Politics & International Relations
Natural Rights
Natural rights are fundamental rights that are believed to be inherent to all individuals by virtue of their humanity. These rights are considered to be universal, inalienable, and not contingent upon the laws or customs of any particular society or government. They include rights such as life, liberty, and property, and are often seen as the foundation for modern concepts of human rights and civil liberties.
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10 Key excerpts on "Natural Rights"
eBook - PDFEthics
Theory and Contemporary Issues, Concise Edition
- Barbara MacKinnon, Andrew Fiala, , , Barbara MacKinnon, Andrew Fiala(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
These attempt to specify rights that all people have simply by virtue of their being human, regardless of their country of origin, race, or religion. EVALUATING Natural Rights THEORY A famous criticism of Natural Rights comes from the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, “Natural Rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.” 20 Ben-tham thought that there were no rights outside of the legal and political system. Bentham worried that the idea of Natural Rights was a perversion of language— since there were no “rights” in nature. Bentham also worried that when people made empty declarations about the “rights of man” (as happened during the French Revolution), this only invited destructive revolutions and anarchy. While Locke, Jefferson, and Hobbes used the idea of Natural Rights to argue that states were founded on an underlying social contract (which we also discussed in Chapter 4), Bentham thought that the social contract was also a fiction. According to Bentham, governments develop through a long history involving habit and force. And Bentham thought that the ethical goal was to make sure that the legal system pointed in the direction of general happiness—not to postulate rights, which could lead to revolution against the legal system. One problem for a Natural Rights theory is that not everyone agrees on what human nature requires or which Natural Rights are central. In the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the list of rights includes welfare rights and rights to food, clothing, shelter, and basic security. Just what kinds of things can we validly claim as human rights? Freedom of speech? Freedom of assembly? Housing? Clean air? Friends? Work? Income? Many of these are listed in a range of treaties and other documents that nations have adopted. However, an account of human rights requires more than lists.
eBook - PDF- Martin Sicker(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Praeger(Publisher)
What are these universal natural human rights, and from what do they derive their particular sanction? Thomas Paine's response to this question was "Natural Rights are those which pertain to a man in right of his exist- ence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the Natural Rights of others." 42 Woolsey wrote in this regard, "We may say that the sum of all rights amounts to this, that everyone has a right to be what he was meant to be; that he has a right to develop himself; to maintain and carry out his true nature." 43 In the same vein, Weiss, who prefers the term "native rights," asserted, "A native right is a right integral to, inseparable from the sub- stance and nature or essential functions of a man." Important, however, Weiss immediately adds the qualification that such a native right need not be understood as necessarily unalienable. "It might be justly abrogated, added to, or qualified, to keep abreast of changes in men." 44 Weiss also calls for recognition that it is useful to draw distinctions between different kinds of rights, of which he provides an extensive list. He distinguishes three kinds of rights, without specifying whether such rights are private or civil. "A 'right to' refers to a power in man which deserves expression," and "point[s] 5S The Orthocratic State toward man's inward nature, the locus of his unalienable rights. A 'right from,' in contrast, refers to the individual as standing over against other realities; it is a right defined in terms of the possible intrusions and inju- ries of others. A 'right of,' finally, is a consequence of some actual feature or value; it expresses the claim of some vital part or power of man to make itself manifest." 45 Examples of these several kinds of rights are a "right to" citizenship, a "right from" arbitrary arrest, and a "right of" assembly.
- C. Covell(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
In Article 2, it is affirmed that all persons are enti- tled to make claim to all the basic human rights, and this without regard for such factors as, among others, those of race, colour, gender, religion, political views, nationality, property, birth, and the particularities in the legal-political status belonging to the different countries and territories. Likewise in Article 3, it is affirmed that all persons have the right to life, liberty and security, and with this right being presented at the level of generality and abstraction appropriate to the universal status pertaining to human rights as such. As rights that are universal in their application, human rights are rights that, in principle at least, are to be claimed by men on an absolute Natural Law, the Law of Nations and Realism 73 and unconditional basis. In consequence of this, human rights are rights that serve to qualify the assignment of absolutism and unconditionality to the sovereign rights and powers exercised by states and governments, and hence stand as rights that are to be taken as implying the presence of substantial limitations bearing on the rights and powers of states and governments. It is to be observed further that the rights pertaining to the international law of human rights fall into distinct and separate cat- egories, and with this depending, as it would appear, on the institu- tional framework that is presupposed for the various rights concerned as the context for their proper realization. Here, the key consideration is to do with the institutional context for human rights that is provided by the state, and then in this context with the different state agencies, functions and powers which are required to give effect to human rights as belonging to their various categories.
eBook - PDF- Robert Lamb(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The origin of the modern idea of Natural Rights – that which stipulates that individuals hold rights by virtue of their humanity, as justified by a postulated law of nature – remains a matter of scholarly debate, though despite their disagreements, scholars like Richard Tuck and Brian Tierney locate its inception at points during the twelfth century. 15 The seventeenth century is customarily regarded as a time of flour- ishing for Natural Rights arguments, most prominently in the political thought of Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes and Locke. By the late eight- eenth century, however, the invocation of Natural Rights as politically authoritative had become much less commonplace, its force under- mined by rival intellectual currents. These included, in Britain, the rise of the historical sociology associated with the Scottish Enlightenment and the corresponding proto-utilitarianism that its advocates tended to endorse. Attention to the historical development and utility of various aspects of conventional morality pointed to its relativity and thus undermined the postulated universality upon which the existence of Natural Rights relied. Though the extent of this eclipse 13 See M. Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 31–52, for a philosophical demolition of linguistic contextualism. 14 Leif Wenar, ‘Rights’ in E.N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (2011). 15 Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 13; Brian Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights (Atlanta: Scholars Press for Emory University, 1997), especially 43–54. The nature of rights theories and their history 31 of Natural Rights arguments may have been exaggerated somewhat, it is certainly the case that they were subject to a spectacular revival in 1790s Britain, a phenomenon undoubtedly related to the French Revolution.
eBook - PDF- Leanne Weber, Elaine Fishwick, Marinella Marmo(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Red Globe Press(Publisher)
This example alone illustrates that what we believe our rights to be, and how we justify them, has serious implications for gover-nance and the types of societies we create. Despite increasing scepticism about the idea of Natural Rights (but see Feser 2012), Locke’s starting point – that universal human rights arise from recog-nition of the equal dignity and moral worth of all human beings – continues to underpin contemporary understanding of human rights. In practice, while it might fall short of providing a philosophical ‘proof’, for many human rights supporters it is sufficient to assert that human rights are the rights we have simply by virtue of being human. Whether founded on a belief in God or derived from reason, intuition or solidarity, it is the shared vulnerability to suffering and insecurity that marks the human condition, and renders human 8 Understanding Human Rights rights an important tool for addressing human need. On the other hand, human rights have come increasingly to be understood as being socially and legally constructed, with their particular content open to political debate and amendment as circumstances change. Dembour (2012) has suggested that contemporary views on the nature of human rights can be divided into four ideal types: the natural school , which considers human rights to be ‘given’, derivable metaphysically either from God or reason; the deliberative school , which conceives of human rights as ‘agreed’ and as an important vehicle for expressing fundamental entitlements; the protest school , which sees human rights as ‘fought for’, stresses practical action to redress injustice, and is less concerned with their philosophical The Origins and Idea of Human Rights 9 Box 1.1 A God-given right to bear arms? The Second Amendment of the US Constitution reads : ‘ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
- William Sweet(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- University of Ottawa Press(Publisher)
Thus, by what amounted to an internal critique of the Natural Rights tradition, he could reach his own distinctive idea that all rights, including Natural Rights, involve social recognition. Social recognition belongs to the definition of rights, to the concept of rights. The notion of the common good or of a mutual and general good belongs, however, to the dimension of justifying something as a right. Or at least, it belongs to the justification of the most important kind of right, the universal right (the right of each and all). 72 Rex Martin Green divides general or universal rights into two categories: the natural and the civil. In some sense each is a universal right. Natural Rights, as normally understood, are rights of all persons. Active civil rights, for Green, are political rights universal within a given society. 4 They are ways of acting or being treated that are specifically recognized, affirmed, and actively promoted in law, and apply to each and all citizens or, in the limiting case, to all individual persons. Thus, both Natural Rights and civil rights are special cases of what Green called general rights. They are rights of all people or all citizens and, in some important cases (for example, the right to life) they constrain generally all other people or all other citizens, either directly or through the mediation of public law. All universal civil or political rights are important rights and all reflect a high level of social commitment. But not all can be justified as Natural Rights, what we today call human rights. Still, all can be justified in a distinctive way - in accordance with one and the same pattern. The background supposition is that all rights, both Natural Rights and civil rights, are in some way, beneficial to the right-holder.
eBook - PDFMoral and Political Conceptions of Human Rights
Implications for Theory and Practice
- Reidar Maliks, Johan Karlsson Schaffer(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Secondly, human rights are taken to be pre-legal moral rights which exist independently from cultural conventions and legal recognition: Human rights are always valid, regardless of whether a state acknowledges them and/or whether a society has values and traditions in accordance or in conflict with them. This accounts for their potential to serve as a critique of and an external yardstick for current policies and behavioral patterns (Cruft, Liao, and Renzo 2015, p. 5). In this sense they present an extralegal authority which can act as an opposing force to a country’s laws and justify citizens as well as other actors disobeying the authorities on moral grounds. On the international level it enables other states to hold their otherwise equals accountable for human rights violations and in some cases it even justifies interventions into their 3 Gilabert (2011, p. 440) characterizes naturalistic theories similarly by pointing out how they are regarding human rights as pre-institutional rights that anyone has in virtue of sharing some common interests with all other human beings and that are held not only against states but against everyone be it an individual or an institution. Etinson and Liao also stress that naturalistic conceptions are usually interpreted to say that human rights apply at all times and under all institutional arrangements. 212 Kerstin Reibold sovereignty. This feature accords human rights universality in scope and opposes moral relativism. Thirdly, they are also supposed to be timeless, meaning that as long as humans have existed and will exist, they possess the human rights stemming from the initially identified core features or interests of humans. Fourthly, human rights are thought of as pre-institutional. This is under- stood both as human rights existing independently from the particular institu- tions that ensure and protect them and as human rights being conceivable in the absence of such institutions.
- Mark Van Hoecke(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
For these interpretations we look not only to courts, polit-ical parties, and statesmen, but also to writers on constitutional law and jurisprudence, and to the more enduring writings of all kind that bear on a society’s political society’ ( Justice as Fairness. A Restatement, § 7.2). 145 In our introduction we highlighted some basic political texts, such as the German Constitution and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that were centered around the notion of person. However, not all rights and liberties are linked to the notion of person (some protect the ‘human being’ or ‘everyone’), and not all basic texts in the Western world have the same ethical content, as the German one, drafted after Word-War II, with the atrocities of Hitler in mind. It is amusing in this regard to look at the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some of Rawls’ intuitive ideas find a strong echo in the Preamble stating that ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. Nevertheless, there is talk of ‘human beings’ not ‘persons’ in the opening articles. Cf Article 1: ‘ All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood’. Article 2: ‘ Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, with-out distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty’.
eBook - PDF- Roberto Gargarella(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
The decision was, in his opinion, unavailable to any government and therefore absolutely outside the discretion of the majority. 11.3 rights versus democracy 159 Through examples such as these, we see how an apparently abstract theoretical controversy has concrete and dramatic repercussions for fundamental questions of daily politics. From a position anchored in the tradition of “Natural Rights,” certain legal questions of immediate importance can be considered outside the realm of politics – beyond, as we shall see, the “sphere of democracy.” Meanwhile, from a position anchored in the opposite conception – rights as purely legal creations – the controversies in question (granting amnesty, entering into a peace agreement) appear as eminently democratic issues. 11.4 Rights As “Trump Cards” against Majorities I have already acknowledged my judgment that the conception of rights currently dominant – at least in the American context – is rooted in the “Natural Rights” tradition. Now I would like to demonstrate the weight and implications of this tradition on the present through the work of contem- porary jurists who have also been directly involved in the discussion of public issues of primary importance (which will help us to recognize the significance, relevance, and implications of their arguments). I begin with brief references to the arguments of Ronald Dworkin, one of the most important legal philosophers of the last fifty years.
eBook - PDFRights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty
Essays in Social Philosophy
- Joel Feinberg(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
A natural need for some good as such, like a natural desert, is always a reason in support of a claim to that good. A person in need, then, is always "in a position" to make a claim, even when there is no one in the corresponding position to do anything about it. Such claims, based on need alone, are "permanent possibilities of rights," the natural seed from which rights grow. When manifesto writers speak of them as if already actual rights, they are easily forgiven, for this is but a powerful way of expressing the conviction that they ought to be recognized by states here and now as potential rights and consequently as determinants of present aspirations and guides to present policies. That usage, I think, is a valid exercise of rhetorical licence. I prefer to characterize rights as valid claims rather than justified ones, because I suspect that justification is rather too broad a qualification. "Validity," as I 8 J. E. S. Fawcett, "The International Protection of Human Rights," in Political Theory and the Rights of Man, ed. by D D. Raphael (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967), pp. 125 and 128. 9 As declared in Article 24 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on December 10, 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations. 154 ESSAYS IN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY understand it, is justification of a peculiar and narrow kind, namely justification within a system of rules. A man has a legal right when the official recognition of his claim (as valid) is called for by the governing rules. This definition, of course, hardly applies to moral rights, but that is not because the genus of which moral rights are a species is something other than claims. A man has a moral right when he has a claim the recognition of which is called for — not (necessarily) by legal rules — but by moral principles, or the principles of an enlightened conscience.
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