from a reader:
It’s amusing to see Sullivan still trying to promote the epithet “Christianist.” The guy just doesn’t give up, does he. Of course, the belief that man is made in the image and likeness of God was not invented by Christians, much less by “Christianists.” But I suppose it wouldn’t serve Sulllivan’s ends to label you a “Hebrewist.”Norm Geras writes that human rights should be grounded “in the nature of human beings, and the needs, interests and capacities they all have by virtue precisely of being human beings and sharing a common nature.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but there is an ambiguity in it that needs to be resolved in the right way. Nothing normative follows from the fact that Y and Z share a common nature. Everything depends on what kind of nature it is. We have rights by virtue of our possession of a rational nature. A being possessing such a nature is characterized by capacities (present in root form, at least) to engage in conceptual thinking, practical deliberation, and so forth. When such capacities are brought to fruition, such a being is capable not only of intellectual inquiry, but also of such activities as loving and worshipping.There is no reason that a creature possessing a rational nature needs to be human. It may turn out (who knows?) that there are non-human creatures on other planets who possess a rational nature. Such creatures would have rights that we are bound to respect–not because they have a nature in common with ours, but because of the kind of nature it is, viz., a rational nature. All human beings have a rational nature (and therefore possess inherent dignity and fundamental rights); but we don’t know whether all creatures possessing a rational nature happen to be human. (In other words, we don’t know whether the only creatures that exist who happen to possess a rational nature are human beings.)Of course, divine and angelic persons possess a rational nature, but they are not (as we are, and as ET-type creatures would be) physical beings (animals).Back to Geras, I would disentangle capacities from needs and interests. Capacities not only shape the content of our rights, but are the basis for our having rights (and, strictly speaking, interests) at all. Needs (such as our need for food) and interests (such as our interest in living in harmony with others) help to shape the content of our rights.