A Kantian 'foundation' of human rights through the impossibility of their foundation (original) (raw)
2022, Liber Amicorum Karoly Bard Vol.II - Constraints on Government and Criminal Justice. Editor: Petra Bard
Positive foundations of human rights fail due to the vagueness of the concept of 'humanity' in such rights; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is such a vague concept. An assumption, however, about what 'humanity' is, is what human rights concepts necessarily presuppose, tacitly or explicitly. The pretension to have found a positive determination turns that vagueness into an ideology affecting politics and people accordingly. This is demonstrated in a critique of two of such pretensions by briefly analyzing an Islamic and a Confucian model, respectively. The German philosopher I. Kant has provided a philosophical theory underlining the vagueness in principle when trying to define what human beings are. In this way he has provided a foundation of human rights ex negativo; other ways are not possible. This can have positive consequences for politics.
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