Talk:Human rights/Archive 2

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[edit] Criticism

Only on wikipedia will you find a criticism of human rights. This is like defending Nazism by saying that it's detractors are biased towards a western liberal viewpoint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.48.10.20 (talk) 16:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, if human rights has a "criticism" section, then the genocide page better have an "arguements in favor" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.48.10.20 (talk) 15:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Any intellectually honest person should understand that, at least in matters of philosophical theory, for every point there is a counterpoint. The concept of human rights is a philosophical and legal construct of humans themselves. The laws creating and enforcing human rights, like any law governing human behavior, are only good so long as there is both a belief in their value and an enforcement mechanism to ensure their success. In determining public policy (and make no mistake about it the creation of the current construct of human rights was driven by political forces) we should look at all of the arguments both for and against for our public policy positions. This process of open and honest discussion about why humans should value national and international laws creating and defending human rights can help strengthen our belief in their value. Certainly you, as a believer in these ideas, should look forward to such debate since such any discussion will lead to a strengthening in their value. Unless of course you simply believe in human rights because you are told they exist, in which case such a discussion will be meaningless. --Ian Struan 02:26, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is most people aren't intellectually honest. Anyhow, my comments had more to do with the absurdity of some of wikipedia's policies then with a serious discussion on human rights. I don't think adding a "criticism" section helps with the npov since the detractors are a pretty small minority (at least among readers of the inglés wikipedia), in fact (in my opinion) to the average viewer all it does is make the article less credible. Hopefully a criticism section will make them think, but still it is pretty ridiculous.
I think that it is important too to realize that there are many very prominent and credible "progressive" and Left critics of human rights discourse, particularly among Critical Legal Studies scholars, that levy valuable critiques of rights discourse. They point out that conventional western human rights discourse projects rights as purely formal, legalistic checks against arbitrariness. However, in many cases this does not go far enough, and instead serves to limit radical change. As Duncan Kennedy, a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School points out (among other things) that "rights are by their nature 'formal,' meaning that they secure to individuals legal protection for arbitrariness--to speak of rights is precisely to not speak of justice between social classes, races, or sexes" (Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy). Emancipated 23:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Civil rights vs human rights

That's interesting that the US should prefer the term civil rights. I think that cuts right to the heart of the US concept of 'democracy'. Civil rights are granted (and taken away) by the state. Human rights are rights that you *have* and any state (assuming that you believe states should exist) *should* recognize them.

In the United States, most people think of civil rights in a very particular way, namely, as the rights of black people. It has a lot less to do with the philosophy behind rights and a lot more to do with what Americans are used to. Because oppressed black people protesting against Jim Crow called themselves "The Civil Rights Movement" in the United States, the phrase Civil Rights is strongly associated with racial emancipation. Rest assured that Americans do indeed talk of innate "civil liberties." --Descendall (talk) 06:48, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Negative side of human rights

I found this article via Human Rights Watch which has links to pages critical of human rights. Shouldn't this POV be represented in the article?

[1] "Human rights conflict with the principle of moral autonomy, and form an excuse for oppression. Any harm to others can be justified by claiming that it is intended to respect certain 'rights', even if the victim does not know of their existence."

My recent revisions in the "criticism" section reflect this —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emancipated (talk • contribs) 09:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel Words

Hey guys. Good article, but the whole criticism section is written in a very weasely way (which is not to say that I disagree with it, but that probably just means that my POV is the same as the POV of the person who wrote it). In general, the section (and this is true of the philosophy section in a way as well) seems to have been written in a sort of "lecture" style, as if the person who wrote it is giving a class on the subject. While the intent of an encyclopedia certainly includes educating its readers, I'm not sure this is the right tone for the article.

Having said that, here are some concrete examples:

One of the arguments made against the concept of human rights is that it suffers from cultural imperialism.

"made"? By whom? I don't disagree, nor am I contesting it -- but (and please correct me if I'm wrong) I think WP policy frowns on this sort of writing.

An appeal is often made to the fact that influential human rights thinkers, such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill, have all been Western and indeed that some were involved in the running of Empires themselves.

Again, by whom?

The cultural imperialism argument achieves even greater potency when it is made on the basis of religion.

Achieves even greater potency? This sounds good, but what does it actually mean? After thinking about it a bit, I still wasn't sure. Why would any argument have "greater potency" when religion is involved? Does he mean that opinions are more polarized? I don't think his point is particularly clear.

Some histories of human rights emphasise the Christian influence on the agenda and then question whether this is in keeping with the tenets of other world religions.

Some histories? What histories? Again, sentences beginning with "Some" are usually examples of weasely writing -- if there are people who say something, pick one or two that are particularly credible and quote them. And in this case, what is meant by the word "histories", exactly? I presume he means authors of books on the history of human rights or some such. Who is emphasizing, who is questioning?
In the following sentence, the author makes a weak attempt at sourcing his claim: For example, in 1981, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the position of his country regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by saying that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law.
Two things immediately jump out. One: this person, relevant though he may be, is certainly not a "history", whatever that term was meant to mean. Further, the only thing he actually quotes in this paragraph is "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition". All the rest (arguably the meat of it), including what is a "a secular understanding ..." and the bit about not being implementable by Muslims without trespassing Islamic law are actually the words of the author. There's nothing wrong with paraphrasing, but why are we only quoting that one little piece? It seems completely credible that an Iranian would say something like that, but that's my POV. Why are we taking a snippet of what he said out of context? Why not work a more complete quote in?

Yet, some feel that the cultural imperialism argument is not entirely factual.

Ok, you know the drill. Who? This is a particularly egregious example of weaseliness, as its the topic sentence of an important paragraph.

... the concept of human rights itself has origins in many world cultures and religions.

An example would be nice here, but I'm nitpicking.

Additionally, this argument can lead to absolute relativism. If all viewpoints and moral frameworks are equally valid then one cannot condemn any behaviour, however outrageous or horrific. In practice, human rights offer a basis to criticise such behavior or conduct, including imperialism. As such, human rights can be a transformative tool for self-determination.

This certainly seems true, but as stated it seems like original research. I agree with this argument in principle, but one could argue that it is an example of a slippery slope fallacy; and we're not in the business of making arguments anyway, because that's pretty much the definition of OR. So the best thing to do here would be to find someone credible who has made this argument (I'm sure it's been made) and source them.

One way out of the cultural imperialism and relativism debate is to argue that the body of human rights exists in a hierarchy or can undergo derogation. The relationship between different rights is complex since it can be argued that some are mutually reinforcing or supportive.

Ok, this is a more subtle example of weaseliness: it seems as though we're providing a counterpoint to the argument. We didn't say who made the argument, or who is making this argument, and if we don't say that, it seems we're making the argument ourselves. Again, WP is not the place for original research: if the argument is widely made in academia, then it should be easy to find someone who is making it and work them into the article. Otherwise, if we are the only people making the argument, then it counts as OR (no matter how sound that argument may be).

For example, political rights, such as the right to hold office, cannot be fully exercised without other social and cultural pre-requisites, such as a decent education.

This is a tremendously questionable assertion (by which I mean that I disagree with it) and if it's going to be in the article, we should say, again, who is making that assertion, rather than pretending that it is self-evident. Many political rulers, even a number of competent ones, have lacked any real education -- this is especially common among those who rose to power militarily.

Whether the latter should therefore be included as a first-generation right is a debated point.

Again, by whom? It almost seems like I have a problem with every single sentence in this section.

However, it can be argued that the idea of human rights is not entirely universal, and to impose them universally may have harmful consequences.

ARGH... this is becoming frustrating. It can also be argued that the moon is made of green cheese, which doesn't make it credible. All of this use of the passive voice, the use of "some people say", etc, etc, is the definition of weasel word-iness.

Western developed states often stress the need for a negative rights construct while the developing world seeks a more positive rights construct.

Which western developed states? What constitutes "western"? What constitutes developed? Is Australia western? Is Japan? Who is stressing what? And the developing world? What does that mean? These terms "western world", "developing world", "developed world" are not well defined, there is a great deal of debate about who should be included in which, and anyway, by using the term "often" we are implying that it's only some of the states. Let's side-step this whole political mess by saying who has stated what and when, and sourcing it.

In regards to progress in human rights, "institutions are more written in the "hearts of the people" (which cannot be changed overnight) than in the pages of law books. Changing the de jure institutions does not by any means imply a transformative change in the de facto institutions and norms that govern long term behavor" (Ellerman 102-103). Without internal motivation, external leverage can hamper local human rights progress.

At least we're sourcing someone. Note that the quotes are nested; it's customary to alternate the use of double and single quotes in these situations. It would be nice to have some idea of who Ellerman is and why he's an authority on the subject, because we're essentially taking his view as canon, but I won't make too much of a fuss about that.

Another important philosophical criticism of human rights is their presumed basis in morality.

References please. Also, "important" is a loaded word, as it implies that there is a hierarchy of criticisms. Would such a hierarchy be contested by experts? It's not up to us to say it's important -- let's source someone who says so.

If moral beliefs are fundamentally expressions of individuals' personally held preferences then the objective morality upon which human rights are founded is rejected.

Weasily use of the passive voice.

But without care this criticism can become an apology for all behaviour as it aligns closely with moral relativism. It offends some by claiming that moral beliefs are personally held preferences and that there are no objective criterion to deduce valid moral beliefs from.

So we have two references (I didn't include them because I have no qualms with them) that we include only to shoot down (thus taking a POV), because it offends "some" (whom? -- weasel words, folks, weasel words), and we shoot them down without any sort of counter-point references, to boot, relying only on our own argumentation (original research). Wow. I think this just about takes the cake.

A final set of debating points revolves around the question of who has the duty to uphold human rights.

In general, I think it's a good idea to say "so and so or such and such criticizes this and that for this or that reason" rather than simply saying "criticisms exist", which is what this statement appears to be saying. Otherwise, it seems as though we're pontificating, which is pretty much original research again.

Human rights have historically arisen from the need to protect citizens from abuse by the state and this might suggest that all mankind has a duty to intervene and protect people wherever they are.

First of all, the claim that human rights have historically arisen from the need to protect citizens from abuse by the state seems questionable to me, and so it ought to be referenced (well, all claims should ideally be referenced, but questionable ones especially so). First off, human rights are generally guaranteed by the state -- philosophy aside, the reality is that the state apparatus, which typically has a monopoly on the use of force, can choose to abide by a code of human rights or not. Given this, I think it's important to qualify "arisen" in this sentence -- does he mean that, for example, the US threw off the yoke of British oppression, and codified certain "inalienable" rights in its legal system as a sort of "never again" thing? Because I don't see an oppressive state as seeing a "need to protect citizens from [its] abuse" without some sort of external influence. But again, this is my point of view -- I am only including it here to illustrate that the statement above takes a particular POV without attributing it to anyone, and thus implies that the article has that POV -- which violates NPOV policy, obviously.

Divisive national loyalties, which emphasise differences between people rather than their similarities, can thus be seen as a destructive influence on the human rights movement because they deny people's innately similar human qualities.

At least this argument is sourced, but it is still presented as fact. Not everyone sees nationalism as "divisive", and many people throughout history have not felt that different peoples are innately similar -- national pride is something that persists to this day, and is tremendously widespread as a phenomenon. Look how the article continues:

But others argue that state sovereignty is paramount, not least because it is often the state that has signed up to human rights treaties in the first place.

Other than the weasely "others", the fact that we're saying "others argue" clearly implies that there are two sides to this, even though the lead-in above was written in such a way that clearly favors the anti-nationalist stance (by presenting it as incontestable fact).

Commentators' positions in the argument for and against intervention and the use of force by states are influenced by whether they believe human rights are largely a legal or moral duty and whether they are of more cosmopolitan or nationalist persuasion.

Sources? Who is saying this?

If you read all the way to here, thanks. I pretty much dissected this sentence by sentence, because it is written very much as an Op-Ed. I happen to agree that most criticisms leveled at human rights are bogus, but lots of people make them, and WP should not take a stance either way -- our philosophy is to present the arguments and the facts and let the reader sort them out. I think the arguments in favor of HR are so widespread that it's not much to ask that the criticisms not be written in a weasely way that implicitly favors the pro-HR stance.

This is a great article, but I think this section needs to be seriously reworked.

Cheers! 70.231.224.194 02:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Please go ahead and edit! You seem like the person who understands it all well!Wikidea 00:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some things missing in the history section?

Thanks for the page!

I missed some things in the history section, though, most notably the stoics (who said man has some rights just by being a man), the roman law tradition and the whole medieval tradition. Perahps one could just make a reference to this, if not write something more extensive?

/Erik, 81.172.209.97 15:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Most Important of Human Rights

With the exception of the non-deformable human rights (the four most important are the right to life, the right to be free from slavery, the right to be free from torture and the right to be free from retroactive application of penal laws". This should be deleted unless a section fully discussing what rights are viewed as most important - and where, is added. While a valid opinion, it is but one of several.

If you were Chinese and could choose but one human right, which would you choose? Obviously it would be the right to trial by jury because with this single right you might be able to obtain the rest eventually. When government appointed judges may deliberately wrongly imprison or execute you, you do not have any human rights at all. The fundamental human rights that deter tyranny are the most important. Raggz (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Legitimate" Authority?

..."This approach includes the notion that individuals in a society accept rules from legitimate authority in exchange for security and economic advantage (as in Rawls)."

What is "legitimate" authority??? Carlon (talk) 20:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Human rights violations

The article says: "Human rights violations are abuses of people in ways that abuse any fundamental human rights. It is a term used when a government violates national or international law related to the protection of human rights. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights fundamental human rights are violated when, among other things..." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not an international law. Without citing actual international laws or reliable sources about such, this section is original research. Please edit this section so that it is not original research. Raggz (talk) 00:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Justification of human rights

This section is largely speculative original research. Although there are a few obscure citations from reliable sources, this section is primarily an essay with citations.

What does "Justification of human rights" mean? This section does not explain this. Why is the "Justification of human rights" important? This too is not covered. The topic is disorganized and does not contribute. The OR portions require support or deletion. Raggz (talk) 01:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rewritten introduction to include more than just natural law

I have altered the introduction to include more of the antecedents of human rights, rather than just the natural law version. Though not wrong, it is but one of many different forerunners to modern human rights, and is a very western approach to it. It also suggested that natural law is purely a religious concept, stating the natural law comes from God. Though this is one view of it, it is not the only one. The use of the word God also suggests implicitly that other world religions do not have a human rights element. I believe the text I have replaced it with gives a more balanced and accurate view. I have retained but hidden the original text as I believe it has a place in a section on natural law.Tkn20 (talk) 13:24, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Although I have yet to read your text, I strongly support your intent. I hope that you can contribute more on this subject, the article is weak in the area you are editing in. Human rights as expressed by liberal democracies are entirely derived from certain philosophies within Judaism and especially Christianity. This is a historical fact that deserves a prominent but short mention. Giving equal weight to all religious influences violates WP policy, unles these influences were of equal impact on western human rights.
Are human rights the gift of governments? May they be taken by a 51% vote, taken by the democratic process? If human rights are not the gift of government, then we need a reliable source explaining the secular version of where they derive from.
The introduction needs to explain what human rights are, why an election or dictator may not remove them. The natural law source for human rights is important for this reason. It should however be a sentence or at most two. The same is true for the secular theory of why a vote may not remove these. Raggz (talk) 06:29, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reproductive rights

The article mentions CEDAW, but it doesn't discuss human rights as women's rights or mention reproductive rights (as far as I can tell). Any opinions on this? Where it should be included, issues with its inclusion? Phyesalis (talk) 02:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Reproductive human rights exist in most but not all nations, and are often expressed very differently. The topic might best be summarized in a sentence with a referral to a complete article?
There is no single international law for what reproductive rights means, and a discussion of them everywhere worldwide would be a distraction here. So a sentence or two would be an addition. Raggz (talk) 06:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually there's a well-documented development from the Tehran Proclamation through a series of platforms, the UN Decade on Women, CEDAW, etc., etc. A number of declarations have been ratified by large numbers of countries. I'm thinking a small paragraph as a subsection linking to the main article? Phyesalis (talk) 07:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I added a new sub-section. Phyesalis (talk) 19:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Your edits are excellent and well supported. Raggz (talk) 09:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intrauterine human rights

Sub-section states, without any references:

Human rights of intrauterine or unborn people have been a controvertible subject. Some people believe that a person is born really into the womb, not when he/she leaves the womb.Then, an intrauterine child should have the right to a civil registration, to receive health meals, to get medical assistance, including surgery, and to be protected against adults. In this point, intrauterine human rights use to be confronted to women rights, reproductive rights, etc.

This would seem to be unreferenced OR. Should it go, or be ref'd and rewritten? Phyesalis (talk) 07:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this material's removal. Phyesalis (talk) 19:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)