More on Michael's "Morality of Human Rights" essay

Michael P.'s important essay in the latest issue of Commonweal deserves more than a link.  In the piece, Michael presents arguments upon which he has elaborated in his books, fleshing out and exploring the implications of the conclusion that there is no "nonreligious ground" for the morality of human rights.  Here is an excerpt:

The morality of universal human rights is a precious achievement, but also an exceedingly fragile one.

If, as I suspect, there exists no plausible nonreligious ground for the morality of human rights, then the growing marginalization of religious belief in many societies that have taken human rights seriously-in particular, in many liberal democracies-has a profoundly worrisome consequence: it may leave those societies bereft of the intellectual resources to sustain the morality of human rights. His pleasure at this dilemma is what makes Nietzsche so ominous in retrospect; in his exhilarated snarl one hears an advance warning of the Holocaust. . . .

That there is a religious ground for the morality of human rights is clear; indeed, there are multiple religious grounds. The Christian ground will be familiar to readers of this magazine: each and every human being is the beloved child of God, created in the image of God, and perfects this created nature in loving his or her sisters and brothers. The revealed truth of Scripture teaches that Jesus called us to “love one another just as I have loved you” (John 13:34). As Canadian (and Catholic) philosopher Charles Taylor has argued, the “affirmation of universal human rights” that characterizes “modern liberal political culture” represents one of several “authentic developments of the gospel” in modern life.

It is far from clear, however, that there is a nonreligious ground-a secular ground-for the morality of human rights. Indeed, the claim that every human being has inherent dignity, and that we should live our lives accordingly, remains deeply problematic for many secular thinkers. Such a claim is difficult, perhaps nearly impossible, to align with one of secularism’s reigning intellectual convictions, what British philosopher Bernard Williams called “Nietzsche’s thought”: that “there is, not only no God, but no metaphysical order of any kind.”

I'm afraid I'm not competent to judge Michael's assessment, and rejection, of John Finnis's arguments for a "nonreligious ground," but I'm sure that many MOJ readers are.  In any event, here is Michael's conclusion:

In those liberal democracies in which religious belief is growing increasingly marginalized, one wonders which will survive-Nietzsche’s thought, or the morality of human rights. Can the morality of human rights survive the death-or deconstruction-of God? Was it such a morality that Nietzsche saw in the coffin at God’s funeral?

Perhaps some who find religious ground implausible can remain confident in their conviction that every human being has inherent dignity and is inviolable. “I have reached bedrock,” Wittgenstein wrote, “and this is where my spade is turned.” Perhaps some will say they have no time to obsess about the ground of their conviction because they are too busy doing the important work of “changing the world.” But still, this question intrudes: How can secular thinkers reconcile the very idea of bedrock with their vision of a universe possessed of no underlying metaphysical order whatsoever? If their bedrock conviction holds that the Other possesses inherent dignity and truly is inviolable, then what else must be true; what must be true for it to be true that the Other has inherent dignity and is inviolable? Not an easy question, and one whose answer, believers know, is a mystery.