A Timeline of Human Rights
(Under Construction)
3rd Century BC
Stoicism develops "law of nature"
Filed under: Ideas
Stoicism was a philosophical school founded in Athens in the 3rd century BC. The Stoics’ ideas on the law of nature morphed and evolved to influence the modern understanding of human rights.
Stoicism was a philosophical school founded in Athens in the 3rd century BC. The Stoics’ ideas on the law of nature morphed and evolved to influence the modern understanding of human rights. They believed that rational thought could discover the immutable laws of the cosmos, which applied to all and could not be superseded by anyone.
Of course, the Stoics did not believe that the slaves in the Hellenistic world were entitled to any sort of rights, and none of them did anything like speak out against torture, or for the rights of women. So their philosophy does not mesh perfectly with the modern understanding of human rights. In some ways it implied limits to the powers of Earthly rulers, but it did not embrace the idea of individual rights, or that all people are created equal.
Stoicism was founded during the period of great change that was the the beginning of the Hellensitic age, when the importance of the Greek city state was in decline even as Greek culture spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, influencing, and being influenced by, the cultures it encountered.
Historians date the age from Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, though some argue that it effectively lasted another 350 years, ending when the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great established his capital at Constantinople (Byzantium) in AD 330.
Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citrium. Zeno lectured at the Stoa Poikile (Painted Colonnade), and it is from that locaton that the school took its name.