Natural Rights: Why do they matter?

Natural rights are corollary to your existence, requisite for protecting existence, and the foundation upon which all other rights are derived.

These rights are expressed in the Declaration of Independence. “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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, …”

Rand wrote in “The Virtue of Selfishness” that this “...laid down the principle in the words ‘…to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...’ (That)This provided the only valid justification of a government and defined its only proper purpose; to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence. Thus the government’s function was changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant. The government was to protect man from criminals---and the Constitution was written to protect man from government.” She also wrote, “The most profoundly revolutionary achievement of the United States of America was the subordination of society to moral law.” “Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.” Moral law is all that entails man’s right to exist.

John Locke wrote of the fundamental principle of natural rights. Life, liberty and property were rights inherent in your being. These rights are universal and no one has the right to take them. You have a right to exist and the corollary is so do others. You have the right to defend yourself, to the fruits of your labor, to liberty and must grant the same to others. No one has the right to deny your liberty or property without reprisal. Only you can forfeit these rights by an act which violates another. William Blackstone wrote, “... no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to forfeiture.”

Locke asserted that governments were instituted by man for a primary purpose; that it was morally obligated to serve people, by protecting life, liberty and property, for without these protections man was no better off than he was in a state of nature. Man would be at the mercy of every brute. This is the impetus for communities; for the mutual benefit of numbers, for defending natural rights, corollary to your right to exist.

The basic premise precedes Locke. He expanded the archaic notions of a “state of nature” and a tradition among the ancient civilizations that rulers can’t legitimately do whatever they want, as basic moral laws apply to all. He proclaimed that “Reason, which is that Law, teaches all Mankind, who would but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.” And, man should “have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society, and made by the Legislative Power erected in it; A Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man.” As for property he said, “every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” In another passage he wrote, “The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.” Private property is essential for life and Liberty. People in nature were there own rulers and held individual sovereignty. Thus legitimate Government “can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all.” He also wrote, rulers “must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People, without the Consent of the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies.” To do otherwise was to render man no better off than he was when in a state of nature. Man should not enter into or create a government that reduces rights more than absolutely necessary or it would be a diminution of the rights retained by man in his natural state. The only legitimate occasion where man should relinquish his rights should be voluntarily, in pursuit of justice; namely the independent execution of justice so as to avoid unusual cruelty and avoid mistaken, unjust and biased, partial judgment. This should be granted to an impartial arbiter.

Locke expressed the view that if government did not fulfill these obligations then people would be living under tyranny and they would have the legitimate right to rebel. Although in Locke’s day he was dealing with monarchies he expressed these premises universally saying “Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty.” This was so dangerous in his time, authorship for his Second Treatise was revealed till his death.

His words along with those of Algernon Sidney greatly influenced America’s founding fathers; Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, Madison, Adams, Mason, etc. were among them.

“Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. 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 rights of others.” In correlation and distinction to this he said, “Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.”- Paine

“Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”- Jefferson

James Madison, attempted to protect all natural rights not enumerated in primary authorship of the Ninth amendment.

It has been said that “you have the natural right to be eaten by a savage beast.” You also have the natural right to use your superior intelligence, defend yourself, fashion a weapon, kill and eat the beast for supper. Whether you call them Natural, Unalienable, or God given is inconsequential, at least in relation to how rights are mutually respected, so long as you recognize and respect them.

Respectfully,
O.A.