This leads to a moral law, or a natural law, which includes the duty to maintain the rights of others. According to Locke, we are moral people, so there is no “war against all”. In Locke’s eyes, we should uphold Lex Rex (the law is king). We need the law to uphold order and assure we keep our inalienable rights, and no one should be above said law, not even a king. He believes in the commonwealth, and the people have the obligation to seek it.
The government must perform three basic functions: the police, to protect individuals from domestic criminals; the military, to protect individuals from foreign threats; and a court system, to enable individuals to settle disputes without resorting to force. It also needs objective laws, these laws confine government to its one legitimate function: protecting individual rights. In a free society, there should be no discrimination between races cultures, religions, genders, or wealth. Discrimination is actions or policies based on prejudiced feelings and judgmental viewpoints of others. Individuals in a free society should live in a community together without the need for discrimination of personal differences.
Natural rights are universal in scope and binding on human behavior just like the physical laws of nature. The concept of natural right can be compared to that of legal right. A natural right is one that is deemed to exist even when it is not enforced by government or society, while a legal right is specifically enforced by government or society (Wikipedia, 2007). The question of which rights are natural and which rights are legal is important in philosophy and politics. Critics of natural rights argue that all human rights are legal rights and that natural rights do not exist, whereas the proponents of natural rights state that the founding documents like the American Declaration of Independence make natural rights valid by implication (Wikipeda, 2007).
1. The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Why is it important in a democracy for every individual to have equal protection under the law? What individuals and groups are covered? It is important in a democracy that every person have equal protection of the law because a democracy is composed by the citizens of that government, if not all people are included - regardless of age, race, sex, ethnicity, or nationality, then it is not a true democracy.
In another book, The Two Treatises of Government, John Locke explains his views of the social contract as well. Locke claimed that human beings in the state of nature are born with “perfect freedom to do as they wish and dispose of themselves and their possessions as they think fit, within the bounds of nature. [Humans] need not to ask permission or the consent of any other man.” Which is implied that he believed that every human being is free to do what they wish because
(Feser.592) Feser cites John Locke, the English philosopher, who believes didn’t view the franchise in that circumstance. Locke’s perception is that all human beings had certain rights by nature; life, liberty, and property. As long as it protects the basic rights of citizens and retain their loyalty, it remained legitimate, whether it allowed citizens to vote. (Feser.592) Felons should be restored the right to vote. Once a person has served the sentence for his or her crime they should be allowed to become productive members of society.
The highest moral right is liberty and from it any other goods will follow. These secondary rights could include freedom to get married, or be a musician, but these are to be pursued privately. Negative liberty is “freedom from”, only when an individual is free to make his own decisions and actions without coercion is a person truly free (Machan 5). This “freedom from” emphasizes right before good. According to Hospers The essential ingredient in all freedom from coercion by other is one’s basic and inalienable right; it is fundamental to human survival and the development of the self (Machan 8).
Locke's Treatises provides everyone with a right to defend their "life, health, liberty, or possessions". Even the first sentence of our Declaration establishes a Natural Law, a theory popularized by Locke with his State of Nature ideas. It was also in this first section of the Declaration that we establish if it becomes necessary for one government to be abolished and another created, this process is allowed under Natural Law; so Locke's theory is employed again as his ideas of a State of Nature are lent to our idea of Natural Law. The second part of the Declaration, were we list our grievances towards King George, and establish that because of these wrongs he is no longer fit to rule us as a colony. The final part of the Declaration in which we
Everyone starts out with a moral compass. Other than of course sociopaths, but those are outliers so I’m not including them in my topic. We are all born with an idea of what’s right from wrong. It’s most often referred to as natural law, or as I like to call it, “the universal law of man”. Without getting too into it, It basically says that we all have a basic idea of how we want to be treated and how we should treat others.
These aren’t named and so have to be decided upon the individual but they must follow the primary precepts. For example, when the primary precept is reproduction, the secondary precept may be that the use of contraception is banned. These secondary precepts are relative and Aquinas says rely on the judgement of the individual. The strengths of natural law are that the rules are universal and all cultures are able to relate to them and so the theory is absolute. For example, all culture believes that living peacefully in society and the preservation of life are important values to have.