The Problem with Human Rights

One of the most influential moral and political ideas of the modern period has been the idea of human rights.  In 1776, the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”  In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,^[1]https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html the first major international agreement about human rights.  The idea of human rights has continued to play an important role in national and international discourse about morality and politics down to the present day.  No one can deny that the idea of human rights has played a significant role in combating tyranny and oppression and promoting human welfare in the modern period.  However, using the language of human rights to talk about issues of morality and justice in society is not without its problems.  Frequently, the language of human rights serves to obscure the moral or legal issues under discussion, rather than to promote clarity and understanding.

What Are Human Rights?

To say someone has a “right” can mean many different things in many different contexts.  Basically, a right is a recognized entitlement to do something or to have something.  All communities and societies have certain conceptions of order and justice, according to which certain people have a right to certain things.  For example, most societies give parents the right to control and discipline their children, simply by virtue of the fact that they are the biological parents of their children.  Societies with official police forces give police officers the right to forcibly detain a citizen, simply by virtue of the fact that they are a police officer.  A particular nation’s constitution may give the government the right to forcibly take taxes from citizens, while giving citizens the right to be free from certain forms of interference by the government.  

Different societies with different customs and standards of justice have different conceptions of rights.  For example, a society which is divided into various classes (nobles, commoners, slaves) may recognize sharply distinct sets of rights for each class, while a society that seeks to be a classless, egalitarian society (e.g. the United States) may enshrine in its government’s laws the idea that all citizens have equal rights.  Each particular community or society uses the language of rights in order to articulate what people are entitled to within that particular community or society, according to its standards of order and justice.  Thus, the use of rights language in discussions about justice is inevitable and useful.  

However, the idea of human rights which I am discussing here goes beyond this; it claims that there are universal, inalienable rights possessed by all human beings simply by virtue of being human beings.  On this understanding of human rights, these rights are not based on the customs of particular societies and their particular conceptions of order and justice; they are universally applicable to all human beings at all times in every place.

Basic Problem with Human Rights

There are a number of problems with this idea of universal human rights.  If these rights really are universal and binding on all human beings and societies, regardless of religious or metaphysical beliefs or lack thereof, then that means they must be universally self-evident.  However, the fact is there is no universal or self-evident morality, and all beliefs about objective morality must logically be based on some particular beliefs about a transcendent religious or metaphysical reality.  The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not attempt to prove that the idea of universal human rights is legitimate; it merely assumes it.  It claims that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. . . and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”^[2]UDHR, Article 1  This is by no means self-evident.  People may have particular metaphysical or religious reasons for believing these things, but even then their conceptions of what it means to be “free” and have “dignity” will not necessarily be the same.

Even if people agree that there are universal human rights, how do we determine what those rights are?  It is important to point out that there are actually two quite distinct types of “rights”: negative and positive rights.  Negative rights, or freedoms, have to do with being entitled to do something, while positive rights have to do with being entitled to be provided with something.  Examples of negative rights are the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble; it is obvious how such rights are important for protecting citizens from tyranny and oppression by their government.  

However, when we turn to positive rights, things become much more dubious.  The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims a number of these rights, such as a right to work, a right to education, and a right to social security and an adequate standard of living.  As time has gone on, people have proposed more and more of these kinds of rights, such as a right to internet access or a right to access to affordable health care, and so forth.  Is it really true that every person has a right to demand that all these goods and services be provided for them?  What if there are not adequate resources available to do so?  Obviously, it makes no sense to say a person is entitled to be provided with something that simply is not available.  

Perhaps what those who claim these positive rights really mean is that we have a moral obligation to provide these things for other people if we have the means and opportunity to do so.  In other words, there should be an equitable distribution of resources.  But if this is what is meant, it is not clear that they really are universal human rights.  It is one thing to say that we should try to provide these things for other people as best we can, but it is not clear that it is helpful to say that everyone has a right to demand these things as something to which they are entitled.  

Furthermore, there is the issue of the scope of these rights.  When people claim something as a right, they almost always mean that their government has an obligation to provide it for everyone in their society.  But if these rights really are universal, then they must apply equally to everyone in the world.  Thus, people in poor nations must have a right to have things provided for them by wealthier nations.  Many Americans now claim that they have a right to access to affordable health care.  But does it really make sense to say that Americans have a right to be provided with extremely expensive medical technology without paying for it, while millions of people in other parts of the world have a tiny fraction of their wealth, not enough even to provide for their basic needs?  If human rights really are universal, then, logically, wealthy Western nations should provide massive amounts of foreign aid to poorer countries in order to provide for their people’s most basic rights before even thinking about providing for more luxurious “rights” for their own citizens.  But almost no one talks about human rights in this fashion.  

Human Rights and Moral Debate

The problem is, the language of human rights is not really helpful in resolving debates about moral issues.  In debates about slavery in the nineteenth century, people on one side of the issue advocated slaveholders’ property rights, while people on the other side of the issue advocated the rights of African Americans to be free.  Appeals to “rights” did nothing to resolve the issue.  The question people needed to answer was: what is the status of African Americans, and is it just for whites to enslave them?  A similar situation exists in our day on the issue of abortion.  People on one side of the issue advocate a woman’s right to choose, while people on the other side of the issue advocate the preborn human being’s right to life.  Appeals to “rights” do nothing to resolve the issue.  The question people need to answer is: what is the status of preborn human beings, and is it just to inflict violence on them?  

All too frequently, claims that something is a human right are a way of short-circuiting rational discourse about moral and political issues.  Anyone who wants a certain policy or agenda enacted can easily find a way to express it in terms of human rights.  They can then criticize anyone who disagrees with them by claiming that anyone who disagrees with them is taking away someone’s rights.  It is possible that there is a soundly reasoned moral argument underlying the policy or agenda they are advocating, which they then communicate in shorthand by making reference to a certain human right.  However, in many cases, it seems people make rights claims with no basis other than their intuitions and personal desire that something happen.  Claims of rights easily become arbitrary, and there seems to be no limit on the number of things people can claim as a “right.”  

To most modern Westerners, the concept of human rights is something cherished and sacred.  However, the fact is, it has numerous problems.  All too often, appeals to human rights in discussions about moral and political issues serve to obscure the issues people are discussing, rather than to illuminate them.