Human rights are rights that belong to every human being solely on the basis of his personhood. They are not conferred by states, granted by constitutions, or created by social convention — they are recognized or disregarded, but not produced. Their foundation is the ontological dignity of the person, which belongs to the human being independently of his capacities, his origin, or his condition.
From the standpoint of personal ontology, human rights are grounded in the first dimension of personhood. Because the human being is a person by his very being — and does not first become one through particular achievements — he possesses inalienable rights. The right to life, to freedom, and to bodily integrity are not arbitrary positings but consequences of what the person is.
The Personalist Norm is, in a sense, the ontological foundation of human rights. Because the person may never be used as a mere means, she is owed rights that protect this norm. Wherever human rights are violated — in torture, war, or instrumentalization —, oblivion of the person shows itself in its most practical form.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94, a. 2 (natural law as the ground of inalienable rights).
- United Nations (1948): Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (codification of human rights at the universal level).
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’. Transl. Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. (personal dignity as the ground of human rights).