人权是什么权？Are Human Rights Genuinely Rights?

By Timothy Huang

每年12月10日，世界人权日总会产生一种类似于节日的狂欢，仿佛在每年固定的某日，对人权进行一番歌颂，便是在追求自己的政治理想了。而谁会反对人权呢？《世界人权宣言》中列举的那些名目，正确到让人挑不出错误来。可是，世界上当真有如此完美和正确的权利吗？当那些基本的、业已根植于许多人类社会传统中的古老自由被冠以“权利”之名时、获得崭新的衣装时，我们不禁要问：人权到底是什么权？人权究竟是权利，还是仅仅是一揽子人们认为值得追求的价值？

这个问题极为重要。因为，如果人权是类似于选举权这样的政治权利，或者债权这样的法律权利，那么其所列举的内容就会作为一种义务，而被所有被认为是人的人要求予以满足；而如果人权仅仅是如上所述的一揽子对应宣言或者公约所认为的值得追求的价值——而不是另一些价值——那这一揽子价值和另一些价值，它们就无异于两条轨道上分别被绑着的一个孩子或五个孩子，而失去了完全予以满足的合理基础。

权利总是有因的。债权总是起源于合同、侵权、不当得利、或无因管理，物权总是起源于对客体的支配性事实，例如购买、占有或生产性行为，政治权利则通常来源于在战争和财政领域的贡献。权利的本质，是一种明示或默示要求特定或不特定对象作为或不作为的请求依据。它的表现方式多种多样，或是财产权这样支配性的权利，又或是债权这样典型的请求权，还可能是政治权利这样看似是写在宪法上、实则根植于血腥的战争和政治斗争的历史长河里，但他们背后的“因”意味着，权利从来不是无缘无故凭空产生的，成文法规定的各种权利只是对漫长人类历史中的各种合理的请求依据的确认，而不是在创造权利。

而人权的唯一来源，是源自《世界人权宣言》的一系列国际公约和签署国的制定法；人权的唯一基础性事实便是“人是人”，而这一论述没有任何意义。造物主赋予的、或者是人们公认的生而所有的所谓“权利”，要么来源于已有的权利基础及其所支撑的各种价值，要么来源于不需要用权利去妆点的古老自由，要么来源于政客和外交家之间在特定历史背景下对某种新的社会规范政治安排——正如《世界人权宣言》直接起源于善良的人们对纳粹和苏联红军令人发指的反人类行为进行预防的努力——而更多的是看似美好实则没有任何基础的空中楼阁。

原因无他。给所有人一整套因为他们生而为人便可拥有的“人权”，是一种强有力的政治操纵。当一个人被赋予一张彩票，便会想去兑现它，而不会介意它是否是空头支票。而即使随着历史的发展，他们真的被兑现了，“付款方”也不会是当时开具这些支票的政客本人。用虚无缥缈的人权，换取政客们自己实实在在、即期享受的财产权和名誉权，显然是无本万利的生意。更何况，人权并非绝对意义上的空头支票，而在很大程度上是由根植于各国传统中的古老自由和已有充分基础的各项政治权利重新妆点而成。这种借花献佛、慷他人之慨的行为，无疑是极有诱惑力和隐蔽性的。

当我们试图捍卫自己的财产权、捍卫自己的言论自由、捍卫自己的生活方式，正如我们的祖祖辈辈长期以来一直在做的那样——否则我们也不会有机会传于世上——通过汗水乃至血与火去巩固它们的真实依据，这条道路总是艰难困苦，而用嘴巴轻易和浮夸地引用一张张“写满权利的纸”，则总是更令人上瘾。从这个意义上讲，人权的不断扩充和泛滥、乃至有了取代真正的古老自由和政治权利的趋势，并不是没有原因的，它不过是反映了人类最基本的趋利避害的本性，以及真正的权利和古老的自由的可贵之处。

当别人问：为何这是你的权利？你不能回答：因为这是《世界人权宣言》规定的 ——这既非你所主张的权利的真正来源，也不是提问者所希望知道的东西。这些宣言和公约就摆在那里，举世皆知，而质疑者们真正所希望探究的，是这些建构出来的权利是否在现实中有真正的基础，是你的主张是否有合理的依据，而不是你是从哪读到这个权利的。遗憾的是，一代又一代“至死仍是少年”的人们——或者至少他们假装如此——正在用这种廉价的方式批量复制人权。如果生命健康不被他人暴力侵犯是一种人权，而不是由于生命的神圣性和生存的自由，那么精神世界不被别人的言论冒犯亦应当是人权，于是我们有了政治正确；如果人人不分性别、种族、国籍、宗教信仰一律平等是一种人权，而不是由于勇敢的人们在历史长河中用血汗铸就的坚不可摧的政治权利，那么不分知识水平、语言文字、教育背景、个人努力的平等对待亦应当是人权，于是我们有了逆向歧视。人权就是哆啦A梦的口袋，包揽了一切人们觉得美好的、看似合理的事物。最终，任何一种有人追求的价值，都变成了因为他们是人而天生享有的人权；“人”的身份形成了完美的逻辑闭环。

这样的人权，真的能够体现和捍卫人类的尊严吗？显然不。相反，它揭露了人性邪恶的一面，助长了人的堕落；它让人们在名为“人权”的伪善面具下，进行着各种疯狂和丑陋的社会实验，甚至将他们宣称要保护的群体——尤其是少数群体——变成了为自己谋取经济利益的工具。如果这就是人权，那我们将以曾经幼稚的自己为如此“人权”高举大旗为耻；如果这就是人类，那我们将以自己身为人类为耻。

Are Human Rights Genuinely Rights?

By Timothy Huang

Every year on 10 December, World Human Rights Day brings with it a kind of carnival atmosphere, as if taking one day a year to sing the praises of human rights were itself the pursuit of a political ideal. And after all, who would openly oppose ‘human rights’? The catalogue set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights looks so impeccably correct that it seems impossible to quarrel with a single item. But do such perfect and unimpeachable rights really exist in the world?

When those basic, age-old freedoms, long embedded in many human societies, are relabelled as ‘rights’ and dressed up in fresh attire, we cannot help but ask: what kind of right is a ‘human right’ supposed to be? Are human rights genuinely rights, or are they simply a bundle of values that people happen to regard as worth pursuing?

This question matters a great deal. For if human rights are rights in the same sense as the political right to vote or the legal right of a creditor, then the items listed under that heading become duties which all persons recognised as ‘human’ may demand that others fulfil. If, however, human rights are merely – as in the relevant declarations and conventions – a package of values that their drafters considered worthy of pursuit, rather than some other set of values, then this package of values and any competing values are no different from the two tracks in the familiar thought experiment: on one track a single child is tied down, on the other five children are tied down. In such circumstances, there is no solid basis for insisting that this one package alone must be fully realised.

Rights always have a cause. A personal obligation invariably arises from contract, tort, unjust enrichment or negotiorum gestio; proprietary rights arise from facts of control over an object, such as purchase, possession or productive labour; political rights have generally grown out of contributions in war or in the raising of public revenue. The essence of a right is an express or implied ground for demanding that specific or non-specific others act, or refrain from acting, in a particular way. Rights take many forms: they may be controlling rights such as property, or typical claim-rights such as a creditor’s right against a debtor, or political rights that appear to be lines of text written into a constitution but in reality are rooted in the long, bloody history of war and political struggle. Behind them, however, the ‘cause’ always signifies that rights never arise out of nothing. The rights recorded in statute do not create rights; they merely recognise, after a long human history, various reasonable grounds for making demands on others.

By contrast, the sole source of ‘human rights’ lies in the network of international conventions stemming from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, together with the domestic legislation of states that have signed up to them. The sole foundational fact underlying human rights is the proposition that ‘a human being is a human being’ – a statement that, taken on its own, is empty of content. The so-called rights conferred by the Creator or possessed by all persons simply in virtue of being born either draw upon pre-existing rights and the values they embody, or stem from ancient freedoms that required no adornment in the language of rights, or else originate in the efforts of politicians and diplomatics, in particular historical circumstances, to negotiate new social norms and institutional arrangements – just as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was directly born of decent people’s determination to prevent the appalling crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis and by the Soviets. Much else that is now labelled ‘human rights’, however, is nothing more than a castle in the air: attractive to look at, but lacking any real foundations.

The reason is simple. To confer upon everyone an entire set of ‘human rights’ simply by virtue of their being human is a powerful tool of political manipulation. Hand a person a lottery ticket and they will want to cash it in, with little concern as to whether it is in fact a dud. And even if, as history unfolds, some of these tickets eventually are honoured, those who actually ‘pay out’ will not be the politicians who originally issued them. To exchange for the politicians’ very tangible, immediate enjoyment of property, office and reputation, the nebulous promise of human rights costs them virtually nothing. It is the ideal business: all upside, no capital at risk. What is more, human rights are not, in an absolute sense, completely worthless. To a large extent, they are repackaged forms of ancient freedoms rooted in national traditions and of firmly grounded political rights already in existence. This practice of playing the generous host with other people’s resources is both seductive and difficult to detect.

When we strive to defend our property, our freedom of speech and our way of life – as our ancestors did over long generations, otherwise we would not be here at all – we are treading a path that must be reinforced with sweat, and at times with blood and fire, to give solid backing to these rights. That path is always arduous. It is far easier, and far more addictive, to quote a few ‘pieces of paper covered with rights’ in a glib and inflated manner. In this sense, the continued expansion and inflation of human rights – and even the emerging tendency for them to displace genuine ancient freedoms and hard-won political rights – are no accident. They simply reflect humanity’s basic instinct to seek benefit and avoid harm, and, conversely, the preciousness of real rights and old freedoms.

When someone asks: ‘Why is this your right?’, you cannot just reply: ‘Because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says so.’ That is neither the true source of the rights you invoke, nor what your interlocutor wishes to know. These declarations and conventions are published for all to see. What those who question you genuinely want to explore is whether the rights you are invoking have a real foundation in lived reality – whether your claims rest on reasonable grounds – not which document you happened to read them in. Sadly, generation after generation of people who proclaim themselves ‘forever young in heart’ – or at least pretend to be – are busy mass-producing human rights by this cheap method.

If the fact that one’s life and health should not be violated by the violence of others is framed as a ‘human right’, rather than as a consequence of the sanctity of life and the freedom to live, then by parity of reasoning one’s inner world should not be offended by other people’s words, and this too ought to count as a human right. Thus, we arrive at political correctness. If the equal treatment of all persons regardless of sex, race, nationality or religion is cast as a ‘human right’, instead of being understood as the fruit of political rights forged by courageous men and women with their blood and sweat over long centuries, then equal treatment regardless of knowledge, language, education or personal effort also ought to be a human right. Thus, we arrive at reverse discrimination. ‘Human rights’ become like Doraemon’s magic pocket, from which anything that seems good and superficially reasonable can be produced on demand. Eventually, any value that anyone happens to pursue is redefined as a human right they are born with simply because they are human. The status of being ‘human’ completes a perfect logical circle.

Can such a conception of human rights really embody and defend human dignity? Clearly not. On the contrary, it exposes the darker side of human nature and abets our descent. Behind the pious mask labelled ‘human rights’, people carry out all manner of deranged and ugly social experiments, and even turn the very groups they claim to protect – especially the minorities – into tools for securing material gain for themselves.

If this is what ‘human rights’ amount to, then we should feel ashamed of our younger selves for ever having raised the banner of such ‘human rights’. And if this is what it means to be human, we shall feel ashamed of belonging to the human race at all.