ABSTRACT
The secular tradition owes greatly to the moral lessons drawn from The History of the Peloponnesian War. Its author, the Greek historian Thucydides, recounts the war waged between Sparta and Athens during the fifth century. His Melian dialogue, showing the failure of the Melians to avert destruction through appeals to justice, famously dramatizes the confrontation between naked power and morality. Like Plato, Aristotle had a profound impact on the development of the notion of justice and human rights. From Babylon to the Greeks to the Roman Empire, one cannot overlook the influential contributions of Hammurabi, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero when considering the early origins of human rights. Rousseau’s notion of the “General Will,” and contemporary defenders of group rights, would later echo Socrates’ teaching. Aristotle’s Politics shows how the concepts of justice, virtue, and rights change in accordance with different kinds of constitutions and circumstances.
