GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

SOVEREIGNTY AND NATURAL RIGHTS 545
an unjust law." Sometimes it has flowed from the doctrine
wrote
of Natural Rights. "The principal aim of society/ 9
Blackstonc in 1765, "is to protect individuals in the
enjoyment of those absolute rights which were vested in
them by the immutable laws of nature." All these views
confer upon the individual, whatever the nature of the
ground which is urged to justify it, the right of revolt.
But if we concede that everybody has a right to rebel
against the State, when he chooses to think that it is
failing to preserve his rights, we are in effect conceding a
right to anarchy. Now the admission of a right to anarchy
and is
is fatal to the effective functioning of . any State
fatal, therefore* to the view that the State exists in order
to preserve rights.
Common Elements in Foregoing Theories of Rights.
All the theories of rights so far considered are based upon
the same general view of society and of man's relations to
it. Hence though they differ on particular points, they
conform to one general formula. This may be stated in a
series of propositions.
(1) There is, first, an historical affirmation: man preexisted
society.
(2) There is, secondly, a moral and metaphysical
affirmation: man is a creature who possesses certain rights
in virtue of the general nature and plan of the universe,
and of the part which he has to play in carrying out the
plan of the universe.
(3) In order that these rights may be preserved,
society.
(4) Rights, then, are not created by society,
brought by man into society.
he forms
but are
(5) The purpose of society is to secure man's rights.
(6) If it does not do so, the individual has a right to
rebel, or, alternatively:
(7) he has no right to rebel, even if it does not, because
society was, after all, formed to secure his rights as a whole,
and even if on a particular occasion it appears to violate
SM