Natural Rights and the Right to Choose

by Hadley Arkes

Over the last thirty years the American political class has come to talk itself out of the doctrines of "natural rights" that formed the main teaching of the American Founders and Abraham Lincoln. With that move, they have talked themselves out of the ground of their own rights. But the irony is that they have made this transition without the least awareness, and indeed with a kind of serene conviction that they have been expanding constitutional rights. Since 1965, in the name of "privacy" and "autonomy," they have unfolded, vast new claims of liberty, all of them bound up in some way with the notion of sexual freedom, and yet this new scheme of rights depends on a denial, at the root, of the premises and logic of natural rights. Hadley Arkes argues that the "right to choose an abortion" has functioned as the "right" that has shifted the political class from doctrines of natural right. The new "right to choose" overturned the liberal jurisprudence of the New Deal, and placed jurisprudence on a notably different foundation. And so even if there is a "right" to abortion, that right has been detached from the logic of natural rights and stripped of moral substance. As a consequence, the people who have absorbed these new notions of rights have put themselves in a position in which they can no longer offer a moral defense of any of their rights. Hadley Arkes is the Edward Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst College. He is the author of First Things (Princeton, 1986), Beyond the Constitution (Princeton, 1990), and The Reform Constitution (Princeton, 1994). He has been a contributor to First Things, the journal that took its name from his book of that title.

Genres: Philosophy, Law, Politics

332 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 2002

Reviews

[Turbomanny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read book for anyone interested in law school or their Constitutional rights. it discusses the basic foundations of jurisprudence philosophy that was commonly used during the early founding of the U.S.A. and which is now overlooked in our society today, both by lawyers, and by judges. Hadley Arkes compares the thoughts and debates on abortion (which is discussed in the realm of positivism) in todays world and contrasts it with the thinking and times of Abraham Lincoln (which was discussed in the realm of natural rights, or morals). This book will strike a cord with everyone! it helps to rethink about where we as a people, that suppose to be self-governing, are giving that power to others to govern us. this book is not just about abortion, wether its right or wrong, it is much more deeper than that! it is about reconsidering, reorganizing, the ideas of rational, sophisticated judgments we once had.

[hana ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastic book, really great for understanding constitutional basis of natural rights and how the american legal system has drifted from it

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended. Very lucid exposition of Natural Rights and the founding of our country's legal system based on their idea. The main issue which he brings out is that the legal maneuvering of the past 40 years around the "right to abortion", in effect contradicts the very idea of inalienable rights. Basically, if society allows anyone to choose the death of another person, then fundamental rights have been removed from the society. Arkes is a very good writer.

[Rebecca The Files of Mrs. E, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arkes clearly lays out his argument that those who have pushed the "right" to an abortion have had to undermine the very ideals our nation was founded on, that "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." They have ignored the natural rights our country recognized and was based on for a completely subjective definition of humans. Of course there is more to the argument but you can see the effects of Arkes' argument in our society today. The book was written nearly 20 years ago so it's a little of out of date in discussing legislation, but the crux of his argument is only reinforced by the events that have happened since then.