Human Rights Essay

Theories and Concept of Human Rights

‘Human’ and ‘Rights’

A man, woman, child or transgender, considered as a human, is a member of species named as homo sapiens. What makes human different from primates or other species is their ability to reason and express through a language common to the society they are living in. The bipedal locomotion and other physical aspects such as relatively larger brain further distinguish humans from other creatures. Humans are social and like to live in groups normally to guard interests of each other by way of mutual protection and assistance. However mere staying in the group does not entitle each member his or her right to self-ownership, a premise through which every individual can claim to be equal to other. Their living in groups – being a part of community – with equality necessitates a framework for certain basic rights. These basic rights, known as human rights, are those that individuals are born with. The right to live as one please comes from right to life. The right to life can only be derived when one has full ownership on him or her. The right to free speech or right to liberty, which mostly refers to right to move or freedom to act as one may deem fit – subject to stepping on rights of others – are all included in right to life. All other rights are the outcome of this basic right to life that comes with self-ownership. John Locke in his essay The Second Treatise of Second Government has stated that human being has a property in his own self, on which nobody else but only an that individual has any right. “Every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.” (John Loc...

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...nal human rights theories hold two vital components. The first is that human rights are essentially moral rights and second is that human rights are grounded is valuable aspect of humanity. John Locke, western philosopher, has one of the most well known traditional accounts of human rights. Locke argued that all the persons, independent to their recognition by the state, possess natural or human rights. In other words, natural or human rights are non-visible properties of personhood. Locke further argued that people do not need government to furnish them their rights. The people hold human rights irrespective of the state, and simply because they are rational persons. Locke believed that the state exist to protect these right and therefore can be held accountable for such. Advocates of practical theories on the other hand believe that the moral justification