The Three Aspects of “Human Existence” from the Human Rights Perspective

LIU Zhiqiang & YAN Naixin

Abstract: At present, the West overrides the East in international human rights discourse. In order to break through the shackles, it is imperative to provide legal support for China’s human rights discourse. Taking the concept of “human existence” as the fulcrum and comparing it with nature, otherness, and community as the reference, the human being showcases triple facets: “individual person”, “person in relations”, and “person with rights”, which correspond to the three personal perspectives and progressively deduce the subjectivity of human beings, the world history of human rights, and the comprehensive and free development of human rights discourse. The concept of “individual person” is the starting point of human rights, and the harmonious, moral concept of subjectivity provides an orderly basis for the importance of the “right to subsistence and right to development”. “Person in relations”represents the externality of human rights, and the world-historical view of time and space has laid the value foundation for the unity of “universality and particularity of human rights”.“Person with rights” is the goal of human rights, and the concept of cooperation for the well-rounded and free development of human rights paves the conceptual way for the realization of people’s well-being.

Keywords: human existence · human rights · human rights discourse