Abstract

The United Nations universal declaration of 1948 celebrated the belief in human rights as a great moral value. But what does ‘the belief in human rights’ precisely mean? What exactly are human rights? Admitting that human rights exist may cause difficulties for certain moral thoeries and raise various questions. Some questions concern the problem of the justification of human rights: are these grounded on nature, that is on something unalterable and absolute, or are they the product of history and social life? The various theories of human rights answer these questions differently. This paper, therefore, examines the controversial question of the justification of human rights by comparing the two main forms of argument which are developed by the predominate theories of human rights: naturalization and denaturalization. After showing the advantages and disadvantages of these rival arguments, the author draws some conclusions regarding the issue of justification of concepts, such as the concept of human rights, on which our present social life appears to be intrinsically based