The Foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the Perspective of Kant and Rawls with a Focus on Justice

Abstract

The ideas of Immanuel Kant in the history of legal and political philosophy over the past two centuries, as well as those of John Rawls at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century in the field of justice, reflect the rise and fall of justice in modernity. Following this trajectory, Rawls' views and theories lost their effectiveness due to various challenges, after which Kantian perspectives revitalized legal and political liberalism. The outcome of this intellectual revival was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which emerged as a universal model for the expansion of liberalism. Although the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is often attributed to multiple factors, particularly war, discrimination, and crimes against humanity, Kant’s perspective cannot be overlooked in the normative foundation of the declaration. The central question of this article is: What are the theories of these two philosophers regarding justice, and which of their views align more closely with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? The hypothesis examined in this study suggests that while Rawls had an impact on the epistemological and philosophical system of modernity and the foundations of the Universal Declaration, the concept of justice in the declaration is more influenced by Kantian theories. The research method employed in this study is descriptive, and data has been collected through library resources.