Human Rights Theory Rooted in the Writings of Thomas Aquinas

Diametros 38:133-151 (2013)
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Abstract

This essay is an analysis of the theory of human rights based on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, with special reference to the Summa Theologiae. The difference between a jus naturale found in Aquinas and the theory of human rights developed by the sixteenth century scholastic philosophers is articulated. The distinction between objective natural rights—“what is right”—and subjective natural rights—“a right”—is discussed noting that Aquinas held the former position and that later scholastic philosophers beginning with the Salamanca School of the Second Scholasticism developed the latter position. The subjective theory of rights evolved into the modern and contemporary account of individual human rights. The essay ends with an argument suggesting that Aquinas’s theory of objective human rights can serve as the ontological foundation for a robust theory of both positive and negative subjective natural rights.

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Locke versus Aristotle on natural kinds.Michael Ayers - 1981 - Journal of Philosophy 78 (5):247-272.
.Dworkin Ronald - 1996 - Puf.
The Aristotelian Commentaries of St. Thomas Aquinas.Leo Elders - 2009 - Review of Metaphysics 63 (1):29-53.
Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Ethics.Christopher Kaczor - 2004 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (3):353-378.

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