Natural Rights

Do we have natural rights? If so how did we get them? Were people put on this Earth with a sense of natural rights that were given to us by being human? If natural rights exist, where do they come from? These are a few questions I had while reading MacDonald's essay on natural rights.

In the beginning of the article, some philosophers argue that it was directly connected to the American and French Revolution that we have natural rights. The outcome of those two revolutions created much thought and from that came many rights of man. From this came that no man should ever be held in slavery because that infringes on his 'natural right' to be free. Where did this come from? Why does every man have a 'natural right' to be free? "This, however, is a natural status as opposed to one determined by social convention. Every man is human 'by nature'; no human being is 'by nature' a slave of another human being." as stated on page 23. This says that since nature created us and not man that no man can be a slave to another. Since man didn't create the world or everything in it, there is no reason for man to think that he has rights over another human being.

Rousseau, on page 25, talks about how every man is free and yet he is always in chains. Why is this? To my knowledge, I think that every man is free but he is bound by the laws that are greater than he. Rousseau is saying, I think, that every man is born free and he has that right to be free but he is limited because of the Constitution and because of the laws put in place. Even though every man is free they are not entirely free.