Inalienable rights
In morality, the term inalienable rights refers to the concept of rights that are completely inseparable from those to whom they belong.
According to proponents of the concept, these are rights which need not granted by any human authority to exist, but instead are present in human beings regardless of if they are explicitly recognized and declared or not. According to some philosophers, anyone who acts to deny an inalienable right is doing a wrong.
The concept was central to classical liberalism, which argued that natural law guaranteed certain rights to all. Inalienable rights played important roles in the justifications for the French and American Revolutions.
One of the most well known references to inalienable rights is the United States Declaration of Independence, which in it's second sentence states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Thomas Jefferson borrowed this list of inalienable rights from John Locke, who wrote about the rights of "life, liberty, and estate".
Many secular humanists today embrace the concept of inalienable rights, but reject Jefferson's implication that such rights must be "endowed by" a creator god.
Quotes
- "A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson
See also
