Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

114 MARTIN MCKEEVER
Like every fable, this one suggests some truths which are
anything but fabulous. Alaisdair MacIntyre 13 argues that the
Babel-like confusion of modern ethical discussion is due to the
fact that many of the terms in use have been extricated from the
original conceptual context within which they find their
meaning. The term “human rights” would seem to be a case in
point, in that this locution is so often used with very little
awareness of the conceptual matrices from which the
component terms have been drawn. 14 But surely it is precisely
the personalistic, juridical and emancipative resonances of the
component terms with lend the term “human rights” its
polemical force? It will be argued below , in fact, that a residual
normative element perdures in human rights discourse, but in a
masked form in order not to offend relativist sensibilities.
Equally, it is often forgotten that the neologism “human
rights” was developed in the real world of modern politics and
economics. There is a very close tie, for example, between the
concept of right and the concept of freedom, to the point that it
has been argued that human rights discourse is the quintessence
of modern liberal culture. 15 If one considers liberal culture as
ethically beyond reproach this fact constitutes no problem. If,
however, one is aware of the moral ambiguity of this form of
13
See, in particular, After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981); Whose
Justice? Which Rationality? (London: Duckworth, 1988).
14
Among the innumerable sources treating the historical evolution of
human rights see in particular: I. SHAPIRO, The Evolution of Rights in Liberal
Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); L. STRAUSS, Diritto
naturale e storia, (Venezia: Neri Pozza Editore, 1957); M. VILLEY, Le droit et
les droits de l’homme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983); C.B.
MACPHERSON, Libertà e proprietà alle origini del pensiero borghese. La teoria
dell’individualismo possessivo da Hobbes a Locke, trans. Silvana Borutti
(Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1982); G. TERRUZZI, “I Diritti Umani Nella
Storia”, in I Diritti Umani, riflessioni teoriche e indicazioni didattiche, a cura
di P. DANUVOLA (Brescia: Editrice La Scuola, 1989) 21-41; G. OESTREICH,
Geschichte der Menschenrechte und Grundfreiheiten im Umriss (Berlin:
Duncker & Humblot, (1968) 1978).
15
See, for example, N. BOBBIO, L’età dei diritti (Einaudi contemporanea
12, 1992).