{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.024007386888273315, 'fraction_numerical': 0.002770083102493075, 'mean_word_length': 4.988950276243094, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
A Philosophical Argument for a Bill of Rights

This article seeks to show that the rights which protect people's autonomy should be entrenched in the constitution of a democratic state. It is firmly located in egalitarian liberal tradition, as it takes for valid the following claims: (1) people have a fundamental interest in autonomy; (2) people have rights that their interest in autonomy, and the interests to which it gives rise, be protected and promoted; (3) people's respective interests in autonomy must be protected equally. The argument for a bill of rights unfolds as follows: first, it is argued that we have autonomy-protecting rights not only against private individuals but also against the state, and the meaning of having such rights against the state is explained; then it is shown that it is legitimate to turn certain autonomy-protecting moral rights into legal rights, and that doing so in the case of the rights we have against the state amounts to turning them into constitutional rights; lastly, two objections to the argument deployed earlier are countered.