The essays in this volume explore the ways rights were available to those in the margins of society. By tracing pivotal judicial concepts such as ‘right of necessity’ and ‘subjective rights’ back to their medieval versions, and by situating them in unexpected contexts such as the Franciscans’ theory of poverty and colonization or today’s immigration and border control, this volume invites its readers to consider whether individual rights were in fact, or at least in theory, available to the marginalized. By focusing not only on the economically impoverished but also those who were disenfranchised because of disability, gender, race, religion or infidelity, this book also sheds light on the relationship between the early history of individual rights and social justice at the margins.
Author(s): Virpi Mäkinen, Jonathan Robinson, Pamela Slotte, Heikki Haara (eds.)
Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 316
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 278
City: Leiden
Acknowledgements vii
About the Authors viii
Abbreviations x
Introduction: Rights and Justice towards the Margins / Virpi Mäkinen, Jonathan Robinson and Pamela Slotte 1
PART 1. Rights and the Poor Law
1. Poverty and Need in the 14th Century: Johannes Andreae, Bartolus of Saxoferrato, and Baldus de Ubaldis / Jonathan Robinson 31
2. Poor and Insolvent: Debtor Relief in Alvarez de Velasco’s 'De privilegiis pauperum' (1630) / Wim Decock 63
PART 2. Rights, Duties, and Justice
3. Inclination to Self-Preservation and Rights to Life and Body in Samuel Pufendorf’s Natural Law Theory / Heikki Haara 87
4. The Right of Necessity: From Hugo Grotius to Adam Smith / John Salter 109
PART 3. Rights beyond the Margins
5. Rights and Needs: Widows as a Protected Group in Christine de Pizan’s Thought / Ilse Paakkinen 133
6. Can Animals Have Rights? Conrad Summenhart and Francisco de Vitoria at the Margins of Rights Language / Jussi Varkemaa 153
7. Whether Heretics and Infidels Can Possess Dominion Rights?: Late Medieval and Early Modern Debates / Virpi Mäkinen and Mikko Posti 171
PART 4. Geopolitical, Global, and Contemporary Perspectives at the Margins
8. The Darker Side of Rights in Global Intellectual History: An Ambivalent Case of Franciscan Poverty / Julia McClure 191
9. Necessity Knows No Borders: The Right of Necessity and Illegalized Migration / Alejandra Mancilla 212
10. 'Rights, Not Charity'! On Vocabularies for Conceptualizing the Case of Persons with Disabilities / Pamela Slotte 232
Name Index 260
Subject Index 263
