Three dilemmas underlying runaway rights: Universals, relativism, and banal authoritarianism

Although we are in an age of rights, psychologists have given little attention to human rights, and even less to human duties. In order to stimulate more research in this domain, we explored what we call runaway rights. Three lively critical reviews of our paper have been published. In this response, we have identified three overarching dilemmas. The first dilemma concerns the claim for universal human rights, which seems to clash with particular rights claims of specific minority groups. Related to this is a second dilemma, which concerns the tension between a universalist versus a relativist perspective. A third dilemma concerns banal authoritarianism, the mainstreaming of extremist behavior. With respect to these dilemmas, we argue that adherence to a universalist rather than a relativist position is especially essential for the safeguarding of minority interests. Second, just because the process of arriving at universal human rights has not been perfect in the past does not mean that we should abandon the effort. More recent developments in the domain of international human rights treaties have seen a shift in who is at the table. Universal human rights help to combat banal authoritarianism.