The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

32 The United Kingdom and Human Rights Thinking
principles to which any reasonable being must of
necessity assent; and that in a world of rational beings
the principle would be recognised that persons must
necessarily be treated as ends and not as means. In this
Hamlyn context, I must add that the great German
philosopher, in building his metaphysics, relied heavily
on ideas propounded in the United Kingdom, especially
by Hutcheson and Hume.
This modern analytical revival of debate about moral,
natural or human rights stems from Herbert Hart, who
in 1949 alerted philosophers to W. N. Hohfeld's analysis
of rights and duties. They had ignored the preoccupations
of their jurisprudential country cousins, who, in a
line running through Bentham, John Austin, Sir John
Salmond and John Chipman Gray to Hohfeld, had
analysed and developed Hobbesian concepts of right and
duty. 30 Hart also re-synthesised the concept of law,
driving home the necessity for evaluating law in terms of
morals. He set the terms of the debate continued by
Ronald Dworkin 31 and more systematically developed by
Joseph Raz. In The Morality of Freedom Raz has produced
a tripartite political theory, linking freedom and its role
in politics to a theory of justice and a theory of
institutions. 32 Hart also influenced John Finnis, who,
building on Aquinas and Thomist thinkers, attempted to
construct a modern theory of Natural Law and human
rights. 33
As the delectations of analytical jurisprudence are
either before or behind most lawyers, I will say no more
than that rights-analysis assists rational discourse by
ensuring clarity of concepts when talking about obligations
and the relationships of parties involved, including
who has what entitlement against whom, upon what
conditions, for what purposes and how this is exercisable.
Clarity comes from differentiating and relating
various kinds of rights (rights stricto sensu, privileges or