Natural Rights of Human Beings - Essay Example

Natural Rights of Human Beings The topic of natural human rights has always been considered a little confused subject. Today’s human rights are quite different from their ancestral forms of the 18th century. Some believe that natural rights are inherent in human beings while others argue that had these rights been inherent, they would have always existed and that does not seem possible, considering the lack of these rights in many societies throughout the course of history. Rights to “liberty, property, life security and resistance to oppression are the basic natural or imprescriptible rights of a man”. Natural rights encompass particularly those rights which are considered universal and beyond the authority of any international governing body or a polity which means there does not exist any cultural or political influence on such rights. Some say they should not be mingled with civil rights since both are logically independent. The law of nature is closely related to the theory of natural rights, with one exception. Though, natural law is considered universal still different cultures round the globe may relate differently to it. The philosophy of natural rights goes all the way back to the fundamental law of nature, according to which all the efforts should be made to preserve human life as much as possible. From this law have emerged derivative laws of nature which guide about the means to achieve the target specified by the fundamental law. These secondary laws identify how all humans should behave in the light of their natural rights in order to achieve the preservation of human life without interfering with God’s will. The major stimulus that helped in the development of the idea of natural rights was the emergence of the idea of natural human equality. This stimulus proved to be fundamentally important for the widespread perception of natural human rights. This also means that natural rights have quite an old history dating back to the time of Stoics in the 3rd century B.C. Stoics supported the idea of human freedom and claimed it the basic natural right of human beings. According to Sellars (2006), Stoicism identifies that slavery is an external condition imposed on the internal freedom of soul and it is virtuous for humans to maintain a will that is in accord with nature. Later on, many philosophers argued in regard to the natural or inalienable rights, saying that such rights could not be swapped completely by legal rights that are decided by governments. 17th century philosopher John Locke presented the idea that there are some natural rights that every human being is born with and such fundamental rights cannot be surrendered to the state or government. Great philosophers of human natural rights like Locke, Lilburne, Hobbes and Hegel continued anti-slavery movement and arguments for level human basic rights. They all presented theories with the view that the natural human right of self-government should never be yielded to a sovereign or authority. Now, the significance and existence of natural human rights is a worldwide fact and the establishments recognize that natural rights are the foundation of freedom and peace. Still the debate on which rights are actually inalienable and which are not, continues among many philosophers and people have varying and vague ideas of natural rights. Different philosophers have presented different theories and ideas to make the blurred image of natural rights understandable. They might have differed on many aspects while asserting the existence of these rights but almost all of them agree on the point that the right to life and liberty are the two most distinguished of the many natural rights endowed to man by God. As such, human being is a very natural creature with a variety of desires and rights are the basic means for satisfying these desires. But that does not mean getting delinquent and lawless in a way unapproved by social norms, all the time bragging about natural rights. Actually responsibility is the key which helps an individual understand these rights and gives a direction to make decisions through reflection and deliberation. Responsibility and rights are related in human nature. A person’s own discerned potentialities are responsible for his/her actions and natural rights justify the background in which those actions take place. Moral principles are then determined by those rights in order to clear to a person that which actions are permissible and which are not accurate. This is called self-direction and morality is an essential element to achieve that. Actually the doctrine of natural rights is based on moral human rights, which all are under obligation to respect. Natural rights endow and justify rightful authority to individuals to live their lives according to their nature as individual human beings. So the dogma of natural rights can be understood as self-actualization telling people what restrictions they have to observe while fulfilling their desires. According to Nickel (2006), human rights require robust justifications that apply everywhere, all the while supporting their high priority. Without this they cannot withstand broad cultural diversity and national sovereignty. Robust justifications are powerful but need not be understood as ones that are irresistible. Securing natural rights, as much as possible, should be the primary concern of the political and legal order. They should not interfere with one’s personal freedom. Law should not establish an enforced influence on people, except where there is a need, like in case of negative use of the rights. Other than that, politics and law should be kept separated from self-morality, which lays the foundation for natural rights. Self-perfection requires self-direction and the purpose of rights is to protect self-directedness. The natural right to liberty is heavily supported by many philosophers and that permits each individual a sphere of freedom in which self-directed activities can be undertaken without the interference of other people. Anyhow, sometime during the 17th century, the old natural rights doctrines were modified to stress the fact that individuals, being natural beings, possessed certain inalienable rights that cannot be violated unreasonably by any authority. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who established the foundation for the theory of social contract. Hobbes conception of natural rights stemmed form the idea of man in a natural state. Natural laws make humans obligated to abide by them and forbid them to do anything against preserving their lives. According to Anderson et al. (2007, p.9), Hobbes’s fundamental view is that all human beings, men and women, are created equal and that the laws of society should affect this fact by natural necessity. Human natural rights must be protected by the rule of law. The most important natural right mentioned in “Leviathan” by Hobbes among other rights, is the right of a human to his/her own life or the right to self-defense. Together these rights assure peace and freedom to the humans and society. According to Hobbes, man’s life only consisted of liberties with no place for any laws, in the natural state. If we consider this concept, realization hits strong that this could only lead to a chaotic situation. The entire world would turn into a war for gain, power and reputation, since these are among the natural desires of humans. Hobbes has used the words “war of all against all” for this chaotic situation in which human beings cheat, oppress and kill each others to achieve absolute power. By presenting this idea, he reasoned that in the absence of any civil society, the world would inevitably turn into a highly deplorable mess due to the use of unlimited rights. So he introduced the idea of “social contract” which means giving up some of the rights to create a safe and peaceful world. He claimed that if humans wish to leave in a prosperous world without brutal wars and unremitting fear, they would have to give up some of their liberties to the state and establish morality and ethical principals in their place to create a civil society. This led to the theory of government called social contract. According to Scott (2003), Hobbes explains that the right to liberty or to property may be transferred from one person to another by means of a legal contract and the terms of the contract may be enforced by a “civil authority”. According to the works mentioned in Leviathan, Hobbes has differed form Aristotle by supporting the exchange of natural freedom for government-imposed order, constructed through a social compact, which requires renunciation of all claims on rights that humans possess by nature, except the right of self-preservation, and voluntary submission to any order imposed by the sovereign. If we contemplate human nature combined with God’s will, the conclusion identifies that humans certainly have some natural rights which can be used as a standard, against which justice offered by law and governments can be evaluated and challenged. Hobbes has strongly argued against deriving natural rights from natural law, since law involves many obligations which a person cannot fulfill without first being subjected to a sovereign power. Law and right differ as much as obligation and property. Hobbes has focused exclusively on rights of human beings and not their obligations in his book Leviathan. His concept that rights are prior to natural laws sets in stark contrast with the medieval age theories, all of which imply that obligations consequential of natural laws should be given preference over rights. John Locke was another eminent Western philosopher of the 17th century who conceptualized rights as natural and inalienable. He was a social contract philosopher also and his conception of natural rights is way too clearly detailed in his theory “Second Treatise of Government”. Writing a few years after Hobbes, he definitely admitted the terms of debate related to natural rights, introduced by Hobbes. Locke crystallized the preceding conceptions of human natural rights into the new statement of the modern ideas. According to Trigg (1999, p.73-74), Locke claims through his theory that all men are naturally in a state of freedom and equality. Everyone should make it his priority to preserve himself and also preserve the rest of the mankind. He suggests that reason or rationality requires form us that no one should harm another person in his life, liberty and possessions since all men are equal and independent. Locke differed from Hobbes’s conception somewhat by saying that it is up to the individual rather than any state or authority to put the law of nature into effect. Still Locke’s philosophy of natural human rights goes in harmony with the Hobbes’s conception, when admitting that ruthless pursuit of personal interest has no place in the state of nature and if oppressors and criminals show by their actions that they are not committed to apply reason to the use of natural rights, then it is justified to punish those who act against the law of nature. It is because, as reasoned by Locke, interests of everyone are equally important and should be similarly taken into account. Each person matters equally, since each was undeniably created by God. Locke has unambiguously asserted that although in the state of nature humans should live as desired by God, but if humans go wild in pursuit of personal desires without caring to acknowledge others’ rights, then people ought to enter a social contract and surrender their liberties to a more powerful authority. It is because the state of nature is defined by Locke as a condition where human beings enjoy their natural rights “according to reason.” This philosophical interpretation of natural human rights by Locke converged later in the debate about American Independence, especially and this marks the authenticity of Locke’s conception of natural rights. Anti-slavery movement rose to eminence as a result of such philosophies, worldwide. Price (1979, p.67), has sided with this movement for ensuring natural rights by sating that “Great Britain is attempting to rob them Americans of that liberty to which every member of society and all civil communities have a natural and unalienable right.” In all of this, the underlying theme is that Locke stressed on the existence of three natural rights which are “life, liberty and estate”. It is important to note that human rights held no absolute nature for Locke, rather he had the view that they could only be claimed by those who behave with rationality. Locke’s theory of natural rights has also been the subject of protracted disagreement. According to Trigg (p.76), Locke does not in fact use the exact term “natural rights” frequently in his theory. His views on rights and duties are more frequently stressed and it is hard to tell which among the two held higher priority for him. Nevertheless, Locke’s ideologies may not be exactly the same as those who campaign for human natural rights today, still his philosophies were in huge vogue in his time and much until later. The concept of inalienable or imprescriptible rights is not accepted by everyone and there is an on going debate about the existence of any such rights as natural. The ideology of natural rights was criticized and considered groundless by Bentham in his book “Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights.” Bentham boldly dismissed the idea of natural rights as “nonsense on stilts”. According to him, (cited by Harrison, 2010) all rights have evolved from government or political associations and they cannot offer natural rights. The existence of rights for humans without government is an impossible idea. Since the rights owe their existence to governments so all rights come inferior to the establishment of governments. Bentham lividly criticized the natural rights saying that living without a government would always mean living without laws leading to the brutal end of rights to security and freedom. History presents many evidences regarding the fate of the savage nations which refused the existence of superior authority and wildly fought among themselves to gain power. He also said that rights actually evolved when tyranny and brutality exalted into insanity. Then to resolve the issues, governments began to be established and laws were made to ascertain the main rights to human beings, otherwise the story of natural rights is rhetorical nonsense. If no limits are assigned to any of the rights to life, liberty and resistance to oppression, then it should be tacitly admitted that laws need to be introduced to culminate the unbounded liberties. Wrapping up the whole discussion, it becomes clear that justification of the limits to the human natural rights is of vital importance. These rights cannot be enjoyed or justified in every circumstance since that depends on the actions of man, whether they are rational or not. If a person brutally commits murder, he/she cannot be exempted from the punishment owing to the natural right of liberty. When a judge begins to sentence a record criminal to the jail, he/she cannot attack the judge taking advantage of the natural right to freedom. Adjusting limitations is very necessary and that is the purpose of the formation of governments and laws. Natural rights conceptually outline the moral context which requires individuals to be focused and directed to make their choices regarding pursuit of their self-actualization without interfering with the like pursuit of others with whom they interact socially. Works Cited: Andersen, E.A. Lindsnaes, Birgit. "Towards new global strategies:Public goods and human rights." Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007, p. 9. Harrison, Ross. "Fragment on Government, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation." Jeremy Bentham Biography. 2010. Web. 03 Aug. 2010. Nickel, James. "Human Rights." 29 Jul. 2006. Web. 03 Aug. 2010. Price, Richard. "Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution." Bernard: Duke University Press, 1979, p. 67. Scott, Alex. "Hobbes' Leviathan." 2003. Web. 03 Aug. 2010. . Sellars, John. "Stoicism." 1st Edition. California: University of California Press, 2006. Trigg, Roger. "Ideas of Human Nature: An Historical Introduction." 2nd Edition. Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 1999, p. 73-76. Read More