Anchored Rights
Justice entitles man to liberty, but what is the substance of that liberty?
In previous posts, I have outlined the nature of man, his ultimate end, the nature of justice, and what justice requires. Justice entitles human beings to ius, a zone of liberty—a sphere of freedom from arbitrary coercion, such that one's actions are the product of one’s own reason and will, not imposed by another. Justice accordingly grants man liberty, but also inherently limits that liberty to actions that do not violate the liberty of others. It is inherently negative in nature.
This zone of liberty, ius, collectively constitutes man’s natural rights. They are natural to man due to his nature as a rational, volitional, theomorphic being oriented toward God. These rights are inherently social—they define what justice requires of man in relation to man. And for these rights to be realized within a political order and for flourishing to occur, they must be specified rather than left abstract.
To better understand how these natural rights function in a just society, it is helpful to categorize them into three groups.
Generally, the right to be free from the coercion of others, so long as they do not threaten the rights of others.
This right makes human action, and thus flourishing, possible, as flourishing occurs through free and rational action or self-direction. It establishes the baseline assumption that individuals are free to act according to their own will, provided they do not violate the rights of others.
The right to participate in basic human goods.
These goods are objective and rooted in human nature, identifiable through practical reason, and include life, knowledge, justice, play, aesthetic experience, friendship and sociability, deliberation and reasonableness, achievement, productive work, health, moral virtue, and religion.
Importantly, one is not entitled to these goods as positive entitlements. This is true for two reasons.
First, flourishing cannot result from being provided with a good or being coerced to act rightly. Human flourishing and participation in the good must be self-directed. To better illustrate why that is true, consider the following analogy. A heart that beats because it is directed and regulated by a pacemaker is not a healthy or flourishing heart. Mere beating is not enough. So too with man. Merely outwardly conforming to a good or possessing a good is not enough. To flourish, man must actively and independently participate in the good.
Does that mean we must be pacifists? No. The use of coercion or force can—and must—be used to prevent unjust acts that threaten others’ rights and by extension their ability to flourish. East of Eden, there will be those who don’t act according to virtue and justice and threaten or violate the rights of others. If they are not stopped or deterred, individuals are unable to flourish. The presumption of liberty is rebutted, and the protection against coercion that justice normally grants is forfeited. But if force goes beyond that, flourishing is threatened as individuals are no longer self-directed. So, as a matter of justice, force can only be morally legitimate when it protects individual rights. This justifies not only the use of force to protect rights from aggressors, but also the force necessary to sustain the political order that safeguards them—such as courts, police, armies, and the legal mechanisms needed to support them. Without those institutions and the legal order they establish, rights themselves are threatened.
Second, requiring others to provide these goods against their will would require violating the rights of others. That not only threatens the coerced’s ability to flourish but prevents the coercer from participating in the good of justice.
The rights necessary to participate in these goods, which are themselves objective and required for flourishing.
These rights include:
The right to own, control, and transfer property, which is necessary to life, productive work, excellence, and achievement.
The right to associate or not associate with others, which is also necessary for friendship, sociability, productive work, knowledge, and achievement.
The right to free speech is essential to pursuing knowledge, sociability, justice, and religion.
The right to religious liberty is necessary to participate in the good of religion.
This list is not exhaustive, as these rights can take different forms in different contexts. Nevertheless, respect for each is owed as a matter of justice and forms the basis for a political order oriented toward the common good or flourishing of society.
Libertas et lux