Do Human Rights Exist?
April 11, 2017 4:49 PM   Subscribe

Are human rights anything more than legal conventions?

Ideas are immaterial, but some ideas are thought to independently exist because they're true regardless of context. The number three is an example of this. All over the world people will agree with you that three is a thing. There's threes everywhere.

So does the concept of human rights exist? Are they true in the same sense that three is? Or are human rights only created by laws, like the the requirement to use a turn signal when driving a car? The implications of this question are larger than one might think, since laws are created by specific cultures and don't apply everywhere and in every situation. In this essay John Tasioulas asks if there is such a thing as human rights beyond the ones required by law.

Bonus links for those wanting a deeper dive: Human Rights a video from Edeos-Digital Education, and Philosophical justifications of human rights from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
posted by Kevin Street (45 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
John Tasioulas does sort of ask that question, but then arrives at a predictably wishy-washy conclusion steeped in the "inherent value" of humanity. I mean, I agree that humanity is valuable, but throwing around words like "inherent" is putting the cart way before the horse when you're attempting an almost certainly impossible philosophical task like rooting morality in testable reality.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

The important part of that phrase is not "self-evident" but rather "we hold."
posted by 256 at 5:15 PM on April 11, 2017 [37 favorites]


of course the answer is no.

"human rights" are simply heuristics developed in an attempt to guide governments to avoid inflicting human suffering. they are unenforceable and haven't met much success, given the obvious conflicts with other incentives in our world.
posted by i deserved this at 5:21 PM on April 11, 2017 [15 favorites]


Jeremy Bentham called natural rights 'nonsense on stilts', which is an enormously fun phrase to say.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:22 PM on April 11, 2017 [17 favorites]


To the question in the post title: Yes.
To the question in the body of the post: No.
posted by Saxon Kane at 5:23 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


Upon examination, I think that, like common sense, human rights would turn out not to be particularly human, and the only thing people could agree on would be stuff like definitely having a right to be eaten by a bear. However, pace Bentham, the black letter of human rights law is not "nonsense," it's all we have. Unfortunately, as we are experiencing under Trump, there exists no societal defense against breaking the social contract (of which human rights consume several sections).
posted by rhizome at 5:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [4 favorites]


> However, pace Bentham, the black letter of human rights law is not "nonsense," it's all we have.

it's all we have in writing. it's important not to mix up the written prescription of how things should be, or even written descriptions of how things are, with how things actually are.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 5:30 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


The important part of that phrase is not "self-evident" but rather "we hold."

This may be so, that mankind needs to believe in the inherent nature of basic human rights and dignity for all.

However - it is also so that nearly every religion, and several non-theistic philosophers, have espoused a belief in the law of reciprocity:
Bahá'í Faith:
"Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not."

Brahmanism:
"This is the sum of Dharma [duty]: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you".

Buddhism:
"...a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?"

Christianity:
"And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

Confucianism:
"Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence."

Ancient Egyptian:
"Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do."

Hinduism:
"This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you."

The religion of the Incas:
"Do not to another what you would not yourself experience."

Islam:
"None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."

Jainism:
"Therefore, neither does he [a sage] cause violence to others nor does he make others do so."

Judaism:
"...thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

Shinto:
"The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form."

Taoism:
"Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss."

Yoruba: (Nigeria):
"One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts."

Zoroastrianism:
"Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others."

Socrates:
"Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you."

Kant:
"Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature."

Humanism:
"Humanists acknowledge human interdependence, the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity."

Scientology:
"Try to treat others as you would want them to treat you."
It may be so that "we hold" may be the crucial part of that statement. But it certainly seems that it is a mighty universal "we", which does lead one to speculate there's something inherant about it after all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:35 PM on April 11, 2017 [50 favorites]


I've always liked this exchange from Hogfather. I think it's one of Sir Terry's finest contributions to civilization, and I hope that people, when faced with this sort of question hundreds of years from now, will continue to quote it in response.
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:39 PM on April 11, 2017 [66 favorites]


Tit for Tat is a strong prisoner's dilemma strategy, it would be surprising if it didn't end up codified as a maxim across many different cultures.
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 5:42 PM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]


Michael 'Zen/motorbikes' Pirsig has a simple but phenomenally powerful schema that sets out a view of the world as static patterns of value acted on by dynamic quality, the indefinable essence of 'better'. He lays it out in his book Lila.

He divides reality into inorganic, biological, social and intellectual tiers, and suggests that the job of each tier - so biological animals have fur to protect themselves against the inorganic cold, we socially band together to protect ourselves against biologically driven violence, we intellectually create laws to protect us against social discrimination.

He suggests that it is fundamentally moral for higher tiers to control lower ones.

In this analysis, rights fit neatly in as an intellectual pattern of values that constrains social ills.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:55 PM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]


Human rights exist in the same way that Canada exists. We act as if they exist, and by doing so we bring them into existence - not as objects, but as processes.
posted by clawsoon at 6:28 PM on April 11, 2017 [18 favorites]


See also: money
posted by blue_beetle at 6:30 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


The number three is an example of this.

Sounds like someone's been drinking the Peano kool-aid!
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:31 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


"human rights" are simply heuristics developed in an attempt to guide governments to avoid inflicting human suffering. they are unenforceable and haven't met much success, given the obvious conflicts with other incentives in our world.

People try to enforce them in the most dire of circumstances when governments turn away, particularly in the context of UNAMIR being given direct orders to pull out of Rwanda, and by dint of doing so, bring them into existence:

Captain Mbaye Diagne being but one example.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:31 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


Sebmojo: He suggests that it is fundamentally moral for higher tiers to control lower ones.

You might be interested in multi-level selection, which posits life as a struggle between selfishness in lower tiers and altruism in higher ones.

You can go a little too far with that sort of thinking, though; it doesn't take long for someone to suggest that individuals should be subordinated to the good of society, as it's a higher tier, and as you can see we have represented the good of all as a bundle of sticks, all working together for the common good...
posted by clawsoon at 6:33 PM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]


Every natural thing has as much right from Nature as it has power to exist and to act.--Spinoza
posted by No Robots at 6:39 PM on April 11, 2017 [3 favorites]


Believing in either God or some analog of platonic forms makes all moral philosophy a lot easier as it gives you a straight answer as to why you think that there's such a thing as moral and immoral actions. Most efforts to derive an ought from an is are ultimately unconvincing, and you can sidestep that by saying that the "ought" is an "is," albeit an immaterial or invisible one.

This is, like all moral philosophy, basically working backwards to establish a justification for your preëxisting intuitions and emotions, but at least it's a mostly internally consistent one!
posted by bracems at 6:39 PM on April 11, 2017 [7 favorites]


Honestly I mostly think human rights are what people with a functioning sense of empathy have concluded.
posted by actionpotential at 6:52 PM on April 11, 2017 [18 favorites]


Are those moral intuitions, like mathematical intuition, sometimes feelings that bump up against natural metaphysical facts, like mathematical ideas, is an interesting question to me, as I do think some form of soft mathematical realism is probably correct.

Moral intuitions aren't limited to humans. There's evidence animals have some moral ideas about generosity and reciprocity, too, so it may not all be quite the nonsense walking on stilts Bentham sees.

Personally, I think our moral intuitions on human rights are grasping toward a sort of universal idea of species' group identification, like old school humanists used to champion, where the idea is the correct way to understand one's identity begins in a universal set of humanity and then specializes from there, with those more universal human values being the highest and most important social obligations/values and more special values and obligations being derived from those more general human values that frame and anchor them, giving them a larger context for interpretation in more special cases.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:53 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


Sounds like someone's been drinking the Peano kool-aid!

This is a good quip, but it also caused me to wonder if there is a good ethical analog here to structuralism in philosophy of math. That is, much as (mathematical structuralism holds that) "3" has no meaning (and, depending on who you ask, existence) by itself, outside of the whole structure of numbers, maybe 'individual' human rights are also meaningless (and/or lack existence) when considered outside the holistic structure of human rights, but are in fact meaningful (and/or have existence) when considered in the context of that whole system?

(Obviously this idea is super half baked--what would the "holistic structure" of human rights be, anyway? I have only thought about this for the length of this comment, so excuse the sloppy philosophy in an area I did not study, but: the natural numbers (i.e. the standard model of PA, excluding nonstandard models) are often characterized as the smallest structure that has a 0 and is closed under a successor operation ("smallest" meaning the infinite intersection of all such structures). Given EmpressCallipygos's comment above regarding the recurrence of Golden-Rule-alikes across world ethical systems, I wonder if you could make some kind of argument for the Universal Human Rights being the rights that hold for every 'ethical structure' that has at least two sentient entities and is 'closed' under some kind of Golden Rule operation... I'm sure there are tons of problems with this approach, but, hey, fun to think about?)
posted by acroyear2 at 7:09 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


Humans don't have any intrinsic "right" to anything, because rights imply obligations. If you have a "right" to clean water does that mean I am obliged to give it to you? Of course not. But over a few thousand years we've managed to put together a few loose systems (like philosophy, politics, society, economics, and an infinite number of variations of "morality") and institutions (like the UN and uhhh...parliaments?) that imply and/or facilitate "rights" because at the end of the day, things being more-or-less available to more-or-less all of us is a better system than nobody having anything.

Of course, everything is still fucked, and some "rights" are objectively more important than others, and the most important "rights" are "needs". But needs still imply obligations, and you "needing" water still doesn't oblige me to give it to you.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:11 PM on April 11, 2017


Believing in either God or some analog of platonic forms makes all moral philosophy a lot easier as it gives you a straight answer as to why you think that there's such a thing as moral and immoral actions.

Not easier; adding God to the mix makes things harder for philosophers who don't cheat. You need to define and defend the existence and perfection of God (which if done honestly requires argument on the scale of full-dress Plotinian neoplatonism) and subsequently argue that moral norms can somehow be derived from the nature of God. By comparison, a semi-plausible Kantian defense of human rights could fit on a short pamphlet.

If you cheat and claim that rights exist just because God says so you might as well just say that rights exist because I say so.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:16 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


If you have a "right" to clean water does that mean I am obliged to give it to you?

Yes?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:16 PM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]


Yes, if you can. That's the idea.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:19 PM on April 11, 2017 [10 favorites]


Would it be easier to propose that there are human duties, to treat each other well, for example? Saying that we have rights leaves a unclear number and variety of agencies, some human, who have influence over our lives. That leaves a lot of room for ambiguity. What rights do we have regarding how we are treated by governmental actors? That varies from state to state, culture to culture. And it would of course be absurd to say we have a right to not be struck by lightning, although saying we have a right to not be hit by a truck makes marginally more sense.
posted by kozad at 7:30 PM on April 11, 2017 [5 favorites]


> Honestly I mostly think human rights are what people with a functioning sense of empathy have concluded.

I've been feeling lately like this is true for most people, but I've also been realising that humanity's circle of empathy has a very variable radii.
posted by lucidium at 7:38 PM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]


Human Rights are like Natural Laws. Believing that they exist is productive until it's not.
posted by ethansr at 7:42 PM on April 11, 2017


but I've also been realising that humanity's circle of empathy has a very variable radii.

If your empathy radius encompasses all the other people you'd like to include you in their empathy radius, then you're doing it right. And otherwise, you're not.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:58 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


If you have a "right" to clean water does that mean I am obliged to give it to you?

Yes?


What, from my own stockpile? What about my family? What if I want a bath, or am growing almonds? Why does it have to be me who gives it to you, and not the guy next door, who has even more water than I do? Do I have to carry it to you, or are you coming to get it? How do you know where I live? If I'm obliged somehow to bring it to you: how far, in what kind of weather, over what kind of terrain? In what sort of vessel? Do I also have to make sure it is absolutely free of allergens and pathogens, or at a certain temperature, or just "good enough"? What if it is perfectly drinkable to me but has somehow been contaminated by peanuts, to which you are deathly allergic? Do I then need to provide first aid, or give you an antihistamine or the like? How much of the water do you have a right to, exactly? Just enough to quench your perishing thirst at that exact point in time, or enough to sustain you for the rest of your life? What happens when there are two of you, and I can only spare enough water for one?

These are ridiculous questions of course, and I'm not saying I wouldn't give a thirsty person water, because I would - I am not a monster. I would give you water if you were thirsty because it is the proper thing to do, and because I know how thirst feels and what dehydration can do. But I wouldn't be doing it because you had a "right" to it, I'd be doing it because it is morally correct. How do I determine that? Because of how it makes me feel.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:01 PM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]


I usually sing that line from The Schuyler Sisters to reassure myself. "We hold these truths to be self-evident / that all women are created equal!"

But human rights are a construction and require the will of the populace to want to enforce it and encourage it to happen, and the authorities to be supportive of it. So, I believe they exist, I want it to exist for my benefit, I just am concerned about the idea when my human rights collides with the authority who decides it is now inconvenient for them to have me be seen with rights. That is not a good day, and it is already happening for many marginalized folk, and has happened for many marginalized folk.

Conveniently, I apparently also identify as a Neutral Good on my D&D alignment.
posted by yueliang at 8:03 PM on April 11, 2017


But I wouldn't be doing it because you had a "right" to it, I'd be doing it because it is morally correct.

What's the difference?
posted by Juffo-Wup at 8:23 PM on April 11, 2017 [6 favorites]


This is something I once said over the Internets, so someone could hunt me down here.

My human rights exist. A constructive proof is difficult.
posted by runcifex at 8:41 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


Michael 'Zen/motorbikes' Pirsig

s/Michael/Robert/
posted by HiroProtagonist at 8:52 PM on April 11, 2017




Breaking "rights" news!!!

Dude seriously needs to get the fuck over himself.
posted by dersins at 10:07 PM on April 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


ctrl-f "Arendt" ...nothing, really?
posted by juv3nal at 11:49 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


>> If you have a "right" to clean water does that mean I am obliged to give it to you?

> Yes?

What, from my own stockpile?

I have no solution to the overall question, but feel prompted to note that there is no "your own stockpile" of water without a right to own things.

Here's an actual case from a recent thread of sharing water in a life-or-death situation. (Sad story involving actual death, though the outcome probably wasn't a consequence of moral calculation.)
posted by XMLicious at 12:29 AM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]


If you have a "right" to clean water does that mean I am obliged to give it to you?

Yes?

What, from my own stockpile?


If we're talking about something like clean water, it's not about having one's own stockpile and having to share that gallon by gallon with others. It's about the idea that there is a limited collective stockpile of fresh water and people shouldn't shit in it or waste it and literally need to think about those downstream from them as they claim their personal stockpile of water. It is also about the idea that water needs to be processed and recycled and that doing so is a collective responsibility because without water there is no collective.

Believing in a right to water means fighting against Nestle and its war on public water sources and utilities, trying to make all water at least $1/half-liter. It means fighting against fueling depot leakages that are ignored until they have saturated the ground enough that it gets into groundwater. It means fighting against mountaintop removal mining that kills stream and spring sources. It means wanting all the golf courses in the Phoenix metropolitan area to be xeriscaped or allowed to die. It means the state of California providing giant household water deliveries every week to households in the Central Valley who have had their wells run dry because of crop irrigation pumping during the drought. It means requiring big outdoor music festivals to allow bringing in a bottle that can be filled at provided taps for no cost instead of buying water.

The right to water, specifically the right to clean water, means a lot of things. It doesn't really mean that there's some sort of obligation to share your personal water stockpile with anyone who demands it. It does require that you acknowledge that your personal water stockpile comes from a limited resource. And that being responsible with how you use it and how it as a whole is used and shared is not a whim, but an obligation, because of the right to clean water that all humans share.
posted by hippybear at 2:39 AM on April 12, 2017 [18 favorites]


Once apparently settled beliefs about the impermissibility of torture or the rights of refugees have recently suffered a backlash.

High-minded declarations about "natural" rights might have been an effective way to convince people of the 18th century that slavery was wrong, but today it's just not up to the standards of contemporary marketing techniques. Look at the pro-torture campaign mounted by popular TV shows in recent years, that's how it's done.

In any case it's the moral ideals that come first, not the legal conventions. That is characteristic of human rights, more so I think than other areas of law. Some of them are at least as conceptually sound as "three", others more akin to "blue".
posted by sfenders at 6:31 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


My human rights exist. A constructive proof is difficult

I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
posted by ersatz at 11:30 PM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]


The right to water, specifically the right to clean water, means a lot of things. It doesn't really mean that there's some sort of obligation to share your personal water stockpile with anyone who demands it.

It does, however, mean that it's kind of a dick move to stockpile water.
posted by dersins at 2:13 PM on April 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you have a "right" to clean water does that mean I am obliged to give it to you?

Maybe it just means that you are forbidden from preventing anyone else from having clean water. Are you more comfortable with that definition?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:37 AM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]


Just in general, turning the question about whether a right to water exists or human rights in general exist into a grade school "Write an essay providing instructions for how to make a PB&J sandwich" exercise—Ha, I can always come up with a hypothetical reader for whom your instructions are inadequate, like someone who doesn't know what peanut butter or jelly are, you foolish grade schooler!—does not seem like an effective demonstration that they don't exist.

I don't know whether a hot dog is a sandwich, but hot dogs definitely exist.

(I'm not saying that human rights necessarily exist, just that the fact you can ask an unlimited number of questions about what behavior they would obligate one to in a given hypothetical situation isn't evidence in either direction.)
posted by XMLicious at 4:42 AM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


Further reading for anyone interested: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on rights.
posted by Tehhund at 9:46 AM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


OMFSM! It's my senior thesis in Metafilter form. Elevator pitch version: human rights exists and arise from the quality of being human. This draws a distinction between being human and having the genetic makeup of homo sapiens. Humanity is an [the?] organizing principle of society and rights are fundamental privileges flowing from society. Part and parcel, rights are also obligations and these obligations are the litmus test for determining one's humanity. One might argue this is a tautology. Others might counter that humanity, society, and the fundamental rules and privileges that give rise to this state are all facets of the same overarching theme.

Much holes! Many questions begged! Very No True Scotsman Friendly! But it's my start and I did one hell of a lot of reading to get there.
posted by Fezboy! at 2:52 PM on April 17, 2017 [1 favorite]


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