期刊名称：Reason Papers : A Journal of Interdisciplinary Normative Studies
印刷版ISSN：0363-1893
出版年度：1983
卷号：9
出版社：Reason Papers
摘要：W HAT EXACTLY ARE "NATURAL RIGHTS"? In a recent exchange, Loren Lomasky has argued that natural rights and Gilbert Harman's moral relativism are not compatible-indeed, that the latter cannot serve as a foundation for the former.' The discussion between Harman and Lomasky suggests that there may be different ways of understanding natural rights, some possibly more promising than others. Harman is the well-known defender of "moral relativism," the view that "morality is the result of implicit bargaining and adjustments among people of varying powers and resources."' Such a "relativism" holds that morality is the outcome of mutually advantageous convention, and I shall refer to any such theory as "moral conventionalism." Harman argues that this conception of morality offers the only plausible foundation for natural rights. This is an extraordinary thesis, one that had never occurred to me prior to reading Harman's reply to Lomasky's first article. Conventionalist accounts of morality are undergoing a revival these days,' and it would be of great interest to know whether such theories do offer a way of defending appeals to natural right^.^
