The most impressive attempt of which I am aware which argues that minimally decent treatment, human rights, for all human beings is a necessary requirement of reason is the one put forth by John Finnis in Natural Law and Natural Rights.’ The object of Finnis’s project is to show that the liberal morality of human rights can be derived from the requirements of reason (per se nota truths), without having to invoke any special Divine revelation or metaphysics (although Finnis is careful to note that his theory is not incompatible with these). Finnis contends that every moral obligation, every ought and its cognates, is derivable from practical reason, and then, by extension that law should reflect this morality which is required by reason. It is in this sense that Finnis’s theory is one of natural law, as opposed to positive law. What is especially noteworthy about Finnis’s project is that he alleges that the minimal requirements of morality can in toto be got out of what he calls the principles of practical reasonableness. Practical reasonableness, for Finnis, amounts to the human capacity for exercising freedom and reason, the characteristics of human personality which enable one to grasp the requirements of practical reasonableness, which are requisites for one to express, shape and select one’s participation in what Finnis calls the “basic goods” or “basic values”. If one behaves in accordance with the principles of practical reasonableness and promotes the basic goods, i.e., if one acts in a manner which is self-evidently reasonable, human rights (what Finnis prefers to call “natural rights”), the minimally decent treatment of all persons, will result. But in order to see whether Finnis’s project succeeds, we will have to examine closely his assumptions and the philosophical moves he makes.