What is Human Rights

Human rights, ironically, are a very metaphysical topic. Metaphysical logic pervades the discussion around human rights: what is its justification, what is its nature? Kant and the usuals think human rights come from agency. If we can think, we can have rights. But the natural problem that arises is what about those who can't; a person in a coma should be able to have rights despite the fact that they don't have agency, right? If we define human rights through human nature--that is, our naturally inscribed quality of having a right--every human would have natural human rights. Yet, this notion entails that every time someone decides the coming or going of beloved kin in some terrible trauma or disease is a violation of human rights, for it tramples the autonomy and agency of someone with full human rights, which sounds absurd and frightening.

However, as usual with the style of articles of this blog, I am not here to argue a position in this metaphysical debate of human rights. Instead, if you have noticed, there is this interesting phenomenon with human rights--we seem to examine its metaphysical properties with "earthly" properties--that I wish to explore. Usually, it is the metaphysical that guides the practical (the "earthly"): when we speak of a justification of human rights, we are speaking in the sense that human rights are not possible without said justification. Yet, the current debate seems fairly teleological, in that we use reality to determine what our conception of human rights should be. For example, the rejection of the human nature justification of human rights is centered around our perception of putting beloved kin out or sustaining them alive as a human rights violation as absurd. It is the same thing with the rejection of the argument from agency: the fact that human rights, under this framework, reject the rights of disabled individuals, sounds wrong, indicating we already have some intuitive conception of what human rights should be like. The debate seems like finding the correct words to mix in a salad that matches our taste.

If this is the case, then it must entail that human rights do exist, with or without the argumentations/justifications for it. Then, the natural question to ask is, what is the use of these justifications?

My answer is no, there is no point in engaging with useless debates as such, word salads, and empty gestures toward a certain framework. The question we should instead ask, then, is what human rights are? Or more precisely formulated, what are human rights existing as within reality?

Let's look at another example: Guantanamo Bay. The "residents" of Guantanamo Bay are subject to harrowing torture and human rights violations. Yet, the perception of Guantanamo Bay is different from the perception of the Nazi concentration camps, another place of harrowing torture and human rights violations. Guantanamo Bay is justified as a necessary means to "defend democracy" and approved military operations--it is a place that is justified under the system (contrast to Nazi concentration camps, which were omitted from records and held no justification).

This justification implies that Guantanamo Bay operates within the system. Its existence is, unlike the Nazi concentration camps, not a crime of the state, but a "reasonable" action from the state. Its existence is justified in the same fashion as prisons are justified. Then, its removal of human rights is also justified in the same manner. Now we arrive at the oxymoronic formula: human rights are a naturally given right to every human and are fundamental to our existence unless they hinder the operations of the state.

It seems now that human rights are something given by the state that can be easily taken away--all it takes for someone to be put in Guantanamo Bay is to be considered an enemy of the ideals of the state.

Isn't this the perfect testament to the powerlessness of the debate around what justifies human rights? Regardless of its justifications--be it from God or from logic--it is not efficient to establish human rights as universal. The same might be said for proponents of human rights inexistence--human rights definitely exist, but they are just something the state gives us.

Perhaps the topic of our discussion on human rights should no longer be about abstract metaphysical justifications of it or analytic conclusions, but on its precise properties--its ideological character, its practical effects.