I must admit I’m new to a lot of the discussion about natural rights. I’m currently reading Woltersdorff’s latest book on justice. He’s got a rights based system of justice but his rights are premised upon the imago dei and so are a theocratic system.

When I hear the term “natural rights” I confess they don’t make much sense to me because I see no such thing in the natural order. The cow does not recognize the rights of the blade of grass. The tiger does not recognize the rights of the goat. The asteroid does not recognize the rights of the planet earth. The volcano does not recognize the rights of the forest that surrounds it. I find no justification for these rights within the natural order.

In Christian theology rights are premised on exceptionalism. A farmer exercises exceptionalism, enforced by power, when he designates and enforces the assignation of the term “weed” against a whole series of natural plants. These rights are premised on ownership of property by the creator of that property. The creator owns the world and therefore has rights over that property and has a status of inherent exceptionalism. Now in the creation story that creator delegates exceptionalism to his steward. That steward (the gardener in the Genesis story) exercises exceptionalism and power over the garden in order for the garden to deliver to the owner that which the over desires. Dominion is delegated via exceptionalism. Human rights are respected because they are the property of the owner, the creator. All value that should be respected in the natural order can be understood as established by the claim of the owner, the creator. Use of the elements of that order are subject to the condition and will of that owners.

The story of the Bible is the story of the owner reclaiming and redeeming his property against the theft and violation of his rebellious stewards. Normally, the owner simply destroys the stewards or exiles them. In this case the owner, as owner also of the stewards themselves as part of his property and creation seeks to not only redeem the creation but also the stewards of the creation, a much more difficult task.

Now of course this story is a meta-narrative asserted by the Christian tradition and I believe by Jesus himself. If one is trying to base a system on the natural order I fear we are only justified in seeing some of what Nietzsche saw. There are no rights, there is only power to do. In such a system natural rights are the right to power, the right to do what nature has afforded the agent to accomplish which simply means the strong take the weak, as the cow takes the blade of grass, the tiger takes the goat, and the volcano takes the forest.