Politics, Right(s) and Human Freedom in Marsilius of Padua

Abstract

Let me begin by clarifying the sense of my title within a volume dedicated to exploring the development of the notion of individual rights between the late-medieval and the early-modern periods. It is intended in the first place to call attention to a distinctive feature of Marsilius’ treatment of rights, which I shall argue is in many ways authentically Aristotelian (despite the lack of subjective or individual rights in Aristotle): and that is the interdependence of rights (and the juridical generally) and the political. This lies in contrast to the classic early-modern theories of individual rights, the distinctive feature of which is that they involve a notion of natural rights: rights as the adjunct of human nature or the human individual subject independent of, or prior to, the political. Thus, whereas Marsilius’ theory has been seen as a precursor of early-modern notions of rights – in the sense that he does indeed have a subjective notion of rights – there are questions to be asked over how far this genealogy is valid. As part of this enquiry, however, there also turn out to be more basic issues about the very nature of the human subject or individual in Marsilius, which is the second theme of this paper indicated in my title by the reference to human freedom. Again these issues put the question of Marsilius’ relation to early-modern rights theories in an interesting light