Human Rights as Social Construction

Most conceptions of human rights rely on metaphysical or theological assumptions that construe them as possible only as something imposed from outside existing communities. Most people, in other words, presume that human rights come from nature, God or the United Nations. This book argues that reliance on such putative sources actually undermines human rights. Benjamin Gregg envisions an alternative; he sees human rights as locally developed, freely embraced and indigenously valid. Human rights, he posits, can be created by the average, ordinary people to whom they are addressed and that they are valid only if embraced by those to whom they would apply. To view human rights in this manner is to increase the chances and opportunities that more people across the globe will come to embrace them.

Benjamin Gregg teaches social and political theory at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Thick Moralities, Thin Politics: Social Integration across Communities of Belief (2003) and Coping in Politics with Indeterminate Norms: A Theory of Enlightened Localism (2003). His articles have appeared in Political Theory, Review of Politics, Theory and Society, Polity, Ratio Juris, Comparative Sociology and International Review of Sociology.