Natural Rights

My thoughts

What caught my attention in MacDonald’s essay was the part where she talks about natural law and the law of gravity in page 25. She quotes, “natural law applies impartially to all men in all circumstances, as the law of gravitation applies to all bodies.” Which to me, this means that the idea that law of gravity applies to all of us implies that since a law of nature applies to us all, then by nature, we have natural laws that creates natural rights for all human beings. These natural rights are positives rights that gives us the idea and right to have a life, liberty, freedom, and pursuit of happiness or so I believe.

Another interesting quote that MacDonald points out in her essay is:

The nature of man determines his ‘natural’ rights. And since, though not accidental, it also seemed to be a matter of fact that men exist and are rational, rights claimed on account of this fact seemed also to be natural and to follow from the essence of man, even though they might be denied. (27)

This quote made me start thinking about how we, as human beings, always creating meaning to signs and symbols. It is a fact that we do exist, this may be a simple way of putting this; we natural create meaning and create our own rights. Since we exist, we might as well create a meaning to live and to our actions, regardless if it is being denied by others.