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Rights language is a fundamental feature of the modern world. Virtually all significant social and political struggles are waged, and have been waged for over a century now, in terms of rights claims. In some ways, it is precisely the birth of modern rights language that ushers in modernity in terms of moral and political thought, and the struggle for a modern way of life seems for many synonymous with the fight for a universal recognition of equal, individual human rights. Where did modern rights language come from? What kinds of rights discourses is it rooted in? What is the specific nature of modern rights discourse; when and where were medieval and ancient notions of rights transformed into it? Can one in fact find any single such transformation of medieval into modern rights discourse?
The present volume brings together some of the most central scholars in the history of medieval and early-modern rights discourse. Through the different angles taken by its authors, the volume brings to light the multifaceted nature of rights languages in the medieval and early modern world.

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Preface.- Part I. Rights, Duties and Actions.- 1. Are There Any Individual Rights or Only Duties? On the Limits of Obedience in the Avoidance of Sin according to Late Medieval and Early Modern Scholars; J. Coleman.- 2. Rights and Duties: Late Scholastic Discussion on Extreme Necessity; V. Mäkinen.- 3. Right(s) in Ockham: A Reasonable Vision of Politics; A. S. McGrade.- 4. Politics, Right(s) and Human Freedom in Marsilius of Padua; A. Brett.- Part II. Rights and Self-Ownership.- 5. Summenhart´s Theory of Rights: A Culmination of the Late Medieval Discourse on Individual Rights; J. Varkemaa.- 6. Moral Self-Ownership and Ius Possessionis in Late Scholastics; R. Schüßler.- 7. Dominion of Self and Natural Rights Before Locke and After; B. Tierney.- Part III. Towards Modern Rights Theories.- 8. Natural Law and Practical Reasoning in Late Medieval Scholasticism: Shift toward (Early) Modernity; H. Hamilton-Bleakley.- 9. Liberty and Natural Rights in Pufendorf´s Natural Law Theory; K. Saastamoinen.- 10. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: Human Rights in Barbeyrac and Burlamaqui; P. Korkman.- 11. The Reasonableness of Lockean Rightholders; S.-J. Savonius.- Index of Names.

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