Lidská práva: nesouměřitelnost chápání práva v antice a moderní západní společnosti (Human Rights: Incommensurability of Comprehension of Right in Antiquity and in Modern Western Society)

Abstract

Human rights are product of a legal system which originated in Western culture. Therefore, any attempt at tracking the basic foundations of human rights into antiquity is problematic. Every term is related to its conceptual scheme. If we want to assess whether human rights have their basis in antiquity, we need to evaluate the whole context of thinking. Unalienable natural rights—the predecessors of human rights—originate in the High Middle Ages and early modern period when Christian theological problems were discussed. Individual rights were linked to God and natural law and stood above communal interest and civil law. In ancient society this notion did not make sense. Its culture was thinking in a collectivistic way and debates analogous to the former did not occur. Thus, any attempt at searching for human rights in antiquity is a false projection of Western ideas into a different conceptual framework.

Keywords

• origin of human rights
• antiquity
• christianity
• cultural differences
• incommensurability of theories