What are natural rights and are they in any way applicable essays

What are natural rights and are they in any way applicable essays People in the western societies today are used to the idea of having rights and relying on them in their everyday life. Most of them would be aware of their rights and obligations. However, the picture would be very different in some eastern, African and Latin American societies. Still today there are governments who do not protect any rights of their citizens and allow or even initiate human rights abuse. However, thinking about why is there such a difference in the development of human rights between western societies and the rest of the world we could suggest that the reason for difference is economical or historical. However, maybe even more importantly is that the idea of natural rights has first emerged in Europe and then developed under the social pressure into the concept of the contemporary human rights. In my essay I am going to explain the whole concept of the natural rights, the creation and development of that concept. I will also present some critique of that concept. Then I will look at the possibilities of the idea of natural rights being the bases for the contemporary concept of human rights. The idea of natural law dates back to the ancient Greeks. However, today we are most likely to remember Hobbes and Locke as the inventors of the concept of natural rights, and in the 20th century the latter idea, in the form of human rights or moral rights, has more or less completely replaced it. Although both Hobbes and Locke refer to the same term of natural rights, in my understanding, they mean very different things under the same term. According to Hobbes natural rights mean the rights that a human being has in the state of nature: those rights are the right to self preservation by all means. However, Lockes understanding is closer to the contemporary concept of human rights whish are the rights for life and liberty given to a human being at the...