Great IdeasLiving together
Rights and consent
The idea that people have rights and that government rests on their consent.
The question
Do people have rights just by being human? Where do rights come from, and what does government owe them?
How the books answer
Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.
1265–1274
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part
Aquinas does not use the modern language of rights, but he teaches that a natural law, known by reason, binds rulers as well as subjects. Human laws that break it lose their force. Later writers built on this idea of a law above rulers when they spoke of natural rights.
1651
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Hobbes says each person has by nature a right to preserve their own life, by any means. That right can't be fully given away. To get peace, people give up their right to all things and accept a sovereign, keeping only the right to defend their own lives.
1689
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration and the Second Treatise of Civil Government
Locke argues that people have natural rights to life, liberty and property before any government exists. Property begins when a person mixes their labor with something from nature. Government is formed by consent to protect these rights and loses its claim when it attacks them.
“Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men, yet every man has a "property" in his own "person." This nobody has any right to but himself.”
1762
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
Rousseau argues that force can never make a right: to give in to force is a necessity, not a duty. Real rights come from the social contract, in which each person joins with all and gains the rights of a citizen. Freedom, he says, can't be given away.
the Declaration, 1776; the Bill of Rights, 1791
The American founders, The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States
The Declaration of Independence names rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and says governments exist to secure them by the consent of the governed. Fifteen years later the Bill of Rights listed freedoms the new government could not take away, such as speech, religion and a fair trial.
1820
G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right
Hegel agrees that persons have rights, starting with property, but he thinks rights only become real inside a family, a society and a state with laws. Rights are not just shields against others; they are part of living freely together.
1859
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Mill defends freedom of thought, speech and choice of how to live. Interestingly, he does not rest his case on natural rights. He argues instead that these freedoms make a society happier and wiser over time.
“His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”
For young readers
A right is something every person should be allowed to have or do, like being safe, speaking your mind or practicing your religion. In the United States, the Bill of Rights lists many of them.
Rights come with responsibilities. You have a right to speak, and others do too, so you take turns and listen. Your right to play ends where it would hurt someone else.
Talk about it
- What rights do you think every child should have?
- Locke says you own your own work. If you build a sandcastle, is it yours?
- Where do rights come from: from nature, from God, from the government or from agreement? What do the writers say?
- What responsibilities go with the right to speak freely?
Where else on the site
- Natural Rights and the Social Contract
- The Ideas of the Declaration
- The Bill of Rights, One by One
- Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens
- Ratification and the Bill of Rights
- Freedom of Speech
Every rung tagged with this idea:
These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.