I recommend reading this paper by Dr. David Bradshaw, Philosophy professor at the University of Kentucky. "Making Human Rights Orthodox," International Conference on Post-Humanism and Artificial Intelligence, Athens, Greece, November 2024.
Dr. Bradshaw often speaks at Eastern Orthodox conferences and is an expert in early Greek theology. His book Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom is fascinating and challenging (Cambridge U Press, 2004).
Bradshaw writes, "From an Orthodox standpoint, contemporary human rights discourse is problematic in two ways: many rights that are widely advocated are contrary to Orthodox moral teaching, and even those that are acceptable (such as, for example, the right to life) are often justified through faulty reasoning. Hence it is important to articulate a legitimately Orthodox framework for human rights.The approach suggested here is based on a distinction between two kinds of human dignity: ‘mere’ human dignity, consisting in being accorded respect and appropriate treatment by others, and ‘true’ human dignity, consisting of possessing a pure conscience before God. These give rise to two distinct categories of human rights, which I refer to, respectively, as rights of non-abuse and rights of agency."
