Abstract
In a Society of Peoples as Rawls conceives it, human rights function as “criteria for toleration.” This paper defends the conception of human rights that appears in Rawls’ The Law of Peoples as normatively and theoretically adequate. I claim that human rights function as criteria for determining whether or not a given society or legal system can be tolerated. As such, “human rights” are not themselves basic facts or judgments or ascriptions, but rather the means by which we collectively attempt to secure public criteria for evaluating what can and cannot be tolerated. Human rights are one expression of the fundamental value commitments of Political Liberalism to reasonableness and tolerance. If correct, this account provides good reasons for concluding that Political Liberalism has a normatively adequate conception of global justice.
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Notes
Elsewhere, I argue that not only is conceptualizing human rights as criteria for toleration the proper way to understand “what rights are for,” but doing so provides a useful and profitable answer to the metaphysical question, “what are human rights.” Here, I turn to the resources of ordinary language philosophy, especially Stanley Cavell’s appropriation of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, although it is not my intention here to refer to “criteria” in the context in which it is often considered (in discussions about skepticism, anti-realism, etc.). See Cavell 1979 and Mulhall 1994.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Grace Cheng, and Graham McFee for their invaluable feedback on draft versions of this paper.
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Avila, M. Human Rights and Toleration in Rawls. Hum Rights Rev 12, 1–14 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-010-0155-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-010-0155-x