Amartya Sen ( b. 1933) is a Nobel laureate in Economics and is currently the Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University. His many books include Development as Freedom, Rationality and Freedom, Identity and Violence and The Idea of Justice.
One can compare an assertion of human right to ethical proclamations such as “happiness is important” or “personal liberties must be preserved”. The question whether there is such a thing as human right is thus comparable to asking whether happiness is really important or liberty really matters.
Jeremy Bentham dismissed natural rights as nonsense. “ Right, the substantive right, is the child of law; from real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws... come imaginary rights”, argued Bentham. Sen, however, argued human right as parents of law; and these laws motivate specific legislation. But this legislation of new law or legal rules need not be the only way to advance the ethics of human right; this can be achieved, for example, through “education and public discussion on civility and social conduct”.
Discourse on human rights is linked to the importance of human freedom. And this “importance of freedom provides a foundational reason not only for affirming our own rights and liberties, but also for taking an interest in the freedom and rights of others.” However, freedom of certain kind ( not to be disturbed at night) is not really a matter of human right as freedom of other kind ( not to be tortured). To determine which all kinds of freedom must be placed within the spectrum of human right further impartial scrutiny and debates need to continue.
Since freedoms are important, it is significant that others who are not themselves causing the violation of someone's rights do not brush away the violation of someone else's right as 'none of my business'; one should defend or promote the rights of others too. We are bound by various constraints in helping others realize their freedom, but these constraints must not be confused with having no obligations at all. There is loosely specified obligation (imperfect obligation) and more fully specified obligation ( perfect obgligation) which belong to an important category of Kant's duty.
UN declaration of Human Rights in 1948 have included 'second generation' rights such as 'right to work, right to education, protection against unemployment and poverty, the right to join trade unions and even the right to just and favourable remuneration.' Critics of these 'second generation' rights argue that such rights cannot be institutionalized and cannot be feasibly realized. Sen's answer to such critique is that obligations can be both perfect and imperfect. Excluding them in the inner sanctum of human right would be to “ignore the reasoning that fires these constructive activities, including working for institutional changes”. “ Indeed, if feasibility were a necessary condition for people to have any rights, then not just social and economic rights, but all rights,-- even the right to liberty-- would be nonsensical, given the infeasibility of ensuring the life and liberty of all against transgression.”
The nature of the topic requires that further disputation and discussion will go on. Despite repressive regimes refusing open discussions on the topic, monitoring of violation of human rights and the procedure of 'naming and shaming' can be so effective , at least, in putting the violators on the defensive, and this is some indication of the reach of public reasoning when information becomes available and ethical arguments are allowed to be debated rather than suppressed. Such exercise will advance the ethics of human rights.
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