Equal Respect and Human Rights

Abstract

Suppose that someone is trying to justify belief in human rights not to a moral sceptic but to someone who finds ordinary moral principles unproblematic while worrying that human rights are too strong and rigid to be plausible. One familiar strategy in providing such a justification for human rights is to appeal to a general principle of equal respect for persons as rational and autonomous beings and to try to show that this principle will justify human rights, or at least provide the main normative footing for such a justification. In this article I examine attempts by S.I. Benn and Ronald Dworkin to get from a deontological principle of equal respect to human rights. By identifying some problems in the justifications provided by Benn and Dworkin I hope to illuminate some general problems in justifications of rights which start from a principle of equal respect. The human rights that I am concerned with are roughly those that were formulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.' Human rights, as they are described in the documents of the human rights movement, have a number of characteristics. First, lest we miss the obvious, they are rights, not mere goals or aspirations. Second, human rights are universal, moral rights. This means that all people have them independently of race, sex, religion, nationality, and social position; and independently of the recognition of these rights in the legal system of the country in which a person resides. These rights may not be effective rights until they are implemented in a domestic legal system, but they are alleged to exist independently as moral standards of argument and criticism. Third, these rights are alleged to be important enough to prevail in conflicts with contrary national norms and goals and to justify international action on their behalf. Finally, fourth, these rights are concerned with political, social, and economic abuses; with the most severe problems that arise in people's relationships with government