Is There a ‘There’ There? Peterson, Harari, and Holland on Human Rights

Feb 12, 2024 by Dave Doveton

By Derek Rishmawy, TGC.

One of the most illuminating courses I took as an undergrad was on the morality of human rights. As with most philosophy courses, it tried to explain the logic of the obvious and complicated the matter. In the first half of the course, we surveyed attempts to give a rational account for human rights and why they ought to be seen as normative and binding: Kantian, utilitarian, positive, social constructivist, and so forth. (We didn’t even broach a theological reason, as it was assumed to be a nonstarter.)

Most folks in the 21st-century WEIRDER West take the notion of human rights for granted. As the Declaration of Independence puts it, rights are “inalienable” and ought to be “self-evident.” But the only thing I was convinced of by the end of the human rights survey was that none of the secular programs could pull it off. Each had debilitating criticisms of the other positions. As far as I could see, no secular, rational grounding could bear the tremendous weight of such a crucial concept in contemporary moral discourse and international law.

In a philosophy class, you can shrug and move on once your paper is done. But out in the real world, what happens when the basis for your entire international moral order is exposed to be an emperor with no clothes? What happens when we discover there’s no “there” there?

Read here.