The development of natural law has had a profound influence on the course of European civilization. I have started my research with natural law as it was conceived by Socrates and Plato. I then followed the major developments and changes that occurred to this original design through to the height of the Renaissance in the Sixteenth century. I relied mostly on secondary sources for several reasons. First the translations of the original materials are all well established. This includes translations of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Ockham, Suarez, Luther, as well as others. Secondly, and more importantly, the emphasis of my research was not to describe the secondary and tertiary intellectual work of the thinkers after Plato. Rather I wish to show how the philosophical forces that Plato struggled against during his lifetime reemerged later in two major philosophies peculiar to Europe and how these essentially distorted his original design.

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This dissertation is an historical and philosophical study on the development of a subjective concept of individual rights. It takes the form of a history of ideas informed by genealogical methods of inquiry. Rather than seeking an origin for and underlying truth to human rights, it treats human rights as a product of various historical developments which are capable of being investigated in terms of their contingency as well as their continuous traditions. The thesis begins with an analysis of political theory in ancient Greek thought, primarily as a means of suggesting possible alternative political philosophies to the rights-based approach dominant in modern Western societies. The thesis then considers the theologicalpolitical discourse on sovereignty in the early Middle Ages, revolving around the doctrine of divine right and influenced by the function of the Christian Church in defining the nature of government. This is followed by an examination of the emergence of hierarchical, feudal relations and the formulation of feudal rights as based on proprietary notions and coinciding with individual liberties. In the following chapter there is a discussion of the juridical construction of sovereign power that emerged from the reception of Roman law and the development of canon law, the influence of legal textuality on the granting of rights and liberties, and the emergence of a discourse on public right as a way of defining the relationship between the prince and his subjects and thus delimiting sovereign authority. Finally, the thesis considers the legacy of the theory of natural rights and its relationship to forms of liberty, with an analysis of: firstly, the idea of natural rights that developed through canon law and the discussions surrounding the Franciscan poverty disputes; secondly, the role of property rights in the formulation of the rights of liberty; thirdly, the Christian understanding of liberty as a subjective attribute or power through the theo-ontological theory of human nature as represented by the free will; and fourthly, the transformation in Renaissance and early modern legal and political theory of the concept of liberty into a political doctrine about individual autonomy and inherent freedom. The purpose of the dissertation is to describe the multiple and complex historical processes from which the idea of subjective rights has emerged, as a means of understanding how human rights have come to play a seemingly essential role in modern legal and political discourses and practices.

In this thesis I have retrieved the modern language of the law of nature between the period 1625--1672. I have reconstructed this language as a response to the seventeenth century breakdown of society in Europe. / In Chapters 1, 2 and 3, I lay out Hugo Grotius' moral and political theory grounded in three irreducible principles of self-preservation, the primacy of society and consent. These principles lead Grotius to develop a rich and pluralistic theory. / Thomas Hobbes's theory calls into question the complex Grotian social and political arrangement and in its place provides an absolutist and homogeneous conception of the state. This is treated in Chapter 4. / In Chapters 5 and 6, I lay out Samuel Pufendorf's moral and political theory. Pufendorf accepts Grotius's and Hobbes' initial premises but argues for a 'regular' or homogeneous state. / The retrieval of the law of nature proposed in this thesis is important, for it radically calls into question the conventional manner in which we understand the seventeenth century. Among other things, this work illuminates the common foundation shared by contemporary liberals, communitarians and more radical theories.

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