Purpose of Government
The proper purpose of government is to secure the equal individual natural rights of citizens.
People may agree that something is good without agreeing that government should provide it. Health is good. Education is good. Friendship, religion, prosperity, and happiness are good. But identifying something as valuable does not by itself establish that providing it is a proper function of government.
Before asking what government should do, therefore, we should ask a basic question: What is the purpose of government?
The Declaration’s Answer
The Declaration of Independence gives a remarkably concise answer. Human beings are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” among them “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Declaration then explains why government exists: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The sequence matters. Human beings possess natural rights prior to and independent of government. Government does not create those rights. Government is created because rights that already exist need to be secured and protected.
This connects the Purpose of Government directly to the Key Ideas Natural Rights, Equality, Consent, Life, Liberty, and Property.
Rights Before Government
If government creates rights, then whatever government grants it may also withdraw, restrict, or redefine.
The Declaration proceeds from the opposite premise. Natural rights belong to human beings by nature. Government therefore stands beneath those rights rather than above them.
A government may recognize natural rights, protect them, violate them, or fail to protect them from being violated by others. What government cannot do is create or abolish natural rights. This provides a natural moral standard by which to judge political power.
The Declaration does not speak simply of governmental powers, but of “just powers.” Political power is therefore legitimate only insofar as it is exercised rightfully and directed toward the purpose for which government is instituted: protecting the equal individual natural rights of citizens.
A Limited Purpose
This understanding gives government an important but limited purpose. Government exists to protect people against murder, assault, enslavement, theft, fraud, and other violations of natural rights. It establishes laws, courts, and institutions through which disputes can be adjudicated and rights protected. It defends the political community against foreign attack. It creates a framework in which free human beings may govern their own lives.
Government does not exist to provide every good thing citizens want or dictate every worthwhile goal they should pursue. Its purpose is not to make citizens virtuous by force, determine their religious beliefs, choose their occupations, arrange their friendships, or redistribute wealth merely to equalize material conditions or provide citizens with whatever goods they desire.
The Declaration speaks of a natural right to the pursuit of happiness, not a governmental guarantee that happiness itself will be supplied. Government protects the sphere of liberty within which human beings may pursue good things for themselves.
Natural Rights and Government Benefits
This distinction also helps clarify the difference between natural rights and benefits or entitlements created by law. A natural right does not arise merely because something is desirable or necessary. Food, shelter, medical care, education, and many other goods may be profoundly important to human life. But their importance alone does not establish a natural right to have another person provide them.
A natural right belongs to a human being by nature. The existence of a natural right does not depend upon government providing a particular good or service, nor does one person’s natural right create a natural entitlement to compel another private person to provide him with goods, labor, or services.
Government Has a Jurisdiction
The Declaration does not imply that one government should exercise authority over every human being on Earth. Political communities govern particular peoples within particular jurisdictions. A particular government’s primary political responsibility is to its own citizens. But because natural rights belong to every human being, the government’s treatment of noncitizens remains bounded by the same fundamental moral law.
The universality of natural rights means that government may not simply disregard the humanity of people who are not citizens. A foreigner does not cease to possess natural rights merely because he is not a U.S. citizen, whether that foreigner is standing on soil in his home nation or on U.S. soil.
The principle is therefore both universal and bounded: natural rights belong to every human being, while particular governments exercise political authority within particular jurisdictions. Natural rights are universal; political responsibility is jurisdictional. The proper purpose of the United States government is to protect the individual natural rights of U.S. citizens.
Limited Purpose, Limited Power
The purpose of government also helps determine the proper extent of governmental power. If government’s purpose were unlimited—if government existed to make people healthy, wealthy, virtuous, happy, secure, educated, wise, and prosperous by whatever means officials considered useful—there would be little or no principled limit to political power.
This connects directly to the Key Idea Power. Government needs sufficient power to protect rights, enforce just laws, punish violations, and defend the political community. But political power should remain directed toward the purpose that justifies it.
A government of limited purpose should be a government of limited powers.
Why the Purpose of Government Matters
Political arguments about particular policies cannot be resolved merely by identifying desirable outcomes. The prior question is whether a proposed exercise of political power serves the proper end of government and respects the natural rights government exists to secure.
The Declaration provides the governing principle: human beings possess equal individual natural rights, and governments are instituted to secure them through just powers derived from the consent of the governed.
Government does not give human beings their natural rights. Human beings create government so that the rights they already possess may be more securely protected.
