The term inalienable rights (or unalienable rights) refers to a set of human rights that are in some sense fundamental, are not awarded by human power, and cannot be surrendered. Inalienable rights may be defined as natural rights or human rights, but natural rights are not required by definition to be inalienable. A right is the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. ... A civet, or sea fox, photographed in the Zigong Peoples Zoo, Sichuan, 2001. ... Manifestations Slavery · Racial profiling · Lynching Hate speech · Hate crime · Hate groups Genocide · Holocaust · Pogrom Ethnocide · Ethnic cleansing · Race war Religious persecution · Gay bashing Movements Discriminatory Aryanism · Neo-Nazism · Supremacism Fundamentalism · Kahanism Anti-discriminatory Abolitionism · Civil rights · Gay rights Womens/Universal suffrage · Mens rights Childrens rights · Youth rights... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... The term collective rights refers to the rights of peoples to be protected from attacks on their group identity and group interests. ... Group rights are rights that all members of a group have by virtue of being in that group. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... In modern English and European systems of jurisprudence and law, a right is the legal or moral entitlement to do or refrain from doing something or to obtain or refrain from obtaining an action, thing or recognition in civil society. ... Mens rights is a stream in the mens movement. ... Natural rights is a philosophical hition of universal rights that are seen as inherent in the nature of people and not contingent on human actions or beliefs. ... Within the philosophy of human rights, some philosophers and political scientists see a distinction between positive and negative rights. ... Social rights refer to what are usually positive rights, which ensure to all people a fair standard of treatment. ... The division of human rights into three generations was initially proposed in 1979 by the Czech jurist Karel Vasak at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg. ... The term women’s rights typically refers to freedoms inherently possessed by women and girls of all ages, which may be institutionalized or ignored and/or illegitimately suppressed by law or custom in a particular society. ... Labor rights or workers rights are a group of legal rights and claimed human rights having to do with labor relations between workers and their employers, usually obtained under labor and employment law. ... Manifestations Slavery · Racial profiling · Lynching Hate speech · Hate crime · Hate groups Genocide · Holocaust · Pogrom Ethnocide · Ethnic cleansing · Race war Religious persecution · Gay bashing Pedophobia · Ephebiphobia Movements Discriminatory Aryanism · Neo-Nazism · Supremacism Kahanism Anti-discriminatory Abolitionism · Civil rights · Gay rights Womens/Universal suffrage · Mens rights Childrens rights · Youth... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... Natural rights is a philosophical hition of universal rights that are seen as inherent in the nature of people and not contingent on human actions or beliefs. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ...

Origins

"Inalienable" (or "unalienable") is a term borrowed from English common law. Some property rights were alienable (they could be sold or granted) and some were inalienable (they could only be inherited according to fixed rule). In discussions of social contract theory, "inalienable rights" were said to be those rights that could not be surrendered by citizens to the sovereign. Such rights were thought to be natural rights, independent of positive law. Natural rights date back at least to the Roman Empire, and were recognized during medieval times, but in this context are an element of the classical liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries. Classical Liberal thinkers reasoned that each man is endowed with rights, of which the rights to life, liberty and property were thought to be fundamental. However, they reasoned that in the natural state only the strongest could benefit from their rights. Each individual forms an implicit social contract, ceding his or her rights to the authority to protect his or her right from being abused. For this reason, almost all classical liberal thinkers, for example, accepted the death penalty and incarceration as necessary elements of government. In England and America the 17th-century philosopher John Locke discussed natural rights in his work, and identified them as being "life, liberty, and estate (or property)", and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. These ideas were claimed as justification for the rebellion of the American colonies. As George Mason stated in his draft for the Virginia Declaration of Rights, "all men are born equally free," and hold "certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity."^[1] In the The 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson famously condensed this to: Alienation, in property law, is the capacity for a piece of property or a property right to be sold or otherwise transferred from one party to another. ... The term social contract describes a broad class of philosophical theories whose subject is the implied agreements by which people form nations and maintain social order. ... Natural rights is a philosophical hition of universal rights that are seen as inherent in the nature of people and not contingent on human actions or beliefs. ... State of nature is a term in political philosophy used in social contract theories to describe the hypothetical condition of humanity before the states foundation and its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. ... The term social contract describes a broad class of philosophical theories whose subject is the implied agreements by which people form nations and maintain social order. ... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... This article is about John Locke, the English philosopher. ... Year 1776 (MDCCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar). ... A copy of the 1823 William J. Stone reproduction of the Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence was an act of the Second Continental Congress, adopted on July 4, 1776, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies were independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain. ... This article is becoming very long. ...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. . ." In the nineteenth century, the movement to abolish slavery seized this passage as a statement of constitutional principal, although the U.S. constitution recognized and protected slavery. As a lawyer, future Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase argued before the Supreme Court in the case of John Van Zandt, who had been charged with violating the Fugitive Slave Act, that:

"The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property." Many scholars now argue that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, wrote the principles of equality and natural rights into the Constitution for the first time.

A common dictionary definition of truth is agreement with fact or reality.[1] There is no single definition of truth about which the majority of philosophers agree. ... In epistemology, a self-evident proposition is one that can be understood only by one who knows that it is true. ... The quotation All men are created equal (sometimes modified to All people are created equal) is arguably the best-known phrase in any of Americas political documents, as the idea it expresses is generally considered the foundation of American democracy. ... God is the divine being that created the omniverse. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Chief Justice Associate Justices Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Counties, Cities, and Towns Other countries Politics Portal      The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the judicial branch of... Salmon Portland Chase (January 13, 1808 – May 7, 1873) was an American politician and jurist in the Civil War era who served as Senator from Ohio, Governor of Ohio, as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln, and Chief Justice of the United States. ... The only known possible image of John Van Zandt is a drawing of John Van Trompe from Uncle Toms Cabin, whose basis is believed to be Van Zandt. ... It has been suggested that Fugitive slave laws be merged into this article or section. ...

Freeborn rights

An alternative argument claims that the idea of inalienable rights is derived from the freeborn rights claimed by the Englishman John Lilburne in his conflict with both the monarchy of King Charles I and the military dictatorship of the republic governed by Oliver Cromwell. Lilburne (known as Freeborn John) defined freeborn rights as being rights that every human being is born with, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or by human law. A right is the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. ... Oliver Cromwell (April 25, 1599–September 3, 1658) was an English military and political leader best known for making England a republic and leading the Commonwealth of England. ...

Applications in international law

Many documents now echo the phrase used in the United States Declaration of Independence. The preamble to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that rights are inalienable: "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." However, of course, there is dispute which "rights" are truly natural rights and which are not. A copy of the 1823 William J. Stone reproduction of the Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence was an act of the Second Continental Congress, adopted on July 4, 1776, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies were independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain. ...

Criticism

The concept of inalienable rights was criticized by Jeremy Bentham and Edmund Burke as groundless. Bentham and Burke, writing in the eighteenth century, claimed that rights arise from the actions of government, or evolve from tradition, and that neither of these can provide anything inalienable. (See Bentham's "Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights", and Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"). Keeping with shift in thinking in the 19th century, Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". Jeremy Bentham (IPA: or ) (February 15, 1748 O.S. (February 26, 1749 N.S.) – June 6, 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. ... Edmund Burke (12 January 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. ... Reflections on the Revolution in France is a work of political commentary written by Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, first published on 1 November 1790. ...

The signers of the Declaration of Independence deemed it a "self evident truth" that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". Critics, however, argue^{[citation needed]} that use of the word "Creator" signifies that these rights are based on theological principles, and ask which theological principles those are (since none of the major religions of the world assert the existence of inalienable rights^{[citation needed]}), or why those theological principles should be accepted by people who do not adhere to the religion from which they are derived.It also refers to the decloration or independence. Theology (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογια, logia, words, sayings, or discourse) is reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ...

Derivation of inalienable rights from Natural Law can also be criticized on solely philosophical grounds. The naturalistic fallacy of David Hume, which is discussed at length in G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica, is the derivation of an "ought" statement from "is" statements with no "ought" premise. Jonathan Wallace claims in his paper "Natural Rights Don't Exist,"[1] that the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident" is simply a "more elegant version of 'Because we said so.'" Natural law or the law of nature (Latin lex naturalis) is a law whose content is set by nature, and that therefore has validity everywhere. ... George Edward Moore The naturalistic fallacy is an alleged logical fallacy, delineated by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his seminal Principia Ethica (1903). ... David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776)[1] was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. ... George Edward Moore George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 - October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. ... principia ethica ...

In "The Social Contract," Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that the existence of inalienable rights is unnecessary for the existence of a constitution or a set of laws and rights. This idea of a social contract – that rights and responsibilities are derived from a consensual contract between the government and the people – is the most widely recognized alternative. Social contract is a phrase used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote a real or hypothetical agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members. ... Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a Genevan philosopher of the Enlightenment whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. ... The term social contract describes a broad class of philosophical theories whose subject is the implied agreements by which people form nations and maintain social order. ...

Samuel P. Huntington, an American political scientist, wrote that the "inalienable rights" argument from the Declaration of Independence was necessary because "The British were white, English, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence". This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... See also: Political Science Notable political scientists Kenneth Arrow - Nobel Memorial Prize winning economist who published influential paper on his widely cited Arrows Impossibility Theorem Robert Axelrod Duncan Black - Responsible for unearthing the work of many early political scientists, including Charles Dodgson Jean-Charles de Borda - 18th century mathematician...

See also

• Freeborn

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References

• Locke, John. Two Treatises on Government. 1690 (primarily the second treatise)
• Lloyd Thomas, D.A. Locke on Government. 1995, Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09533-6
• Waldron, Jeremy [ed.] Theories of Rights 1984, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-875063-3

1. ^ Pauline Maier,' 'American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.' ' New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, p. 134.

External links

• “Natural and Inalienable Right to Freedom” Slaves Petition for Freedom to the Massachusetts Legislature, 1777.