"We hold these truths to be self-evident," Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, but philosophers today frequently debate the origin of these "truths". Was the origin of the rights they claimed discussed at the time? In the Federalist papers for instance?

by JeffTheJourno

JeffTheJourno

I'm aware that they cited them as being God-given and of the influence upon them by the writings of Voltaire and so on, but I'm wondering if there was a deeper debate about how to conclude which rights really were rights and which weren't, and how to distinguish between them? I'm wondering what their philosophical basis was?