America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Despite the flaw, those are my favorite lines from Katharine Lee Bates’s “America the Beautiful.”
America is beautiful. But why? What makes it beautiful? And what could make it even more beautiful?
What makes America beautiful is its founding principle: individual rights—the idea that each individual has a moral prerogative to take the actions necessary to support and further his life (the right to life); to act in accordance with his own judgment, free from coercion (liberty); to keep and use the product of his effort (property); and to pursue the values and goals of his choice (the pursuit of happiness).
What could make America more beautiful is for Americans to better understand and protect rights.
Are rights real? Is there evidence to support them? If so, what is the evidence? And are rights inalienable—such that neither individuals, groups, nor governments can revoke them or take them away? If so, how do we know it? What evidence supports this?
Some Americans, including the nation’s founders and religious conservatives, believe that people have rights because a “Creator” or “God” endowed us with them. For instance, the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Although this conception of rights served to establish America, it has not served—and cannot serve—to sustain America. This is because there is no evidence for the existence of a Creator, much less evidence to support the notion that rights somehow emanate from His will.
Since the founding of America, positivists, utilitarians, materialists, postmodernists, and other critics of rights have taken advantage of this lack of evidence. They have mocked the idea of inalienable rights—rights that exist prior to governments, rights that, as the Declaration notes, governments are instituted to secure. The idea of “rights anterior to the establishment of government,” wrote philosopher Jeremy Bentham, is “rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.” Why? Because, Bentham insisted, rights “are the fruits of the law, and of the law alone.”1 The idea of inalienable rights, wrote philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, is “one with witches and unicorns.” Why? Because no one has provided evidence for such rights; thus “every attempt to give good reasons for believing that there are such rights has failed.”2 Yuval Noah Harari says that “rights are just like heaven and like God.” Why? Because, like heaven and God, there is no evidence for their existence. “Take a human, cut him open, look inside,” quips Harari. “You find blood, and you find the heart and lungs and kidneys, but you don’t find any rights.”3
The idea that inalienable rights are nonsense on the grounds that no evidence supports them is widespread among today’s philosophers and intellectuals, and it is undermining the very foundation of America. If there is no evidence for the existence of rights that precede governments, then what we call “rights” are not really rights but rather laws or permissions granted by governments. On this conception of “rights,” governments create laws, and the laws dictate the “rights” and “non-rights” of the people who live under those governments. In short, the government’s laws simply are the citizens’ rights.
If rights are merely permissions created by a government via law, then no legal action can violate rights. Whatever the law permits is a right; whatever it forbids is not.
Taken seriously, this means that in National Socialist Germany, the so-called Aryans had a right to throw Jews into concentration camps and gas chambers because Nazi law permitted it. In the antebellum South, white people had a right to enslave black people because their states’ laws permitted it. And in Islamic theocracies, the mullahs and “morality police” have a right to hang gay people from cranes or throw them off rooftops—and the right to punish women for exposing their ankles or for having been raped—because their governments’ laws permit it.
Thankfully, America is nowhere near such horrors today. But what is to stop us from moving in that direction? What is to stop America the beautiful from becoming America the terrible?
Consider the following, and ask yourself whether Americans and the American legal system are treating rights as moral principles that limit governments—or as “fruits of the law” such that governments may do whatever their laws permit.
When, under civil asset forfeiture laws, governments seize a person’s cash, car, or other property without convicting him of a crime (as federal, state, and local governments do), does this violate his rights—or protect rights by enforcing the law?
When the Food and Drug Administration forbids patients from contracting voluntarily with their doctors to receive medications or treatments that could save their lives (as the FDA does), does this violate the rights of patients and doctors—or uphold rights by enforcing the law?
When a city or state forbids people from starting a small business—say, selling food or braiding hair—unless they first obtain an expensive government-approved license or permit (as many cities and states do), does this violate the rights of peaceful people to earn a living—or protect rights by enforcing the law?
When governors order businesses to close for weeks on end, thus destroying or damaging the livelihoods of the business owners and their employees (as many governors did during COVID-19), does this violate individuals’ rights—or protect rights by enforcing the law?
If a government passes a law requiring people to use others’ preferred pronouns (as some states and localities have attempted to do, and many people want them to do), does this violate people’s right to freedom of speech—or protect rights by enforcing the law?
If a state levies a special tax on residents above a certain net worth (as supporters of California’s 2026 Billionaire Tax Act propose), does this violate their property rights—or protect rights in compliance with the law?
If Americans elect politicians who nationalize industry, abolish private property, and subordinate individuals to the collective or “common good” (as various intellectuals, college professors, and politicians advocate), would this violate anyone’s rights—or would it protect everyone’s rights because it’s the law?
Alternatively, if Americans elect politicians who make biblical law the law of the land, punishing blasphemy, homosexuality, and religious dissent (as religious people who take biblical law seriously advocate), would this violate anyone’s rights—or would everyone’s rights be upheld because religious dogma had become political law?
If the only “rights” human beings have are those established by a government’s laws, then governments are not and cannot be limited by rights. If so, the American system of government, which is based on inalienable rights, is based on nothing at all. It is a sham. Consequently, there is nothing to stop the land of liberty from becoming just another tract of tyranny.
The bad news is that the idea of rights as “fruits of law” is precisely what today’s journalists, legal scholars, and college professors are teaching the rising generations—and have been for decades. To wit:
Harvard-educated E. J. Dionne Jr.—a longtime Washington Post editor and columnist, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at Georgetown University—insists in both a Washington Post op-ed and a commencement speech to graduates of the University of Pittsburgh: “Absent a government committed to the protection of rights, there are no rights.”4
Law professors Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein—respectively professors at New York University School of Law and Harvard Law School, both of whom previously taught at the University of Chicago—write that “Under American law, rights are powers granted by the political community.” Indeed, Holmes and Sunstein clarify, this means “individual rights and freedoms depend fundamentally on vigorous state action”—such that even “the right against being tortured by police officers and prison guards” exists only insofar as a government’s laws and legal machinery protect people against such practices.5
Raymond Geuss—an American political philosopher who has taught at Princeton University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago—writes that a right is a “construct of a particular legal system,” meaning that its “real locus” is not in human nature but in “positive legal codes.” To claim otherwise, he says, is to “delude yourself” and to engage in “puffery or white magic.”6
This is what American college students and Americans in general are being taught about rights: They are merely the laws that governments pass and enforce. To defend inalienable rights—and thus the very foundation of America—against this fundamental and expanding assault, we need an evidence-based, demonstrably true conception of rights.
The good news is that rights are real. They exist. But, like many things that exist—such as justice, honesty, sarcasm, and logic—rights are not perceivable: We cannot see, touch, taste, or hear them. Rights are highly abstract principles that arise from and depend on various other ideas and conceptual integrations that ultimately are grounded in facts we can perceive.
To understand the source and nature of rights, and why they are inalienable, we must identify the facts and ideas that give rise to them and connect them to perceptual reality. The American philosopher Ayn Rand did just that.
Rand conceived of rights as identifications or recognitions of certain facts—namely, the social conditions required for human beings to live together peacefully.7 And when you see rights this way, far from being nonsense, they make perfect sense.
Rand observed that if and to the extent that people, groups, or governments use physical force or coercion against an individual, the individual cannot act fully as his life requires. The principle of individual rights is the recognition of this fact. And the specific rights—such as the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—are recognitions of this same fact regarding specific spheres of concern. For each right, there is a principle, which is the recognition of a particular fact—and a corresponding moral prerogative to act accordingly, which is what it means to have the right in question.
The right to life, on this view, is the broadest and most fundamental right. The principle here is the recognition of the fact that for a person to live, he must be free to take all the actions necessary to support and further his life while refraining from violating the same rights of others (more on this below). To the extent that other people, groups, or governments forcibly stop him from acting as his life requires, he cannot act fully as his life requires. For instance, to live, a person must produce goods (or services) and either use them or trade them with others. (The only alternative is to survive parasitically on others who produce life-serving goods.) If a “slave master” or socialist government or theocratic regime forces him into a cotton field, a concentration camp, or a noose, he cannot live fully as his life requires. He cannot live a fully human life. This is not “nonsense” or “white magic” or like “witches and unicorns”; nor does it depend on or have anything to do with an alleged Creator somehow endowing people with rights. Rather, it is a recognition of a fact about the world and human life. It is a truth grasped by means of reason. And for someone to possess the right to life is for him to have a moral prerogative to act in accordance with the corresponding principle: as his life requires.
Likewise, the right to liberty is the recognition of the fact that for a person to live, he must be free to act on the judgment of his mind, which is his basic means of living. To the extent that other people, groups, or governments forcibly stop him from doing so, he cannot act in accordance with his judgment. If he judges that he should start a business braiding hair, and if a government physically stops him from acting accordingly because he doesn’t have a government-authorized license to braid hair, then, to that extent, he cannot act on his judgment; he cannot act on his basic means of living; thus he cannot live fully as a human being. Here again, to possess the right is to have a moral prerogative to act in accordance with the corresponding principle: A human life is a life guided by the judgment of one’s own mind. And here, too, this is not “nonsense” or “white magic” or in any way dependent on a Creator. Rather, it is a recognition of a fact. It is a product of reason.
Similarly, the right to property is the recognition of the fact that for a person to live, he must be free to keep and use the goods he produces. To the extent that other people coercively stop him from doing so, he cannot keep or use his property; thus, he cannot live a fully human life. For instance, if he farms for a living, and if the government takes 30 percent of his earnings, then he cannot use that 30 percent to sustain or further his life. And that 30 percent represents real time, effort, and resources that he spent earning the money. To forcibly take this money is to forcibly take that portion of his life—by retroactively converting his work into involuntary servitude. This is neither “nonsense” nor “puffery.” It is a recognition of a fact—a product of reason. And individuals possess the right to property in light of this fact.
Finally, the right to the pursuit of happiness is the recognition of the fact that for a person to pursue the goals and values of his choice, he must be free to do so. To the extent that other people force him to act against his chosen aims, he cannot act in accordance with his chosen aims; thus, he cannot live fully as a human being. If a girl chooses to remove her headscarf and dance, but the “morality police” arrest or kill her for doing so, she cannot pursue the goals and values of her choice; she cannot live a fully human life. Likewise, if someone chooses to take psilocybin to overcome a psychological problem, and the “medication police” arrest him for doing so, he cannot pursue the goals or values of his choice; he cannot live a fully human life. In light of the corresponding observation-based principle, human beings have the right to the pursuit of happiness: the moral prerogative to pursue the goals and values of their choice.
Each of these rights—to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—applies to human beings as such, on the grounds that they are humans, that they are individuals, and that acting in accordance with the judgment of their own minds is essential to living human lives.
Such fact-based rights exist in that we can observe the facts that give rise to and support the respective principles. And such fact-based rights are inalienable in that they preexist governments and cannot be revoked: One cannot revoke a basic fact of reality or human nature.
Of course, other people and governments can violate an individual’s rights—and frequently do—by initiating or threatening physical force against him, thereby stopping him from acting in accordance with his own judgment. But other people cannot revoke or remove an individual’s rights. The only person who can remove an individual’s rights is that individual himself. And the only way he can do so is by violating the rights of others—that is, by initiating or threatening physical force against them and thus throttling or thwarting their ability to act in accordance with their judgment. If and to the extent that a person initiates physical force against others, whether directly (e.g., assault or rape) or indirectly (e.g., fraud or extortion), he—of his own accord—forfeits his moral prerogatives, his rights, in proportion to his violation of the rights of others. A rational, rights-protecting legal system adjudicates rights violations and punishes rights violators accordingly.8
Rand’s theory of rights is based on her broader moral theory, rational egoism, wherein the factual requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value—the standard by which we can measure the rightness or wrongness of chosen human actions. This standard, too, is supported by perceptual observations and conceptual integrations of reality and human nature.9
There is a great deal more to the observations and integrations that undergird, support, and give rise to inalienable rights. But the foregoing indicates how such rights are derived from and grounded in perceptual reality—facts we can see.
Seen in this light, rights are neither endowments from God nor grants from governments. Nor are they “nonsense upon stilts” or like “witches and unicorns.” Rather, rights are recognitions of facts about human beings and human nature—namely, that for human beings to live fully as human beings, they must be free to act in accordance with the faculty that makes them human: their reasoning minds.
This evidence-based conception of rights resolves the deficiency in the God-based conception expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Rights are real, but not because God gave them to us. They are real because they are identifications of the factual requirements of human life in a social context. With this understanding, Americans can move past the otherworldly, passivity-laden prayer “America! God mend thine every flaw”—and embrace the earthly, agency-driven mission: America! We the people will mend thine every flaw.
Yes, we can mend America’s every flaw. We can do so by grasping and upholding the rational, observation-based principle of inalienable rights. And when we do, we can call it America the rational. That will be beautiful.
This article appears in the Summer 2026 issue of The Objective Standard.
Jeremy Bentham, “Anarchical Fallacies; Being an Examination of the Declarations of Rights Issued during the French Revolution,” in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2, ed. John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), 501; Jeremy Bentham, “Pannomial Fragments,” in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3, ed. John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), 221.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 68–70.
Yuval Noah Harari, “Bananas in Heaven,” TEDxJaffa,
Peter Hart, “Commencement 2008: ‘Change the World,’ GSPIA Speaker Urges,” University Times, University of Pittsburgh, May 1, 2008, https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/archives/?p=6436; E. J. Dionne Jr., “The Price of Liberty,” Washington Post, April 14, 2003, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/04/15/the-price-of-liberty/6cfc4a8f-f616-4f9f-8673-471c4229bf9f/.
Stephen Holmes and Cass R. Sunstein, The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes (New York: Norton, 1999), 17, 14, 44.
Raymond Geuss, interview by Alan Saunders, “Getting Down to Reality: Raymond Geuss,” The Philosopher’s Zone, ABC Radio National, April 11, 2009, transcript, https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/philosopherszone/getting-down-to-reality-raymond-geuss/3139210; Raymond Geuss, History and Illusion in Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 144.
See “Man’s Rights,” “Collectivized ‘Rights,’” and “The Nature of Government” in Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (New York: Signet, 1964); my “Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundations of a Free Society” in The Objective Standard, Fall 2011; and chapter 7 of my Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts That Support It (Richmond, VA: Glen Allen Press, 2002).
For more on this, see Rand’s “Man’s Rights,” “Collectivized ‘Rights,’” and “The Nature of Government”; and my “Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights” and chapter 7 of Loving Life.
For more on rational egoism, see Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness; my Loving Life; and my Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing (Richmond, VA: Glen Allen Press, 2019). For a brief introduction, see my “Secular, Objective Morality: Look and See” in The Objective Standard, Spring 2017.