A recent reading of Leo Strauss’s Natural Right and History, an expansion in book form of lectures delivered at the University of Chicago has me thinking about the question of how we can ground the concept of human rights in a democratic society. For Christian nationalists and their ilk, this is an easy task. Rights come from their god, and it is the duty of human governments not to infringe on those rights—especially such rights as rejecting taxation and committing violence against abortion providers, if contemporary politics is any guide. There is some debate as to whether non-Christians—or even non-fundamentalist Christians—have these rights, and the general idea of what a right is can be vague, but advocates of this school of thought are clear on the origin of rights.
The grounding of natural rights
The grounding of natural rights
The grounding of natural rights
A recent reading of Leo Strauss’s Natural Right and History, an expansion in book form of lectures delivered at the University of Chicago has me thinking about the question of how we can ground the concept of human rights in a democratic society. For Christian nationalists and their ilk, this is an easy task. Rights come from their god, and it is the duty of human governments not to infringe on those rights—especially such rights as rejecting taxation and committing violence against abortion providers, if contemporary politics is any guide. There is some debate as to whether non-Christians—or even non-fundamentalist Christians—have these rights, and the general idea of what a right is can be vague, but advocates of this school of thought are clear on the origin of rights.