Human Rights and Pluralism: Conflicting Values?

Living in a democracy, we often hear the terms human rights and pluralism, but we don’t often stop to think about what they really mean or how they’re related.

In its recent decision in the case of Konrad v. Germany, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the German government could outlaw homeschooling based on its determination that homeschooling hindered the promotion of pluralism in that country. This ruling rests on a mistaken understanding of both rights and pluralism and places these two at odds. Properly defined, pluralism and human rights are compatible goals.

In an operational sense, pluralism means that people of different races, religions, and views should live together with mutual respect and as equal citizens.

A government may promote pluralism. But if pluralism and human rights are to mean anything, they must mean that a person may not be compelled by the government to give up his or her individual views in the name of making a pluralistic society. In fact, coerced pluralism is a self-defeating objective. At the core, any theory of human rights views the decisions of individuals for their own lives to be presumptively superior to government authority. Of course, there are limits to this theory, and not all things claimed to be a human right survive logical analysis. But there’s something about the right of private judgment that’s fundamental to the idea of human rights.

One of the most important applications of this right of private judgment is the right of parents to decide how their children should be educated. Parents should have a prior right to make such decisions that’s superior to any claim of any government.

http://www.hslda.org/docs/hshb/72/hshb7207.asp