Editing Rights (section)

===Natural versus legal===
[[File:Brueghel Jan II God creating.jpg|thumb|right|alt=painting of dark gray skies with trees and water, and a human image, flying, with arms outstretched|According to some views, certain rights derive from [[deities]] or [[nature]].]]
{{Main|Natural and legal rights}}
* '''Natural rights''' are rights which are "natural" in the sense of "not artificial, not man-made", as in rights deriving from [[human nature]] or from the [[divine command theory|edicts of a god]]. They are universal; that is, they apply to all people, and do not derive from the laws of any specific society. They exist necessarily, inhere in every individual, and cannot be taken away. For example, it has been argued that humans have a natural ''right to life''. These are sometimes called ''moral rights'' or ''inalienable rights''.
* '''Legal rights''', in contrast, are based on a society's customs, laws, [[statute]]s or actions by [[legislature]]s. An example of a legal right is the ''right to vote'' of citizens. [[Citizenship]], itself, is often considered as the basis for having legal rights, and has been defined as the "right to have rights". Legal rights are sometimes called ''[[civil rights]]'' or ''statutory rights'' and are culturally and politically [[moral relativism|relative]] since they depend on a specific societal context to have meaning.

Some thinkers see rights in only one sense while others accept that both senses have a measure of validity. There has been considerable philosophical debate about these senses throughout history. For example, [[Jeremy Bentham]] believed that legal rights were the essence of rights, and he denied the existence of natural rights,<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Ross |chapter-url=http://www.utilitarian.net/bentham/about/1995----.htm |chapter=Jeremy Bentham |editor-last=Honderich |editor-first=Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1995 |pages=85–88 |access-date=2012-12-01 |archive-date=2017-01-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170129162828/http://www.utilitarian.net/bentham/about/1995----.htm |url-status=dead }} Also see {{cite encyclopedia |last=Sweet |first=William |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/b/bentham.htm |title=Jeremy Bentham |encyclopedia=The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=11 April 2001 |access-date=7 January 2011 }}</ref> whereas [[Thomas Aquinas]] held that rights purported by [[positive law]] but not grounded in [[natural law]] were not properly rights at all, but only a facade or pretense of rights.