The Fourth Inquiry

Some issues are sufficiently complicated that a blog is a woefully suboptimal venue for doing them justice.  And yet MOJ readers are certainly entitled to wonder what I think about the questions raised by my earlier post and Robby's understandable response to it.  So, ...

The subtitle of my book The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford, 1998) is "Four Inquiries".  Four inquiries, four chapters.  The title of the fourth chapter:  "Are Human Rights Absolute?  The Incommensurability Thesis and Related Matters".  In that chapter, I comment at length on, and explain why I am skeptical about, John Finnis' position regarding moral "absolutes":  determinate moral norms that are exceptionless (unconditional).  I hope MOJ readers who are interested in pursuing the issue will take a look at what I have to say in chapter 4 (pp. 87-106)--and, if they are at all inclined, let me know where, in their judgment, my argument misfires.