I was thinking about the law today, as people do, and I was wondering which of the following two categories serves to ground the other:
- Inherent human rights, value or dignity (we’ll just call this “value”)
- Human duties or law (we’ll just call this “law”)
By “duties” I mean [legal, moral and/or parental] obligations (what we “ought” do) and prohibitions (what we “ought not” do).
For example, consider the following questions and their plausible answers if value grounds law:
- “Why shouldn’t we murder?” “Because human life is inherently valuable”
- “Why should we have freedom of speech?” “Because humans have dignity and therefore deserve to have their opinions heard”
Alternatively, if you thought that duty grounds value then the questions and answers look something like this:
- “Why is human life valuable?” “Because we have laws that preserve it”
- “Why do humans have dignity?” “Because their opinions are protected by law”
Thinking Thought Out 