A thought about the basis of human rights

In my last posting I mentioned a study done by UNESCO comparing beliefs about human rights in many cultures. One of the conclusions of that study was that, while there was considerable agreement on what rights should be accorded to people, there was no agreement as to why those rights existed. That is, while there might be agreement on the rights of life and liberty, different cultures believed those rights came out of Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or other sources.

It makes me think that the term "human" rights is appropriate in a way different that usually used. Think what would result if lone territorial predators such as mountain lions were to create a system of "leonine" rights, or if bull elks left their harems to create a bill of "elkine" rights. As any science fiction fan could tell you, the results would be quite different than the declarations of "human" rights.

Humans are social animals and there must be some attitudes towards other members of our societies that have evolved as instinctual. Similarly, the thinkers sought out by UNESCO were intellectual leaders of great societies and their societies to have existed must have evolved means by which large numbers of people could coexist productively in large urban centers. Like other cultural values, those means may well be partly or largely unconscious transmitted tacitly from elders to younger members of the culture.

No wonder it has proven better to ask what are basic human rights rather than why those rights exist. Indeed, it may well be better to depend on quick intuitive answers about what are human rights rather than depend on reasoned analyses of why those rights exist. Philosophers may not like that answer, but it may be true.