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A KANTIAN FOUNDATION"
OF HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGH THE IMPOSSIBILITY
OF THEIR FOUNDATION
——o—
HERBERT HANREICH!
Positive foundations of human rights fail due to the vagueness of the concept of
‘humanity’ in such rights; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is such a
vague concept. An assumption, however, about what ‘humanity’ is, is what human
rights concepts necessarily presuppose, tacitly or explicitly.
The pretension to have found a positive determination turns that vagueness
into an ideology affecting politics and people accordingly. This is demonstrated
in a critique of two of such pretensions by briefly analyzing an Islamic and a
Confucian model, respectively.
The German philosopher I. Kant has provided a philosophical theory
underlining the vagueness in principle when trying to define what human beings
are. In this way he has provided a foundation of human rights ex negativo; other
ways are not possible. This can have positive consequences for politics.
INTRODUCTION
Human rights are rights designed to transcend subjective, cultural and national
boundaries. They are designed as natural law, i.e. as rights human beings have
prior to their legal and institutional constitution. But they aim at their legalization
and institutionalization. They have a moral dimension that seeks political and
legal implementation; without it, they would be mere declarations of intentions.
Today, those rights are laid down in declarations, treaties, and manifestations
adopted by international bodies. The most prominent of those documents is the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948.
The UDHR, however, has always been contested, for various reasons, the
fiercest objections among them being those against its principles of universality
and individuality. Those criticisms emerge from socially or culturally imbued
1 Ass.-Prof. Dr. Herbert Hanreich (retired), Department of Applied English, I-Shou University,
Taiwan
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