Natural and Human Rights

This topic examines the idea that persons possess rights simply in virtue of their humanity, the grounds offered for such rights, and how human rights function in modern moral and political practice.

Definition

Natural rights are moral rights held by all persons independently of legal recognition; human rights are the modern successor notion — rights ascribed to all human beings and central to international norms — whose nature and grounds are contested.

Scope

Covers natural-rights theory in the Lockean tradition, analytic accounts of the nature of rights and their correlative duties, 'orthodox' grounding theories that root human rights in personhood or agency, and 'political' theories that explain human rights by their role in international practice.

Core questions

• Do people have rights merely in virtue of being human, and if so why?
• What grounds human rights — personhood, agency, basic interests, or political practice?
• What is the logical structure of a right and its correlative duties?
• Are human rights universal, or relative to cultures and historical settings?

Key concepts

• natural rights
• human rights
• normative agency
• claim-rights and duties
• the political conception
• universality
• inalienability

Key theories

Natural rights

Locke holds that in the state of nature persons have natural rights to life, liberty, and property grounded in the law of nature, which government exists to protect and may not violate.

Agency (orthodox) accounts

Griffin argues that human rights protect 'normative agency' — our capacity to choose and pursue a conception of a worthwhile life — which fixes their content and limits their proliferation.

Political (practical) accounts

Beitz argues that human rights are best understood not by a prior moral foundation but by the role they play in international practice, where they set standards whose violation can warrant international concern and action.

History

Natural-rights doctrine, developed by Grotius, Hobbes, and especially Locke (1689), underwrote the 18th-century revolutionary declarations. After Bentham's attack on 'nonsense upon stilts', the idea was revived in the 20th century through the 1948 Universal Declaration, prompting renewed philosophical work by Hart, Griffin's agency account, and Beitz's political conception.

Debates

Orthodox vs. political conceptions

Whether human rights derive from a prior moral foundation such as agency (Griffin) or are defined by their function in international political practice (Beitz).

Is there a single basic natural right?

Hart's argument that if there are any natural rights there is at least an equal natural right of all to be free, and the dispute over whether rights rest on liberty, interests, or status.

Key figures

• John Locke
• H. L. A. Hart
• James Griffin
• Charles Beitz

Seminal works

• locke1689
• griffin2008
• beitz2009

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between natural rights and legal rights?

Natural (or moral) rights are held independently of any legal system simply in virtue of one's nature or humanity, whereas legal rights exist only because a legal system recognizes and enforces them.