Rights concepts in Greek thought

Modern writers disagree about whether the Greeks had a concept of rights. Much of this disagreement stems from the number and variety of rights concepts discussed by modern thinkers and from disagreement about relationships between rights concepts and other moral concepts.

This thesis initially analyzes modern discussions of rights concepts and related concepts in order to obtain some methods for determining whether the members of a past culture might have had a concept of rights.

It then examines various arguments for a Greek concept of rights. These arguments present a prima facie case for the position that the Greeks had concepts of legal, conventional, anc extraconventional moral rights. Objections to this position are also examined. They provide significant criticism of the types of rights concepts the Greeks might have had, but fail to show that the Greeks had no concepts of rights or no concepts of extra-conventional moral rights.