Rights and Principles and their roles in society

Rights and Principles and their roles in society

by Alex Merced

The big debate between Hamilton and Jefferson in the founding years of our country surrounded where our rights come from. Hamilton argued that rights came from the government, that without the government to protect us there'd be chaos, so it's up to the government which rights it's citizens have. Jefferson argued for natural rights, that rights are independent of government and are intrinsically connected with free will and humanity.

If one where to subscribe to the Hamiltonian view which is usually championed on the left end of the political spectrum you'd then have conflicts with many of the "rights" movements that come from people on the left such as fighting for the right of other people in other nations. If people rights come from government, how can you fight for rights of people in other nations for which their government has not granted them? Although, those people who fight womens rights in middle eastern countries due seem to understand that peoples rights are beyond what the government they live under saids is right and wrong. This would leave us to believe that the natural rights point of view to be the more consistent with peoples view of "rights violations"by government, cause a government could only violate rights if they were independent of government.

Natural Rights

Aristotle, Locke, Jefferson, Paine, many important individuals in the formation of Natural Rights as a philosophy and I recommend reading their work to understand it's origin since my take will be slightly different. If Natural Rights are intrinsic to being human, it can only encompass what an individual has true absolute control over which is their mind and their body, no decree or law can change the way you think or how you use your body but only set guidelines on how to punish you for using your natural right over your mind and body. People don't have absolute control over anything external to the individual, so things like property rights and the non-aggression theorem would be difficult to wrap in this theory of intrinsic human rights. Although, if you only organized society based on natural rights it'd be difficult for those who choose not to use their rights over their mind and body with non-aggression avoid tyranny from those who would use it from aggression, so this is why a framework of logical external principles come into place.

Principles

To me, property rights and the non-aggression axiom are not true natural rights, but frameworks of principles to help humans use the rights over their internal individual selves in the external world of other individuals with their own individual rights and help determine how establish who has a claim when the rights of two or more individuals collide.

conclusion

The differentiation between internal and external is important, cause government can take away external factors from an individual but they cannot take the internal without taking their life which is the source of all their rights, cause once your life is gone you have no ability to exercise your individual rights at least in the mortal world as we know it.