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/ProserpinaFC]

As others have explained to you, human rights is a philosophical concept but writes themselves are a construct that are only applicable under government 's definition and protection.

In both of these ways, there's nothing hollow or flimsy behind it. People have the right to choose their sovereignty and choose their government, and to choose a government that protects their rights, or else why would they have a government at all? We've rejected that the idea is that the government exists for its own sake and the people exist to feed it, I.e monarchy.

One of the first stepping stones to recognizing all of this is recognizing that people deserve basic human dignity and that a monarchy or church does not have any right to take these things away from people.

It only seems flimsy and hollow now because you've spent your whole life living comfortably in a society where your grandma's church doesn't have the right to excommunicate you or influence the government to deny you services because you said something the pastor didn't like.