What does natural rights mean?

Definitions for natural rights
natural rights

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word natural rights.

Wikipedia

  1. natural rights

    Some philosophers distinguish two types of rights, natural rights and legal rights. Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable (they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights). Natural law is the law of natural rights. Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights.Natural law first appeared in ancient Greek philosophy, and was referred to by Roman philosopher Cicero. It was subsequently alluded to in the Bible, and then developed in the Middle Ages by Catholic philosophers such as Albert the Great and his pupil Thomas Aquinas. During the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of natural laws was used to challenge the divine right of kings, and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government – and thus legal rights – in the form of classical republicanism. Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by others to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments. The idea of human rights derives from theories of natural rights. Those rejecting a distinction between human rights and natural rights view human rights as the successor that is not dependent on natural law, natural theology, or Christian theological doctrine. Natural rights, in particular, are considered beyond the authority of any government or international body to dismiss. The 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important legal instrument enshrining one conception of natural rights into international soft law. Natural rights were traditionally viewed as exclusively negative rights, whereas human rights also comprise positive rights. Even on a natural rights conception of human rights, the two terms may not be synonymous. The concept of natural rights is not universally accepted, partly due to its religious associations and perceived incoherence. Some philosophers argue that natural rights do not exist and that legal rights are the only rights; for instance, Jeremy Bentham called natural rights "simple nonsense".

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of natural rights in Chaldean Numerology is: 4

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of natural rights in Pythagorean Numerology is: 6

Examples of natural rights in a Sentence

  1. Albert Jay Nock:

    The State, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.

  2. Lysander Spooner:

    A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime… whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber… or by millions, calling themselves a government.

  3. James Wilson:

    Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.

  4. The Republican Party Ryan:

    The ideology I subscribe to is the one that founded the country -- that built the Constitution. So I do believe that he is taking us away from the Constitution, away from founding principles, away from natural rights, it is going to be hard to see us getting a lot done when he wants to go so far left.


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"natural rights." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/natural+rights>.

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