Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius argued that states that violate natural law forfeit their claims to sovereignty. This quickly developed into a convenient moral justification for colonialism. Grotius argued that human beings are entitled by nature to seize uncultivated land. Many Indigenous peoples were hunter-gatherers, or used farming techniques that Europeans considered primitive or inefficient. For Grotius, these peoples had no right to keep lands they were not efficiently farming, and the Europeans had a natural right to take these lands away from them. It’s ironic, isn’t it? The idea of the natural so easily allows some people to do things other people consider to be unnatural.
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The trouble is that human behavior varies across contexts, and natural law theorists tend to naturalize whatever they see around them. In Aristotle’s time, slavery was common and women were widely denied political rights. Aristotle observed this and concluded that slavery was natural and that women were naturally inferior to men. Obedient slaves and hard-working spouses make free time for men, enabling them to do philosophy.
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There are, then, three key issues with natural and human rights: Natural and human rights require a definition of human nature, but it is hard to establish a consensus on the definition of human nature. It is easy to define human nature in a manner that enables the powerful to dominate the weak. Aristotle used it to justify slavery, Grotius used it to justify colonialism, and Western governments use the human rights discourse that developed out of it to justify regime change. Given #1 and #2, the powerful will tend to define human nature and human rights in convenient ways that facilitate their continued domination of those who are weaker.
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Every generation should have the opportunity to contribute to the development of the political concepts that constitute the society it has to live in.