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The philosophy of human rights attempts to examine the underlying basis of the concept of human rights and critically looks at its content and justification. Several theoretical approaches have been advanced to explain how and why the concept of human rights developed. One of the oldest Western philosophies on human rights is that they are a product of a natural law, stemming from different philosophical or religious grounds. Other theories hold that human rights codify moral behavior which is a human social product developed by a process of biological and social evolution (associated with Hume). Human rights are also described as a sociological pattern of rule setting (as in the sociological theory of law and the work of Weber). These approaches include the notion that individuals in a society accept rules from legitimate authority in exchange for security and economic advantage (as in Rawls) – a social contract. The two theories that dominate contemporary human rights discussion are the interest theory and the will theory. Interest theory argues that the principal function of human rights is to protect and promote certain essential human interests, while will theory attempts to establish the validity of human rights based on the unique human capacity for freedom. ==Natural rights== Natural law theories base human rights on a "natural" moral, religious or even biological order that is independent of transitory human laws or traditions. Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotle, posited the existence of natural justice or natural right (''dikaion physikon'', ''δικαιον φυσικον'', Latin ''ius naturale''). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law,〔Shellens (1959)〕 although evidence for this is due largely to the interpretations of his work by Thomas Aquinas.〔Jaffa (1979)〕 The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics.〔Sills (1968, 1972) ''Natural Law''〕 Some of the early Church Fathers sought to incorporate the until then pagan concept of natural law into Christianity. Natural law theories have featured greatly in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, and John Locke. In the 16th century, asked by the Spanish monarchs to investigate the legitimacy of claims to land dominion by the ''indios'' of Latin America, Francisco de Vitoria expounded a theory of natural rights, especially in his famous ''Relectio de Indis''. In the 17th century Thomas Hobbes founded a contractualist theory of legal positivism beginning from the principle that man in the state of nature, which is to say without a "commonwealth" (a state) is in a state of constant war one with the other and thus in fear of his life and possessions (there being no property nor right without a sovereign to define it). Hobbes asserted natural law as how a rational human, seeking to survive and prosper, would act; the first principle of natural law being to seek peace, in which is self-preservation. Natural law (which Hobbes accepted was a misnomer, there being no law without a commonwealth) was discovered by considering humankind's natural interests, whereas previous philosophers had said that natural rights were discovered by considering the natural law. In Hobbes' opinion, the only way natural law could prevail was for human beings to agree to create a commonwealth by submitting to the command of a sovereign, whether an individual or an assembly of individuals. In this lay the foundations of the theory of a social contract between the governed and the governor. Hugo Grotius based his philosophy of international law on natural law. He wrote that "even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity even if we should assume the impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." (''De iure belli ac pacis'', Prolegomeni XI). This is the famous argument ''etiamsi daremus'' (''non esse Deum''), that made natural law no longer dependent on theology. John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy, especially in ''Two Treatises of Government''. Locke turned Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and property," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one. The Belgian philosopher of law Frank Van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a secular conception〔(【引用サイトリンク】author=van Dun, Frank )〕 of natural law in the liberal tradition. There are also emerging and secular forms of natural law theory that define human rights as derivative of the notion of universal human dignity.〔Kohen (2007)〕 "Dignity" is a key term for the discussion of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not justify its claims on any philosophical basis, but rather it simply appeals to human dignity. Karl Rahner discusses human dignity as it relates to freedom. Specifically, his ideas of freedom relate to human rights as an appeal to the freedom to communicate with the divine. As embodied individuals who can have this freedom and dignity threatened by external forces, the protection of this dignity takes on an appeal to protect human rights. The term "human rights" has replaced the term "natural rights" in popularity, because the rights are less and less frequently seen as requiring natural law for their existence. But in fact, the campaigning for the legal recognition of new "human rights" (such as LGBT rights, or euthanasia) must necessarily be based on the assumption that some kind of "Natural Law" commands the recognition of those "rights". The debate on human rights remains thus a debate around the correct interpretation of Natural Law, and human rights themselves a positive, but reductionist, expression thereof〔Jakob Cornides, (Natural and Un-Natural Law ), New York, C-Fam (2010)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Philosophy of human rights」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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