Rooting the Universals of Bioethics and Human Rights in Natural Law: An Islamic Response to “The Christian-Catholic Religious Perspective: Human Rights, Cultural Pluralism, and Bioethics” by Professor Laura Palazanni

2017 ◽  
pp. 217-228
Author(s):  
Aasim I. Padela
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
Religious Perspective

scholarly journals God, New Natural Law Theory, and Human Rights

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 613
Author(s):  
Christopher Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Full Theory ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Epistemological Dimension

Critics of the “New” Natural Law (NNL) theory have raised questions about the role of the divine in that theory. This paper considers that role in regard to its account of human rights: can the NNL account of human rights be sustained without a more or less explicit advertence to “the question of God’s existence or nature or will”? It might seem that Finnis’s “elaborate sketch” includes a full theory of human rights even prior to the introduction of his reflections on the divine in the concluding chapter of Natural Law and Natural Rights. But in this essay, I argue that an adequate account of human rights cannot, in fact, be sustained without some role for God’s creative activity in two dimensions, the ontological and the motivational. These dimensions must be distinguished from the epistemological dimension of human rights, that is, the question of whether epistemological access to truths about human rights is possible without reference to God’s existence, nature, or will. The NNL view is that such access is possible. However, I will argue, the epistemological cannot be entirely cabined off from the relevant ontological and motivational issues and the NNL framework can accommodate this fact without difficulty.

On American Values, Unalienable Rights, and Human Rights: Some Reflections on the Pompeo Commission

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Risse
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
American Values ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The U.S

AbstractIn July 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, charged with a reexamination of the scope and nature of human rights–based claims. From his statements, it seems that Pompeo hopes the commission will substantiate—by appeal to the U.S. Declaration of Independence and to natural law theory—three key conservative ideas: (1) that there is too much human rights proliferation, and once we get things right, social and economic rights as well as gender emancipation and reproductive rights will no longer register as human rights; (2) that religious liberties should be strengthened under the human rights umbrella; and (3) that the unalienable rights that should guide American foreign policy neither need nor benefit from any international oversight. I aim to show that despite Pompeo's framing, the Declaration of Independence, per se, is of no help with any of this, whereas evoking natural law is only helpful in ways that reveal its own limitations as a foundation for both human rights and foreign policy in our interconnected age.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Human Nature

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-534
Author(s):  
Jean Rhéaume
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Positive Law

At least two important consequences follow from the fact that human rights are based on human nature. First, they exist according to natural law even in cases where positive law does not recognize them. Secondly, they cannot evolve because the nature and purpose of the human being does not change: only their formulation and level of protection in positive law can vary according to the socio-historical context.

Rights

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Pennington
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Group Rights ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence ◽  
Theological Thought

One of the most notable characteristics of Western societies has been the development of individual and group rights in legal, theological, and philosophical thought of the first two millennia. It has often been noted that thinkers in Non-Western societies have not had the same preoccupation with rights. The very concept of rights is laden with numerous problems. Universality is the most basic and difficult. If human rights are only a product of Western ideas of justice, they cannot have universality. In an age that is dominated by conceptions of law embracing some form of legal positivism, many scholars recognize only individual rights that have been established by the constitutional jurisprudence of individual countries or their legal systems. Historically, the emergence of rights in European jurisprudence is intimately connected with the terms ius naturale and lex naturalis in Western jurisprudence and theological thought. Human beings may never agree on universal rules of a natural law, but they might agree on universal precepts that shape the penumbra of rights surrounding natural rights.

scholarly journals Democracia, Direitos Humanos e Direito Natural: crítica à tese de John Finnis sobre o casamento homossexual | Democracy, Human Rights and Natural Law: critique of John Finnis' thesis on homosexual marriage

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
Roger Raupp Rios
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Homosexual Marriage ◽  
John Finnis

Examina-se de modo crítico a teoria da lei natural, de John Finnis, e sua defesa contra a possibilidade jurídica de reconhecimento do direito ao casamento entre pessoas do mesmo sexo, a partir de dois pontos de vista: a consistência interna da do referencial finnisiano e sua adequação diante do debate sobre direitos humanos. Examinam-se também as alegações associadas à defesa finnisiana, desde a proeminência de uma dita moral majoritária e da ofensa aos sentimentos públicos, até preocupações com a “promoção da homossexualidade”, suas consequências pretensamente prejudiciais aos menores e a fragilização da instituição do casamento. Apontam-se seus limites e sua incompatibilidade em face dos ideais democráticos que suplantaram os projetos nazi-fascistas no século XX, tomando como caso emblemático a decisão da Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos no caso “Obergefell vs. Hodges”.

Putting Natural Law Principles into Practice

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
John Milton ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Racial Segregation ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The Bible

This chapter discusses how a number of efforts were made to promote human rights internationally over a period of almost two centuries, from the start of the antislavery movement in Britain. However, it is possible to cite ancient roots for the principles of human rights. Hammurabi's Code, the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle must be considered among the sources for the concept of justice. The roots of thinking about rights can also be traced to non-Western sources, such as Mencius and Asoka. In the more than three centuries that followed the struggle for rights in England by John Milton, the Levellers, and other dissenters, there were episodic attempts to secure rights relevant to such grave issues as slavery, religious persecution, the subordination of women, forced labor, racial segregation, and the suppression of dissent.

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