Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute

LAW AND NATURE IN THE WORK OF MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 33
this point, Rothbard’s position is even more debatable. The
proposed anchoring of absolute values on a hypothetical
eternal and unchanging kind of human nature raises legitimate
questions. Norberto Bobbio, a supporter of the historicity
of rights, contests the possibility of effectively
searching for an absolute foundation when he says,
For centuries this illusion was common among
advocates of the natural law, who believed they
had safeguarded certain rights from any possible
confutation by deducing them from human
nature (although the rights were not always the
same). However, human nature has proved to be
a very shaky foundation on which to build an
absolute principle for incontrovertible rights. . . .
Human rights constitute a variable category as is
adequately demonstrated by the history of the
last few centuries. The list of human rights has
been modified and continues to be modified in
changing historical circumstances: the requirements
and interests of the ruling classes, the
available means for their enactment, technological
developments, etc. . . . Thus rights are not
fundamental by their nature. That which appears
to be fundamental in a given historical era or civilization,
is not fundamental in other eras or civilizations.
60
Guido Fassò emphasizes the role played by the doctrine
of natural law as a means of rationalizing the law and as a
basis for constitutionalism, but he adds that in order to preserve
its function as a bulwark of liberty, natural law “must
stop trying to express a system of absolute values, given for
all time, outside history.” 61 This is an invitation to recover an
60Norberto Bobbio, The Age of Rights, trans. Allen Cameron
(Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 4–6.
61Fassò, La legge della ragione, p. 217. (All translations are my
own unless otherwise noted.) Dario Antiseri, regarding the possibility
of establishing absolute values, poses the following questions: