For decades, “universal human rights” have been treated as moral bedrock: timeless, self-evident entitlements belonging to every human simply by virtue of being human. Philosophers like David N. Stamos have challenged this picture, arguing that if we take evolutionary biology seriously, we find no such innate, equal, universal rights inscribed in human nature or the fabric of the universe (Stamos, 2013; Stamos, 2015). Instead, what we call human rights look like historically contingent, culturally specific tools—powerful and often valuable, but not metaphysical facts (Stamos, 2013). In this post, I want to take that critique seriously and then turn it inside-out: not by defending traditional universal human rights against evolution, but by relocating “universality” at a deeper, systemic, and ultimately cosmic level.
Stamos and the “Myth” of Universal Human Rights
Stamos’ central claim is that universal human rights, as typically understood, are a modern myth born of particular historical conditions, not objective moral properties of our species (Stamos, 2013; Stamos, 2015). He traces their genealogy from early modern English radicals through Enlightenment natural-rights theory, Christian ideas of equal souls, and the rise of democracy and capitalism (Stamos, 2013). On this story, the notion that every human possesses the same set of inborn, inalienable rights is less a discovery about reality and more a legitimating narrative for new political and economic orders (Stamos, 2013, 2015).
Stamos then adds an evolutionary twist. Evolutionary theory explains humans as products of contingent, adaptive processes that produce variable traits, shifting populations, and context-sensitive moral dispositions, not timeless moral essences (Stamos, 2013). Once that picture is accepted, he argues, it becomes very hard to make sense of “universal, innate, equal rights” as literal facts about human beings rather than as useful fictions (Stamos, 2015). If anything, evolution undercuts the metaphysical confidence of traditional rights talk: it shows us a world of flux, not one populated by agents with pre-packaged, unchanging entitlements.
The Wrong Level of Analysis
Suppose we grant all of this. The move I want to explore does not deny Stamos’s critique; it changes the level of analysis. The traditional frame—both in mainstream human-rights discourse and in Stamos’s negative argument—treats the individual human person, or at most the human species, as the fundamental moral unit. Rights are then imagined as properties “had” by these units. Evolutionary biology is brought in to ask whether individuals or the species really do come with such built-in properties (Stamos, 2013; Stamos, 2015).
But evolutionary and systems sciences suggest that this focus is already one level too local. In evolutionary theory, the primary explanatory units are populations and lineages embedded in ecosystems, not isolated individuals (Lewontin, 1970; Stearns & Hoekstra, 2005). In ecology and Earth system science, organisms and species appear as transient patterns in much larger dynamical systems—biospheres, climate regimes, biogeochemical cycles—whose stability and resilience depend on interaction networks and feedback loops (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2015). At this scale, a new picture emerges: what matters for the long-term viability of life is not static, individual traits but the maintenance of variability and relational structure across whole systems.
From this perspective, the usual question—“Do individuals have universal, innate rights?”—is mis-posed. It assumes that the deepest normative facts, if they exist, must be tied to properties of individuals or species. A systems view suggests instead that any serious account of normativity in an evolutionary universe must start from the conditions under which complex, value-bearing structures can emerge, persist, and transform. That pushes us toward thinking in terms of systemic integrity rather than individual entitlements.
Genomic Variability as a Hallmark of Systemic Health
One of the clearest lessons from evolutionary genomics and ecology is that diversity—at genetic, species, and ecosystem levels—is a core feature of healthy, resilient systems (Stearns & Hoekstra, 2005; Steffen et al., 2015). Genetic variability within populations is the raw material for adaptation to changing environments; without it, lineages are brittle and prone to collapse under stress (Stearns & Hoekstra, 2005). Biodiversity across ecosystems underwrites key functions like nutrient cycling, pollination, and climate regulation, which in turn support human societies (Diaz et al., 2019; Geneva Environment Network, 2025).
This scientific picture has begun to reshape human rights thinking. UN human-rights bodies now explicitly emphasize that healthy ecosystems and biodiversity are “the foundation of life” and “fundamental to the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, culture, and a healthy environment” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [OHCHR], 2022, para. 2; Geneva Environment Network, 2025). In 2022, the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, tying traditional rights directly to planetary conditions (United Nations General Assembly [UNGA], 2022; United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP], 2022).
All of this points toward a reframing: genomic and ecological variability are not side notes to be managed; they are among the primary conditions that make any rights discourse non-trivial. If future humans are to exist at all—let alone enjoy anything like justice—our systems must preserve enough variability and systemic integrity for evolution, adaptation, and resilience to continue.
From Human Rights to Systemic Rights
The step I want to take is to treat this scientific insight not just as background, but as the core of a new normative starting point. Rather than asking whether individual humans have universal rights “by nature,” we can ask: What does an evolutionary universe itself demand of any ethical order that hopes to be sustainable? The answer looks something like this: any viable normativity must respect the conditions under which complex, diverse, evolving systems can persist and continue generating new forms of value.
Call this the Cosmic Contextual Systems Theory of Rights. On this view, the fundamental “right” at stake is not an individual possession but a systemic constraint: the right of evolving systems—from biospheres up through planetary and, more speculatively, cosmic processes—to maintain and explore the variability that constitutes their health and openness to the future. Human-level rights, where they exist, become derivative instruments rightly judged by how well they protect or erode that systemic right.
This is not as alien to contemporary practice as it may sound. When the UN affirms a right to a healthy environment, it effectively says that states and other actors are obligated to maintain planetary conditions compatible with human life and dignity (UNGA, 2022; UNEP, 2022). Human-rights experts now stress that “all human rights ultimately depend on a healthy biosphere,” making clear that ecological integrity is a precondition for any rights regime (Geneva Environment Network, 2025, para. 3). My proposal radicalizes this insight: the ultimate locus of normativity is the systemic integrity of evolving contexts themselves, not just their service to currently existing humans.
A Systemic, Planetary, and Cosmic “Right”
Putting these threads together, the theory unfolds in three linked claims:
- Systemic Priority
Evolutionary and Earth system sciences show that complex life, including humans, depends on the integrity of multi-level systems that maintain variability (Stearns & Hoekstra, 2005; Steffen et al., 2015). Normatively, this suggests that protecting those systems is more fundamental than protecting any particular configuration within them. - Derived Human Rights
Human rights can be retained, but only as context-bound tools whose legitimacy rests on whether they respect and reinforce systemic integrity. Policies or practices that drastically narrow genomic or ecological variability—for example, aggressive eugenics programs or large-scale biodiversity destruction—violate the deeper systemic right, even if framed as serving some immediate human interest (Diaz et al., 2019; OHCHR, 2022). - Cosmic Contextualization
When we place Earth and its biosphere within cosmic evolution—star formation, planetary formation, radiation environments—we see our planetary system as one node in a broader unfolding (Harvard Gazette, 2019; Stanford Report, 2020). At this outermost scale, speaking of a “right possessed by the cosmos” is obviously metaphorical, but it captures a serious idea: any ethical order that collapses the openness and variability of its own enabling systems is self-undermining at the most basic level.
In this frame, Stamos is right that universal human rights, conceived as timeless individual properties, are a myth (Stamos, 2013, 2015). The mistake, however, is concluding that universality itself must be abandoned. A systems view suggests that the only universality compatible with an evolutionary cosmos is contextual and structural: a requirement to safeguard the evolving conditions under which any rights-bearing entities can arise and endure.
A Different Kind of Universality
The picture that emerges is both more modest and more ambitious than traditional universal human rights. It is modest because it gives up the idea that individuals come pre-packaged with metaphysical entitlements guaranteed by human nature. It is ambitious because it grounds normativity at the level of planetary and cosmic processes, treating the preservation of systemic variability as a universal constraint on any just social order.
On this view, the question is no longer “What rights do individuals have, independently of context?” but “What obligations do we incur, given our embeddedness in evolving, interdependent systems whose integrity is the precondition for any meaningful future?” That is where the sciences—evolutionary biology, ecology, Earth system science, and cosmic evolution—no longer simply challenge rights talk, as in Stamos’s critique, but help rebuild it on an explicitly contextual, systemic, and ultimately cosmic foundation.
References
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