Human Rights Essay

What are human rights? Human rights are the rights one has simply by virtue of being human. They are, essentially the highest moral rights any human being can have. In order for one to have a right though, the right must be recognized by other people and must be secured through human action. These rights are not a recent concept. The discussion of rights and freedom of people can be traced through numerous societies for thousands and thousands of years. The belief that everyone, by virtue of her or his humanity, is entitled to certain human rights is a fairly new saying in the United States. Its roots, however, lie in earlier tradition and documents of many cultures. Throughout the history of our country, people have acquired their rights and responsibilities in numerous ways, including membership in a group such as a family, religion, class, community, or state.

Most of these rights began to materialize during the seventeenth and eighteenth century and were progressed by political concerns. People began to realize that there were certain aspects of our society that the all-powerful state should not be able to control and that they should have influence over the policies that affected them. This is where the Articles of Confederation came into play. The Anti-Federalists, who strongly believed that the states should exert more power over the government did everything in their will power to make sure that power went to the states. Although their vision eventually did became a reality, it dreadfully failed, and the power was turned back over to the government. This type of human rights is known as the civil and political rights. Civil rights provide minimal guarantees of physical and moral integrity and allows individuals to fully ...

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...unlike today where we have shifted to the ideas of freedom and equality that are associated with our country today. Not only that but positive law, which was adopted by Thomas Hobbes, saw natural law, as being very vague and hollow and too open to vast differences of interpretation. Therefore, under positive law, it is now stated that rights can be given, and taken away from somebody and modified by a society to suit its own needs.

In conclusion, human rights will continue to be a part of our every day life and history. As the years go on, so will the progression of our human rights. Human rights have become indispensable to the understanding of how human beings should be treated, by one another and by national and international political bodies. Human rights are best thought of as potential moral guarantees for each human being to live a good and resourceful life.