The question "Are there human rights?" still exercises philosophers. This is unfortunate. It is symptomatic of the reverential attitude toward rights in general and human rights in particular which hampers tough-minded, creative work in both normative ethics and social reform.
Ethical categories and principles are artifacts. They are not writ in God's mind, nature, or the transcendental ego, be he personal or social. They are not deep or hidden structures to be discovered by natural reason, ethical intuition, transcendental argument, or cross-cultural abstraction. They are tools which men devise, though seldom consciously, to do a job or jobs for them. The task(s) they are to be used for sets expansive boundary conditions for them but does not pre-ordain their structure. And they are to be made and certified as tools, not discovered and established as truths. Finally, if men decide either that some other tool will do the job better or that they no longer want that job done, then the old ethical categories and principles created to do that job cease to be of contemporary importance. They then belong in a museum with other relics.
Consequently, "Are there human rights?" should be construed the way Nietzsche interprets "Does God exist?" Human rights exist if this category is one of those which actually structure people's interactions. Otherwise they do not exist, just as God does not exist unless that concept makes a difference in people's actions. When the question is thus understood, the answer to it seems clear enough: yes, there are human rights, at least here and for now.
However, this interpretation raises two more difficult and philosophically significant questions. First, what are human rights? Since artifacts are defined functionally, this question should be construed as "What job(s) do human rights do for those who actively believe in them?" Second, are they doing an effective job?
Rights designate where initiative should be respected. If S has a right to z, where z may be a state, an action, or an object, then others should not attempt to thwart S's making or implementing his decisions concerning z. The rights recognized by people thus express the pattern of respect they believe should be observed.
Human rights are those rights an individual possesses simply because he is a human being. This is a double distinction, giving human rights both a