Natural Rights

Rights
The Declaration of Independence claimsthat
men have certain rights. This ideaof rights is
clearly one of the basic ideasof the philosop
hy of natural rights. WeAmericans often arg
ue about whatrights there are. Is there, for
example, aright to die? We also argue about
whohas certain rights. Does the fetus in the
womb have a right to life? However,despite th
ese differences, we tend totake the idea of rights f
or granted. Werarely stop to ask just what a right
is orwhat it is for a person to have a right.Now, in
fact, contemporary philosophyrecognizes several
different kinds ofrights. We will consider some of t
hesedifferent kinds of rights in laterchapters of thi
s book. Here, though, wewill focus on a particular
conception ofrights that is central to the philosop
hyof the Declaration and to the historicalcore of th
e philosophy of natural rights.
According to this conception, a right is amor
al claim belonging to an individualthat prohi
bits all other persons fromacting in certain
ways toward thatindividual. For example, you
r right tolife prohibits all other persons fromkilling
you. Similarly, your right toliberty prohibits all oth
er persons fromenslaving you, kidnapping you, or
holding you prisoner against your will.Such rights
are often said to be moralfences: They surround
people andprotect them from outside interf
erence.They are said to be "negative rights"
inthat they stipulate things that otherpeopl
e may not do in their interactionswith some i
ndividual. Your right to lifesays that I may not kil
l you. My right toliberty says that you may not en
slaveme.
Rights protect people from outsideinterference. B
ut, of course, theprotection afforded by rights is n
otalways effective. People have beenmurdered. Pe
ople have been enslaved.The natural-rights theory
does not denythese unfortunate facts of life. Wha
t itdoes say is that murder and slavery areserious
moral infractions. This is whatis meant by saying t
hat rights are moralclaims or moral fences. They s
tipulatethings that other people should not doto y
ou. They specify limits on how wemay rightly or j
ustly interact with oneanother. They also provide t
he basis forcomplaints of unjust treatment, aswhe
n the American colonists in theDeclaration of Inde
pendence pointed toa series of actions by the king
ofEngland as transgressions of theirrights, transg
ressions that justifiedresistance to English rule.
Natural Rights
The rights to life and liberty claimed bythe Declara
tion prohibit people fromkilling or enslaving one a
nother. In thisrespect these rights are like rightscr
eated by human beings. Human lawsoften prohibit
certain kinds of actions.Murder and kidnapping ar
e illegal.Human law forbids them, though ofcourse
this does not prevent theirhappening from time t
o time. Like therights proclaimed in the Declaratio
n,legal rights say how we should behave,which is
not always how we do behave.Legal rights, like th
e rights of theDeclaration, are prescriptive, notdes
criptive. Both prescribe certainbehaviors. But sinc
e we humanssometimes fail to live up to thesepre
scriptions, neither accurately describes how we in
variably will behave.In these ways the rights claim
ed by thephilosophy of natural rights are likelegal
rights. Nonetheless, there aresome important diff
erences. Thesedifferences are central to the idea
ofcertain rights as natural rights.
The fundamental difference betweennatural
rights and legal rights is thatlegal rights are
created by humanbeings and natural rights
are not.Human law may give me certain righ
ts.For example, human law gives me theright to d
rive a car provided I meetcertain requirements. S
upposing I havemet those requirements, no one
mayinterfere with me in the lawful drivingof my ca
r. However, the legislaturemight decide to restrict
nighttimedriving for people with poor nightvision,
or it might, because of life-threatening problems o
f pollution,decide to ban automobile driving for all
but emergency purposes. My right todrive a car is
created by human law andmay be modified or ab
olished by theaction of a legislature composed ofh
uman beings. My natural rights arenot like this.
Consider, for example, my natural rightto life, a ri
ght I have independent of anyhuman action. The
Declaration saysthat I am endowed with this right
by mycreator. It belongs to me simply invirtue of
my being a human being who,like all human being
s, is created equallywith a certain nature. It belon
gs to meby nature, not by human artifice. Mynat
ural right to life does not dependupon any h
uman act of creation andcannot be taken aw
ay by any humanaction. Legal rights are create
d byhuman action and can be taken away byhuma
n action. An evil legislative bodymight pass a law
denying me a legalright to life. The legislature mig
ht,correctly following the rules ofparliamentary pr
ocedure, amend thehuman law to permit the killin
g ofhuman beings of a certain kind.
Something like this happened inGermany in
the 1930s, when the lawwas changed to den
y civil rights toJews. In America, of course, any
suchaction would violate the writtenconstitution t
hat governs what ourlegislators may do. Such an
actionwould be illegal because it violated myconsti
tutional rights. But suppose aconstitutional amend
ment is passedexcluding human beings with my e
thnicbackground from the protections of theConst
itution. It would then be withinthe power of a hum
an legislature to takeaway my right to life and the
right to lifeof all people like me. However,accordin
g to natural-rights theory,while the legislature ma
y have strippedme of my legal right to life, it woul
d bewrong for it to do so.
The idea of a natural right to life can beeasily gras
ped by reflectingon the debate over abortion that
hasdivided Americans for the last quartercentury.
On one side, the statelegislatures and the courts
have saidthat abortion, subject to somerestriction
s, is legal. The law does notrecognize a fetal right
to life. On theother side, opponents of abortion ar
guethat abortion is a great moral evilbecause it in
volves the violation of anatural right to life that bel
ongs to everyhuman fetus. Now, not all natural-ri
ghts theorists would agree that humanfetuses do
have a natural right to life.Here there is important
disagreementabout who is included among the cla
ssof beings that have a right to life.However, thi
nking about the abortioncontroversy can hel
p us see what isinvolved in claiming such a r
ight. Thefetal right to life is supposed to be
anatural right. Such rights do not dependup
on human creation, and while theymay be vi
olated, they cannot bedestroyed by any human
action.
Natural Law
We have already seen that naturalrights are
in some ways like legal rights.Both prohibit
other people frominterfering with us in certa
in ways.Both involve a complex network ofr
esponsibilities corresponding to therights th
ey claim. My natural right tolife imposes a duty o
n you and allothers to refrain from killing me. Myri
ght to drive a car imposes a duty onyou and all ot
hers to refrain frominterfering with my lawful exer
cise ofthat right. Legal rights exist as part of asyst
em of laws. My legal right to drive acar and the co
rresponding duties ofother persons are precisely s
pelled outby the laws governing the use of motorv
ehicles. In a similar way, natural-rights theorists c
onceive of naturalrights as existing within a syste
m ofnatural laws. The Declaration ofIndepend
ence itself mentions "the lawsof nature and
nature's god" as the basisfor those rights to
life, liberty, and thepursuit of happiness it g
oes on to claim.
These laws of nature are moral laws.They ar
e not like the laws of naturediscovered by p
hysics and chemistry,which tell us how thin
gs invariably doact but say nothing about ho
w thingsshould act. Unlike the laws of chemistr
yand physics, but like human-
createdlegal laws, moral laws of nature areprescri
ptive rather than descriptive.They tell us how we
ought to behave,not how we invariably do behave
.
Like many, natural-
rights theorists, theauthors of the Declaration ofIn
dependence saw the laws of nature asGod's laws.
The Declaration
conceives of natural rights as part of alarger syste
m of natural law, a body ofmoral law coming from
God rather thanfrom any human legislators. It isi
mportant, however, to distinguish this"natural law
" from what philosophersand theologians have tra
ditionallycalled "revealed law." The biblical textkno
wn as the Ten Commandmentsserves as an excell
ent example ofrevealed law. According to the bibli
calstory, these commandments were givendirectly
to Moses by God in anencounter on the top of Mo
unt Sinai. Inthis story God reveals thecommandm
ents of the moral law toMoses and through him to
all of God'schosen people. Preserved in the holys
criptures of the Jews, Christians, andMoslems, th
ese commandments arethen revealed to all who r
ead them. Theappearance of God before Moses o
nMount Sinai is an example of a specialrevelation,
an instance of God'sspeaking to a particular indivi
dual orgroup of individuals at a particularpoint in ti
me. The revelation of God'smessage in the scriptu
res, available toall who can read them or hear the
mread, is an example of generalrevelation. Reveal
ed law is based uponthe general or special revelati
ons ofGod's commandments that haveappeared in
the course of humanhistory. In revealed law God'
s moral lawappears to humans in the form ofcom
mandments given by a divinelawgiver.
While philosophers and theologianshave gen
erally agreed that the contentof revealed la
w and the content ofnatural law are the sam
e, the idea ofnatural law includes within it t
he ideathat the moral law can be known by t
heuse of human reason unassisted byeither
special or general revelation. Forthis reason
natural-law philosophershave often spoken
of natural law as thelaw of reason. Natural la
w is a system ofmoral laws that human beings ca
n cometo know by observing the nature ofthings
and thereby discovering the rightuse of those thin
gs.
An example may help make this clear. Itis of the n
ature of something that is aknife to have a sharp
edge. Without asharp edge suitable for cutting, a t
hingwould not be a knife. Now, it is possibleto use
a knife in many different ways. Itcould be used to
pry nails or as adoorstop, for example, but such
useswould tend to damage the blade of theknife.
For this reason they might besaid to be contrary t
o the nature of theknife. Such uses are not the us
es forwhich the nature of the knife is suited.On th
e other hand, to use the knife forcutting is to use i
t in accordance with itsnature. The general idea
of natural-lawtheory is that the right use of
a thing isthe use that is in accordancewith it
s nature and that any use of athing that is c
ontrary to the nature ofthe thing is a wrong
use of the thing.
Now, in this example there is surely nogreat mora
l wrong in using a knife topry nails. But the examp
le should helpus see how important moral laws mi
ghtbe discoverable by examining thenatures of thi
ngs. Consider, forexample, the nature of human b
eings.We are animals, and in this respect ournatu
re shares some features with otheranimals. But h
uman beings also have acapacity for thinking abo
ut what theyare doing. Unless forced to change b
ychanges in their environments, otheranimals repl
icate the ways of life oftheir ancestors. Humans,
on the otherhand, are constantly changing t
heirways of life. They think about their way
of life and try to find better ways tosatisfy t
heir needs and better ways toexpress their t
houghts and feelings. It isthis capacity to thi
nk about what theyare doing, to reflect upo
n their way oflife, and to guide their lives by
theirthoughts that many philosophers have
considered to be one of the distinctivefeatur
es of human nature. Humanbeings are anim
als, but they are rationalanimals. Every norm
al human beinghas this capacity for thinking about
hisor her life and guiding that life by thisthinking.
This is a capacity that appearsto be unique to hu
man beings.
If this is so, we can begin to see howcertain
moral principles might be basedon this hum
an nature. How should welive our lives? Wh
at is the right use of ahuman life? Natural-la
w theory holdsthat we can begin to answer t
hisquestion by studying our nature ashuman
beings. Suppose we do that and,like the anc
ient Greeks, arrive at theconclusion that the
nature of a humanbeing is to be a rational a
nimal. Then,according to the general principle th
atthe right use of a thing is in accordancewith its
nature, it follows that the rightuse of our life requi
res us to think aboutour life and what we are doin
g. While itmight be possible for a human being toli
ve his or her life without ever stoppingto think ab
out it, such a life would failto correspond to huma
n nature. Even ifit produced a life of success and
greathappiness, such a life would be, in somesens
e, subhuman. It would not be a lifein accordance
with our human nature.For this reason the philoso
pher Platosaid in his Apology that "theunexamined
life is not worth living forman."
Consider also the implications of thisway of thinki
ng about human nature forthe institution of slaver
y. Suppose againthat it is true that every normal h
umanbeing has a capacity for thinking abouthis or
herlife and guiding that life by his or herown think
ing. When we enslave humanbeings, we make the
m the subject of ourwill. We tell them what to do.
In doingthis we treat them as mere animals,lackin
g the power of rational self-direction. But, in doin
g this, we treathuman beings contrary to their nat
ureas human beings. In this way thenatural-law t
hinker can argue thatslavery is contrary to the law
of nature.In this way also we can see how thenat
ural right to liberty can beunderstood as a require
ment of thenatural law. Every normal human bein
ghas a capacity for rational self-direction. Conseq
uently it is contrary tonatural law to deprive
a human being ofthe opportunity to exercis
e thatcapacity. We have a duty to refrain fro
msuch violations of the natural liberty ofa p
erson, and this, of course, is justwhat is mea
nt in saying that a personhas a natural right
to liberty.
Natural Equality
We are now in a position to understandone o
f the most puzzling phrases in theDeclaratio
n of Independence. TheDeclaration says tha
t "all men arecreated equal." But this seems
to bepatently untrue. Some men are wise;ot
hers are not. Some men are strong;others are w
eak. Isn't it obvious thathuman beings are very dif
ferent fromone another in these and otherrespect
s? How can the Declaration saynot just that all me
n are equal but thatthis equality is self-evident? O
necommon response here is to say that allthe Dec
laration means in saying that allmen are created e
qual is that all menhave equal rights. But this resp
onsemakes obscure the Declaration's twoseparate
claims: one that all men arecreated equal and an
other that all menhave certain rights. Further, this
response misses entirely the connectionbetween t
hese two claims, theconnection between human n
ature andnatural rights discussed above. Thisconn
ection is central to the whole ideaof natural law.
In considering the idea of natural law,we saw how
the right use of a thing issupposed to be connect
ed to the natureof the thing. According to this vie
w,slavery is wrong because it involvestreating a h
uman being with a capacityfor rational self-directi
on in the waythat one would treat an animal thatla
cked this capacity. In this view, theright to liberty
that slavery violates is anatural right inherent in th
e very natureof a human being as a rational anima
l.It is this conception that lies behind thewords of
the Declaration. All men arecreated equal in the s
ense that all menhave the capacity for rational self
-direction, and
it is because all men have this capacitythat all hav
e the equal right to liberty.This connection bet
ween an equality ofrights and a prior equalit
y of natureupon which the equality of rights
depends is clearly formulated by Lockein the Sec
ond Treatise, where he saysthat there is "nothin
g more evident thanthat Creatures of the sa
me species andrank promiscuously born to a
ll thesame advantages of Nature, and the us
eof the same faculties, should also beequal o
ne amongst another withoutSubordination o
r Subjection."
Thesame idea, that an equality of rights isbased u
pon a prior equality of nature, isalso clearly prese
nt in the draft of theDeclaration of Independence
written byThomas Jefferson. There the keyphiloso
phical section reads as follows:
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all m
en are createdequal & independent, that fromthat
equal creation they deriverights inherent & inalien
able,among which are thepreservation of life, & lib
erty &the pursuit of happiness.
The equality of men is an equality ofkind. All
men are equal in the sense thatthey are all
members of one kind and assuch share in th
e nature of that kind.Because a capacity for rati
onal self-direction is part of our nature as humanb
eings, natural law requires that we betreated in ac
cordance with that nature.Our natural right to libe
rty is thus aconsequence of a distinct equality ofn
ature, an equality of kind.
Inalienable Rights
Inalienable rights are often thought tobe rig
hts that cannot be taken from us.A more acc
urate view would be thatinalienable rights a
re rights that wemay not relinquish. In the le
galterminology of the eighteenth century,to aliena
te a thing was to transfer one'srights over it to so
me other person. Tohave property rights in a thin
g was tohave the exclusive rights to use, sell,beq
ueath, or destroy the thing. Some orall of these ri
ghts could be transferredto another person. Thus
the rights ofownership over a horse might bealien
ated by selling the horse or givingit away. While in
those days laws ofentailment restricted the transf
er ofsome landed property, theserestrictions were
created by human lawand applied only with respe
ct to someproperty. For the most part, propertyot
her than land could be alienated by itsowner at wil
l. Alienation of one's rightsover a horse involves t
healienation of legal rights of ownership,rights tha
t are created by human laws.While many interesti
ng moral problemsmay arise in considering the rig
htnessor wrongness of specific transfers ofpropert
y rights, there seems to be nofundamental difficul
ty in the idea of thealienability of such rights. But
when wecome to our natural rights, there doesse
em to be a fundamental difficulty.
Consider my natural right to liberty.May I alienate
this right? May I give upthis right and transfer it to
some otherperson? May I sell myself into slavery
?If I do so, am I not treating myselfcontrary to m
y nature? The law ofnature is based on the nature
of things.Partaking of the nature of human kind,I
share the capacity of rational self-direction. Accor
ding to the natural law,I have a moral obligation t
o live inconformity to this nature. I have amoral o
bligation to use my capacity forrational self-directi
on. If I sell myselfinto slavery, I fail to live up to t
herequirements of the law of nature. Forthis reaso
n, I may not alienate my rightto liberty. Unlike the
property rights Ihold in a horse, my right to libert
y is aninalienable right. By similar reasoning,it wo
uld seem that all my natural rightsare inalienable.
Since I have thoserights in virtue of my God-given
nature,I, like everyone else, am obliged by thela
w of nature to respect those rights inmyself. Thus
the Declaration ofIndependence holds that when
a peopleconfronts a despotic attempt to ruleover t
hem, "it is their right, it is theirduty, to throw off s
uch Government."
Self-Evident Rights
The Declaration of Independence holdsthat it is "s
elf-evident" that all men arecreated equal and that
they areendowed by their creator with certaininali
enable rights. With this idea of"self-evident" truth
s we encounter oneof the more esoteric aspects o
f thephilosophy of natural rights embeddedin the
Declaration. We can begin to seewhat is involved i
n the idea of self-evidence by considering system
s suchas the geometry developed by theancient G
reek astronomer Euclid. InEuclid's system a certai
n theorem ofgeometry is proven to be true bysho
wing that it follows necessarily fromtheorems that
have already been provento be true. If we ask ho
w we know thatthese earlier theorems are true, th
eanswer is that they follow from othertheorems th
at already have been provento be true. In this wa
y the truth of eachtheorem can be shown to follo
w fromwhat has already been proven to
be true. But it is obvious that suchreliance upon p
rior results cannot becontinued indefinitely. The w
holesystem must begin somewhere. In thegeomet
ry of Euclid it begins withcertain axioms. These ax
ioms state thefundamental principles from which t
hetruth of all other theorems areultimately derived
. But how can weknow that these axioms are true
? If weappeal to some other principles asevidence
for the truth of our axioms, wemerely postpone t
he difficulty, sincenow the question arises as to h
ow weknow that these other principles aretrue.
fOne way of solving this difficulty, ofbringing the d
emand for justification toan end, is to say that the
se axioms areself-evident. What is meant by this i
sthat anyone who truly understandswhat an axio
m is saying will see that itsimply must be true. It r
equires noevidence outside itself to support it. Itst
ruth is manifest in itself. Consider, forexample, th
e principle that equalsadded to equals give equals
. The truthof this principle is transparent toanyone
who understands what it says.It needs no proof,
no external evidence.It is self-evident. Its truth is
so clearand certain that no additional evidencecou
ld make it more evident to us than italready is.
Like many other philosophers, JohnLocke believed
that in principle it waspossible to construct a syst
em of ethicsthat, like the mathematics of Euclid,w
ould begin with self-evident axiomsand derive fro
m them a completeaccount of the principles of mo
rality.He described the knowledge of suchself-evid
ent truths as being "like brightsunshine" that "forc
es itselfimmediately to be perceived, as soon asev
er the mind turns its view that way;and leaves no
room for hesitation,doubt, or examination, but th
e mind ispresently filled with the clear light ofit."
Despite his repeated assurancesthat such a proje
ct was in principlepossible, that the laws of nature
couldbe known by the methods of geometry,Lock
e himself never provided us withanything like a de
ductive system ofethics. Nonetheless, we have alr
eadyconsidered some comments he made inthe S
econd Treatise that throw somelight on the claim t
o self-evident truthfound in the Declaration ofInde
pendence.
Recall that in the Second Treatise Lockeclaimed th
at there was "nothing moreevident" than that crea
tures of the samespecies "should also be equal on
eamongst another without subordinationof subjec
tion." In the section thatimmediately follows this r
emark, Lockegoes on to cite the similar view ofRic
hard Hooker, another philosopher ofthe natural la
w, that it is "evident in itself" that the equality of
men by natureis the foundation of our moralobliga
tions to one another. In
effect Locke and, in Locke's view,Hooker are sayin
g that it is self-evidentthat men are equal by natur
e and self-evident that because men are equal by
nature they have equal rights. Thesetwo claims ab
out self-evident principlesare the same two claims
made byJefferson in the rough draft of theDeclar
ation, where he held that it wasself-evident that "
all men are createdequal & independent" and self-
evidentthat "from that equal creation theyderive ri
ghts." The revised final versionof the Declaration t
o some extentobscures the connection between t
heseclaims, saying only that two truths areself-evi
dent: that all men are createdequal and that all ar
e endowed by theircreator with certain inalienable
rights.Nonetheless, it seems fairly clear thatan un
derstanding of the claims to self-evidence made b
y the Declaration willrequire an understanding of
how theclaim to natural equality could bethought t
o be self-evident and anunderstanding of how it c
ould bethought to be self-evident that such anequ
ality implied an equality of rights.
The first claim, that it is self-evidentthat all men ar
e created equal, can beunderstood in a relativelys
traightforward way. If we think thatmen are by na
ture rational animals,then only those things that a
re rationalanimals are men. To say that all menare
created equal is just to say thateverything that is
a man has the natureof being a rational animal. B
ut this islike saying that all bachelors areunmarrie
d males. Just as no thingcould be a bachelor with
out being anunmarried male, so no thing could be
aman without being a rational animal."All men ar
e created equal" is self-evident in the way that "All
bachelorsare unmarried" is self-evident. Once we
understand what is being said, we seethat it must
be true.
The view that it is also self-evident thatbecause all
men are created equal theytherefore have equal r
ights can beunderstood as a special instance of th
efundamental idea of natural law.According to nat
ural- law theory, givenan understanding of the nat
ure of athing, we can derive from that how thatthi
ng should be used. But if this is true,since all men
have the same nature, itwould follow that all men
should betreated in the same way--that all menh
ave equal natural rights.
Universal Rights
The natural rights claimed by theAmerican revoluti
onaries were claimedon behalf of all men. They be
longed toAmericans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and
Chinese. In thissense, the rights claimed were un
iversalrights, as opposed to the particularrights of
Englishmen, rooted in theparticular traditions of t
he Englishpeople. But in another sense, the rights
claimed were not truly universal. Theydid not inclu
de women or males ofAfrican descent who labore
d as slavesin the land of freedom. We will conside
rthe implications of these exclusionslater in this b
ook. Still, in a worldlargely ruled by tyrannical min
orities,the Declaration's claim that every manhad
both a right and a duty to resisttyranny, despite it
s false universality,had revolutionary implications.
Fromthe great upheaval of the FrenchRevolution,
which soon followed theAmerican example, to the
massivedemonstrations by students inTiananmen
Square in Beijing twohundred years later, the phil
osophicaldoctrine of natural rights has been apow
erful force in history. Indeed, eventhose excluded
by the Americanrevolutionaries, such as women a
ndAfricans, would eventually appeal to thephiloso
phy of natural rights to supporttheir own claims to
freedom andequality. In the chapters that follow
wewill examine some criticisms of thetheory of na
tural rights. We will alsolook at some alternative w
ays ofthinking about the fundamental issuesof poli
tical life, and we will exploresome of the ways that
the theory ofnatural rights has been revised orex
panded in response to thesecriticisms and alternat
ive ways ofthinking.
Utilitarianism
The theory of natural rights espousedby the Decla
ration of Independencedefends the revolutionary
politicalaction of the American colonists. TheDecla
ration claims that resistance toBritish rule was jus
tified, and evenrequired, by fundamental principle
s ofthe natural laws of morality. TheDeclaration of
Independence appearedin July of 1776. That sam
e year saw thepublication of An Inquiry into theNa
ture and Causes of the Wealth ofNations, written
by the Scottishphilosopher Adam Smith. Therelati
onship between the ideas of theDeclaration and th
e ideas formulated bySmith in The Wealth of Natio
ns iscomplex. As professor of moralphilosophy at
the University ofGlasgow, Smith had begun to dev
elop asystem of ethics that was in itsfoundations r
adically different from thesystem of natural law es
poused by theDeclaration. However, while Smith's
alternative system of ethics is clearlylurking in the
background of TheWealth of Nations, that work i
s notitself devoted to the problems of moralphilos
ophy. Its central concern is thescience of economi
cs. In this chapter wewill examine both Adam Smi
th's scienceof economics and the ethical theorysu
ggested by him.
Smith's Economics
How can a nation maximize the wealthit produces
? This is the central questionaddressed by Adam S
mith in TheWealth of Nations. Imagine a society i
nwhich each household produceseverything it con
sumes. Each familygrows its own food, makes its
ownclothing and shelter, and by its ownlabor sup
plies all its other needs. Such a society is
scarcely imaginable. Under difficultconditions, wh
ere the climate was harshor the soil poor, the hou
sehold mightdevote all its waking hours to labor a
ndstill not survive. Under favorableconditions the
household might survive,but its productive capaci
ties would belimited to the boundaries of its ownk
nowledge, skill, and resources. Nowimagine a soci
ety in which householdstrade with one another. O
ne specializesin growing food while another make
sclothing and a third builds houses. Withsuch a di
vision of labor each householdbecomes more ade
pt at the taskassigned to it, and as a result the tot
alamount of wealth produced by thesociety engag
ed in trade exceeds thetotal amount of wealth pro
duced by thesociety in which each householdprovi
des for itself. With trade andincreased production,
the shareavailable to each person is greater thani
t otherwise would be, and each partybenefits.
Trade and the division of labor thusconstitut
e important sources of wealth.Smith also se
es a system of free marketsas conducive to t
he wealth of a nation. Asystem of free mark
ets is a system inwhich each individual is fre
e to enterinto contracts with any other indiv
idualto buy or sell goods or labor power.Wit
hin such a market system buyers
will look for sellers offering goods at thelow
est price, and sellers will look forbuyers willi
ng to pay the most for thegoods they have t
o sell. With buyers andsellers free to contrac
t with any otherindividual, no individual buy
er or sellercan say what the prevailing mark
etvalue of a commodity will be. Instead,pric
es are determined by the marketforces of su
pply and demand. If, as aseller, I ask for more t
han the prevailingmarket price, no one will buy fro
m me.If, as a buyer, I offer less than themarket p
rice, no one will sell to me. In asystem of competi
tive markets, pricesare determined by the impers
onalforces of supply and demand.
Smith calls prices determined by theforces of sup
ply and demand operatingin markets not affected
by unnaturalrestrictions on free competition the"n
atural prices" of commodities. Hecontrasts su
ch natural prices with theprices of commodities of
fered underconditions of monopoly, where onebu
yer controls the entire supply of acommodity: "Th
e price of monopoly isupon every occasion the hig
hest whichcan be got. The natural price, or thepri
ce of free competition, on thecontrary, is the lowe
st which can betaken." To be sure, a seller may, f
or aperiod of time, secure a price higherthan that
necessary to sustain thebusiness. If, for example,
anentrepreneur discovers a more efficientway to
produce a commodity, then he orshe can afford to
produce thecommodity for significantly less thant
he market price. At thispoint our entrepreneur has
somediscretion over how to price theproduct. Th
e product cannot be pricedabove the market price
, since then noone would buy it. Suppose then tha
t theentrepreneur offers the product at themarket
price. In this case he or she willmake higher- than
-average profits.Alternatively, the entrepreneur ca
n offerthe product at below the market price,atte
mpting to win buyers away fromcompetitors. In ei
ther case, the marketwill adjust. If the product is
sold atbelow the market price, competitorswill hav
e to adopt the more efficientmethods of productio
n in order to stayin business. If the product is s
old atabove-market price, entrepreneurs wil
lbe attracted into the industry by thehigher-
than-average profits, increasingthe supply o
f the commodity anddriving the price down.
In either case,the price of the commodity willeven
tually fall to the lowest price sellerscan afford to ta
ke and stay in business.
This example illustrates two importantfeatur
es of free markets. One feature isthat compe
tition provides everyindividual an incentive t
o produce moreefficiently. Producers who can l
owertheir costs of production can, at leasttempor
arily, increase their profitmargins. On the other ha
nd, producerswho are less efficient than theircom
petitors will eventually be drivenout of business. B
ecause of thepervasive influence of this ince
ntive toproduce as efficiently as possible, as
ociety that chooses to organize itseconomic l
ife according to the principleof free competit
ion will reap thegreatest wealth possible fro
m theresources available to it.
A second feature of free marketsillustrated
by our example is that theyare self-regulati
ng. Changes inproduction techniques, in the supp
ly ofraw materials, or in consumerpreferences aut
omatically inducechanges in the quantity and kind
ofgoods produced and in the prices ofgoods so a
s to achieve the most efficientuse of resources po
ssible. Individualbuyers and sellers react to these
changes, altering their behavior tomaximize their
own individualearnings. In so doing they alter the
demand and supply of goods in thesociety as a w
hole. Without theintervention of any bureaucratic
agency,the free market automatically adjuststhe
whole complex network ofinterconnected goods a
nd services toachieve new equilibrium prices such
that demand and supply of goods are inbalance a
nd no more efficient use ofexisting resources is po
ssible. In thefamous phrase of Adam Smith, f
reemarkets function as if guided by an"invis
ible hand" ensuring that the effortof each pe
rson to secure his or her ownhappiness is tu
rned to the benefit ofsociety as a whole.
The Wealth of Nations is an extendedargument fo
r a system of freeenterprise. At its most basic leve
l,Smith's argument is that the best wayfor a natio
n to maximize its wealth isfor it to adopt a system
of free marketsto govern its economic life. At th
e timeSmith was writing, Britain's economic
system was still marked by a variety oflaws
and regulations, many of themholdovers fro
m the earlier feudal era,that in one way or a
nother interferedwith or prevented free com
petition inthe production and sale of goods.
Smithargued that it would be in the interest ofthe
nation to do away with these lawsand regulations,
to adopt a system offree trade in which all govern
mentalrestrictions on commerce wereremoved.
The Wealth of Nations is a treatise ineconomic sci
ence. That is, it attempts tosay how a system of f
ree markets wouldin fact work and what the cons
equencesof adopting such a system would be. Int
his sense The Wealth of Nations isfundamen
tally different in aim from theDeclaration of
Independence. TheDeclaration attempts to s
ay how sociallife should be organized by app
ealing tolaws of nature that prescribe how
weshould behave, even though we do notal
ways actually behave in those ways. Incontr
ast, The Wealth of Nations isprimarily devot
ed to showing how asystem of free markets
would in factinvariably work out. Its primar
ycontent, the claims that free-marketsystem
s are efficient and self-regulating, is descrip
tive rather thanprescriptive. Nonetheless, The
Wealthof Nations does also have a prescriptiveint
ent; Adam Smith clearlyrecommends free enterpri
se as aneconomic system that we should adopt.L
et us turn now to a consideration ofthe prescriptiv
e theory underlyingSmith's recommendation.
The Principle of Utility
In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smithargues
that we should adopt a system offree marke
ts to govern economic life. Infact, lurking in
this "should" are twoquite distinct standpoi
nts: thestandpoint of self-interest and thest
andpoint of morality. The difference
between self-interest and morality isclear enough.
If I say you should see aparticular movie, most li
kely it isbecause I think you would enjoy it andtha
t it is in your self-interest to do so. IfI say you sh
ould keep your promise,most likely it is because I
think youhave a moral obligation to do so. Ofcour
se, we can imagine contexts in
which I say you should see the moviefor moral re
asons. Perhaps, forexample, I think the moviewou
ld convey to you the morallyrelevant suffering of p
eople in someremote part of the world of which y
ouwere unaware. It is also possible thatmy recom
mendation that you keep yourpromise appeals to
your self-interestrather than to morality. If, for ex
ample,you are in business and dependentupon re
peat customers, it is in yourself-interest to keep y
our promises toyour customers. Nevertheless, the
re is aclear difference between the demands ofself
-interest and the demands ofmorality. My self-in
terest aims at myown well-being. Morality r
equires me toconsider also the well-being of
otherpeople. The word should sometimesco
nveys a recommendation aimed atself-intere
st and sometimes conveys arecommendatio
n aimed at morality.
If we ask whether Smith'srecommendation t
hat we should adopta system of free market
s to governeconomic life aimsself-interest or
morality, the answer is that it aims atboth. T
he appeal to self-interest is clearenough. If we ad
opt a system of freemarkets, we will maximize the
totalamount of wealth produced by thenation. Thi
s will mean that there ismore available for each of
us. Now, ofcourse some individuals will stand tolo
se from the adoption of a system offree markets t
hose individuals whobenefit from governmental la
ws andregulations that prevent competition.Free e
nterprise is not in the self-interest of such individu
als. It is,however, in the interest of the rest of us,
who are not in a position to benefitfrom barriers t
o competition. Sincemost people are in this positi
on,Smith's argument is that a system offree mark
ets is in the self-interest ofmost people. Howeve
r, because such asystem would increase the
total amountof wealth produced by the natio
n, it alsowould increase the amount ofhappi
ness in the nation as a whole. Thisfact, assu
ming here that Smith is rightabout this, is th
e foundation for a moralargument for free m
arkets.
Suppose we adopt as a basic principleof mor
ality the principle that we shouldmaximize h
appiness. Suppose also thatwe are convince
d by Adam Smith that asystem of free marke
ts would maximizehappiness. Given these t
wosuppositions, it follows that we(morally)
should adopt a system of freemarkets. Our b
asic moral principle saysthat we should do
whatever wouldmaximize happiness, and S
mith'seconomic science has shown us that a
free-enterprise system would maximizehapp
iness. It follows that such a systemis morall
y desirable as well as desirableon grounds o
f self-interest.
The principle that we (morally) shoulddo wh
atever maximizes happiness isknown as the
principle of utility, on thegrounds that itreco
mmends as the morally optimalcourse of acti
on the one that is mostuseful to human bein
gs, creatures whoseek happiness. The philos
ophicaltheory that makes this principle thef
undamental principle of ethics isknown as ut
ilitarianism. Although theutilitarian idea is sugge
sted by AdamSmith, the English philosopher Je
remyBentham was the first to clearlypropos
e the principle as the singlefundamental pri
nciple of morality. In1789 Bentham, who co
nsidered himselfa disciple of Adam Smith in
economictheory, published his great work, A
nIntroduction to the Principles ofMorals and
Legislation. In this workBentham argued for
the principle ofutility as the single moral pri
nciple thatshould guide both individuals tryi
ng todecide what action to perform andlegis
lators trying to decide what laws toenact.
Utilitarianism and Rights
Bentham understood his utilitariantheory of
morality as a radicalalternative to the doctri
ne of natural lawand natural rights. He reject
ed thewhole idea of natural rights. Benthamviewe
d theories of natural law andnatural rights, such a
s the one found inthe American Declaration ofInde
pendence, as empty words devoidof any real, con
tent. In his view, claimsto have certain rights mad
e sense only ifthe rights claimed were legal rights
derived from specific humanly madelaws. Claims t
o such legal rights wereclearly determinable, testa
ble by appealto the legislation creating them. On t
heother hand, claims about natural rightswere not
so clearly determinable. Is itobvious that all hum
an beings are soequal by nature that none can clai
m arightful authority over another? Is thereany w
ay, in principle, to resolvedisputes about claimed
natural rights?Bentham thought not. He regarded
claims about natural rights as"metaphysical," like
claims about howmany angels can dance on the h
ead of apin. He also regarded natural rights a
sunreal. A legal right, grounded in thehuma
nly created legal system, isenforceable. In c
ontrast, supposednatural rights are not enfo
rceable. TheAmerican and French revolutionaries
proclaimed a universal right to liberty,but even th
ey admitted that for themost part, people were no
t in fact free.Slavery and tyranny were all toocom
mon. The supposed universalnatural right to libert
y was empty.Bentham's view is nicely summed up
inhis claim that "natural rights is simplenonsense
," and that the "natural andimprescriptible rights"
such as thoseclaimed in the French Declaration of
Rights are "nonsense upon Stilts."
In part, Bentham's hostility to the ideasof n
atural law and natural rights was areaction t
o the use of those ideas tooppose change an
d reform. Bentham'sfundamental aim was to
persuade theEnglish parliament to undertak
e athoroughgoing reform of England'slaws. I
n Bentham's view, the laws ofEngland were profo
undly warped toserve the interests of a privileged
elite.Not surprisingly, many of thespokesmen for t
his privileged eliteopposed the reforms champione
d byBentham. These opponents of reformoften de
fended their privileges as rightsbelonging to them
by the laws of nature.Bentham regarded this defe
nse as asubterfuge, one in which impressive bute
ssentially empty words served "as acloke, and pre
tence, and aliment, todespotism." Having encoun
tered suchbaseless appeals to natural law andnat
ural rights, Bentham came to regardall such claim
s with disdain: "A greatmultitude of people are co
ntinuallytalking of the Law of Nature; and thenthe
y go on giving you their sentimentsabout what is r
ight and what is wrong:and these sentiments, you
are tounderstand, are so many chapters andsecti
ons of the Law of Nature." 6 Inplace of the moralit
y of natural law andnatural rights, Bentham thoug
ht thatthe principle of utility provided thefoundatio
n for a scientifically provablesystem of morality.
Intrinsic and ExtrinsicValue
To understand utilitarianism, it ishelpful to d
raw a distinction betweenthings that are int
rinsically valuableand things that are extrins
icallyvaluable. Things that are intrinsicallyva
luable are things that are valuable inthemse
lves. Things that are extrinsicallyvaluable ar
e things that are valuable asa means to som
ething else. Money is agood example of som
ething that isextrinsically but not intrinsicall
yvaluable. In itself it is only paper, orordinary m
etals mixed with traces ofgold or silver. What mak
es moneyvaluable is that it is a means foracquirin
g other things we value--likefood, clothing, shelte
r, or other goods.Truckloads of money would be o
f novalue to a person stranded on an islandwith n
o way to use that money toacquire other goods.
If money has only extrinsic value, whatthings hav
e intrinsic value? At firstglance it looks as though f
ood, clothing,and shelter would be things that arei
ntrinsically valuable, since, unlikemoney, they app
ear to be valuable inthemselves rather than for ot
her thingsthey can bring us. But is this always so?
Shelter may be of no value in a tropicalparadise, a
nd clothing might be equallyuseless there. Even fo
od can lack valuein certain circumstances. A dying
person may find swallowing,intravenous
nutrition, and feedingtubes all painfully uncomfort
able. For such a person food only prolongs
suffering. Bentham argues that forhuman bei
ngs there are only two thingsthat are intrins
ically valuable: pain,which has negative intri
nsic value, andpleasure, which has positive i
ntrinsicvalue. The reason we value food is thatn
ormally it brings us pleasure--in theeating of it, in
its capacity to bring anend to the pain of hunger,
and in itscapacity to sustain the life necessary fort
he enjoyment of other pleasures.When, as in the
case of the dyingpatient, food brings only pain, it
ceasesto be valuable for us. What is desirablefo
r us as human beings is to maximizehappine
ss, to secure the most favorablebalance of pl
easure over pain that ispossible for us to ac
hieve. All other
goods are valuable to us only
extrinsically, as means to happiness.
Utilitarianism and Egoism
It is important to distinguish utilitarianethic
s from the ethics of egoism. Theprinciple of
ethical egoism is that eachof us always shou
ld act to maximize hisor her own happiness.
From the pointof view of ethical egoism, the
happinessof other people should matter to
meonly insofar as their being happy makes
me happy. If I am an egoist, only myown happin
ess is intrinsically valuable.It is my own happiness
that I aim tomaximize. In contrast, for a utilita
rianethics, the happiness of every person isi
ntrinsically valuable. To act accordingto utili
tarianism, I must calculate theexpected effe
ct of alternative acts uponthe happiness of e
very person affectedby those possible acts.
I should then dothe act that, among these p
ossible acts,has the optimal outcome in term
s of thetotal happiness produced. If a casesho
uld arise where performing aparticular action maxi
mizes the totalamount of happiness possible in ag
roup of people, even thoughperforming that partic
ular action makesme very unhappy, utilitarianism
saysthat nonetheless, that particular actionis what
I should do. For example,suppose I can save the
lives of manypeople, thereby creating greathappin
ess, but I can do this only bysacrificing my own lif
e. Ethical egoismwould say that I should not sacrif
icemyself, while utilitarianism says that Ishould sa
crifice myself. Egoism is
selfish. Utilitarianism is not.
Utilitarianism and
Majoritarianism
It is also important to distinguish theprinciple of u
tilitarianism from theprinciple of majoritarianism.
Themajoritarian principle would say thatthe right t
hing to do is whatever themajority prefers. Often t
his willcoincide with the course of actionrecomme
nded by utilitarianism, sinceaction preferred by th
e majority willmake more people happy than anyo
ther action. However, the twoprinciples do not al
ways coincide.Suppose, for example, that doing X
ispreferred by a majority over doing Y.But suppo
se further that the membersof the majority prefer
X to Y by only alittle bit while the members of the
minority prefer Y to X by a great deal.In such a ca
se it may turn out thatdoing Y would maximize tot
alhappiness, and thus be the course ofaction conf
orming to the principle ofutility, while doing X wou
ld be thecourse of action conforming to themajorit
arian principle.
In this example of the differencebetween utilitaria
nism andmajoritarianism, the key thing is thediffer
ent intensities of the preferencesof the majority a
nd the minority. Thechoice between X and Y make
s a biggerdifference to the members of theminorit
y than it does to the members ofthe majority; the
choice between X andY has a more intense effect
upon theirhappiness. Because of this difference ini
ntensity, the selection of Y over X maymaximize h
appiness even though X ispreferred by a majority
over Y.
Utilitarianism as a
Science of Morality
There are a number of other factors inaddition to i
ntensity that must beconsidered in evaluating alte
rnativepossible course of action from autilitarian p
oint of view. Duration isone such factor. Pleasures
that lastlonger will contribute more to totalhappin
ess than pleasures that are ofshorter duration. Pr
obability is anotherfactor that must be considered
. Humanaction always takes place within acontext
of some uncertainty. One actionmight have a cha
nce of producing a verygreat amount of happiness
, while analternative action might be likely toprod
uce a somewhat lesser amount ofhappiness. How
ever, if the greaterhappiness is, though possible,
highlyunlikely, while the lesser happiness ishighly
likely, then the aim ofmaximizing happiness may
be bestserved by doing the act that aims at theles
ser, though probable, payoff.
Bentham considers a number of factorsthat, like i
ntensity, duration,and probability, should be consi
dered in trying to determine which among the
alternative possible actions would
maximize the total amount of happiness
produced. We need not consider each ofthese fact
ors here. Each is acomplicating consideration, but
none ofthem affects the basic idea of theutilitaria
n approach: The right thing todo in any situation i
s whatever willmaximize happiness. Bentham tho
ughtthat this principle provides thefoundation for
a scientific approach toquestions of morality. Conf
ronted witha choice about what to do, theutilitaria
n principle gives us a formula
for determining what is the morally
correct thing to do. Having identifiedthe possible a
ctions before us, we haveonly to calculate, for eac
h of thesepossible actions, the expected payoffs i
nterms of pleasure and pain, for eachaffected indi
vidual, of the performanceof that possible action.
Havingdetermined these payoffs for eachindividual
person, suitably refined byconsideration of the du
rations,intensities, probabilities, and othervariatio
ns of the pleasures and painsproduced, we need o
nly calculate fromthis data which among the alter
nativepossible actions before us has thehighest ex
pected payoff in terms of thetotal happiness prod
uced for society asa whole. From this point of vie
w,questions of morality are decidable bythe meth
ods of social science andelementary arithmetic.
Of course, in practice this would not bean easy un
dertaking. In any realsituation of choice we do not
have thetime to determine the happiness payofffo
r each affected person and probablycould not dete
rmine the payoff for eachwith any degree of precis
ion if we didhave the time. Nonetheless, the ideal
utilitarian calculus gives us a way ofdetermining in
principle what themorally right course of action is
.Further, the utilitarian calculus canfunction as a r
egulative ideal. Inpractice we make a very rough
estimateof the expected outcomes of the
alternative possible actions before us,but this rou
gh estimate is one that canbe corrected by increa
sed or moreaccurate information. The ideal calcul
usidentifies the kinds of information thatwould be
relevant to making suchcorrections. It may, as Be
ntham says,"always be kept in view."
Utilitarianism and the
Common Rules of Morality
In practice, in the making of decisionsin the every
day world, people areguided by a variety of moral
rules.Among these rules are principles suchas tell
the truth, do not harm innocentpeople, pay your d
ebts,help people in need, and a host of otherfamili
ar maxims. Bentham did not deny
that these maxims were generally validmoral princ
iples. But, he argued, it wasbecause these principl
es are generallyconducive to happiness that they
aremorally right. Thus, he argued, theprinciple of
utility explains what it isthat makes these maxims
generallyvalid moral principles. The principle ofutili
ty is the single fundamentalprinciple of morality. T
he maxims ofordinary moral life
are applications ofthe principle of utility to commo
n typesof human interactions. Usually thesemaxi
ms, if followed, do promotehappiness. It is for thi
s reason that theyare generally valid moral princip
les. Butsometimes these maxims do not hold.Trut
h telling, for example, is usuallymorally right, but
most of us think thatthere are some cases when
we shouldnot tell the truth. So-called white lies
are one sort of exception to the rule. Thedepartin
g guest does the right thing intelling the host how
much the eveningwas enjoyed even though the g
uest mayhave much preferred to have beenelsew
here. To tell the truth on such anoccasion would c
ause useless distressand unhappiness while the ki
ndly liecauses happiness and does no harm.There
are also occasions of a moreserious nature when
truth telling wouldnot be the morally right course
ofaction. Suppose, for example, that amale friend
shows up one evening,enraged, drunk, waving a
gun, andwanting to know where his girlfriend is.S
hould you tell him the truth? Surelynot, since to d
o so risks greatunhappiness. Bentham argues that
it isone of the virtues of utilitarianism thatit explai
ns why we should not tell thetruth in these cases.
Such cases showthat happiness is the deeper aim
ofmorality and that the maxims ofeveryday moral
life should beunderstood as rules of thumb that h
oldusually but not always. The ability ofthe princip
le of utility to explain whythe principles of everyda
y morality weregenerally binding, and at the same
timewhy they were not binding in somecases, pr
ovided a powerful argument infavor of Bentham's
utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism and the
Politics of Reform
In the early years of the nineteenth
century, utilitarianism largely
supplanted natural-rights theory as the
dominant political philosophy of the English
speaking
world. Presentingitself as a sober, scientific altern
ative tothe revolutionary metaphysics ofnatural la
w, utilitarianism nonethelessprovided a philosophi
cal foundation for
radical reforms of existing political institutions.In
England, by the middle of thenineteenth century, t
he fundamentalgoals of the reform movement had
coalesced into a coherent overallconception of ho
w society should beorganized. This is the concepti
on ofwhat is now known as classicalliberalism. In
the next chapter we willexamine the fundamental f
eatures ofclassical liberalism and see how modern
conservative thought emerged as aphilosophical a
nd political alternative toliberalism.