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Philippines
we are a group of learning enthusiast who wish to share ideas on ethics as applied in our major field --education

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Human Rights and Natural Law

Human Rights and Natural Law
Natural law always recognizes rights which implies the law of justice, wherein it is our duty to respect the rights of others while others must respect our rights. We have rights that others are bound to recognize and respect.

Rights and Human Person
Person posses worth and dignity that’s why right is due to him. Persons are capable to think, judge and reason; he has a supreme purpose to his being and he has the right to live and work out his destiny; he was also endowed with an immortal soul and he has the right to worship his Creator.

Importance of the Doctrine of Human Rights
The doctrine of human rights is very important to social order because it determines the necessary relationship with others such as relation between employer and employee, landlord and tenants, parents and children in a family. We know that man have rights but rights always involves duty. If a person have the right to live, he have duties which bound to look for the means to sustain that life.

Definition of Rights
• Anything due to a person.
• Moral power residing in a person, in virtue whereof he refers to himself as well as his own actions as other things which is referred to him in preference to other person.
• Moral power to do, hold, enjoy those things appropriate to one’s state in life.
• Right is indeed a power, but it is only moral meaning; one can not use physical force to enjoy a right.

Kinds of Rights
1. Natural Rights – based on the natural law that is on human nature.
2. Human Rights – based on human positive laws, either those enacted by the State or a religious sect.
3. Alienable and Inalienable Rights
• Alienable Rights – are those rights which can be surrendered or removed.
• Inalienable Rights – those which can not be surrendered or remove.
4. Right of Jurisdiction – is the power of lawful authority to govern his subjects and to make laws for them.
5. Right of Property – power to own, to sell or to give away one’s personal possession.
6. Juridical Rights and Non-Juridical Rights
• Juridical Rights – those rights must be respected, allowed, fulfilled as a matter of strict.
• Non-Juridical Rights – rights which are not founded on laws either natural of human but on virtue.
- also called as moral rights.

Misconception of Individual Rights
Two Erroneous Doctrines of Human Rights
1. One theory holds that individual is supreme and entirely free and absolutely independent from all interference or control on the part of the state.
2. The other extreme theory maintains that the state has complete sovereignty of the individual, that man has no reality or existence apart from the state is the source of all rights.

The true concept of right, we believe, is found midway between these two extremes. Man has rights anterior and superior to the state, but these rights are limited by common good.

Limitations of Rights
1. Rights are defined by natural law and, therefore, rights are limited by what the natural law prescribes or allows. There is never right, for instance to do evil.
2. Rights have necessarily the correlative of duties; to every right there exists a corresponding duty. This all follows from the principle of justice: we must give each one his due.
3. Rights must be limited for the preservation of the social order; unlimited rights necessarily means conflict of rights and eventually leads to the very dissolution of all rights.
4. Like every thing human rights are limited because of the very limitation of man’s nature. Man is always a mixture and never a pure being or pure act. Man is physically free yet morally bound. Man is a spirit yet bound to matter, etc., etc.

As Randal says in Preface to Philosophy ( why individual rights cannot be unlimited in society) : “ Unlimited individual rights make all good government impossible and often lead in the end to the ascendancy of one man or a party who exercises the authority of the government and takes all rights away, as in dictatorship.”

The Full Gamut of Human Rights
One limiting his attention to the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights gets the impression that human rights get limited in number. It should therefore be noted in this connection that each right appearing in the list is not a single one but a constellation of cognate rights,
According to the Corona Theory of Rights, a primordial right is viewed as a sun with sub rights emanating from it, as radiations seen like a solar corona during total eclipse.
Furthermore, no listing of rights can be complete for the simple reason that such list would include all possible type of rights, which is potentially indefinite. Even without invoking the world famous theory of Gödel that no system of thought can be complete and closed, we know that such a complete list of rights cannot be finalized because of the indeterminacy and unpredictability of the position and final state of society in final evolution.

Beyond Declaration – Implementation Realization
Every bill of rights is all very fine and ideal in paper. However, the same means little or nothing if not implemented and translated into reality of action and execution; for then the very purpose, which is the enjoyment of these rights by the citizens, is thereby frustrated or hindered.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man have rights starting from the day he was conceived. And man has the same rights just like the other individual.

If man has rights then in every right there are duties to be done and it also follows responsibilities. For every right there is limitations because without limitations man can abuse his rights.

Sometimes because of selfishness man can forget the rights of others because he only thinks of himself. He can't even realized that his fellow being is like him, a human being who has rights and feeling too.

Anonymous said...

the moment we conceive in the womb of our mother we have already rights. All of us has equal rights and every rights there is a corresponding responsibility. Though we have rights we cannot do what we pleases because as we all know there is always an exemption to the rule. No man has a right to do what he pleases to do right. No one was ever endowed with rights without being at the same time with corresponding responsibilities. In doing our responsibilities we must always act in the right way. In everything we do, we must do it right and we are not sure in what we are doing stop for a while and think ten times.

Anonymous said...

Everyone has it's own natural law therefor everyone has their own rights and these rights must be respected by others. But if you want to respect your rights, you should respect the rights of others.

This happens because many people become greedy and think that they have the power to hold the rights of others. We should know the rights of others and our limitations so that we cannot degrade other people. If that so, we will be happy and there is no guilt in oneself.

One of the rights of human is the right to live, that's why abortion is said to be immoral and if man does it, he will be punished by the law. No one can get the lives of other people because they are not the great Man who creates us. Only God has the power to do that and only God knows where and when will it happen. And we are thankful that there is a God who guides us and direct us in our proper way.

Anonymous said...

Everyone of us have rights but this rights must be used for common good. Let not just think our rights instead we have to consider and respect the other's rights. Our rights must be limited for the preservation of social order and chaos. Our right does not end up there, we must always consider our duties which implies justice meaning it is our duty to respect the rights of others. And as a person it is also our duty to work out this rights for instance we have the right to live and it is our duty to sustain our basic needs and to develop our capasities.

So we must always remember that we are man and we have given the rights and we must always consider our duties and responsibility behind this rights. We must not abuse our rights and forget our duties.

Anonymous said...

We have our rights because that is due to us. These rights should be used properly. It doesn't mean that you have your rights you can do whatever you want to do that would not be good to others. To depend ourself is our duty because we don't want others to harm us and if someone would try to hurt us we are fighting back because we have our rights not to step us by others.

There are two kinds of rights, alienable rights these are rights that which can be given up by the person like rights of religion, rights of property and inalienable rights this are rights which cannot be given up by the person like rights to do evil, it should be conceptualized properly because man is indeed good.

Anonymous said...

Human rights,these are teh rights of man to be able to attain peace and order in our society. Taken into consideration that these rights are abused because of the individualistic [erception of the people or what we call our selfish ways.
The right to live is an inalienable right of a person that couldn't be taken from him. in such way if our right is restraint we could never leave in this world.

Anonymous said...

When we mentin "right", what comes in our mind in the lightest sense is that it is our freedom to do anything we want. Right, actually, is anything due to a person and right has its twin- duty. It is not enough that we acquire what is due to us but doing our part and responsibility because we have that right.
I have had a clearer understanding regarding the issue of libel. The questions in my mind way back then is that-"Isn't is we ahve freedom o0f speech, how come there is such case us libel? where is our freedom of speech there? Haven't our freedom of speech being hindered with that law?
The reporter emphasized that rights have limitations. They are being limited by what natural law allows. There would be muddle and conflicts if our right is unlimited.We can do whatever we want to and we can say whatever we want to say if we know that there is no law that will punish us in doing the act. Imagine life with unlimited rights, isn't it like a mess?

Anonymous said...

The nature of man as a lover of dignity and reputation urges him to emerge as a radical element in the world. We coevolve and conform to preserve ourselves, that's why we run for what we think "life" for us. Life is a race, so we keep battling and fighting, we drag our oppressors and kick our conquerors for one simplest conquest counts on our being. By the indifferent abuse of our rights, we make our life miserable yet initially stable. We create a larger wound that in the end it will always be us who'll be wanting it to heal.

Errors in sketches could be erase swiftly but our mistakes in life, especially when we put smudge on someone's back are permanently etched as indelible scars that deteriorate a man. We can say that we have equal rights, but what is due to evrybody is not equal because employing equality doesn't always mean employing justice. Moreover, we have our mutual desires to be on top that's why we make a way of it until we commit apathetic acts yielding to regrettable consequences.

Finally, the bottomline here is that, having evrything is not enough, because we still have to know more about these.

Anonymous said...

We are blessed with a lot of rights.And the state could not easily take away these rights from us. These rights were provided for us to enjoy democracy and to enjoy life in general.
Every right we have has corresponding responsibilities. We, as citizen of this country we should not be only familiar with our rights but also to our responsibilities too. In enjoying these rights, we should also consider our limitations. It is part of our limitation to not to trespass or step in the rights of others. We have to respect their rights in order for our rights be respected too. Why our rights are limited? Because if all of us have unlimited rights, this would lead to the eradication/dissolution of our rights. We will experience chaos in the society. Once we have unlimited rights, what will happen then is that we can do anything we want. We could destroy other people and they could destroy us too. The tendency then, we won’t enjoy the real purpose of these rights. We won’t enjoy life anymore.

Once we deprive/ violate the rights of others we will be liable and accountable on those actions. It is provided in the law that we can be sued in that case.

To end this up, we should be responsible enough on every action we do. We should always remember that every right has corresponding responsibilities. And rights are limited and regulated for common good. Finally, we should consider this, other people have also rights same with us, so we should respect and consider the rights they have.

Anonymous said...

RIGHTS defined as the previlege given to someone for the benefit of the welfare..
all these human rights being enjoyed by many sometimes enevitably abused by some due to their own selfishness or self interest and tend to steps others..
I don't know what are the reasons behind these but in my personal point of view.. some may unconsciously forget and others ignored the rights of some..
thet don't know that all of us have these rights but being accompanied by responsibility..

Anonymous said...

Everyone of us has rights. From the day he was born up to his death. We should take consideration of these rights because they can serve the limitation from what are we doing especially from the people we cope with. We should not deprive other people cause all of us have feelings. We should know the rights of us and the rigths of others.

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