Interest Justifications

Michael Boylan

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139342650.010

5 - Interest Justifications

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014

Michael Boylan

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Michael Boylan: Affiliation:
Marymount University, Virginia

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Summary

This chapter examines the interest justification for human rights. Though there are numerous practitioners who take this approach, I have chosen to concentrate on two who I think are emblematic. One of two candidates comes from an anti-realist perspective and the other from a naturalist perspective. To get a handle on this distinction, let us agree that among the realistic theories that can be put forward some are (a) natural-realm only (that is, their truth can be derived from an examination of natural phenomena and that is where their truth resides); (b) natural and real in some ontological realm that is non-natural (that is, their truth can be derived from an examination of natural phenomena) and – as a matter of fact – they correspond to truths that exist independently; and (c) real only in a realm that is non-natural (that is, they exist in an independent realm that exhibits a one-to-one correspondence with the natural world in such a way that the one affects the other). Examples of (a) include Alan Gewirth, Philippa Foot, James Griffin, Amartya Sen, and Martha Nussbaum. Examples of (b) include myself, John Locke, and Immanuel Kant. An example of (c) is G. E. Moore.

Joseph Raz, the first proponent of interest justification I will examine, is an anti-realist. The import of this classification is set out in Chapter 7.

Type: Chapter
Information: Natural Human Rights
A Theory
, pp. 127 - 148

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139342650.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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