Sometimes, we read news of the suffering of a human being we have never met. They might live in our city, or they might be thousands of kilometres away. They might be our compatriot, or we might barely be able to locate their country on a map. It could be a child who has been kept hungry, a human being subjected to torture, a family trapped in a war, or an individual deprived of their rights due to discrimination.
In such a situation, a simple question arises: what does this have to do with me?
The question can be posed more sharply: why should I disrupt my own comfort and spend my time and energy on a human being I do not know and may never see?
Isn’t everyone responsible for their own life?
My answer is that if the suffering and the violation of another human being’s rights fundamentally do not concern me, nothing remains of the meaning of humanity, morality, or even human rights. Humanity begins where the boundary between “me” and “the other” cannot place the other person’s rights outside the sphere of my moral responsibility.
I define humanity as follows:
Humanity means that a person thinks of other human beings, wants what is good for them and seeks to preserve their dignity and rights, and whenever they become aware of the suffering or the violation of the rights of their fellow human beings, strives, to the extent of their ability, to eliminate that suffering or injustice. If, for any reason, its complete elimination is not possible at present, they strive to reduce its severity.
The phrase “to the extent of their ability” is of fundamental importance in this definition. This phrase does not mean restricting my responsibility to my current capabilities. I must take action to eliminate or reduce suffering and injustice with the capacity I currently have, but my responsibility does not end there. If my individual capacity is insufficient, I must strive to increase it, connect with others, build cooperation, and find ways so that what is beyond the reach of an individual today becomes possible tomorrow through collective effort and the reform of structures. The fact that I cannot eliminate all the suffering in the world today is no reason to deem it impossible to end preventable suffering, or to abandon the search for a way to do so. “To the extent of their ability” means starting with what I can do now and striving to expand the boundaries of my capacity; not turning my present limitations into an excuse for indifference or for evading my individual responsibility.
1. From the Individual Human Being to Humanity
In my previous writings, I have described the human being as belonging simultaneously to several systems: their own body, the system of humanity, and the system of life. A human being cannot live as an island, entirely detached from others. We inevitably live with one another, and our actions affect the rights and lives of others.
However, humanity is not merely another name for the population of human beings on Earth. Simply having billions of human beings living alongside one another does not yet make them a cohesive system. For such a system to form, the members must recognise one another’s existence, accept and respect one another’s rights, and establish a balance between their own rights and the rights of others. In my writings, this very acceptance and respect for the rights of others is termed “morality”, and the establishment of balance between rights is “justice”.
From this very point, one can arrive at one of the most fundamental relationships between my right and another person’s right:
My right acquires meaning when I recognise another person’s right.
In Volume One, I expressed this thought in another way:
“My rights are born when I confess to your rights.” — Wisdom Our Hope, Volume One, p. 91.
If I say, “My right is important, but your right does not concern me,” I have, in fact, removed the concept of a right from a mutual relationship and reduced it to my own personal interest. What remains is no longer morality; it is pure selfishness, or rather, immorality.
I cannot expect others to come to my aid when my rights are violated, yet grant myself the privilege of saying, “That is their problem,” when their rights are violated.
The problem of an individual in one corner of the world today can become my problem tomorrow. Disease provides an obvious example: an illness affecting someone in another part of the world can eventually become my problem as well. Recall COVID-19: what began as a local outbreak in one city went on to affect all of humanity.
2. Why Can Another Person’s Suffering Become My Suffering?
Our relationship with other human beings is not merely an abstract philosophical idea. In many people, there is a mechanism that prevents another person’s suffering from remaining entirely confined to that person.
A human being is a social being, with mental mechanisms adapted to social life. Neuroscience has shown that observing the actions and states of others can evoke corresponding responses in our own brains and bodies.[1]
In my works, I have spoken of the instinct of sympathy and linked it to innate morality and conscience. This capacity draws us towards other human beings and plays a role in the formation of humanity as a system of human individuals.
Real-life examples can sometimes reveal just how powerful this connection can be.
Dr Lorna Breen, director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, faced an overwhelming amount of illness, suffering, and death at the peak of the first wave of COVID-19. She died by suicide in April 2020. Her family described the suffering and death she had witnessed during the pandemic as having taken an overwhelming toll on her.
I have had a much smaller, yet for me entirely real, experience. When, in 2023, the news of children being kept hungry in Swedish preschools resurfaced in the media after nine years, I vomited from the sheer intensity of my distress. Since then, I have been unable to continue my usual philosophical research in the way I once did. One question came to dominate my mind:
How can I put an end to this tragedy?
Those children were not my grandchildren. I had never met any of them, nor did I know their parents. But can this distance and unfamiliarity mean that their suffering does not concern me?
Their suffering entered my life and is still with me. Since then, striving to put an end to this suffering has become one of my primary goals.
Perhaps, for a human being whose capacity for sympathy is very weak or dormant, it is difficult to understand my physical reaction, or the intensity of the effect that her patients’ suffering had on someone like Dr Breen. But a person’s inability to feel or understand an experience does not strip that experience of its reality. If someone cannot see colours, this inability is not proof that colours do not exist.
Sympathy is no exception to this rule. The fact that someone does not feel another person’s suffering within themselves does not mean that such a bond between human beings does not exist.
In Volume Three, when discussing the instinct of sympathy, I referred to the drowning of Alan Kurdi in 2015 as an example of a “moral shock” — an event whose image affected millions of people. Why did the death of a child, whom most of those millions had never met, move them so deeply? The answer cannot be sought merely in geography, citizenship, or self-interest.
He was a human being, and so were they.
3. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Speaks of a Human Family
Concern for other human beings is one of the ideals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The very first sentence of the Declaration’s preamble speaks of “all members of the human family” and identifies recognition of their inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Then, in the same preamble, we read that disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.
The choice of these words is not insignificant: human family and conscience of mankind.
If the victim of oppression is completely detached from me, why should the oppression inflicted upon them outrage the conscience of mankind?
Article 1 of the Declaration makes the answer clearer:
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
The Declaration does not present the human being merely as a holder of rights. In that very first article, alongside rights and dignity, it places reason, conscience, and acting towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Human rights begin with “me”, but they do not stop with “me”.
I am not merely a rights-holder entitled to demand rights for myself alone. All human beings have rights just as I do, and I must also demand that the rights of others be respected. I have a responsibility to strive for the realisation of the rights of others.
This point is stated more explicitly in the two major international human rights covenants. The preamble to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states:
“Realizing that the individual, having duties to other individuals and to the community to which he belongs, is under a responsibility to strive for the promotion and observance of the rights recognized in the present Covenant,”
This same thought is repeated in various formulations in other human rights instruments.[2]
This sentence is of immense importance to me. In this picture, the individual is not merely a rights-holder. They have duties towards other individuals and a responsibility for the promotion and observance of recognised rights.
We must not forget that the second paragraph of Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, by requiring Wise Education, creates the mental and practical conditions necessary for the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is only by planting in human minds the seeds of acceptance of and respect for the rights of others that human rights violations can first be reduced and ultimately eliminated.
Those who believe that “the violation of others’ rights does not concern me” cannot claim to support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because the philosophy of human rights is incompatible with a human being who recognises only their own rights and recognises no responsibility towards other people’s rights.
This is precisely what I wrote years ago, in different words, in the principles of Developed Morality.
The relationship between the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Developed Morality is a circular one. If we fully understand the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we arrive at Developed Morality; and if, like Cyrus the Great, we attain Developed Morality through individual effort alone, we arrive at the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
4. From Morality to Law
If we understand morality as the acceptance of and respect for the rights of others, and justice as the establishment of a balance between rights, law cannot stand in opposition to morality. In True Philosophy, morality is the source of true law. A law that is detached from morality and violates human rights may bear the name of law, but in substance it is Non-law.
Here, an interesting legal reality acquires significance.
In some legal systems, responsibility towards another human being has gone beyond a moral principle and become a legal duty enforceable through criminal law.
In Germany, Section 323c of the Criminal Code makes it a punishable offence, under the conditions laid down by law, to fail to render assistance in the event of an accident, common danger, or emergency. In France, too, Article 223-6 of the Penal Code establishes criminal liability for deliberately failing to assist a person in danger when such assistance could be given without risk to the person helping or to third parties.[3]
These laws do not create a universal legal duty to intervene in every human rights violation; they show that, in defined circumstances, responsibility towards a human being in danger has entered criminal law itself.
A real-life example in Germany makes the meaning of this law tangible. An 83-year-old man collapsed in a bank branch. Several customers, rather than helping him, stepped around or over him and continued with their banking transactions. Three of them were fined for failing to assist.
I have previously examined this very incident in Volume Six. According to the logic of the jungle, a person lying on the ground can be regarded merely as an “obstacle” in my path: if I can step around them, why should it be my problem? But human logic is different. We live together, recognise one another’s rights, and have responsibilities towards one another.
Unfortunately, the development of human rights within legal and judicial systems has been exceedingly slow, sometimes advancing only drop by drop. Alongside educational reform, there must also be judicial reform — a matter I have addressed in Exit Strategy and shall not repeat here. Yet even this slow development within legal and judicial systems in our time makes it very difficult to rely on the claim that “what happens to another human being fundamentally does not concern me”. The existing legal system, despite all its shortcomings, has recognised responsibility towards a fellow human being in danger as a legal duty in some countries, in the form of a duty to rescue.
5. What Does Geographical Distance Change?
It might be said that all of this applies to a person lying here in front of me. Why should a human being in another country or continent concern me?
My answer begins with a simple distinction:
Distance can change my capacity to help, but it cannot change the fact that the other person is a human being.
If a person faints in the street in front of me, perhaps I can help them directly. If a child is abused in another city, perhaps I can report the matter to the responsible authorities. If human beings in another country become victims of widespread human rights violations, my options will be different: raising awareness, protesting, supporting relief organisations, conducting research, writing, demanding accountability, or taking legal action where possible.
The form of my responsibility changes with my capacity and circumstances; the principle of humanity does not. Of course, I bear a greater responsibility than my fellow Swedish citizens because I can challenge human rights violators more effectively and with greater precision. You ask why?
Because, as a philosopher, I am better equipped than others to recognise and resist various logical fallacies and Institutional Mind Traps. Furthermore, I can stand against claims such as “the law says so”, which are often used to justify violations of human rights, and ask anyone who invokes the rule of law to define law and explain what function law is supposed to serve.
Based on this very capability, when the issue of keeping children hungry resurfaced in the Swedish media in 2023, I initially asked, “Why doesn’t someone do something?”
Then I said to myself:
“The person who must do something is you. So stand up and take action, and bear the cost, whatever it may be.”
If geographical distance can nullify the principle of responsibility, we must also be able to put a number on that distance. Does a human being at a distance of ten metres concern me, but not one at ten kilometres? What about a hundred kilometres? What moral quality does a national border possess that, once a human being crosses it, their rights suddenly fall outside the sphere of my conscience?
No political border can be the boundary of humanity.
Regional human rights instruments have also developed this idea in a significant way. The American Convention on Human Rights speaks of every individual’s responsibility towards mankind, and the African Charter recognises duties of the individual towards the international community.[2] It is true that, for the time being, these instruments operate within their own geographical regions, and their legal scope cannot be expanded beyond what it currently is; however, the existence of such phrases shows that the idea of human responsibility towards other human beings is not confined within national borders.
6. “I Cannot Do Anything”
This statement is sometimes true, but not always. The number of people who genuinely cannot do anything, compared with those who can take even a small step, is very limited.
An individual may be unable, even using all their capacity, to end another person’s suffering; but by joining with others, they may be able to do so. It is precisely this joining together with others for a good purpose that builds humanity. Nor does the definition of humanity demand the impossible of an individual. It says: “to the extent of one’s ability”.
We do not need to claim absolute ability to solve all the suffering in the world in order to prove our responsibility. As I mentioned in the definition of humanity, it is sufficient that whenever we become aware of the violation of the rights of our fellow human beings, we strive, “to the extent of our ability”, to eliminate it and, if its complete elimination is not possible at present, to reduce its severity. “I cannot completely eliminate their suffering at present” and “their suffering does not concern me” are two entirely different propositions.
Even an unsuccessful effort to reduce another person’s suffering has value, because the individual has made the effort — and that matters.
Sometimes my responsibility is a phone call. Sometimes calling an ambulance. Sometimes reporting a violation. Sometimes financial assistance. Sometimes defending the victim. Sometimes asking a question. Sometimes conducting research and writing. And sometimes standing up to an institution that can stop an injustice but has remained silent.
Responsibility begins with the existence of a demand and acquires meaning through a response. In my works, I have examined responsibility precisely in this context: when a need or an imbalance demands a response from us, responsibility means the appropriate response to that demand.
Irresponsibility does not always mean committing a wrongful act; sometimes it means failing to do something we ought to have done. The law, too, in certain cases, recognises this distinction between action and omission. The customers who ignored the 83-year-old man in the German bank had not knocked him to the ground, nor had they caused his medical emergency. Their responsibility arose not from what they had done, but from what, in those circumstances, they ought to have done and failed to do: help a human being in danger.
In the case of the hungry preschool children, if I take no action, I am responsible for an omission. It is true that I played no part in the injustice inflicted upon the children; however, when it came to light again in 2023 that the children’s suffering was still ongoing, had I failed to take action under the pretext of the importance of my philosophical research, I would have been morally responsible for an omission, even if not legally liable under Swedish law.
But did this omission apply only to me, or did other citizens, to varying degrees, also bear responsibility for omissions of their own?
When I decided to raise the issue of the children’s hunger with the members of the Riksdag, I strongly suspected they would not take any action. Yet, even if there was a one-in-a-million chance that action might be taken, I could not ignore that chance. A friend said to me, “They will not reply to you.” In response, I told him, “I am fulfilling my duty. If, instead of responding appropriately, they remain silent, that silence itself becomes an omission. Their very silence is an admission of their irresponsibility. I will document that silence.”
And I did exactly that. I sent 340 emails. I documented 335 silences and 5 irrelevant responses to demonstrate that an omission does not merely occur at the individual level, but can develop into “civic numbness” and take the form of Institutional Omission at the very heart of the legislative body.
7. Indifference, the Opposite of Humanity
Here, I return to the initial definition.
Humanity means thinking of other human beings, wanting what is good for them and seeking to preserve their dignity and rights, and striving, to the extent of one’s ability, to eliminate suffering and injustice and, if their complete elimination is not possible at present, to reduce their severity. Indifference to the suffering of others cannot therefore be a neutral state.
Indifference is a retreat from humanity, and silence is an admission of a lack of responsibility.
I have written in Volume Three that human beings have a natural capacity for kindness and sympathy towards one another, and that morality — meaning the acceptance of and respect for the rights of others — makes it possible for separate individuals to become part of the system of humanity.
A society in which everyone says merely “myself and my interests” has not yet reached the stage of humanity. Such a society is a gathering of human beings who have not yet succeeded in becoming a cohesive human system.
In such a society, human rights will also collapse sooner or later. For every victim is left alone at the moment they need the support of others, and those who do not come to the aid of others will find no one to help them when they themselves need assistance. If we do not participate in building justice, there will be no justice to come to our aid when we ourselves face injustice.
This echoes the warning that Martin Niemöller, after his experience of Nazi Germany, expressed so memorably in his famous words, “First They Came”.
8. Another Person’s Human Rights Are Not Insurance for My Interests
To defend mutual responsibility, an argument based on self-interest might be made: “Defend another person’s right so that one day others will defend yours.”
This argument is not worthless, but it is not enough. Such an argument involves give-and-take and a transaction.
I should not help a hungry child simply because I may one day need the help of others myself.
I must defend a child’s rights because the child has rights. Every child’s rights are human rights.
Humanity begins where an individual can move from self-interest to selflessness. In Developed Morality, another human being is my ally, not my instrument. The ninth principle clearly illustrates the relationship between self-interest and selflessness:
We are a combination of “self-interest” and “selflessness”. I am ready to ignore my “self-interest” for you when it is necessary or you are in danger.
For example, in my struggle to put an end to the suffering of the children who were kept hungry and their parents, I set aside my philosophical research — which is my self-interest — to secure their rights, because, in those circumstances, my involvement in ending their suffering was more necessary than continuing my philosophical research.
Of course, defending a person’s rights ultimately protects my rights as well, because we are both members of one system. But what compels me to defend the rights of others is not the prospect of receiving some benefit in return. Such a defence stems from my human nature, not from any expectation of receiving something in return.
9. The Violation of One Person’s Right Is a Human Rights Issue
Human rights are not the rights of governments, majorities, political parties, nations, or powerful groups. They are the rights of every human being.
The preamble to the Declaration speaks of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.
Therefore, the number of victims does not change the nature of the issue. Infringing the rights of even a single person is a human rights violation.
I remember that during my student days I had many debates with Holocaust deniers. One of their tactics was to question the number of Holocaust victims and try to reduce that number. They wanted to remove as many zeros as possible from the figure of six million Holocaust victims. It was as though if 600, or 60, or even 6 Jews had been killed, the gravity of the Nazi crime would somehow have been reduced. The murder of a single individual is a crime. The number of zeros changes only the scale of the crime.
If the rights of one million human beings are violated, we are faced with a massive catastrophe. If the rights of a single human being are violated, it is still a catastrophe; its dimensions are simply smaller. The number of human rights violations does not change the nature of the catastrophe; it shows only its scale.
In Exit Strategy, I also emphasised this very principle:
“The UDHR considers the rights of any individual human, and nobody can violate even a person’s rights because he or she is only one person.”
If a law can deprive a human being of their rights and we say that this does not matter because the victim is “only one person”, at that very moment we have abandoned the principle of the equality of rights and disregarded the entire Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Justice does not begin with counting the victims of injustice.
Justice begins with establishing a balance between rights.
10. Why Does the Violation of Your Rights Concern Me?
Now I can answer the question that forms the title of this essay.
The violation of your rights concerns me, even if I do not know you, because you are a human being and I am a human being too.
We are members of the human family.
I am a rights-holder, and you are a rights-holder too. My rights cannot be inherently more important than yours.
Reason enables me to understand this relationship, and conscience makes me sensitive to it. Morality requires me to accept and respect your rights. Humanity requires me, when I become aware of your suffering or the violation of your rights, not to remain indifferent, but to act to the extent of my ability. Human rights instruments, too, do not view the individual merely as a rights-holder; they recognise that individuals have responsibilities towards other human beings and society. Furthermore, positive law, in certain circumstances, even makes refusal to assist a person in danger punishable.
At present, I cannot save all human beings from suffering. But I must strive to find a way so that this may become possible. That way lies in understanding and implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and bringing about the three reforms — educational, judicial and political — which I have discussed in detail in Exit Strategy.
The mere fact that I am alone — a single person with limited resources — must not lead me to accept that the suffering of all human beings has nothing to do with me.
If I can end the suffering of even one person, I must strive to do so. If I cannot eliminate suffering completely at present, I must strive, to the extent of my ability, to reduce it.
This is what humanity means to me.
And perhaps this entire essay can be summarised in two sentences:
My rights acquire meaning when I recognise your rights.
And my humanity acquires meaning when I refuse to ignore your suffering simply because it is yours and not mine.
[1] Roy Mukamel, Arne D. Ekstrom, Jonas Kaplan, Marco Iacoboni & Itzhak Fried, “Single-Neuron Responses in Humans during Execution and Observation of Actions”, Current Biology, Vol. 20, No. 8, 2010, pp. 750–756. The study reported neurons in the human brain that responded both when participants performed actions and when they observed others performing them. See also Bahman Azadfar, Wisdom Our Hope, Volume One, Chapter Five, “Wired Minds”, where mirror-neuron research and its relevance to human interdependence are discussed.
[2] This same thought, in different formulations, is found in the preamble to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Article 29(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 32(1) of the American Convention on Human Rights; Articles 27(1) and 28 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; and Article 18(2) and (3) of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The legal status of these instruments is not identical: the two Covenants are binding international treaties, although the relevant wording appears in their preambles; the American Convention and the African Charter are binding regional treaties; and the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders is a non-binding instrument.
[3] Section 323c(1) of the German Criminal Code (StGB) and Article 223-6, second paragraph, of the French Penal Code. These two examples are cited to demonstrate the existence of a legal duty to assist under specific legal conditions and should not be interpreted as establishing a universal criminal duty to intervene in every case of a human rights violation.