Divine Roots of Human Rights
Judd Birdsall Thursday, 1 December 2005
Elizabeth M. Bucar and Barbra Barnett, eds., Does Human Rights Need God? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). 405pp. $38.00.
The United Nation's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights lays out an ambitious list of rights without specifying their ultimate conceptual origin. Article 1 boldly asserts all human beings are "endowed" with certain capacities. But the document is intentionally silent as to whom that Endower might be. Out of respect for the world's vast religious diversity, the UN Commission on Human Rights opted to settle for agreement at the practical rather than theoretical level. As French philosopher Jacques Maritain put it, "We agree on these rights, providing we are not asked why."
To read the entire article, please visit this article's page at informaworld, where articles are available for purchase from Routledge, our publishing partner.