For my first few posts, I want to write some things about rights. I plan to write on human rights and on property rights in the future. But first I want to address natural rights.

Among philosophers the idea of natural rights is not very popular. And that is putting it mildly. But the grounds for this resistance are not clear to me. Sometimes people object to natural rights for reasons reminiscent of Bentham and Burke. Rights, they say, must be precise. They must be specified concretely. But we cannot rationally determine what natural rights we have or what they entitle us to. Therefore, there are no natural rights.

I find the objection puzzling. Many who accept this view about natural rights are at the same time perfectly happy endorse that people have natural duties. We all have, they say, a natural duty to be just or a natural duty to uphold just institutions.

The problem with this is that there is no reason to think that we are any better at rationally determining what natural duties we have than we are at determining what natural rights we have. What exactly does our duty to support just institutions require? Must we pay our taxes? To our state? All states? Must we obey the law? All laws? These issues are just as indeterminate as the claim that one has a natural right to bodily integrity or to freedom.

So whatever worries we might have about natural rights, we should also have about natural duties. But I do not think that this denies that we have natural duties. And so it also doesn’t deny that we have any natural rights.

So what about the indeterminacy charge? The thing to take away from this, I believe, is that whatever the indeterminacy of our natural rights or duties, does not threaten their existence. This is part of their nature – some of our rights and duties simply are indeterminate.

This indeterminacy is a problem, of course. But it is a practical problem, not a philosophical one. In order to get along, and in order to know exactly how to treat one another, we (the actual people in the actual world) need to overcome this indeterminacy. But in order to think that people have natural rights (duties), or in order to have a meaningful discussion about these rights (duties), we need not.

In real life, there are different ways we can overcome indeterminacy, In principle, custom might suffice. When a clear convention exists, it becomes common knowledge what people can expect of each other. And this can clarify our natural rights and duties. But in practice this is more frequently done by the law. Good law renders indeterminate rights and duties determinate. And good law does this in a way that does not violate the underlying (indeterminate) rights and duties. Perhaps this function of the law explains why those of us who like natural rights need not be full-blown anarchists?