Final answer:
The Enlightenment is the intellectual movement that used scientific inquiry to study society and developed rational laws to describe social behavior, leading to the concept of natural rights.
Step-by-step explanation:
The intellectual movement that sought to use scientific inquiry to study human society and developed rational laws to describe social behavior is known as the Enlightenment. This movement resulted in the development of concepts like natural rights and was characterized by key ideas such as rationalism, empiricism, progressivism, and cosmopolitanism. Thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau contributed to the era, advocating that human reason combined with empirical study could lead to progress and the improvement of the human condition. The Enlightenment was fundamentally a response to previous traditions and provided a framework for understanding and improving society through reason and scientific thought.