Human Rights and Human Animals

Abstract

In his paper Human Rights and Human Animals, Bernd Ladwig assumes that whoever seeks to provide justifying reasons for human rights seems to be, in some way or another, committed to universal anthropological claims. Nonetheless, as Ladwig argues, it is clear that anthropology alone cannot provide sufficient grounds for human rights. In addition to an anthropological footing, we also need recourse to at least one valid moral principle—and, thus, to a source of reasons that cannot be derived solely from empirical claims about human nature. In his paper, Ladwig merely argues, therefore, that some anthropological arguments are necessary to justify some of the specific contents of human rights. To that end, he portrays humans as a special sort of animal endowed with two natures. This anthropological approach provides the argumentative framework within which we can derive some, but not all, of the specific contents of human rights, as Ladwig claims.