Natural rights in the context of "Jean Gerson"

Jeremy Bentham (/ˈbɛnθəm/; 4 February 1747/8 O.S. [15 February 1748 N.S.] – 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong". He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated individual and economic freedoms, the separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, the right to divorce, and (in an unpublished essay) the decriminalizing of homosexual acts. He called for the abolition of slavery, capital punishment, and physical punishment, including that of children. He has also become known as an early advocate of animal rights. Though strongly in favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights (both of which are considered "divine" or "God-given" in origin), calling them "nonsense upon stilts". However, he viewed the Magna Carta as important, citing it to argue that the treatment of convicts in Australia was unlawful. Bentham was also a sharp critic of legal fictions.

Two Treatises of Government (full title: Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles, and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter Is an Essay Concerning The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government) is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, while the Second Treatise outlines Locke's ideas for a more civilized society based on natural rights and contract theory. The book is a key foundational text in the theory of liberalism.

This publication contrasts with former political works by Locke himself. In Two Tracts on Government, written in 1660, Locke defends a very conservative position; however, Locke never published it. In 1669, Locke co-authored the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which endorses aristocracy, slavery and serfdom. Some dispute the extent to which the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina portray Locke's own philosophy as opposed to that of the Lord proprietors of the colony—it was a legal document written for and signed and sealed by the eight Lord proprietors to whom Charles II of England had granted the colony. In this context, Locke was a paid secretary.

While belief in the sanctity of human life has ancient precedents in many religions of the world, the foundations of modern human rights began during the era of renaissance humanism in the early modern period. The European wars of religion and the civil wars of seventeenth-century Kingdom of England gave rise to the philosophy of liberalism and belief in natural rights became a central concern of European intellectual culture during the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. Ideas of natural rights, which had a basis in natural law, lay at the core of the American and French Revolutions which occurred toward the end of that century, but the idea of human rights came about later. Democratic evolution through the nineteenth century paved the way for the advent of universal suffrage in the twentieth century. Two world wars led to the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The post-war era saw movements arising from specific groups experiencing a shortfall in their rights, such as feminism and the civil rights of African Americans. The human rights movements of members of the Soviet bloc emerged in the 1970s along with workers' rights movements in the West. The movements quickly jelled as social activism and political rhetoric in many nations put human rights high on the world agenda. By the 21st century, historian Samuel Moyn has argued, the human rights movement expanded beyond its original anti-totalitarianism to include numerous causes involving humanitarianism and social and economic development in the Developing World.

A communist state constitution is the supreme and fundamental law of a communist state. In Marxist–Leninist theory, a constitution is understood both as a juridical act that establishes the structure of the state and its legal order, and as the formal expression of the prevailing class system controlled by the ruling class. Communist constitutions codify the political and economic programme of the ruling communist party and are considered to hold supreme legal force, providing the foundation for all legislation and state activity. Unlike liberal constitutional systems, communist state constitutions reject the separation of powers and judicial review, vesting the unified powers of the state in a supreme state organ of power (SSOP). The constitution defines the structure and functioning of other state organs as an act of the SSOP’s self-organisation, not as an imposition upon it in accordance with the division of labour of state organs.

Communist constitutions share a broadly similar structure: a preamble outlining ideological goals; chapters on the political and economic system, often emphasising the leading role of the party, providing a normative framework for the transition to a communist society, public ownership and planned economic development; sections defining the organisation of state power, including the SSOP, its permanent organ, the supreme executive and administrative organ, the supreme judicial organ, the supreme procuratorial organ, and other state organs if needed; and chapters detailing citizens' rights and obligations. Rights are paired with corresponding obligations, reflecting the view that rights are not natural entitlements but contingent upon fulfilling social obligations. Legal systems operate under the principle of socialist law, which requires state organs, transmission belt mass organisations, and citizens to observe the constitution and laws. The procuracy typically supervises legality; constitutional enforcement is ordinarily vested in the SSOP or its permanent organ (with occasional specialised committees or courts).

John Taylor (December 19, 1753 – August 21, 1824), usually called John Taylor of Caroline (a reference to his home county), was an American politician and writer. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates (1779–1781, 1783–1785, 1796–1800) and in the United States Senate (1792–1794, 1803, 1822–1824). He wrote several books on politics and agriculture. He was a Jeffersonian Republican and his works provided inspiration to the later states' rights and libertarian movements. Sheldon and Hill (2008) locate Taylor at the intersection of republicanism and classical liberalism. They see his position as a "combination of a concern with Lockean natural rights, freedom, and limited government along with a classical interest in strong citizen participation in rule to prevent concentrated power and wealth, political corruption, and financial manipulation."