John locke believed that natural rights

1. Natural Law and Natural Rights

Perhaps the most central concept in Locke’s political philosophy is his theory of natural law and natural rights.

The natural law concept existed long before Locke as a way of expressing the idea that there were certain moral truths that applied to all people, regardless of the particular place where they lived or the agreements they had made.

John locke believed that natural rights

The most important early contrast was between laws that were by nature, and thus generally applicable, and those that were conventional and operated only in those places where the particular convention had been established. This distinction is sometimes formulated as the difference between natural law and positive law.

Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, in the Christian tradition, normally referred to those laws that God had directly revealed through prophets and other inspired writers.

Natural law can be discovered by reason alone and