Loading
ETHICS & POLITICS, ANCIENT & MODERN
René Brouwer: On the Ancient Origins of Human Rights
Tuesday June 05, 2012 | 06:00 -08:00 PM | 90

Respondent: Alice Van Harten (Stanford IHUM Fellow)

In my paper I want to discuss the contribution of some Hellenistic political thinkers to a theory of human rights. I will start out from the early Stoic conception of the law of nature as a power, in which perfect human beings actively participate. In the 2nd century BC the Stoic Panaetius adjusted this traditional high-minded theory by also allowing for a lower level of human excellence. This second-rate human excellence can be achieved just by following ‘proper functions’, which are derived from ordinary human nature and can be laid down in rules. From here, it was only a small, yet decisive step to discard of the highest level of human perfection altogether. This step, so I will argue, paved the way for an understanding of the rules of natural law in terms of human rights.