Do Human Rights Derive From Natural Rights? The State of Nature, Political Authority and the Natural Right to Independence

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169
Author(s):  
Julio Montero
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
State Of Nature

Recognizing Rights: Hobbes on the Authority of Mothers and Conquerors

2003 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-60
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Maternal Authority ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If

This article follows Hobbes's distinction between man as the artificer of a commonwealth and man as the material of the commonwealth, by exploring the meaning of natural right and consent from the perspective of an artificer or potential sovereign. From this perspective, natural rights are transformed from alleged attributes of humans into decisions by a victor in war to treat the defeated as if they had natural rights. Similarly, consent is transformed from actions of subjects or citizens into a decision by a victor to recognize the defeated as if they had a right to consent and to treat them as if they had consented. Moreover, Hobbes's concept of a commonwealth by institution is understood as a definitional standard for the creation of commonwealths by force or acquisition, rather than as a possible historical event. Hobbes sought to explain and substantiate this view of natural right and consent by comparing the emergence of political authority from victory in war to the emergence of authority of a mother over her infant in a state of nature. According to Hobbes, just as maternal authority rests on a mother's recognition of the right of her infant to consent, political authority rests on the victor's recognition of the right of the defeated to consent. The practical policy thrust of Hobbes's thought emerges from his comparison of the authority of mothers and conquerors.

The Power of Public Positions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Sufficient Condition ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient Condition ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

The Kantian account of political authority holds that the state is a necessary and sufficient condition of our freedom. We cannot be free outside the state, Kantians argue, because any attempt to have the “acquired rights” necessary for our freedom implicates us in objectionable relations of dependence on private judgment. Only in the state can this problem be overcome. But it is not clear how mere institutions could make the necessary difference, and contemporary Kantians have not offered compelling explanations. A detailed analysis is presented of the problems Kantians identify with the state of nature and the objections they face in claiming that the state overcomes them. A response is sketched on behalf of Kantians. The key idea is that under state institutions, a person can make claims of acquired right without presupposing that she is by nature exceptional in her capacity to bind others.

scholarly journals Disparity in Human Rights Violations: A Political and International Law Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 349
Author(s):  
Aidir Amin Daud
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rational Solution ◽  
Double Series ◽  
Mass Murder ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
International Court ◽  
Political Interests

Right to life is non-derogable rights. A natural right that should not be revoked arbitrarily by anyone, including the state. A mass murder in events 1 October 1965 and Timor-Timor is a double series of states’ failure in protecting the rights of Indonesian peoples. Moreover, these two events get different treatment in its handling. The disparity in treatment between two cases is a big question related to the consistency of human rights enforcement in Indonesia. This study is a descriptive-qualitative research. While, to prove the truth, this study will use a comparative study. The findings show that the attitude of the United Nations that treat serious human rights violations in Timor-Timor and the events of 1965 in Indonesia, cannot be answered differently in the perspective of international law. Since it has a weakness where the political interests of ruling is very strong in influencing the decisions of the UN. The disparity in law enforcement in the event of serious human rights violations in 1965 and Timor-Timor due to the dynamics of international politics when it does not allow for the demands of human rights violations to the UNs’ International Court due to advantage for a certain state after the event. In order to reduce disparities in human rights violations, reconciliation is the most rational solution at this time compared remains demand the state for the violations. Besides, many human rights violations in certain countries that have successfully resolved through reconciliation approach.

Authorizing Judgment

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas John Casson
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Abstract Theory ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Tangible Support ◽  
Heuristic Device ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

This chapter illustrates how Locke's Second Treatise can be read as a revolutionary call for subjects to employ this new notion of probable judgment. In order to teach his readers to be active, critical, and even revolutionary members of the polity, Locke sets out to convince them not only that they are capable of making crucial determinations concerning the limits of political power, but also that they are obligated to do so. His account of the state of nature is not simply a heuristic device illustrating an abstract theory of government, but an attempt to provide tangible support to his contention that individuals have a natural right of judgment. Along the way he seeks to guide his readers in the proper exercise of this capacity by showing them the reasonableness of limiting their judgment to the concrete, visceral experiences of neediness and injury.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Rowan Cruft
Keyword(s):  
Natural Rights ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Right

The aim of the book—to offer a philosophical assessment of the concept of a right—is introduced, along with terminological distinctions. Chapter 1 defends the author’s Hohfeldian assumption that all claim-rights entail correlative duties owed to the right-holder. The chapter ends by clarifying the idea of a ‘natural’ right as simply a right that exists independently of anyone recognizing that it exists. So conceived, natural rights need imply neither a theistic nor a ‘state of nature’ grounding, and can include many rights protecting our sociality.

scholarly journals HOBBES AS A SOCIOBIOLOGIST. RETHINKING THE STATE OF (HUMAN) NATURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (136) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Darat G Nicole
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACT In the following text we aim to present a proposal of interpretation of Hobbes's work from sociobiology viewpoint. Despite the fact it may strike some at first as an anachronism or straightforward wrong, reading the philosopher of Mamelsbury from a sociobiological perspective, can shed light on some particular aspects of his argument, particularly those referring to the construction of human nature and its influence on the modulation of the state of nature and on the justification of authority and political obligation. So, Hobbes proceeds as a sociobiologist since he offers us a tale about the emergence of morality from where it didn't exist before and moves from there to a specific understanding of political authority.

TOWARD A THEORY OF EMPIRICAL NATURAL RIGHTS

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hasnas
Keyword(s):  
John Locke ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Close Approximation ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Traditional Natural

Natural rights theorists such as John Locke and Robert Nozick provide arguments for limited government that are grounded on the individual's possession of natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Resting on natural rights, such arguments can be no more persuasive than the underlying arguments for the existence of such rights, which are notoriously weak. In this article, John Hasnas offers an alternative conception of natural rights, “empirical natural rights,” that are not beset by the objections typically raised against traditional natural rights. Empirical natural rights are rights that evolve in the state of nature rather than those that individuals are antecedently endowed with in that state. Professor Hasnas argues that empirical natural rights are true natural rights, that is, pre-political rights with natural grounds that can be possessed in the state of nature, and that, when taken together, they form a close approximation of the Lockean rights to life, liberty, and property. He furthers argues that empirical natural rights are normatively well-grounded because respecting them is productive of social peace, which possesses instrumental moral value regardless of one's conception inherent value. Professor Hasnas thus offers his conception of rights as solved problems as an alternative and potentially more secure footing for the traditional natural rights arguments for limited government associated with Locke and Nozick.

Leviathan No More: The Right of Nature and the Limits of Sovereignty in Hobbes

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Hallenbrook
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Political Work ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis article challenges the prevailing interpretations of Hobbes's thought as providing only minimal protection for the natural right of individuals in political society. Natural right requires the protection of not just the subjects' lives, but their ability to live commodiously, and as a result the protection that natural right receives in political society places substantive constraints on the actions of the sovereign. When those entrusted with sovereign power overstep this constraint, they cease to be sovereign and the former subjects are returned to the state of nature to seek protection as each judges fit. I develop the substance of commodious living more thoroughly than similar analyses and demonstrate that this understanding is not limited to Leviathan but can be found in Hobbes's earlier political work as well.

Human Rights, the State, and Recognition

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-650
Author(s):  
Matt Hann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
The Holocaust

In three recent books, Andrew Vincent, Kelly Staples, and Jeremy Waldron offer much to enrich our understanding of the interface between human rights, the state, and recognition. Andrew Vincent offers an overview of the development of human rights from nineteenth century decline to twentieth century renaissance. He links the decline of natural rights to nationalism and evolution, and attributes the rebirth of rights to the horrors of the Holocaust. He claims human rights are qualitatively different to natural rights – though I argue this is not completely clear. Vincent argues that human rights require states, but that human rights are also protection against states. Kelly Staples uses two case studies to examine the effects of statelessness on human rights. She argues that statelessness, contra Arendt, need not mean deprivation of all rights. Her case studies are persuasive, though she may be reading Arendt on statelessness too strictly, and a more systematic setting out of Staples’ re-theorisation of statelessness would be desirable. Jeremy Waldron argues that ‘dignity’ should mean a set of rights, rather than being a reason to be held to have rights or something rights ought to protect. In making this argument, Waldron argues against Kantian and Roman Catholic conceptions of dignity. A potential drawback to Waldron’s theory is that it is silent on those outside the ‘dignitarian society.’ The three books together seem to represent a welcome shift towards thinking about human rights in terms of recognition.

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