Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the “political” or “practical” perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in context that include them—and normally warrant international support. This perspective is introduced in contrast to the more traditional “humanist” or “naturalistic” one, according to which human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have against all other individuals that can affect them in virtue of interests characteristic of their common humanity. This chapter argues that once we identify these perspectives in their best light we can see that they are complementary and that in fact we need both to make good normative sense of the contemporary practice of human rights.