The Origin and Nature of Rights
Random House Webster’s American Dictionary defines a right as, “something to which a person is entitled”. For the purpose of this discussion the word right will be used in its plural because man, (man as used here for purpose of this discussion means humankind, both men and women) possesses a multitude of rights. The primary among them is the right to ones life, the right to one’s liberty, and the right to one’s pursuit of happiness as enunciated in out Declaration of Independence . Most believe for an individual to have rights they must by some definition be bestowed upon them or ascribed to them by some higher authority. Even the founding fathers, the intellectual giants they were, believed that man had “unalienable rights” bestowed upon them by their creator, in other words by an unseen and unknowable God. This suggests that rights, in and of themselves do not exist. Another body of thought holds that rights are ascribed to man by virtue of the state. Here again rights do not exis...