Question #1: What is the source of man’s rights?

June 4, 2008 by Stephen Palmer

| Ten Foundational Questions | Introduction |
The Declaration of Independence states that “…all men are created equal…they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”

Sir William Blackstone wrote that, “Man…must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator…This will of his Maker is called the law of nature…This law of nature…is of course superior to any other…No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force…from this original.”

Others who have taught that man’s rights come from God and/or Natural Law include Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Montesquieu, and John Locke.

The competing view(s)–that rights come from the State, or collective society, or a monarch, or a “vanguard”–have been taught by philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Jean Jacques-Rousseau, and John Rawls.

Why It Matters

If our rights come from a human source, whether that be collective society, a monarch, or any other person or group of people, then they can also be taken away by human sources. In other words, unless rights come from a Creator or Natural Law–a source that transcends humans–they are not unalienable by definition. If they are granted by humans, they can also be rightfully taken by humans.

If your right to life is granted by collective society, or a democracy, then your life can rightfully be taken by nothing more than a majority vote. If your property is granted by a vanguard, or a group of elite individuals in charge of the state, then it can be taken at any point by the same people. If a king grants you your right to raise a family and grow a garden, he can legitimately take your wife, sell your kids as slaves, and pillage your garden any time he sees fit.

Our constitution was not written to grant rights–it was written to secure rights that have always existed regardless of any government. This basic knowledge, however, has largely been lost as evidenced by an overblown federal government, egregious taxation, wealth redistribution programs, eminent domain, an other tyrannical policies.

Question: Which philosophy do Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Ron Paul adhere to respectively?