2. Cognitive development and human rights advancement

The advancement of human society is always associated with the development of human cognition, and it is even justifiable to say that any advancement made by human beings originates from the development of human cognition. Hence human rights advancement is no exception. Without cognitive development, it is impossible for the humankind to push human rights ahead. Human cognitive development therefore is the forerunner of human rights advancement.

Firstly, the burgeoning of human rights consciousness and the development in human rights theories were results of human cognitive development. Early in the rude times humankind had no notion of human rights, not to mention conscious human rights protection. With increase in human cognition, in particular with cognitive deepening of humankind in itself and related factors, a cognitive foundation was gradually laid for the formation of human rights consciousness. As human self-cognition developed, humankind founded gradually that both individuals and groups should enjoy rights as human beings. Perhaps such right consciousness initially relied more on human instinct and emerged in a spontaneous way. With cognitive deepening, however, purely instinctive, spontaneous human rights consciousness evolved gradually into conscious rational cognition; even some ideological concepts were gradually formed and essential theories then established. The improvement of human rights from instinctive consciousness to rational cognition was an important result of cognitive development of humankind. Along with the development of human society and human cognition, the human rights cognition changed gradually from the initial human rights consciousness to relatively profound human rights theories. And after that, the initial spontaneous protection of human rights evolved gradually into the sound conscious protection, and human rights were even protected by people with moral, religious, legal and many other means.

Secondly, rich human rights contents are a result of cognitive development of humankind. In obligatory sense, the contents of human rights are perhaps certain, because obligatory human rights in the sense of human cognition are still uncertain and will develop with the change and deepening of human cognition. In actual sense, however, the contents of human rights are even more uncertain. The actual history of human rights development reveals once and again that the contents of human rights that people advocate and protect develop on a continual basis. In fact, in any ages, the contents of human rights that people advocate and protect must, and can only be contents being cognized by humankind. The cognition of human rights is a process of continuously enriching, replenishing and improving with social development. Early in human history, obligatory human rights certainly existed too, but the initial stage of human cognition determined the limited human cognition of the contents of human rights. Only in the process of human cognitive and social development were the contents of human rights updated continuously and enriched day by day. So far human rights have already formed a large system of rights in terms of contents being covered. The rich and varied contents of human rights make people cognize time after time and see them in a better light. Intergenerational updating and extension also occurred to the contents of human rights.

Thirdly, the condition of human rights protection is subject to the level of cognitive development of humankind in human rights. In the primitive society and in the ages of slavery system, the initial state of human cognition of human rights also made the actual protection of human rights in an extremely initial state, because at that time humankind knew nothing about rights individuals or collectives should have and of course were unable to protect those rights not yet cognized. The condition of human rights protection was severely limited by human rights cognition in those ages. If cognition of people were abnormal, abnormality of human rights protection would be resulted in inevitably. In history and practice, gender inequality, ethnical inequality, regional inequality and inconsistence of the times are all concerned with human cognition of human rights in specific times and environments. Humankind cannot protect human rights by overstepping its cognition. In today’s world, the development of human rights is unprecedented. Leaving aside its essence, at least superficially human rights have almost become the slogan of any and all true or false human rights defenders, and almost no country or society dares to deny human rights overtly. This cannot be divorced from the shared values of humankind. The common human cognition of values and the shared human rights values of humankind themselves are part of human cognition, and are results of human cognitive development.