CHAPTER IV – THEORIES OF HUMAN

RIGHTS IN RELATION TO HUMAN

RIGHTS EDUCATION
COURSE CONTENT:
Religious or the Theological Approach
The Natural Law Theory
The Positivist Theory
The Theory of Marxism
The Sociological Approach
z Theory
The Utilitarian
Theories of Justice, and
Theory based on equality and respect of human dignity

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
After studying this CHAPTER, the student should be able to:
1. Understand the different theories underlying the sources of Human Rights
2. Compare the different perspective of the theories
3. Explain the significant theories concerning human rights
4. Illustrate the significant application of theories to the present situation of human rights
 z THEORIES OF SOURCES OF
RIGHTS

 Religious or the Theological Approach

- In the Biblical tradition, individuals derive their human

dignity through God’s creation. Duties to others in the
community are grounded in the covenantal relationship to a
God that has delivered a people from slavery and oppression.
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- Biblical justice involves provision for food, clothing, and

shelter. One can meaningfully speak of a “right to food” as
established by the law since every third year the Israelites
were to bring out their tithe. The alien, the orphan, and the
widow are to have access to the remnants of the harvest of
crops.
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- The prophet Micah chides “those who devise

wickedness” by raping women and oppressing “householder
and house, people and their inheritance”. Extended families
were to have their own landed inheritance. The Year of
Jubilee significantly restricted private property rights by
stressing that the ownership of the land is ultimately vested
in God rather than human beings, thereby empowering the
weak.
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 The Natural Law Theory

- What does the mainstream of natural law theory intend by

using the word “natural” in that name for the theory? The
shortest accurate answer is “of reason,” as in “the law of
reason” or “the requirements of reason.” Aquinas is
particularly clear and explicit that in this context, “ natural” is
predicated of something (say, a law, or a virtue) only when and
because that of which it is predicated is in line with reason,
practical reason, or practical reason’s requirements.
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 The Positivist Theory

- is a theory of law that sees law as based on social facts.

These social facts are the decisions, conventions or social
customs, which are recognized as authoritative. Thus the
origin of the term positivism in the Latin word positum,
meaning to put, place, or set, addresses well the nature of law
as something posited, we simultaneously set human
community at the focal point of defining law. It is the
acceptance, tolerance, decisions, commands or such in the
community, which define what law is.
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 The Theory of Marxism

- For Karl Marx, legal relations and forms of the state are
not grasped from “the general development of the human
mind,” but rather have their roots in the material conditions of
life and the anatomy of civil society as determined by political
economy.
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 The Sociological Approach

- human rights exist as a means of social control. This

approach lays emphasis of obtaining a just equilibrium of
multifarious interest among prevailing moral sentiments and
the social and economic conditions of the time and place.
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 The Utilitarian Theory

- the core foundation is the “greatest happiness principle”.

It simply states that “actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness and wrong as they tend to produce
the reverse of happiness”. Actions are based solely on its
contributions for the greater good of all people.
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 Theory of Justice

- According to John Rawls, Justice is the first virtue of social

institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. His conception of
“justice as fairness” and “procedural justice” proceeds from a
rational constitutional choice among individuals behind a “veil
of ignorance” in order to define the basic rights and liberties of
free and equal citizens in a constitutional democracy.
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 Theory based on equality and respect of human dignity

- the philosophical roots of dignity derive from the classical

Roman writings of Cicero. In his writings he discussed the
concept of dignity as something that belongs to every human
being without reference to any additional attributes.
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END OF CHAPTER IV