Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Mary Wollstonecraft, Jeremy Bentham and A.C. Grayling

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2 ideas

24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 3. Natural Values / c. Natural rights
Experience, sympathy and history are sensible grounds for laying claim to rights [Grayling]
     Full Idea: Personal experience, social sympathies, and history together licence laying claim to rights …which we see to make good mutual as well as individual sense.
     From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 6)
     A reaction: There are no such thing as natural rights, but there are clearly natural grounds on which it is very reasonable to base a claim for legal rights. If positive rights are just arbitrary, or expressions of power struggles, that is crazy.
Natural rights are nonsense, and unspecified natural rights is nonsense on stilts [Bentham]
     Full Idea: Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense — nonsense upon stilts.
     From: Jeremy Bentham (Anarchical Fallacies: on the Declaration of Rights [1796])
     A reaction: If you want your opinion to be remembered, express it memorably! I take natural rights to be the basic principles and values which are obvious to almost everyone when they come for formulate legal rights (which are the only true rights).