Theory of rights: Ideal and natural

Green did not accept the doctrine of natural rights advocated by the social contractualists. For Green, rights of man are a matter of inherent moral character of man and must arise from the very fact of man as a human being. They do not emanate from some natural condition and state of nature. Green’s idea of the right of an individual as human being arises from his idea of moral or positive freedom. He believed that man as a human being has certain claims, which ought to be recognized as rights. Rights as such are necessary for a human being to realize self-perfection and fulfil moral nature. As such, rights arising out of moral requirements are also natural, but because of their requirement based on teleology or purpose and not because they are available in the nature of the state. Green’s natural or inherent rights arise out of and are necessary for the fulfillment of man’s moral capacity.⁴⁴ As Wayper says, they are not based on claims of an earlier (state of nature) against a later (civil society) state of society, but are rather an appeal from a less developed to a more mature society.

In this sense, right becomes a claim, which all individuals have for moral self-development and moral dignity. Green argued that right has two elements; firstly, a claim to freedom of action, which is assertion of an individual to realize his own inner power and capabilities and secondly, a general social recognition that the claim is warranted, that the individual’s freedom really does contribute to the general good.⁴⁵ Thus, Green seeks to interlink right and obligation, as an individual’s right to seek moral dignity requires similar right to all—’doing or enjoying in common with others’.

For Green, right being recognition in moral terms, is recognition by society and not by the state. It is the moral consciousness of a community that will provide general social recognition. But these rights so recognized by the community are ‘ideal rights’. At times, in his idealist position, Green also goes on to claim that the actual rights are those, which are recognized by the state. As Barker says, the rights Green speaks are relative to morality rather than law. Green may not be then talking about legal rights but ideal rights.

Green’s defence, specifically of right to property, is important. He argues that ‘the freedom of individual postulates freedom to acquire and possess material goods according to one’s potentiality to contribute to social good’.⁴⁶ Differences in property are functional, as social good requires that different individuals should fill different positions in the social whole. But moral development will be affected if some people acquire property, which hinders the moral development of others. Property in capital and a capitalist system has this weakness and Green was not unaware of this. But he thought this to have originated in system of landed property and he criticized the feudal system. Green thought that capitalism was not the cause for the plight of the proletariat and he blamed feudalism. Nevertheless, he hinted at a welfare state to be necessary for realizing the moral rights by man.