(Return to main path )

I think that even if you look at it from a purely secular point of view, which I don't, you can build an argument for rights.

Let me mention Judith Jarvis Thomson, who has written extensively on rights and morals. Her main work is called The Realm of Rights.

Thomson doesn't attempt to "prove" that we have rights. She takes some of our moral judgments (including some judgments about our rights) as "data" and attempts to develop certain generalizations that will account for the data.

She believes that some of the rights we have come from government and some do not. In other words, we would have some rights even if government does not recognize or establish them.

We can come back to Thomson later when we discuss property rights. Her position is that we have no natural rights to property and that property is created by government.