Les fondements des droits humains : la délibération au-delà des approches naturalistes et politiques
There are two main conceptions of human rights that discuss the question of their normative foundations: natural and political conceptions. The objective of this Master’s thesis is to point out the limits of each of these approaches and to propose a way to avoid these shortcomings while preserving their respective advantages. This will be made possible through a deliberative conception of human rights. Natural conceptions illustrates that it is important to identify an independent justification to establish the full critical weight of these fundamental rights. However, they struggle to derive a practical reflection from their point of view; a complementary political approach is necessary to identify the institutional responsibilities and obligations associated with a human rights regime. In turn, political conceptions address these institutional questions directly. Nonetheless, their analysis emphasizes a difficulty about the foundations of human rights: it is both necessary to highlight an independent foundation and to inscribe them in a political discussion about their content.  The conciliation of these two requirements is possible through a deliberative conception of human rights as long as we understand deliberation as a second-order theory following the approach of Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. This means that human rights are derived from a reciprocal recognition of the equal moral worth of every other person and that this recognition requires a democratic, inclusive political organisation at both the national and the international level. Consequently, one must see how normative foundational standards interact with inclusive democratic norms within a regime of human rights to ensure the protection of the equal dignity of every human person.
institutions Political philosophy human rights deliberation democracy cosmopolitism reciprocity dignity civil society non-governmental organisation