We are adaptable and instinctive, Roth says.

I think human nature is very adaptable. There are certain instinctual identities with one’s family, with one’s tribe, with one’s co-religionists. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into decency toward the other, however that’s defined, even if the other is your next door neighbor. And I think the challenge for the human rights movement is to overcome what are countervailing tendencies toward treating that other as the enemy; as a lesser human being; as somebody who can be used purely instrumentally; who doesn’t have to be treated with respect; who can be killed if necessary. That is also an element of human nature. And I think our task is to expand the concept of community sufficiently so that people are willing to treat large numbers of people with the basic respect that rights require, ideally at a global level – which is not easy because it’s hard to speak of the global community in any meaningful sense. But that obviously is the goal, so that all of us act as if everyone on earth has the entitlement to these same basic rights. But I don’t think that that in any sense is a natural inclination. It’s a possibility, one that needs to be nurtured by building up public morality; building up public expectations about behavior; building up institutions that reinforce those instincts or behavior, and gradually getting to the point where we can, with greater degrees of dependability and expectations, see people live and treat each other with respect for these basic rights. But it by no means is an inevitability.

Recorded on: 8/14/07