I know during the Early Modern period we start to see the ideological foundations of human rights, and that humanitarian compassion is certainly nothing new. But did this ever take on the form of inalienable human rights, attained by virtue of simply be human? Or were they always understood as being at the discretion of the state?
Hopefully someone more qualified will do justice to the broader history of these ideas, but I wanted to point out an ancient school of thought that I've noticed rarely comes up in these discussions, but forms an interesting counterexample to the idea that these ideas are wholly modern and Western. They may not be talking about rights in any modern sense, but I feel they were grappling with a similar Big Question in a similar way; I’ll leave it up to you whether this counts as an answer to your question.
The Mozi is a work from the Warring States period (circa 480–221 B.C.) of ancient China, representing the thought of Mozi (“Master Mo”, original name Mo Di, also romanized as Mo-tzu and Micius) and his followers. In it are arguments for the adoption of a standard of “inclusive care”, “impartial concern”, or “all-embracing love” (jian ai) to all people, and against the exclusion of people from our duties of care (bie, “discrimination/distinguishing/separating”), which they argued was the cause of the world’s ills.
Background: The Warring States period was (as the name indicates) a time of war and chaos, but is also associated with a flourishing of Chinese philosophy, as the “Hundred Schools of Thought” sought followers and influence in a rapidly shifting political landscape. The Mohists were one of the four major philosophical schools of the period, and were portrayed in Qin and Han-era texts as the primary opponents of the Confucians. The Confucian program involved rationalization of the traditional mores and practices of the economic/cultural elites; Confucius describes himself as “a transmitter and not an originator” (Analects VII, 1). The Mohists are speculated to have drawn more from common people (especially wandering warriors and artisans) than other schools, which would explain their focus on the common welfare, disdain for show and waste (e.g. elaborate funeral traditions), and an un-poetic prose style displaying “a lack of wit or grace that is atypical of Chinese literature in general” (Watson, 1963). The Mohists were also a military organization (but one that only took defensive contracts), and a quasi-religious movement (their characterization of Heaven is more like a deity than a place or idea). We do not have a lot of concrete details about the historical Mozi’s life, but the quasi-literary character of tradition is delightful: a clever general who outwits his opponents in defense of the weak.
One of the central debates in ancient Chinese philosophy was about one’s responsibilities to others. The traditional view (as systematized by the Confucians) held that people had different responsibilities according to the five traditional relationships (sovereign/subject, father/son, elder brother/younger brother, husband/wife, and friend/friend). The Mohists, in contrast, argued a radically simple position: that our responsibilities to all people are (at least in the abstract) equal. This position was, to opposing schools, absurd: it would mean that my responsibility to your father was equal to my responsibility to my own!?!
The Mohists argued for their position with a consequentialist argument, which is remarkable in itself, and possibly history’s earliest example of consequentialist ethics. The Mohists’ philosophical program is concerned with the search for standards which, upon adoption by everyone and promotion by the state, would lead to peace and prosperity. Would we rather live in a society where people owed only moral responsibilities to their own family/clan/city/state (bie), or one where other families/clans/cities/states were equal to ours in consideration (jian ai)? They implicate bie as the cause of many of the ills of their world:
Thus the various lords not caring about each other, they inevitably go to war; heads of clans not caring about each other, they inevitably subvert each other… the strong inevitably oppress the weak, the wealthy inevitably humiliate the poor, the noble are inevitably contemptuous of the lowly, and the cunning inevitably deceive the ignorant. (Mozi 15, tr. Fraser.)
On the other hand, adoption of inclusive care would undermine the justifications for many of the world’s ills.
Suppose people were for others’ states as for their state. Then who alone would deploy his state to attack others’ states? One would be for others as for oneself. Were people for others’ cities as for their city, then who alone would deploy his city to assault others’ cities? One would be for others as for oneself…. That being so, then states and cities not attacking and assaulting each other, people and clans not disordering and injuring each other, is this harm to the world? Or is it benefit to the world? Then we must say, It is benefit to the world. (Mozi 16, tr. Fraser)
It should be noted that (at least later) Mohists make a distinction between theory and practice here. They’re not arguing for the abolishment of existing family/local networks of care. A major Confucian text, the Mencius, puts the Mohist position like so: “In care, no degrees; in practice, begin from what is close.” (Mencius 3A:5). Fraser points out that the Mohists’ special concern for orphans reveals that, in practice, Mohists are still expecting families to be doing the bulk of real-world care. Also, we should be clear that they’re not always talking about care in a welfare sort of sense; sometimes it just means non-interference (e.g. "states and cities not attacking and assaulting each other").
Anyway, the big question: Is this really a discussion about rights? I wouldn’t characterize it this way, myself; I think it’s kind of an anachronistic way of looking at it. But it’s also not not about rights: I think they are grappling with basically the same Big Human Question in a different framework, and their method/conclusions are not incompatible with a framework that includes the idea of rights. What they’re doing is not all that different from (say) Rawls’ original position: we pose different models of the way society could work, consider their consequences, and choose which world we would rather live in. (It’s also why I chose the Mozi here rather than other ancient works about universal compassion. The Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta makes clear that its wish for gladness, safety, and rest extends to all beings omitting none, but I feel that this wish is different than asserting/arguing the existence of a right. Nor do I think the Mozi is asserting/arguing a right, per se, but there is a structural similarity to an argument for universal human rights.)
Anyway, it’s a fascinating school of thought that I thought you might find interesting, and the enthusiasm among moderns for it is unsurprising; of all the ancient schools its conclusions, and the way it argues for them, feel the most modern. It feels rather like what (and how) you or I might argue if we found ourselves in the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought.
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