"Social positivism only accepts duties, for all and towards all. Its constant social viewpoint cannot include any notion of rights, for such notion always rests on individuality. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. These obligations then increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service. ... Any human right is therefore as absurd as immoral. Since there are no divine rights anymore, this concept must therefore disappear completely as related only to the preliminary regime and totally inconsistent with the final state where there are only duties based on functions." | by: | Auguste Comte
[Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte] (1798-1857) French philosopher, was the founder of Positivism and Sociology |
Source: | Le catéchisme positiviste (1852), reproduit in Alain Laurent, L'Individu et ses ennemis (Paris: Hachette, 1987), pp. 255-256. |
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