[NOTE: This is the third in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read Defining Natural Rights, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

Now that we have established a definition of a Natural Right, we need to explore the limits of the concept by expanding it until we find the point where our definition breaks down.  But before we start, I would like to quote something Jefferson said about the nature of a right:

“The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.”

It is from this principle that we derive a claim to our life, for without our life, we cannot sustain and exercise our free will.  And from our claim to our life, we derive our claim to our body, which is necessary to sustain and exercise our free will.  From our claim to our body, we derive a claim to our labor, which is necessary to sustain our body, to sustain our life, to sustain our free will.  Do you see how this works?  It is a simple extension of Jefferson’s principle, and it is from this principle that Jefferson summarizes everything we have discussed in our first three posts on Natural Law:

“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance.”

 –Thomas Jefferson  (Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376)

But there is one more important aspect of this principle, and that is the derivation of our claim to property.  If I have a Natural Right to my will, thus to my life, then to my body, and then to my labor, then I must have a Natural Right to that property which I obtain and/or make through the use of my labor as it is necessary to sustain my life.  I like to use growing pineapples as an example.  If I am stranded on a desert isle, and I use my labor to make a hoe so I can grow pineapples, both the hoe and the pineapples are my property: I have a just claim to them through the use of my labor to do that which is necessary to sustain my life.  However, just because I am the only person on the island, I cannot have a just claim to it as my labor had nothing to do with creating it.  Therefore, while I have a Natural Right to use its resources to sustain my life, I do not have and can never impart a Natural Right to the island as property.  This is the distinction Jefferson and Franklin were both explaining when they wrote these words:

“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:45

“All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”

–Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783, Ref: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1

There is a crucial distinction between Natural and Civil rights in these words.  As we have already determined, a Natural Right is that to which you can lay just claim and to which no one else can lay the same.  However, those rights that exist only because of and as an act of government are not Natural but Civil Rights (government having been formed from the Natural Right to freely enter into a contract with others, and hence, the concept of the Social Contract).  Thus, Civil Rights are subject to modification and/or change, whereas Natural Rights cannot be altered or abolished because there are inherent to our being.

So, now we have a principle by which we can test whether or not a right is Natural or Civil.  Next, we need to define morality.

[NOTE: This is the second in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read Free Will: the First Principle of Natural Law, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

 Now that we have established that the first principle of Natural Law is our free will, we need to develop our definition of a Natural Right.  As a matter of habit, where matters of definition are concerned, I start by citing the definition of a natural:

Definition of NATURAL

2a : being in accordance with or determined by nature

b : having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature

5: implanted or being as if implanted by nature : seemingly inborn <a natural talent for art>

7: having a specified character by nature <a natural athlete>

b : formulated by human reason alone rather than revelation <natural religion> <natural rights>

 Next, the definition of right:

Definition of RIGHT

1: qualities (as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety or merit moral approval

2: something to which one has a just claim: as

a : the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled <voting rights> <his right to decide>

3: something that one may properly claim as due <knowing the truth is her right>

 Now, using these two definitions, let us define a Natural Right.  First, we exist in corporeal form, and as such, are subject to the laws of physics as they govern mater in this universe.  Thus, whatever form we take is a matter of what we call nature.  Second, as our free will is a part of our total make up, and is – at least in some way – connected to or dependent upon our corporeal form, it is a matter of nature that we have free will.  And as our free will is unique to each of us – indeed, it defines us as individuals.  We cannot be separated from our will for, without it, we cease to be.  It is inalienable to who we are.  Therefore, we can say that our free will is a natural part of our being.  So, in every sense, our free will meets the definition of “natural:” both because it is a natural part of this universe, and because it is inalienable to who we are as individuals.

Next, as our free will is unique to ourselves, it is not subject to control by any outside influence — unless we allow it (in which case, it would still be an act of free will: the act of  surrendering to that outside control).  Our will is the very essence of who we are, and as we are given free will by our Creator, this imparts a just claim to control over our will.  We are sovereign over our will.  Thus, we have a right in our free will.  And since that will is a natural part of this world and who we are, we can say we have a Natural Right to our will.  What’s more, again, because our will is a gift from our Creator, our claim to our will cannot be said to be greater or less than the claim anyone else has to their own will.  Nor can they make a just claim to ours.  We are all equal in our claim to our will.  Jefferson explained it this way:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And thus, we have our definition of a Natural Right:

A Natural Right is that to which one has a natural and just claim as a function of their being – both in physical existence, and in will.

[NOTE: This will be the first of a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law.  It will draw from the body of works and understandings of those who have come before me, but it is largely the result of my own effort to work out the principles that govern human behavior.  Unless I cite another source, I am asserting that all parts of the extended argument which will follow are my own.  If I happen to argue something that parallels or agrees with something from another source, I can assure you, it is only because that source and I were on the same path and, should there be such convergences (and I already know there are), it only serves to validate our common conclusion(s): that there does exist a Natural Law to human interaction in this universe; that it can be discovered through human reason; and that is establishes a universal moral code by which we ought to live.]

Many people have started from the assumption that we own our life, but while I agree with this assumption, I disagree that it is the first principle of Natural Law.  As I look to history, study human nature and even the holy books of all the world’s major religions, I find there is a central theme running through every one of them: that man has free will.  There are those who would argue we cannot know this, but they are wrong.  We can know this because we each think.  This is part of the brilliance of Descartes’ simple phrase:

“I think, therefore I am.”

Not only does that phrase prove we exist, it proves we exist as individuals, and that we have free will.

No one forced Descartes to think those words; he did that of his own free will.  Nor did the random happenstance of this universe cause him to think those words.  While it may be fashionable in some intellectual circles to believe that everything that has or will ever happen was pre-ordained by the circumstances of the universe at the first moment it was born, logic dictates that this cannot possibly be the case of our reality.  If it were, then how could we ever imagine something that has no basis in any reality?  This is a difficult concept to understand, but it is one we must examine because it is the most common avenue of attack for those who seek to deny the existence of free will.

The logical point here is easy to state, but not so easy to comprehend.  If you are nothing but a collection of matter and you are hopelessly bound to do whatever the forces acting upon you from the first instant of time dictate you must do, then how can you imagine something that does not, has never and can never exist in this universe?  A perfect example would be the world of Harry Potter.  Magic does not exist in this world, yet, a human imagined something that does not and cannot exist.  Logically, this is impossible – unless you have free will.  It is a logical extension of another philosophical principle: that which is finite cannot imagine or understand the concept of infinite.  If you think about it, this is the primary difference between us and the animals: we know there is a past, present and future.  We can even understand that which is infinite.  The fact that you are reading and understanding these words is proof of this as the logic governing the English language is infinite.  It existed before this universe began and will exist even after this universe ends.  So, what all of this means is that we do – in fact – have free will and it can be demonstrated through reason.

There is another aspect of free will that will help bolster my argument.  The ability to create is a function of free will.  If we look at our example of harry Potter again, that story is not only a creation, but an example of free will.  If we were just matter doing what physics dictates, then there would be no way for us to imagine anything outside the actual existence of this universe.  The best we could do would be to re-arrange the things we see in our universe, but little more.  And though we might call this “creation,” a re-arranging is all it would actually be: putting that which already is together in different ways.  It would not actually be a “creation.”  But Harry Potter goes totally outside everything we know of this universe and the laws that govern it and truly creates a new world, a world that lives only in our imaginations.  That is an act of free will.  This then means that the idea we are just matter going through the motions dictated by the universe is a creation, which affirms the existence of free will.

There is one more aspect of human existence that speaks to the existence of free will.  Humans can not only discover and learn to understand the laws that govern this universe; we can harness them to serve our desires.  That not only demonstrates that we have the ability to understand the infinite, but that we have free will.  Desire, itself, is a manifestation of our will, as are the actions we take to satisfy that desire.  So, when you turn on your computer to read this post, you benefit from man’s ability to understand, harness and manipulate the principles governing electromagnetism (among other things).  At once, this demonstrates the ability to understand the infinite, to manipulate natural laws, to create and – ultimately – free will.  Everything about our existence speaks to the fact that we have free will.

Now for the most important aspect of free will.  It is free will.  That means you control what you think and believe.  While outside forces may influence you, ultimately, you are the only one who can control your thoughts and your beliefs – your heart.  You make or break yourself depending upon how strong you are.  If you would rather go along to get along, you can be easily controlled – but that was still your choice.  However, if you are strongly rooted in what you believe, you may resist attempts to control you unto death, and many have done just that.  And that – again – speaks to the existence of free will, for how could the universe dictate self-destruction?  It cannot.  That would take an act of free will by a being capable of acting outside of the universes laws of physics.  In other words, it would require a being with free will.

Finally, for those of faith who may be reading his, there is one more point I would make.  In most religions of which I am aware, the Creator grants us free will.  Now, do not misunderstand: I am not saying the Creator is not sovereign over all things, because He is.  If He were not, then He couldn’t be the Creator.  But even though He is sovereign, He has still granted us free will.   It has to be that free will is the one thing the Creator has given us over which He has chosen not to exercise complete control.  He can take our wealth, health, freedom – even our lives.  But He has chosen to allow us free will.   If this were not the case, we could not worship Him; we could not love Him; we couldn’t even reject Him or refuse to believe in Him because all of those things require free will.

Therefore, the first principle upon which all Natural Law must rest is that of free will.