If these rights are determined by the individual, then for all intents and purposes there is no difference between the latter and the former. Using this reasoning, if I truly believe that I am entitled to free health care, then that becomes a “Natural Right”.
Are you saying you do not make a distinction between things you’d like to have and things you should have?
I don’t see a problem with individuals disagreeing about what are inalienable rights.
No. I am saying there is no distinguishing difference between the two that can be commonly agreed upon. One person’s want is the next person’s need, reducing any “Natural Right” to an individual decision.
Ah, okay.
But why should individuals having their own beliefs about what are inalienable rights be a problem? Why must be they commonly agreed upon?
I am in agreement with Czarcasm. My issue is with the term ‘natural’. If any of these ill defined things are rights, they will be man-made as are constitutional rights, and thus the term ‘natural’ is merely a way elevate them from ‘rights that I want’ to something others should agree with.
I have the same issue with the term “natural right”, which is why I use “inalienable right”. Inalienable rights are obviously man-made, because all rights are man-made. What distinguishes inalienable rights from constitutional rights is that i-rights are inherent to humanity, while c-rights are those that are protected by a constitution. There may be overlap between the groups.
Natural rights and inalienable rights mean the same thing, rights that are inherent to personhood. Either term is fine, since the ideas are the same.
If both terms have no definitions that limit what they can and cannot be, then they are equally effective, at least.
Ah! Inalienable rights. AKA “You aren’t the boss of me”. Same inherent problem, just opinions with no establishment. But certainly almost everyone believes they have them, or should have them. Thus the beauty of the US Constitution, in recognizing that people will belief they have them.
You seem to grasp the idea well enough: that there are rights that come from being a human being, separate from rights granted by law. You disagree with it, but the terms are ‘effective’ in that they convey this idea.
How is that a problem? No one’s saying there shouldn’t also be laws protecting rights, or that we should only use natural law, just that the law isn’t the ultimate source of rights.
Natural Rights come from personal opinion, and Civil Rights come from collected personal opinion codified into law.
I would use “legal rights” rather than civil, because civil rights can come from either source, but otherwise, agree. Ultimately, all ethics are personal opinions, and need enforcement in practice.
What is the source of other rights other than each individuals opinion?
Exactly. That wasn’t too hard to understand, was it? 
But seriously, if your hang-up is that “natural rights” do not come from nature, then use the term “inalienable rights”.
If your problem is that rights don’t exist unless they’re exercisable, then recognize that that’s a philosophical position and that others do not agree.
If you have trouble distinguishing a want from an inalienable right, wants are “I’d like to have” and inalienable rights are “we all should have”.
If you think inalienable rights depend too much on individual whimsy, I’d point to any political system as being equally arbitrary.
The law. There are rights-in-theory, the rights people have; and rights-in-practice, the rights people are permitted to exercise freely under the law.
If you subscribe to a natural rights theory, the two are distinct.
If you subscribe to a legal-rights theory, they are the same.
I agree fully.
Actually, the blowing-shit-up kind of anarchism has a much better claim to be the “classical” form; it was the form that terrified Europe in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries.
That’s a good way to state it.
I’d go with a three-way split, though:
- Rights in theory–those rights we should all have because of being sapients capable of consent and controlling our own actions.
- Rights in law–those rights granted to us by law (customary, statutory or case).
- Rights in practice–those rights that can actually be exercised.
Not sure what you are saying here. Clearly the source of legal rights is an agreement among people, such as the US Constitution. Other than such law, what source is there for those other rights not established by agreement among people? I see no other source but the minds of individuals. You don’t have to believe the rights set forth in the Constitution are actually rights, but we can see that they are there, even disagree about them, and still specify the source as the Constitution. What is the source of natural or inalienable rights. What does ‘natural’ or ‘inalienable’ mean, other than ‘In my opinion’?