If we use one word to summarize the characteristics of our times, it is undoubtedly human rights; If you choose one of the most eye-catching topics in the world today, it is undoubtedly human rights; If we want to find a topic that can cause the most international controversy, it is undoubtedly human rights. "Today, no matter which country can openly deny human rights, human rights have become a sacred concept, and the whole world is advocating the protection and respect of human rights." [1](P75) It is no exaggeration to say that we are in the era of human rights, discussing human rights issues and expressing various demands in human rights discourse. Louis Henkin, an American constitutional historian, believes that human rights are "the theme of countless international treaties, the indispensable raw material of international politics every day, and the focus of persistent debate among superpowers". [2] (Preface) Professor Ji Weidong also has a similar view when talking about various international debates: "What can best reflect the fundamental differences between the two sides is the concept of human rights, and human rights issues can be regarded as the starting point and focus of dialogue between different civilizations." [3] (P233) It can be seen that "human rights, as a new social ideal, have been successfully spread all over the world". [4](p 1) As an issue that has occupied the center of international and domestic affairs, the word human rights has become an unavoidable keyword when considering the future social order. However, it is undeniable that human rights are also a focus and sensitive issue that constantly causes controversy. Even "the definition of human rights is always a very complicated issue, and the understanding of the connotation and extension of human rights is far from consistent". [3](P234) Modern human rights concept is the product of diachronic and * * interaction. Exploring the ins and outs of human rights issues is undoubtedly beneficial to get rid of the interference hanging over human rights issues and see the face of human rights itself clearly. This paper attempts to trace the history of human rights and analyze the evolution of human rights concepts from several basic concepts that have appeared in the history of human rights development. I believe this will provide a unique micro-perspective for understanding human rights issues.
First, the concept of human rights and limited human rights in essence
When studying human rights issues, some scholars have summarized the concept history of human rights from the unique connotation of the concept itself, and think that the concept of human rights can be divided into the following four stages from ancient times to the present: First, the simple or intuitive concept of human rights, such as the famous saying of protagoras, an ancient Greek wise man, "Man is the measure of all things, the measure of the existence of things, and the measure of the non-existence of things" probably reflects this concept of human rights. Secondly, it is a one-sided or different view of human rights. The ancient Greek thinkers Plato and Aristotle's view of hierarchical justice is the expression of this view of human rights. Third, this is a comprehensive or equal view of human rights. It emphasizes the sanctity and equality of human dignity, personality and value. The concept of human rights at this stage is fully reflected in the western Christian teachings and Christian religious feelings, especially in the equality consciousness of human beings before God and "original sin", and also in the theories of humanists and classical natural thinkers. Finally, this is a coordinated or comprehensive view of human rights. On the premise of adhering to the ideal of comprehensive or equal human rights view, this kind of human rights view fully considers the diversity of people, values, moral concepts and political ideology in reality, and seeks an understanding of human rights through integration or coordination. [5] The concept of human rights in the "concept of human rights" mentioned in this paper is obviously not completely consistent with the concept of human rights we are talking about now, no matter from the time of its emergence or the specific content, although they are closely related. The concept of modern human rights, that is, the topic to be discussed in this paper, should basically sprout from the late stage of the third stage. The so-called view of human rights before this stage should be named human rights consciousness and human rights thought. They are the theoretical basis of the modern concept of human rights. The classical concept of human rights in the modern sense was first put forward by Dante in his works during the Renaissance. He is "the end of the feudal Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern capitalist era" ... the last poet in the Middle Ages and the first poet in the new era "[6](P249). Dante and humanists at the same time enthusiastically praised human nature, opposed personal attachment in feudal society, emphasized human dignity and value, and affirmed human desire, thus making ancient moral thoughts about equality, freedom and independence bright and popular. [7](P 127) Boccaccio said that "we human beings are born equal". [8](P357) Classical natural jurists, based on the theory of natural law, inherited and promoted the achievements of the Enlightenment and shaped people into the subject of natural rights. This theory of "natural human rights" is embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Human Rights and Civil Rights formulated after the victory of the bourgeois revolution in the United States and France. The biggest defect of this theoretical system of human rights is that on the surface, everyone is equal, and the subject of human rights is everyone. There is no difference, but this is not the case. For example, Rousseau, a thinker whose lifelong goal is to pursue human equality and freedom, and whose famous works such as On the Origin of Human Inequality shine brilliantly in the history of power struggle, shows the great limitations of his class position when defining the concept of "human". A typical example is his attitude towards women. He believes that women are born to please men, which is also her great goal of survival. It can be seen that what he said is limited, and so is the equality he sang. The American Declaration of Independence (1776), enthusiastically praised by Marx as the "first declaration of human rights" in the world, is of epoch-making significance in the history of human rights. But it claims that "all men are created equal" is a self-evident truth, and at the same time acquiesces in and retains the evil slavery that discriminates against and isolates blacks. In addition, the majority of female groups are excluded from the subject of human rights, and the groups that can really enjoy human rights are limited to "white male taxpayers, Christians, especially Protestants who own movable and immovable property". The French Declaration on Human Rights and Citizenship is in the same strain as the American Declaration of Independence on human rights issues. It is also limited to "European men must have a certain income when they come of age", and a large number of people are excluded from their rights. In a word: "In the18th century, it is unrealistic to publicly announce people". [4](P 176) Swiss scholar Sheng Yalu divided the development of human rights view into two stages, namely limited human rights view and universal human rights view, which is not unreasonable. The division of time is marked by the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 65438 to 0948. Because before that, "the concept of human' person' was limited to gender and race, then the word' person'-compared with the modern meaning of this word-had only a rather limited meaning." [9](P278) Corresponding to limited human rights is universal human rights. Obviously, the birth of the concept of universal human rights is the witness and result of the expanding subject of human rights. Moreover, in the past, calling for and demanding the protection of human rights was mainly the internal affairs of a country.
Second, the emergence and background of the concept of universal human rights
"Human rights in English refers to" (human rights), which only became pure "(human rights) after the Second World War." Even if it can't be said that the articles and comments on human rights before World War II were confined to men, it is undeniable that there are obviously men in the fact that men and people are unconsciously regarded as the same noun to express human rights subjects. [1] (P 150) The limited human rights stage has entered the universal human rights stage, theoretically expanding the subject of human rights from minority groups to all people should enjoy human rights, and affirming human dignity and value. In terms of time, there is a general understanding in academic circles that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed with the consent of major countries in the world at the end of World War II, that is, 15. In the two world wars, human beings suffered the greatest physical and mental damage and learned the deepest lesson. The crime of fascist killing and genocide in World War II is to treat people as human beings and trample on human life and dignity in an all-round way. The victory of mankind in World War II is regarded as the combination of humanitarian spirit. "It is vital to defend life, freedom, independence and religious freedom all over the world, and to defend human rights and justice ... The war ended with respect for human rights." [10](P308) It can be seen that the rise of the concept of universal human rights after World War II is the inevitable result of the universal violation of human rights in World War II, which is also the greatest wealth that mankind has after the victory of World War II. As stated in the preface to the Declaration of Principles of International Cultural Cooperation formulated and adopted by UNESCO in 1966, since war begins with people's hearts, the protection of peace must be based on people's hearts. [11] (p34)1948 Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights solemnly declares that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should treat each other as brothers. In addition, Articles 2, 7, 10 and 26 of the Declaration clearly point out that all rights and their protection are outstanding, and the subjects are "everyone", "anyone" and "everyone". There are no longer any restrictions on human rights subjects, and no special qualifications are needed to enjoy these rights. All people with biological and social significance can enjoy human rights 100%, and the rights that meet these conditions can be crowned with human rights. Therefore, we can say that any right, no matter how extensive its subject is, can not be called human rights as long as one person is excluded from the subject of rights. "Once the gap is allowed in the fence of the universality of human rights subjects, human rights will not immediately become human rights, but become privileges." [12] On this basis, we recall that before the Second World War, the human rights advocated by European and American countries were obviously not real human rights, which excluded a large number of groups from the subject of rights, and their essence was a typical privilege. However, to be more precise, there is a relatively long period from the birth of universal human rights theory to the gradual acceptance and practice of universal human rights thought. "Man, the subject of human rights enjoyment, can only wait until the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the civil rights movement in the United States after the 1950s, the decolonization in the 1960s, and the women's liberation movement after the 1970s. After the Second World War, a series of reforms began to become universal people beyond gender, wealth, race, color, religion and culture. " [1] (p151) The era of universal human rights has finally arrived after mankind has paid an infinite price.
Someone once asked such a question: After the Second World War, why did all countries in the world get together to formulate and issue a global declaration of human rights through the United Nations instead of a global declaration of obligations? We believe that the first involves the evaluation of the linguistic value of rights. Professor Glenton of Harvard University in the United States has such a core view in the book The Culture of Rights, which can explain this phenomenon, that is, modern culture is a culture of rights, in which the language of rights is used as a convenient and exquisite tool to express the requirements of practical rationality. Power discourse filters other languages and directly permeates other languages. The reason why the language of rights becomes a strong language is determined by its advantages. [13] (p323) It is common for human beings to resort to human rights for their most precious conduct, and one of the reasons lies in the universal characteristics embodied in the discourse of "rights". In various senses, the discourse of rights has become an effective tool and a general carrier to realize the ideal of human rights, and the concept of rights puts both proponents and responders on an equal footing. The slogan of "human rights" can arouse people's profound sense of "identity" and is a weapon for the weak against the strong. The goodness and justice contained in human rights have made universal human rights a worldwide cultural phenomenon for more than 50 years since its birth. Secondly, from the perspective of right theory, we can profoundly reveal the inherent attributes of human rights: humanity and permanence of human rights. As a moral right, human rights embody such a moral law in value, "No matter for yourself or others, people should be regarded as an end, not just as a tool" (Kant). Human rights are "people have moral rights by virtue of their natural abilities, not by virtue of any special order they can enter or any specific legal system they must follow." [14] The permanence of human rights means that human rights accompany people from birth to the end of their lives without any conditions. In this sense, human rights are a kind of subjective rights, which are "related to human self-defense and self-protection." [14] From limited human rights to universal human rights, it is a milestone in the development history of human rights theory. As a rallying cry put forward by the bourgeoisie in the name of all mankind in order to mobilize all social forces and carry out the bourgeois revolution in essence, this concept initiated by the bourgeoisie spread all over the world after World War II and became the spiritual wealth and goal of all mankind.
Three. Universality, particularity and relativity of human rights
Human rights are "derived from human dignity and value", but "being a human being is not a natural or transcendental talent or essence, but a practice and mission" (Baliba). The completeness of theory is very important, and practice is more important than theory. Only when human rights are embodied in the realistic system and various guarantees can they have real significance. Everyone should be equal and free, and all people should be treated and respected equally. But the problem is that human rights abstractly summarize the characteristics of "people" in theory, and the specific people are always in a certain country, nationality or region. The reality we face is that the world's political and economic development is in a serious unbalanced state, and the context of human rights will inevitably limit and affect the degree of realization of human rights. Personally, I think that the use of the concept of universality of human rights is more focused on the question of whether there is a unified standard for protection methods, protection contents and protection ways in all countries of the world when human rights enter the stage of substantive system protection. Its use scene is more in the places where western countries and developing countries negotiate and have differences on human rights issues, and it is relatively more used with the concept of human rights particularity. What is the particularity of human rights? In other words, the specific ways, forms and contents of human rights can be different, and it is impossible to achieve a unified model in all countries. Especially in the 1990s, the universality and particularity of human rights became the hot point of divergence between "Asian values" and western human rights views, which attracted the world's attention. Many developing countries in Asia oppose the human rights model imposed by western countries on other countries and point out that human rights are universal in protecting basic human rights. For example, it is impossible for any country to claim that it likes torture and indiscriminate killing. However, in every specific country and nation, human rights are always integrated in a larger background, and all countries and nations always practice and interpret human rights from their own culture and history. And that "any kind of institutional choice has no fixed superiority, it is only the product of the environment, and each choice has its own moral reasons." The standard of the inspection system is the consent of the people. "[15](P 176) The understanding of human rights and the specific system guarantee can have their own uniqueness. This seemingly fierce debate, although the debate on the theme of human rights between the two sides has indeed raised some issues that need to be considered and solved in some aspects, if we do not think calmly with emotional enthusiasm and impulse, we will find that the foothold of both sides is not only the universality and particularity of human rights theory and practice itself, but also the human rights issue has been injected into too many things other than human rights. The typical performance is that some western countries use human rights as an excuse to interfere in other countries' internal affairs, not to improve the human rights situation in other countries with a sincere attitude, but to achieve their own political interests or economic goals. Such behavior will inevitably arouse the resentment of the interfered country. Some scholars commented on this phenomenon: "The leaders of the controversial party in the 1990s included former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, China government and leaders, and diplomats from Southeast Asian countries. Their discussion on human rights still lacks academic rigor. On the other hand, there are senior officials of European and American governments, journalists and human rights organizations. Their views on human rights are rarely based on the strict interpretation and analysis of the human rights provisions of the constitution, human rights treaties and declarations, and are rarely based on the research results of human history, human rights and cultural and religious relations so far. [1](P5) and further pointed out that "these arguments themselves are often confined to the framework of' universality versus particularity' and' old Asian habits on human rights issues', and rarely talk about the defects of the framework itself". [1](P5) Therefore, the corresponding use of the concepts of particularity and universality of human rights at least illustrates the following two problems. First of all, human rights have entered the stage of substantive protection, rather than staying in declarations, agreements and various documents in the abstract. After all, human rights practice and human rights ideal still have a long way to go. However, the implementation and embodiment of human rights on paper is the primary value behind various systems, which is undoubtedly the development of human rights. In this process, many obstacles, differences and objections will gradually appear in different countries and nationalities. These phenomena are inevitable, so the human rights issue is specious and complicated. Secondly, correctly understand the dispute between the particularity and universality of human rights. Western countries criticize human rights in developing countries on the grounds of universality of human rights. On the one hand, there are many problems in the protection of human rights in developing countries, including China, and human rights violations also occur from time to time-doesn't this situation exist in western countries themselves? There are many areas that need to be improved. After all, it is not other countries but their own people who benefit from improving the human rights situation. On the other hand, we do not rule out that some western countries do hold sincere and critical attitudes on some human rights issues, but in the international community, western countries are based on the principle that "human rights, like arms sales, are all aid to developing countries, and trade preferences and trade sanctions are all means of national politics." [4](P 136) The representative of the Reagan administration in the United States once dubbed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "a letter to Santa Claus" and even regarded human rights as symbolic capital. In addition, many western countries often adopt double standards on human rights issues: be strict with others and be lenient with themselves; Those who are lenient are strict, and those who are close are lenient. It is said that it is good for friends and bad for enemies. Of course, we should resolutely fight back at this point. The debate between the universality and particularity of human rights directly leads to the question: Is human rights a domestic affair or an international affair? Is human rights above sovereignty or sovereignty above human rights? There has been a lot of discussion on this topic, and most of them are either-or answers. The author agrees with the view that human rights and sovereignty cannot be determined in a general way. It is a realistic need to intervene in other countries' human rights violations, but this kind of behavior must be treated with caution. For example, the decision to advocate such intervention must be globally representative. When voting, only by fully considering the concept of justice of different civilizations can we obtain differences in different cultures, religions and social systems. The standard can't be unitary, but diversified, and the interveners are also involved. Strive to achieve a balance between human rights and sovereignty, freedom and social rights, politics and economic and cultural rights.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that Japanese international law scholar Yasuo Ohuma replaced the concept of "particularity of human rights" with "relativity of human rights", which we think is of great significance to the development of basic concepts of human rights. The reference to the particularity of human rights seems to imply such an acknowledgement: non-Europe and America = particularity, and Europe and America = universality. On the other hand, it supports human rights Eurocentrism. The debate about the particularity and universality of human rights is also prone to misinformation: universality seems to be a symbol of the universality of western civilization, while particularity seems to be an obstacle to the complacency of eastern civilization. Although the concept of human rights originated in Europe and America, it has been developed and enriched in human communication. Today's human rights theory is a colorful puzzle of the wisdom of all mankind. The birth of the concept of relativity of human rights makes the discussion and exchange of human rights between Europe and the United States and non-European and American countries equal in theory, and there is no distinction between center and edge, and there is no distinction between center and edge.
Four. Conclusion: The interrelation of human rights concepts.
Above, we reviewed several basic concepts that appeared vertically in the process of human rights development, including the temporal existence of concepts (for example, universal human rights and universality of human rights are indiscriminately mixed or used at the same time on many occasions). Human rights, universal human rights, universality of human rights, particularity of human rights and relativity of human rights, these five concepts, which are often used in human rights discourse and human rights issues, have their historical backgrounds and theoretical origins respectively. By exploring and tracing these concepts, we can express the development of human rights in this way: human rights, universal human rights and universality of human rights should be the same and consistent in essence, human rights are universal in essence, and only universal human rights are real human rights. As long as the subject of human rights is universal, the content it enjoys will logically require equality of content. All people should enjoy the same rights, and all people should be treated equally. The word "universality" of universal human rights or universality of human rights refers to the degree to which the concept of human rights may be popularized and accepted in practice. Our understanding of human rights can be roughly summarized as follows: first, the universality of human rights subjects; Secondly, the degree of human rights awareness that can be achieved in different regions, different civilization types and different cultural circles, and the cultural model supported by the pluralistic value system have reached a certain degree of consciousness due to the systematic maintenance of human dignity and a better life by modern human rights concepts. In other words, we should reserve a relatively loose interpretation space for the dynamic concept of human rights that is constantly developing and changing in historical latitude.
Why are there such basic concepts as universal human rights, universality and particularity of human rights and relativity of human rights? Borrowing a scholar's words can explain that the evolution of history is mostly a long-term revision of various irrationalities that violate the starting point, and all uncertainties are expressed and confirmed. This process is independent of human will, but it is the result of all human actions. [16] It can be said that several basic concepts of human rights have recorded the tortuous development course and continuous progress of the human rights cause from a certain angle.