What effect does a concern for cultural diversity have upon justifying universal human rights?

Authors Avatar

Kaileigh Patmore

What effect does a concern for cultural diversity have upon

 justifying universal human rights?

It is common knowledge in the world over that we now have multi cultural societies, with everyone having different views on what is morally right or wrong, supporting different religions and ideologies. These differences of opinion and differences in society are what makes our world such a richly fascinating and diverse place to be. However in having this cultural diversity, are our human rights less valid and do universal human rights infringe upon cultural diversity, can we justify universal human rights if there is cultural diversity? This is a common concern when talking about universal human rights, and is something that I will be discussing throughout the course of this essay.

Firstly it is important to understand exactly what human rights are and who has them. The answer is simple according to philosophy, all persons (a person is defined as somebody who is self conscious) have human rights whether they are aware of it or not. Human rights have been defined by Nickel (1992:561-2) as 'basic moral guarantees that people in all countries and cultures allegedly have simply because they are people… Human rights are frequently held to be universal in the sense that all people have and should enjoy them, and to be independent in the sense that they exist and are available as standards of justification and criticism whether or not they are recognized and implemented by the legal system or officials of a country.' 

It would be contrite to ignore what cultural diversity is defined as, as it is an important aspect to understand in answering the question sufficiently, however this is a contested concept and there is no single definition. The best definition is that cultural diversity can be classed as the coexistence of numerous distinct ethnic, racial, religious or cultural groups within one social unit, organization or population.

Join now!

With these definitions in hand, we can now explore exactly what universal human rights are and how they are concerned with cultural diversity. If human rights are, as claimed by Nickel, universal in the sense that all people have and should enjoy them, and The Vienna Declaration of 1993 confirms that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent, then what is the problem? Surely if they are universal then culture should not be a factor? Unfortunately this is not the case. Culture is a huge factor in justifying human rights and can seriously effect whether there is sympathy towards ...

This is a preview of the whole essay