A human rights approach from Hume and moral sentiments

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to human rights from Hume’s perspective about moral sentiments, while it dismisses the thesis of rationalistic grounded rights programs to assert the existence of natural rights that all possess in virtue of their human nature. Against these programs, Hume’s skeptical and naturalist posture may help us to explain how activists and advocates set human rights, because passion motivates this utterance, as moral judgmentsformulated by compassionate empathy that a man has for another. Human rights are claimed from requirements formulated within small groups and from the specific obligations context, and even when they are claimed against a specific recipient (such as the State, for example), human rights are stated as universal and innate to the human species. This enunciation is always motivated by sentiments that do not allow us to remain insensitive to the basic needs experienced by others.