Thank you for your explanation but I do not misunderstand. ”Natural Rights” is just a concept political philosophers came up with to suggest there should be some minimal set of identical rights in all legal systems. It is a suggestion, not a source of law.
Case in point: in a thread broadly pertaining to the law in the UK you bring up the US Constitution, and its enunciation of rights in the first batch of amendments (otherwise known as the Bill Of Rights). No such analogue exists in UK law because (despite being a constitutional monarchy) the UK has no explicit written constitution (at least not a single specific document whose amendment or modification requires special supermajority in parliament).
The US Constitution's Bill of Rights famously proclaims US citizens' rights to bear arms. No analogue exists in UK law. What is a natural rights proponent to make of that? That the UK has implemented less of the natural rights than the US has? That bearing arms is not a natural right? That the US allows rights that are not natural rights? These would all be spurious conclusions because rights need not map across legal systems and certainly do not ”inherit” from one golden standard of ”natural rights”.
I think it is easy for us technologically-inclined people to think of various legal systems as differing implementations of a ”natural rights specification”, and come away with a feeling that there are various levels of correctness or preferrability. That's the wrong mindset, though. A better one would be that each legal system is a formal system built up from different and sometimes incompatible axioms, so that some support some theorems and others don't (but support other theorems).
Case in point: in a thread broadly pertaining to the law in the UK you bring up the US Constitution, and its enunciation of rights in the first batch of amendments (otherwise known as the Bill Of Rights). No such analogue exists in UK law because (despite being a constitutional monarchy) the UK has no explicit written constitution (at least not a single specific document whose amendment or modification requires special supermajority in parliament).
The US Constitution's Bill of Rights famously proclaims US citizens' rights to bear arms. No analogue exists in UK law. What is a natural rights proponent to make of that? That the UK has implemented less of the natural rights than the US has? That bearing arms is not a natural right? That the US allows rights that are not natural rights? These would all be spurious conclusions because rights need not map across legal systems and certainly do not ”inherit” from one golden standard of ”natural rights”.
I think it is easy for us technologically-inclined people to think of various legal systems as differing implementations of a ”natural rights specification”, and come away with a feeling that there are various levels of correctness or preferrability. That's the wrong mindset, though. A better one would be that each legal system is a formal system built up from different and sometimes incompatible axioms, so that some support some theorems and others don't (but support other theorems).