Human dignity and human rights in Alan Gewirth's moral philosophy

Abstract

The Preamble to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 (ICCPR) states that the rights proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR), some of which the ICCPR aims to give effect to, ‘derive from the inherent dignity of the human person’. It is because human persons have dignity that they have human rights. The Preamble to the UDHR further states that human rights are ‘inalienable rights of all members of the human family’, possessed equally by all members of this family, all of whom have ‘inherent dignity’.