The concept of inalienability makes sense only within the Founders’ social-compact political philosophy. The Founders distinguished inalienable from alienable natural rights. Direct jurisdiction ...

Conservatives have often expressed suspicion that natural rights philosophy necessarily leads to something like the French Revolution, but these fears are misplaced. Not all creedal revolutions ...

Roughly, there are three broad types of foundation for the libertarian axiom, corresponding to three kinds of ethical philosophy: the emotivist, the utilitarian, and the natural rights viewpoint.

The two views are obviously incompatible. Where did the rejection of America’s founding natural rights philosophy come from? The nation was founded on the natural rights principles first elaborated by ...

Here was something of a change: conservatives began to embrace the natural rights philosophy of John Locke, an outlook that Kirk criticized as abstract, individualistic, and potentially radical.

A senator might wonder whether Judge Jackson shares the philosophy of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who held that judges should act without regard to morality or natural rights. "If my fellow ...