Human Rights: A conceptual Analysis

Abstract

The present paper intends to define the concept of the right and discuss the concepts that are related to it in order to use this concept more clearly and to exhibit its characteristics. A person living a solitary life (for example, on a deserted island) may not be said to have any rights. It is understandable that the problem of the right is an inter-subjective one related to human beings living together as a society. Accordingly, the source of the concept of the right must be sought for not in nature but in society. It is true that the most fundamental right of a human being is the right to live and that all other rights are based on this fundamental right and further that life is given to human beings by nature. However, it would be wrong to infer from this fact that the right to life is based on nature since, if such an inference were true, we should have come to the absurd conclusion that plants and animals also have the same rights on the same grounds since life is given to them by nature as well. In our day, however, we hear that people talk of animal rights, if not plant rights. The fact that somebody puts forward some humane proposals as to how human beings, as a species, must treat animals, as a different species, is far from being a sufficient ground on which the concept of animal rights may be based. Such a trial would at least conflict with the requirement of the correspondence of rights. While individuals have rights, large and small groups have only interests. Where we hear discussions about rights we also hear discussions about liberties. Freedom means to choose or not to choose, to choose this or that. For example, I am free to travel or not to travel, to go here or there. But traveling itself is not a right, what is a right is the freedom to travel. Thus any freedom is a right but a right is not a freedom. For example, the right to live is not a matter of freedom. I don't have the right to remove myself. On the other hand, since having a freedom is also a right for me I cannot give that right, i.e. my freedom to another person, I cannot make myself a slave. While it is possible for freedom to have more than one alternative and to choose one of those alternatives, the same is not true for rights. The fact that my duty to humanity is based on my being a human being requires a deeper law surrounding me inside beside the rules of law that surround me externally. That law is moral law. Thus, moral law, which distinguishes between good and bad takes its place besides the norms of law that distinguish between just and unjust. Laws must be based on morality.