Of Bosons, Angels and Demons – Or What is Wrong with the History of Rights?
The aim of this paper is to scrutinize contemporary accounts of the conceptual origins of human rights. While some
scholars trace the concept of human rights back to antiquity, others deny that the language of rights extends beyond
the late modern era or, at best, the medieval canon lawyers. The controversy is given systematic contours by
Nicholas Wolterstorff’s magisterial presentation of the history of human rights under two competing narratives: that
of the ‘inherent rights’ theorists, affirming the long history of human rights; and that of the ‘right order’ theorists,
denying it. In this paper, I engage critically with Wolterstorff’s bifurcated historiography of human rights. On the one
hand, I argue that the bifurcation deepens our understanding of the concept of human rights by revealing strong and
weak versions of the opposing historical narratives. On the other hand, I argue that the same bifurcation generates a
false dilemma when applied to the late ancient and early Christian sources. Based on the writings of Philo of
Alexandria and their patristic reception history, I show that early Christian reflection on the human condition
grounds neither inherent rights nor an objective right order as opposing alternatives. Instead, the early Christian
logos theology presupposes an apophatic moral ontology that transcends any conceptualisation in terms of ‘rights’
or of ‘right order’. Conversely, the early Christian anthropology of the image (eikōn) affirms both the irreducibility of
the human person and a general account of human nature. It thus grounds inherent human rights together with an
objective right order. If my argument is correct, it shows what is wrong with the contemporary historiography of
rights: an illicit, if not ideologically motivated, projection of modern assumptions about rights into the premodern
sources.
Date: 3 March 2022, 16:00 (Thursday, 7th week, Hilary 2022)
Venue: Venue to be announced
Speakers: Dr Isidoros Katsos (University of Oxford), Alberto Garzoni (University of Oxford)
Organising department: Faculty of Theology and Religion
Organiser contact email address: alberto.garzoni@keble.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Patristics and Christian Ethics Graduate Research Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editors: Frances Roach, Alberto Garzoni