Do Tomists have rights?

In the standard account of the historical development of the idea of natural rights,

the watershed innovation is typically said to be the notion that individuals,

individual persons themselves possess rights.

That is, we cannot only judge something to be right by nature, in an objective sense,

but that individual human subjects have natural rights that they can maintain over against others. Some view this development in a positive light

as the crucial foundation for contemporary doctrines of human rights,

others regarded as a corruption of classical theories of justice,

and the beginning of the decay and decadence of contemporary liberal regimes.

Now for centuries, Tomists, that is those who lay claim to the principles and heritage of St. Thomas Aquinas,

Tomas have played a prominent role in the history of these ideas.

In the early 16th century, Dominican Tomists like Francisco de Vittoria, who we heard

about just a few minutes ago, Domingo de Soto, and Bartolome de Les Casas, also cited by Dr. Bigger,

were instrumental in the development of a theory of natural rights that would serve to limit the power of the Spanish crown

and of colonial masters over the natives of the new world. And in the 20th century,

Jacques Meritan mounted a principled campaign as a Thomist for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Yet a lively debate has developed in recent decades

over the Thomistic pedigree of subjective rights.

Were these later Thomists, in fact, faithful to the principles of Thomas Aquinas?

Is there a doctrine of subjective rights in Aquinas?

And if not, is it an organic development from Thomas' own views?

Or, more generally, may Aquinas' thought be used to ground a theory of subjective natural rights.

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