IATIA: I'm not sure where you're going here. You link to the Wiki page on natural and legal rights, but that seems like the question at issue here. It's also noteworthy that in the sentence, "Natural rights are . . . universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws)," the page links to the legal definition under property law.
There are a number of interesting points.
First, alienability is, under ordinary property law, a necessary condition for ownership: a person does not own what he or she cannot transfer or sell. (This condition has notable relevance for the rule against perpetuities: a person cannot require in her will that her descendants cannot sell property for longer than the rule, even if they have all the other ordinary privileges of ownership.) It's also notable that one of the examples used in the Wiki page, the inalienability of aboriginal title, has consistently been used to establish the inferiority of aboriginal title. In the Lockean propertarian framework of rights, a right that one cannot sell is an inferior right to one he can sell.
It's also notable that all Western governments reserve the right to revoke all of the canonical "rights" of the United States Declaration of Independence: even those states that lack capital punishment legally condone killing in self defense and in war; they abrige the liberty of criminal prisoners, and they take property by taxation, fine, and civil judgment. If an "inalienable" right is one that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws, the United States government does not consider life, liberty, or property to be inalienable. It is unclear whether an absolutist interpretation suggested by the Wiki page is at all socially tenable.
Finally, I want to reiterate my original point: the modifiers in political philosophy have apt and useful legal definitions, and those legal definitions seem to carry at least as much (if not more) explanatory power in describing and explaining actual human social and political behavior.
There are a number of interesting points.
First, alienability is, under ordinary property law, a necessary condition for ownership: a person does not own what he or she cannot transfer or sell. (This condition has notable relevance for the rule against perpetuities: a person cannot require in her will that her descendants cannot sell property for longer than the rule, even if they have all the other ordinary privileges of ownership.) It's also notable that one of the examples used in the Wiki page, the inalienability of aboriginal title, has consistently been used to establish the inferiority of aboriginal title. In the Lockean propertarian framework of rights, a right that one cannot sell is an inferior right to one he can sell.
It's also notable that all Western governments reserve the right to revoke all of the canonical "rights" of the United States Declaration of Independence: even those states that lack capital punishment legally condone killing in self defense and in war; they abrige the liberty of criminal prisoners, and they take property by taxation, fine, and civil judgment. If an "inalienable" right is one that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws, the United States government does not consider life, liberty, or property to be inalienable. It is unclear whether an absolutist interpretation suggested by the Wiki page is at all socially tenable.
Finally, I want to reiterate my original point: the modifiers in political philosophy have apt and useful legal definitions, and those legal definitions seem to carry at least as much (if not more) explanatory power in describing and explaining actual human social and political behavior.
