Agreeing Without Asking Why: Maritain, UNESCO and Gandhi

While the UN Commission drafted the Declaration, UNESCO asked philosophers, religious leaders and writers around the world about the theoretical basis of human rights. The French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, a leading modern interpreter of Aquinas, reported a striking result. Thinkers from opposed traditions could agree on a list of practical rights, but not on why people have them. As he put it, 'Yes, we agree about the rights but on condition that no one asks us why.

' Maritain himself believed rights were grounded in natural law, yet he accepted that practical agreement could precede philosophical agreement. Mahatma Gandhi replied to UNESCO's inquiry with a different emphasis: from his 'illiterate but wise mother' he had learned that 'all rights to be deserved and preserved came from duty well done'. These responses show two lasting strategies: building rights on overlapping practical agreement, and reminding a rights-based world that duties and responsibilities matter too.