What Is Buchanan's Argument For Universality Of Human Rights?

Perhaps at the outset, it may be important to clarify that in discussing the universality of human rights I am discussing the “ontological universalism” (Goodale, 4) of human rights. Buchanan on the other hand, seems to focus on a “political universalism” conception of human rights based on non-ontological arguments which do not provide arguments of universality, but rather for universality (Goodale, 7). Early in his book, Buchanan states that he wishes to avoid an appeal to naturalist debate. Instead his work is based on assumptions on the current perspective of human rights in international law. Thus his arguments are based on a false premise. In adopting this perspective he fails to offer a proper philosophical justification for human rights
However I argue that an appeal to naturalism is preferable and necessary to bridge the philosophical deficit in Buchanan’s theory since the natural law commands the recognition of human rights. John Locke, was one of many philosophers that acknowledged a law of nature which creates obligations on all humans beings (Etzioni, 188). There is no doubt that there are indeed things that are good and bad for all human beings. Thus, there are things we ought to have and things we ought to be protected from. We call these things natural rights. The natural law recognizes this shared feature of humanity that transcends the limits of time and culture giving it its universal character (Perry, 479). In other words it is the innate humanness that entails the existence of these universal natural rights. This is compatible with the way in which Buchanan substantiated human rights as moral rights. Their existence does not depend on institutional arrangements or relation to political legitimacy. Rather we can conceive of these human rights existing as natural rights that follow from our shared humanity. Because people of all nations share this common humanity there are universal human rights that can be adopted as international human
The original position requires that a person consider the perspective of all persons when determining the conditions for a society when they do not know what position they themselves hold. Thus, the differences that exist between human beings would be of equal importance to everyone. Similarly, the Kantian categorical imperative is another standard to which human rights can be delineated from since it seeks to identify formal and universal binding rules on all rational agents. Both these principles allow for abstractions that can be used to discover the universal moral truths that Buchanan refers to since they exceed the bounds social-historical