Human Rights

Question 1

Marx critique

Answer 1

Critisised human rights are bourgeois ideology
“Nothing more than the rights are of a member of civil society, the rights of the egoist man separated from community”
“Security is the supreme social concept of bourgeois society, the concept of the police, the whole society exists only to ensure the preserve the person his rights and property”
Therefore Marx argues liberal rights and ideas of justice are premised on the idea that each of us needs protection from other human beings, insisting real freedom is found positively in relations with other people.

Humans concerned only with their individual asocial self intrests

Question 2

Bentham critique

Answer 2

The utilitarian thinker Jeremy Bentham states that: natural right are rhetorical nonsense upon stilts”

The idea of having a right to something was meaningless aswell as the delectation of the rights of man being full of contradictions, not always compatible,

Question 3

Edmund Burkes critiques

Answer 3

Edmund Burke raises 3 objectifications against the doctrine of the rights of man

1. It is abstract and over simplistic
2. Overly individualistic and bears no relation to real society
3. Threatens to destroy established institutions and laws

Rights can only exist is practical concrete form the doctrine of the rights of man implies thinking about humans in isolation from society

The rights of men should be the product of the society they live in. “Cultural relativism”

The universalist theory fails to recognise the importance of these differences

Question 4

Ignatieff argues

Answer 4

Impartial universalising language of the UDHR only supports instant ion of their narrow agenda

Question 5

Freeman

Answer 5

Poorer nations benefit from lax human rights

Question 6

Phimister argues

Answer 6

Mugabe