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Cobiss

Filozofija i drustvo 2019 Volume 30, Issue 4, Pages: 478-492
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID1904478J
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Constitutive justice and human rights

Jovanov Rastko ORCID iD icon (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia)
Velinov Marija ORCID iD icon (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia)

In order to show the validity of here proposed conception of social ontology and its advantages over descriptive theories of social reality, which in the analysis of the socio-ontological status of human rights find only legally understood normativity as present in social reality, we will first (1) lay out Searle’s interpretation of human rights. In the second step, we will (2) introduce the methodical approach and basic concepts of our socio-ontological position, and explain the structure of the relationship between justice, law, morality, social institutions and collective intentionality. At the end (3) we will show how our theory of social ontology is better than Searle’s legal positivism in examining the ontological status of human rights. At the end, (3) we show in what ways such a theory of social ontology more intuitively and with wider arguments explains the ontological status of institution of human rights than Searle’s legal positivism.

Keywords: constitutive justice, collective intentionality, human rights, social ontology, John Searle

Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 179049: Politics of Social Memory and National Identity: Regional and European Context