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Natural law and corruption |
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Prof. Francis Peddle from Ottowa, and chair Fernando Scornik Gerstein give us a starting point in looking at how we might want to fight back.
Peddle looked at the role of definitions in politics, arguing that we need to find precise definitions of what we as reformers mean, and convince others of the usefulness of our definitions if we are to successfully influence politics today.
In advocating his position, he also argued the we should consider the usefulness of the “natural law tradition of ethics.
These could both be powerful tactics if we could shape language in order for it to be more open to our concerns. And it is, as Peddle would acknowledge, a big if. But such success would be an incredibly valuable contribution to progressive political struggles.
One might feel somewhat dubious as to the philosophical “truth of “natural rights.
Perhaps the “deconstructionist debates over the past few decades have successfully undermined any possible ground for such rights. But the political value of appeals to “natural rights, as seen for example in the way the UN Convention on Human Rights, is still seen as important, and should not be denied.
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