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Contemporary Approaches in the Philosophy of Human Rights

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Grounding Human Rights in Human Nature

Part of the book series: Law and Philosophy Library ((LAPS,volume 142))

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Abstract

I examine the major approaches in the philosophy of human rights from the point of view of their answer on the precise character of the relation between human rights and their foundations as well as from the point of view of taking into consideration the discoveries of natural sciences. It turns out that the relation between human rights and their foundations is either flawed, weak or unclear. Similarly, there are almost no references to the rapid development of natural sciences dealing with human in the major approaches to human rights.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).

  2. 2.

    Constitution of the Republic of Poland (1997), art. 30.

  3. 3.

    Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Preamble, art. 1.

  4. 4.

    German Basic Law (1949, art. 1).

  5. 5.

    UNESCO (1948), p. I. This resembles an incomplete theorised agreement in terms of Cass Sunstein (2017).

  6. 6.

    Nussbaum (2000, 2006, 2011) and Miller (2007, 2012).

  7. 7.

    Griffin (2008).

  8. 8.

    Tasioulas (2015).

  9. 9.

    Piechowiak (1999, 2019).

  10. 10.

    Tasioulas (2011), p. 26.

  11. 11.

    Griffin (2008), p. 2.

  12. 12.

    Rawls (1999), Pogge (2002), Beitz (2009) and Raz (2010, 2015).

  13. 13.

    Rawls (1999), p. 90.

  14. 14.

    Gewirth (1981, 1982); cf. Raz (2010), p. 323.

  15. 15.

    Gewirth (1981), p. 124.

  16. 16.

    Raz (2010), p. 323.

  17. 17.

    Raz (2010), p. 342.

  18. 18.

    cf. Allen (1982).

  19. 19.

    Hume (1739), p. 335.

  20. 20.

    Putnam (2002). Hume’s Guillotine cuts only a logical entailment between factual premises and a normative conclusion. Total separation between descriptive and normative spheres was not intended by Hume and, as Putnam argues (2002), the idea of such a radical separation is a child of logical positivism of early and mid-twentieth century.

  21. 21.

    Witkowski (1975); Makowski (2011), p. 325.

  22. 22.

    Griffin (2008).

  23. 23.

    Griffin (2008), p. 4; p. 33.

  24. 24.

    Griffin (2008), p. 33.

  25. 25.

    Griffin (2008), p. 33.

  26. 26.

    Griffin (2008), p. 38.

  27. 27.

    Griffin (2008), p. 47.

  28. 28.

    Griffin (2008), p. 83.

  29. 29.

    Griffin (2008), p. 14.

  30. 30.

    Tasioulas (2013), p. 302.

  31. 31.

    Tasioulas (2013), p. 303.

  32. 32.

    Renzo (2015), p. 574.

  33. 33.

    Renzo (2015), p. 574.

  34. 34.

    Griffin (2008), p. 4.

  35. 35.

    Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), art. II.

  36. 36.

    Griffin (2008), ch. 7; Griffin (2015).

  37. 37.

    American Anthropological Association’s Statement on Human Rights (1947), p. 542.

  38. 38.

    Griffin (2008), p. 133.

  39. 39.

    Griffin (2008), p. 133.

  40. 40.

    Raz (2010), p. 324.

  41. 41.

    Griffin (2008), p. 4.

  42. 42.

    Griffin (2008), p. 135.

  43. 43.

    Witkowski (1975); Makowski (2011), p. 325.

  44. 44.

    Nussbaum (2000, 2006, 2011).

  45. 45.

    Nussbaum (2011), p. 20.

  46. 46.

    Cruft et al. (2015), p. 15.

  47. 47.

    Nussbaum (2011), p. 11.

  48. 48.

    Nussbaum (2011), p. 31.

  49. 49.

    Nussbaum (2011), pp. 33–34.

  50. 50.

    I put the term dignity in brackets as Nussbaum sometimes makes use of the term dignity, rather than human dignity. Moreover, she explicitly extends her capability approach to animals and considers whether they have animal dignity (2011, ch. 6).

  51. 51.

    Nussbaum (2006), p. 161.

  52. 52.

    Nussbaum (2006), p. 162.

  53. 53.

    Nussbaum (2011).

  54. 54.

    cf. Nussbaum (2011), p. 33 where she speaks about having a life that is not worth living.

  55. 55.

    Cruft et al. (2015), p. 16.

  56. 56.

    Notice that in her work on religious intolerance (2012) she makes use and analyses the concept of human dignity in its meaning starting from international legal documents on human rights.

  57. 57.

    Liao (2015), p. 92.

  58. 58.

    Nussbaum (2006), p. 172.

  59. 59.

    Liao (2015), p. 93; Cruft et al. (2015), p. 15.

  60. 60.

    Liao (2015), p. 92.

  61. 61.

    Nussbaum (2011), p. 32.

  62. 62.

    cf. Sen (1999, 2005) who makes use of this concept in economics and has been the leading figure in the so-called development economics.

  63. 63.

    Nussbaum (2011), p. 32.

  64. 64.

    Miller (2007, 2012) and Renzo (2015).

  65. 65.

    Miller (2007, 2012); Cruft et al. (2015), p. 14.

  66. 66.

    Griffin (2008).

  67. 67.

    Renzo (2015), p. 579.

  68. 68.

    Renzo (2015), p. 579.

  69. 69.

    Cruft et al. (2015), p. 15.

  70. 70.

    Miller (2012), p. 422.

  71. 71.

    Hapla (2018).

  72. 72.

    Hapla (2018), pp. 10–12.

  73. 73.

    Piechowiak (1999, 2019).

  74. 74.

    Piechowiak (1999), pp. 79–85, 110–117.

  75. 75.

    Piechowiak (1999), p. 19.

  76. 76.

    Piechowiak (1999), pp. 226–264.

  77. 77.

    Piechowiak (1999), p. 273.

  78. 78.

    The description of Piechowiak’s second work (2019) is based on a part of my review of Marek Piechowiak’s work (Mazurkiewicz 2020); similar, yet much shorter piece of work was also published (Mazurkiewicz 2019).

  79. 79.

    Piechowiak (2019), pp. 41–42.

  80. 80.

    Griffin (2008) and Waldron (2012, 2015).

  81. 81.

    The recognition of the fact that human existence is an aim in itself is of course incompatible with the totalitarian subordination of human good to the good of the state and is another argument for rejecting Popperian reading of Plato’s political views.

  82. 82.

    Piechowiak (1999, 2019).

  83. 83.

    Piechowiak (1999).

  84. 84.

    Rawls (1999), Pogge (2002), Beitz (2009) and Raz (2010, 2015).

  85. 85.

    Tasioulas (2011), p. 44.

  86. 86.

    Rawls (1999), p. 79.

  87. 87.

    Tasioulas (2011), p. 44.

  88. 88.

    Tasioulas (2011), pp. 44–45.

  89. 89.

    Tasioulas (2011), pp. 44–45.

  90. 90.

    Tasioulas (2011), p. 45.

  91. 91.

    Tasioulas (2011), p. 54.

  92. 92.

    Raz (2010), p. 334.

  93. 93.

    Raz (2010), p. 327.

  94. 94.

    Rawls (1999), p. 65.

  95. 95.

    Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), art. 24.

  96. 96.

    Beitz (2009), p. 197.

  97. 97.

    cf. Fine (1994); Robertson and Atkins (2018).

  98. 98.

    Kment (2017). I believe that there is no need to enter here into the analytic philosophy debate on possible worlds (for a detailed study see e.g. Menzel 2017). Let me just notice that although philosophical interpretation of what possible worlds are vary, they can and rather tend to be understood on a purely semantic level. Following this view, they have nothing to do with what may resemble “parallel universes”.

  99. 99.

    Lewis (1973).

  100. 100.

    Menzel (2017).

  101. 101.

    Robertson and Atkins (2018).

  102. 102.

    Fine (1994).

  103. 103.

    Fine (1994), p. 8.

  104. 104.

    Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), art. 15, art. 25.

  105. 105.

    One may argue that in the past human rights were used to frame arguments supporting the justness of a rebellion against tyrannical monarchs, so they had a political role. For instance, the French Revolution utilised the idea of human rights to fight against the tyrannical monarch. Nonetheless, there was no consensus in international law of that time concerning the role of these rights. Actually quite to the contrary, rebellion was seen as an illegal attack on king’s eternal authority coming from God. Moreover, the conception of international intervention was not needed as war was a legal means in international relations. It should be stressed that the political approach ascribes the essential role of human rights to the international law and politics and not to the thought of scholars. Scholars or political philosophers developed some theories about the role of natural or human rights but these theories were not implemented into the law and practice of international relations.

  106. 106.

    cf. the decisions of Vienna Congress in 1815 that established rules of international order up to the First World War.

  107. 107.

    Rawls (1999), Beitz (2009) and Raz (2010).

  108. 108.

    Rawls (1999).

  109. 109.

    Zajadło (2005, 2010).

  110. 110.

    UN Charter (1945), art. 2.4.

  111. 111.

    UN Charter (1945), art. 51.

  112. 112.

    UN Charter (1945), art. 42–44.

  113. 113.

    Danish Institute of International Affairs (1999), p. 94.

  114. 114.

    Statute of International Court of Justice (1945), art. 38.1(b).

  115. 115.

    UN World Summit Outcome Document (2005), par. 138–140.

  116. 116.

    There is however one version of the political approach that is immune to this argument. This is Rawlsian realistic utopia (1999) where Rawls aims to find the best fundamental rules for a fair international order. Rawls does not build his theory on currently existing international order, consequently his notion of the role of human rights neither refers to contemporary international law nor international relations. Rather it refers to an ideal of just international law or international relations. Thus, my analysis of contemporary international law has nothing to do with his theory. On the other hand, adherents of the political approach after Rawls speak rather of existing, current international law and international politics.

  117. 117.

    Waldron (2013).

  118. 118.

    Waldron (2013), p. 10, p. 12; cf. Rawls (1999), p. 38; Beitz (2009), pp. 105–106.

  119. 119.

    Waldron (2013), p. 10, p. 12.

  120. 120.

    Pogge (2002) and Beitz (2009).

  121. 121.

    Rawls (1999) and Raz (2010).

  122. 122.

    Griffin (2008), p. 2; Tasioulas (2011), p. 27.

  123. 123.

    Rosen (2013).

  124. 124.

    Piechowiak (1999, 2019) and Mikhail (2012).

  125. 125.

    Leiter and Etchemendy (2017) and Papineau (2020).

  126. 126.

    With a minor but notable exception of Mikhail (2012).

  127. 127.

    To mention just a few: Leiter (2007), Pardo and Patterson (2013), Załuski (2009a, b, 2018), Brożek (2012, 2017a, b, 2020) and Brożek et al. (2017).

  128. 128.

    Załuski (2009a, b) and Brożek (2012, 2017c).

  129. 129.

    Plunkett (2012), Gizbert-Studnicki (2015, 2016, 2021) and Chilovi and Pavlakos (2019).

  130. 130.

    Griffin (2008), p. 2; Tasioulas (2011), p. 27.

  131. 131.

    For certain reasons, the concept that is commonly used in metaphysical debates is ontological dependence, rather than metaphysical dependence. I will stick to this terminology.

  132. 132.

    Tahko and Lowe (2016).

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    Szymon Mazurkiewicz

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Mazurkiewicz, S. (2023). Contemporary Approaches in the Philosophy of Human Rights. In: Grounding Human Rights in Human Nature. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 142. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30734-8_2

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