NATURAL RIGHTS/LIBERTARIANISM

I	The idea of natural rights

A. What is a right?
1. Restrictions on what others may do,
2. creating obligations to observe them, 
3. which are enforceable (i.e., by justified coercion—resistance, 
compensation, punishment);
B.  What is a natural right?
1. A right (and obligation) that is universal;
2. held by all persons;
3. Grounded in the nature of persons.

II	Rights, Dignity, and Respect

A. Universal human rights and the idea of human dignity
B. Dignity as the object of respect:  all human beings are entitled to respect of 
their human rights.

III. John Locke and natural rights

A. Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1690) and the critique of the Divine 
Right of Kings
B. Locke:  “Men being, . . ., by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one 
can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another 
without his own consent.” (B, 531)  Social contract theory:  the authority of 
political society depends upon mutual consent.
C. Each person has “by nature” an equal right to life, liberty, and property. (B, 
534)
D. Property rights in things derive from a fundamental natural right each has “of 
property in his own person.” (B, 527)
1. Start with the premise that each person owns him or herself.
2. Now consider things in the “state of nature” (i.e., to which no one has 
a prior right)—call these “natural things”
3. Suppose a person “removes [something] out of the state that nature has 
provided, and left it in,” and “mixe[s] his labour” with it. (B, 527)
4. Suppose also that someone else could then make use of this thing (or 
whatever was produced by it) without the first person’s consent.
5. Then, in effect, the second would be able to make use of the labor and 
person of the first without his consent.
6. But that contradicts the premise that each person owns him or herself.
7. Therefore, no person may make use of the “appropriated” thing 
without the (first) person’s consent
8. Therefore, that person has a property right to that thing.
9. Note, however, Locke’s qualification: property can be acquired by 
labor on previously unowned parts of nature so long as “there is 
enough, and as good, left in common, for others.” (B, 527)  

III. Therefore, according to Locke’s theory of natural rights, any human being has an 
equal natural right to life, health, liberty, and to acquire property.

IV. Contemporary libertarianism

A. Starts with a roughly Lockean view about natural human rights.
B. Distinguishes negative rights vs. positive rights.
1. A negative right is a right to other people forbearing from interference 
in other’s lives: e.g., by violence, theft, fraud, etc.
2. A positive right is a right to other people acting in certain “positive” 
ways for the person.  E.g., a right to to education would be a positive 
right; it would be violated unless education were provided.
3. A test:  a right claim concerns a negative right if it can be respected by 
doing nothing at all.  Otherwise, it is a positive right.
C. Libertarians claim that only negative rights exist: There are no positive rights.  
D. This is equivalent to holding that while people may be coerced not to interfere 
with others (i.e., not to violate their negative rights), no one may be coerced to 
provide positive benefits.
E. Consequently, libertarians argue, to force anyone to do so is to violate their 
negative rights.

V. Hospers’ formulation.

A. Underlying Principles
1. Everyone his/her own master.
2. Others’ lives are not yours.
3. No one should be a “nonvoluntary mortgage” on the life of another.
B. Natural Rights
1. Life
2. Liberty
3. Property
C. Laws
1. No laws protecting individuals against themselves.
2. Laws against aggression.
3. No laws requiring people to benefit or help others in need.