Natural Rights

Natural rights theory — the idea that human beings possess inherent, inalienable rights simply by virtue of being human — is one of the most influential political concepts in modern history. Developed primarily by English philosopher John Locke in the late 17th century, the theory provided the intellectual foundation for the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions and remains the basis of modern human rights discourse.

Locke argued in his Two Treatises of Government (1689) that individuals in a 'state of nature' possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Government, he contended, exists to protect these rights through a social contract — an agreement between the governed and their rulers. If a government violates natural rights, the people have a right to revolution. This was a radical departure from the dominant theory of divine right, which held that monarchs derived their authority directly from God.

The influence of natural rights theory on revolutionary movements was direct and profound. The American Declaration of Independence (1776) declared that 'all men are created equal' with 'unalienable Rights.' The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) proclaimed natural, imprescriptible rights to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. The theory's limitations — the exclusion of women, enslaved people, and non-Europeans from the category of rights-bearing individuals — would be challenged and gradually expanded over the following centuries.