Does the West still value human rights in light of its dismissal of Khashoggi's death?

Human rights are expressive of Western norms

Question: Does the West still value human rights in light of its dismissal of Khashoggi's death?
Position‹2 of 5›: Yes, despite that Western countries and non-Western countries perceive human rights differently
Argument‹2 of 2: Human rights are expressive of Western norms

Human rights are meant to protect individual dignity, but every culture has a different definition of this principle. We often perceive the Western definition of human rights as universal, ignoring cultural differences. This idea could destroy cultural values in an effort to "westernize" belief systems.

The argument

The concept of human rights came out of Judeo-Christian thought, which has been carried as part of Western culture, and out of the Enlightenment. On this account that origin is not incidental to the content. Rights framed in one tradition reflect the interests of that tradition, and they cannot be practised smoothly by nations that do not reproduce the conditions and values of Western societies. The objection is made explicitly in the premise of Asian values, which argues that "the civil, political, social, and cultural norms advanced by the international human rights legal framework are Western, rather than universal." If the norms are particular rather than universal, then their adoption elsewhere is not the recognition of something already shared but the acceptance of someone else's settlement. That is why, on this view, human rights are so often imposed on non-Western countries by Western governments rather than arrived at within them — imposition is what universality looks like when the universality is not in fact there. The substantive difference identified is one of the basic unit. We are living in a world of a plurality of cultures, in which the Western tradition is centred on the individual, whereas most African and Asian traditions value the community. A framework built around individual entitlement therefore does not simply arrive with different emphasis in a communal setting; it starts from a different answer to the prior question of who the bearer of a claim is, and the rest of the structure follows from that answer. Considering the disparities in the notions of human rights carried by different countries, the conclusion drawn is that it is not possible for the West to implement a concept of this kind, which is not in fact universal, in other nations. The point is not that the rights are worthless but that their reach is bounded by the tradition that produced them.

Context

It is asserted that human rights are expressive of Western values and norms, thus could be contradictory to other cultures.

Premises

[P1]Human rights originate in Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment thought, making them expressive of Western norms and interests. [P2] Non-Western societies, valuing community over the individual, see these norms as Western rather than universal — the Asian values critique. [P3] These genuine cultural disparities mean the West and non-West inevitably perceive human rights differently. [C] Therefore, the West does still value human rights, even though, as expressions of Western norms, they are perceived differently by non-Western countries.

Counter-arguments

1.Human rights are defined to have universal validity, regardless of its originality. 2. The simplified view that human rights are western overlooks the fact that a majority of the countries involved in the formation of UDHR were non-western countries like India and China, suggesting that "All cultures—Western or otherwise—beget demands for the recognition of human rights from oppressed populations that later give rise to human rights reforms."

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Where an idea originated says nothing about whether it is valid or applicable elsewhere. The historical claim is also narrower than stated: prohibitions on arbitrary killing, on cruelty and on unfair trial appear across many traditions, and as the counter notes, the drafting of the Universal Declaration involved delegates from China, India, Lebanon, Chile and other non-Western states. [Rejecting P2] The "Asian values" thesis is presented as a description of societies but was advanced largely by particular governments, and it was contested within those same societies by opposition politicians, courts, journalists and dissidents. Treating a state's official position as its culture's view assumes the internal agreement that is precisely in question. [Rejecting P3] The premise proves too much for the position it is meant to support. If human rights are genuinely non-universal and cannot be implemented in other societies, that is an argument that Western advocacy is misconceived rather than evidence that the West still values human rights. The question at issue is a Western response to one particular killing, and none of the premises address it.