Abstract

Human rights require for their analysis the sustained scrutiny of philosophical argument. They are also a subject of considerable importance for international relations. Yet we do not possess a coherent theory of international relations with respect to human rights. This project examines some of the main obstacles to any such theory; offers a brief assessment of the two moral traditions which have the most bearing on rights; suggests that a hybrid moral theory is best able to deal with human rights dilemmas; trys to show how the principles of a moral hybrid may contribute to the foundational principles of an international relations theory that makes practical and normative sense about rights and related issues; and suggests how these principles may help in the formulation of foreign policy actually protective of rights. Because rights issues are complex, the project offers no neat or ready-made answers to human rights questions. I conceive of the project as contributing to what must be an on-going dialogue about rights. If human rights are, as they are often claimed to be, a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations--a standard which will at least sometimes justify intervention by one state in the internal affairs of another--then some conceptual clarity about what this standard means is needed if practical implementation of the standard is to respect human life as the standard intends. It is true that practice, not conceptual clarity, protects rights. Still, practice is likely to be confused and ineffectual without reference to rational argument. Articulating some of the philosophical underpinings to rights and related issues helps make us more self-conscious about the difficult problems involved in these issues. This can only be to the good, for we are then in a better position to formulate and justify policies protective of rights than is usually the case