Do Human rights exist?

[vimothy]

we can flip this around. rather than argue about how international law arises our of a universal conception of human rights, we can think about how--at the top level--we want to see certain things established, protected or whatever. international law is the best vehicle for that.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

erm both obvs

The founders of liberalism grounded egalitarianism not in an agreement that we should pretend to consider each other of equal value but because they said people are intrinsically of equal value as all are made to the same extent in the image of God. Inalienable conferred rights have to be given in this way in order to have the requisite weight.

 

[Mr. Tea]

An argument often used by the elites within a group to violate human rights of the oppressed within the same group

I think a good general rule of thumb is that very few people actively enjoy being oppressed.

This sounds screamingly obvious, but gets complicated when you consider that there are many kinds of oppression. E.g. some people might not view it as a net win if, in a certain country, women can now walk around with their faces uncovered and gay people can openly have a social life if market liberalization means large parts of the economy are now fucked due to cheap imports. Or whatever the case may be.

 

[vimothy]

an interesting aspect of the development of human rights law (and theory) is the influence of catholic thought, especially in the form of the philosopher jacques maritain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Maritain

 

[shakahislop]

I suppose it comes down to whether you think things are generally better now that they were before. You could equally argue that things are just as bad if not worse, and that is a result of the failure of the human rights approach.

the world is rattling on, and the idea of human rights is one thing that tries to keep bad shit from happening.

even if things are bad you have to bear in mind they can get a lot worse (this is an aphorism from the counter-insurgency literature of the 2000s + 2010s but its true)