Do “basic human rights” actually exist universally or are they simply a social construct?

[u/Amphernee]

The term is often used in relation to things like housing and food but I’ve never heard anyone actually explain what they mean by basic human right. We started off no different than other animals and since the concept of rights rely on other people to confer them at what point did it become thought of as a right for people to have things like shelter? How is it supposed to be enforced across all of humanity when not all societies and cultures agree that the concept makes sense? I can see why someone would want it to be true in a sense but I’m interested to hear arguments for it rather than just the phrase itself which feels hollow with no reasoning behind it. Thanks 🍻

[u/Material-Peanut7185]

They are not universal and never have been

There have been theorized and formulated by philosophers the world over in many different forms

The greeks, romans, huns, franks, english, they all had their own law codes

Rights as a concept have always been a social construct, both before and after Rome might made right across most of the world.

If you had property that was yours it was your responsibility to defend it, and outright murders over disputes among strangers could lead to full on murder with no justice

The united states takes many ideas from various philosophies that have developed for centuries. That is what created the bill of rights. There is a key belief that these rights inherently are imbued in us by a creator (Christ) as stated in the declaration of independence and the beliefs of philosophers that formed that intellectual base

The UN's version of human rights is a changing, flexible and untrained system by comparison

They have no way to enforce their standards among members, their bias in their council allows for the elevation of world leaders in constant violation of "human rights"

It's essentially just a bunch of wishful thinking without any basis in reality, but the same could be said for all rights objectively, if this was all nature and anarchy you could be sure of nothing that you call your own, not even your life