Are There Any Natural Rights?

The paper advances the central thesis that if there are any moral rights at all, then there exists at least one natural right: the equal right of all adult human beings capable of choice to be free. Hart explicates this as a right to forbearance by others from coercion or restraint (except to prevent coercion or restraint) and a liberty to act insofar as actions do not coerce, restrain, or aim to injure others. He calls it a natural right because it attaches to persons qua human agents capable of choice and is not created by voluntary acts, unlike many other rights. He contrasts his modest claim with traditional natural rights theories: it does not establish absolute or indefeasible rights to specific actions or treatments beyond the general equal right to freedom, and it is conditional on the existence of moral rights as such. Hart also notes that some moral codes can exist without the notion of rights, consisting solely of prescriptions or ideals; his argument targets moral frameworks that do employ rights. He clarifies key terms (coercion, restraint, competition) and acknowledges practical contexts (e.g., scarcity and poverty) where freedom’s value and the distinction between competition and coercion become complex, without undermining the conceptual thesis.

Hart engages classical and modern discussions of rights and duties. He references Locke’s emphasis on peace as a condition for natural rights’ importance and contrasts his view with traditional natural law thinkers (down to Hooker) who stressed duties rather than rights. He draws on juristic analysis (notably Hohfeld’s distinctions between liberties and claim-rights) to clarify the structure of rights, and notes W. D. Lamont on moral judgment. Kant’s Rechtslehre is invoked to distinguish the morality of law (justice, fairness, rights, obligations) from virtues, emphasizing contexts where coercion is morally congruent. Hart critiques Hobbes’s view that rights are merely liberties and challenges utilitarian accounts of political obligation for failing to capture obligations arising from mutual restriction. He also situates social-contract theorists’ insights (mutual relations as the source of political obligation) while correcting their assimilation of political obligation to promising.

Philosophical-conceptual analysis informed by legal-juristic distinctions. Hart dissects the language and logic of rights using: (1) analytic distinctions between liberty-rights and claim-rights; (2) examination of correlativity between rights and duties; (3) analysis of who holds a right versus who benefits from the performance of duties (e.g., promises where the promisee holds the right); (4) case-based reasoning on promises, consent/authorization, mutual restriction in joint enterprises (as a model for political obligation), and special relationships (parent-child); and (5) a structural division between special rights (arising from specific transactions or relations) and general rights (defensive rights against interference owed by all). He then argues that the justificatory grounds that create both special and general rights ultimately presuppose the equal right of all to be free, thereby deriving a natural right from the very concept and practice of having moral rights.

- To have a right is to possess a moral justification for limiting another’s freedom or determining another’s action; rights belong to a moral domain (justice, fairness, obligation) where the use or threat of force to secure compliance can be specially congruent. - Not all uses of “duty” correlate with rights, and not all moral evaluations involve rights. There are liberties (absence of duty to abstain) distinct from claim-rights (with correlative obligations). - Benefiting from someone’s performance of a duty is neither necessary nor sufficient for holding a right: e.g., in promises, the promisee holds the right, even if a third party benefits. Thus animals and babies may be owed proper treatment (in a generalized moral sense) without thereby being right-holders in the specific, claim-right sense. - Special rights arise from specific transactions or relations: (i) promises voluntarily incurred; (ii) consent or authorization granting another permissions or authority; (iii) mutuality of restrictions in joint enterprises (including political society), yielding obligations to co-operators distinct from utilitarian calculations; and (iv) some natural relations (e.g., parent-child) historically taken to ground temporary rights/obligations. Special liberties (exemptions from obligations) are distinct from special rights. - General rights are defensive claims against all others’ interference (e.g., free expression, worship), grounded not in special relationships but in the equal right of all to be free; their correlatives are universal obligations of noninterference. - Claims to interfere based on general features of conduct or persons (e.g., disapproval of practices or prejudicial classifications) are not matters of right or obligation and are better addressed by other moral vocabulary. - Both special and general rights, when properly understood, presuppose and indirectly or directly invoke the equal right of all capable agents to be free: special rights through free choice (promises/consents) or fairness in mutual restriction; general rights by direct appeal. Hence, if moral rights exist, at least one natural right exists—the equal right to freedom.

The analysis addresses the research question by showing that the very logic of moral rights—both as defensive claims against interference and as special claims arising from transactions—entails a foundational, non-voluntarily-created entitlement: the equal right to be free. This reframes political and moral debates: obligations in political society stem from mutual restriction and fairness, not merely from consequences, challenging utilitarian accounts. It clarifies when coercion is morally legitimate (to uphold rights and fairness) and distinguishes contexts where moral criticism should not be cast in terms of rights. The findings ground central liberal commitments in a minimal but robust natural right, offering a principled basis for civil liberties (general rights) and for binding interpersonal obligations (special rights) without asserting absolute, indefeasible specific rights.

Hart concludes that recognition of any moral rights entails recognition of at least one natural right: the equal right of all persons capable of choice to be free. Special rights (from promises, consent, mutual restriction) and general rights (defensive claims against interference) both presuppose equal freedom—either indirectly through voluntary creation of normative authority or fairness in cooperation, or directly as universal noninterference claims. The account is more modest than traditional natural rights theories, denying absolute specific rights, yet sufficient to underpin key liberal political principles.

- Scope is conditional: the argument holds only if moral rights exist within a moral framework; it does not apply to moral codes that avoid the rights concept. - The thesis is modest: it establishes only the equal right to be free as a natural right, not absolute or indefeasible rights to specific actions. - Conceptual-analytic methodology provides no empirical validation; practical complexities (e.g., scarcity, poverty) can limit the value or applicability of freedom without negating the conceptual point. - The analysis distinguishes obligations from broader moral reasons, allowing that rights can be overridden in tragic conflicts; it does not resolve all cases of justified infringement, only clarifies what is at stake.