display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
20977 | 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). |
22595 | Liberty is the triumph of the individual, over both despotic government and enslaving majorities [Constant] |
Full Idea: Lliberty is the triumph of the individual, as much over a government which seeks to rule by despotic methods, as over the masses who seek to render the minority the slave of the majority. | |
From: Benjamin Constant (Principles of Politics [1806]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 4 | |
A reaction: [No page given] Dunt describes Constant's book as the first really systematic account of liberalism. Very important to have rights against the majority, as well as against government. |
22597 | Minority rights are everyone's rights, because we all have turns in the minority [Constant] |
Full Idea: To defend the rights of minorities is to defend the rights of all. Everyone in turn finds himself in the minority. | |
From: Benjamin Constant (Principles of Politics [1806]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 4 | |
A reaction: Very conformist people, who are often the most oppressive, are rarely in the minority, and are unlikely to be impressed by this idea. |