Human Rights in the Doctrine of Karl Marx and Their Interpretation

Abstract

Introduction: The article examines Karl Marx’s views on human rights and the main approaches to interpreting them in philosophy and legal theory. It aims to systematize interpretive strategies and clarify what exactly Marx’s critique targets.Materials and methods: The study employs comparative, structural, and hermeneutic methods, as well as approaches characteristic of critical theory. Interpreters are classified with attention to the context of their claims and the purposes of their readings.Results: The article argues for distinguishing Marx’s interpreters into “practitioners” and “theorists”. Practitioners’ readings are often shaped by political circumstances and may be inconsistent, limiting their analytical value. Theorists’ interpretations are grouped into three types: 1) unifying (Marxism extends liberal ideas by emphasizing positive freedoms), 2) reconciliatory (Marxism can be compatible with human rights, though not in their bourgeois form), and 3) orthodox (human rights are a capitalist product and an ideological instrument). Marx’s position is shown to be complex: he criticizes bourgeois rights as formal and interest-serving, yet does not reject the idea of rights as such; in several texts he appeals to “natural law.”Conclusion: Marx’s stance on human rights should be read through his critical method and broader philosophical program (overcoming alienation and envisioning a classless society). This supports the explanatory power of the reconciliatory interpretation which captures Marx’s critique of bourgeois legal forms without reducing it to a wholesale denial of rights.