ABSTRACT
Many philosophical accounts of human rights are currently presented as Kantian or strongly based on Kant’s assertion of human beings’ inherent worth. Many more are fashionably announced as anti-Kantian, or at least post-Kantian, for their fi rm refusal of adopting tentatively universal yet ultimately parochial standards of normativity. Despite this vast array of positive and negative references, it is surprising that no commentator has ever attempted to reconstruct what would be an authentically Kantian theory of human rights. To be sure, we have at our disposal sophisticated interpretations of Kant’s theory of justice ( Recht ), of rights in general, of cosmopolitan law, of humanity (Sciacca 2000 ) and of many other concepts that are clearly relevant for any theory of human rights. Yet, with the exception of few remarks scattered here and there, and a recent attempt by Gunnar Beck ( 2006 ), no one has ever read Kant’s moral and political thought to fi nd in it what we would call today a philosophical theory of human rights.
