After having described an ethical frame than runs from Levinas on one pole to Hobbes on the other pole, I will start placing existing mainstream FIMI approaches on this ethical spectrum. Their assigned place on the spectrum will have consequences for the use of AI in drafting recommendations: at the Levinasian pole it should be banned when concerning those for whom we accept a responsibility, at the Hobbesian pole anything goes. I will take into account that the mainstream FIMI approaches may be differentiated in their approach to different target groups; for some target groups they may be more Levinasian, for other target groups more Hobbesian.
Human rights FIMI approach
The first approach I'll consider is the human rights approach. Before I'll assess the relevance of the approach for FIMI, I’ll first dedicate a few words to the approach in general.
Human rights approach as ethical frame
The foundation for the human rights approach is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. What is remarkable, is that the document does not provide a legitimation for the described human rights, like for instance the American Declaration of Independence that states that people are “endowed by their Creator” with certain rights. The Universal Declaration “simply declares certain values to be human rights. The framers evidently believed that people in various cultures could find reasons within their own ethical traditions to support the Declaration's practical requirements.” (Charles Beitz) Thus, the Universal Declaration does not provide an ethical frame. It presupposes external ethical frames.
Challenge
The challenge posed by the lack of ethical frame is that there are no guidelines on how to interpret the general wording of the document in practice or how to weigh potentially conflicting rights against each other. This opens the human rights up for a range of criticisms, for instance that it is Western imperialistic (because of the Western values often used to underpin the rights as a surrogate), that it is too universal (not respecting cultural traditions), or too broad (going far beyond a minimum set of rights).
In my opinion, the fundamental challenge for the human rights approach is that it can be used by anyone to mean anything because of its lack of ethical underpinning. Anything goes. Take Vladimir Putin who recently stated: “we can safely say and reiterate that we are fighting not only for our freedom, not only our rights, or our sovereignty, but we are upholding universal rights and freedoms, and the continued existence and development of the absolute majority of the countries around the world. To a certain extent, we see this as our country’s mission as well.” Or take the Human Rights Commission Regulation (Saudi Arabia): “There shall be established, in accordance with this Law, a commission named the “Human Rights Commission” which reports directly to the President of the Council of Ministers. It aims to protect and enhance human rights according to international standards for human rights in all aspects, and to promote public awareness thereof” only to be followed up by “and participate in ensuring implementation of the same in light of the provisions of Shari’ah”.
Greene
In his book Moral Tribes, Joshua Greene proposes to discard the human rights approach altogether because of the challenge. In the eyes of Greene, its claims about rights are not „accountable to evidence”. He claims that “appeals to "rights" function as an intellectual free pass, a trump card that renders evidence irrelevant". He continues: "Talk of rights and duties aptly expresses our moral emotions in two ways. First, when our gut reactions tell us what we must or must not do, these commands come across as nonnegotiable, reflecting the inflexibility of our automatic setting. … Second, we embattled moralists love the language of rights and duties because it presents our subjective feelings as perceptions of objective facts."
According to Greene, the human rights approach is a group morality. As he explains, morality is the default mechanism for any group to keep those who deviate from the group in line and reward those who play nice. Morality allows us to be “pro-social punishers” within our group by penalising uncooperative behavior. And, morality is “a device for intragroup competition” as well as “cooperation within groups”. In short, “morality is a set of psychological adaptations that allow otherwise selfish individuals to reap the benefit of cooperation". This makes the human rights approach appropriate as a morality within one group but not as an approach for intergroup relations: “insofar morality is a biological adaptation, it evolved not only as a device for putting Us ahead of Me, but as a device for putting Us ahead of Them."
Following Greene, the human rights approach fits as an ethical frame for our own group, which in our case means the demand side of FIMI – but not for ‘other’ groups. We can use it to keep members of our own group in line and deter them from embracing FIMI.
An example
On March 13 2025, football club Rangers F.C. fans showed three banners during a football match. Together the banners read: “keep woke foreign ideologies out defend Europe”. The reaction was instant. Uefa, European football’s governing body, called the banner “racist and/or discriminatory” according to the club. The club reacted with a statement: “Rangers is a modern, progressive football club, and we are fiercely proud of our diverse playing squads, workforce and support. For the club to be charged with such a matter in 2025 is shameful, and the disdain for those responsible will be shared by the overwhelming majority of our supporters. This charge will bring consequences for the club, while the club is also working to identify those responsible and will ensure they also face consequences. For the avoidance of doubt, if you do not believe in 2025 that absolutely everyone is welcome to follow Rangers whether at Ibrox or away, then Rangers is not the club for you, and you should disassociate yourself with the club immediately.”
All the dubious elements seem to be present in this example. The human rights approach (implicitly invoking Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights: non-discrimination) is used randomly (anything goes), since it targets a political/ ideological message that rallies resistance against another type of political/ ideological messages but not against individuals. And it is used as a means to keep members of the in-group in line with the ironic message that if you don’t believe that everybody is welcome, then you are not welcome.
Paternalism
The example also fits a current in the human rights approach: paternalism. The phenomenons of "us" versus "them" (see: blog post 17) and illiberal democracy (see: blog post 25) are examples of this. My wife and I write about this in our book Interdemocracy: “Within this current, the person being the rights-bearing subject is seen “not as a self-willing moral agent but as a needy individual whose vital interests need protection … this reconceptualization of rights opens the door for a paternalistic political practice, in which an external, third party “exercises” the rights rather than the rights-bearing subject himself” (Gourevitch).
Conclusion
The human rights approach is a slippery instrument that can be used as one pleases and is helpful to keep one’s in-group in check. It does not seem an appropriate approach vis-a-vis out-groups. When aimed at one’s in-group, the approach could theoretically be used as a Levinasian instrument to take radical empathetic responsibility for others but a danger looms of using it as an instrument to enforce a Hobbesian social contract. The ethical direction chosen has implication for whether AI can be used as a tool to generate recommendations (Hobbes) or not (Levinas).
