Rights are innate, borne from our capacity for consciousness and derived from our fundamental desire to continue living. This unique state — being conscious and alive — entitles people to the right to meet their basic needs and the right to strive to reach their highest aspirations.
Among all that must be done, in a day and throughout life, it can be easy to forget this privileged condition that we embody, and share, and that we, at times, simply struggle to even understand. After all, life is chaos — a ballet of emotion and competition, trial and error, success and failure, and, for many, a steady weight of oppression, injustice and turmoil. The human comedy.
Yet, underneath it all — no matter your creed, culture, politics or standing — there is a simple truth to consider: the drive to endure and succeed pervades life. I am, therefore I persist.
I believe the desire to continue to exist and to struggle forward is sacrosanct, and that it is the genesis of democracy, to be recognized as the singularity and source from which rights emerge.
It’s understandable, given human history, to think that rights come from the actions of powerful institutions — whether written in scripture, adopted into law, or established by a court’s ruling. It’s undeniable that such power exists, but is not the story of human rights that stem from individual liberty, and grow through every bond, and permeate our collective consciousness.
In the heart of that story, rights are ours, and are not bestowed. No matter a person’s relationship with nations or economies or gods, the right to be as we choose and to become what we wish, is owned entirely by the people, and needs no sanction. This remains true no matter what those with power say, or what is done or is allowed to happen to those less powerful.
The most governments can do is protect our rights. On their best days, they do so with the rule of law and by encouraging norms. That institutions and societies protect rights at all is a relatively new practice — one that needs continual reinforcement, as well as refinement, to match our understanding of the mind and human behavior and of complex systems.
As society advances, it will be incumbent for institutions to honor their duty to the populace and to recognize people as ultimate rights holders. As agents of the people, governments in particular will have to take on the responsibility to protect life, to prolong it, to expand it, to enrich it, and to maintain the stability to enjoy it. Without such an expectation, and virtue in public conduct, systemic oppression and not popular consent will always be the primary source of power.
Rights derived from shared existence and experience also provide us with novel opportunities: to ask what we have in common as conscious beings; to thoughtfully examine what we need to live, and to succeed, together; and to identify and ultimately establish what people require to be able to carry out and to meaningfully contribute to society and democracy.
Exploring these questions in a modern society, we must remind ourselves that we truly exist among each other, despite our differences and distances. Our lives and experiences are bound together in complex relationships of many forms and scales of interconnectedness. These invisible bonds are an integral part of who we are, and it means that our existence and relative persistence relies on a shared communal experience.
So too must rights. To protect life and the universal desire to persist, rights must be conceived of as inhabiting individuals and the whole simultaneously, and they must operate in the shared space of consciousness and experience. Rights integral to human flourishing must pervade and reinforce this continuum to honor and protect the autonomy, capacity, and power of both people and communities.
To deliver on this duty to each other, and to establish a healthy and just society, requires that we recognize and understand people’s experiences, outcomes, and quality of life. Platitudes will not suffice. We must actively assess people’s tangible circumstances to know if society is delivering on its promise to uphold and honor their existence.
This duty demands that our conception of democracy expand far beyond the processes of self governance and the mechanisms that check and balance power. We need to recognize that at the core of democracy is the collective responsibility to sustain life, and that society and culture are composed of all the work and toil undertaken to meet our common needs and expectations.
To these ends, I contend that we must articulate a set of integral rights to be able to maintain and incrementally improve the foundational circumstances upon which life needs to flourish. These rights must be directly concerned with actual experiences and outcomes in our modern context, and not only limited to certain actions that were deemed important in centuries past.
To be effective, integral rights need to be simple enough to work on many scales, sturdy enough to maintain democracy, and ambitious enough to guide a maturing society. They also need to be: articulated well enough to be made operational; distinct enough to reconcile competing needs in a world of finite resources; and flexible enough to grow organically over time.
Most importantly, integral rights need to be universal, broad, and powerful to serve as the foundation for a modern society in which all people have agency, dignity and equality. To catalyze this effort, I put forth the following framework to develop a set of integral rights.
Definition
Integral rights are the protected set of essential principles — including the presence of opportunity and the absence of intrusions or hindrances — that enable individuals to live fulfilling lives and populations to advance democracy and maintain a fair and just society. Integral rights are held simultaneously by both the individual and the populace.
Integral Rights
Right to agency. The rights to develop capacity and to pursue just aims in a free society.
Right to Consciousness — The right to mental freedom and to realize mental capacity.
Right to Autonomy — The right to civil, economic, and cultural freedom.
Right to Truth — The right to facts, accuracy, and accountability in public discourse.
Right to Knowledge — The right to access information, pursue education, and learn skills.
Right to Association — The right to engage with economic, social, and political networks.
Right to Work — The right to contribute to production in safe settings for fair compensation.
Right to dignity. The rights to well-being and stability, free from suffering and oppression.
Right to Nutrition — The right to good food and clean water required by the body and mind.
Right to Health — The right to a healthy environment, medical care, and well-being.
Right to Comfort — The right to safety, housing, energy, and essential services.
Right to Stability — The right to stable environments, economies, and communities.
Right to equality. The rights to be treated equitably, honestly and fairly by institutions.
Right to Fairness — The right to be treated fairly and honestly, without discrimination or bias.
Right to Justice — The right to be subject only to just rules, regulations, and norms.
Right to Culture — The right to practice and preserve social observances and ways of life.
Right to Advances — The right to the benefits of cultural and scientific advancement.