ABSTRACT
Rights derived from revealed religion are not today the acknowledged basis of political rights in any liberal democracy. Human nature is best at providing us with guidance as to what political orders will not work. Robin Fox makes fun of the idea that the contemporary evolutionary theory of kin selection or inclusive fitness could constitute the basis for rights. The Emancipation Proclamation and passage of the Fourteenth Amendment corrected the grave inconsistency and laid the basis for subsequent American democracy. Rights are the basis of our liberal democratic political order and are key to contemporary thinking about moral and ethical issues. Political systems enshrine certain kinds of rights over others, and thereby reflect the moral basis of their underlying societies. John Locke begins his Second Treatise on Government with an attack on Filmer and the doctrine of divine right; the very essence of modern liberalism was to eliminate religion as the explicit basis of political order.
