I consider my contribution to the anthology Human Rights from the Right and the Left, which has just been published in Czech, to be the most important thing I have written in recent years. As much as I feel myself to be a conservative, I have also tried to clearly define myself against utopian conservatism (Professor Budil says “nostalgic”).
On the very idea of human rights, I argue that the basic mechanism of proclamation is simple:
When some usurper or invader comes to power, he lays down a list of obligations to the population that will be required of them. Such a list of obligations often takes the form of a moral code.
Sometimes, however, the people impose duties on the rulers. If you want to govern, you must behave this way and that way, you must abide by these restrictions, you must pursue this… This is the case, for example, in the American Declaration of Independence, where it is clearly stated that the fundamental duty of government is to protect the lives, liberties, and the ability to pursue the personal happiness of its citizens.
So the difference between a moral code and a bill of liberties is just what the power situation is at the moment. In both cases, it is an expression of some belief about how society should be ordered. And it’s absurd to label one more moral than the other. Or even to claim that the promulgation of a bill of rights is a manifestation or cause of some kind of decline. Such claims are just a matter of shoddy speculative philosophy or servility to the powerful.