There’s an ongoing debate about rights, whether we have “natural rights,” or if rights pre-exist, or if they are independent of morality.

"Rights" have no meaning for a person living alone on a deserted island. As soon as two (or more) people attempt to live together, it seems to me they need to agree how they will deal with one another. If they don't agree that one person may not take another's life, or his means of maintaining his life, then life will indeed be short and brutish for all but the strongest and/or smartest.

The people within a society will decide what 'rights' individuals have. If a society decides it is necessary to sacrifice virgins, then it would appear virgins do not have a right to life. If society decides that everyone must receive an education, then it would appear that everyone has a right to an education. If a society decides that cows are sacred, then cows have a right to life (i.e. may not be killed). Or maybe we should say society decides which rights will be observed for which individuals.

‘Rights’ do not exist, the way animals, vegetables and minerals exist. They exist only in our minds, so it is hard to imagine that they pre-existed. Rights are created by people. Clearly we create rights as the rules for living together as a society. The real question is which rules are in the best interest of society as a whole and its individual members?

Some Libertarians like to classify ‘rights’ as either negative or positive based on the nature of the obligation one person’s right places on the rest of society. A ‘negative’ right obligates the rest of society to refrain from doing something. My ‘right to life’ means everyone else must refrain from killing me or interfering with my (peaceful) efforts to maintain my life. My right to property means no one else may take or use it without my permission.Negative rights are completely reciprocal; I have a right to life, liberty and property as long as I respect the same rights for you. Negative rights, the right to be left alone, not to be interfered with in your pursuit of happiness, seems to be a pretty simple concept and not subject to a lot of expansion.

A positive right imposes an obligation on someone else to do or provide something. Your right to an education means that I or someone else MUST educate you. If it’s a right, then how can I even ask for anything in return for educating you?  There can be no end to positive rights; one could claim a right to anything one needs, like food, shelter, clothing, medicine, transportation, opera and so on.  It also begs the question of what quality and quantity do I have a right to.  Steak or hamburger?  Tent or mansion?  Elementary or post-graduate education?  

Can a society survive if it adopts both negative and positive rights? There is an inherent contradiction involved. If I have a right keep my property, such as the house that I built, and everyone else who built houses or apartment buildings has the same right, how will we satisfy the right to shelter for those who did not build them? Clearly we cannot enforce both positive and negative rights concurrently.

What if we forget about negative rights and enforce only positive rights? Everyone is obliged to provide for the needs of everyone else. This is the way a commune works, and it's the concept of communism. Communes work when the number of people is relatively small and everyone knows everyone else. In a commune, anyone who doesn’t pull his own weight can be ostracised, which is essential to the survival of the commune. As long as my needs are being met, why should I work hard? A commune will perish if too many members adopt this attitude. If a commune gets too large, then the shirkers may be able to hide and live off the efforts of others.

So that leaves negative rights. Libertarians believe that a society which respects (and enforces) negative rights is not only the most moral one (thou shall not kill; thou shall not steal; do unto others…), but also the most productive one. Either I will have to produce everything I need (food, shelter, clothing) or I will need to trade with others on a voluntary exchange basis. Only if I can provide something someone else wants, either my time and skills or a product, will I be able to obtain the things I need or want from others. To the extent that we depend on voluntary exchange with others and prohibit and punish aggression, we will have a cooperative and peaceful society.