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20 Roman Legal Trad. 1 (2024)

handle is hein.journals/rltrad20 and id is 1 raw text is: Roman Precursors of Modern Human Rights Doctrine: Cicero and Tertullian By Bruce W. Frier* Abstract - The modern theory of Human Rights, as developed especially since 1948 by the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its successors, treats Human Rights as derived from an inherent Human Dignity. Two Roman sources have been held to anticipate both of these ideas: Cicero, De Officiis 1.105-107, for the concept of Human Dignity; and Tertullian, Ad Scapulam 2.2, for a resulting Human Right to freedom of religion. This paper discusses the extent to which these sources do in fact represent precursors. I suggest that, although the evidence is admittedly less than robust, both the modern con- ceptions may well have originated in the philosophy of the Middle Stoa (ca. 150-50 BCE). My conclusion discusses the more general problem of how important ethical ideas such as these originate and come to inform moral discourse. The first part of this paper provides a brief, rather simplified account of the intellectual structure of modern International Human Rights theory as it emerged during and after the United Nations adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.1 The entire intellectual substructure of Human Rights Professor Emeritus of Classics and Roman Law, the University of Michigan. I must thank my law colleagues Caroline Humfress, Christopher McCrudden, and Steven Ratner, and Victor Caston of the Michigan Depart- ment of Philosophy, as well as Brad Inwood of Yale University Philosophy and Classics, and Benjamin Straumann of the University of Zurich history department, for their generous and invaluable help in helping me learn about a most complex area of legal history. All translations are my own, except as indicated. 1 The purpose of this simplified account is mainly to establish a paradigm against which the scattered ancient sources can be understood and evaluated. For a much richer summary of modern views on Human Dignity and Human Rights, see C. McCrudden, Human Dignity, in C. Roman Legal Tradition, 20 (2024), 1-42. ISSN 1943-6483. Published by the Ames Foundation at the Harvard Law School and the Alan Rodger Endowment at the University of Glasgow. This work is licensed under Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 4.0. Copyright© 2024 by Bruce W. Frier. romanlegaltradition.org. DOI 10.55740/2024.1

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