A Critique of the Legal-Philosophical Approaches to the Basis for Human Rights from a Theological-Ethical Perspective

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In legal philosophy, there are broadly two categories of theory as to the basis for human rights: legal positivism and natural law theory.
According to legal positivism, human rights are given and thus can be deprived by the enacted law; thus the basis for human rights is “positive laws.” According to natural law theory, human rights are given supposedly by natural lawin sofar as they are human; thus the basis for human rights is “natural law”.
However, words such as ‘human’ and ‘rights’ refer to humanity as subjects. Hence legal philosophy, which is always likely to be a phase of a philosophical anthropology, has limit. Moreover, legal positivists require the ultimate foundation of critical norm as anchors. We cannot agree upon even the method of assumption and presupposition in natural law theory. Although there are many ideas and theories of natural law having been put forth throughout history, persistent doubts about the intelligibility of the concepts of natural law have dogged these theories.
Faith in natural law might not be affirmed by a considerable number of people around the world. Above all, the natural law theorists deify the mind by positing that the ultimate source of law is reason or conscience.
The Bible in Christianity can provide the fullest meaning of human rights and the strongest motive to the demand for human rights. The image of God forms the basis for universal moral principles including human rights. In this respect, we can assert that human rights are derived from the inherent dignity and worth of the human being created in the image of God. As long as we continually try to find the higher law as an anchor of human rights, especially the ultimate higher law in theological area, we can anchor our hope on human rights.

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