In Defense of Natural Rights, Part 1

[Charles Bell]

In natural rights theory Ayn Rand matches most closely to that of its
inventor, Thomas Hobbes, rather than to any theory later developed
under Locke and Rousseau and Kant, for example.

However, in the same sense that Locke diverged from Hobbes in the
presumptions of a real or hypothetical difference between "man in a
state of nature" and man in civilization, Rand takes what is called
(by Peikoff) a benevolent universe premise: that man, fully rational,
and therefore "human," will not *naturally* sink to the depths of the
"half-human" aptness to believe in the power or the triumph of evil,
and Hobbes presumes that even within a safe and secure civilization of
protective laws, a man "arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied;
when going to sleep, he locks his doors."


CHAPTER XIII LEVIATHAN
OF THE NATURAL CONDITION OF MANKIND AS CONCERNING THEIR FELICITY AND
MISERY

Thomas Hobbes

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html

NATURE hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as
that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in
body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned
together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as
that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which
another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body,
the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by
secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same
danger with himself.

[. . .]

From this equality of ability ariseth equality of hope in the
attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same
thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies;
and in the way to their end (which is principally their own
conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to
destroy or subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass that
where an invader hath no more to fear than another man's single power,
if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others may
probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to dispossess
and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but also of his
life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of
another.


[. . .]

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of
quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.

The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the
third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves
masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the
second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a
different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in
their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their
nation, their profession, or their name.

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is
called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For
war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a
tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently
known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the
nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of
foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an
inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war
consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition
thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All
other time is peace.


[. . .]

It may seem strange to some man that has not well weighed these things
that Nature should thus dissociate and render men apt to invade and
destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this
inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same
confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself: when
taking a journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied;
when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he
locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws and public
officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him; what
opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his
fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children, and
servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse
mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse
man's nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in
themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those
passions till they know a law that forbids them; which till laws be
made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed
upon the person that shall make it.

It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor
condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so,
over all the world: but there are many places where they live so now.
For the savage people in many places of America, except the government
of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have
no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner, as
I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of life
there would be, where there were no common power to fear, by the
manner of life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful
government use to degenerate into a civil war.


CHAPTER XIV LEVIATHAN
OF THE FIRST AND SECOND NATURAL LAWS, AND OF CONTRACTS

THE right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the
liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the
preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and
consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and
reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.

[. . .]

A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general rule, found
out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is
destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the
same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved

[. . . ]

From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to
endeavour peace, is derived this second law: that a man be willing,
when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of
himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all
things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he
would allow other men against himself. For as long as every man
holdeth this right, of doing anything he liketh; so long are all men
in the condition of war. But if other men will not lay down their
right, as well as he, then there is no reason for anyone to divest
himself of his: for that were to expose himself to prey, which no man
is bound to, rather than to dispose himself to peace.



The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
The "Inexplicable Personal Alchemy"

Ayn Rand

In the many years since I left that country, this is the first news
story about Russia that "got me." It made me feel the kind of personal
identification and directly immediate, personal pain that I have not
felt about events in Russia for a long time. It is an odd feeling: it
is poignancy, wistfulness, helplessness and, above all, sadness—just
pure, still sadness. The words in my mind, when I read that story,
were: There, but for the grace of the United States of America, go I.

I do not mean that I would have been one of the accused in that Soviet
courtroom [*]: I knew enough, in my college days, to know that it was
useless to attempt political protests in Soviet Russia. But that
knowledge broke down, involuntarily, many times; so I would probably
have been one of those protesters in the street who engaged in the
terrible futility of debating with the secret police. I know how they
felt and what would make them do it.

There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire,
some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days—
the conviction that ideas matter. In one's youth that conviction is
experienced as a self-evident absolute, and one is unable fully to
believe that there are people who do not share it. That ideas matter
means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind
matters. And the radiance of that certainty, in the process of growing
up, is the best aspect of youth.

Its consequence is the inability to believe in the power or the
triumph of evil. No matter what corruption one observes in one's
immediate background, one is unable to accept it as normal, permanent
or metaphysically right. One feels: "This injustice (or terror or
falsehood or frustration or pain or agony) is the exception in life,
not the rule." One feels certain that somewhere on earth—even if not
anywhere in one's surroundings or within one's reach—a proper, human
way of life is possible to human beings, and justice matters. It takes
years, if ever, to accept the notion that one lives among the not-
fully-human; it is impossible to accept that notion in one's youth.
And if justice matters, then one fights for it: one speaks out—in the
unnamed certainty that someone, somewhere will understand

[*] Vadim Deione when he said quietly ("without bravado") to a judge
about to sentence him to three years in prison: "For three minutes on
Red Square I felt free. I am glad to take your three years for that."


"Man's Rights"

Ayn Rand


A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's
freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental
right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's
right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-
generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-
sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take
all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the
support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own
life.