THE LANGUAGE OF RIGHTS AND CONCEPTUAL HISTORY

The historical problem about the origins of the language of rights derives its importance from the conceptual problem: of “two fundamentally different ways of thinking about justice,” which is basic? Is justice unitary or plural? This in turn opens up a problem about the moral status of human nature...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: O'Donovan, Oliver 1945- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Wiley-Blackwell 2009
Dans: Journal of religious ethics
Année: 2009, Volume: 37, Numéro: 2, Pages: 193-207
Sujets non-standardisés:B Justice
B Modernity
B conceptual history
B moral ontology
B singular rights
B multiple rights
Accès en ligne: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Description
Résumé:The historical problem about the origins of the language of rights derives its importance from the conceptual problem: of “two fundamentally different ways of thinking about justice,” which is basic? Is justice unitary or plural? This in turn opens up a problem about the moral status of human nature. A narrative of the origins of “rights” is an account of how and when a plural concept of justice comes to the fore, and will be based on the occurrence of definite speech-forms—the occurrence of the plural noun in the sense of “legal properties.” The history of this development is currently held to begin with the twelfth-century canonists. Later significant thresholds may be found in the fourteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth centuries. Wolterstorff's attempt to find the implicit recognition of rights in the Scriptures depends very heavily on what he takes to be implied rather than on what is stated, and at best can establish a pre-history of rights-language.
ISSN:1467-9795
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9795.2009.00382.x