The Necessity of the Absolute or Absolute Necessity? On the First Attempts to Search for the Foundations of Natural Rights

Abstract

The basic aim of the article is to prove the thesis that the modern understanding of natural rights is based on considerations initiated in the late Middle Ages, which, focused on the issue of the origin of individual rights, made it possible in the early modern period to connect the idea in question with the issue of the subject. The first part of the paper indicates that for the considerations concerning inalienable rights of the individual, the key issue was to determine their source. The author presents concepts which, to a greater or lesser extent, emphasised not only the role of God, but also the properties of the human being. In particular, attention was paid to the role of the subject in Ockham’s theory. These analyses made it possible, in the second part, to show Grotius’ work as the fullest expression of the late medieval tradition and to demonstrate that the modern conception of natural rights in its subjective character is based on those doctrines which emphasise the “natural necessity” of the existence of individual rights.