New Human Rights Mindsets in Times of Crisis: From Basic Needs to Collective Agency

This conceptual article examines how Jean-Pol Martin’s New Human Rights (NMR) framework can provide orientation during periods of social disruption. It translates six fundamental human needs—thinking, health, security, social inclusion, self-realization and participation, and meaning—into five practical mindsets: identifying needs behind conflicts; gaining control through understanding and participation; considering everyone affected; working through competing requirements; and sharing knowledge to develop solutions. The article’s specific contribution is an explicit connection between basic needs, cognitive orientations, decision practices and institutional consequences. A hypothetical public-service conflict illustrates how these mindsets can inform diagnosis, deliberation, decision-making and follow-up. An evaluation agenda distinguishes improvements in understanding, judgment, participation and material living conditions. Within the developing NMR and human–AI corpus, the paper adds an application layer focused on crisis orientation and collective agency. It connects the framework’s anthropological and normative foundations with practical questions of democratic governance and Learning by Teaching (LdL). The article presents a conceptual operationalization and proposals for empirical assessment. Prepared through dialogue between Jean-Pol Martin and ChatGPT.