Natural vs. Legal Human Rights: The Core Debate Explained

Introduction: Two Views of Human Rights

"The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right he claims for himself."

There is a modern debate, ongoing between different views of human rights and law in contemporary society, that presents two fundamentally opposing points of view. On one side are those who view certain human rights as intrinsic to the meaning of being human — inalienable for all humanity, regardless of any external social, political, or legal influences. This position is generally referred to as the natural human rights tradition. On the other hand, there is an opposing viewpoint that human rights are not essential or intrinsic, but rather socially and legally created and determined. To complicate matters further, various intermediate positions incorporate elements of both arguments.

Central to this debate is a more subtle underlying question. While the cardinal issue of what it means to be human is inherently philosophical and ethical, the debate on human rights — particularly natural or basic human rights — is intertwined with other issues, including historical views about the importance of society versus the individual, and the role of religion. One of the central forces driving this debate is the transition from a religious or theocratic culture to that of a secular society. The progressive secularization of the Western world over the past two centuries has had an enormous impact on how people interpret the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, and on how we perceive ourselves in a world that should uphold the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law.

The two main opposing views are reflected in a continual scholarly debate. For example, in an article entitled "Demythologizing Natural Human Rights," B. McKown advanced the view that human rights possess no independent existence — that "they are mere creatures of law" that "are neither immutable nor permanent" (Grant, R.). In direct response, Tibor R. Machan wrote "Are Human Rights Real?", in which he denied McKown's proposition. Machan insisted that human rights are unalienable and inherent in human nature, concluding that "without the 'borders' of basic human rights defined between individuals, people would be able to harm others or rob them of their achievements all too easily" (ibid.).

The debate continued with Anselm Atkins, in an article entitled "Human Rights Are Cultural Artifacts," which rejects the idea of inherent human rights from the standpoint of evolutionary biology. Atkins argued that "a right is… something furnished, granted to, or bestowed upon someone. It comes from outside — something 'extra' to the being." He concluded: "Philosophically, the only way to found or establish such a thing as a 'natural right' is to presuppose a god who bestows and secures such rights. In the absence of a god, there can be no natural rights" (ibid.).

More recently, Fred Edwards, in an article entitled "Advance of Human Rights," published in the November/December 1998 edition of The Humanist, put forward the argument that the whole concept of human rights as we know it is an extremely late development in human history — "scarcely older than the seventeenth century" — and that, even within this context, the idea was "applied in but a few small parts of the globe to a chosen few" until around the middle of the twentieth century (ibid.).

As this brief overview illustrates, the debate is ongoing and draws from multiple disciplines and schools of thought. The central fulcrum around which these arguments rotate is the tension between those who hold that human rights are intrinsic or natural and those who hold that human rights are human creations, dependent on factors such as society and law, which override the idea of natural rights.