The morality of human rights consists both of a general requirement - to “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood” - and of specific requirements: the various rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and/or in one or more of the several international human rights treaties. The general requirement, as I explained in Chapter 1, grounds the specific requirements. In the previous chapter, I explicated and defended one of the most important specific requirements: the human right to moral equality. In this chapter, I explicate and defend another of the most important specific requirements: the human right to moral freedom. I then explain that the human right to moral freedom is closely related to a right that is part of the constitutional law of the United States: the constitutional “right of privacy.” I also explain why, notwithstanding arguments to the contrary, the right of privacy is legitimately regarded as part of U.S. constitutional law.
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Front Matter
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Part I: The morality of human rights
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Part II: Two fundemental human rights: Moral equality and moral freedom
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Part III: Three human rights-based controversies: Capital punishment, abortion, and same-sex marriage
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Part IV: Antipoverty rights-and vulnerability theory
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Back Matter
