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A Theory of the Origin of ["subjective"] Rights-Concepts Among those who in the post-war period devoted themselves to a study of the history of moral and political thought, Michel Villey came to play quite a significant part (see Villey 1964, 1968, 1969 and many other writings). He maintained—rightly—that the historiography of rightsconcepts had to look back beyond Grotius. A central thesis of his was that the modern concept of a right had its origin in the writings of William of Ockham, and that it was shaped in the course of the polemic against Pope John XXII that began in 1321, on the question of evangelical poverty.23 The Franciscan position, defended by Ockham, was that having taken a vow of poverty, they had no property and nothing was their own. They made use of basic necessities (food, raiment, shelter) but they did not own anything. It was, according to Villey, in this context that the concept of property rights and other real rights came to be defined. As the possessor of a right in this sense the person is in control and decides what is lawful and unlawful, right and wrong. The characterisation of the conception of a droit subjectif that Villey spells out in some detail is rather similar to Stahl’s, quoted above.24

How Rights Became “Subjective”


The Australian National University
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au › content
by T MAUTNER2013Cited by 17 — It emerged in certain recent scholarly investigations of the rights-concepts used by mediaeval and early-modern authors such as Aquinas, Ockham, Gerson, Suárez, ...
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