An historical evaluation of constitutional principles from Aristotle's Politics for Human Rights
| Autor | Lourenço Torres |
| Ocupação do Autor | Is a lawyer and a Law teacher |
| Páginas | 58-73 |
58 • XXVI World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy
An historical evaluation of
constitutional principles from
Aristotle’s Politics for human rights
Lourenço Torres1
Abstract: This work presents a comparison of ancient Greek thought confronted
with current conceptualizations of Human Rights, their constitutive character-
istics, especially when they drafted the text of the Brazilian 1988’s Constitu-
tion. It studies initially a few characteristics of the Greeks, the Sophists, Aris-
totle’s thoughts and modern Human Rights contents, confronting them, in an
aempt to establish a historical relationship. In conclusion demonstrates if some
hypotheses were incorporated or not, in current conceptions of Human Rights.
The study acknowledges that such historical base inuenced the Liberal content
of individual Human Rights, today internalized in several jurisdictions of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights signatory countries including Brazil.
Keywords: History of Law. Human Rights. Rhetoric.
1. Introduction – Denition of the terms to be studied.
Certain elementary values of human beings had been established
as rights and therefore they had been called Human Rights. My objective
here is to search and to communicate the possible inuence of Aristotle
with his undoubted rhetorical contribution to individual basic rights,
to establish an apposition to the liberal argument of natural law in the
1
José Lourenço Torres Neto is a lawyer and a Law teacher. Master’s degree in eory,
Sociology and Philosophy of Law at UFPE (Brazil); Bachelor in Law and Procedural
Law specialist by UNINASSAU campus Recife/PE (Brazil); Researcher Member on the
Rhetoric of History of Legal Ideas in Brazil researching group of UFPE coordinated
by Prof. Dr. João Maurício Adeodato. Email: lourencotorres.advogado@yahoo.com.br.
Lattes at: http://lattes.cnpq.br/7901606887149048.
Special Workshop: Aristotle and the Philosophy of Law • 59
evolution of the contents of western Human Rights. For this, the meth-
odological instrument that I used was a comparative bibliographic revi-
sion. The bibliographic content includes the text of Aristotle - Politics - as
representative of classic literature and some other doctrinal commentar-
ies on the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights. In addition, I also
took as paradigm the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988, with its
explicit conceptual advances on the maer of Human Rights. However,
here I abstained myself, strategically, of any evaluation concerning the
ideological-political inuences that probably have inuenced its forma-
tion. The denition of Human Rights is very wide and ample accord-
ing some perceptions and rhetorical perspectives; it is something that
certainly depends on ideological agreements and social interests, as well
as cultural construction. Although today these agreements have become
more known in general, and, therefore, more easily assimilated inside
occidental cultures and its societies, it is far from being something pacif-
ic, mainly because of its ideological and political bonds. Yet, it is a wide
concept because and is closely related to the evolution of philosophi-
cal, legal, sociological and political thought about inherent goods of hu-
manity and, also, to social conviviality of human beings. They include,
among others things, understandings about freedom, justice, equality
and democracy. Moreover, there is an interrelationship with national
and international legal systems, eective and historically dominant.
The constitutional principles of Human Rights that I analyzed
in short are those contained in Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988.
It tried to simplify the content of these rights listing then rstly as indi-
vidual rights in the nal part of the caput of its 5th article: “the right to
life, to freedom, to equality, to security and property” and after that, the
content of the social rights in article 6th: “Are social rights the education,
the health, the work, the housing, the leisure, the security, the social
welfare, the protection to the maternity and infancy, the assistance to
the abandoned ones, in the form of this Constitution” 2. In truth, both,
individual and social rights have been called simply “Human Rights” in
the text of article 4th.
2
Quoted from the original Brazilian Constitution text - Art. 5º: “o direito à vida, à liber-
dade, à igualdade, à segurança e à propriedade” and Art. 6º: “São direitos sociais a educa-
ção, a saúde, o trabalho, a moradia, o lazer, a segurança, a previdência social, a proteção à
maternidade e à infância, a assistência aos desamparados, na forma desta Constituição”.
In: BRASIL. Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil. Vade Mecum. 8. ed. atual.
e amp. São Paulo: Saraiva, 2009, p. 7.
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