Human Rights: Ethics, Rhetoric and Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/milanlawreview/22190Keywords:
Human Rights, public deliberation, political minimalism, rational persuasion, practical incommensurabilityAbstract
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to explain why discourse on Human Rights allows for certain insidious political strategies, which have been recently criticized by authors skeptical of the notion of human rights. Secondly, it aims to justify a more positive appreciation of its political function. The main thesis argues that discourse on Human Rights can play a fundamental role in politics as long as we do not assume that Human Rights exhaust the realm of political justification. The framework for defending this thesis is based on a conception of Human Rights as a particular kind of ethical demands, an understanding of the rhetorical dimension of communication in terms of its ability to generate beliefs and various other forms of attitudes, and a conception of political normativity, i.e., political minimalism, which asserts that politics is an exercise in prudential rationality, involving a political community. Within this framework, Human Rights serve a primary political function by reducing occasions for incommensurability in political deliberation and impasses in decision-making.
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