The protection of the human being : the values and fundamental rights of all man as inhabitant and as cohabitant in the world

Abstract

The issue of human rights arose in the modern period, and consequently it was affected by the modern age's peculiar dichotomies: subject and object, body and mind, public sphere and personal one. This has influenced the way of conceiving the anthropology of human rights, which has been worked out on the strength of the opposition between the world of necessity, that is to say of nonhuman natures, and that of freedom, that is of human natures. As a result, reconciling respect for environment with respect for the human being has become difficult, if not impossible. The human person has broken away from the environment and has been thought of in a disembodied way. With particular regard to the problems of life and ecology, the development of contemporary thought demands, even though in an ambiguous and sometimes contradictory way, a rapprochement between human and nonhuman nature. Nowadays it is clear that it is not possible to duly protect the fundamental values of the human being without at the same time respecting the nature which is inside and outside the human being. To be effective and useful, this new alliance between human being and environment should impinge on the way of conceiving human rights and the background anthropology, with particular regard to the reconciliation between the right to life and freedom rights, which in the past produced two alternative and conflicting conceptions of humankind.