Abstract
This paper seeks to develop a theoretically based explanation of how it can be that commitments to principles of human rights can co-exist with indifference towards concrete human rights abuses. The paper opens with a discussion of a reflection by Jacques Maritain, one of the French delegates to the congresses which lead to the Universal Declaration. The argument moves on to suggest that indifference is an integral dimension of the human condition and that indifference is exacerbated by the dominance of a hermeneutical culture in modernity. It is proposed that since the hermeneutic culture is inescapable (and that escape from it is in any case dangerous and illicit), so indifference is also unavoidable. Social actors are faced with the problem of having to choose how to act morally in the conditions of this paradox.
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