^{page 361 note 1} See, for example, the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Déclaration des Droits de I'Homme et du Citoyen (1789). A useful collection of historic as well as recent declarations and statements concerning human rights is to be found in Dowrick, F. E. (ed.) Human Rights: Problems, Perspectives and Texts (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1979).Google Scholar

^{page 361 note 2} This theological ‘reserve’ is quite ecumenical. Cf. Schooyan, M., ‘The Place of Human Rights in Catholicism’, Lumen Vitae vol. XXXV, no. 2, p. 136Google Scholar; Huber, W., ‘Human Rights — A Concept and its History’ in Muller, A. and Greinacher, N. (eds.), The Church and the Rights of Man (New York: Seabury, 1979), p. 5Google Scholar; and Jenkins, D. ‘Theological Inquiry Concerning Human Rights’, The Ecumenical Review, vol. XXVII no. 2, p. 99.Google Scholar

I take this opportunity to note that Eleanor Roosevelt is usually credited with having cast the discussion in terms of human rights instead of rights of man.

^{page 362 note 3} Cf. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), articles 1 and 2.

^{page 362 note 4} These terms may also be used to suggest that some human rights, such as certain liberties, are more important than others, such as the socio-economic conditions of liberty.

^{page 362 note 5} For a discussion of the main philosophical arguments see Melden, A. I., Rights and Persons (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977), ch. VIGoogle Scholar. Among many examples of a relational approach, see O'Grady, Ron, Bread and Freedom (Geneva: WCC, 1979).Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 6} The hypothesis was first put forward by Moore, G. E. in his Principia Ethica in 1903.Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 7} This is contrary to the view taken by Alan Gewirth, who recognizes that his attempt to base human rights on a human capacity for action commits him to ‘A Principle of Proportionality’ according to which rights vary according to such capacity. See his Human Rights: essays on justification and applications (London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 8} Cf. Henrich, D. and Pacini, D. S., ‘The Contexts of Autonomy: Some Presuppositions of the Comprehensibility of Human Rights’, Daedalus, vol. 112, no. 4, of the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, pp. 255–277.Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 9} A. I. Melden (op. cit. pp. 189f.) dismisses the argument on the grounds that it is not really concerned with rights but with duties.

^{page 365 note 10} Following J. Maritain (The Rights of Man and Natural Law), Alan Gewirth considers it possible to equate human dignity and human rights (op. cit. p. 28), although he clearly prefers to regard the former as a ground of the latter.

^{page 365 note 11} Langan, J., ‘Human Rights in Roman Catholicism’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 25–31Google Scholar. Cf. Cunningham, A., Miller, D. and Will, J. E., ‘Towards an Ecumenical Theology for Grounding Human Rights’, Soundings, vol. LXVII, no. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 366 note 12} Hook, S., ‘Reflections on Human Rights’ in Kiefer, H. E. and Munitz, M. K. (eds.) Ethics and Social Justice (Albany: State University of New York, 1968), pp. 263ff.Google Scholar

^{page 366 note 13} Feinberg, J., Social Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973), pp. 90ff.Google Scholar

^{page 366 note 14} Cf. Hollenbach, D.S.J., , Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human Rights Tradition (New York: Paulist, 1979), pp. 118–131.Google Scholar

^{page 366 note 15} One notable exception is the Orthodox tradition, a difference which undoubtedly reflects a rather different way of arriving in the modern world. Orthodox scepticism about secular approaches to human rights is expressed by Harakas, S. S., ‘Human Rights: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, op. cit., p. 19Google Scholar, and even more recently by Yannoulatos, A., ‘Eastern Orthodoxy and Human Rights’, International Review of Missions, vol. LXXIII, no. 292, esp. pp. 458–462Google Scholar. Another set of exceptions is the Indian theologians P. Gregorios and M. M. Thomas; cf. Abraham, K. C., ‘Human Rights — Indian Christian Expressions’ Religion and Society, vol. XXIX, no. 2, pp. 8–11.Google Scholar

^{page 367 note 16} Falconer, A. D. (ed.) Understanding Human Rights: an interdisciplinary and interfaith study (Dublin: Irish School of Ecumenics, 1980), p. 2Google Scholar (referring to the views of Karl Barth). See also the essays of J. M. Bonino and J. Moltmann in this volume. For an argument in favour of greater Judeo-Christian influence, see Stackhouse, Max L., Creeds, Society and Human Rights (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1984), chs. 2 and 3.Google Scholar

^{page 367 note 17} This is the contention of a paper prepared by the UN Working Group of the East German Regional Committee of the Christian Peace Conference, ‘The Meaning of Human Rights and the Problems They Pose’, The Ecumenical Review, op. cit. p. 143.

^{page 367 note 18} E.g. J. Limburg, ‘Human Rights in the Old Testament’, and J. Blank, ‘The Justice of God as the Humanisation of Man — the Problem of Human Rights in the New Testament’, both in A. Muller and N. Greinacher (eds.), op. cit.

^{page 367 note 19} Cf. Paine's, Rights of Man, published in 1791Google Scholar, and Locke's, Second Treatise on Civil Government, published in 1690.Google Scholar

^{page 369 note 20} In this connection it is interesting to note how defensive Knudson, A. C. was in introducing talk about natural rights into his work The Principles of Christian Ethics (New York/Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1943), pp. 179fGoogle Scholar. Knudson takes Emil Brunner to be one of his chief adversaries, but by the time Brunner gave his Gifford lectures at the University of St Andrews he too could find a place for human rights. See his Christianity and Civilization, Second part: Specific Problems (London: Nisbet & Co., 1949), pp. 109–111.Google Scholar

^{page 369 note 21} E.g. Moltmann, J., ‘Christian Faith and Human Rights’ in A. D. Falconer, op. cit., p. 187Google Scholar. This and another of Moltmann's essays on the subject, ‘Ecumenical Dialogue on Human Rights’, have recently been republished as chapters 1 and 2 of his On Human Dignity, trans, and intro. by M. Douglas Meeks (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984). The translator of this volume unfortunately manages to confuse matters by giving each essay the title that belongs to the other and by informing the reader (p. vii) that each first appeared in a collection that in fact contains the other! It may also be noted that an earlier version of the essay now found as chapter 2 of the book appeared as ‘A Christian Declaration on Human Rights’ in The Reformed World, vol. 34, no. 2.

^{page 370 note 22} A. I. Melden, op, cit. pp. 139f, 162f. Melden is here discussing special rights but, as he points out on p. 177, no sharp distinction can be made between these and human rights.

^{page 370 note 23} Feinberg, J., ‘The Nature and Value of Rights’, in Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty: Essays in Social Philosophy (Princeton UP, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 371 note 24} For my exposition of Moltmann's views I draw upon the two essays mentioned in note 21, and chiefly that which was originally entitled ‘Christian Faith and Human Rights’. Figures in brackets refer to the page numbers of this essay as it first appeared in A. D. Falconer (ed.) Understanding Human Rights.

^{page 373 note 25} It includes relations to self, to other human beings, to the nonhuman creation, and to future generations.

^{page 373 note 26} E.g. R. O'Grady, Bread and Freedom, Appendix I.

^{page 373 note 27} Hence it is not the same as inherent potential.

^{page 374 note 28} Cf. esp. de Albornoz, A. F. Carillo, The Basis of Religious Liberty (London: SCM, 1963) p. 70Google Scholar. Also worth noting in this connection are the views expressed in an article by Pepper, Mary, ‘Personalism in Christian Thought and the Denial of Polities’, New Blackfriars, vol. 64, no. 754Google Scholar, and the suggestion of Stackhouse, Max that the community rather than the individual is prior to political society (Creeds, Society and Human Rights, pp. 32–34, 60f.)Google Scholar. It is in Roman Catholic documents that one finds the most consistent emphasis on the priority of the human person over human society e.g. Mater et Magistra, 55; Pacem in Terris, 9, 139; GauJium et Spes, 26, 63, 66; Dignitatis Humanae, 6.

^{page 375 note 29} Carillo de Albornoz suggests (op. cit., pp. 73f.) that this calls in question a view of religious liberty based on God's non-coercive action in Christ.

^{page 375 note 29} E.g. M. Schooyan, op. cit., pp. 140, 143f.

^{page 376 note 30} A number of theologians have stressed the note of hope in talk about human rights but, for the most part, they belong to a Lutheran and evangelical tradition that can only link such rights analogously and indirectly to the promised Kingdom of God. See e.g. W. Huber, in A. Muller and N. Greinacher (eds.) op. cit.; M. Lindqvist, ‘Human Life Within Limits’ in A. D. Falconer (ed.) op. cit. Falconer is another to strike the note of aspiration (Ibid., p. 204). In keeping with the tension of the biblical notions of down payment and first fruits, it is the Reformed tradition that takes the further step of giving hope a more objective ground, without going as far as the more philosophical Roman Catholic tradition.

^{page 377 note 31} Gustafson, James M. explored something of the relation between the bases and objects of hope, as well as that between ‘Christian hope’ and the ‘human experience of hope’ in ‘The Conditions for Hope: Reflections on Human Experience’, Christian Ethics and the Community (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1971), pp. 205–216Google Scholar. I endeavoured to say something more about the phenomenon of ‘hoping against hope’ in ‘Jesus and human hope’, in Watson, N. (ed.), Jesus Christ for Us (Melbourne: JBCE, 1982), pp. 61–65.Google Scholar