2 Response to John Tasioulas-3. Human Rights as Fundamental Conditions for a Good Life推荐.pdf

2 Response to John Tasioulas Onora O’Neill I. Justifying Human Rights On first consideration the project of devising a philosophical justification for human rights looks quite odd. Human rights have a specific and recent origin, and the sched- ule of rights declared in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 reflects the contingencies of that history. Those who framed the Declaration drew on earlier arguments for conceptions of natural rights and of the rights of man, but what they produced reflects a specific historical situation. The Declaration is a central part of the post-WWII settlement and the institutional structures it established. The rights declared were to be acknowledged by the accession of states to the United Nations, and later by their ratification of the more specific rights set out in the human rights Covenants of the late 1960s. It seems that the answer to the question “Why are human rights binding?” might be simply that the states of which we are citizens have agreed to them. This “justification” assumes the authority of states, and assumes that the relevant exercises of that authority have taken place. It brackets questions about any deeper nor- mative justification of the standards that are set out in the human rights documents. Nevertheless, the thought that human rights are no more than the assertions and stand- ards of a particular historical moment, to which states have committed themselves (at least for the time being) is widely rejected. For better or for worse, human rights are seen as formulating valid moral claims that human beings can make on one another, and in particular on states and their institutions and officials, even (or especially) when existing institutional structures fail to protect or secure