Human rights and human nature

Abstract

Do human rights constitute a new world ethos (Weltethik)? And are these rights one of the few places where general agreement is possible, despite the various divisions which trouble the modern world? Many would say yes, but mainly in the Western World, notwithstanding the growing difference in the interpretation of their content. In other places, however, the question receives different answers and can be controversia!. This occasion suggests a more careful examination of the problem, as we shall soon do. On the contrary it doesn't seem controversia! that, beginning with the declarations of human rights in XVIII century and then in a particularly accelerated manner in our century, the process of their development occurred in three fundamental directions: 1) the growing affirmation of human rights (regarding the human person as such, and civil, political and social rights), and their reception in positive law; 2) their extension, in the sense that new rights relative to the most different areas of human life are introduced; 3) their internationalization - that is, their inclusion in the norms of international law. In spite of the various clouds which are gathering around the issue of human rights, the process just described establishes a positive direction in history, in which person's dignity has been better understood and the arbitrary pretences of power limited