What Rights Mean for You

Your view on rights as civil or natural can shape how you vote, what policies you advocate for, and whether you see legal changes as fulfillments or betrayals of objective moral principles (because, remember, you can believe in morality without believing in rights).

If you believe rights are natural and God-given, you probably think the government ought to reflect these core truths. Any law that infringed on a natural right, even for the greater good of society, would be immoral and unsuitable for a just government.

If you believe all rights are civil, and given by the government rather than God, policies on these rights can adapt based on societal evolution. You would approve of adjusting rights as the world changed because those rights always existed within a legal framework and purely for the benefit of a government’s citizens.

Let’s pretend that there was strong evidence that the death penalty deterred violent crimes and ultimately led to less murders and saved lives. It doesn’t. But let’s pretend. The natural-rights-oriented person might still oppose the death penalty regardless of any societal benefits---it violates our right to live based on human dignity and thus has no place in the government. A civil-rights-oriented person might support capital punishment because the goal of the government establishing the right to life in the first place was to guarantee the safety of its citizens. If occasionally foregoing that right works towards the original goal, then it makes sense to keep it around.

A similar application of these distinct ways of thinking can affect thoughts on expanding rights. If rights are natural, “new” rights, such as a right to healthcare, could seem foolish. Either something is a right from the beginning, or it is and never was one. If rights are civil, they can evolve with shifting societies, and maybe a right to healthcare is a natural response to circumstances much different than when our government was founded.

Hope you have learned something from our discussion of rights. I encourage you to think about where you land on natural vs. civil rights after reading. It’s an important thing to contemplate, because, as we just learned, it can affect a lot of how you vote and view the government. See you next week!