3 Natural Rights
19.1.3: Natural Rights
Natural rights, understood as those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government,(and therefore, universal and inalienable) were central to the debates during the Enlightenment on the relationship between the individual and the government.
Learning Objective
Identify natural rights and why they were important to the philosophers of the Enlightenment.
Key Points
- Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws). They are usually defined in opposition to legal rights, or those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system.
- Although natural rights have been discussed since antiquity, it was the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment that developed the modern concept of natural rights, which has been critical to the modern republican government and civil society.
- During the Enlightenment, natural rights developed as part of the social contract theory. The theory addressed the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.
- Thomas Hobbes’ conception of natural rights extended from his conception of man in a “state of nature.” He objected to the attempt to derive rights from “natural law,” arguing that law (“lex”) and right (“jus”) though often confused, signify opposites, with law referring to obligations, while rights refers to the absence of obligations.
- The most famous natural right formulation comes from John Locke, who argued that the natural rights include perfect equality and freedom, and the right to preserve life and property. Other Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophers that developed and complicated the concept of natural rights were John Lilburne, Francis Hutcheson, Georg Hegel, and Thomas Paine.
- The modern European anti-slavery movement drew heavily from the concept of natural rights that became central to the efforts of European abolitionists.
Key Terms
- Natural rights
- The rights that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws). Some, yet not all, see them as synonymous with human rights.
- natural law
- A philosophy that certain rights or values are inherent by virtue of human nature, and can be universally understood through human reason. Historically, it refers to the use of reason to analyze both social and personal human nature in order to deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The law of nature, like nature itself, is universal.
- Legal rights
- The rights bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (i.e., rights that can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws).
- social contract theory
- In moral and poli