Human Rights Through a Religious Lens: a Programmatic Argument

Abstract

Human rights ideals may be subjected to religious analysis in contemporary global society, in two senses. First, they constitute a system of sacred symbols, which moreover accurately represent the existing social order. Civil and political rights sanctify the individual, which matches the importance of individuation for a globalized socio-economy. Economic and social rights enshrine mutual responsibility. The call for group rights reflects an antisystemic localism that fills the cultural void left by structural globalization. Second, human rights claims are not just symbolic; they are also moral. Their relationship with globalized society opens the possibility of grounding them in something more secure than positive law. First- and second-generation rights concretize the key practical principles that make globalization possible: individuation and a worldwide division of labor. Third-generation rights can be similarly, though less securely, based in the distributed decision-making required of an information-age economy.