What Are Civil Rights? Definition, History & Philosophy

Definition and Scope

Civil rights are the rights of individuals to receive equal treatment and to be free from unfair treatment or discrimination in a number of settings — including education, employment, housing, public accommodations, and more. They are distinct from human rights, which are rights that every person possesses simply by virtue of being human, and from political rights, which are the rights to participate in the political process, such as the right to vote and to hold public office.

Philosophically, civil rights are grounded in the principle of moral equality — the idea that all human beings are of equal moral worth and are therefore entitled to equal concern and respect. This principle is the foundation of the modern civil rights tradition, from the Enlightenment philosophers who first articulated it to the civil rights activists who fought to make it a reality.

The Philosophical Foundations

The concept of civil rights has its roots in the Enlightenment tradition of natural rights. John Locke argued that all individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that the purpose of government is to protect these rights. Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that legitimate political authority is based on the consent of the governed and that all citizens are equal participants in the social contract.

Immanuel Kant provided the most powerful philosophical foundation for civil rights in his principle of respect for persons. Kant argued that every human being must be treated as an end in themselves, never merely as a means to an end. This principle of respect for persons is the foundation of the idea that every individual has a right to equal treatment, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or other characteristics.

The Civil Rights Movement

The modern civil rights movement in the United States gave practical force to these philosophical principles. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that the civil rights struggle was a struggle for the soul of America — a demand that the nation live up to its own founding principles of equality and justice. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King wrote that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," articulating the philosophical principle that justice is not a matter of local custom but a universal moral requirement.

W. E. B. Du Bois had earlier laid the intellectual groundwork for the civil rights movement. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois argued that the problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the color line — the system of racial segregation and discrimination that denied African Americans their civil rights. Du Bois's concept of "double consciousness" — the sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others — provided a powerful philosophical analysis of the experience of oppression.

Civil Rights and Distributive Justice

John Rawls provided a comprehensive philosophical framework for understanding civil rights within the context of distributive justice. In A Theory of Justice (1971), Rawls argued that the basic structure of society must be organized according to principles that free and equal persons would choose under fair conditions. His first principle of justice requires that each person has an equal right to the most extensive scheme of basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others.

Ronald Dworkin extended this analysis by arguing that the fundamental right of every citizen is the right to equal concern and respect. In Sovereign Virtue (2000), Dworkin argued that the government must treat all citizens as equals, and that this commitment to equality is the foundation of all civil rights. Dworkin's analysis provides a powerful philosophical defense of affirmative action and other policies aimed at remedying historical discrimination.

Contemporary Challenges

The philosophical understanding of civil rights continues to evolve in response to new challenges. Issues of algorithmic discrimination, voting rights, mass incarceration, and the rights of LGBTQ+ people raise new questions about the meaning and scope of civil rights. Amartya Sen's capability approach provides a framework for understanding civil rights in terms of what people are actually able to do and be, rather than merely in terms of formal legal protections.

The struggle for civil rights is not a completed project but an ongoing moral and political endeavor. The philosophical principles that ground civil rights — the equal moral worth of all persons, the requirement of equal concern and respect, the commitment to justice — remain as relevant today as they were when they were first articulated in the Enlightenment.