Johannes Morsink, Inherent Human Rights

Abstract

According to Johannes Morsink, the intent of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was to codify the inherent human rights of the eighteenth century enlightenment philosophers in international human rights law (Morsink 2009, 17). But, before they could accomplish this, he tells us, they first had to commit themselves to the enlightenment doctrines of metaphysical inherence and epistemic awareness.Of course, not all eighteenth century enlightenment philosophers accepted the doctrines of metaphysical inheritance and epistemic awareness. That is, they had to successfully articulate and defend the doctrines that all human beings possess inherent human rights solely by virtue of being born human and that all human beings naturally have the intellectual wherewithal for knowing that they and others have such rights (Morsink 2009, 17). Of course, their secondary task was no less challenging for they had to articulate and defend metaphysical inherence and epistemic awareness... Language: en