Orthodox theorists might take this suggestion on board, and remove any reference to inherent human dignity (or similar grounds) from their definition of human rights.32 Human rights would then be characterised as moral rights that human beings hold vis-a`-vis all other suitably positioned agents simpliciter. This move would come at a cost, however: robbing human rights of their distinctiveness. On the orthodox picture we are considering, human-rights violations are distinctively wrong because they are an affront to persons’ inherent dignity. Once reference to inherent dignity is removed, the distinct- iveness of human rights as a moral phenomenon—as a special class of universal moral rights—starts fading away. Being rudely pushed on the street or insulted by a stranger in non-political contexts become candidates for human-rights violations. This suggests that orthodox views may satisfy either desideratum (i) or desideratum (iii), but struggle to satisfy both.

Question

Orthodox theorists may respond by trying to retain the distinctiveness of human rights without appealing to inherent properties of human beings. For instance, they could define human rights as rights that we all hold vis-a`-vis any suitably positioned agent and whose function is to protect us from the most serious setbacks to our interests. On this version of the orthodox view, being culpably scratched by another in a fight is a violation of bodily integrity, but not of human rights. By contrast, being culpably stabbed and seriously injured in the same context is a human-rights abuse. In both cases, we are dealing with violations of bodily integrity; it is just that one is much worse than the other and, for this reason, counts as a human-rights wrong.
This solution is only partially satisfactory, because it reduces the distinct- iveness of human rights to the gravity of the wrong involved in violating them. Human-rights wrongs, on this view, are not qualitatively distinctive; they are just very serious. Moreover, gravity is a scalar notion, and a ‘non-ad-hoc’ threshold needs to be found in order to determine when a universal-rights violation is serious enough to qualify as a human-rights violation. Finding such a ‘non-ad-hoc’ threshold is a challenging task. Perhaps orthodox theorists will succeed at it; but it remains the case that a gravity-based account of the distinctiveness of human-rights wrongs is less powerful than one capable of singling out human-rights wrongs as qualitatively different from other rights violations.

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Answer 1

The passage discusses the challenges faced by orthodox theorists when defining human rights, particularly the struggle to maintain the uniqueness of human rights without referencing inherent human dignity.

1. Core Idea: Orthodox theorists traditionally define human rights as being grounded in the inherent dignity of individuals. This makes violations of human rights particularly serious and distinct.

2. Problem with Redefinition: If the definition of human rights is shifted to exclude inherent dignity and instead focus on moral rights that people have against others, it risks losing the uniqueness of human rights. This would blur the line between serious human-rights violations and other less significant wrongs, like being insulted or pushed.

3. Partial Solution: One proposed solution is to define human rights as rights that protect individuals from serious violations of their interests rather than grounded in dignity. For example, being seriously harmed (like being stabbed) would count as a human-rights violation, while minor injuries would not.

4. Limitations of the Solution:

   • This approach makes human rights less distinctive by categorizing them based only on the seriousness of violations (which is subjective).
   • There is a need to establish a clear, objective threshold to determine what counts as a serious violation, which is difficult to do.
   • Overall, this gravity-based approach does not capture the qualitative uniqueness that traditional definitions of human rights provide.

5. Conclusion: The passage argues that while orthodox theorists may try to redefine human rights in a way that retains some of their distinctiveness, their attempts fall short, primarily because they revert to measures of seriousness rather than upholding a unique moral status for human rights.