Francis Hutcheson on the Rights of Society

Abstract

In Enlightenment tradition came chiefly to mean human rights, reposing in individuals. Initially few general-in a classic enumeration, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness-human rights have multiplied in modern times through international declarations, convenants, conventions. Several of these rights concern demographic matters, notably reproductive rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in December 1948 (its 50th anniversary being celebrated in 1998), states in Article 16: Men women offull age ... have right to marry to found a family. The Proclamation of Teheran, issued by International Conference on Human Rights held in Teheran in 1968, states that Parents have a basic human right to determine freely number spacing of their children (Paragraph 16). The World Population Plan of Action formulated at 1974 Bucharest conference changed parents to all couples added words and to have information, education means to do so (Paragraph 14(f)). This is also phrasing that appears as Principle 8 in Chapter 2 of Programme of Action of 1994 Cairo conference. The qualifier responsibly must presumably be read as a restriction on right to reproduce, limiting freedom to choose to decisions made with reference to a larger set of interests. Those interests are spelled out in Bucharest statement in these terms: the responsibility of couples individuals in exercise of this right takes into account needs of their living future children, their responsibilities towards community. Similar language, with added to community, is found in recommendations of 1984 Mexico City conference (Paragraph 26). Consideration of obligations of individuals to society-in other words, rights of society over its members-is a complementary line of thought to human rights, older but in recent times far less emphasized. (The comparative neglect of such obligations of need for a balance between two sets of rights has been a criticism of modern human rights movement.) This is subject treated