A Case Against Human Rights?
I have lately been thinking about assumptions that the western world takes for granted, and the idea of human rights came to mind. I remember once hearing a podcast about the practical problems related to providing sustenance and education to entire populations, it seems to be difficult to draw the line to determine at up to what point the government should provide citizens with their needs. Not only that, but the list of "basic" rights that are typically supposed to be bestowed by the state seems to be growing. Nowadays, the concept of human rights has gained such a righteous connotation that it seems to be the case that in order to gain the upper hand in any discussion about whether some need (whether basic or not) should be granted or not by the state, is to invest it with the label of "human rights". I really have no strong case against human rights, and there are some (the most essential ones such as the right to life and liberty) that should not be put into question. With that said however, I do have some level of skepticism as to where one should draw the limits on this ever expanding list, and the logistical, economic, and practical problems involved. Any thoughts?
Comments (47)
There are a number contradictions in human rights particularly between economic and social rights with civil and political rights. Consider, freedom of speech and hate speech, the latter or volksverhetzung is criminal in Germany. There are a plethora of inconsistencies that reinforce disparities but any such tensions in human rights nevertheless prevail under the banner of justice and human dignity; there are 'rights' and there are 'wants' and we do not immediately possess the former if it in anyway contradicts justice and human dignity. Hence why preambles often reiterate 'rights' and responsibilities.
People are born into the world with:
1) Natural rights/privileges and natural duties/obligations which are universal and inalienable, arising from natural law (the moral claim that the human condition forms the basis of an absolute equality between all people).
2) A need for well-being which can only be met, or denied, by other people (i.e., society).
3) Legal rights/privileges granted, and legal duties/obligations required, by the human authority having jurisdiction over their place of birth.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a codified example of the principle of natural rights.
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html
Thirty articles are listed; which ones should be eliminated to provide debt relief for governments?
Here are the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, edited by me to be shorter. Hey, rickyK95 and buddies, I agree with Galuchat - tell us which ones should be excluded instead of whining about "political correctness."
1. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
2. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
3. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
4. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
5. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.
6. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights.
7. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
8. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
9. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
10. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.
11. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
12. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
13. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
14. Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
15. Men and women have the right to marry and to found a family. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
16. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
17. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
18. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
19. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
20. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
21. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
22. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
23. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
24. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.
25. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
26. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages.
27. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community.
28. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
29. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
30. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
There is some tendency to invoke human rights indiscriminately by individuals who believe they have been treated unfairly. As a legal concept, however, all rights are subject to reasonable limits. In Canada, where I'm from, there is a part of our Federal Constitution known as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The provisions within the Charter place limits on governmental authority where that authority is used to unreasonably interfere with individual liberties. The key word is "unreasonably". In actuality, governments restrict the liberties of the people all the time. Legal relief is only available in clear cases where the governmental restrictions cannot be "demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society" (that's the way it is expressed in the Charter).
As one might expect, the document is the work of a committee, and numerous additions to explicate the list of "Four Freedoms" which the Allies in WWII had agreed to:
Freedom of speech
Freedom of religion
Freedom from fear
Freedom from want
The UDHR is 30 planks long -- it could probably be 10 times 30, and not cover every angle. I would prefer a shorter list, closer to the Four Freedoms, and of course, if it doesn't have legal force, then it is only a document for moral education.
What does that mean?
One is skeptical about a proposition. For instance, some people are skeptical about the proposition 'Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969'.
But you say you are skeptical about 'where one should draw the limits on this ever expanding list'. That quoted phrase is a question, not a proposition. One cannot be skeptical of a question.
It's like saying 'I'm skeptical about what the name of next week's lottery winner will be'.
Many of the things that I hear stated that people have a right to make very little sense.
Medical care is a universal human right, some people say. An adequate diet is a universal human right, some people say. Marriage is a right, the Supreme Court of the United States said in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Those sound like entitlements, not rights.
If medical care is an individual's right then that means that a product--training for doctors; facilities; equipment; medications--must be produced. If nobody wants to train to be a medical doctor, peoples' rights are being violated? That does not make any sense. If somebody files a lawsuit and the judiciary decides that that person's right to medical care is being denied, would the government then force people to train to be medical doctors?
If the supply of food does not meet the nutritional requirements of everybody, would governments take over food production? ("The production of beef will now end. To increase the amount of essential nutrients available, we are replacing beef production with rice production").
It makes sense to say that being in an exclusive consensual relationship with the person of your choice is a fundamental right, or having a consensual sexual relationship with people of your choice is a fundamental right. But marriage is a right? That means that every society must have something official called "marriage" available to people. It means that governments could not decide to stop sanctioning marriages. It is like saying that a formal education ending in a diploma being awarded is a right. If no institution that provides a formal education and awards diplomas existed--if only informal education existed--would governments be required to create such institutions? That makes no sense.
It is one thing to say that certain intangible things like freedoms, liberties, etc. are rights. But saying that a product/service like medical care or nutrients is a right, or that the availability of a cultural innovation like marriage is a right, makes no sense. And upholding such rights for everybody seems materially and politically implausible.
To say that a cultural innovation is a right is absurd. A college education is a right? Does that mean that societies that had no such thing as "college" were violating people's rights? The places today where there is no such thing as "college", should governments force the creation of "colleges"?
A more extreme example would be to say that agricultural products are a human right. Does that mean that hunter-gatherer societies that did not have agriculture and therefore did not have agricultural products were violating people's rights?
I compared saying that marriage is a right to saying that being formally educated and awarded a credential to list on a resume and hang on your office wall is a right. Formal educational institutions awarding credentials is a recent cultural innovation. There are other ways, such as informal education, to meet people's needs.
Marriage is a cultural innovation. It makes no sense to me to say that it is a right. It makes sense to say that the freedom to marry is a right. But saying that marriage is a right means that society has the duty to create and make available to all members something recognized as a "marriage". In other words, the state of Kansas saying that it is no longer sanctioning marriages would be like the state of Kansas saying that it is no longer protecting free speech. That is an absurd comparison. If marriage is a right, if the state of Kansas stopped sanctioning marriages, and if no church or other private entity in Kansas was sanctioning marriages, would the federal government have the duty to intervene and sanction marriages in Kansas? How would it be violating anybody's rights to say, "If you, individual citizen, want there to be something called 'marriage' and want to enter it, create it yourself"?
For instance, are you saying that there should be more formally recognised human rights? If so which ones would you like to add?
Or are you saying that there are too many, and that some of the rights in the UN list should not be there? If so, which ones?
Why? Rights are themselves cultural innovations. Take property rights for example. They predate the declaration, but the abolition of slavery extended them universally to all humans. But the notion of property simply is the notion of a right to own stuff, and it is a cultural innovation. You have the right to own stuff, and I have the duty to refrain from taking it from you, and it is not absurd, but the basis of our culture.
But to declare that there are universal rights is not to enact them universally, it is to undertake the obligation to do so as far as one is able. So even the most 'primitive tribe undertakes to educate their children as to what berries are good to eat, and how to make a bow and arrow, or whatever technology is available. The right to education is part of the right to fully participate in society - why is that absurd?
You'll explain the basis of rights according to your theory of morality.
Rights can be thought of as tools, which are recognized or not by the societies where we find our self located.
A tool that can do this is in itself pretty awesome, it enables societies to function based on mutually agreed upon principles or laws.
Yes, the explanation seems to be based on moral theory, utilitarian, deontology, or whatever but our concepts of rights point towards (hope towards) an ontological descriptive basis. I agree that we are socially constructed, but in that construction the same shapes seem to fit together in similar ways regardless of location.
The anti-relativism (or maybe moral superiority?) that's amply displayed in the UN's list of rights suggests to me that a certain characterization(s) of what is meant to be human ought to be included in our understanding of what a right is.
I've been reading about ancient Sumeria. I think if we wanted to explain to them what rights are, we might tell them that one of their myths explains the king's right to rule. I don't know if they would understand what we mean, though.
Quoting Cavacava
Imagine a society where the only individual is the king. Nobody else has rights. Then the aristocrats claim rights for themselves. Then the aristocracy dies out and it's mainly people with land or money who have rights. Then white men who have no money claim rights and that claim is upheld. Then black people claim rights. Then women do. Then handicapped people do. Then..
I think "human rights" is partly the product of a progression. But it some ways it goes back to the Roman conception of rights. Even a slave has a natural right to defy an evil government.
Or, given that:
1) Morality is a human universal.
Brown, Donald E. (1991). Human Universals. New York City: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-87722-841-8.
http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/BrownUniversalsDaedalus.pdf
2) The Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, an interfaith declaration identifying the Golden Rule as the "unconditional norm for all areas of life", was signed by more than 200 leaders from 40+ different faith traditions and spiritual communities in 1993.
Kung, Hans & Kuschel, Karl-Josef, Eds. (1993). Declaration Toward a Global Ethic. The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, SCM Press, London / Continuum, New York.
http://www.weltethos.org/1-pdf/10-stiftung/declaration/declaration_english.pdf
3) Similarities between the value systems and moral codes of the world's major book religions and systems of moral philosophy form a consensus on morality which is likely to have an inherent (as opposed to cultural) basis.
Formulate natural human rights in terms of universal human morality.
Theological justification of the divine right of kings, this is what Nietzsche's Genealogy concluded happened, priests gained power by explaining the rule of the kings to the masses, that their rights are gifts from a divine source.
Plato points out this may not change anything. If a society with individual rights is pragmatically superior to a society where no one except the king has any rights, the king must establish rights or his society will not function very well if at all.
Are you talking about rights in the predicative sense of the word? Like that ball is red. Sure what you have itemized is the case but it does not speak to rights in their existential sense, what is essential to be human.
As frames it:
, perhaps, but that does not tell us what it is about morality that makes it human. It seems to be like saying morality exists, and yes most will agree, it is saying there must be a right and a wrong, but on the application of these terms many disagree. What is morality in-itself, I think 'rights' are here.
I agree that what we consider moral has changed over the course of time and that there are very important points which can be only gleamed from a genealogy/history, I suspect that what has not changed is what is critical (which is another good reason why the history is so important methodologically)
To "violate a right" is to commit a certain kind of transgression. But I think it's true that if black people, for instance, are not considered to be human, then they won't be beneficiaries of rights. So some expansion of the concept of humanity is part of the root of "human rights." Is that what you mean?
But other kinds of entities can have rights. Patients in a hospital have rights. A group of people can have to right to have a revolution. Right? :)
Universal human morality consists of the similarities between the value systems and moral codes of the world's major book religions and systems of moral philosophy. Natural human rights are specific moral claims to social equality based on a universal human need for fairness.
Social Equality: a condition in which all people within a social group have the same status in certain respects, such as:
1) Equal rights under law,
2) Equal treatment based on conduct,
3) Equal opportunity based on merit,
4) Equal burden based on ability, and
5) Equal distribution of benefits based on need,
6) All without regard to personal and social differences, and differences in circumstances.
What the court said is that there is a right to equal treatment before the law in regards to marriage. That's different from a right to marriage. Equal treatment before the law seems to be a pretty fundamental right to me.
Property rights are granted ultimately by governments. Since they are, the government has the authority to put limitations and conditions on those rights. Because granting property rights gives access to wealth, and wealth gives access to better food, housing, medical care, education, etc., it is not unreasonable for government to require that the beneficiaries of property rights share some of those benefits with people who do not own much property.
To me, this seems completely consistent with "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The alternative - I'm not suggesting confiscation of property, only the end of government recognition of property rights. Let people work it out for themselves. If they don't like it, give them the choice to share some of the benefits they receive for the fundamental benefit of government protection.
Do you suppose that because some did not consider blacks human that these people did not have the rights that we assign to all humans. Could the Nazis take away the rights of the Jews, in principal?
I am looking for the concept of right, a priori.
I agree with there are similarities, and I think there must be a way to fit it all together, but I don't know the way.
I think there must be certain aspects of humans that are species traits, that comprise what it means for a right to be a human right, and I think you have touched on one the key ingredients, the "need for fairness". I think that justice must be a key. Without rules there can be no freedom, freedom loses its meaning if there are no rules, as does any conception of human rights. To be free to act and imagine is to be human, it is our key species trait.
They had rights. In a lot of cases their rights were violated.
Quoting Cavacava
Nazis could violate the rights of Jews.
[quote=Cavacava]I am looking for the concept of right, a priori.[/quote]
Evocative statement. We look at definitions or the limits of imagination to find a priori knowledge. Can you imagine a human who effectively has no rights? Maybe a lone wildboy like Enkidu?
Enkidu would be an interesting angle on the basis of rights. Are you familiar with the epic of Gilgamesh?
The little I recalled had to do with the Flood. I looked it up and read a little about Enkidu, 1st thought that came to mind is that this must be a Neanderthal that is being described. His 'natural' status was undone by a woman, 6 days of lovemaking and even the animals didn't want anything to do with him :s
The implication seems to be that exploitation accompanies city life. An injection of the wisdom of an untamed heart is the beginning of justice.
No it isn't.
You are asserting that 'rights' arise because of blatant violations of human justice men inflict on men. I like that. So then rights and the state arise from the same source, a need for protection.
Ok, but the state also acts as the mediator for the exchange of values, laws that govern civil order, property rights and the rest. It set limits, and the state can even encourage or discourage (like by taxing) certain activities.
Our concept of right is bigger than just moral considerations, or what do you think?
Hence human rights are unimportant to those whose rights are observed.
The freedom to choose who you want to marry within consensual boundaries is the point of the case and everyone has the right to medical care is to ensure that all people - refugees, homeless, drug-addicts - are provided with medical care; there have been incidents here in Australia where indigenous persons have been refused medical attention in certain clinics.
I agree that the lack of clarity could cause potential issues, for instance there has been a lot of discussion with what the right to leisure, play, and participation in cultural and artistic activities means in the UN Declaration on Children's Rights. But once more, where there is any lack of clarity, one needs to consider the purpose of the law itself, of justice to ascertain the purpose.
I think the state was originally a side effect of temple building and agriculture. I don't know how hunter gatherers dealt with transgression. How did Native American groups deal with it? I know the Lakota didn't punish their children much. They believed it's normal for kids to be wild and screw up, but they'll come around eventually. Apaches threw rocks at their kids to make them tough. So who knows?
I think Banno's point is probably on target. There has to be a privileged class.
But don't you think that talking about rights (as if a right is an object) produces a sort of illusion? So that we then go looking for the birthplace of this object. Maybe the reality of it is more in the moment, and as you say, extends beyond morality. Talk of rights takes place amidst all the machinery of law and authority.
Yep.
Yes we all live in some sort of structured society, and I think this is also true for the Native American tribes you reference, theirs is a tribal society. Perhaps there must be a privileged class in any type of society, these tribes also have their chiefs and priests.
I don't think the structure of society gets us that much closer in determining what is meant by a 'right'. However, in saying this I realize and I agree that rights must have an intersubjective characteristic to be rights, which adds to its determination (law, freedom, society). Talking about 'rights' as objects is fine, but it's an endless project.The determination of what is a 'right' must start from examples and by some critical method takes these examples, and from them, obtain the necessary and the sufficient conditions for the qualification of the concept of human rights.
Perhaps the language of dignity is broader than the language of rights?
To categorically state that any person has a right--a justified claim--to any material good is absurd.
It makes sense to say that everybody has the right to equal access to A. But to categorically state that everybody has the right to A is absurd.
Do you believe that people have the right to have chocolate milk? If having chocolate milk is a right and nobody is growing any cocoa to make it with, are governments then obligated to grow cocoa or force non-government actors to grow cocoa? Are/were non-dairying societies violating people's rights?
Again, to say that people are guaranteed the freedom to do something or are guaranteed equal access to something is one thing. Saying that something must be guaranteed is another, even if it is "education", "marriage", etc.
People are being absurdly ethnocentric if they think that an arbitrary feature of their culture--something that may not exist in the future due to environmental, biological and cultural changes--is a universal right guaranteed to every individual.
Absolutely. (Y)
Good job people don't think that, eh?
Did anyone yet explain how their objections amounted to a shortening of this list?
Everybody already had that freedom.
Quoting TimeLine
But that is not what people mean when they say medical care is a right.
Quoting TimeLine
Everybody talks about the "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence like it means the freedom to try to obtain some desired psychological state. But according to Marilynne Robinson in this essay, Jefferson's happiness means not some psychological state that social scientists measure but "a level of life above subsistence".
Last time I checked, same-sex marriage is not a freedom available for everyone.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
What do they mean?
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
Is this the same Jefferson that promoted the "right" to bear arms?
The principles of human rights was motivated to safeguard human dignity that is often undermined by a number of social, religious and political instabilities toward the establishment of a fair and equitable society. It is measured by the belief that all people deserve to live above subsistence (inalienable) despite gender, race etc., and serves as a reminder that Justice is the entitlement that will create the conditions of a community with the greatest distribution of happiness.
And should it be? Marriage is a religious institution, and should therefore obey religious rules and regulations. All major religions, without exception, condemn homosexual (and lesbian) sex as immoral, and don't allow marriages to occur between people of the same-sex. I include here Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism as among major religions.
To enforce same-sex marriage as a possibility is to defame and humiliate an age-old custom which has existed for encouraging spiritual union between a man and a woman (because that's how marriage has been defined). There is no problem with allowing homosexuals to live together, share the same house, be in a civil union, etc. but to have them marry is not only an insult towards Western history and traditions, but also highly immoral. Just think of the priests that are asked to marry two homosexuals. They have a duty before the sovereign God to honour the institution of marriage. Would this not infringe upon their duty? Is this not another form of propaganda aimed at weakening the Church?
If you want to interpret it as Metaphysical then I can see there is an irresolvable dilemma. If we assume that there does exist some mind-independent list of rights, it is impossible to know what rights are in it. There will be great disagreement as to what goes in it, and no way to resolve the disagreement. It may be possible to obtain 95% plus agreement on somewhat over half of the UN's list of 30, but that's all.
If one interprets it as Contractual, the difficulty falls away. The composition of the list is determined in the negotiations leading up to the signing of the declaration. There is no Metaphysical standard against which the agreed list can be tested. The situation is concrete: all countries that have signed the declaration are obliged to uphold the rights it contains.
There can still be arguments over interpretation though. Take 15: 'Men and women have the right to marry and to found a family.' Does the use of 'Men and Women', as distinct from the 'Everyone' that opens most other clauses, imply that the right only exists for a pair consisting of a man and a woman? Does it exclude same-sex couples, or was the 'Men and Women' chosen in order to exclude children? But if so, why not just say 'adults'? Does it generate a right of polygamy and polyandry since it uses the plural? And what about an inter-sex adult that is neither a man nor a woman? If it had said 'Everyone' it would automatically include them, but 'Men and Women' does not. Is that deliberate? Who knows (not me)?
Further, is the right to marry satisfied by common-law-marriage - ie long-term co-habitation? I expect a major motivation of number 15 was to rule out miscegenation laws (prohibition of 'inter-race' sexual relations), which I think applied to common-law arrangements as much as legal marriage contracts, and perhaps also to rule out familial vetoes on marriage a la Montagu and Capulet. Such an interpretation of the right is as a negative right: nobody may prevent you from forming a common-law marriage. It needs a stronger interpretation - as a positive right like number 26 (Education) - to say that it is a right for any two consenting adults to receive a formal, legal ceremony, called 'marriage' in law.
You wrote:
You'll be sorely disappointed. That's not we arrive at them. However, it is how we justify the path.