Jack Donnelly's Argument Analysis

Part of the difficulty in the concept of a ‘strong foundation’ is the necessity to compel everyone. As previously stated, for rights to be accepted, everyone must agree to it. However, it is impossible to get every single person to agree on a set of rights they deem justifiable for human needs. Donnelly explains a group of people are “defined in part by their acceptance of, or at least openness to, particular foundational arguments” (19). These groups can be divided into any section, whether “social, political, moral, and religious” (19). In consideration of these various communities, the possibility of every group accepting a set of human rights without impeding on another group’s rights is impossible. As an example, two groups of different religions will not agree on similar human rights if …show more content…
He reasons that “there is very little that is empirically universal about human communities and almost nothing that is truly logically necessary for their existence” (20). Donnelly puts forth a bold statement which is easily contestable. While the first thing to question would be the right to food and water to ensure human survival, Jack Donnelly seems to pursue this argument in regard to the question of subjectivity. In arguing that human rights are selected by a certain community, their set of human rights is subjective. For example, a child from a first world country views education as a normality, whereas a child from a developing country views it as a privilege. For both, education is perceived as a right in different ways. Donnelly points out “[r]ights are actually put to use, […] only when they are at issue, when their enjoyment is questioned, threatened, or denied” (9). Hence the child from a developing country will consider education as a human right, although the other will not perceive it as so, believing it as not necessary to their