ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews the concept, history and contemporary disputes about human rights. It considers arguments first favoring, and then challenging, their compatibility with Buddhism. The chapter shows that the debate is one of the frontiers of Buddhist modernism, of reflections about the role Buddhist moral thought might play in the modern world. The relationship between contemporary practices concerning human rights and Buddhist thought and practice has been extensively debated. Some scholars have argued that there is a basic affinity between Buddhism and human rights—and perhaps, more strongly, that Buddhism can provide a basis for human rights. Internationally recognized human rights provide a standard of political legitimacy. Human rights are entitlements that persons have equally simply in virtue of being human. Arguments Favoring the Compatibility of Buddhism and Human Rights Some Western philosophers think that there is an objective justification of human rights.