Citizenship: From Ancient Greece to Modern Rights

Posted on Dec 8, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Citizenship: Definition and Core Traits

Membership of a political community—a country that sits in a manner in a specific area.
The effective enjoyment of rights which should be protected by the city or the state, among them includes the ability to participate in the work of government, policy, community property, either directly or indirectly.

Citizenship in Ancient Greco-Roman Times

The term comes from the Latin civis (citizen), a word that shares a root with civitas (city).

In Roman law, the term civis was reserved only for those community members who met certain requirements such as being male, not a slave, of age, born to Roman parents, and so on.
The rest of the population were not considered citizens.
In classical Greece and the 5th century BC, the term “policy” was used to refer to the citizen, the member of the political community that met the same requirements as mentioned above, that could participate in politics.
In some Greek cities, citizens actually had a big role because they could participate actively in the government of the polis through democracy, the rule of the demos (people).
In both Greece and Rome, the citizen was someone who was recognized by a corpus of rights and duties, highlighting in particular the duty to defend the city by taking up arms if necessary.

Citizenship in Greek Democracy: Political Culture

In Greece, each city (polis) tried to be economically self-sufficient (autarky).
In the case of ancient Greek democracy, citizenship meant above all to participate actively in politics, in the work of the government of the polis. In other words, a citizen is to participate actively in politics.
To the Greeks, being a citizen meant primarily dealing with public issues and doing so through deliberation, that is, through open discussion in which arguments are exchanged. This procedure was completed with the vocation.
Three principles governing participation in the Assembly:
- Isonomia: Equality before the law; every citizen has equal rights and duties.
- Isegoría: Equal word; every citizen has the same right as anyone else in the word.
- Koinonia: To achieve the public good, the good of all rather than focus on particular goods (mainly of demagogues). Idion distinguishing between (private) and policy (koinon).

Citizenship in Ancient Rome: The Legal Tradition

To the ancient Romans, the public was mostly in the legal recognition of some people as full members of the Republic and, later, the Empire. This meant that the citizen was one who enjoyed the legal protection afforded by the laws and institutions.
The Latin civis is different from the Greek politician: the Greek citizen was especially an active subject (participation in the agora), while in Rome it is best understood as a legal title can claim certain rights.
In the history of Rome, we must distinguish the phase of the Republic, in which citizens could freely elect their representatives in the Senate.
And the subsequent stage of the Empire, in which such rights of political participation were increasingly less important due to the concentration of all power in the Emperor.

Limitations of Ancient Citizenship

It was an inclusive citizenship, not inclusive. Adult males who met certain requirements established by law were citizens, always excluding women, so the vast majority of the population lacked citizenship status – they were not considered free and equal members of the political community itself and not the whole human being by the fact of his existence.

The Modern Age will be a step in that direction, universal recognition that human beings are born free and equal.
Citizen status afforded certain rights to political participation, but individual rights were not adequately protected for example, someone with disabilities.

Double Root of Modern Citizenship

Political participation through deliberation (of Greek origin) and the tradition of legal protection of individual rights (of Roman origin).
The first part of the modern republican idea of citizenship insists that citizens should participate actively in public life.
Part two is part of the liberal version, which emphasizes more the priority of individual rights.

Modern Citizenship

Citizenship and State

Although the roots are Greek and Roman citizenship, the current concept of “citizen” comes mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, from the French, English, and American revolutions.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the concept of “natural rights” was forged, and to protect those rights, a new type of polity was gradually introduced: the modern nation-state as an institution that agrees to defend the life, integrity, and property of its members.
With the emergence of the modern state, the current concept of “citizenship” is configured in principle linked to the two sides of the expression “national state”: “State” and “Nation”.
The term state was first used by Machiavelli in the expression “stato”, referring to the permanent organization, the apparatus set up their office or bureaucracy, and its ruler, the Prince.
Meanwhile, Bodin, with his concept of sovereignty, provided the state with absolute autonomy and neutrality in the religious order in addition to absolute power. A state is sovereign when it is above all.
Members of a state are citizens who hold the nationality of that country, meaning the national legal status by which a person belongs to a state.

Who Belongs to the Nation?

The right of ius soli (soil) recognizes the citizen who is born on national territory.
The blood (ius sanguinis) gives priority to the nationality of the parents.

However, in a state of law as the modern, the subject’s will is essential to retain or change nationality.

Human Rights

They are those for humans by the fact of being.

Throughout Western history, we can distinguish several stages in the progressive recognition of human rights. These phases are also called generations.

First Generation Rights

These are the individual freedoms and rights of political participation that claimed the liberal revolutionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries against absolute monarchies: the right to life and physical integrity, freedom of thought and conscience, due process if someone is accused of a crime, the protections of privacy and good reputation, rights of private property and free contract, or the right to choose leaders through voting, among others.

This group is related to the concept of “rule of law” of the liberal tradition: a “rule of law” is any political system that respects basic freedoms so that nobody is “above the law”.

Second Generation Rights

These are economic, social, and cultural rights such as the right to education, healthcare, protection against unemployment, a living wage, rest and leisure, in addition to a dignified retirement. All this serves as a necessary support to the previous generation.

This group of rights, with those of the first generation, set a new state model called the social state of law.

The social added it is not only that citizens are equal before the law, if no measures are applied to access basic goods and a better distribution of wealth.

Third Generation Rights

These are fairly recent, very basic rights: the right to live in a society of peace and develop in a healthy environment, free from contamination, and the law of development of peoples.

Failure to meet these rights does not seem possible for the effective exercise of the two previous generations because the breach of these rights requires a demonstration of solidarity between nations and peoples of the Earth.

The international community is just starting to take the first steps to achieve them.

Living Theoretical and Practical Wisdom (Aristotle)

“If there is an activity of the human being as such, it will be to pursue happiness throughout life, and the virtue that it will help the most perfect. Every person is happy by nature, i.e. the dog and the dog (Kata Grhyrein).

Moreover, the actions that have the end in themselves are more perfect than those whose purposes are different from them because, in this case, the effects are more important than actions, i.e. they are self-sufficient (self).

If an activity of the human being that has to be a perfect good and sufficient is the type of actions that have the end in themselves (autarky).

These characters are in the exercise of theoretical activity, and hence conclude Aristotle that happiness consists in the exercise of that activity.

But it is impossible to always maintain a contemplative life; we must find another way of life that also seeks happiness that will be held morally who lives by his practical intellect, i.e., to dominate their passions to achieve happiness. Help us in this task are two types of virtues: dianoetic (intelligence) and ethical (the character).

Dianoetic virtue is prudence, which is the “practical wisdom” because it helps us to deliberate well choose well. It helps us to find the middle ground between defect and excess and is what guides the other virtues such as courage, which would be the mean between cowardice and recklessness.

A man who lives by the virtues is a happy man but needs to be living in a city ruled by good laws because the logos that enables us to contemplative life also enables us to live in society. So ethics policy requires the individual highest good, happiness, require a polis (city) with just laws.

Who deliberates well is wise to choose well, know every moment the best for him. For Aristotle is happy who is wise.