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There were many important people throughout history that contributed to the notion and understanding of human rights.These are some of the pioneers of the concepts.

Plato
Plato believed in universal truth and virtue. This idea has continued on to become universalism, that human rights are universal, and as such are above the laws of individual states.

Aristotle
Aristotle’s view of the world included the existence of different social classes, accepting that there will always be an underclass, and even a slave class and that this is perfectly normal.

St. Thomas Aquinas
He saw that basic human needs such as self preservation require fundamental human rights.

Thomas Hobbes and Jeremy Bentham
Positive law is the idea that law and human rights come from the state. Hobbes and Bentham were positive law theorists who believed that human rights needed strong laws to protect them. One difference from previous viewpoints is that these rights can be given and taken away by the state, they are not universal. Bentham believed in utilitarianism, that there should always be the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people.

John Locke(1632-1704)
The positive law view was changed to include the idea that the state’s law stemmed from a constitution, the legal framework of the society. The constitution however, was itself based on natural law, which includes a natural right to self preservation. Therefore the power of the state was still subject to inalienable human rights. The state should protect individuals from the actions of other that would impinge on their freedoms. Citizens should be empowered to revolt if they felt that the state was abusing its power. This became the underlying idea behind the French and American revolutions and their subsequent development of new nations.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778)
Rousseau came up with the social contract theory, that stated that all individuals in a society had entered into a contract to form a civilized society in exchange for the government giving them equality.

Immanuel Kant(1724-1804)
Kant proposed that everyone should act in such a way that all would be well if everyone else acted like them. Each individual freedom should not impinge on the freedom of others.

John Stuart Mill(1806-1873)
In his book On Liberty, Mill strongly disagrees with utilitarianism, and sees it as a type of tyranny by the majority. Liberties such as freedom of expression and association should not be absolute, but that they should exist in such a way as not to deprive others of their ability to achieve their own liberties.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Marx and Engels, the fathers of communism, saw rights in an entirely different view, namely that they were unconnected to the reality of the exploitation of the working class. Unlike Mills, Marx had another definition for liberalism as something to be gained through government, rather than as a freedom from interference. Equality was more important that liberty, especially in the ownership of private property (fundamental tenet of communism). Only one fundamental right existed under their system, that of revolution.

Ronald Dworkin
Dworkin’s philosophy disagrees with Bentham’s rejection of natural rights. He sees human rights not as being absolute and universal, but as being a creation of politics that try to treat all people equally. Therefore all members of society have the same voice, which is not dependent on their social status. Utilitarianism, with its idea of ignoring the rights of minorities in the name of the greatest good for the majority threatens to destroy the entire concept of individual human rights.

John Rawls(1921-)
Rawls presents a more compassionate view of human rights, one with the greatest degree of individual liberty and equality while maintaining these rights for all. The state should distribute everything including benefits equally, unless an unequal distribution would benefit the poorer classes. He sees human rights as being constructed by reasonable people living together in a society. This is view lends itself to cultural relativism, because western industrialized principles might not be appropriate elsewhere.