Britannica
Sources used in this answer
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: Top Questions
- human rights - Origins in ancient Greece and Rome
- natural law
- human rights - Natural law transformed into natural rights
- human rights - āNonsense upon stiltsā: the critics of natural rights
How did natural rights influence the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
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natural law
Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, oil on canvas by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653; in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was fundamentally shaped by Enlightenment-era theories of natural rights, which posited that individuals possess inherent, inalienable liberties that exist prior to the formation of any government.12
The influence of these concepts is evident in several key ways:
- Inherent Equality: The documentās central assertion, that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights," reflects the Enlightenment belief that such rights are universal and not granted by the state.132
- Purpose of Government: The Declaration explicitly states that the aim of "political association" is the preservation of these natural and imprescriptible rights, specifically identifying them as "liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression".32
- Intellectual Foundations: The authors were heavily influenced by John Locke, who argued that individuals in a "state of nature" possess rights to life, liberty, and property. They also drew upon Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose ideas regarding the general will and the separation of powers provided the framework for how these rights should be protected within a civil society.21
By framing these principles as fundamental to human nature, the Declaration sought to dismantle the privileges of the old regime and establish a new, universally applicable standard for justice.12