Organizer and Chair: S. S. Rama Rao Pappu, Miami University
Discussant: Ashok Malhotra, State University of New York
There seems to be a tendency in the West to regard human rights as peculiarly Western and that Asia has little or nothing to contribute towards a discussion on this important subject. The reasons for this (mis)perception are not far to seek. First, human rights declarations-like the English Bill of Rights, 1689; the Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776; the Paris Declaration of Rights of Man, 1789, etc.-are all Western in origin. Second, many of these human rights declarations seem to support the liberal-democratic form of government in the West. The absence of this form of government in Asia gives rise to the belief that the conception of human rights is foreign to Asian philosophical thought. Third, Asian thought uses the "obligations language" and not the "rights language" which creates the impression in the West that Asia does not have a tradition of human rights and is not interested in them. This panel dispels the above misperceptions and examines human rights from the Hindu, Buddhist and Japanese points of view.
In the first paper, "Beyond Human Rights: Human Obligations in Hindu Thought" it is argued that Hinduism recognizes human obligations (dharmas) as primary and human rights as derivative from human obligations; that human obligations are wider and richer than human rights and that the modern problems concerning human rights arise due to non-recognition of the importance of human obligations. The second paper, "On the Universality of Human Rights: A Hindu Perspective," delves into the question of the relationship between particular and the universal aspects of human rights in Hindu thought. The third paper, "Buddhist Perspectives on Human Rights" develops the notion of human rights in Early Buddhism and in the contemporary Buddhist societies of Southeast Asia.
In the last paper, "Human Rights in Japanese Philosophical Thought" it is argued that several Japanese political thinkers advocated human rights as universals via analogies and philosophical notions taken from the Mencius.
Beyond Human Rights: Human Obligations in Hindu Thought
S. S. Rama Rao Pappu, Miami University, Ohio
When Julian Huxley, former Director-General, UNESCO, requested Mahatma Gandhi's views on human rights, Gandhi replied: "I learnt from my illiterate but wise mother that all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done . . . From this one fundamental statement, perhaps it is easy enough to define the duties of Man and Woman and correlate every right to some corresponding duty to be first performed. Every other right can be shown to be a usurpation hardly worth fighting for." Gandhi's views summarize the Hindu conception of human rights. It is interesting that Sanskrit language does not even have an equivalent word for the English 'right.' Hindu thought is dominated by dharmas or obligations. Instead of the "rights talk," Hindu thought has developed the "obligations talk," because it was felt that acceptance of obligations is a precondition for the fulfillment of rights. Obligations (dharmas) are logically prior to rights. For example, the primary reason why a monarch respects the citizens' rights is because it is his raja dharma (the obligation of the king), and not because the citizens have rights against him which force him to do so. The world of obligations (dharma) is also wider than the world of rights. Hindu thought has emphasized our obligations to sub-human beings, nature and environment, though they do not have corresponding rights on us. In Hindu thought, human obligations (dharmas) are capacity oriented. The kshatriya-dharma or the duties of the warrior are different from the dharma of the Brahmana or the priest because their capacities are different. Some of the modern problems with human rights, like the economic and welfare rights, arise because they do not take into consideration the abilities or capacities of other individuals and nations.
On the Universality of Human Rights: A Hindu Perspective
Arvind Sharma, McGill University
The alleged universality of Human Rights has been questioned on the following grounds: (l) That there is nothing which is really human in a transcendental sense. For instance, when morality or rationality is urged as constitutive of a putative universal humanity, the question immediately arises: Whose morality? and Which rationality? (2) It has been urged further that even if in some sense universality in terms of biology (blood transfusion) or sociology (incest tabu) is established, it is really inconsequential. Cultural specificity is far more determinative of actual behavior. (3) The claim that all peoples should accept Human Rights as normative turns them into absolutes, thereby obscuring the distinction between a universal and an absolute.
Much attention has been devoted in Hindu thought to the consideration of the nature of the relationship between the universal and the particular, the specific and the general and the universal and the absolute. This presentation will examine what light Hindu thought might shed on these issues as they surface in Human Rights discourse.
Buddhist Perspectives on Human Rights
John M. Koller, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York
In this paper I analyze two traditional Buddhist models of an ideal society in which fundamental human rights of citizens are assured, the negative model of government presented in the Agganna Sutta of the Digha Nikaya in which the Great Elect heads a government that functions to prevent exploitation and disorder, and the positive model of government presented in the Cakkavatti Shihananda Sutta of the Digha Nikaya in which the Universal Monarch heads a government that fosters and promotes the order, peace, and basic rights that are natural to the human community. I then compare these two traditional models with the contemporary models advocated or assumed by three widely respected Buddhist practitioners and social reformers; Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand, Thich Nhat Hanh of Vietnam, and Tibet's Dalai Lama. Analysis shows that despite significant differences, all three contemporary models borrow from both traditional models, enabling them to advocate both positive roles for government in fostering human rights and negative roles in preventing violation of rights, thereby combining liberal and conservative philosophies of government. All three contemporary models are also shown to recognize three basic groups or levels of human rights, namely, the right to security in physical existence (the right to be free from starvation, disease, abuse, poverty, etc.); the right to basic social freedoms; and the most fundamental human rights, without which other human rights can never be secured, namely the right to freedom from ignorance, greed and hatred.
Human Rights in Japanese Philosophical Thought
John Allen Tucker, University of North Florida
Using Japan's philosophical history as evidence, this paper examines the question of the universality of human rights. It argues that regardless of a priori attempts at resolving the question, which are often both ahistorical and acultural, there is ample data in the history of modern and premodern Japanese political discourse supporting the notion of universality. By scrutinizing arguments from an early-Meiji (1868-1912) journal, Somo zasshi (Grass-Roots Journal), the paper reveals that several Japanese political thinkers advocated human rights as universals via analogies and philosophical notions taken from the Mencius, an ancient Chinese Confucian text which influences the political thought of all East Asia, including Japan. In emphasizing the Mencian basis of Japanese claims about human rights, this paper amplifies an interpretation that Matsumoto Sannosuke, a renowned scholar of Japanese political theory, has adumbrated. By citing Japanese sources, both historical and modern, the paper grounds its arguments culturally so as to establish that claims about human rights in Japan are not merely Western impositions on a non-Western culture. The paper finally critiques arguments, also in Somo zasshi, denying that human rights are applicable to Japan; it suggests that early-Meiji opponents of human rights appealed to understandings of the Japanese polity which had scant textual basis, and which could easily be construed as fabrications meant to enhance state authority over Japanese society.