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| {{Rights |Distinctions}} | |||
| {{Libertarianism sidebar |Concepts}} | |||
| '''Natural rights''' are ] not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable by virtue of human existence. | |||
| The theory of ] is closely related to the theory of natural rights. During the ], natural law theory challenged the ], and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a ], ], and ] in the form of ]. Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by some ] to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments.<ref>], '']''</ref><ref>], '']''</ref> | |||
| The idea of ] is also closely related to that of natural rights; some acknowledge no difference between the two, regarding them as synonymous, while others choose to keep the terms separate to eliminate association with some features traditionally associated with natural rights.<ref>Jones, Peter. ''Rights''. Palgrave Macmillan, 1994, p. 73.</ref> Natural rights, in particular, are considered beyond the authority of any government or ] to dismiss. | |||
| The proposition that ] is one that has gained the interest of philosophers and legal scholars in the ].<ref>, ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 2007; Dershowitz, Alan. ''Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights'', 2004, pp. 198–99; , ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2007.</ref> | |||
| The legal philosophy known as ] seeks to incorporate the natural rights philosophy of the ] into the body of American case law on a level with the ]. | |||
| ==Natural rights theories== | |||
| The existence of natural rights has been asserted by different individuals on different premises, such as '']'' philosophical reasoning or religious principles. For example, ] claimed to derive natural rights through reason alone. The Declaration of Independence, meanwhile, is based upon the "]" truth that "all men are ... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".<ref name="us-doi"></ref> | |||
| Likewise, different philosophers and statesmen have designed different lists of what they believe to be natural rights; almost all include the right to ] and ] as the two highest priorities. ] argued that if there are any rights at all, there must be the right to liberty, for all the others would depend upon this. ] argued that “if there are such things as rights at all, then, there must be a right to life and liberty, or, to put it more properly to free life.”<ref>''Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation'', T. H. Green, 1883, p.114.</ref> ] emphasized "life, liberty and property" as primary. However, despite Locke's influential defense of the ], ] substituted "pursuit of happiness" in place of "property" in the ]. | |||
| ===Thomas Hobbes=== | |||
| ] | |||
| {{Main|Thomas Hobbes}} | |||
| Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) included a discussion of natural rights in his moral and ]. Hobbes' conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a "state of nature". Thus he argued that the essential natural (human) right was "to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto." (]. 1,XIV) | |||
| Hobbes sharply distinguished this natural "liberty", from natural "laws", described generally as "a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving his life; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may best be preserved." (ibid.) | |||
| In his natural state, according to Hobbes, man's life consisted entirely of liberties and not at all of laws – "It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has the right to every thing; even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural Right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man... of living out the time, which Nature ordinarily allow men to live." (ibid.) | |||
| This would lead inevitably to a situation known as the "]", in which human beings kill, steal and enslave others in order to stay alive, and due to their natural lust for "Gain", "Safety" and "Reputation". Hobbes reasoned that this world of chaos created by unlimited rights was highly undesirable, since it would cause human life to be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". As such, if humans wish to live peacefully they must give up most of their natural rights and create moral obligations in order to establish political and ]. This is one of the earliest formulations of the theory of government known as the ]. | |||
| Hobbes objected to the attempt to derive rights from "]," arguing that law ("lex") and right ("jus") though often confused, signify opposites, with law referring to obligations, while rights refer to the absence of obligations. Since by our (human) nature, we seek to maximize our well being, rights are prior to law, natural or institutional, and people will not follow the laws of nature without first being subjected to a sovereign power, without which all ideas of ] are meaningless – "Therefore before the names of Just and Unjust can have place, there must be some coercive Power, to compel men equally to the performance of their Covenants..., to make good that Propriety, which by mutual contract men acquire, in recompense of the universal Right they abandon: and such power there is none before the erection of the Commonwealth." (]. 1, XV) | |||
| This marked an important departure from medieval natural law theories which gave precedence to obligations over rights. | |||
| <!--For any citations/discussions relating to the people referred in this section, redirect yourself to their main Misplaced Pages articles, not here. --> | |||
| ===John Locke=== | |||
| ] | |||
| {{Main|John Locke}} | |||
| John Locke (1632–1704) was another prominent Western philosopher who conceptualized rights as natural and inalienable. Like Hobbes, Locke was a major social contract thinker. He said that man's natural rights are ], ], and ]. It was once conventional wisdom that Locke greatly influenced the ] with his writings of natural rights, but this claim has been the subject of protracted dispute in recent decades. For example, the historian Ray Forrest Harvey declared that Jefferson and Locke were at "two opposite poles" in their political philosophy, as evidenced by Jefferson’s use in the Declaration of Independence of the phrase "pursuit of happiness" instead of "property."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Harvey|first=Ray Forrest|title=Jean Jacques Burlamaqui: A Liberal Tradition in American Constitutionalism|year=1937|location=Chapel Hill, N.C.|pages = 120}}</ref> More recently, the eminent<ref>http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=IR3HlZ9IQuEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Law+as+culture+and+culture+as+law:+essays+in+honor+of+John+Phillip+Reid&source=bl&ots=X260ecQgxo&sig=A-CqdA9td0uZGU-ZXR8ZvlacxpI&hl=ko&ei=fiT3S8fUHY3vcMiH1OYL&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false</ref> legal historian John Phillip Reid has deplored contemporary scholars’ "misplaced emphasis on John Locke," arguing that American revolutionary leaders saw Locke as a ''commentator'' on established constitutional principles.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Reid|first=John Phillip|title= Constitutional History of the American Revolution: The Authority To Tax|year=1987|location=Madison, Wis.|pages=135–36}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Reid|first=John Phillip|title=Constitutional History of the American Revolution: The Authority of Rights|year = 1986|location=Madison, Wis.|pages=132–33}}</ref> ] has defended Locke's influence on the Founding, claiming that historians who argue to the contrary either misrepresent the classical republican alternative to which they say the revolutionary leaders adhered, do not understand Locke, or point to someone else who was decisively influenced by Locke.<ref>{{Cite book|last= Pangle|first=Thomas L.|authorlink=Thomas Pangle|title=The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of John Locke|year=1988|location=Chicago|publisher=University of Chicago Press}}</ref> This position has also been sustained by Michael Zuckert.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Zuckert|first=Michael P.|title=The Natural Rights Republic: Studies in the Foundation of the American Political Tradition|year=1996|location=South Bend, Ind.|publisher=University of Notre Dame Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Zuckert|first=Michael P.|title=Natural Rights and the New Republicanism|year=1998|location= Princeton|publisher=Princeton University Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Zuckert|first=Michael P.|title=Launching Liberalism: On Lockean Political Philosophy|year=2002|location=Lawrence|publisher=University Press of Kansas}}</ref> | |||
| According to Locke there are three natural rights: | |||
| * Life: everyone is entitled to live once they are created. | |||
| * Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right of others. | |||
| * Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights of others. | |||
| The social contract is an agreement between members of a country to live within a shared system of laws. Specific forms of government are the result of the decisions made by these persons acting in their collective capacity. Government is instituted to make laws that protect these three natural rights. If a government does not properly protect these rights, it can be overthrown. | |||
| <!--For any citations/discussions relating to the people referred in this section, redirect yourself to their main Misplaced Pages articles, not here. --> | |||
| ===Thomas Paine=== | |||
| ] | |||
| {{Main|Thomas Paine}} | |||
| Thomas Paine (1731–1809) further elaborated on natural rights in his influential work '']'' (1791), emphasizing that rights cannot be granted by any charter because this would legally imply they can also be revoked and under such circumstances they would be reduced to privileges: | |||
| {{quote|It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. ... They...consequently are instruments of injustice. | |||
| The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a contract with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.}} | |||
| <!--For any citations/discussions relating to the people referred in this section, redirect yourself to their main Misplaced Pages articles, not here. --> | |||
| == Debate == | |||
| Various definitions of inalienability include non-relinquishability, non-salability, and non-transferability.<ref>{{Cite document|title=A Libertarian Theory of Inalienability|author=Block, Walter|publisher=Journal of Libertarian Studies|volume=17|issue=2|date=Spring 2003|pages=39–85|url=http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref> This concept has been recognized by libertarians as being central to the question of ], which ] dismissed as illegitimate and even self-contradictory.<ref>{{Cite web|title=A Crusoe Social Philosophy|author=Murray N. Rothbard|url=http://mises.org/daily/2459#ixzz0nx4DiTmB|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref> ] argues that "viewing rights as alienable is perfectly consistent with—indeed, implied by—the libertarian ]. Under this principle, only the initiation of force is prohibited; ], ], or ] is not."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Inalienability and Punishment|author=Kinsella, Stephan|url=http://mises.org/journals/jls/14_1/14_1_4.pdf|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref> | |||
| The concept of inalienable rights was criticized by ] and ] as groundless. Bentham and Burke, writing in 18th century Britain, claimed that rights arise from the actions of government, or evolve from tradition, and that neither of these can provide anything ''inalienable''. (See Bentham's , and Burke's "]"). Presaging the shift in thinking in the 19th century, Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". By way of contrast to the views of British nationals Burke and Bentham, the leading American revolutionary scholar ] condemned Burke's view as "tyranny."<ref>{{Cite book | |||
| | last = Wilson | |||
| | first = James | |||
| | editor = Robert Green McCloskey | |||
| | title = The Works of James Wilson | |||
| | publisher = Harvard University Press | |||
| | date = | |||
| | location = Cambridge, Mass. | |||
| | volume = 2 | |||
| | pages = 586–89 | |||
| | postscript = <!--none--> }}</ref> | |||
| The signers of the Declaration of Independence deemed it a "self-evident truth" that all men are "". | |||
| In "]," ] claims that the existence of inalienable rights is unnecessary for the existence of a ] or a set of laws and rights. This idea of a ]{{spaced ndash}}that rights and responsibilities are derived from a consensual contract between the government and the people{{spaced ndash}}is the most widely recognized alternative. | |||
| ], an American ], wrote that the "inalienable rights" argument from the Declaration of Independence was necessary because "The British were white, Anglo, and Protestant, just as we were. had to have some other basis on which to justify independence."<ref>{{cite web|title=Samuel P. Huntington Quotes|url=http://beta.goodquotes.com/author/samuel-p-huntington/page2|publisher=Good Quotes|accessdate=7 July 2013}}</ref> | |||
| Different philosophers have created different lists of rights they consider to be natural. Proponents of natural rights, in particular Hesselberg and ], have responded that reason can be applied to separate truly ]atic rights from supposed rights, stating that any principle that requires itself to be disproved is an axiom. Critics have pointed to the lack of agreement between the proponents as evidence for the claim that the idea of natural rights is merely a political tool. For instance, Jonathan Wallace has asserted that there is no basis on which to claim that some rights are natural, and he argued that Hobbes' account of natural rights confuses ''right'' with ''ability'' (human beings have the ''ability'' to seek only their own good and follow their nature in the same way as animals, but this does not imply that they have a ''right'' to do so).<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wallace|first=Jonathan|title=Natural Rights Don't Exist|work=The Ethical Spectacle|accessdate=2007-08-23|date=2000-04|url=http://www.spectacle.org/0400/natural.html}}</ref> Wallace advocates a social contract, much like Hobbes and Locke, but does not base it on natural rights: | |||
| {{quote|We are all at a table together, deciding which rules to adopt, free from any vague constraints, half-remembered myths, anonymous patriarchal texts and murky concepts of nature. If I propose something you do not like, tell me why it is not practical, or harms somebody, or is counter to some other useful rule; but don't tell me it offends the universe.}} | |||
| Hugh Gibbons has proposed a descriptive argument based on human biology. He claims that human beings were other-regarding as a matter of necessity, in order to avoid the costs of conflict. Over time they developed expectations that individuals would act in certain ways which were then prescribed by society (duties of care etc.) and that eventually crystallized into actionable rights.<ref>http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/pilj/vol13no2/documents/13-2GibbonsArticle.pdf</ref> | |||
| ==History== | |||
| The idea that certain rights are natural or inalienable also has a history dating back at least to the ] of ] and ] of the early ], and descending through the ] and the ] to today. | |||
| ===Ancient history=== | |||
| ], a veteran journalist for ''The New York Times'' and the author of the book ''All The Shah's Men'', writes in the latter that: | |||
| {{quote|The Zoroastrian religion taught Iranians that citizens have an inalienable right to enlightened leadership and that the duty of subjects is not simply to obey wise kings but also to rise up against those who are wicked. Leaders are seen as representative of God on earth, but they deserve allegiance only as long as they have ''farr'', a kind of divine blessing that they must earn by moral behavior.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kinzer|first=Stephen|title=All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror|year=2003|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-67878-6}}</ref>}} | |||
| The ] held that no one was a slave by nature; slavery was an external condition juxtaposed to the internal freedom of the soul (''sui juris''). ] wrote: | |||
| {{quote|It is a mistake to imagine that slavery pervades a man's whole being; the better part of him is exempt from it: the body indeed is subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by this prison of the body, wherein it is confined.<ref>Seneca, ''De beneficiis'', III, 20.</ref>}} | |||
| Of fundamental importance to the development of the idea of natural rights was the emergence of the idea of natural human equality. As the historian A.J. Carlyle notes: "There is no change in political theory so startling in its completeness as the change from the theory of Aristotle to the later philosophical view represented by ] and Seneca.... We think that this cannot be better exemplified than with regard to the theory of the equality of human nature."<ref>{{Cite book | |||
| | last = Carlyle | |||
| | first = A.J. | |||
| | title = A History of Medieval Political Theory in the West | |||
| | year = 1903 | |||
| | location = Edinburgh | |||
| | volume = 1 | |||
| | pages = 8, 9 | |||
| }}</ref> Charles H. McIlwain likewise observes that "the idea of the equality of men is the profoundest contribution of the Stoics to political thought" and that "its greatest influence is in the changed conception of law that in part resulted from it."<ref>{{Cite book | |||
| | last = McIlwain | |||
| | first = Charles H. | |||
| | title = The Growth of Political Thought in the West: From the Greeks to the End of the Middle Ages | |||
| | year = 1932 | |||
| | location = New York | |||
| | pages = 114–15}}</ref> Cicero argues in ] that "we are born for Justice, and that right is based, not upon's opinions, but upon Nature."<ref>Cicero, ''De Legibus'' (Keyes translation), book 1, section 28.</ref> | |||
| ===Modern history=== | |||
| Centuries later, the Stoic doctrine that the "inner part cannot be delivered into bondage"<ref>Davis, David Brion. ''The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture.'' Cornell University Press, 1966, p. 77.</ref> re-emerged in the ] doctrine of liberty of conscience. ] wrote: | |||
| {{quote|Furthermore, every man is responsible for his own faith, and he must see it for himself that he believes rightly. As little as another can go to hell or heaven for me, so little can he believe or disbelieve for me; and as little as he can open or shut heaven or hell for me, so little can he drive me to faith or unbelief. Since, then, belief or unbelief is a matter of every one's conscience, and since this is no lessening of the secular power, the latter should be content and attend to its own affairs and permit men to believe one thing or another, as they are able and willing, and constrain no one by force.<ref>Martin Luther, ''Concerning Secular Authority'', 1523.</ref>}} | |||
| ], ''"], ], ]'' (])"]] | |||
| 17th-century ] ] ] discussed ] in his work, identifying them as being "life, liberty, and estate (property)", and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the ]. Preservation of the natural rights to life, liberty, and property was claimed as justification for the rebellion of the American colonies. As ] stated in his draft for the '']'', "all men are born equally free," and hold "certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity."<ref>Pauline Maier,''American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.'' New York: ], 1993, p. 134.</ref> Another 17th-century Englishman, ] (known as ''Freeborn John''), who came into conflict with both the monarchy of ] and the ] of ] governed republic, argued for level human basic rights he called "'']''" which he defined as being rights that every human being is born with, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or by human law. | |||
| The distinction between alienable and unalienable rights was introduced by ]. In his ''Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue'' (1725), Hutcheson foreshadowed the Declaration of Independence, stating: “For wherever any Invasion is made upon unalienable Rights, there must arise either a perfect, or external Right to Resistance. . . . Unalienable Rights are essential Limitations in all Governments.” Hutcheson, however, placed clear limits on his notion of unalienable rights, declaring that “there can be no Right, or Limitation of Right, inconsistent with, or opposite to the greatest publick Good."<ref>Francis Hutcheson, ''An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue in Two Treatises'' (Indianapolis, 2004), pp. 192, 193.</ref> Hutcheson elaborated on this idea of unalienable rights in his ''A System of Moral Philosophy'' (1755), based on the ] principle of the liberty of conscience. One could not in fact give up the capacity for private judgment (e.g., about religious questions) regardless of any external contracts or oaths to religious or secular authorities so that right is "unalienable." Hutcheson wrote: "Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another; nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart. The right of private judgment is therefore unalienable."<ref>Hutcheson, Francis. ''A System of Moral Philosophy''. London, 1755, pp. 261–2.</ref> | |||
| In the ], ] gave a highly developed treatment of this inalienability argument. Like Hutcheson, Hegel based the theory of inalienable rights on the ''de facto'' inalienability of those aspects of personhood that distinguish persons from things. A thing, like a piece of property, can in fact be transferred from one person to another. According to Hegel, the same would not apply to those aspects that make one a person: | |||
| {{quote|The right to what is in essence inalienable is imprescriptible, since the act whereby I take possession of my personality, of my substantive essence, and make myself a responsible being, capable of possessing rights and with a moral and religious life, takes away from these characteristics of mine just that externality which alone made them capable of passing into the possession of someone else. When I have thus annulled their externality, I cannot lose them through lapse of time or from any other reason drawn from my prior consent or willingness to alienate them.<ref>Georg W. F. Hegel, ''Hegel's Philosophy of Right'', T.M. Knox, trans., New York: Oxford University Press, 1967 (1821), section 66.</ref>}} | |||
| In discussion of ] theory, "inalienable rights" were said to be those rights that could not be surrendered by citizens to the sovereign. Such rights were thought to be ''natural rights'', independent of positive law. Some social contract theorists reasoned, however, that in the ] only the strongest could benefit from their rights. Thus, people form an implicit ], ceding their natural rights to the authority to protect the people from abuse, and living henceforth under that authority. | |||
| Many historical apologies for slavery and illiberal government were based on explicit or implicit voluntary contracts to alienate any "natural rights" to freedom and ].<ref>Philmore, J. 1982. The Libertarian Case for Slavery: A Note on Nozick. ''Philosophical Forum''. XIV (Fall 1982): 43–58.</ref> The ''de facto'' inalienability arguments of the Hutcheson and his predecessors provided the basis for the ] to argue not simply against involuntary slavery but against any explicit or implied contractual forms of slavery. Any contract that tried to legally alienate such a right would be inherently invalid. Similarly, the argument was used by the democratic movement to argue against any explicit or implied social contracts of subjection (''pactum subjectionis'') by which a people would supposedly alienate their right of self-government to a sovereign as, for example, in '']'' by ]. According to ], | |||
| {{quote|There is, at least, one right that cannot be ceded or abandoned: the right to personality...They charged the great logician with a contradiction in terms. If a man could give up his personality he would cease being a moral being. ... There is no ''pactum subjectionis'', no act of submission by which man can give up the state of free agent and enslave himself. For by such an act of renunciation he would give up that very character which constitutes his nature and essence: he would lose his humanity.<ref>Cassirer, Ernst. ''The Myth of the State''. Yale University Press, 1963, p. 175</ref>}} | |||
| These themes converged in the debate about American Independence. While Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, ] in England sided with the Americans' claim "that Great Britain is attempting to rob them of that liberty to which every member of society and all civil communities have a natural and unalienable title."<ref>Price, Richard. ''Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty''. 1776, Part I. Reprinted in: Peach, Bernard, (Ed.) ''Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution''. ] Press, 1979, p. 67.</ref> Price again based the argument on the ''de facto'' inalienability of "that principle of spontaneity or self-determination which constitutes us agents or which gives us a command over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the operation of any foreign cause.<ref>Ibid., pp. 67–68.</ref> Any social contract or compact allegedly alienating these rights would be non-binding and void, wrote Price: | |||
| {{quote|Neither can any state acquire such an authority over other states in virtue of any compacts or cessions. This is a case in which compacts are not binding. Civil liberty is, in this respect, on the same footing with religious liberty. As no people can lawfully surrender their religious liberty by giving up their right of judging for themselves in religion, or by allowing any human beings to prescribe to them what faith they shall embrace, or what mode of worship they shall practise, so neither can any civil societies lawfully surrender their civil liberty by giving up to any extraneous jurisdiction their power of legislating for themselves and disposing their property.<ref>Ibid., pp. 78–79</ref>}} | |||
| Price raised a furor of opposition so in 1777 he wrote another tract that clarified his position and again restated the ''de facto'' basis for the argument that the "liberty of men as agents is that power of self-determination which all agents, as such, possess."<ref>Price, Richard. ''Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty.'' Reprinted in: Peach, Bernard, (Ed.) ''Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution''. Duke University Press, 1979, p. 136.</ref> | |||
| In ''Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism'', ] pulled together these themes and related them to the slavery debate: | |||
| {{quote|Then it turned out to make considerable difference whether one said slavery was wrong because every man has a natural right to the possession of his own body, or because every man has a natural right freely to determine his own destiny. The first kind of right was alienable: thus Locke neatly derived slavery from capture in war, whereby a man forfeited his labor to the conqueror who might lawfully have killed him; and thus Dred Scott was judged permanently to have given up his freedom. But the second kind of right, what Price called "that power of self-determination which all agents, as such, possess," was inalienable as long man remained man. Like the mind's quest for religious truth from which it was derived, self-determination was not a claim to ownership which might be both acquired and surrendered, but an inextricable aspect of the activity of being human.<ref>Lynd, Staughton. ''Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism''. Vintage Books, 1969, pp. 56–57.</ref>}} | |||
| Meanwhile in America, ] "took his division of rights into alienable and unalienable from Hutcheson, who made the distinction popular and important",<ref>Garry Wills, 1979. ''Inventing America.'' New York: ], p. 213</ref> and in the 1776 ], famously condensed this to: | |||
| {{quote|We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...}} | |||
| In the 19th century, the movement to abolish slavery seized this passage as a statement of constitutional principle, although the U.S. constitution recognized and protected slavery. As a lawyer, future ] ] argued before the Supreme Court in the case of ], who had been charged with violating the ], that: | |||
| {{quote|The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.}} | |||
| ===Contemporary history=== | |||
| Many documents now echo the phrase used in the ]. The preamble to the 1948 ] asserts that rights are inalienable: "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." Article 1, §1 of the ] recognizes inalienable rights, and articulated ''some'' (not all) of those rights as "defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and ]." However, there is still much dispute over which "rights" are truly natural rights and which are not. | |||
| ] argued that some powers over human beings could be wielded only by God, and that if there were no God, no human beings could wield these powers.<ref>Erich Fromm (1973), ''The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology'', New York: Bantam.</ref> | |||
| Contemporary political philosophies continuing the ] tradition of natural rights include ], ] and ], and include amongst their canon the works of authors such as ], ], ],<ref>http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html</ref> and ].<ref>http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp</ref> A libertarian view of inalienable rights is laid out in Morris and Linda Tannehill's '']'', which claims that a man has a right to ownership over his life and therefore also his property, because he has invested time (i.e. part of his life) in it and thereby made it an extension of his life. However, if he initiates force against and to the detriment of another man, he alienates himself from the right to that part of his life which is required to pay his debt: "Rights are ''not'' inalienable, but only the possessor of a right can alienate himself from that right – no one else can take a man's rights from him."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Market for Liberty|chapter=Man and Society|pages=11|postscript=<!--none-->}}</ref> | |||
| == Natural rights notable documents == | |||
| The specific recognition of natural rights has historically differed greatly from one century to the next, and from one regime to the next, but nowadays is normally addressed by the constitutions of the respective nations. The following documents have each played important historical roles in guaranteeing protection of rights around the world. | |||
| * The ] (1215; ]) required the ] to renounce certain rights and respect certain legal procedures, and to accept that the will of the king could be bound by ]. | |||
| * The ] (1320; ]) established the right of the people to choose a head of state (see ]). | |||
| * The ] (1689; England) declared that ], as embodied by ], possess certain civil and political rights. | |||
| * The ] (1689; Scotland) was one of the key documents of ]. | |||
| * ] (1776) by ] declared the inherent natural rights and ]. | |||
| * ] (1776) succinctly defined the rights of man as including, but not limited to, "]" which later influenced "]" (liberty, equality, fraternity) in France<ref name = "">{{Cite book | last = Dyck | first = Rand | title = Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches (3rd edition) | publisher = ] | year = 2000 | location = | isbn = 978-0-17-616792-9 | postscript = <!--none-->}}</ref> The phrase can also be found in Chapter III, Article 13 of the 1947 ],<ref>http://history.hanover.edu/texts/1947con.html</ref> and in President ]'s 1945 declaration of independence of the ].<ref>http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1945vietnam.html</ref> An alternative phrase "life, liberty and property", is found in the ], a resolution of the ]. Also, Article 3 of the ] reads, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." | |||
| * ] (1785; United States) Written by ] in 1779, the document asserted the right of man to form a personal relationship with God without interference by the state. | |||
| * The ] (1789; France) was one of the fundamental documents of the ], defining a set of ] and ] of the people. | |||
| * The ] (1789/1791; United States), the first ten amendments of the ], was another influential document. | |||
| * The ] (1948) is an overarching set of standards by which governments, organizations and individuals would measure their behavior towards each other. The preamble declares that the "...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of ], ] and ] in the world..." | |||
| * The ] (1950; Europe) was adopted under the auspices of the ] to protect ]s and fundamental freedoms. | |||
| * The ] (1966) is a follow-up to the ], concerning ]. | |||
| * The ] (1966) is another follow-up to the ], concerning ]. | |||
| * The ] (1982; Canada) was created to protect the rights of ] citizens from actions and policies of all levels of government. | |||
| * The ] (2000) is one of the most recent legal instruments concerning human rights. | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| * Fruehwald, Edwin, A Biological Basis of Rights, 19 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 195 (2010). | |||
| * Grotius, Hugo, The Rights Of War And Peace: Three Volume Set, 1625 | |||
| * Haakonssen, Knud, Grotius, Pufendorf and Modern Natural Law, 1999 | |||
| * Hutcheson, Francis. ''A System of Moral Philosophy''. 1755, London. | |||
| * Locke, John. ''Two Treatises on Government''. 1690 (primarily the second treatise) | |||
| * Lloyd Thomas, D.A. ''Locke on Government''. 1995, Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09533-6 | |||
| * Pufendorf, Baron Samuel von, Law of Nature and Nations, 1625 | |||
| * Tuck, Richard, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development, 1982 | |||
| * Waldron, Jeremy ''Theories of Rights'' 1984, ]. ISBN 0-19-875063-3 | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * from Constitutional Rights Foundation. | |||
| * | |||
| {{Rights theory}} | |||
| {{Human rights}} | |||
| {{DEFAULTSORT:Natural Rights}} | |||
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