The Scope of Human Rights: Toward a Freestanding, Culturally Sensitive Universalism

Abstract

The central question of this book in general, and this chapter in particular, is one of the scope or framing of human rights—are they relative or universal in breadth? This question asks how inclusive should the ethical-political community be? It is a question of who the subjects of justice are—who deserves moral consideration? Who should have moral standing (Fraser, 2010)? It is about whether the moral circle can be expanded to include all human beings (Singer, 2011). The exploration of these questions of the scope of human rights rests upon two fundamental ethical intuitions (Lukes, 2008, p. ix): The first intuition is that there are actions and behaviors that are universally right and wrong from the point of view of humanity itself. There are things one should do or never do to another human being (Perry, 1998). The idea of human rights entails an implicit normative claim to recognize that all human beings have equal moral standing in the human community; that the human moral community is cosmopolitan in the sense that it includes all human beings. In apparent tension with this first intuition is the second, which can be referred to as cultural nonjudgment based on respect for diverse others: “Who are we to judge other cultures?” (Lukes, 2008, p. ix).