Edmund Burke, as a conservative thinker, naturally believed in tradition and authority. Burke was a believer in inherited rights and believed that we had rights purely because we’re used to having them and we fear them being interfered with. He also believed in Natural rights as long as they weren’t from abstraction. His stance on abstract rights was ‘These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like the rays of light which penetrate into a dense medium, are, by the laws of nature refracted from their straight line’. For this reason, Burke was a critic of the French Revolution and argued that there shouldn’t be universal rights for men as experience and hierarchy was key to maintain a functioning society. Burke also believed that the rights of men are ‘chartered’ as they came from civil society and are not God given. Stanlis additionally claims that this is because they’re ‘…merely written documents expressly recognising the sanctity of natural law…’. Similarly, in contemporary society, Burke may well have thought that movements such as feminism were going against the natural order of the world and therefore would not be something that he believed in or supported. Additionally, Burke’s stance on Natural rights could be applied to today’s argument on human rights. Burke stressed the point of ‘…all men have equal rights; but not equal things’. This would indicate that he would support human rights, however, his objection to abstract rights would seem to counter his own argument. This debate is still relevant to this day and universities around the world still contemplate Burke’s stance on these issues. For example, Trinity College Dublin hold an annual lecture on the topic of Edmund Burke where they discuss questions such as this.