The Genius of John Paul II: The Great Pope's Moral Wisdom by Spinello Richard A

Author:Spinello, Richard A. [Spinello, Richard A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461635406
Publisher: Sheed & Ward
Published: 2006-11-08T05:00:00+00:00

Human Rights

John Paul II’s insistence on exceptionless moral norms enables him to argue for inviolable human rights. If there is an absolute prohibition against taking the life of an innocent person, there must be a right to life that is also absolute. According to John Finnis, the language of rights permits us to focus on the question of what is just or unjust from the other person’s perspective, “the viewpoint of the ‘other(s)’ to whom something is owed or due and who would be wronged if denied that something.”48 A natural right exists by virtue of the natural law, and it represents an entitlement required of others injustice. If there is a moral duty to refrain from taking what legitimately belongs to someone else, there must be a natural right to property.

John Paul II does not offer any comprehensive theory of human rights such as one might expect to find in philosophical or political treatises. But he certainly makes repeated reference to certain human rights, and we can also infer the existence of other rights from his general exposition. The corollary of specific absolute moral norms and the duties they impose are absolute human rights. We can infer, for example, that his emphasis on the absoluteness of the specific norms articulated in the Decalogue means that there are certain absolute rights such as the right to life. The basis of all human rights is our incomparable worth and dignity: “Human persons are willed by God; they are imprinted with God’s image. Their dignity does not come from the work they do, but from the persons they are” (CA, 11). Thus, respect for human rights is tantamount to respect for the dignity and intrinsic worth of every human person.

The most basic right is the right to life. According to John Paul II, “for man, the right to life is the fundamental right” (CTH, 204). Natural law tells us that life is a fundamental human good, and since there is a duty not to destroy a basic human good such as life, there must be an absolute right to life. John Paul II insists upon this inviolable right in many of his writings, but most especially in Evangelium Vitae. He tells us that the commandment “thou shalt not kill” “has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person” (EV, 57). This qualification merely allows for “legitimate” self-defense or for the taking of life in a just war against an “unjust aggressor” (CTH, 206). For John Paul II, “the right to life means the right to be born and then to continue to live until one’s natural end: As long as I live, I have the right to life’” (CTH, 205).

According to John Paul II, “the commandment regarding the inviolability of human life reverberates at the heart of the ‘ten words’ in the covenant of Sinai” (EV, 39). This right is absolute and sacrosanct, and it cannot be compromised for the sake of expediency, even for the sake of other conflicting rights.

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