What Are Natural Rights? - John Locke

What are Natural Rights? A Natural Right is a universal right that everyone has all around the world. In particular, Natural Rights is a political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. Us as humans were born with these natural rights. Natural rights grew out of the ancient and medieval doctrines of natural law, which is the belief that people, as creatures of nature and God, should live their lives and organize their society on the basis of rules and precepts laid down by nature or God. The concept of a natural right can be contrasted with the concept of a legal right. A legal right is specifically created by the government, while a natural right is claimed even when it is not enforced by the government.

Is Private Property a Natural Right? Yes! I consider Private Property a Natural Right. Private Property plays a big role within Natural Rights. Many philosophers including Locke, Marx, and Rawls each had their position on private property. This leads to the question: What is Private Property? You can’t just give one definition because as I said before, many philosophers had different positions about private property on natural rights. If I had to define Private Property, I would say it is any property that is not public property, and may be under the control of a group or a single individual. It is like a claim to something that excludes others from having that same privilege. The one philosopher that I will talk about is John Locke. John Locke’s position on private property being a natural right is really different from that of other philosophers.

John Locke was a prominent western philosopher born in 1632. Locke was a major social contract thinker who argued that all people know what to do and why they do it therefore making sense. He said that man's natural rights are life, liberty, and property. He also says that the right to property is in fact a natural right. He believes this because outside to any government or society, you have the right to property. I agree with Locke here because you are entitled to your right of property outside of any government and society in which they have no say. Locke had a broad sense and a narrow sense of the way we use property. The broad sense is that it covers a wide range of human interest and aspirations. The narrow sense is material goods. Locke believes that property is created by the application of labor and that property

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