The importance of human rights for Buddhism is evident from the attention the subject has received in recent decades. Leading Buddhists from many Asian coun- tries, such as the Dalai Lama (Tibet), Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar), A. T. Ariyaratne (Sri Lanka), Maha Ghosananda (Cambodia), and Sulak Sivaraksa (Thailand), have expressed their concerns about social and political issues on numerous occasions using the language of human rights.

Institutions have been established by Buddhists to defend and promote human rights. These include the Cambodian Institute of Human Rights, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, and the Thai National Human Rights Commission. Several Asian countries with large Buddhist populations (Thailand, Myanmar, Lao, Cambodia, and Vietnam) are also members of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) founded in 2009.

The human rights record of Buddhism itself, however, is not unblemished. Human rights abuses were recorded on both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war, and although hostilities ceased in 2009, harassment, intimidation, torture, exploitation, and vio- lence by Buddhists have continued, including attacks on Muslim and Christian minori- ties (Statement 2015).

In Myanmar, Buddhist factions have mounted pogroms against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State (Suu Kyi has defended her failure to condemn such atrocities by claiming she is now a ‘politician’ rather than a human rights campaigner).

In Japan and China, Buddhism has colluded with state institutions of repression and control (Shiotsu and Gebert 1999; Schmidt-Glintzer 2010: 123). One of the most prom- inent Buddhist campaigners for human rights, the current Dalai Lama, has himself been charged with denying religious freedom in the so-called ‘Shugden controversy’ (Mills 2003). Buddhism has also been accused of failing to protect the rights of women (Tsedroen 2010: 209; Satha-Anand 1999).

Documenting the Buddhist record on human rights, however, is not our main concern. Our focus instead will be on the concept of human rights and its relation to Buddhist doctrine and ethics.

Discussions of this kind often begin by describing a paradox, which Christopher Gowans formulates in the following terms: ‘It is widely acknowledged that human rights were not explicitly recognized or endorsed in trad- itional Buddhist texts. And yet human rights are endorsed and advocated by most (although not all) engaged Buddhists today’ (2015: 245).

Taking this paradox as our starting point, our task is to survey the intellectual bridgework that must be put in place if human rights are to be given an authentic grounding in Buddhist doctrine.

An important first step is to ask if the concept of ‘rights’ is intelligible in Buddhism, and, if so, whether appeals to human rights are consistent with Buddhist values. This will occupy us in the first part of the chapter. The second part will review possible founda- tions for human rights in Buddhist teachings.

The intellectual history of human rights is complex, and cannot be explored here in any depth (see Ishay 2008; Donnelly 2013). We may simply note that the immediate ante- cedents of today’s human rights were spoken of as ‘natural’ rights, in other words, rights that flow from human nature. From the seventeenth century onwards, philosophers and statesmen began to define these rights and enshrine them in constitutions, decla- rations, charters, and manifestos in a tradition that has continued into modern times.

The most well known modern charter of human rights is The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948.

Human rights thinking has continued to evolve since the publication of this document, and further covenants and declarations have followed.

Two in particular are important, namely the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Both were approved by the United Nations in 1966 and came into force a decade later. These three documents are often referred to collectively as the International Bill of Human Rights.

Subsequent instruments have been enacted to address specific problems such as dis- crimination (for example, on grounds of race and gender) and to uphold the rights of particular groups (such as children, migrant workers, the disabled, and indigenous peoples).

These various ‘generations’ of human rights initiatives (Montgomery 1986: 69f.) collectively secure a broad range of rights and freedoms, which while difficult to clas- sify neatly may be thought of as falling into five main areas (Glendon 2001: 174):

(1) rights of the person (e.g. life, liberty, and freedom of religion);

(2) rights before the law (e.g. equality before the law and the right to a fair trial);

(3) political rights (e.g. free- dom of assembly and the right to vote);

(4) economic and social rights (e.g. social security and employment rights); and

(5) the rights of communities and groups (e.g. protection against genocide, and the rights of children).

The Human Rights Council, a forty-seven-member body inaugurated in 2006 with its headquarters in Geneva, is charged, under the supervision of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, with reviewing the compliance of member states with their human rights obligations.

The nature, scope, and foundations of the rights just described are contested, but the main philosophical approaches may be identified briefly.

Naturalists hold that human rights are an expansion of the ‘natural rights’ referred to earlier, and are said to be enjoyed by human beings ‘as such’ or ‘simply in view of their humanity’. Naturalists iden- tify ‘objective foundations for human rights in morality and reason’ (Freeman 1994: 512).

On one version of this view, that of the premodern natural law tradition, rights are seen as rationally required for the promotion of the ‘common good’ (the flourishing of indi- viduals and their communities). Naturalist conceptions have been termed foundationalist (Rorty 2010) since, as noted, they understand human rights as the expression of an underlying and independent order of moral values, in some sense innate in human nature.

Anti-foundationalists by contrast, although supporting human rights, deny that any theoretical foundation for them exists. Instead, they seek to justify respect for human rights on a contextual basis emphasizing ‘contingency, construction, and relativity’ (Freeman 1994: 511) and attach particular importance to the role of the sentiments.

Sceptics, for their part, attack belief in human rights in various ways. Some dismiss them as mere fictions like ‘witches’ and ‘unicorns’ (MacIntyre 1981: 69), while others claim they are vacuous on the grounds there is no agency or mechanism directly responsible for their enforcement. Sceptics who are relativists deny that human rights can be univer- sal given the empirical diversity of cultures and moral values.

Perhaps understandably in the face of these conflicting opinions, agreement conceptions of human rights have become popular. Here, diversity is acknowledged and philosophical differences brack- eted in order to reach agreement on ‘a set of important overlapping moral expectations to which different cultures hold themselves and others accountable’ (Twiss 1998: 31).

We shall meet examples of some of these positions in the second part of this chapter, but for now we consider what attitude Buddhism should adopt in general towards human rights and the institutions which seek to promote them as international norms. Some coun- sel caution, and raise objections of two kinds—cultural and conceptual—to Buddhism becoming too closely associated with the human rights movement.

An initial objection concerns the alien cultural and historical origins of both rights and human rights. It cannot be denied, as Peter Junger notes, that the label of ‘human rights’ is ‘a product of the traditions of Western Europe and the parochial histories of that region’ (1998: 56).

As Sobisch and Brox observe, much scepticism towards documents such as the UDHR ‘stems from the assumption that universalism equals imperialism, in the sense that societies are forced to conform to ethnocentric ideas, disregarding or even denying cultural differences’ (Sobisch and Brox 2010: 161).

In the 1990s, the polit- ical leaders of a number of Asian states (notably Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, with strong backing from China) began to criticize the idea of human rights on grounds of its Western intellectual genealogy (Langlois 2001). According to them talk of human rights promotes individualism in contrast to ‘Asian values’ which are said to be more community-oriented (Narayan 1993). It was also claimed that human rights are a lux- ury that less developed countries cannot afford, and that economic development should remain the priority.

In some cases, it was hard not to see this ‘cultural critique’ (Amartya Sen’s term) as a smokescreen to conceal the poor human rights record of certain Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Sen has challenged the view that there is anything specif- ically ‘Asian’ about such values (1997), and the Dalai Lama has also repudiated the view that human rights ‘cannot be applied to Asia and other parts of the Third World because of differences in culture and differences in social and economic development’ (Keown et al. 1998: xviii).

As human rights evolved in the final decades of the twentieth century, cultural pluralism has been increasingly recognized and incorporated into transnational human rights thinking. Clapham notes how human rights have been claimed ‘in the contexts of anti- colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-slavery, anti-apartheid, anti-racism, and feminist and indigenous struggles everywhere’, observing that in many cases ‘the chanting on the ground’ did not ‘sing to the West’s tune’ (2007: 19).

Sobisch and Brox point out that ‘the globalization of a discourse on human rights does not simply equal Westernization’ because ‘traveling ideas like human rights are not unequivocally constructed, translated and manifested: there is always room for interpretation’ (2010: 161).

Simon Caney (2001) offers Theravāda Buddhism as an example of how non-Western ethical traditions can embrace human rights, while Harding comments with respect to Thailand, ‘I see no rea- son to deny the validity of attempts by the state to explain human rights in Buddhist terms’ (2007: 20).

As Schmidt-Leukel points out, however, there remains the question of the appropriate balance between ‘Asian values’ and ‘Western Liberalism’ (2010: 59). Too much emphasis on collectivism can stunt the development of individuality, whereas a one-sided stress on individual rights may fail to nurture a sense of community and social responsibility. Clearly, a ‘middle way’ is desirable.

In modern times the vocabulary of rights has become the lingua franca of political and ethical discourse. In contrast to the ubiquitous references to rights in today’s globalized world, however, there appears to be no term in any canonical Buddhist language that conveys the idea of a right understood as a subjective entitlement. Masao Abe writes ‘the exact equivalent of the phrase “human rights” in the Western sense cannot be found anywhere in Buddhist literature’ (quoted in Trauer 1995: 9 n. 11).

The absence of a specific reference to rights need not mean, however, that Buddhism opposes the idea. Sometimes the same conceptual ground can be covered semantically in different ways, for example by using a locution like ‘ought’ or ‘due’ to express what is owed between par- ties.

Alan Gewirth has argued that ‘persons might have and use the concept of a right without explicitly having a single word for it’ (quoted in Dagger 1989: 286). Andrew Clapham suggests that ‘Religious texts like the Bible and the Koran can be read as cre- ating not only duties but rights’, and believes that concerns with regard to ‘self-fulfil- ment, respect for others, and the quest to contribute to others’ well-being are evident in Confucian, Hindu and Buddhist traditions’ (2007: 5).

It seems clear, at least, that Buddhism acknowledges the existence of reciprocal duties. With respect to social justice the Rev. Vajiragnana comments:

Each one of us has a role to play in sustaining and promoting social justice and order- liness. The Buddha explained very clearly these roles as reciprocal duties existing between parents and children; teachers and pupils; husband and wife; friends, rela- tives and neighbors; employer and employee; clergy and laity No one has been left out. The duties explained here are reciprocal and are considered as sacred duties, for—if observed—they can create a just, peaceful and harmonious society. (1992)

The author apparently has in mind here the Sigalovāda Sutta (DN 31) in which the Buddha describes a set of six reciprocal duties. It does not seem unreasonable when ana- lysing these relationships from the beneficiary’s perspective to employ the vocabulary of rights. Thus parents have duties to their children, and children have a right to support, nurture, education, and protection from their parents. On this basis the distinction between rights and duties amounts to little more than a heuristic shift of perspective.

As Hesanmi notes, ‘Rather than erecting a false dichotomy between “rights” and “duty” what seems more reasonable is to affirm their correlativeness and mutual entailment’ (2008: 504). Paul Lauren recalls Gandhi’s observation that ‘The true source of rights is duty’, adding that ‘ideas about human duties, or what one is due to do, led quite naturally to ideas about human rights, or what is due to one’ (2011: 11). On this basis it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that despite the limitations of the classical Buddhist lexi- con rights can be accommodated in Buddhist teachings.

Not everyone, however, agrees with this conclusion. Craig Ihara gives the example of a ballet performance, and concludes it would be ‘bizarre’ to describe a poor or faulty per- formance by any of the dancers as a violation of another dancer’s rights. This is because the individuals are ‘participants in a larger project, and what they ought to do is not a function of, nor properly analyzed into, what is owed to others’ (1998: 45).

The same, he suggests, may apply in Buddhism: thus ‘I maintain that the notion of Dharma may be a part of a vision of society in which human life is ideally a kind of dance with well- defined role-responsibilities’ (1998: 47). This means that ‘If Dharma is the same kind of cooperative enterprise then it is impossible for rights to be introduced without changing Buddhist ethics in a very fundamental way’ (1998: 49).

Ihara does not specify what model of a Dharmic society he has in mind, and the vision of human life as a dance sounds utopian. The best model we have of a Dharmic soci- ety would seem to be the saṅgha, so perhaps we can take the saṅgha as an example to illustrate how collaborative performances can coexist along with rights and duties in the same ‘cooperative enterprise’. If a member of the saṅgha (say, monk A) refuses to wear the regulation robes, it would be indeed be unusual for monk B to claim that his rights had been infringed.

However, this does not mean monk A does not have a duty to wear the right robes: it means only that his duty is not specifically to monk B. His duty is to the saṅgha, and it is perfectly reasonable to analyse monk A’s obligation as a duty ‘owed to others’. A breach of this duty is an injustice to the saṅgha. The saṅgha, in turn, has a right to expect monk A to dress in accordance with Vinaya regulations, since this is a condition of ordination. The saṅgha has the further right to impose disciplinary sanctions for ecclesiastical offences and even expel monks from the order, actions that cannot easily be characterized as ‘cooperative activities’ (Ihara 1998: 49).

The Vinaya, in fact, devotes considerable time to defining rules of ‘due process’ for the settlement of disputes (adhikaraṇa-samatha) so as to protect the rights of all parties involved. We may note further that reciprocal duties exist between individual monks, for example between novices and preceptors.

As Thānissaro notes, ‘The Mahāvagga (I.25.6; 32.1) states that a pupil should regard his mentor as a father; and the mentor, the pupil as his son. It then goes on to delineate this relationship as a set of reciprocal duties’ (2013 vol. 1: 36). Thus while members of the saṅgha certainly have performative group roles (like communal chanting of the Pāṭimokkha), they have in addition both:

(1) general duties to the saṅgha (which correlate with rights possessed by the saṅgha); and

(2) specific duties to individual colleagues (who possess corresponding correlative rights).

It would seem, then, that the vocabulary of rights can be intelligibly employed in the paradigm case of a Buddhist ‘cooperative enterprise’ (the saṅgha) without ‘changing Buddhist ethics’ in any fundamental way.

The philosophical and jurisprudential dimensions of rights are complex (see, for example, Hohfeld 1964), and no pretence is made to have offered a comprehensive ana- lysis here. The objective has been more limited, namely to show that a conceptual space for rights can plausibly be located in Buddhist teachings. This is necessary in order to avoid premature foreclosure of the discussion on the grounds that Buddhism cannot meaningfully participate in contemporary human rights discourse other, perhaps, than in some derivative way by regarding rights as a ‘skilful means’. Even if a conceptual foun- dation exists, however, it does not follow that the adoption and promotion of the con- cept of rights is innately desirable. Indeed, in the view of some commentators, the very idea of rights is in conflict both with Buddhism’s metaphysics and its soteriology.

The concern here arises in relation to the doctrine of ‘no-self ’ (anātman). If there is ultimately no self, the argument goes, then who or what is the bearer of the rights in question?

Christopher Kelley describes this as ‘the paradox of the inherent dignity of empty persons’ (2015: 3). Human rights naturalists, as we saw earlier, seek to ground human dignity in some notion of an a priori human nature, but Kelley suggests such notions presuppose belief in inherent existence and hence are ‘essentially incompatible with the most fundamental idea in Buddhism—the theory of no-self ’ (2015: 13).

Sallie King suggests that to invoke the teaching of no-self in this connection is a ‘red herring’ (2005: 128), pointing out quite correctly that Buddhist ethics functions perfectly well in many contexts without assuming the existence of a permanent self. The doctrine of no-self (anātman) only denies the existence of a transcendental self (ātman), not of a phenomenal, empirical self. It does not deny the existence of human individuals with unique self-shaped identities, and if such identities provide an ontological foundation stable enough for the attribution of duties, as the Buddha clearly believed, presumably they also do for rights.

As Lauren Leve points out in the context of Buddhism in Nepal, the doctrine of no- self does not seem to inhibit Buddhists who claim the protection of human rights. She notes ‘when Buddhists insist that national Hinduism violates their human rights to reli- gious equality, they represent themselves as particular types of persons and political subjects’ (2007: 98). She mentions the example of a senior Theravāda meditation teacher, noting that ‘neither he nor his many students seemed to have any problem combin- ing an anti-essentialist understanding of the self with the call for secular human rights and its implied identity’ (2007: 105).

Buddhist nationalists in countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Tibet, furthermore, rely on an ethnicized Buddhist religious identity as the basis of their political demands. It would thus appear that many Buddhists do not see the no-self doctrine as incompatible with ontologies of agency and identity. We will return to this topic in the second part of the chapter when we consider specific anti- foundationalist proposals.

The soteriological objection claims that the individualism implicit in rights is detri- mental to both spiritual progress and social stability because it strengthens the ego and encourages selfish attitudes. Payutto observes that Western notions of rights involve ‘competition, mistrust and fear’. Human rights, he notes, ‘must be obtained through demand’ (quoted in Seeger 2010: 82f.).

Saneh Chamarik, echoing Payutto’s concerns, states ‘what really obstructs the attainment of freedom is not so much the social and conventional “chains” or restrictions, as one’s own ego and the three poisons: lust, hat- red, and delusion’ (quoted in Seeger 2010: 91).

In response, it might be pointed out that injustice, repression, and discrimination also give rise to negative states of mind, and that by enabling recourse to justice, human rights provide a way of dispelling these men- tal defilements and removing the conditions that give rise to them.

Some critics suggest that the threat to society posed by the clamour for individual rights must be opposed through strong social control. The Thai Buddhist reformer Bhikkhu Buddhadāsa expressed the view that the individual must be firmly subordi- nated to the state and called for ‘A Dictatorial Dhammic Socialism’ in an article of the same title (1989).

As Schmidt-Leukel notes, it is hard not to see the influence of Asian communism (perhaps linked to the notion of the authoritarian Dhammarāja) in the background to views of this kind (2010: 61). Fears that rights inevitably lead to social instability seem exaggerated, although it must be admitted that demands for increased rights may provoke an adversarial reaction from vested interests. Specific fears also attach to the ownership of property, a right enshrined in Article 17 of the UDHR. Some see this as authorizing consumerism and the selfish accumulation of wealth.

Against this, there is nothing in Buddhist teachings to prohibit the ownership of property (the precept against stealing seems to presuppose it), and the saṅgha has traditionally depended on the generosity of lay patrons for its existence.

Views expressed by the Dalai Lama form a striking contrast to those of Buddhadāsa. He has stated: ‘It is natural and just for nations, peoples, and individuals to demand respect for their rights and free- doms and to struggle to end repression, racism, economic exploitation, military occupa- tion, and various forms of colonialism and alien domination’ (quoted in King 2005: 156).

While it is true that rights are sometimes claimed for selfish reasons, they can also protect common interests. The right to freedom of association (UDHR Article 20.i), for example, is hardly individualistic, and as King points out, when the Dalai Lama calls for respect for human rights, such as freedom of religion, he often does so in the name of the people of Tibet (2005: 136). Collective rights are also claimed by communities themselves. In 2005, villagers in Myanmar relied on human rights conventions against enforced slavery to win a settlement against the Unocal company. The settlement was used in part to develop programmes to improve living conditions and provide health care and education for the affected communities (Clapham 2007: 27f.; cf. Goodale and Merry 2007). Later generations of human rights, such as those proclaimed in The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, are by nature difficult to classify as ‘individualistic’.

Contrasting with the critiques considered so far are more affirmative approaches of the kind to be considered in the rest of this chapter. The more ambitious of these claim that human rights doctrines are completely foreshadowed in Buddhist teachings, while others emphasize particular doctrines as possible bridgeheads between the Dharma and human rights.

The various human rights declarations rarely offer a detailed justification for the rights they proclaim. This leaves scope, as Sumner Twiss has observed, for a range of theoret- ical underpinnings (1998). Charles Taylor (1999) has spoken of an ‘unforced consen- sus’ on human rights, suggesting there are different paths to human rights norms, and others have made reference to ‘structural equivalents’ or ‘multiple foundations’ which allow consensus to be reached in the face of pluralist cultural and philosophical per- spectives (Donnelly 2013).

Drawing on the Thai experience, Andrew Harding endorses this approach, observing that in a ‘postmodern, multi-culturalist world of international human rights’, ‘we do better to try to agree on the content of human rights rather than on the justification for their observance’ (2007: 21: original emphasis). The UDHR was an agreement of this kind, and sought to express common aspirations through the medium of Enlightenment values without at the same time professing theological or philosoph- ical unanimity.

As Jacques Maritain famously reported, it was an agreement about rights ‘on condition that no-one asks us why’ (quoted in Beitz 2009: 21: original emphasis). In this sense declarations like the UDHR, given their wide and ambitious scope, can be seen as political manifestos or gestures of social responsibility on the part of world governments. The ‘manifesto rights’ (Feinberg 1973: 67) they proclaim, accordingly, express desiderata but do not create legal entitlements. Understood in this way, the objections mentioned previously to Buddhism endorsing ‘rights’ lose much of their force: the question becomes simply whether Buddhism can in good conscience sign up to the terms of the proposed manifesto.

The main attraction of agreement conceptions is that they acknowledge moral diversity and avoid the charge of paternalism. The main drawback is that they give up any claim to ground human rights in universal moral values (Beitz 2009: ch. 4; Schaefer 2005: 48–50). A problem here is that a consensus that circumvents deep philosophical differences may be superficial, and any agreement that can command universal assent is likely to be ‘minimalist’ and ‘thin’ (Ignatieff 2003: 56).

As James Nickel notes, it is doubtful whether ‘there is sufficient agreement worldwide to support anything like the full range of rights declared in contemporary manifestos’ (quoted in Freeman 1994: 493).

Some Buddhists, moreover, may find it difficult to participate in a consensus that sim- ply specifies rights as axioms (as opposed to conclusions from moral premises) without compromising traditional beliefs. They may point out, for example, that when the myth- ical universal ruler (Cakkavatti) spreads the Dharma to the four quarters of the globe he does so not by first negotiating with local rulers as to which aspects of the Dharma are acceptable and compromising on those that are not. Rather, the local rulers accept the Dharma in its entirety because they recognize its validity as a universal norm (DN. iii.62).

A consensus reached by compromising on basic principles may be difficult to reconcile with the traditional view that the values embodied in Dharma are universal and eternal in an objective sense.

One commentator finds the UDHR, at least, in harmony with early Buddhist teachings both in letter and in spirit. L. N. Perera, a Sri Lankan scholar, has helpfully provided a commentary on each of the thirty articles of the UDHR, aiming to demonstrate as much (on the human rights said to be derivable from Japanese Buddhist teachings, see Peek 1995). In his Foreword to the commentary Ananda Gurugé writes:

Professor Perera demonstrates that every single Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—even the labour rights to fair wages, leisure and welfare—has been adumbrated, cogently upheld and meaningfully incorporated in an overall view of life and society by the Buddha. (Perera 1991: xi)

Perera makes three suggestions as to possible foundations for human rights. The first is the ‘fundamental consideration that all life has a desire to safeguard itself and to make itself comfortable and happy’ (1991: 29).

Basing rights on supposedly universal facts about human nature, however, raises difficult questions of philosophical anthropology, and the empirical evidence often yields inconvenient counterexamples (such as self- destructive individuals who seem to care little about their fate). The goal of being ‘com- fortable and happy’ is also too vague to serve as a moral criterion: human traffickers may aspire to be ‘comfortable and happy’ by systematically abusing human rights. Finally, desire seems a questionable foundation for rights given its generally negative portrayal in Buddhist teachings.

Perera’s second suggestion makes a connection to human dignity. He writes: ‘Buddhism posits, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau did much later, that the essence of human dignity lies in the assumption of man’s responsibility for his own governance’ (1991: 28). Again, it is unlikely that Buddhism would wish to link human dignity quite so closely to politics.

While political institutions may well be created through the exercise of distinctively human capacities, it is unlikely that Buddhism would locate ‘the essence of human dignity’ in their creation. According to the Aggañña Sutta (DN 27), the evolu- tion of political societies is the consequence of depravity and decline, which makes them a dubious testament to human dignity.

As his final suggestion, in his commentary on Article 1.52 of the UDHR (‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’), Perera identifies a more promising foundation for human rights. In discussing the first sentence of the article he comments that ‘Buddhahood itself is within the reach of all human beings . . . and if all could attain Buddhahood what greater equality in dignity and rights can there be?’ He expands on this in a remark towards the end of his commentary on Article 1:

It is from the point of view of its goal that Buddhism evaluates all action. Hence Buddhist thought is in accord with this and other Articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the extent to which they facilitate the advancement of human beings toward the Buddhist goal. (1991: 24)

The connection made here between Buddhahood, human dignity, and human rights, is also affirmed by others, as we shall now see.

Several commentators, including the present author (Keown 1998b), have suggested that the Buddhist precepts, especially those which prohibit causing harm to others, provide a connection to human rights on the basis of the reciprocal understanding of rights and duties discussed previously. Thus when the precepts are broken, someone’s rights are infringed. Somparn Promta (1994) has argued that the Five Precepts protect human rights, and as such the First Precept can be seen as an expression of the right to life (or more specifically the right not to be killed).

In the same way Micheline Ishay notes, ‘With the exception of adultery, the gist of these injunctions is reflected in the very first clauses of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which praise the spirit of brotherhood and the right to life, liberty, and the security of one’s person’ (2008: 30). Sallie King reports that senior Cambodian monks have expressed the view that human rights are ‘the same as sel pram [the Five Lay Precepts]’ (King, 2005: 139). King herself has observed how: the precepts imply that that society will be Good in which its members do not harm each other, steal from each other, lie to each other, etc. This in turn implies that a member of a Good society should have a reasonable expectation not to be harmed, stolen from, etc. Now one may or may not want to call such a thing a ‘right’, but it is certainly closing in on that ground in a practical sense, if not in the full conceptual sense. (2005: 144)

Most societies have rules protecting human life, prohibiting theft and lying, and govern- ing sexual relationships (Michael Walzer characterizes such negative duties as the ‘moral minimum’ [1994: 9f.]). It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Buddhist precepts coincide with the core concerns of human rights charters. Sevilla raises a familiar prob- lem here (also discussed by Evans 2012: 530ff.) concerning the motivation for keeping the precepts: if it is to accumulate good karma, does this not amount to egoism rather than a concern for the rights of others? If so, he asks rhetorically, ‘why must I respect another’s rights for his or her sake?’ (2010: 223).

His answer is that the rights of others must be respected because compassion requires it, but this answer only pushes the prob- lem back, for a person may also have egotistical motives for performing compassionate acts. An alternative response is to point out that in respecting the precepts one promotes the good of both self and others and thus acts for the benefit of society at large, which seems to coincide more closely with the goal of human rights.

In fact, Sevilla provides an answer of a similar kind when he writes,‘we must participate in the realization of the Buddha-nature possessed not only by ourselves but shared with others, by upholding the rights of others’ (2010: 249). On this basis the justification for keeping the precepts is deontological, and grounded in respect for the common good (for parallels between Buddhism and Kant on human rights see Likhitpreechakul 2013).

Kenneth Inada has proposed a specific foundation for human rights in Buddhist meta- physics. In a discussion entitled ‘The Buddhist Perspective on Human Rights’, Inada sug- gests ‘there is an intimate and vital relationship of the Buddhist norm or Dhamma with that of human rights’ (1982). He explains: ‘The reason for assigning human nature the basic position is very simple. It is to give human relations a firm grounding in the truly existential nature of things: that is, the concrete and dynamic relational nature of per- sons in contact with each other’ (1982: 70).

Here Inada seems to suggest it is specifically in the interrelatedness of persons that the justification for human rights is to be found. This is confirmed when he observes, ‘Consequently, the Buddhist concern is focused on the experiential process of each individual, a process technically known as relational origination (paṭicca-samuppāda).’ ‘It is on this basis’, he adds, ‘that we can speak of the rights of individuals’ (1982: 70f.).

The assumption is often made that interdependency provides a ground for moral respect on the basis that once we understand the nature of our deep dependence on others, moral feelings will spontaneously arise. Demonstrations of this in Buddhist lit- erature often seem persuasive because they cite examples of parents, relatives, friends, teachers, and loved ones who have shown kindness to us. But does the affection and respect we feel for such people arise solely because we share a metaphysical relationship with them? Perhaps not, since people do not feel the same way about every aspect of what Inada calls the ‘mutually constituted existential realm’ we inhabit. Children who are trafficked have an interdependent relationship with their traffickers, but the well- being of children in such situations depends on severing the interdependent relationship in question.

Sevilla is therefore right to point out that interrelationship is important ‘not on the level of ontology but on the level of soteriology. We are interrelated not merely in what we are, but in our struggle to become what we ought to be’ (2010: 227; cf. Shiotsu 2001: 149–152). The bare fact of interdependency, therefore, is an unpromising basis for human rights. It seems a moral foundation is needed rather than a metaphysical one.

Perhaps compassion can meet this requirement. The Buddhist virtue of compassion (karuṇā) encourages us to develop the human capacity for empathy to the point where we can identify fully with the suffering of others. Some texts, for example the eighth chapter of the Bodhicāryāvatāra, speak of ‘exchanging self and other’ and recommend a meditational practice in which we imaginatively place ourselves in the other’s position.

In the West, the view known as ‘sentimentalism’ has long emphasized the role of the emotions in moral judgments. From this perspective, the attribution of human rights is ‘an expression of a deep human ability to recognize the other as like oneself; to experi- ence empathy for the other’s needs and sufferings; to consent to, support, and rejoice in the fulfillment of the other’s human capacities and well-being’ (Cahill 1999: 45).

Maria Vanden Eynde (2004) has drawn on Martha Nussbaum’s work to suggest that Buddhist compassion can resolve the polarization between ethical theories of care and justice, while Jay Garfield (1998) believes compassion can provide a moral grounding for the Dalai Lama’s views on human rights (for an evaluation of Garfield’s essay see Rice 2005).

Garfield finds the influential liberal philosophy of rights unsatisfactory, and drawing on Hume’s ethical theory and the work of contemporary neo-sentimentalists, proposes a form of virtue or character ethics in which ‘the moral life is grounded in the cultivation and exercise of compassion’ (1998: 111).

On this understanding, compassion provides the moral bedrock on top of which ‘an edifice of rights’ is constructed ‘as a device for extending the reach of natural compassion and for securing the goods that compassion enables to all persons in a society’ (124).

Rights thus become the ‘tools with which each individual can protect him/herself and achieve his/her own flourishing’. ‘These tools’, Garfield adds, ‘will be available even when our compassion or those [sic] of others fails, and can even be used as rhetorical vehicles to reawaken that compassion’ (124).

Garfield takes aim specifically at the liberal conception of human rights that separates the public and private spheres, but there are alternative conceptions of rights where this separation does not occur. The natural law tradition provides an example (e.g. Finnis 2011; Oderberg 2013).

On this understanding there is no need for the two-tier solution Garfield proposes (an edifice of rights resting on a foundation of compassion) since the moral virtues (of which compassion is one) are integral to the generic human goods that rights protect.

A more practical problem with making compassion the foundation for rights is that feelings are rarely impartial and can often change. While buddhas and great bodhisattvas may feel equal compassion at all times for all sentient beings, most ordinary mortals do not and never will.

Garfield believes that human rights will be avail- able even in the event of ‘compassion fatigue’ because the legal superstructure of rights will remain in place (1998: 126), but any weakening of the motivating foundation would surely reduce commitment to the rights founded upon it.

The human rights abuses that occurred in the civil war in Sri Lanka suggest that the limits of Buddhist compassion are soon tested. Perhaps compassion can periodically be ‘reawakened’, but it seems to go against the grain of human rights thinking to suggest that individual A should have to awaken compassion in B in order to secure her human rights. And if compassion cannot be reawakened, human rights will simply evaporate, along with the unconditional protection they are supposed to provide. On this understanding human rights clearly cannot be inalienable, as the UDHR proclaims in its Preamble and the Dalai Lama also appears to believe.

While he offers no classification of his position, Garfield’s account is anti-foundationalist with respect to rights. This can be seen from his comment that ‘in no case is it either necessary or helpful to take the rights to which appeal is made as con- stituting moral bedrock’ (1998: 126).

Instead, it is compassion that is regarded as ‘foun- dational’ and ‘fundamental’. Perhaps, however, the relation of these elements needs to be reordered. If compassion supplies the motivation to construct an edifice of rights, and if rights function to secure the goods that constitute human flourishing, it would seem to be human flourishing that ultimately grounds them both.

Rather than seeing rights as flowing from compassion, accordingly, it may be more accurate to see compas- sion as the affective response of a virtuous person to the perception that the condition of beings falls short of what their dignity requires. Thus compassion may be thought of as having a cognitive structure incorporating eudaimonistic evaluations (Nussbaum 2001).

On this understanding, in the specific context of human rights, compassion is the appropriate Buddhist response to injustice when society fails to give each his due as Dharma requires. (Compassion may, of course, arise in response to suffering of any kind, but human rights are centrally concerned with issues of social justice.) Rights are then the juridical measures that reason (prajñā) determines are necessary to redress and prospectively forestall such injustice. If Garfield’s argument is reconstructed along these lines, rights cease to be foundationless and enjoy a naturalist foundation in the capacity to attain the state of peak human flourishing known as ‘supreme and perfect awakening’, a state in which reason and compassion play mutually supportive roles.

An approach in some ways related to the previous one has been developed by Christopher Kelley in what appears to be the only full-length treatment of human rights from a Buddhist perspective, and one we cannot do full justice to here.

In essence, Kelley seeks to reconcile the Dalai Lama’s ethics, specifically his often-voiced support for the Enlightenment concepts of inherent dignity and inalienable rights, with Madhyamaka metaphysics. The Dalai Lama has frequently spoken of a common human nature as the foundation for his humanitarian ethics, and refers to ‘fundamental principles that bind us all as members of the same human family’ (Keown et al. 1998: xix).

As Kelley notes, he ‘clearly supports a moral universalism based on our “shared humanity” ’ (2015: 91). This implies foundationalism, which Kelley believes is in conflict with the anti-essentialist metaphysics of the Dalai Lama’s Madhyamaka philosophy.

Kelley’s objective is to resolve the paradox and reach an ‘unforced consensus’ between these two positions by draw- ing on the notion of the ‘two truths’. ‘I contend’, he writes, ‘that this account of the two truths is how we can make sense of the paradox of the inherent dignity of empty per- sons’ (2015: 30).

Kelley believes this strategy allows him to interpret the Dalai Lama’s position on human rights in a manner ‘consistent with the postmodern rejection of innate human rights and dignity espoused by contemporary “anti-foundationalist” thinkers like Richard Rorty’ (2015: 2).

On this anti-foundationalist interpretation, feel- ings of sympathy are thought to lead to an emotional identification or ‘mirroring’ which gives rise to moral concern, manifesting itself as respect for other individuals and their rights. ‘Such empathetic feelings’, says Kelley, ‘invariably lead one to behave in a [way] that is congruent with the moral principles associated with the various human rights’ (2015: 141).

Thus while rights are devoid of intrinsic nature they can, Kelley suggests, be said to have ‘meaning and significance’ in terms of a ‘particular veridical framework’ (2015: 30) or ‘symbolic system’ (2015: 36) such as that of the UNDR. The metaphysics of Dialectical Centricism (Madhymaka) are thereby seen as supporting a form of moral particularism, where in any given case ‘The morally right response would have to be relative to the individual agent’s unique set of circumstances’ (2015: 164).

As with our earlier discussion of the compatibility of rights with the doctrine of no-self, some may wonder whether ‘the inherent dignity of empty persons’ involves a genu- ine paradox. It seems a paradox would only arise if ‘inherent dignity’ is understood in the sense of ‘inherently existing dignity’, in other words a dignity that in Madhyamaka terms possesses ‘own-being’ (svabhāva) and exists ‘from its own side’.

Foundationalists, however, do not (and certainly need not) claim this. They assert only that inherent dig- nity (and inalienable rights) exists in the way other entities in the world exist, in other words as enjoying what Kelley describes as ‘conventional intrinsic existence’ (2015: 33).

On this basis, the Dalai Lama’s moral universalism seems compatible with human rights foundationalism, which, it might be thought, provides the most intuitive interpretation of his views. It can, of course, reasonably be argued, as Kelley does, that anti-founda- tionalism provides a better philosophical (and psychological) account of human rights overall, and Kelley’s arguments to this effect are sophisticated and worthy of study. Here it may simply be noted that providing a foundationless justification for human rights is far from unproblematic.

As Freeman points out, ‘if no beliefs are securely founded, anti-foundationalist beliefs themselves are not securely founded’ (1994: 496), and in practical terms ‘rights without reasons are vulnerable to denial and abuse’ (1994: 493). It has also been argued that anti-foundationalism, as advocated by writers like Rorty and Ignatieff, itself appeals to moral foundations in a covert manner (Schaefer 2005), as well as presupposing a meta-theory along the lines of ‘we should always act according to our own convictions’ (Freeman 1994: 501).

Finally, it is not clear how anti-foundational- ism is to be reconciled with belief in karma.

According to orthodox Buddhist teachings, abuses of human rights like torture and killing will inevitably attract negative karmic consequences. This is because karma, as the law of moral causation (kamma-niyāma), is thought to have an ontological foundation in natural law (dhammatā), being likened to physical laws governing heat (utu-niyāma) and biological growth (bīja-niyāma) (DN-a II.431).

The existence of an objective moral law of this kind, however, seems incompat- ible with anti-foundationalist claims that moral truth is established solely on the basis of local veridical frameworks.

An overtly foundationalist suggestion is that Buddha-nature can provide the required basis for human rights. Anton Sevilla has suggested ‘the fact that all beings have a com- mon essence of Buddha-nature brings an inescapable sense of solidarity to the ethical task of Mahāyāna Buddhism’. ‘The ethical demand to realize Buddha-nature’, further- more, ‘is something we do with and for the community of sentient beings as a whole’ (2010: 227). The manifestation of Buddha-nature is not a once-and-for-all event so much as a dynamic unfolding through continuous practice.

Dōgen calls this the doctrine of ‘The Oneness of Practice and Attainment’ (shushō-ittō). Sevilla notes that ‘practice is the very condition that manifests and expresses our Buddha-nature and our fundamental human goodness’ (2010: 234), and sums up the relevance of Dōgen’s insights for ethics and human rights as follows:

The traditional idea of Buddha-nature and its realization shows that this ethical path is one of solidarity and compassion with all sentient beings, where we see our struggle in saṃsāra as shared and our liberation through Buddha-nature as lib- eration for all. It was upon this idea that we grounded the need for rights and the importance of rights for both one’s own emancipation and that of others. (2010: 248)

The rights that issue from this understanding are said to have two characteristics. First, they will be ‘grounded in a genuine sense of solidarity with human beings on the deepest ground of our shared struggle’; and second, they will be based ‘not on a presumed human nature on which other people may or may not agree but rather on a historical response to the actual suffering of people and in solidarity with their struggle’ (2010: 248). Sevilla is perhaps wise to avoid basing human rights on a specific conception of human nature given the variety of inconsistent views about how it is to be defined.

A better candidate is human good, a possibility adumbrated in the reference to suffering and struggle. What such struggle involves is overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way of well-being, and since there is general agreement on what the obstacles are (tyranny, injustice, dis- crimination, and other abuses catalogued in human rights charters) it should be easier to reach agreement on the core values that structure well-being.

Toru Shiotsu suggests that ‘From the doctrine of Buddha-nature we can derive much related to the concept of human dignity’ (2001: 146). One ground of human dignity is the capacity for rational choice, not in the sense of bare autonomy (as liberal theories of rights assume), but as the choice of those goods that are truly constitutive of human well-being. Human dignity (a dignity already manifest in its most radical form through the achievement of a human rebirth) arises from the innate capacity to participate in these goods. Examples would include life and health (protected by Articles 3 and 25.1), knowledge and education (pro- tected by Article 26), friendship and sociability (protected by Articles 3, 13, and 20), and religious belief (protected by Article 18).

Dōgen’s conception of human good, as Sevilla explains it, has much in common with Aristotelian conceptions of human flourishing as the progressive unfolding of poten- tial through the cultivation of virtues (cf. Nussbaum 1997), as well as Western natural law thinking about rights as a requirement of justice which facilitate and promote the common good.

Thus ‘realizing one’s Buddha-nature requires that we possess the rights and liberties necessary for us to pursue spiritually meaningful lives’ (2010: 249). Human rights are thus the legal means by which moral theory is translated into normative prac- tice.

As Sevilla comments, ‘Rights can be seen as institutional means for upholding certain general forms of right conduct’ (2010: 222), and ‘the ethical demand to realize Buddha-nature is something we do with and for the community of sentient beings as a whole’ (2010: 227).

In contrast to anti-foundationalism, such rights are seen as innate entitlements having an ontological foundation in the radical capacity of all beings to attain Buddhahood.

Buddha-nature has many attractions as a foundation for human rights. It grounds rights in human good; it explains why rights are inalienable and universal; it provides a Buddhist equivalent for ‘human dignity’; and it can also encompass non-human forms of life (since dignity is a rank of being rather than an absolute state, different forms of life will have rights appropriate to their natures). As a formal doctrine, however, it is sectarian, and is understood differently among Mahāyāna schools. Some, like the Madhyamaka, may even wish to challenge its essentialist presuppositions.

The concept of ‘Buddha-nature’ is also unknown in early Buddhism, although having antecedents in the belief that all beings have the capacity to attain awakening, as noted by Perera.

The modern idea of human rights has a distinctive cultural origin, but its underlying preoccupation with human good is one Buddhism shares. Human rights can be seen as an explication of what is ‘due’ under Dharma and hence an authentic expression of Buddhist teachings. Each of the proposals discussed in the first part of this chapter finds a resonance between human rights and specific aspects of those teachings. In this sense perhaps we should speak of multiple foundations for human rights.

Yet focusing on individual teachings may be unnecessarily exclusive: approaches that emphasize compassion, for example, have little to say about wisdom. It might be thought that a successful foundation for human rights should be comprehensive, as well as rooted in the core teachings of Buddhism accepted by all schools. It would thus seem desirable for any proposed foundation to meet the criteria formulated by Evans, namely:

(1) simplicity: ordinary Buddhists must be able to understand the argument;

(2) universality: it must be based on principles that all Buddhists accept;

(3) authority or dignity: the theory must articulate the moral inviolability, or its equivalent, of the human person; and

(4) it must integrate Buddhist ‘resignation’ (acceptance of the reality of suffering) with human rights advocacy (1998: 141).

Perhaps the most basic Buddhist doctrinal foundation of all—the Four Noble Truths—can meet these requirements. All Buddhist schools affirm the account of human nature and its fulfilment set out in the Four Noble Truths, and all of the approaches considered have their foundation in some aspect or other of this teaching. The precepts form part of the fourth Noble Truth (under the category of śīla or ‘morality’), and the doctrine of dependent origination, especially in its soteriological form, is associated with the second.

The innate capacity for awakening (or ‘Buddha-nature’) is affirmed in the third Noble Truth. Universal compassion arises from an unrestricted sensitivity to human suffering, described in the first Noble Truth, and is the virtue that motivated the Buddha to teach the four truths (SN VI.1). An interpretation along these lines seems to meet the conditions Evans describes regarding simplicity, universality, authority, and authenticity. On this basis, the rights proclaimed by the UDHR and similar documents can be understood as facilitating the liberation from suffering and the achievement of self-realization proclaimed in the Four Noble Truths.

Incorporating human rights more formally within Buddhism, however, will require some doctrinal expansion and reconfiguration. Buddhism has not provided much in the way of theoretical accounts of the relationship between the individual and society. Early Buddhism teaches a path to liberation though self-development, and offers the saṅgha as the community in which this task can be carried out.

Mahāyāna Buddhism believes that bodhisattvas will take upon themselves the responsibility for universal liberation. Little is said in the classical sources, at least, about the responsibilities of the broader political community and the social structures required to facilitate the common good, a subject with which human rights are centrally concerned. Buddhism now faces the challenge of discovering ‘resources for fresh elaboration’ (Cohen 2004: 213) so that its political and social teachings can evolve in response to new circumstances while remaining faithful to doctrinal foundations.

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Suggested Reading
Gowans, C. W. (2015) Buddhist moral philosophy: an introduction. New York: Taylor and Francis.
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Sevilla, A. L. (2010) Founding human rights within Buddhism: exploring Buddha-nature as an ethical foundation. Journal of Buddhist ethics, 17, 212–252.