Professional Documents
Culture Documents
appropriately say that most human rights are subject to or limited by each other and by other
aspects of the common good; aspects which could probably be subsumed under a very broad
conception of human rights but which are fittingly indicated by expressions such as public
morality, public health and public order.
The specification of rights
People (or legal systems) who share substantially the same concept (eg of the human right to
life, or to a fair trial) may nonetheless have different conceptions of that right. The grounds for
limiting human rights normally involve choices by some authoritative process from among
alternatives that are more or less equally reasonable. How is this process accomplished and how
are conflicts between rights resolved? How much interference with one persons enjoyment of a
right by other persons, in the exercise of the same right, and of other rights, is to be permitted?
There is no alternative but to hold in ones mind some pattern, or range of patterns, of human
character, conduct and interaction in community, and then to choose such specification of rights
as tends to favour that pattern or range of patterns. In other words, one needs some conception
of human good, of individual flourishing in a form (or range of forms) of communal life that
fosters rather than hinders such flourishing. [see 220 for important values for human flourishing
that need be taken into account].
The resolution of all these problems of human rights is a process in which various reasonable
solutions may be proposed and debated and should be settled by some decision-making
procedure which is authoritative but which does not pretend to be infallible or to silence further
rational discussion or to forbid the reconsideration of the decision. In short, just as the right of
free speech certainly requires limitation, that is specification in the interests of both free speech
and of many other human goods, so too the procedure for settling the limits of this and other
human rights will certainly be enhanced in reasonableness by a wide freedom of cultural and
political debate.
Absolute human rights
Are there then limits to what may be done in pursuit of protection of human rights or other
aspects of the common good? Are there rights that are not to be limited or overridden for the
sake of any conception of the good life in community, not even to prevent catastrophe? A
utilitarian would contend that there are no absolute human rights. No contemporary government
or elite manifests in its practice any belief in absolute human rights. For every government that
has the physical capacity to make its threats credible says this to its potential enemies: if you
attack us, we will kill all the hostages we hold. As such, they cannot be said to take certain
rights as absolute. Many of these governments are elected by people and subscribed to the UD
or a Bill of Rights embodying human rights such as the right not to be tortured. [to take a
modern example, talk about ISIS and how governments still take part in this behaviour after
WWII].
Notwithstanding the consensus to the contrary, Finnis contends that it is always unreasonable to
choose directly against any basic value, whether in oneself or in ones fellow human beings. As
the basic values are not mere abstractions; they are aspects of the real well-being of flesh-andblood individuals. Correlative to the concept of exceptionless duties, one for instance has the
right not to have her life taken away as a means to further any end.
These rights are strictly correlative to the duties entailed by the requirements of practical
reasonableness. The unwavering recognition of the literally immeasurable value of human
personality in each of its basic aspects (the sole core of the notion of human dignity) requires us
to discount the apparently measurable evil of looming catastrophes which really do threaten the
common good and the enjoyment by others of their rights. [did not understand 225 bottom 226].