The Consequentializing Project and Human Rights Values Basis
Vol.32,No.3(2024)
The article explores the axiological foundations of human rights and argues in favour of the thesis that it must be a single value and that a serious candidate for its position can be not only autonomy but also pleasure. It thus leans towards the idea of a monistic basis for human rights and seeks to rehabilitate hedonistic theory in this area. Its starting point is the project of consequentializing which is much discussed in contemporary philosophy. The article first introduces it to the reader, only to show that it can be applied to theories of human rights. In doing so, the success of this project leads to a blurring of the line between their deontological and consequentialist justifications and underlines the importance of their value base. The question of what particular value underlies human rights cannot be escaped with the help of Rawls’s idea of overlapping consensus. On the basis of different values, while we can agree on very general formulations in human rights catalogues, we can no longer agree on their applications in specific cases. These require at least an implicit adherence to a particular axiological approach. The idea of a monistic basis for these rights is further supported by the fact that they regularly come into conflict with each other, which we are able to resolve successfully. This presupposes that we can grasp their significant aspects through a single scale. If we reject their pluralistic basis, autonomy is often seen as the traditional candidate for the position of their value base. In its last part, the article confronts it with the value of pleasure and shows that it too has its relevance in this area.
Legal philosophy; consequentializing; human rights; value; overlapping consensus; proportionality; incommensurability; incomparability; autonomy; pleasure
399–417
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