Why is unalienable rights important

This is why, the Founders thought, we needed a government. This is why they designed a federal government that would have limited power, and whose branches would check one another. Test Your Knowledge Question 1 of 5 What does it mean for certain rights to be "inalienable"? Inalienable rights are rights that government cannot violate under any circumstances.

Inalienable rights require individuals to perform certain actions in order for others to enjoy more freedoms. Inalienable rights are natural rights with which all humans are born; governments might wrongfully violate them but can never take them away. All property-owning, white men are equal. All humans are entitled to live in a society that provides them with sufficient food, shelter, and other necessities for life.

All humans are born with certain natural rights. All men are equally entitled to jobs that pay a living wage. The right to vote. The right to drive a car. The right to think for oneself. Too much government. Too little government.

Pure democracy decisions based on majority rule. All of these. Magna Carta. The English Declaration of Rights. That's a world Thomas Jefferson kept in mind when he was writing the Declaration, a world he no longer wanted anyone living in anymore. This is the reason why he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that there were certain rights, unalienable rights, that you could not violate without a valid reason.

The ideal of equality for all and the right to alter or abolish the government are second to the ideal of the three unalienable rights which consists of the rights to Life, Liberty. Natural rights philosophy explains that all people, after leaving the state of nature, enter into a social contract with their government. In doing so they choose to give up some of their rights but gain protection and inalienable rights. The ideas formulated by John Locke and incorporated into the Declaration of Independence include the belief a person is afforded the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

While our country has made many progressive decisions, people are still deprived of equality, and discrimination remains a profound issue in our society. Last summer Gay-Marriage was legalized in the United States. Yet, it is evident that sexual discrimination continues to exist.

Nevertheless, people who are homosexual or transgender are bestowed with the same unalienable rights as a heterosexual. It is not my job, nor is it the. Each one of the four ideals holds a significant importance to the modern society, but the ideal of unalienable rights is the most important. To start off, the ideal of equality.

Website: www. Terms to Know. Declaration of Independence equality pursuit of happiness self-evident unalienable rights. Preamble to the Constitution domestic tranquility general welfare justice. Such statements do not require proof. They can be stated without elaborating or defending them. These ideas were very familiar to Jefferson and the other authors and editors of the Declaration.

They were also very familiar to most Americans of the time. Why should this have been so? They were a deeply religious people who were very familiar with the idea of universal human equality from the teachings of Christianity and from English republicanism. The colonists also believed strongly that the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed and that the governed have a right to revolution when government betrays its trust.

Again, these ideas came from Locke and English republicanism. In reexamining it today, we realize that this American Creed continues its role in providing cohesive force to a society not only divided by conflicting positions on controversial issues, but also united in seeking the fulfillment of its founding ideals.

This means that no one is legitimately the ruler of others by birth and no one is by birth the subject of a ruler. The other is that human equality goes deeper than just political equality.

In this sense, all people are considered of equal value and worth, or equal in the eyes of God. All are created moral equals. In fact Jefferson intended both of these senses of natural equality. Late in life he stated that in composing the Declaration he was not stating original principles or ideas of his own.

History of the idea of political equality. Ideas of natural political equality were developed in seventeenth-century England and exported to its colonies across the North Atlantic. All of these sources speak of natural human political equality flowing from their natural equality by birth. History of the idea of moral equality. The idea of the moral equality of human beings has more ancient origins. The equality and universal fraternity of humanity was a doctrine of the Stoic philosophers of the third century BC.

These ideas were taken up and spread by Christianity, which held that each person has an immortal soul and that each person is equal in the sight of God. Equality and the American mind. In colonial America, where Christianity was already deeply established, the Great Awakening, a religious revival movement that swept the colonies from the s to the s a Second Great Awakening would take place in the nineteenth century , helped spread the idea of universal moral human equality, including equality among social classes.

By the eve of the Revolution, universal human equality was a common American idea. Inalienable rights are rights that we are unable to give up, even if we want to. According to the concept of inalienable rights found in the Declaration of Independence, liberty is such a right. That means that if we signed a contract to be a slave, we would not have an obligation to keep it; and despite the contract, no one would have a right to our services.

Having rights that are inalienable does not mean they cannot be attacked by our being arbitrarily killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed. It means that such acts are not morally justified and that we have a ground for moral complaint. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Without them we lose our humanity. With no inherent right to life and liberty, we would be in the same position as ordinary animals such as cattle or sheep. Human beings are different: our right not to be treated like an animal is part of our very nature that we are powerless to change.

We are unable to change our nature, and so we are unable to rid ourselves of certain of our essential qualities, such as the capacity to make moral choices.

To answer this, we should bear in mind that in writing the Declaration, Jefferson said he was not attempting to put forth an original philosophy of his own. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness, so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger [the] ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general…the more are we free from [obedience to an immediate impulse for some pleasure].

Every day we make numerous choices in deciding what course of action will add to our well-being—what will make us happy. Making these choices is the pursuit of happiness. The results of our choices are not all equal: we soon discover that choosing some pleasures, especially following momentary impulses, leads not to happiness but to pain.

But if we use our faculty of foresight, recalling past experience, we learn to postpone immediate gratification and see what choices are really in our interest. Thus, learning self-control based on experience is essential to happiness.

Pursuing happiness as an inalienable right. Accordingly, our right to make these choices is inalienable, and, unless our actions attack the rights of others, it is wrong for government to interfere. Private happiness, public happiness, and moral goodness.

Locke, Jefferson, and others learned from ancient philosophers, especially Aristotle, that these choices have ethical or moral dimensions: those without moral virtue cannot be happy. From the Preamble to the U. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice , insure domestic tranquility , provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Justice refers generally to fairness. The meaning of justice has been contested for more than 2, years of human history and remains contested today. The concept of justice has long been divided into three types: distributive justice, procedural justice, and corrective justice. Distributive justice.

Distributive justice refers to the fairness of the distribution of benefits and burdens among persons or groups in society. Benefits may be such things as pay for work or the right to speak or vote. They may include almost anything that can be distributed among a group of people that would be considered useful or desirable, such as praise, awards, opportunities for education, jobs, membership in organizations, or money.

Burdens may include obligations, such as homework or chores, working to earn money, paying taxes, serving on juries, or caring for another person.