The Human Rights and their deficiencies book 6

THE HUMAN RIGHTS
AND THEIR DEFICIENCIES
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES TO BUILD
A CULTURE OF PEACE
VOLUME VI
Copyright © Miguel Angel Cano Jimenez
First English Edition: 2018
ISBN: 978-1984255624
Edited by the author: Miguel Angel Cano Jimenez
email: famcano2004@gmail.com
Cover Design: Sunil Cano

The Human Rights
And their deficiencies
Chapter 1 The Human Rights
Chapter 2 Human Rights Insufficiencies:
Forgetfulness of duties
Chapter 3 Need for a Consensus on Universal
Ethical Principles

Everyone agrees that we live in a time of crisis. It is a
generalized crisis of values. In science and philosophy the
search for truth, certitude or rationality is in a dead end. In the
sphere of ethics, there is a total confusion about what is right
or wrong.
Society is plagued by problems, ranging from the increase in
youth violence, including child abuse, to problems such as
abusive use of alcohol and drugs, sexual offenses, abuse and
violence within the family, until the corruption of political and
financial elites.
Moreover, at the global level, we are immersed in a series of
regional wars and exposed to the growing danger of conflicts
or clashes between different nations, cultures and civilizations,
in addition to the serious threat of international terrorism.
INTRODUCTION

«Man, having been transformed into a thing, is anxious,
without faith, without conviction, with little capacity for
love. He escapes into empty busy-ness, alcoholism, extreme
sexual promiscuity, and psychosomatic symptoms of all
kinds, which can best be explained by the theory of stress.
Paradoxically, the wealthiest societies turn out to be the
sickest, and the progress of medicine in them is matched by
a great increase of all forms of psychic and psychosomatic
illness.»
Erich Fromm, On Being Human, Continuum, New York, 1994, pp.
36-37.
As Erich Fromm rightly points out in the following quote, it is
paradoxical that opulent societies are the ones who are plagued with most
psychological problems caused by conflicting human relationships that
lead many people to loneliness, depression and even suicide.

The root of current problems lies in the moral
emptiness created by the crisis of values.
Therefore, it is of utmost importance to research
for core values and universal ethical principles
that can be shared and accepted by all nations,
cultures and religions.
These universally shared values should serve as
a basis for a peace education that fosters
peaceful coexistence among individuals, families,
races, nations and civilizations, in order to
achieve a stable and lasting world peace.

The volume titled The Human
Rights and their deficiencies analyzes
the subject of human rights, which
today are an example of values
almost universally accepted.
Even so, human rights seem
incomplete and insufficient, since by
placing only the emphasis on the
individual rights, it relegate to the
background the responsibilities or
duties of individuals to their families
and communities.
Therefore, human rights are difficult to
accept by many of the traditional Eastern
cultures that emphasize, instead, family
and community duties. These cultures see
human rights as particular values of a
Western culture with a marked
individualistic character.
Thus, in order to achieve the desired goal
of world peace, a global intercultural and
interreligious consensus should be sought
in a shared core values that harmonize
traditional cultural values with modern
democratic ideals.

The source of inspiration and motivation
for this research has been the philosophical,
ethical and religious thinking of Sun Myung
Moon, an extraordinary man who dedicated
his whole life to world peace.
He founded the Unification Movement and
numerous organizations and institutions in
all fields of culture. He brought together
scientists, teachers, communicators,
educators, religious leaders, and political
leaders to participate in numerous
international conferences in order to work
for world peace, transcending national,
cultural, racial and religious barriers.
Like other great visionaries as
Jesus, Buddha or Socrates, he has
never written anything, but
throughout his life he has given a
vivid education through lectures,
sermons and public conferences.
For this reason, Dr. Sung Hun Lee,
a Korean scholar, put in order and
systematize the philosophical
thinking of Sun Myung Moon, which
is called “Unification Thought”,
because its claim is to harmonize all
contradictory schools and currents of
human thought throughout history.

«Humankind’s destiny is to bring together all the
points of view that are now divided against each
other. The philosophy that will lead humanity in the
future must be able to bring together all religions
and philosophies.(…)
If we continue the era of people congregating
together only by religion or race, then humanity
cannot avoid a repetition of war. The age of peace
absolutely cannot come unless we transcend
cultural customs and traditions.»
Sun Myung Moon, As a Peace-loving Global Citizen,TheWashingtonTimes
Foundation, USA, 2009, p. 291.

1. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights
2. Historical origins of the beliefs or
suppositions on which human rights
are based
3. The problem of the justification of
human rights
CHAPTER 1 THE HUMAN RIGHTS

 The three generations
of human rights
 Specific qualities of
human rights
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
is the latest attempt by the international
community to reach a consensus on common
ethical principles and values.
In this chapter we will analyze human
rights to see if they are sufficient to
harmonize different cultures and civilizations
and to solve all the current problems, or if, on
the contrary, they need to be reviewed and
complemented in order to better comply with
their task to serve as the basis for building a
more just and peaceful world.
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
After the horrors ofWorldWar II and
following a negotiation between jurists,
intellectuals and political delegations of
the main victorious powers in the war an
agreed text was written that later was
endorsed by all the nations.
On December 10, 1948, the United
NationsGeneral Assembly adopted and
proclaimed the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states solemnly:
«Whereas recognition of the inherent
dignity and of the equal and inalienable
rights of all members of the human family is
the foundation of freedom, justice and
peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for
human rights have resulted in barbarous
acts which have outraged the conscience of
mankind, and the advent of a world in which
human beings shall enjoy freedom of
speech and belief and freedom from fear
and want has been proclaimed as the
highest aspiration of the common people…
The General Assembly proclaims this Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard
of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the
end that every individual and every organ of society,
keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall
strive by teaching and education to promote respect
for these rights and freedoms and by progressive
measures, national and international, to secure their
universal and effective recognition and observance,
both among the peoples of Member States
themselves and among the peoples of territories
under their jurisdiction.»
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations,
Preamble.

The three generations of human rights
The human rights contained in the Declaration are
usually classified by generations, that is, by their age or
time in which they were recognized and positivized in
legal texts.
There is a first generation of rights, formed by the classic
natural rights to life, liberty and property of Locke, along
with other civil and political individual rights, which were
already collected a couple of centuries ago by the
American Constitution and are the essence of the liberal
democratic tradition.
These rights are the right to freedom of religion,
conscience and thought; the right to freedom of
expression, assembly and association; the right to
equality before the law and to enjoy all legal guarantees;
and the right to direct access to the organs of government
and administration through free elections or indirect ones
through political representatives.
In fact, the first article of the
Declaration, which states that
«all human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights
and, endowed as they are with
reason and conscience, should
behave fraternally with one
another» enshrines the three
classics ideals of freedom,
equality and fraternity.

The three generations of human rights
The Declaration contains a second generation of rights,
the so-called economic and social rights, which were
added by the influence of the socialist revolutions that
moderated the liberalism of theWestern democracies
and by the pressure of the Soviet Union and other
Socialist countries, such as the right to work, fair wages,
housing, paid holidays, education and health care.
Finally, there are the so-called third-generation rights,
which are all those that arise as a result of the
development of the technique and which are not included
in the Declaration —although some of them have been
the object of further declarations— such as, for example,
Ecological rights or the right to a healthy environment,
the right to peace and the right to a sustainable
development of peoples.

And as Medina Rubio explains very well, the specific qualities of human rights are the following:
Specific qualities of human rights
«They are rights that can be considered pre-social, in
the sense that they are inherent to the dignity of people,
regardless of references to any model of society, since
society is not at the origin or birth of these rights.
They are rights with pretension of universality, because
they have as active subject every man. For, although they
are elaborated and formulated within a concrete
historical-cultural framework, they have in human nature
their element of support.
They are priority or fundamental rights, which society
has to respect in each person, with a peculiar position or
legal force in the positive legal system, given its relevance
to protect goods or interests of special significance for
the realization of justice and human needs.
They are inalienable rights, since the
subject bearer of them cannot alienate
them, without contradicting their own
rational condition and human dignity.
They are rights that behave as rational
ethical demands that require (as a must) to
enjoy their protection and guarantee their
positivation as basic structures in legal
systems, whose exercise can only be limited
by requirements of other rights of the same
rank.»
Rogelio Medina Rubio, «El respeto a los derechos
humanos y la educación en los valores de una
ciudadanía universal», en Derechos humanos y
educación, UNED, Madrid, 2000, pp. 31-32.

 The special dignity and
intrinsic value of human beings
 Ancient roots of the rights to
life, property and equality
 Historical roots of the concept
of freedom under the rule of
law
 Philosophical and religious
roots of freedom of belief and
tolerance
HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE BELIEFS OR SUPPOSITIONS ON WHICH
HUMAN RIGHTS ARE BASED

The conviction that human
beings possess an intrinsic value
and a special dignity that
distinguishes them from the rest of
the creatures, which is the
fundamental supposition upon
which human rights are based, is a
very old belief shared by all the
great religions and cultures.
The special dignity and intrinsic value of human beings

In Greek culture, Socrates described in a beautiful and suggestive manner the qualities that distinguish
human beings from other living beings, emphasizing that they are the possessors of the most perfect soul.
The divinity infused in man a most perfect soul
«Among all living beings only man was put
erected ... also, if they gave to other
terrestrial animals feet that just allow them to
walk, man was added with hands... and
having all living beings mouth, only that of
humans was made it so that by touching
either side of the mouth they can articulate
sounds and make others understand
everything that they want to communicate.
And as for the pleasures of love, to other
animals were circumscribed to a time of the
year, while we were offered without
interruption until old age.
Well, it was not enough for the divinity to worry about
the body, but more importantly, he infused into man a
most perfect soul.
In fact, what soul of another living being is in the first
place able to recognize the existence of the gods who
ordered the greatest and most beautiful creations?What
soul is more capable than the human... to remedy disease,
to exercise its strength, to strive to learn, or better able to
remember what it has learned or seen?
Is it not altogether evident that alongside other living
beings men live as gods, standing out above all by their
nature, their body and their spirit?»
Xenophon, Memories of Socrates, Gredos 1993, p. 49.

The Stoics held that the mind or reason of all men is a part
of the same universal and divine Logos that governs the
universe.
In Chinese culture, the human being was also considered
to be the best endowed and most loved by Heaven, and in
whose heart theTao was incarnated, thus granting the
human being a special dignity and a crucial role in cosmic
order or harmony.
Similarly, in Hindu culture the value of the human being
stands out above the rest of the creatures because he
possesses an atman or eternal soul that is like a drop or spark
of the Absolute Spirit, with which he is destined to merge.
Human reason is a part of the Universal Logos
In the human heart theTao is incarnated
The human soul is a spark of the Absolute Spirit

Man and woman were created by God in His own image and likeness
«We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.»
Declaration of Independence of the United States. July 4th,
1776.
In the Jewish tradition, human value and
dignity are defended because in the Bible it is
written that man and woman were created by
God in His own image and likeness, and because
God put them at the head of creation.
Jesus raised the value and dignity of human
beings even more by teaching that we are the
beloved sons and daughters of God and that our
spirit lives forever.
In fact, this belief in the special and intrinsic
dignity of the human being exerted a decisive
influence on the first human rights defenders,
mostly Christian, as can be seen in the
Declaration of Independence of the United
States:

Ancient roots of the
rights to life, property
and equality
The ancient precept of not killing
and stealing present in all cultures
and religions of the world already
implicitly recognized the right to life
and property of all human beings,
since both mandates mean the same
as prescribing: respect the right to
life and to the property of all
persons.
As for the essential equality of all
human beings, the Stoics —supposing
that all men participate in the same
universal Logos— defended it and even
condemned slavery, and Christians, by
believing that all men and women are
sons and daughters of God, advocated
an universal human fraternity.
Even before, Buddha and the Jains
tried to abolish the Hindu system class,
and Confucius attempted to universalize
education and access to public office in
China.
As can be seen from the following
quotes, voices that advocated human
dignity and equality arose in practically
all cultures.

Have we not all one father? Has not one
God created us?
Judaism and Christianity. Malachi 2.10
God created the human being in his own
image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them.
Judaism and Christianity. Genesis 1:27
Know all human beings to be
repositories of Divine Light; Stop not to
inquire about their caste; In the hereafter
there are no castes.
Sikhism.Adi Granth: Asa, M.1, p. 349
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither
male nor female, for you are all one in
Christ Jesus.
Christianity. Galatians 3.28
Master said: Transmit the culture to
everyone, without distinction of races or
categories.
Confucianism. Hia-LunV.38
So what of all these titles, names, and
races?They are mere worldly conventions.
Buddhism. Sutta Nipata 648
I look upon all creatures equally; none are
less dear to me and none more dear.
Hinduism. Bhagavad Gita IX, 29
Their Lord answered them, saying, "I will
never demean the work of any of you,
whether man or woman! Because you
descend from one another.”
Islam. Qur'an 3.195

To those who descend from
distinguished parents we respect and
honor them; on the contrary, those
who are not of distinguished class do
not respect or honor them. In this we
behave reciprocally as barbarians,
because by nature we have been
created equal in all respects, barbarians
and Hellenes the same.
Antiphon of Athens, 5th century BC.
Divinity has created equal to all men;
Nature has made no one slave.
Alcidamas of Elea, quoted by Aristotle,
Rhetoric,A13, 1373b 18
Nothing is so similar to something
else as one man to another. Any
definition of man is valid for another.
This is only obscured in the measure
that man is carried away by the
corruption of customs.
Cicero, De legibus, I, 10
Men here present, I consider all of
you relatives, close friends and
citizens by nature, although not by
law, since by nature those who are
similar are linked to the like.
Hippias of Elis, cited by Plato,
Protagoras, 337, c

Historical roots of the concept
of freedom under the rule of
law
With regard to the right to freedom in
the sense of being free from injustice,
oppression and tyranny, in all cultures and
religions there has been a belief in a cosmic
principle, universal moral rule, natural or
divine law that should govern human
society and guarantee righteousness, and
before this law all men are equal.
That is, everybody, without distinction
of rank or class, should submit to it.This
subjection to a common and universal law
is what guarantees freedom from injustice,
oppression and tyranny.
The first Greek legislators were
those who gave the Greek people the
feeling of being a free people because
they were not subject to tyrants but to
the law, as can be seen in this quote
from Euripides.
For a people, nothing is worse than a
tyrant. Under this regime there are no laws
made for everyone. A single man governs,
and the law belongs to him. Therefore,
there is no equality, while under the rule of
written laws, the poor and the rich have
the same rights. The weak can respond to
the insult of the strong, and the little one,
if he is right, can defeat the big one.
Euripides, Supplications, 429-454

Later, the Stoics stressed that the
same universal natural law should govern
all peoples and thus guarantee freedom
and equality in the ecumene or world
community of human beings.
In Hindu culture there was also this
same concept of divine law that protects
the weak, as can be seen in the following
quote.
The Jewish Mosaic law was a divine
law which both kings and subjects were
to respect, since all men, regardless of
class or rank, were servants of God.
This Jewish conception of the
supreme authority of the Law and the
equality of men before it —which the
early liberal theorists assumed as
theirs— was a revolutionary idea in its
time if we compare it with the
traditions of deified kings and
privileged castes of the Ancient
Empires.
Thus in Leviticus 25:10 it is said:
«Proclaim liberty throughout the land
to all its inhabitants.»
The Creator ... projected that excellent
form (Dharma), the Law. This law is the
one that controls the ruler; for which there
is nothing higher. In this way, even a weak
man has the hope of defeating the
strongest by law, as if he had the help of a
king.
Hinduism, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
1.4.14

When the Israelite kings fell into
corruption, the Jewish prophets
admonished and exhorted them by
demanding respect for the law and
justice.
Christianity inherited this Jewish
vision from a divine law and also
assimilated the stoic vision of a natural
law.
The Stoics had observed that laws
varied from place to place, and so they
concluded that existing laws, established
by convention, would have to be
contrasted with an unwritten natural law
that was neither variable nor relative.
A law which could be accessed through
observation of the nature of things and
human nature, as well as through human
reason or conscience.Therefore, if it were
the case, the current laws of a specific
time or place could be denounced as
unjust.
Thus says the Lord: —Do justice and
righteousness, and deliver from the hand
of the oppressor him who has been
robbed. And do no wrong or violence to
the alien, the fatherless, and the widow,
nor shed innocent blood.
Judaism and Christianity. Jeremiah 22.3
He has anointed me to announce good
news to those who suffer, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim the amnesty
to the captives and to the prisoners
freedom.
Judaism and Christianity. Isaiah 61: 1

Throughout the Middle Ages the
concept of Natural Law was developed,
harmonizing the Jewish and Stoic
visions, defined as a set of «first
principles of the just and the unjust,
inspired by nature and that as an ideal
tries to realize the positive law.»
From this concept of Natural Law is
where modern human rights are born.
Following the incipient formulations of
Grotius and Puffendorf, it was Locke
who first claimed the natural rights of
man to life, liberty, and property, and
which were later collected in the
American Declaration of
Independence.
They were innate individual rights granted
by God to all human beings or conferred upon
them by that unwritten Natural Law, which
are prior to entering into society and the
promulgation of its laws, and which must be
collected, protected and guaranteed by the
Constitution and laws of any nation claiming
to be just.
Most of the ideals proclaimed by the early
liberal theorists and bourgeois
revolutionaries —such as the defense of
human dignity, the essential equality of men
and fraternity, the rights to life, property and
freedom from tyranny, the rule of law, and
the equality of all before it— were not their
original or unpublished inventions as we have
just seen, but were ideas which had their
roots in ancient philosophical and religious
traditions.

Philosophical and religious
roots of freedom of belief and
tolerance
Perhaps the most novel and revolutionary
achievement —apart from the substitution of
absolute monarchies for constitutionalist
democracies— was the defense and
consolidation of freedom of belief, thought and
conscience, that is, the right not to be
convicted or executed for professing a religion
or ideas different from those of the dominant
majority.
This right to freedom of belief is based on
the assumption that the human being is free to
seek the truth, the meaning of his life or
happiness using his own reason or conscience.
Locke andVoltaire passionately defended the
virtue of tolerance as seen in the following
quotes.
Tolerance with those who have different
religious opinions is so in accord with the Gospel
and with the reason that it seems a monstrosity
that there are men so blind in the middle of such
a brilliant light.
Locke, Carta sobre la tolerancia, Grijalbo,
Barcelona, 1975
What is tolerance? It is the panacea of
humanity. We are all filled with weaknesses and
mistakes and we must forgive each other. This is
the first law of nature. It is undoubted that a man
who persecute another man, who is his brother,
because he professes a different opinion, is a
monster.
Voltaire, Diccionario Filosófico,Temas de Hoy,
Madrid, 1995

Truth has many aspects. Infinite truth has
infinite expressions. Though the sages
speak in divers ways, they express one and
the sameTruth.
Ignorant is he who says: “What I say and
know is true; others are wrong.” It is
because of this attitude of the ignorant that
there have been doubts and
misunderstandings about God. This attitude
it is that causes dispute among men.
But all doubts vanish when one gains self-
control and attains tranquility by realizing
the heart of Truth. Thereupon dispute, too,
is at an end.
Hinduism. Bhagavatam 11.15
The consolidation of this right to
freedom of belief and thought was very
important to end the fanaticism and
religious intolerance that motivated the
bloody fratricidal wars within Christianity
and between different religions.
Although intolerance has been,
unfortunately, a stone on which most
religions have stumbled repeatedly, there
were also voices in them that advocated
religious tolerance, as can be seen in the
following quotes.

Comprehend one philosophical view
through comprehensive study of
another one.
Jainism. Acarangasutra 5.113
Those who praise their own doctrines
and disparage the doctrines of others
do not solve any problem.
Jainism. Sutrakritanga 1.1.50
To be attached to a certain view and
to look down upon others' views as
inferior--this the wise men call a fetter.
Buddhism. Sutta Nipata 798
Will you then compel mankind, against
their will, to believe? No soul can believe,
except by the Will of God.
Islam. Qur'an 10.99-100
Like the bee, gathering honey from
different flowers, the wise man accepts
the essence of different scriptures and
sees only the good in all religions.
Hinduism. Bhagavatam 11.3
Truly I perceive that God shows no
partiality, but in every nation anyone
who fears him and does what is right is
acceptable to him.
Christianity.Acts 10.34-35

 The universal consensus
 Man is “an end in himself”
 The “humanitarian superstition”
 The “non-negotiable moral intuitions”
 The “rhetorical absurdities”
 The “survival of the fittest”
 The “end justifies the means”
 The malicious “selfish genes”
 The “metaphysical consolation”
 Conclusions
THE PROBLEM OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

For the early liberal theorists, like
Locke, human rights were natural
rights that individuals simply
possessed, even before being part of
a society and having common laws,
because they had been granted them
by God and the natural law.
So rational justification of these
rights was based on the existence of
that unwritten, universal and
invariable moral order, inherent in
nature, which could be recognized by
the reason or conscience of the
people because in some way it is
recorded In their minds.
And, of course, these natural rights were also
sustained by a strong conviction that the human
being possessed a special value and dignity that
distinguished him from the rest of the creatures.
THE PROBLEM OF THE JUSTIFICATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

With the fall in the academic discredit of the belief in the
natural law and with the proliferation of new visions of the human
nature that homologate humans with machines or simple evolved
animals, those natural rights lost the grounds that justified them.
Today, after the Universal Declaration, the renowned Human
Rights are generally justified rationally on the fact that they have
been the result of a virtually universal consensus.
Norberto Bobbio solemnly affirmed: «In fact, today it can be
said that the problem of the foundation of human rights has had
its solution in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
approved by the GeneralAssembly of the United Nations ». (...)
Thus, the 1948 Declaration... would constitute the greatest
historical evidence that never have existed for a consensus
omnium gentium, that is, for a truly universal consensus on a given
value system: namely, the system of human rights.»
Norberto Bobbio, «Presente y porvenir de los derechos humanos», Anuario de
Derechos Humanos, 1982, pp. 7,28.
However, Muguerza rightly points
out that the 1948 Declaration «is
nothing more than a factual consensus
or a merely conventional agreement»
which may well have been limited to
«expressing a strategic commitment
between the parties concerned.»
«If our conventions —Muguerza
adds— can serve at the same time to
endorse unjust rules or just norms,
then they will serve to ground human
rights or inhuman rights.»
Javier Muguerza, Ética, disenso y derechos
humanos, Argés, Madrid, 1998, pp. 34-39, 56.
The universal consensus

Muguerza, who denies that any conventional
pact or majority decision can rationally justify
human rights, thinks that a more plausible
foundation could be based on the second
formulation of the Kantian imperative, which
prescribes:
Man is “an end in himself”
«Act in such a way that you use
humanity, whether in your own person or
in the person of any other, always at the
same time as an end, never merely as a
means.»
Kant, Fundamentación de la metafísica de las
costumbres, Espasa-Calpe, Madrid, 1963, p. 84.

Referring to this imperative, Muguerza says
on another occasion: «I have once pointed out
that Kant would have been surprised if he had
been told that human dignity —which is what
is at stake in such imperative— needs to be
submitted to a referendum or any other kind
of popular consultation.At this point, it is no
longer possible to refer to another instance
than that of the individual conscience»,
implying that the assertion that “man is an
end in himself” —or what is the same, that he
has an intrinsic dignity— does not need any
consensus, pact or majority agreement to
justify it since it is an indubitable truth
recognized by the human conscience.
But this is practically the same thing that the
first human rights defenders asserted, that is, that
they were self-evident truths that our reason or
conscience could recognize because the universal
natural law is engraved in our minds.
It should be borne in mind that Kant was an
Enlightened man who had a strong conviction, of
Stoic roots, in the existence of a universal moral
law, and a firm belief, of Christian origin, in the
dignity of the human being.
For this reason, it is natural that for him the
affirmation that “man is an end in himself” was an
indubitable truth.
Javier Muguerza, Desde la perplejidad, FCE, Madrid, 1990,
pp. 681-682.
Man is “an end in himself”

However, from the perspective of current rationality,
abstemious of metaphysics and repelling any religious
notion, the claim that the human being is “an end in
himself” is very difficult to justify rationally, as Muguerza
himself implies.
Muguerza recognizes that many moral
philosophers, including himself, in the face of
the impossibility of finding a rational
justification from the point of view of the
parameters that delimit the current
rationality, «have yielded at some time or
another to concede that the Kantian
affirmation that the man is an end in itself is
no more than a humanitarian superstition,
even if it is a fundamental superstition if we
want to continue talking about ethics.»
Thus the building of ethics and human
rights remains in a very precarious and
unstable position, since according to current
rationality is built on the foundations of a
mere superstition.
Javier Muguerza, Ética, disenso y derechos humanos,
Argés, Madrid, 1998, pp. 67.
«When Kant solemnly asserted that “man exists as
an end in himself and not only as a means for any use
of this or that will,” he was surely convinced that he
was expressing a rationally indubitable assertion and
not simply abandoning himself to the expression of
an Enlightened prejudice, a fable convenue of the
Enlightenment or, as it has been said, a humanitarian
superstition.»
Javier Muguerza, Desde la perplejidad, FCE, Madrid, 1990, p.
334.
The “humanitarian superstition”

Current consensualist or
neocontractualist philosophers, such as
Habermas and Rawls, attempt to rationally
justify ethical norms or principles of justice
—which generally include basic human
rights— by using procedures based on
rational discussions or social pacts.
At first, these authors begin talking only
of procedures, which applied correctly can
lead to just social pacts on common ethical
principles. But in the end, they finish up
saying that there are non-negotiable moral
intuitions (justice and solidarity, according
to Habermas) or fundamental principles
(liberal democratic tradition, according to
Rawls) that are prior to any dialogue or
negotiation.
But this is practically the same like the first human
rights defenders stated when they say that natural
rights are non-negotiable truths that are prior to any
social pact.
Is there any epistemological difference between
maintaining that there are self-evident and invariable
moral intuitions or fundamental principles and
affirming that there is a moral order and self-evident
and invariable natural rights?
The “non-negotiable moral intuitions”

One of the most notorious detractors of the
belief in natural rights was Bentham, who became
famous for claiming that natural rights were
nonsense with stilts and rhetorical absurdities. His
rejection was because the concept of natural rights
clashed with his associationist psychology and his
principle of utility.
According to Bentham, the only two basic and
primary motivations of human beings are to seek
pleasure and avoid pain, the two lords who
inexorably govern man.
Therefore, the only moral law that prevails in
nature is the principle of utility, that is, good and
right is what produces a maximum of pleasure and a
minimum of pain, whether individuals or the whole
of society.
So, if the situation or the circumstances
requires it, sometimes it is not necessary to
respect the human rights of some people in
order to seek maximum happiness or pleasure
for the greatest number of people. For this
reason, hedonistic utilitarianism is a moral
theory that always questioned the demand for
respect for human rights.
The “rhetorical absurdities”

Among the visions of human nature, emerging
after the Enlightenment, more opposed to human
dignity and rights are the naturalistic vision
promoted by Malthus, Spencer and Darwin, in which
human beings are equated with an animal, and it is
said that the only moral law prevailing in nature is
the «survival of the fittest.»
According to Malthus, if someone possesses
nothing and finds no job «in the mighty feast of
nature there is no place for him.»
And Spencer asserted that the supreme law of
nature is that «a creature that lacks sufficient energy
to support himself must die.»
T. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, London, 1803.
H. Spencer, The Man versus the State, Penguin, 1968, p. 83.
In this way, they not only justified the
capitalist exploitation of the workers during
the Industrial Revolution but also
legitimized the colonial conquests and the
extermination of peoples, ethnic groups or
races considered inferior by theWestern
powers.
All this with the excuse that this
phenomenon forms part of the natural
process of evolution, improvement and
perfection of the human race and
civilization, in which the individuals or
peoples more fit or stronger are those
destined to prevail, whereas the less
intelligent or weaker are those facing
extinction.
The “survival of the fittest”

A similar view was held by Nazi ideologists,
who drew inspiration from Nietzsche’s
“morality of the lords” to affirm the supremacy
of the Aryan race and justify the extermination
of the Jews.
Also, the Stalinist communist orthodox
ideology based on dialectical and historical
materialism —which was a philosophical vision
which inherited the materialist and mechanistic
conceptions of man and nature arisen after the
Enlightenment— regarded the human being as
a mere animal or piece of meat whose
conscience was completely conditioned by the
social system, making it perfectly justifiable for
them to eliminate thousands or millions of
people to achieve the goal of the “egalitarian
socialist paradise.”
This same justification for a cruel and
indiscriminate violence against innocent people
as a legitimate means to achieve an alleged goal
of justice, peace, equality or future freedom is
what is used by all types of current terrorists,
which after the failure of political and
revolutionary ideals of the last century, are
mainly based on religious, ethnic and nationalist
fanaticism.
The “end justifies the means”

Among current visions that can become a
threat to human dignity and rights can also be
counted on the Darwinian biologists and
naturalists who are still committed to
homologate us with animals and who fervently
defend the belief that we are the fruit of a
random series of fortuitous accidents and
genetic mutations.
With these presuppositions it is almost
impossible to maintain the conviction that
people possess an intrinsic value or special
dignity that distinguishes them from the rest of
the creatures, since, in fact, it is denied that in
the universe there is any meaning, ultimate aim
or moral order except “the law of the strongest.”
Some of these naturalists, striving at all
costs to convince us that we are animals, go
so far as to justify cannibalism, infanticide,
incest, sexual promiscuity, or rape on the
grounds that they are common practice in
many animal species, whose root are in the
Darwinian imperative to procreate or multiply
that move those selfish genes we all carry
within, as Dawkins says, which use us as their
disposable machines to fulfill their malicious
intentions to become dominant through
copying themselves frantically.
Thornhill and Palmer, A Natural History of Rape, MIT
Press, 2000.
Richard Dawkins, El gen egoísta, Labor, Barcelona,
1979, pp. 42,47,105.
The malicious “selfish genes”

Finally, from the point of view of NorthAmerican
neopragmatism, which has Rorty as its main
representative, the belief in human rights is a pure
“metaphysical consolation” that pragmatists need not
resort to.
According to Rorty this consolation consists in «the
idea that belonging to our biological species carries
certain rights, an idea that does not seem to make
sense unless the possession of biological similarities
involves the possession of something non-biological,
something that links our species to a non-human reality
and therefore gives moral dignity to the species.»
According to the pragmatists, human rights are mere
social constructs, fictions or useful instruments that
serve to defend certain norms of conduct that are
considered the most convenient or beneficial to society.
Therefore, it is not necessary to discuss
whether or not human rights actually exist or to
try to justify them rationally but, as Rorty says,
«to discuss the usefulness of the set of social
constructs we call human rights is to debate the
question of whether inclusive societies are
better than the exclusionary ones.»
Thus the pragmatists, in considering the fact
that the liberal political tradition —which
includes respect for human rights—, proved
over two centuries, has been quite beneficial to
the American people, they conclude that It is
worth defending these useful fictions called
human rights.
Richard Rorty, Objetividad, relativismo y verdad, Paidós,
1996, p. 52.
The “metaphysical consolation”

It is obvious that using the argument of
the universal consensus achieved through
the Declaration is something that
strengthens the credibility of human rights.
However, such consensualist reasons alone
are not enough to sustain human rights.
We have seen above how current moral
philosophers have no choice but to resort
to conscience, non-negotiable moral
intuitions or fundamental principles prior
to any pact to try to justify human rights,
thereby implicitly recognizing the
existence of an objective and invariable
moral order recognizable by human
intuition, reason or conscience.
Conclusions
Would it not be simpler and more honest, then,
to state explicitly that there is an objective moral
order in the universe, which is a belief shared by
all ancient religious and philosophical traditions,
and which was precisely the origin of the concept
of human rights?
If the idea is to strengthen the belief in the
intrinsic value and special dignity of the human
being, which is the one that sustains human
rights, why limit oneself only to a humanist and
rationalist perspective, and to leave aside the
religious and philosophical traditions that have
long argued in favor of the sacred value of the
human person? It is as if we cut to a table all the
legs except one and we hope that it stays in foot.

Human Rights Insufficiencies:
Forgetfulness of duties

1. From rights to duties
2. Eastern challenge to human rights
3. Rights and duties from the point of
view of the individual purpose and
the purpose for the whole
CHAPTER 2 HUMAN RIGHTS INSUFFICIENCIES:
FORGETFULNESS OF DUTIES

 Human rights are not exempt of problems
 The misuse of rights
 The clamorous forgetfulness of the duties
 The healthy defense of the individual
rights and freedoms of the Enlightened
against tyranny
 The transformation of the original
altruistic individualism into a selfish and
rapacious individualism
 The complaint of the communitarians
FROM RIGHTS TO DUTIES

In spite of the great relevance of
human rights in the sense of
having achieved an important
international consensus in the
recognition of the value and
dignity of each human person, as
well as their equality in basic
individual rights and freedoms,
human rights are not exempt
either of problems, as Sánchez
Cámara rightly points out.
«The immoderate predominance of the language of
human rights and the corresponding neglect of duties
also constitutes a threat to freedom, and even to the
rights themselves.
Few ideas such as “human rights” have become
common and devalued currency in contemporary
political language.
Born within the classical iusnaturalism, and based on
certain philosophical positions and religious doctrines,
the expression “human rights” is now confused because
it has become denaturalized becoming an object of
propaganda for purposes other than the original ones.»
Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, «Democracia, mayoría, minorías», en
Valores en una sociedad plural, Papeles de la Fundación, Madrid, 1999,
pp. 62-63.
Human rights are not exempt of problems

Quintana Cabanas also
warns us that the excessive
emphasis placed on the
claim of individual rights
carries the danger of
claiming clearly illegitimate
rights.
The misuse of rights
«By always talking about rights, some
individuals become obsessed with them,
and forgetting their duties —which they
also have— claim certain rights that are
not such or that must be judged as
excessive or illegitimate.»
José María Quintana Cabanas, «Los falsos o
discutibles derechos humanos», en Derechos humanos y
educación, López-Barajas, (Coords.), UNED, Madrid,
2000, p. 82

Let us focus mainly on an obvious
deficiency of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the patent oblivion to mention
the corresponding duties, obligations or
responsibilities of man, despite the inclusion
of a scanty note almost at the end of the
Declaration (Article 29.1) that reads:
«Everyone has duties to the community in
which alone the free and full development of
his personality is possible.»
The clamorous forgetfulness of the duties

Jacques Maritain, one of the
philosophers who participated in the
drafting of the Declaration, has long
expressed the logical need to complement
the declaration of rights with a declaration
of human obligations or responsibilities.
«If it is true that the rights of man are based
on natural law, which is both a source of rights
and duties —both notions are also correlative—,
it turns out that a declaration of rights should be
complemented with a declaration of the
obligations and responsibilities of man to the
communities of which they are a part:
particularly for family society, civil society and
the international community.»
J. Maritain, «Acerca de la filosofía de los derechos del
hombre», en AA.VV. Los derechos del hombre, Barcelona,
Laia, 1973, pp. 111-120.

MahatmaGandhi, in a letter to the of
UNESCOGeneral Director in response to
his request for advice while the
Declaration was being worked out, also
expressed the convenience, from the
traditional Indian perspective, to relate all
rights with their corresponding duties.
«From my ignorant but wise mother I learned
that the rights that can be deserved and
preserved come from well-done duty. In such a
way that we are only deserving of the right to
life when we fulfill the duty of citizens of the
world.
With this fundamental statement, it may be
easy to define the duties of men and women and
relate all rights with some corresponding duty to
be fulfilled.
Any other right will be a usurpation for which
it will not be worth fighting.»
«Carta de Mahatma Gandhi al Director General de la
UNESCO, 25 de mayo de 1947, en AA.VV. Los derechos del
hombre, Barcelona, Laia, 1973, pp. 33-34.

The roots of this almost exclusive emphasis
on the defense of individual human rights and
the consequent forgetting of duties go back to
the very origins of the modern concept of
human rights.
As is well known, the natural rights of man
were born in the Enlightened circles of liberal
theorists who inspired the bourgeois
revolutions of the eighteenth century.
In fact, the defense of the natural rights of
man became the moral justification for the
abolition of absolute monarchies.
The democratic system was designed by
liberals precisely to avoid tyranny and
abuse of human rights by the State, since
by being collected and guaranteed by the
Constitution all elected rulers and citizens
would be obliged to respect them.
For this reason, human rights were born
with the marked individualistic stamp that
the first liberal theorists and bourgeois
revolutionaries impressed upon it.
The healthy defense of the individual rights and freedoms of the Enlightened
against tyranny

However, the individualistic vision of
the early liberal theorists of democracy
—which originally consisted only in a
righteous defense of individual rights and
freedoms against the tyranny of the
monarchical regime— became
radicalized into an atomistic vision of
society, which emphasized individual
rights exaggeratedly and exclusively, and
rejected as suspicious any notion of the
common good or duties of individuals
towards society.
In this way, the original altruistic and
human rights defender individualism became
deformed into a hedonistic, materialistic and
selfish individualism —unfortunately
widespread in our current democratic
societies— that makes individuals claim for
themselves the maximum of rights and
freedoms in order to enjoy all kinds of
individual satisfactions, and to reject any kind
of duty, obligation or responsibility towards
their families, communities, nations or the
world.
The transformation of the original altruistic individualism into a selfish and
rapacious individualism

This situation has led many communitarian
authors and intellectuals to denounce this
corrosive selfish individualism prevailing in
democratic societies that causes atomization,
social fragmentation, destruction of the family
and the social fabric, anomie, moral confusion
and increased criminal, antisocial and
compulsive behaviors among young people that
in the end destroy the individuals themselves.
The most serious problem of the current
democracies, as communitarians say, is no
longer tyranny or that the State abuses the
human rights of its citizens but the irresponsible
misuse of these rights and freedoms by selfish
individuals or certain groups , corporations or
mafias.
For this reason, not only
communitarians but also many other
current thinkers see an urgent need of
a moral regeneration of public and
private life in democratic societies
that will strengthen family and
community ties and reverse the
current trend toward this kind of
egocentric individualism, by the
means of an education that, instead of
exclusively exalting individual rights
and freedoms, emphasizes the
exercise of duties or responsibilities
towards others.
The complaint of the communitarians

 The loss of the influence of human rights
in other civilizations
 Human rights are a “Western invention”
 Eastern rejection of the individualistic
view of society
 Western culture and Eastern cultures can
demand each other
EASTERN CHALLENGE TO HUMAN RIGHTS

Another phenomenon closely related to the
problem we are dealing with is the growing
Asian and Islamic opposition to human rights.
Western politicians and human rights
defenders have long been chastising many
Asian countries for their violation of human
rights, since in many of these societies —with
traditional customs that emphasize obedience
to the authorities, duties to the community and
social cohesion— the individual rights and
freedoms to which we are accustomed in the
West are very often disregarded.
EASTERN CHALLENGE TO HUMAN RIGHTS

However, according to
Huntington, theWest is losing much
of its power or influence, and «As
Western power declines, the ability
of theWest to imposeWestern
concepts of human rights,
liberalism, and democracy on other
civilizations also declines and so
does the attractiveness of those
values to other civilizations.»
Samuel P. Huntington, The clash of
civilizations and the remaking of world order,
Simon & Schuster, NewYork, 1996, p. 92.
The loss of the influence of human rights in other civilizations
«The differences over human rights between theWest and
other civilizations and the limited ability of theWest to
achieve its goals were clearly revealed in the U.N.World
Conference on Human Rights inVienna in June 1993. (...)
“The international human rights regime of 1945,” an
American human rights supporter remarked, “is no more.
American hegemony has eroded.…
The world is now as Arab, Asian, andAfrican, as it is
Western.Today the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and the InternationalCovenants are less relevant to much of
the planet than during the immediate post-WorldWar II era.”»
Samuel P. Huntington, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world
order, Simon & Schuster, NewYork, 1996, pp. 195-196.

A first reason manyAsian
intellectuals argue against human
rights is the charge of
ethnocentrism, that is, that the
concept of “human rights,” far
from being universal, is merely a
“Western invention” that is
incompatible with the Eastern
cultural traditions.According to
Etzioni:
Human rights are a “Western invention”
«The problems of cross-cultural judgments
were highlighted at a 1993 meeting of Asian
leaders in Bangkok whose purpose was to
formulate anAsian stance on human rights.
According to one report, “What surprised
many observers… was the bold opposition to
universal human rights… made on the grounds
that human rights as such do not accord with
Asian values.”»
Amitai Etzioni, The New Golden Rule, Basic Book, New
York, 1996, p. 233.

As we said before, respect for human
dignity, life and property, the defense of
equality and the rejection of slavery, class
differences and racism, the aspiration to
live free from tyranny or oppression,
equality before the law, belief in a natural
or divine law that governs the universe and
even religious tolerance are common
values defended in almost all cultures and
civilizations.
Perhaps the most innovative,
revolutionary and alien rights to ancient
cultural and religious traditions, are
freedom of belief and thought together
with other civic freedoms typical of
democracy.
But above all, the most particular or
ethnocentric aspect of human rights, which does
not represent all cultural traditions, nor even the
roots ofWestern culture, but is something
specific to the liberal political tradition, is the
individualist vision that permeates the theory of
human rights.
Universal and particular aspects of human rights

It is precisely this individualistic
vision of society, structured around
the exercise of individual rights, that
most clashes with the Eastern
conceptions, which regard society as
an organic and intertwined whole,
which is structured around the duties
of people towards society, and in
which the maintenance of community
and family harmony and cohesion
prevails over individual rights.
Eastern rejection of the individualistic view of society
In fact, the main reasons forAsians to
reject the Western conception of human
rights are very similar to communitarian
critiques of liberalism, that is, they accuse
Western societies of using the defense of
human rights to encourage a hedonistic and
corrosive individualism that does not pay
attention to family and community duties,
and which is not only incompatible with
traditional values but goes against any sense
of decency or human dignity.

Daniel Bell, referring to this Asian
challenge to human rights, writes:
The defense of “Asian values” against the “chaos and decadence” of the West
«Asian values are a term designed by various
Asian leaders and their supporters to challenge
Western civil and political freedoms.
Asians emphasize family and social harmony
in a very special way, which implies that the
“chaotic and decadent”Western societies should
think twice before intervening in Asia in order to
promote human rights.»
Daniel A. Bell and Joanne R. Bauer, ed.,The East Asian
Challenge for Human Rights, Cambridge University Press,
1999, pp. 5-6.

On the one hand, theWest and human rights
defenders are absolutely right in criticizing
Asian, Islamic or any other part of the world in
which the right to freedom of religion and
thought is not respected or, what is worse,
where ethnic or religious minorities are
persecuted or massacred.
But, on the other hand, theWest should also
accept the criticism of Asian and Islamic
societies of excessive emphasis on the claim of
individual rights and neglect of filial and
community duties, or about the family
breakdown and moral degradation that exists
inWestern societies.
Western culture and Eastern cultures can demand each other

 The principle of dual purposes
 The exercise of individual rights and the
fulfillment of duties or responsibilities
towards others
 If the representatives of the social
whole abuse individuals not only
destroy them but ultimately ruin the
whole society
 Excessive emphasis on individual rights
and freedoms destroys the family and
society, and in the long run individuals
themselves
 The value of freedom
RIGHTS AND DUTIES FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE INDIVIDUAL PURPOSE
AND THE PURPOSE FOR THE WHOLE
 An irresponsible and transgressive freedom is
corrosive, self-destructive and suicidal, both
for society and for individuals
 The misuse of rights and freedoms
 The solution is to achieve the balance
between individual rights and freedoms and
the duties and responsibilities towards the
community
 Western democratic societies and traditional
Eastern societies have much to learn from
each other
 A new “Universal Carta of Rights and Duties
of the Human Person”

To better understand the
correspondence between rights and duties
or responsibilities and the need for a
balance between the two, we will analyze
this issue in the light of the individual
purpose and the purpose for the whole.
This principle of dual purposes, which
we have been maintaining throughout this
research, is a very useful basic postulation
to analyze and clarify many questions.The
existence of dual purposes is defended by
UnificationThought, as Sun Myung Moon
eloquently explains in the following quote:
The principle of dual purposes
«There are dual purposes here: one is to maintain
oneself, and the other to become part of the larger self,
which is the universe(…)
Let us look at the example of our eyes.The eye has
the purpose of self-existence, but also of serving the
whole body.The ear has to operate automatically, but
it also helps the whole. (…)
How could the universe be interrelated? It is because
all individuals have dual objectives: one is to protect
the self and the other to make sure the self combines
with another self to make a bigger self.»
Sun Myung Moon, Myself, January 13, 1980.

Thus, the individual purpose for human beings
includes: the satisfaction of individual needs and
the preservation of life; and the perfection of
character and the cultivation of one's own innate
talents, whether intellectual, artistic or practical.
Something that we could also designate as the
exercise of individual rights or duties to oneself.
There is also in human beings a natural
impulse that induces them to establish
relationships of reciprocal exchanges of love,
affection, knowledge, goods and services with
their fellows in the hope of experiencing greater
joy, protection or common welfare.
Therefore, the purpose for the whole is
fulfilled by human beings when they use, in a
voluntary and creative way, their resources
and talents to do things that benefit their
families, communities, nations or the world;
or contribute with their efforts to maintain
the harmony and cohesion of these social
groups. Something that is also called the
fulfillment of duties or the exercise of
responsibilities towards others.
The exercise of individual rights and the fulfillment of duties or responsibilities
towards others

If individuals cannot subsist, they can hardly
contribute anything to the whole;And when
they cultivate their talents they will be able to
help or better serve their families and
communities.
An individual who only serves himself, in the
end will be isolated and defenseless, while if he
serves the whole will receive gratitude,
protection, sense of identity or belonging to
something greater and more valuable than
himself. He will thus experience an elevation of
his value as a person and a higher degree of
shared happiness.
If a family goes better, all its members will
go better, if a community or nation prosper,
all its members will gain, and if in the world
there is harmony, peace and justice, all
humanity will benefit from it.
Thus, both ends can be fulfilled
simultaneously and harmoniously in the
same way as in a living organism, in which
the cells, while preserving their own
existences, collaborate with each other to
maintain the life of the organism as a whole.
The exercise of rights and the fulfillment of duties are complementary
and mutually reinforcing

Just as the earth rotates upon itself for its
own stability, at the same time that it revolves
around the sun in order to maintain the stability
of the planetary system, human beings, at the
same time as they satisfy their individual needs,
should serve —guided by their consciences—
their families, communities, nations and the
world.
However, when individuals pretend that their
families and the rest of the world revolve
around them, harmony and balance are
practically impossible. Rather a chaos is
originated that ends up destroying not only the
whole but also the individuals themselves. It is
as absurd as if each planet claimed that the rest
of the planetary system and the entire galaxy
revolved around them.
As Socrates liked to repeat, we do not live to eat,
but eat to live.That is, the preservation of one's own
existence should be considered as an instrument to
serve others.As the Stoics said, we were born to
collaborate, to serve each other as one hand is
helping the other. Moreover, it is obvious that the
good of many individuals should be a priority over
that of a single individual.
In fact, the value of the individual rises
extraordinarily when he serves the whole. If
someone only cares about himself, who, apart from
himself, will appreciate it? Instead, if he fulfills his
family and social duties by serving his family, friends,
community and nation, he will be appreciated and
valued by all as a good person, public benefactor or
patriot.
In order for harmony between both ends, priority must be given to the
fulfillment of family and social duties

However, to assert that the purpose of
serving the whole has priority over individual
purpose does not mean that the social whole
or State can eliminate dissidents or forcefully
sacrifice citizens with the excuse of
guaranteeing national unity, as it has been the
case of recent totalitarian systems.
Doing so not only destroys individuals by
impeding the free development of people by
drowning free initiative and individual
creativity —so important for economic,
scientific, artistic, religious and moral
progress— but in the end the social whole
collapse.
In fact, the responsibility of the representatives of
the social group is to work for the welfare and
happiness of all individuals, respecting the value and
dignity of each person, guaranteeing their individual
rights and freedoms, and even enhancing individual
creativity and initiative.
If the representatives of the social whole abuse individuals not only destroy them
but ultimately ruin the whole society

In some Eastern societies today —similar to what
happened in the traditionalWestern Christian societies—
due to the fear of losing unity, cohesion and social
harmony, the freedom of individuals is restricted,
imposing social obligations, religious beliefs and moral
codes by laws and penal punishments.
This form of paternalistic authoritarianism, of course
more benign than tyranny or totalitarianism, achieves a
certain social cohesion, but at the cost of keeping
individuals in perpetual childhood, since by limiting
freedom too much, people are prevented from learning
to be responsible for themselves.This also stifles
individual initiative and creativity, and therefore delays
subsequent moral, spiritual, cultural, and material
development.
A paternalistic authoritarianism also suffocates individual initiative and creativity

The overemphasis on individual rights
and freedoms for fear of tyranny leads to
the opposite problem to that usually
occurring in Eastern societies, where fear of
disorder or social chaos leads to the unjust
violation or limitation of individual rights
and freedoms.
When individuals focus exclusively on the
defense of their individual rights and
freedoms, it is very easy to fall into the
absurd conclusion that individual purpose,
that is, self-interest or self-satisfaction, is a
priority with regard to the purpose of
serving to the social whole.
That is to say, to relegate to a second term or to
forget about the duties or responsibilities towards
others, and to fall into a crude selfish individualism,
rapacious and unsupportive, which begins by
destroying family and community ties, and ends up
causing the very degradation of individuals.
Excessive emphasis on individual rights and freedoms destroys the family and
society, and in the long run individuals themselves

Freedom, the most cherished value in democratic
societies, is undoubtedly very important and necessary
because without freedom human beings cannot be
responsible for themselves or for others, nor can they
develop their innate potential by cultivating their
qualities of character and talents, nor raise their value
doing things for the benefit of others in a free, creative
and altruistic way.
However, freedom is never unrestricted or unlimited.
Locke himself, the father of modern liberals, was of the
firm opinion that freedom is only possible within a legal
order, and it is precisely respect for that legal order —
constituted according to Locke by natural law and civil
law— which guarantees the exercise of freedom, while
the violation of that legal order was not designated by
Locke as freedom but as license or debauchery.
For example, physically we are
organisms that operate according to
natural physical and biological laws,
and although we have autonomy or
room for maneuver, this is not
unlimited since we are immersed in
that legal order of nature and we have
to respect their laws.
In fact, if we try to violate those
laws —for example, by refusing to
breathe or pretending to walk out the
window— we will stop functioning
and lose our freedom of movement.
The value of freedom

In a similar way, we are also immersed in a
natural moral order that regulates our
relationships of exchanges of affections, goods
and services with others.
Our human nature also works according to
these moral laws, so that even if we have a wide
margin of freedom, it is never unlimited or
unrestricted.
Proof of this is that when we violate these moral
laws, for example, being unfaithful to our spouse
or deceiving our clients, surely our affective and
commercial relationships will deteriorate, and our
freedom to love and receive love from our loved
ones in the family will be curbed, as well as doing
business.
However, today, because of the validity of
the dogma of moral autonomy in the sense
that each individual can choose or invent their
own moral code, freedom is defined simply as
being able to do everything you want except
what is prohibited by current law.
But, the law only prescribes respect for the
rights of others and compliance with a
minimum of social duties or obligations, so
there are still many things that should not be
done even if they are not prohibited by law —
«Shame may restrain what law does not
prohibit» Seneca sentenced.
Séneca, Troades 334, en Aurea Dicta. Dichos y
proverbios del mundo clásico, Selección de Eduard Valentí,
Crítica, Barcelona, 1987, p. 399.
Freedom within a moral order

However, when individuals or groups
exclusively pursue their interests, enrichment or
particular enjoyment even at the cost of
disregarding their responsibilities towards
others, they conduct themselves in a way that at
the very least could be described as
irresponsible, if not criminal.
Thus, freedom, respect for a legal and moral
order, and duties towards others, are elements
that cannot be separated. An irresponsible and
transgressive freedom, although within the
limits of the current legality, is corrosive, self-
destructive and suicidal, for both societies and
individuals.
The excessive emphasis placed on
our individual rights and freedoms in
our democratic societies, coupled
with this misconception that
freedom is limited only by existing
law —which is even intended to be as
permissive as possible— often leads
to claim abusive, illegitimate and
irresponsible individual rights and
freedoms that clearly violate the
rights of others.
An irresponsible and transgressive freedom is corrosive, self-destructive and
suicidal, both for society and for individuals

Thus, the claim of an increasingly
wide margin of freedom based on
eliminating more and more legal
restrictions leads to a situation of
legal permissiveness, which makes
the law lose the ability to exercise its
main function, which is to protect the
rights of the weakest, defenseless or
victims, since the same legal
permissiveness —close to the law of
the jungle— allows the strong
impunity to eat the weak.
For example, the decriminalization of all
compulsive or self-injurious behaviors, with the
excuse that each one may seek his own pleasure as
he wishes and that, in any case, only harm himself,
seems to serve only for a few become millionaires at
the cost of fomenting vices and the human
degradation of others.
This leads to the absurd and paradoxical situation
that a legal measure that supposedly aims at
guaranteeing individual rights and freedoms ends up
provoking the opposite, that is, the violation of the
individual rights of the weakest, the defenseless or
the victims.
Legal and moral permissiveness leads to the violation of the rights of the
most defenseless and victims

Quintana Cabanas tells us that the more than doubtful
or pretended rights «have a common denominator,
namely their reference to their own body,» and people
claim them by saying: «My body is mine, and with it I can
do whatever I want.»
This attitude comes from the absurd view that
individuals are beings or atoms completely independent
and isolated from the universe, as if they were born by
spontaneous generation or had created themselves.
In fact, strictly speaking, nothing of what we are can be
claimed as our property, for we have not created or given
birth to ourselves.We receive everything from others, for
example, from the genes and bodies of our parents and
ancestors.
José María Quintana Cabanas, «Los falsos o discutibles derechos
humanos», en Derechos humanos y educación, López-Barajas, Emilio,
UNED, Madrid, 2000, p. 84.
First we grow and are fed in the womb of
our mother and then continue to grow
thanks to the food and substances that
nature provides us. So, our body is not ours,
we owe it to our parents, ancestors and
nature. «Every hair and every piece of skin
on our body —Confucius wisely said— we
receive it from our fathers, and we must not
dare to harm or injure it; this is the
beginning of filial piety.»
Also, from a theistic perspective, our
body is a gift from the Creator, and
therefore we cannot claim it as our exclusive
property and do with it whatever we want.
Confucio, Classic on Filial Piety 1, en World
Scripture, A. Wilson, ed., Parangon House, NewYork,
1991, p. 171.
“My body is mine, and with it I can do whatever I want”

Therefore, the alleged right to self-
harm, such as alcohol and drug abuse,
violates the right of ancestors or parents
to have an offspring or the fruits of their
biological heritage that are not damaged.
The alleged right to free enjoyment of sex
of adolescents or even children also
violates the right of parents and future
spouses and children to have their lineage
pure and clean.
Marital infidelities and desertions
violate the spouse's right to be loved by
his or her partner, and easy and
unjustified divorces seriously undermine
the right of children to be loved by their
father and mother.
The alleged right to have only one child, not out of
necessity but to enjoy greater comfort or material
luxury, violates the right of grandparents and ancestors
to have a greater offspring, and the right of the only
child to have brothers and sisters. Apart from
constituting a long-term collective suicide for the society
that practices it.
Likewise, the widespread practice of abandoning
grandparents in nursing homes is a serious violation of
the rights of grandparents to be cared for in their own
homes by their children, as compensation for their
raising and caring for their children. Something similar
could be said of many other controversial and very
debatable rights such as abortion, euthanasia, sex
selection, cloning and genetic manipulation of human
embryos.
The misuse of rights and freedoms

In conclusion, the solution to all these problems, both the
abuse of individual rights and freedoms by the State and
the misuse of these rights and freedoms by individuals,
would consist in achieving the balance or harmony between
individual rights and freedoms —that is, the individual
purpose— and the duties and responsibilities towards the
community —that is, the purpose of serving the whole.
In this way, people, while pursuing their own ends and
exercising their individual rights, will be able to fulfill their
duties voluntarily and responsibly towards their families,
communities, nations and the world. However, this balance
or harmony is only possible provided that preference is
given to serving the purposes of serving others.
The solution is to achieve the balance between individual rights and freedoms and
the duties and responsibilities towards the community

On the one hand,Western democratic
societies, where individual rights are
excessively emphasized and duties are
relegated, should be morally renewed through
an ethical education that will succeed in
transforming the dominant egoistic
individualism into an altruistic and sacrificial
individualism.
For this, it would be very helpful to recover
the traditionalChristian values ofWestern
culture, and even to import and adopt the
praiseworthy family and community values of
Eastern traditions, and to harmonize them with
the democratic ideals of freedom of belief,
tolerance, equality and defense of human
rights.
On the other hand, Eastern societies, which
emphasize excessively the duties towards the
social whole and often limit the freedoms and
underestimate the individual rights, should be
able to progressively adopt liberal values such
as freedom of belief, human rights and
democratization of institutions, but without
renouncing their cherished traditional family
and community values.
In this way,Western societies, defenders of
liberties and individual rights, and Eastern
societies, defenders of family and community
duties, could gain in stability or balance, learn
from one another and approach each other.
Western democratic societies and traditional Eastern societies have much to learn
from each other

A new “Universal Carta of Rights and Duties of the Human Person”
In this regard, it would be very beneficial to
achieve a global ethical consensus with the aim of
completing and converting the current Universal
Declaration of Human Rights into a new
«Universal Carta of Rights and Duties of the
Human Person.»
This is already suggested by many thinkers and
intellectuals in the face of the evidence that the
Declaration of Human Rights, as formulated
today, no longer serves to generate a broad
global consensus among cultures and civilizations
simply by omitting human duties or
responsibilities.

1. Before agreeing on the rights and duties a basic
accord is necessary in the suppositions and
principles that support them
2. It is not possible to absolutize rights and moral
prescriptions
3. Ultimate presumptions or absolute ethical
principles
4. Qualities that these universal ethical principles
should possess
CHAPTER 3 NEED FOR A CONSENSUS ON UNIVERSAL
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

We have defended, from various
perspectives, the need to expand and complete
the Declaration of Human Rights, so as to
include the duties or responsibilities of
individuals, through a new international and
intercultural dialogue.
A new Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and Duties would be a more complete and
balanced formulation, less ethnocentric, more
acceptable to Asian and Islamic cultures, which
have traditionally emphasized social duties.
It would also be very useful in moderating the
inflation of rights and the exaggerated
individualism that exists inWestern democratic
societies.
INTRODUCTION
In addition, it would be a great step forward
towards a hypothetical Carta Magna or World
Constitution that would guarantee a stable and
lasting world peace.

From contrary assumptions or beliefs are
derived very different rights and duties. For
example:
If one believes that man is a simple evolved
animal that fights for its survival, he will
defend the right to use force to eliminate
enemies or competitors.
If one believes that human beings are mere
physical-chemical mechanisms, and that their
mental capacity is a result of such
mechanisms, he can deny that the unborn or
even the deformed young children have
human rights and give permission for their
elimination by some type of circumstance
that justifies it.
BEFORE AGREEING ON THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES A BASIC ACCORD IS NECESSARY IN THE
SUPPOSITIONS AND PRINCIPLES THAT SUPPORT THEM
It is not the same to suppose that society is a
mere artificial conglomeration of individual atoms,
competing with one another to increase their own
utility, than to believe that society forms an organic
body of interconnected and intertwined individuals
who fulfill a certain function to the whole. In the first
case, we will speak only of individual rights and, in
the second, we will instead highlight the duties
towards the whole.
It is therefore necessary to speak also of the
assumptions underlying human rights and try to
agree, at least on the most basic premises. If this is
not so, it will be difficult to decide what are the just
and legitimate rights and duties that deserve to be
included in the list, and which are the illegitimate or
disposable.

Another problem that arises is the tendency
to absolutize rights and moral prescriptions. It
can be said that human rights are universal,
inalienable and fundamental, but, of course,
they are not absolute rights.
As Gewirth says, «A right is absolute (=
inviolable) when it cannot be displaced under
any circumstances, in such a way that it can
never be justifiably infringed and must be
satisfied without any exception.»
Alan Gewirth, «Are there any absolute rights?», citado en
Derechos humanos. Textos y casos prácticos,Tirant lo
Blanch,Valencia, 1996, p. 71.
There does not seem to be any absolute
right, for even the right to life, considered as
the most sacred and inviolable, can be
justifiably violated in the case of self-defense,
as is recognized almost universally by all
legislations.
Even less absolute are the rights to liberty,
property and other civic, political, economic
and cultural rights, which could be justifiably
violated in cases involving extraordinary
circumstances.The same is true of any type of
moral code composed of a series of
prescriptions and prohibitions.
IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO ABSOLUTIZE RIGHTS AND MORAL PRESCRIPTIONS

This means that, rather than talking about absolute
rights or moral prescriptions, we should talk about
which final presumptions could be elevated to the
category of first principles or invariable axioms.
For example, the assertion that all human beings
possess an intrinsic value and a special dignity that
distinguishes them from the rest of the creatures
would be an assumption that could be elevated to the
category of absolute axiom.
The dignity and human condition should be
recognized even to the greatest criminal in the world
or the most cruel and inhuman genocide. At the very
least, his mother will certainly continue to see some
goodness in his son and will continue to love him with
the hope that someday he will repent of his crimes and
be redeemed. But, this does not mean that we have to
respect their civil rights and freedoms.
It would also be justified to use
violence to defend ourselves against a
murderer —despite his human dignity—
who try to end our life or that of our loved
ones, even to the point of not respecting
the right to life of that person if there is
no other choice.
Thus, the affirmation of human
dignity, including its recognition and
respect, could be considered as absolute,
while the right to life, liberty, property, or
any other, could hardly be considered as
absolute or inviolable rights in all possible
circumstances.
ULTIMATE PRESUMPTIONS OR ABSOLUTE ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

For this reason, it would be very convenient to
agree on these basic assumptions or universal ethical
principles, formulated not as rights or prescriptions
but in the form of general principles —like the first
principles of each science— that could be elevated to
the category of fixed and unchanging axioms.
And then, from these universal ethical principles, it
could be inferred, on the one hand, their ethical
applications in the form of rights and duties and moral
prescriptions and prohibitions properly qualified
according to the motives, consequences and
circumstance; and, on the other hand, their legal
applications in the form of legal rights and duties or
particular laws, flexible enough that they can be
modified by pacts or agreements between legislators in
order to adapt to human, cultural and temporal
circumstances.

1. These universal ethical principles
should be unifying, harmonizing and
integrating principles.They would have to
be able to gather and combine different
visions and perspectives, whether
scientific, ontological, anthropological, or
psychological.
2. They should represent a balanced
position between individual rights and
social duties, between individualism and
communitarianism, between theWestern
liberal tradition, which emphasizes
individual autonomy and freedom, and the
Eastern collectivist tradition, which
emphasizes harmony and social order.
3. These universal ethical principles should
bridge the gap between ancient religious and
philosophical traditions, and modern philosophical
and scientific Enlightened traditions, trying to
bring together the most valuable aspects of both
traditions, and discarding not only superstitions or
old dogmas but also the antireligious Enlightened
prejudices, as well as other philosophical and
scientific dogmas of the already old modernity.
4. In the philosophical aspect, these universal
ethical principles would have to try to harmonize
the deontological ethics, or ethics of duty and the
respect to norms, with the teleological ethics, or
ethics of good, virtues, utility and happiness.
QUALITIES THAT THESE UNIVERSAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES SHOULD POSSESS

5. They should not be minimal ethical
principles, so rickety and abstract that
they serve no purpose, nor any all-
encompassing and totalizing maximum
ethics.
6. It would be better to seek an
overlapping, broader, more inclusive
consensus, in such a way that in some
cases the same basic ethical principles
could be defended from diverse or even
conflicting ontological visions, whereas in
other cases the distinct visions would
have no choice but to give up some of
their less important assumptions.
7. Thus, what we are trying to find is a broad
core of common ethical values and principles
shared by the majority of traditions and cultures
that can be accepted by all.
8. This core of values should include the
valuable contributions of all philosophical and
religious traditions, gathered through an
interdisciplinary, intercultural and interreligious
dialogue.
9. In order to avoid partiality, it would be better
not to give names or prefixes to this core of shared
values, such as minimum ethics, civic ethics or lay
ethics, but simply to call it, as several authors
already do, universal ethical principles.

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