks, and three hundred from the English liberals); second, it makes it appear that reason and right are integrally, even causally, linked; finally, it legitimizes debate about just what rights might be, even in their most fundamental essence. In consequence, the most cherished presumptions of the West remain castles in the air, historically and philosophically speaking. This perceived weakness of foundation makes societies grounded on conceptions of natural right vulnerable to criticism and attack in the most dangerous of manners. Most of the bloodiest battles and moral catastrophes of the twentieth century were a consequence of disagreement between groups of people who had different rationally-derived notions of what exactly constituted an inalienable right (“from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”). If natural rights are anything at all, therefore, they better be something more than mere rational constructions. The adoption of a much broader evolutionary/historical perspective with regards to the development of human individuality and society allows for the generation of a deep solution to this problem—one dependent on a transformation of ontology, much as moral vision. Such a solution grounds the concept of sovereignty and natural right back into the increasingly implicit and profoundly religious soil from which it originally emerged, and provides a rock-solid foundation for explicit Western claims for the innate dignity of man.

ABSTRACT

Paying careful attention to his use of language, this chapter introduces Albert the Great’s (1200-80) contribution to natural rights into the scholarly debate between subjective and objective rights. Teacher of Thomas Aquinas, Albert’s work on ius naturale has been overshadowed in many aspects by the significance and impact of his student’s. However, Albert’s early appearance on the stage of empirical sciences as a student of nature has been widely recognized. Ecclectic in his use of sources, Albert would generously use Stoic writings, and would become as well a first rate commentator of Aristotle’s works. As a theologian, Albert’s Agustinian influences cannot be neglected. The text examined here, De bono (1242), constitutes an early and thorough elaboration of an original doctrine of natural right and, importantly, of natural rights. The natural rights that Albert describes appear to the modern student both curiously subjective and objective, not fitting the scholarly divide between Aquinian objective system of right and Ockhamist subjective powers as rights. Naturalism, jurisprudence and the demands of society concoted within a theological framework of the mind describe private property, occupation of free things, health, self-defence, worship and even elections as rights implanted in nature. On the one hand, God creates the human being to be good through universals of right inserted in nature. On the other hand, Albert encounters already the problem of the epistemological autonomy of the human being on the face of defective reason. In an uneasy equilibrium of authorities, Albert’s theology of human being’s participation in divine intellect, a power, concurs with the individual’s difficulty in applying the right in the concrete case.

Öz: Bu çalışma İngiliz filozof John Locke’un doğal hukuk yaklaşımını kendisinin siyaset felsefesi ekseninde ele almaktadır. Locke’un siyaset felsefesi kadar doğal hukuka ilişkin görüşleri de yaşadığı dönemin ekonomi politik gerçekliğinden soyutlanamaz. Locke, 1688 Devrimi öncesinde kapitalist üretim ilişkilerinin hâkim üretim tarzı haline geldiği bir dönemde liberal modern devletin temel esaslarını ortaya koymuştur. Mutlak monarşiyi kralın Tanrısal hakları öğretisinden hareketle savunan kral yanlılarıyla tartışmaya girmiştir. Doğa durumu ve toplum sözleşmesi gibi kavramlar aracılığıyla mülkiyet özgürlüğü ve iktidar üzerinde eşit talep hakkını ön plana çıkarmıştır. Bu bağlamda Locke mülkiyetin korunmasını siyasal otoritenin başlıca görevi olarak nitelendirmiştir. Mülkiyetin korunması ekseninde, doğa durumundan siyasal topluma geçiş sürecinin temeline hukuk düzeninin inşası olgusunu yerleştirmiştir. Böylece hukuk kavramı meşruiyetini doğa durumundan aldığı gibi aynı zamanda toplumsal sözleşmenin ardından oluşan yeni siyasal yapının da kurucu unsuru haline gelmiştir. Çalışmada, belirtilen bu hususlara dayanarak Locke’un kendi felsefi yaklaşımını oluştururken doğal hukuk teorisini nasıl biçimlendirdiği değerlendirilecektir.

Anahtar Kelimeler: John Locke, doğal hukuk, mülkiyet hakkı, hukuk düzeni, hukuksal liberalizm.

The Politicization of Natural Law in the Axis of John Locke’s Political Philosophy

Abstract: This article discusses the English philosopher John Locke’s approach to natural law in the axis of his political philosophy. Locke’s arguments regarding to natural law as well as political philosophy cannot be isolated from the political economy of his period. Locke has revealed the main principles of the modern liberal state at a period when capitalist relations of production became the dominant mode of production before the Revolution of 1688. He had gotten into an argument with the royalists who defended the absolute monarchy based on the theory of the Divine rights of the king. He has featured the freedom of property and equal demand rights on power through the concept of state of nature and social contract. In this context, Locke has described the protection of property as the main task of political authority. In the axis of protection of property, he has placed the phenomenon of the construction of the legal order at the basis of the transition process from the state of nature to political society. Thus, the concept of law took its legitimacy from the state of nature and also became the constituent element of the new political structure that emerged after the social contract. In the article, it will be scrutinized how Locke shaped his natural law theory while creating his philosophical approach based on the stated points.

Keywords: John Locke, natural law, right to property, legal order, legal liberalism

L'article vise à montrer les interactions qui existent entre droit canonique et théologie au sein de ce qu'on a pu nommer l'épistémè scolastique, perçue ici en sa naissance au XII e siècle. La naissance conjointe de ces deux disciplines a en effet engendré une matrice juridico-religieuse repérable tant dans les écrits des juristes canonistes que des théologiens. Se dévoile la construction scolastique de normes juridiques et religieuses sur fond d'une tension féconde entre christianisme et droit romain. Le droit est ainsi révélateur d'aspects structurants et de pratiques concrètes de la religion chrétienne.

Mots-clefs : droit canonique, théologie, scolastique, épistémè, Abélard, Gratien, inquisitio, quaestio, coutume, christianisation du droit, juridisation de la morale, droit naturel, loi naturelle.

Resumen: El objetivo del presente artículo es clasificar las principales lecturas jurídicas que se han hecho de la obra de Santo Tomás de Aquino y describir los males entendidos más comunes en que han incurrido sus comentadores al describir cuál era su pensamiento jurídico. Se expone por qué se adopta una clasificación bipartita que divide lecturas explicativas y líneas de pensamiento de base tomista, además, se abordan las lecturas que sólo buscan explicar lo que dice el Aquinate y se analizan las líneas de pensamiento de base tomista, enlistando a varios de los autores más importantes que las han desarrollado. Con estos antecedentes, se termina señalando cuáles han sido los errores más comunes en la interpretación jurídica del pensamiento tomista.

Abstract: The intention of this paper is to classify the main legal interpretations of the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and to describe the more common misconceptions about his legal thinking. The reason for adopting a bipartite classification that divides explanatory interpretations and Thomistic thinking is explained. The interpretations that only seek to make clear what Aquinas says are addressed and his lines of thought are analyzed, drawing on several of the more important authors who have developed them. Against this backdrop, the paper ends with an indication of what have been the most common errors in the legal interpretation of Thomistic thought.

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é classificar as principais leituras jurídicas que se têm feito da obra de Santo Tomás de Aquino e descrever os maus entendidos mais comuns nos quais vêm incorrendo seus comentadores ao descrever qual era seu pensamento jurídico. Expõe-se por que se adota uma classificação bipartidária que divide leituras explicativas e linhas de pensamento de base tomista, além de se abordar as leituras que somente procuram explicar o que o Aquinate diz, bem como se analisam as linhas de pensamento de base tomista, relacionando a vários dos autores mais importantes que as têm desenvolvido. Com esses antecedentes, terminase indicando quais foram os erros mais comuns na interpretação jurídica do pensamento tomista.

While they maintained firm and sometimes brutal religious establishments, the New England Puritans also helped cultivate a number of striking constitutional ideas that would prove influential for the United States after the American Revolution. Among the most novel were their ideas of social, political, and ecclesiastical covenants, rooted in biblical covenant thinking but prescient of later secular social and government contract theories. Also influential were their ideas of natural rights and liberties and their necessary protection by church and state authorities alike. But the Puritans' most prescient and enduring contribution lay in their theory of sin and the need to create constitutional safeguards against tyranny. This led them to develop early doctrines of separation of church and state, separation of powers within church and state, checks and balances amongst these powers, federalist layers of authority, codification of laws and limitations on equity, democratic election of religious and political officials, and the practice of congregational and town meetings between elections to render officials accountable to their constituents. The themes and contents of this early Article were greatly expanded and revised in the author's later book: The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Due in part to the influence of Michael McConnell, free exercise exemptionism is generally thought to be compatible with, if not dictated by, the founders' church-state political philosophy. This article rejects that position, arguing instead that America's constitutional tradition offers two distinct conceptions of religious liberty: the founders' natural rights free exercise and modern moral autonomy exemptionism. The article aims to distinguish these two approaches by clarifying how they are grounded upon divergent philosophical understandings of human freedom and by explaining how they advance different views of what religious liberty is, how it is threatened, and, accordingly, how it is best protected. The article also attempts to demonstrate how our modern approach expands the protection for religious liberty in some ways but limits it in others.

This thesis explores medieval English holy days using the theoretical framework of medieval natural rights established by Brian Tierney, R. H. Helmholz, and Kenneth Pennington. It suggests that holy days were invented as natural rights in the Middle Ages based on evidence from summae and from prosecutions of feast nonobservance by ecclesiastical courts. The right allowed all people in society to observe holy days by abstaining from servile work. This had great implications on social relations in medieval society because it limited the power masters had over their servants.

This article responds to the recent challenge directed at the Thomistic tradition for ignoring the modern/colonial problem of race by claiming that the Spanish conquests in the New World precipitated a critical debate about religious coercion centered on the permissibility of using war and slavery to convert Amerindians. It argues that key Dominican theologians (Domingo de Soto and Bartolome de las Casas) trained in Thomistic commentary categorically rejected medieval/early modern justifications for religious wars by appealing to an apostolic ethic of evangelization grounded in the scholastic tradition of natural law. The result was an unprecedented defense of human equality and natural rights protecting the spiritual and political freedom of Amerindian peoples.

What is the relationship between republican liberty and rights? The received view is that although rights play an important role in republican theory, non-domination is conceptually distinct from rights enjoyment; like liberty as non-interference, republican liberty is a stand-alone conception of liberty that we can understand and perhaps even promote without invoking rights at all. I argue that this is a confusion, one that has left our view of republican liberty, and indeed the entire liberty debate, substantially out of focus. Republican liberty is not, like liberty as non-interference, an account of liberty that is conceptually independent of rights and which may (or may not) stand in relationships of varying importance to rights. To the contrary, republican liberty just is liberty within rights; to enjoy all of one's rights is to enjoy full non-domination, and to enjoy full non-domination is to enjoy all of one's rights. Rights enjoyment, we may say, is necessary and sufficient for republican liberty. It is necessary for republican liberty because there is no way to specify the range within which independence from others' unconstrained wills matters without specifying particular rights that people may claim against one another. And it is sufficient for republican liberty because to enjoy a right is to possess securely a valid claim against one or more other people, where security is a function of institutional sanctions sufficient to dissuade others from violating that right. Thus, 'R is a right and so requires entrenchment against others' arbitrary power' adds nothing to 'R is a right.' Once it becomes clear that republican liberty is liberty within rights, the liberty debate reappears as a contest that is fundamentally about whether there is conceptual daylight between liberty and rights.

French-born Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, led a sweeping reformation of law, politics, and society in sixteenth-century Geneva.  Building on classical and earlier Christian sources, Calvin developed an innovative and integrative theory of rights and liberties, church and state, authority and power, natural law and positive law. Particular striking was his use of the Decalogue as a source and summary of natural law, and as a template for spiritual and civil laws and rights in a Christian republic. Also novel was his theory of the uses of natural and positive law to cultivate a baseline civil morality and an aspirational spiritual morality for each member of the community. Calvin and his followers believed in law, as a deterrent against sin, an inducement to grace, and a teacher of Christian virtue. They also believed in liberty, structuring their churches and states alike to minimize the sins of their rulers and to maximize the liberties of their subjects. Calvin distilled his legal teachings into sundry public, private, penal, and procedural laws for Geneva, and he broadcast them widely among other French and other European jurists, theologians, and political leaders of his day. His work helped shape Western legal thought and practice until the modern Enlightenment, and several of his basic teachings about law, politics, and society still live on today both in secular legal thought and in modern Protestant churches.

Alasdair MacIntyre is often interpreted as a wholesale skeptic of human rights. Although understandable, given his caustic criticism of rights discourse and theory, this misunderstanding overlooks his openness to subjective moral rights within the context of social practices. This paper traces the roots of his skepticism to the practical embodiment of rights discourse within liberal modernity. In MacIntye’s view, the modes of claiming rights in practice presuppose the existence of natural rights, which commits the “individualist fallacy”: the potential value of the right for the individual right-holder is presumed to ground an adequate reason to impose duties on others, without due consideration of the constitutive social commitments necessary to make that value a matter for common action. And, any proposed theory of human rights runs the risk of justifying that use and institutional embodiment of the human rights concept in practice. Despite his negativity, this paper interrogates the extent to which MacIntyre’s thought remains open to justificatory foundations for some concept of “human rights” within the Thomist-Aristotelian tradition.