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

568
POLITICS
be exercised, it follows that we have an obligation to obey
the laws of society and to contribute, so for as in us lies,
to its smooth working. Hence the duty of political obedience
springs from the recognition of society as a necessary
organization for guaranteeing the fulfilment of individual
rights; or, more precisely, for guaranteeing to the individual
the opportunity of pursuing those ends which he has a
right to pursue.
The way in which society will most effectively perform
this function of guaranteeing individual rights, or rather
of guaranteeing the opportunity for their exercise, will
depend upon the circumstances both of society and of
the individual. It is this dependence upon circumstances
which stultifies any attempt to draw up a list of the rights
of man in society. "Every civil right/' says Tom Paine,
"has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing
in the individual/ 9
If we agree to use the word "right"
in the teleological sense just defined, we may, I think,
accept Paine's statement. But it does not therefore follow
that we can say what a man's civil rights* are. All that the
considerations adduced above entitle us to claim is that
a man has a right to have rights, those rights, namely,
which must be accorded to him, if he is to enjoy unrestricted
opportunities for the pursuit of the good life. But
the nature of these rights will vary from society to society
and from individual to individual, and it is impossible,
therefore, to draw up lists of them in vacw, or to determine
by means of a priori reasoning what they are.
Moral Presuppositions of Any Doctrine of Right.
It is, I think, clear that even the somewhat modest theory
of rights just sketched entails metaphysical, or, at least,
ethical, assumptions. It entails, that is to say, that the
universe is not meaningless, but is moral in the sense that
the word "ought" can be used meaningfully in relation
to events in the universe; that man has a distinctive part
to play in this moral universe; that certain absolute values
exist; and that human beings ought to pursue and to try