Human Rights: An Analysis of Criticisms and Defenses

This essay delves into the multifaceted concept of human rights, exploring their nature, justifications, and the criticisms they face. It addresses key questions regarding the protection of individuals from abuses, the duties associated with safeguarding these rights, and the philosophical critiques leveled against them, including Marxist, gender bias, and communitarian perspectives. The essay also examines the issue of human rights inflation, discussing the potential consequences of expanding the scope of human rights and Orend's proposed solutions. Furthermore, it explores the recognition of specific rights, such as food, healthcare, education, environment, and personal security, analyzing the limits and justifications for each. Ultimately, the paper provides a comprehensive analysis of human rights as essential guarantees for all people, highlighting their importance and the ongoing debates surrounding their definition and application.

Running head: HUMAN RIGHTS 1
Human Rights
Name
Institution

HUMAN RIGHTS 2
Human Rights
Introduction
This paper discusses the issue of Human rights. The paper addresses questions about the
criticism, nature, justification, and the existence of human rights. It also addresses a question of
human rights inflation.
1) Human rights remain norms that seek to protect all individuals everywhere from
severe legal, social, and political abuses. According to Orend, both institutions and people with
power to harm have the duties for guarding human rights. Orend argues that institutions have the
duties of guarding human rights because they have the capacity of making a material difference.
And because human rights violation remains based on conduct of official, people with power
also have the duties of safeguarding human rights because they have the power of making
commitments concrete. It is true that human beings remain morally accountable for their actions.
Only people may be blamed or praised for their behavior. Human beings possess moral
obligations that exceed the human community. Most human rights impose responsibilities or
duties on their duty bearers or addressees.
According to Shue, the natures of duties are: Negative vs. Positive duties: Shue argues
that even negative rights also have positive duties. He also claims that positive rights involve
duties not to undertake something. Shue states that each duty is three duties: a) negative-don’t
deprive, b) positive-protect, and c) positive-prevent others from violating.
2) The human rights have been subjected to numerous forms of philosophical criticisms.
The different forms of criticisms are discussed below:
Marxist criticism: Marx claims two things: He claims that human rights remain not
universal since they are related to a contemporary capitalist society. He also argued that Human

HUMAN RIGHTS 3
rights keep alive capitalism which in itself remains bad. Marx states that human rights is a claim
employed by the middle class to conquest the aristocracy. The significance of private property in
theory of hr. demonstrates the connection to capitalism. He also says that many people are only
interested in spreading human rights to other nations with the intention of spreading capitalism.
Marx also argues that Human rights give people limited freedom. He also argues that the
government mainly protects the property of wealthy class for them to support the government
fully.
Response: a human rights defender would have to disagree with the argument. He/she
would have to state some of the changes that have taken place in capitalism. The human rights
defender should also respond by starting the existence of cross-cultural consensus on human
right.
Gender Bias: This claims that HR established by men and appears to embody a male
outlook of the world. Gilligan argues that HR strengthens conflict mainly by emphasizing rights.
Response: a human rights defender would respond to this claim by starting that the views
hold by men and women as suggested by the likes of Gilligan are not true because women have
been active in human rights movement. Also, a human rights defender would state how human
rights have enhanced the position of women in the society.
Selfish and antisocial: Some people argue that each right limits what the group may make
decisions about. Some communitarians such as Etzioni argue that this may reduce citizen
spiritedness.
Response: A human rights defender would argue that the removal of human rights would
cause a lot of problems to the people. For example it would lead to group oppression. A human

HUMAN RIGHTS 4
rights defender should contend that rights are so essential because it presuppose a community as
well as relationships between people.
Limits good governance: Some people argue that rights are rigid as well as raise
individual good over good of the community. Bentham and Burke have fears regarding
undermining the community.
Response: A human rights defender would respond that this criticism remains only
protecting minimal human rights. He/she would respond that stability remains not the most
critical value in society. Finally, a human rights defender would accept that human rights remain
anti-democratic, but he/she would assert that human rights support modern democracy.
3) Before discussing issues related to Human rights inflation, I have to explain the
meaning of rights. To me, human rights remains necessary guarantees that people across the
universe purportedly enjoy since they are human beings. It is true that some individuals have
sought to create proposed granting rights of human to sentient animals or proclaiming that nature
also has a right to protection. These types of proposals are known as human rights inflation.
One of the fears of inflation of human rights is that as more objects become seen by many
people as matter of HR, the less powerful the actual status of such human rights becomes.
Another fear is that it shall make human rights meaningless. It shall make rights of human beings
less relevant, leading to their decline. Lastly, human rights inflation shall enable most of the
authoritarian governments to have an excuse that they are addressing some of the highly
selective parts of social rights.
These are some of the ways in which Orend deal with this issue of rights inflation: He
imposed numerous justificatory tests for particular human rights. Orend also insisted that HR
only deal with freedoms, protections, and important goods.

HUMAN RIGHTS 5
5) To understand this question well. Let us define human rights. Human rights remain the
basic rights as well as freedoms enjoy by all people, from birth until the time of death. According
to the theory of Orend, Freedom should not be recognized as a right. Freedom is not a right
because many groups of people do not have it such as disabled, insane, children, and comatose.
Limits are usually placed on the actions of humans by lawmaking bodies to safeguard the
interests and rights of others. For instance, an individual may have the freedom to move from
one place to another, but they can drive their vehicles only within the required speed limits.
Therefore to enjoy freedom, people must live their lives within 2 boundaries-moral laws and
natural laws.
Food ought to be recognized as a right because it protects the right of people to be free
from food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger. In the past years, chief was accountable for
agricultural cycles. Principles in different societies took into account the positive aspects of
wealth’s sharing mainly by allowing the poor to care for cows of rich in exchange of milk and
sharing cattle to till the land. The right to food remains a broader concept because it entails the
need to create the political, social and economic necessary to enable individuals to get adequate
food on their own.
Heath care ought to be recognized as a right. This is because social, cultural, and
economic rights claim concrete both material goods as well as various social benefits like health
care. Some of the barriers to health care include social isolation and financial constraints.
Education should be recognized as a human right. This is because social, cultural, and
economic rights claim concrete both material goods as well as various social benefits like
education. The limit of education is that it shall not short cut development of humans or
eradicates normal human drives.

HUMAN RIGHTS 6
Right to a satisfactory environment should be recognized as a human right because clean
water and air is an example of an economic, cultural, and social right. Some of the governments
fail to achieve the right to a satisfactory environment.
Lastly, personal security should be recognized as a human right. Personal security is a
right because even in the past years most of the societies created tribunal of elders to act as a
judicial. This right may have the limits on misrule.
In conclusion, from this paper we can say that human rights remain norms that seek to
safeguard all individuals all over the world from severe legal, social, and political abuses.
Examples of HR include right to education, right to health care, right to food, and personal
security. Some of the criticisms of human rights discussed in the paper include Marxist criticism,
and Selfish and antisocial.