Human Rights as Liberal Idea
Introduction
The idea that everyone is entitled to have certain human by his humanity or by his virtue is fairly new. This originated from the earlier documents and traditions of many cultures. This also took the change of the 2nd World War to push forward the human rights onto global scenario as well as to the international conscience. The emergence of human rights and its definition had become broader for the following years until the Non Governmental Organization (NGO) enter the human rights scene that played an important role in the issue of international human rights. The idea of human rights is always in our everyday life that can always call for the justice and freedom for the people in the whole world and it is also the beginning of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Human Rights Resource Center, 2008).
For the 21st century, Human Rights can be defined as our way and quality of life> to make them reality, we must be able to remain committed and alert. To make sure that all of the people are connected and belong in the family of human, the creation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights had made for having the indisputable, same and equal rights. The declaration says that all of the human beings are born equal and free in rights and dignity which also shows that that all of the freedoms and rights set forth for the said declaration without any distinction as race, kind, sex, color, birth, political or other opinion, status, religion or property. This also includes the equality, rights to life, and expression equality (Net Aid, 1999).
The Human Rights are Liberal!?
The Liberalism is a world view on consciousness. This is also base on the point of view regarding the equality between moral worth and rational capacity (Blau and Moncada, 2005, p. 7-8). The idea regarding Human Rights as Liberal idea is somewhat a straightforward question. Nevertheless, the Human Rights are the existing version of the natural rights as centered by the liberal thought. This only shows that it is liberal due to the fact that it draws up the list of the rights while having the states of discipline. Accordingly, majority of the liberal public intellectual, like Richard Falk and Michael Ignatieff supports the project of human rights. The human rights have released in the broad political practice of political criticism, international judicial decisions, NGO activism, and the military intervention. The public intellectuals also recognized that Human Rights Universal Declaration covered long lists of rights which are excluded in the earlier liberal document. The exemptions are the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Human Rights. They also been added that there are many lists of welfare rights are just the natural extension of the produced near liberty rights. This only signifies that the existing perception of human rights does not set-off in its earlier fundamentals of liberal ideas. However, looking further, the current human rights perception violates the laws and principles of the earlier or traditional natural rights in two separate ways. The first one is re-inventions of the subject as right bearing and not as moral of self willing agent rather as an individual who is needy and needs protection and important interests. The other reason is the re-conceptualization of the open door rights for the political practice paternalistic wherein the third party exercises the rights and not the subject for the rights-bearing himself. These two views emphasizes the earlier thought of liberal regarding the agent of self-moral which is a foundation of the rights and the politics of anti-paternalistic as being connected to the right-bearer view (Gourevitch, 2004, p. 43-45).
The Liberal Conception of Human Rights
The traditional liberal political morality is connected to the liberty of individual. According to Locke, the freedom of liberty and man of acting is in accordance to his own will and it is grounded for having the reason and can be able to instruct him in the law so that he can govern himself and know him of the way it can be left for own will freedom. On the contrary, no all rights are alienable or transferable. One example of which is the right for self-preservation that cannot be alienated wherein the individual is not allowed to give the state the power in killing him and cannot sell himself in the slavery. This means that every individual enter this contract in order to have a better protection and exercise its freedom. This only means that the agency is fundamental and it defines that the capacity of rights0bearing is the end for natural rights protection and for securing the designed of individual liberty. The self-preservation only suggests individual fundamentality. Locke also repeats that the men have the right for the preservation including Drink and Meat and among other things which is also the subsistence of nature. This simplifies that all of the other rights are being derived from the very basic natural rights for the self-preservation. This is then the foundation for liberal case tracing which is through the imprescriptibly rights in the Rights of Man and Citizens’ Declaration as the welfare rights in the Human Rights Universal Declaration. The Locke’s interpretation is not that tight and needs to have further explanations. This is also signifies that man is work of God and the self-principles endorsement is difficult to avoid. Many also reject the idea that the natural rights have the objectives of welfare individually. Kant made a clear judgment regarding the system of right in standing for opposing the principles of happiness. This has the aim of the rights as political morality is for the creation of space inside so that the individual has the freedom to pursue his own ends. Kant also implies that the right is not the only focus for the relationship of the will of the person and other’s desires; rather, it concerns the relationship of the two individuals’ will and desire (Ibid).
According to the American Historian Michael Kammen, the liberalism is the independence of every person from the other and their independence from attachments whether from traditional, cultural and communal. This also entails the perspective of human rights in emphasizing equality which only signifies of stressing distinctive human identity as sending out from the different conditions of human. The liberal freedom of tradition has the implication of securing freedom from something else which is secured from the state. As quoted by Isaiah Berlin, the liberal freedoms are sometimes called the negative rights or liberty. The “I” is the center of the self and has the right which the state cannot take away and can constitute for the basis of sovereign self (Blau and Moncada, 2005, p 7-8).
In the tradition of liberal, the liberty is important to the rights even from the study of self-preservation. The self-preservation duty has derived from the individual autonomy theory and to the duty of rights and liberty of others. It had also been noted that few of the early liberals did not accept the welfare provision so it cannot conflict the individual’s recognition of equal, free, and independent beings. The grounding idea of rights’ imprescriptibility in the rational thought experiment terms can be expected to have consent on the leans heavily on the reason’s notions and can pronounced as liberalism that came from the rationalist fire of Enlightenment. This argument is important in the individual centrality liberty and in the conception of right. This means that the liberal freedom notion enshrined in the rights can include some choices of notion’s free individuals as can maintain fundamental connection between the liberty and the reason.
Implications of Human Rights as Liberal
The primary perceptions of human rights as liberal are grounded in the view that the right bearers are considered to be moral agent. He is free to use the rights when he is please but there is a restriction of not to infringe the other’s right and does not violate the certain principles of reasons. The individual is creating his social and moral relations on his own by exercising his rights through contracting, promising, and consenting tyo the various political institutions and private arrangements. To choose is the important matters and not the specific obligations, duties and rights it had been created in relations to the others which are good for him. Within the liberal rights this can give significant political experience of claiming the rights against the state and developing the human rights conception as the theory of political and governmental legitimacy. In the said perspective, it can protect any kind of interest of the individuals while potentially having these rights without the necessary enforcement. In the materialistic approach, in the specific societies that the children can have the right as can be understood on the interest-theory of perspective. This can also ensure that the current political and social arrangements can be grounded in the individual agents’ will. As cited by Hart, rights have must be organized on the basis of voluntarily wherein the individuals ca determine for themselves of taking for their freedom’s constraints and not around the specific good’s conceptions. Since the liberal is for the majority of the indifferent part as for the duty is good for the arising transaction and concerned in the voluntary fashion, then it will ensure the relation of the individuals which are voluntary and not the product of coercion and tradition. The reason for the creation of political institutions as the United Nations is the fact that they can be able to resolve the conflict regarding the millions of hungry people and the mass of humanity that has the duty in providing the foods. If ever the individual encounters troubles as identified the performing his duty and proper rights-holders as an isolated being, the institutions can pool the resources of the individuals in efficient ways then in can help the various duty-bond individuals in performing their duties. These organizations can also make the rights holder in claiming their rights easier and for the protections of human rights. These can also introduce potential problematic way of thinking regarding the political institutions as it can appear moral legitimacy as the duties fulfilled and the political legitimacy as the consensual power authorization. In the liberal viewpoint of will, it can always seek for the identification of the will and the power behind the law, rule, and exercise of the rights and the use of the force. Since, in the interest-theory, it tend to avoid the question of who is the agent exercising and enforcing the subjective right and it enters the choice theory of doing immediately as illuminating the unclear in the interest-theory which is the great service for the liberal. In fair value notion, there is the distinction between the liberty and welfare which can make the minimal security and subsistence on the number of positive duties which can secure the fundamental rights of fair value and this can also signifies a positive duty that is required y the basic rights that can make the rights clear and can be interpreted so that it cab require a broad rang of interventions. From the viewpoint of liberal, the additional virtue of seeing the certain provision of welfare as human rights remedial is focus on the political debate into the effective support of the liberty system. This can also seeks for protecting the rights from losing the distinctive character which is a discourse of the theory and the liberty of the political legitimacy. The human rights follows the tendency inside the liberal thought in taking the political issues out of the public location through “naturalizing” or through the aid of grounding the pre-political “human nature”. This can also tend to lead in the defense of the paternalistic restraints or to the democratic decision idea. In the element of anti-paternalist, it has and aims of concerning the freedom of informing the liberal theory of the political legitimacy. The liberal thinkers emphasize the institutions that must derive in their authority from the governed will as guarding the individual freedom. Since the Human Rights are grounded to the humanity abstract and is established in the legitimate protects of the said rights, then, this appear naturally as politically moral restrictions. In the theory of political legitimacy, its aim is for grounding the political institutions in the freedom of the individual (Ibid).
It had been admitted that the liberalism is the emergence of democracy which seek the present international human rights ideology. It is then useful for the exploring the relationship which exist between the concept of liberalism, the human rights and the political democracy. In the liberal context and understanding, it can protect the citizens in political activities and organizations (Mutua, 2002, p.41).
Conclusion
The liberalism ideas in the paper are only part of the many theories ever written. Personally, I am in favor to the suggestions of the theorists that the liberalism is the fundamental commitment in the liberty of individual while the relationship between the legacy of Enlightenment and the liberal thought cannot be strongly stressed. This is necessary as to illuminate the ways wherein the contemporary conception of the human rights are illiberal as in the practice and in the theory. Some might also encounter an argument regarding to the idea that the current human rights are always liberal. In the arguments regarding the rule of law and the constitutionalism, this can arguably have the innovations for the liberalism and often tended in taking form of the needing sensor so that it can protect the basic rights from the democratic legislations dangers. In the said perspective, the traditional liberal thought can be seen as the human rights claims beyond the arguments or against politics and not the subject for the deliberation of democracy. The contemporary human rights are quite liberal but it also be intensifies to the tendency on naturalizing the political phenomena as well as supporting the certain practices of paternal. This only signifies that the human rights liberal critique is somehow identified as the tension within the liberalism itself. The tension which is covered by individual democracy and liberty can caused conflict in the past and in present liberalism. This also signifies that finding for the prioritization of the liberty and preoccupation with the paternalism in the contemporary liberalism is much easier. This paper has an aim of trying to read the thinkers of natural rights and the high liberals for the establishment of a moral, political, and central discourse of rights. This is just a legitimacy of political theory that has the objectives of grounding the political institutions in the freedom individually. This is more liberalism on its past compared to the present. In the current human rights, it shows that majority of the upper hand in the Human Rights are tendencies of paternalistic and moralistic. These are all the theories regarding Human Rights and the concept of Liberal. Furthermore, the topic is still looking forward fro more topics related and updated ideas regarding the topic.
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