What does "human right" mean?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

We often see claims that something such as "healthcare" is a human right. What does this mean? When I hear "human right", I think of something (like, in as apolitical a manner as it is possible to say, life) so universal as to be applicable to maybe any situation imaginable. A right that exists beyond government, beyond any interpersonal or macrosocial contract, beyond any specific system of human interactions.

Yet, when we apply this to concepts like healthcare, we are referring to a specific level of technological development where expertise, tools, and the like are all available--along with the human labor to wield them. How can anything requiring that much historical foregrounding be considered a right to which all people at any stage of history in any location are entitled? And if that's not what a human right is, what is it?

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

Absolutely nothing. "Rights" don't exist unless I give them to you

[TheReckoning]

If we’re being honest, in modern political discourse, “human right” just means “whatever policy I want passed.”

Want to pass gun control? Call it a “human right to safe environments.”

Want to keep guns legal and unregulated? Call it a “human right to bear arms.”

Want to keep abortion legal? Call it a “human right to bodily autonomy.”

Want to ban abortion? Call it a “human right to life.”

Want to pass single payer healthcare? Call it “human right to healthcare.”

Want to keep the government from paying for healthcare? Call it a a “human right to control your property.”

You get the point.

[MarkD]

If we’re being honest, in modern political discourse, “human right” just means “whatever policy I want passed.”

Want to pass gun control? Call it a “human right to safe environments.”

Want to keep guns legal and unregulated? Call it a “human right to bear arms.”

Want to keep abortion legal? Call it a “human right to bodily autonomy.”

Want to ban abortion? Call it a “human right to life.”

Want to pass single payer healthcare? Call it “human right to healthcare.”

Want to keep the government from paying for healthcare? Call it a a “human right to control your property.”

You get the point.

This is quite right, but I'll add a couple of additional thoughts. When someone says, "This issue ____ is a matter of human rights," the implicit message they're sending is I know I'm so absolutely correct about this and you're so absolutely wrong that you're downright evil, and it is immoral to try to negotiate with the devil, so my position on this issue is non-negotiable. Furthermore, I want the Supreme Court to make this policy, ... since they're, ... you know, .... Supreme. They know what human rights are, and the rest of you inhuman monsters don't. To the extent that you don't respect human rights, the way I define them, you're a tyrant.

[parochial boy]

The thing is, and I'm going to use the word that triggers everyone, human rights quite literally are a social construction. There is no natural ordained law of nature that states that all humans have such and such rights; the reason that we believe in them is fundamentally only because we have conceptualise them.

In that respect, there is not actually a solid, precise, indisputable definition of what they are. What your precise preconception of human rights are is going to depend on you cultural or ideological outlook and obviously people will have such motivations to push for a more or less expansive conceptualisation of them. But also, a more or less expansive idea can have different concrete implications, as the wider you define them, the harder it becomes to condemn them as some unique horror. But of course, too narrow a definition can be equally misleading and unclear.

Which doesn't mean that they "aren't real" at all. I would hope most people on here would willingly accept that the Chinese government are committing human rights abuses against the Uighurs or that ISIS commit human rights abuses when they occupied the likes of Raqqa and Mossul. It just means that they aren't set in stone.

[Person Man]

I guess it is whatever you feel entitled to be given or be shielded from.

[Dr. MB]

Governments can't give rights they can only take them away. Nature is anarchy.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Absolutely nothing. "Rights" don't exist unless I give them to you

This is a very dangerous concept, even if it might be "technically" true.