Rights Natural or Manmade? Section II. Part III
The Origin of Rights (Human); a Roman Perspective;
Cicero had a substantial impact, both direct and indirect, on key post-Renaissance thinkers like
John Locke, David Hume, and Jean Jacques Montesquieu, and through these writers, his thoughts and
very phrases touched America’s founding generations. Even Thomas Jefferson explicitly honored Cicero
as one of a minority of important individuals who influenced the tradition “of public right” that
enlightened his outline of the Declaration of Independence shaping America’s understanding of “the
common sense” foundation for the right of revolution. Cicero’s “On Duties”, remains prominent
throughout much of Western history, and was once found frequently throughout the libraries of early
America. John Adams was famous in the founding period for evoking Cicero and his teaching on “the
principles of nature and eternal reason.” James Wilson contributed to the realization of the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification of the Constitution. His critical
lectures on law during the years 1790–91, which gave noticeable consideration to Cicero views on
natural law.
Cicero looked to the distinguished Greek scholars and of his debt to them and yet mindful of the unique
Roman traditions, as well as the general Roman resistance to any reliance of the Greeks. As a civic man in
his actions as well as his writings, he had to carefully walk the line between wanting to share his
principles of the thinking of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, with the obligatory displays of his Roman
patriotism. He considered Plato the first true philosopher and Aristotle second, though he directly
engaged in a number of Aristotle’s texts and knew Aristotelian philosophy through the councils in his day
of the Peripatetic school of philosophy Aristotle had founded.
Although his knowledge of natural law is indebted to Greek Stoicism, Cicero’s Republic provided the first
comprehensive theory of natural law as the Right reason in concurrence with nature, for it represents his
conscious effort to pay tribute to Plato’s great classic by that name and yet to differentiate his approach
to the critical questions about the best constitution or regime and the nature and basis of justice.
Although complete materialists, Stoics believed in a universal moral order to govern humans, as well as
for the universe as a whole by “right reason, which fills all things and is the same as Zeus, lord and ruler
of the universe.” What is more, as a devoted conservative in subjects of Roman politics, he commonly
used pleas to natural law as a reason for existent laws, but not as a foundation for overturning positive
laws, nor for uncompromising change. In differentiating between moral and immoral warfare, he
enunciated an idea of just war, originating the term ius gentium (law of nations), a term that played, and
continues to play, a major role in the story of natural law as the rational mandate in which all legal
systems are subject. Most of all, as an important part of natural law, he maintained a deep conviction
towards the ideal that every individual has a fundamental right to equality.
From De re publica (On the Commonwealth):
“There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose
commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids,
the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. It is wrong to abrogate this
law and it cannot be annulled. There is one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times upon all
peoples; and there will be, as it were, one common master and ruler of all, God. Neither the senate nor
the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other
expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens;
one thing to–day and another to–morrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever
reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its
author,—its promulgator,—its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the
very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the
usual misfortunes of the present life.”
Cicero does not fully articulate the content of natural law. What he does make clear is there is within all
people a responsibility to respect the livelihood, the property, the liberty, and justice of all people within
a free democratic society