Talking about rights has become the order of the day. We have been talking about whether homosexuals had a right to enter into a civil union and about whether as a civil union they had the right to adopt children, until Parliament decided – it is not clear on what basis – that they had a right to both. Now we are talking about the right of minorities to practise their hobbies. These include hunters and lovers of pyrotechnics.

Now that the issue is not too hot it may be good to probe further into the matter and ask a few questions: What is a right? What makes some rights human? Who decides? On what basis? Does the decision of the majority make a right so?

David Cameron, after the 26-2 failure of his attempt to block Jean Claude Juncker’s appointment as president of the European Commission, said: “Sometimes it is possible to be isolated and to be right.”

In this article I do not expect to answer the foregoing questions, not least because I do not have the answers. I only want to stress that these questions need facing, otherwise some of the decisions we take could be very detrimental both to individuals and to society, and in the end we would all be losers.

We are not the first to talk about rights. Already the Stoics had formulated the theory of natural rights, those that always bind. They used to say the universality of natural rights came from the fact that they belong to human beings simply because of the fact that they are human.

After the revolution of 1068 the English Parliament declared the Bill of Rights. This was needed because with the loss of power of the monarchy and the external structure guaranteed by it, a way of protecting society and individuals was needed.

More was said about human rights at the time of the Enlightenment. A series of lists of rights were being drawn up: the Bill of Rights of Virginia in 1776, rights incorporated in the Constitution of the US in 1789, and the French declaration of human rights and the rights of the citizen, among others.

Rights end the moment they infringe on the rights of others

The fact that the necessity of these declarations of rights was felt at the onset of modern times is not a coincidence. Vindicating their independence from the Church, states needed to find a way to protect society and individuals.

Human rights deal with what is human, but deciding on what is human is problematic. Do we agree that human beings have a purpose, or disagree as, for instance, atheistic existentialism does? We seem to be tending towards disagreeing, and this explains the rise of relativism.

The 1948 UN Declaration of Human and Civil Rights was agreed upon by all UN members except for Russia, which abstained. What was it that brought this agreement about? Probably there was agreement because the rights were articulated only on the level of principle and allowed for different interpretations.

The human rights issue is very complex. When it comes to particular rights, such as the right of an individual person or categories of people, it is even more so. A right does not become a right simply because somebody says that it is; rights need to be grounded on some principle which itself needs to have a basis.

Two principles may be helpful: (1) Rights end the moment they infringe on the rights of others, unless a modus vivendi can be found. This principle was not given enough attention when civil unions between homosexuals were given the right to adopt children; (2) the rights of individuals need to be subordinate to the common good, a principle often ignored by people who insist that they have certain rights.

These principles are helpful. Find­ing answers to these issues is difficult, but that is no reason to shy away from trying. Worse than not trying is speaking glibly on rights. Sadly, this is what we seem to be doing.

alfred.j.micallef@um.edu.mt

Fr Alfred Micallef is a member of the Society of Jesus.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.