- Human rights are created by the people. Legally, i.e. in terms of actual enforceable policies, this is true. In a normal 21st century country, what constitutes "human rights" is whatever listed by that particular part of the constitution. The list is thus created by the people, or more accurately the people's representatives, in a somekind of constituent assembly. The implication is... interesting, because this means that said rights can be abolished if the people chooses to do that. Also, the list of rights that came out from the process may be quite controversial—think how would the constitution of a democratic
SaudiArabia will look like, and think of what will said constitution say about LGBT or adultery. Spoiler alert, it won't be pretty. - Human rights are created by God. The problem with this argument is obvious: not all people believe in the same God, many believes in multiple gods, and a significant amount don't believe in God at all. There's also a problem of interpretation, meaning that in reality, much of the details will be outsourced to option (1) or option (4).
- Human rights came from nature, or is just is. This is the argument that I least understand about. I recently went on a mountain hike, and I didn't see any trees or animals that naturally came with the sentence "the right to collectively bargain" plastered on their skin. Nature is also filled with cases of incest, murder, and cannibalism, which isn't really pleasant.
- Human rights are created by smart people in the past. The American founding fathers, Karl Marx, you name it. They have sets of convenient ideas that sounds good and might promote stability ("long-term stability" in the case of Marx, I guess), so we believe in them. This means two problems: first, this is just a fancier version of option (1). More importantly, second, is where their ideas stopped being convenient. Many of the so-called smart people of the past may also believed that the earth is flat, or practiced chattel slavery, or are abhorrently racist, or engaged in ferocious corruption or sexual abuses. Culture and values also changes throughout the ages.
Why is this important? I believe that a lot of our political opinions are based on what rights do a human posses. If it came from the people, then a simple majority can strip your right to have a private property, or to vote, or to live. If it's more complicated, then a simple two-thirds majority can strip your rights. If human rights are decided by a holy council during the establishment of the nation with zero way of amendment, then it becomes problematic when said council also supports slavery or other Bad Ideas™. Or if their ideas are simply inadequate to deal with the conditions of say the next 10 years amid tech and societal changes.
This is even more problematic when there those who don't want human rights, or at least, want to alter them. People simply have different priorities, and "the collective prosperity of as much human as possible" isn't always on the top. Actually, should it even be on the top? Is there a divine law that bars people for prioritizing technological progress, or national and economic strength, or culture, or racial purity, over other elements?
Of course, this course of mindset can lead to horrific conclusions, but it's not irrational. China's genocide in Xinjiang for example is obviously abhorrent, but from the CCP's (or even the general Chinese state's) perspective, it's a perfectly reasonable policy that promotes long-term regional stability and national security while having very little downsides. The West's """human rights""" in fact will harm the Chinese state as it promotes anti-CCP unrest, chaos, and disintegration, with the end result being objectively worse for the people. At least, that's how the CCP's thinking goes.
That's been the state of history... until now. Well, at least until the next 30 years. Because after that, hyper-intelligence is likely to have become a thing, along with a vast amount of other technological advancements, advancing the upper class into the next stage of evolution while the bottom class languish under rampant inequality. In this era, the word "human" in "human rights" becomes questionable, generating an entirely new set of gigantic philosophical problem with dire consequences.
In the end, I believe that the question of human rights can further be boiled down to two points of view:
- Human rights is inherent, derived from external sources.
- Human rights are whatever I (or in this case, you) like. It's a question of "I like" and "I don't like".
I mean, if we're talking about reality, I believe that it's the latter. In a more personal tone, for example, the reasoning behind "why my IRL country's secular constitution and the rights that it guarantee is a thing", is pretty simple. Those who have the powers like it, and view it a a stable and reliable system to work with. If someone, e.g. the Islamists or the communists, disagree, they will be shot, the end.
What do you think? Where do human rights came from, why do us humans deserve it, will it change in the future, and should it?
