A common question asked of political rights is where do they come from and how are they granted. There are several different justifications for the inclusion of rights in a constitutional system. These vary slightly depending on how the political philosophy views the individual.
Since the enlightenment focused social endeavour on individual autonomy as the primary source, the notion of universal political rights have risen. This is present in republicanism, liberalism, libertarianism and progressivism. All these political philosophies focus on the individual as the dominant political entity.
Republicanism views the purpose of government as ensuring the liberty of the individual. Tyranny or despotism has no place in a republican system. The rights or just demands of an individual's agreeance to follow the will of the majority in a government system come with the assurance of freedom from tyranny or arbitrary government.
A bill of rights becomes a political technology that ensures the liberty of the individual and describes tyranny. It creates a sphere of exclusion for government that it cannot legislate over.
As covered in a previous article, Dan Deniehy took a natural rights view of republicanism. This describes moral perfection as the end result of human achievement, maturation and growth. Deniehy writes that tyranny and despotism are the dominant affliction against this purpose.
Consequently the tyranny becomes a crime against mankind's destiny - a crime against nature. This is a non-religious argument for natural rights. The religious argument for natural rights is quite simply that rights are granted by God. This is less sophisticated than Deniehy's argument and reliant on faith.
Progressives view rights as an intrinsic function of being human. For this reason they are often called Human Rights by the progressive movement. The progressives view rights as being greater than the simply eradication of tyranny and protection of liberty as republicans do and often include more ambiguous rights of a social nature such as the right to dignity or the right to education.
These are fine principles to maintain, however, they do not have a place in a constitutional document as they are nearly impossible to quantify. For instance writing brutally explicit language on the right to dignity is impossible.
Libertarians view rights in terms of the intrinsic value of the individual. This philosophy often terms them individual rights. Libertarianism does not have the same focus on tyranny as republicanism does and is merely interested in the primacy and dominance of the individual as a political being.
Of these justifications for rights I believe the republican definition to be superior. It is constitutionally achievable through explicit constitutional language and separation of powers.
The focus on the eradication of tyranny and political equity are important principles in democratic and representative systems.
Under republicanism rights are a very essential political technology which better serves the protection of liberty from arbitrary government.
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