35. Care and Human Rights 36. Care and Human Rights A Reply to Virginia Held推荐.pdf

35 Care and Human Rights Virginia Held Human rights have made remarkable progress in the last half-century. As Joseph Raz, a foremost contemporary legal theorist, notes, “This is a good time for human rights.”1 At the start of this period, realism in foreign policy, and in thought about international issues and political theory, was so dominant that moral considerations were widely dismissed as pointless, and considerations of human rights were seen as belonging to the realm of ignorable moral exhortation. There were only a handful of books on morality and international affairs.2 Human rights, as little more than moral goals, were taken seriously by only rather a few practitioners and theorists. Human rights still have a long way to go in becoming enforceable claims. But there is no doubt that they are taken very seriously not only by many theorists but by activ- ists pressing governments to improve all sorts of conditions, and by courts deciding cases. They are taken seriously by governments around the world. Charges of human rights violations have weight, can notably cut reputations and influence, and actually affect actions and policies. They are widely recognized as an actual part of the world’s actual international law.3 This progress illustrates well the “normative pull of law” that is so much of what makes law potentially more effective than it is, and capable of significant improve- ment. Spelling out the arguments for every person’s fundamental rights, and how we ought to respect persons and their rights, gradually persuades more and more people to pay attention to such rights and to shame those who disregard them. We have seen the process at work and should not fail to appreciate it. At the same time, we can recognize the limitations and fragilities of this progress. Millions and millions of persons in th