Discussion Group Report

"Human Rights are not legal fictions conferred by governments but are inherent features of our nature as human beings," argues Robert Grant in his article, "The Social Contract and Human Rights," in the January-February issue of The Humanist.

He says all societies have rules or laws and require their members to obey them for the peace and good order of that society. He cites John Rawls' assumption in his book, A Theory of Justice, that a society is defined by its rules. There are two sources for the duty to obey such laws: authority and mutual consent. In Europe the authoritarian doctrine of the divine right of kings until the eighteenth century asserted that kingly authority was derived from the higher authority of God and therefore could not be called into question by either parliament or people. In many other cultures rulers were seen as gods themselves or as direct descendents of gods. Obedience to such figures of authority or to their duly ordained subordinates was seen as a basic duty. But mere obedience is not an ethical act. When it is enforced through conquest or slavery, or is simply the result of blind and unthinking compliance with the law, there is no free, intelligent, and conscious choice involved; there is no consent. "To yield to the strong is an act of prudence, not of respect for the law, asserts Grant. "Only when submission to the authority of a society is learned and accepted as a thoughtful, deliberate choice does acceptance of this duty become an ethical act."

John Locke's concept of the mutual consent of the governed as the basis of the social contract, enunciated in 1690, moved Western civilization from authority to agreement as the basis of civic duty to obey society's rules. It was one of the greatest paradigm shifts in human history.

In our time John Rawls has transformed the conception of the social contract into a parable. In his scenario we imagine a gathering of human beings who have been stripped of their accidental characteristics: sex, age, race, nationality or tribe, social status. wealth or poverty, good health or disability. They are left with only the essential characteristics of their human nature. These humans can make free choices about what is in their own self-interest-and they understand that their enlightened self-interest values long-term goals over short-term satisfactions. They are social animals that know how to cooperate with each other. Each of these human beings becomes what the law refers to as "the reasonable person," a hypothetical or abstract person who will act reasonably under any circumstance. These people come together and make rules for the commonwealth behind the "veil of ignorance"-that is without knowledge of who or what they will become when they return to society. Being completely equal in bargaining power and absolutely impartial, they will make rules that are both reasonable and just-that is, that burden and benefit each person equally. This becomes the ideal social contract.

In real life no such ideal gathering of people has ever taken place and no such ideal social contract has been drafted. We must then turn to the concept of an assumed consent, which takes it as granted or true that every reasonable person in a state of perfect equality and impartiality, if asked, would give such consent to the contract. Therefore, every member of a society is automatically bound by the social contract. Only when people explicitly acknowledge and accept the duties imposed by the social contract, with knowledge and forethought, do they perform an ethical act. Such explicit consent internalizes a person's obligation to obey the law.

Basic duties are natural duties, since they arise from our nature as human beings. However, these natural duties are not perfected until we form ourselves into social groups, since duties are relationships. For example, the duty not to kill each other becomes a duty only with the formation of a social contract. In a disarmament negotiation, no party to the proposed compact would surrender weapons unless and until all others in the group had laid their arms on the table. So the consent must be unanimous and the duty imposed universal. Using the reasonable person test, the same analysis can be made of every basic duty. These will be very few.

"The social compact," says Grant, "is the fundamental compact that consists of the rules imposing basic duties, assigning rights, and distributing the benefits of political, social, and economic cooperation, unanimously agreed to by reasonable people in a state of perfect equality and absolute impartiality." It is the fundamental compact that is assumed to exist in every society.

A right is one side of a relationship; your right is the duty of another. A human right is a relationship arising from our nature as human beings that entitles an individual to certain conduct from another. It is a contractual right flowing from the social contract. A human right is not to be confused with a possession, like an apple or a house. Nor should it be equated with a human power, like the power to think or see or live. It is a relationship between an individual and all others that entitles a person to certain conduct from every other person and from society. Human or natural rights are only those that arise from the acceptance of natural duties. The denial or abridgement of human rights constitutes a breach of the social contract. These rights are universal, unalienable-they cannot be taken away or even abridged-indivisible and interdependent. There are very few human rights-life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-but they are basic to our ability to live as human beings.

Self-government ultimately boils down to government by the majority of those voting except that human rights are not subject to majority vote. Unalienable means unalienable. "Governments become just, says Grant, "when they enforce the basic natural duties and protect the human rights flowing therefrom that constitute the social contract. And individuals become ethical when they freely acknowledge and affirm obedience to these basic duties as a personal obligation and give their informed consent to respect and honor the human rights of all other human beings."