Jeremy Bentham and Costas Douzinas: Critics of Human Rights

As per the 1948 Universal announcement of human rights, all individuals regardless of their background are all born equal before the law. This declaration made by the powerful nations and signed by all nations strong and weak that belong to the United Nations reflects the thoughts of many earlier philosophers to include the 16th & 17th Century Martin Luther, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. However, each philosopher -based on their times and experiences gave a different value to how men use their freedom and equality in presence of the other in a society, and in relation to political authority. As determinant of his freedom to act and think, the three writings focused on the will of man, the promise that shapes the social contract, and the

I intend to discuss these issues while also discussing why it is important for these issues to be highlighted in this document. Firstly, the issues of personal rights are acknowledged at the beginning of the document. “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good” . At this time, to be equal meant the end of legal differences.

The shared passion of visionaries, thinkers, and writers profoundly influence society in the modern world and hold in their hands the ability to craft a better future. They inspire new ,, and sometimes even revolution. Two documents of the 18th century, The Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Rights of man established and angle for which we view human rights, liberties, and human freedoms. While the underlying motivations of the declarations each have a distinct purpose, the intent to establish universal human rights parallel and often mimic one another in language and meaning. Both documents however have interesting contradictions and inconsistences with regards to whom the liberties should apply, from whom the authority is derived and the motivations behind the drafting of each respective declaration.

THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MEN AND OF CITIZENS - AN ANALYSIS IN FIVE PARTS

Mohammad Taghi, Q. (2014). The relationship between ethics and human rights in the thought of

In order to discuss the violation of human rights in Honduras, it is important to address what exactly are the human rights for the purpose of this paper. While OHCHR states that human rights are “rights inherent to all human beings,” this definition is too broad to narrow down. Thus, human rights will be defined as rights that allow every human to achieve the basic levels of the Maslow’s triangle. The

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, adopted in 1789 by the National Assembly, explicitly defines “the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man” (Declaration, p. 1). Two philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and Karl Marx, object the document, especially its usage of natural rights, by presenting different arguments against its language and function. Bentham centers his argument around the Declaration’s promotion of anti-legal rights and its vagueness in description in his essay “Anarchical Fallacies.” Marx criticizes the Declaration’s perpetuation of social alienation and for not pursuing human emancipation in “On the Jewish Question.” Of the two arguments, Marx presents a better and more convincing argument than Bentham. Marx advocates for complete human emancipation beyond political emancipation whereas Bentham does not go beyond the criticism of the legislators, of their use of language and design, as opposed to the law itself.

What is a Right? Is it an inalienable individual moral or legal code, a fundamentally collective moral or legal code, or could it be, that a right is the sovereignty to act without the permission of others and, as such, doesn’t it carry the concept that by doing so you may not infringe on another’s sovereignty? These questions reflect the conflict societies; in current years, face in respects to Human Rights. This is not to say, that societies are not able to overcome these issues, and that civilisations; current and ancient, have produced documents that have defied the impression that human rights are a new entity.

One of the main reasons why human rights have been put in place is to protect the public life and public space of every individual being. One fundamental characteristic of human rights is that they are equal rights; they are aimed at providing protection to every person in an equal way. These rights have been entrenched through laws that are passed by states and international conventions. Human rights laws have evolved over time, and have been shaped by several factors, including philosophical theories in the past. This paper looks at the theories of two philosophers, Emmanuel Kant and John Stuart Mills, and how their teachings can be used to explain the sources of human rights. Kant’s moral philosophy is very direct in its

today we call them human rights" (McShea 34). The issue of whether or not to

The doctrine of human rights were created to protect every single human regardless of race, gender, sex, nationality, sexual orientation and other differences. It is based on human dignity and the belief that no one has the right to take this away from another human being. The doctrine states that every ‘man’ has inalienable rights of equality, but is this true? Are human rights universal? Whether human rights are universal has been debated for decades. There have been individuals and even countries that oppose the idea that human rights are for everybody. This argument shall be investigated in this essay, by: exploring definitions and history on human rights, debating on whether it is universal while providing examples and background

In order to fully answer the question we must be able to fully define rights and discover how they relate and help democracy. Rights can be broken down into a number of sub categories and in this essay we will discuss the meaning of Civil and political rights but first and fore most “rights” are a number of civil, juridical and ethical rights of entitlement or liberty and are a set of regulating rules that allow people entitlement or to be owed to them. Rights are fundamental to many disciplines such as law and ethics. Civil and political rights are a branch of rights in which we will discuss, Civil and political rights are used to

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” These opening words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights express a concept of man which underpins the framework of human rights embodied in the Universal Declaration and the two international covenants of Human Rights. Western political traditions is a concept that it derives from, is in harmony with moral and social teachings to be found in many other traditions and patterns of belief.

These documents, at the same time, take back the sociopolitical thought that had been developped in a long tradition, and whose most striking stages are: the supreme value of reason as basis for any sociopolitical relation such as we discover at the Greek Polis and such as it is presented by the great thinkers Plato and Aristotle; the intrinsic value of human person, son of the same Christian God, and capable, because of his freedom, either of salvation or of condemnation, as it was understood by the main thinkers in the Middle Ages; the human Individual, considered as a juridical subject, capable of making contracts and assuming rights and duties and, therefore, as the last foundation of any sociopolitical organization, as he was thought by the liberal tradition embodied by Hobbes, Locke and the Encyclopedists. The concrete praxis of these theoretical principles in democratic societies and nations where the Individuals are the cause and the end of this sociopolitical order such as we find in Great Britain, Switzerland, Holland, USA, France, Sweeden, Norwegen, Canada and many other nations throughout the five continents.

It is important to set the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights in context by examining the development of rights within the European Union. The embryo organisation that commenced the EU (The Coal and Steel Community 1951) was introduced in the wake of World War II to rebuild Europe by economically tying previously warring nations together. The consensus amongst the "heavy weights" of the EU was, if member states were economically invested in each other to ensure financial stability within their own state, future conflicts would be avoided. The EU had taken the role of a purely economic organisation which explains why it was not focused on social issues such as human rights, leaving such matters to individual member states to determine. Then came the political advancement of the 1990s, as evidenced by Weiler; ‘[The Maastricht Treaty] appropriates the deepest symbols of statehood: European citizenship, defence and foreign policy’. Naturally, the issue of human rights became prominent within the EU, and after much debate and a Convention the Charter was passed and given legally binding status under the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. The Charter has proved to be a controversial issue within European politics, with doubts being voiced about the functionality of the European Union’s own “Bill of Rights”. To effectively assess the question at hand, this essay will evaluate the extent to which the Charter is a necessary and desirable development, before reaching an overall