Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

THE USE OF HUMAN RIGHTS DISCOURSE 117
to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping
this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and
education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by
progressive measures, national and international, to secure their
universal and effective recognition and observance, both among
the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of
territories under their jurisdiction.
Although there has been a series of declarations in the
intervening period, 17 the above text, and the list of rights
specified thereafter, remains a cornerstone of human rights
discourse. Read, as it generally has been, in a pragmatic or
semantic perspective, it constitutes a rich source for both
reflection and action and has been used accordingly for over
fifty years. Read in a normative perspective, however, it proves
remarkably scant and vague in content.
The key questions which concern normative ethics are the
manner in which we know what is good and the manner in
which this knowledge can be used in the formulation of moral
precepts for the guidance of human behaviour. If we read the
above text with these questions in mind it emerges that the
primary good with which it is concerned is “the dignity and
worth of the human person”. On the basis of this dignity and
worth the text recognises the human person as the subject of
“equal and inalienable rights” which determine how the person
may and may not be treated. These rights are then listed in detail
in the body of the declaration.
As regards how we come to know the dignity and worth of
the human person and how this knowledge leads to the
recognition of the rights subsequently listed, the document is
silent. From a normative point of view, in other words, the
declaration consists of a list of precepts as to how the human
being should be treated but it does not elaborate upon the
source of these norms beyond the generic appeal to human
dignity. In other words, both the preamble and the specific
17
For a compilation of such texts see I. BROWNLIE, Basic Documents on
Human Rights. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992).