The Case for Secular Sacredness

In the first chapter of The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries, Michael J. Perry argues for the conclusion that human rights are ineliminably religious. A core tenet of this argument is the belief that human beings are sacred, which is foundational for human rights. However, Perry states that sacredness can only be a religious view; there is no way to arrive at a secular sacredness. In this paper, I will reconstruct Perry’s arguments, restate his objections that a secular interlocutor, like Ronald Dworkin, may pose, and then make a case for how sacredness is better defined and more effective in a secular view.

To start his argument, Perry references several international human rights documents, most notably the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which share a common theme that human beings have inherent dignity. This trait arises simply because a human being is a human being. We, humans, have intrinsic value simply because we matter, not in relation to anything else or our instrumentality, but because of our inviolability. We achieve this inviolable quality because “there is something about each and every human being…such that” (Perry 13) what should be done to one human should be done to all humans. And conversely, what ought not to be done to one should not be done to all. This collectiveness of humanity in the human rights documents is given the term “family,” and we should all treat each as if they were our brothers. (It may need to go without saying, but I will call it out here if we are to look back at history with a charitable spirit, that brotherhood includes both men and women.) This naming of the collective human race as a family is essential when we consider Perry’s second premise of the sacred as inextricably religious. For now, suffice it to say that Perry makes the argument that the word “sacred” and the terms “inherent dignity” and “inviolable” are synonymous with each other.

Perry next wonders what gives life its meaning and responds that a fundamental way to interpret meaning is through religion. Religion is the belief that “the world is…meaningful in a way hospitable to our deepest yearnings” (Perry 14) and that we are connected to a power greater than ourselves, which he terms “Ultimate Reality” (Perry 15). In essence, religion is a set of beliefs that tie a person to a greater whole. Perry’s recap of the Latin verb “religare” to “bind together” (14) seems to be an important point; remember the reference to the family he made previously. He acknowledges that how each religious tradition arrives at life as meaningful often varies and can contradict themselves. This truth should not take away from his argument of human rights as inextricably religious.

If we can agree that each human being has inherent dignity and that we belong to one family, Perry posits that this is indubitably religious. He argues that just because humans have objective and intrinsic value doesn’t necessarily mean that humans are sacred. Instead, there must be something else. As the human rights documents point to, that something else is being part of one collective family. Perry points to his Christian faith as one way—not the only way and certainly not always the lived experience of his fellow Christians—to interpret the notion that we are part of one family. To make his argument, Perry retells the story of Jesus commanding His followers to love everyone as He loves them. Perry asks why we should love one another and points to the Christian and Judaic belief that all of us are a “child of God” (17). Belonging to one Father and being part of one family under God makes human beings sacred.

To summarize, Perry believes that human rights are a fundamental religious concept. These concepts are rooted in the belief that humans are sacred, and the idea of sacredness cannot be found in the secular world. Sacredness arises from inherent dignity and Perry contends this is true in the secular sense, yet in order to be sacred, a human being must be a part of a something bigger. The something bigger is being part of one family, which must be viewed through the eyes of a religious viewpoint because only God, the Father, can call His children part of one family. Therefore, human rights are ineliminably religious.

In quoting Ronald Dworkin, a secular thinker, Perry acknowledges the detractors of his argument. Dworkin argues that human beings are sacred without needing to invoke a religious stance. Perry summarizes Dworkin in that “every human being is ‘the highest product of natural creation’” and that each is the product of “the kind of deliberative human creative force” (26-27). Dworkin concludes that since humans represent the pinnacle of evolution and many efforts had to come together to create an individual, we don’t need God to be intrinsically and objectively valuable. Our worth is inherent. In other words, humans are the byproduct of both nature and society’s influence, making life sacred.

Perry objects to this definition of sacredness because too much is left to interpretation. It is too subjective. Believing that human beings are sacred, without the tie-in to religion, is to “reverse the ordinary order of things” (Perry 27). Perry uses the example of Bosnian Serbs not valuing a female Bosnian Muslim, saying that they don’t respect her life and rape would be permissible in this scenario. There is no sacred present when one group can dismiss another’s worth. Perry also seems to grant Dworkin’s premise that objects may inspire awe in us, but without a religious framework that lends meaning to life, the thing of awe cannot be sacred in the objective sense of the word. Perhaps in the subjective sense, Perry concedes, but again, this leaves too much to chance.

However, a secular interlocutor most likely would disagree with Perry’s conclusion that human rights are ineliminably religious, specifically with his second premise that sacredness is incalculably tied to religion. As Professor Risse stated in the lecture, there are a few arguments to be made for rejecting the premise that sacredness can only be seen through religious thinking. To begin with, Risse asks what we lose when we remove the idea that sacredness is an inherently religious idea. Right away, we can state that there are no children of God. Without religion, there is no God; without God, there is no way for humans to be born of Him. In a secular sense, this argument is a moot point. Removing religion would make life meaningless, or so a religious thinker, as Perry, would state. Yet, meaning can and is attached to life without religion because individuals can find meaning in what they do or accomplish. We create objective value, which can last long after we are individually gone. This belief may contradict Perry’s view when he quotes Tawny in the epigraph to his chapter, stating “that every human being is of infinite importance…[b]ut to believe this it is necessary to believe in God” (11). Yet, it doesn’t make sense literally, without the acknowledgment of a God. It is impossible to matter in the infinite because we have genuine limitations to our finitude. But in that finitude, humans can still matter immensely.

A final point Perry and other religious thinkers may make is that without religion, there isn’t a basis for us to state that thinking one group is less than another is wrong. Dworkin might point out that this is the very reason why we must define the sacred in secular terms. When religions differ in such a vast manner as those we find here on Earth, with competing values that define worth by different traits, we need a universally secular method for determining sacredness or what we consider inviolable rights.

The premise Perry makes that the sacred is inherently religious isn’t sound based on the above points. If this premise isn’t sound, he can’t claim that human rights are ineliminably religious. In one of the end notes to Perry’s book, there is the acknowledgment that “[r]eferences to God… were deleted from the drafts of the 1948 Universal Declarations of Human Rights shortly before its adoption” (110). In my estimation, this points to the authors of that document understanding that humans are fallible and tend to associate with others that look and think like them. Human rights need to be rooted in a secular definition to prevent the eventual clashes of competing viewpoints and standards of worth. Perry makes a reasonable effort, but the value of secular sacredness concerning human rights seems to extend across all boundaries, including nationalities, races, gender, and religious beliefs.

Works Cited

Perry, Michael J. “Is the Idea of Human Rights Ineliminably Religious?” Canvas, uploaded by M. Derya Honca, 6 September 2022, https://canvas.harvard.edu/files/15698831/download?download\_frd=1.

Risse, Matthias. “The Meaning of Life: Personal Significance and Religion.” Harvard Extension School, 6 September 2022. Lecture.