Abstract

The justification of Natural Law is a very controversial issue, not only after the Positivist’s rebuttals, but since its very anthropological foundations in the early modern age. In this paper, I try do give an account of Natural Law and natural rights in terms of a phenomenological description of the background of normative intentionality. Taking a genetic stance, I go from the positive norm and the intentionality that constitutes it to the underling pregiveness that supplies the condition of its possibility. I exhibit it as the experience of the live-world, and I analyze it as an intersubjective world, where persons are given as equals and worth-counting. This is the very root of the concept of human dignity. Starting from it, I develop an account of the sense and content of the concept of Human Rights as a set of eidetic laws creating the framework for authentic human relationships.