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I want to bring in a new writer, a philosopher named James Griffin, who has written a book called On Human Rights. Griffin takes a view that I think is similar to what I was advocating a little while ago. I referred to a number of philosophers who base human rights on the dignity or intrinsic value of human beings. Griffin is in the same tradition, but he is more specific about what it is that gives human beings their intrinsic value. He bases individual rights on what he calls "normative agency." The main idea is that there is such a thing as a distinctively human life, and it consists in being able to deliberate among options, make choices, and then carry out those choices. We value this way of life (which he calls normative agency or personhood) and establish rights in order to protect it. Here's a quote to give you a feel for what he is saying:

Human life is different from the life of other animals. We humans have a conception of ourselves and of our past and future. We reflect and assess. We form pictures of what a good life would be -- often, it is true, only on a small scale, but occasionally also on a large scale. and we try to realize these pictures. This is what we mean by a distinctively human existence -- distinctive so far as we know.... And we value our status as human beings especially highly, often more highly than even our happiness. This status centres on our being agents -- deliberating, assessing, choosing, and acting to make what we see as a good life for ourselves.

Human rights can then be seen as protective of our human standing or, as I shall put it, our personhood. And one can break down the notion of personhood into clearer components by breaking down the notion of agency. To be an agent, in the fullest sense of which we are capable, one must (first) choose one's own path through life -- that is, not be dominated or controlled by someone or something else (call it 'autonomy'). And (second) one's choice must be real; one must have at least a certain minimum education and information. And having chosen, one must then be able to act; that is, one must have at least the minimum provision of resources and capabilities that it takes (call all of this 'minimum provision'). And none of this is any good if someone then blocks one; so (third) others must also not forcibly stop one from pursuing what one sees as a worthwhile life (call this 'liberty'). Because we attach such high value to our individual personhood, we see its domain of exercise as privileged and protected. [James Griffin, On Human Rights, p. 32]

Griffin believes that we can derive a modest set of human rights from what is required to protect personhood, and we do this because of the high value we place on personhood. My interpretation of what he is saying is that we ascribe rights to people in order to protect the value of personhood. I don't think that he is saying that our rights follow logically from the fact that we are persons. I could be wrong, but that's how I read him.

I also want to use Griffin's ideas as a reply to Ann. Ann challenged me to supply a principle from which human rights could be derived. I think she and Dee are both concerned that the list of our rights can become way to long if we don't have some principle to limit it. Now Griffin is proposing that it is not just the value of being human that grounds our rights, he is suggesting something a bit more specific. It is the value of normative agency that matters here. And that gives us not only a foundation for our basic rights but a principle that limits them. For Griffin we only have a basic human right to what is necessary to preserve normative agency. That might include a right not to be tortured, for example, because torture destroys the capacity for normative agency. But it does not include anything and everything necessary for a good life.