Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

120 MARTIN MCKEEVER
warrants careful rational justification. If such presuppositions
are not critically examined they are in danger of uncritically
absorbing the current prejudices and distortions of a given
cultural context. In this regard a number of authors have noted
the roots of human rights discourse in the ambitious
Enlightenment claims concerning “right and reason”. 21
In the light of this reading of the preamble, we can conclude
that the text indeed implies a normative ethical system, but it
does not articulate one. If we reconstruct in a critical fashion the
process of reasoning presupposed by the text, it proves to be
remarkably similar to that traditional form of ethical
argumentation known as “natural law”. 22 How else is one to
describe the normative basis of a theory which ascribes such
inherent value to human beings and prescribes such specific
norms for their treatment? It is surely ironic that the preferred
juridical discourse of liberal culture proves to be so heavily
reliant on a classical ethical theory, even if the presence of this
latter would seem to be largely in incognito.
We can imagine the comment of a postmodern philosopher
on such normative affirmations 23 . Smiling with a benevolent
condescension he or she would explain: “But I too am a member
of Amnesty International, I am no less in favour of human rights
than you are, but I simply do not see the need for this
rationalistic superstructure. In order to reject torture I do not
need your abstract discourse on the dignity of the human
21
For a lucid synthesis of recent literature on this point see P. BOURETZ,
“Droits” in Dictionnaire d’éthique et de philosophie morale (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1996).
22
It is a commonplace that “natural law” is used to refer not to one
ethical theory but to a whole gamut of theories, some of which contradict
each other. Here the term is used to refer to the “mainline” classical natural
law tradition as articulated in Augustine, systematically presented in
Aquinas and consistently refined in the intervening theological reflection.
23
For texts which contain far more audacious declarations than those
represented here see: R. RORTY, “Diritti Umani, razionalità e sentimento” in
I Diritti Umani, Oxford Amnesty Lectures, a cura di Stephen Shute e Susan
Hurley (Garanzi Editore, 1994) Italian trans. S. Lauzi, original title On
Human Rights (Basic Books, 1993); Z. BAUMAN, Postmodern Ethics (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1993), 24-59, Italian trans. G. Bettini, Le sfide dell’etica (Milano:
Feltrinelli Editore, 1993).