Humanity of Rights: on Corradetti's human right and critical theory

Claudio Corradetti’s Human rights and critical theory is an argument for the idea of pluralistic universalism. The purpose of the volume is to demonstrate that human rights are something epochal and revolutionary, something that was realized at a specific historical moment, modernity, through a process of self-reflection. Subjects attain an idea of themselves as subjects and at the same time as subjects of law. In the following pages, while accepting Corradetti's thesis on the revolutionary character of human rights, I will argue the anthropological foundation of such rights, under penalty of the artificiality of the law itself. I will show that the subject of these rights cannot be considered one-dimensional nor can the law be fully resolved only in its legal formulation. The revolution of law is possible above all because the way of thinking of the subject’s self-reflection in the world is revolutionary: not only as a legal actor, but as ontologically endowed with dignity and values whose rights are a legal and political expression. What is meant by "human being"? And what is the human being subject to law? What makes it possible to attribute the rights to an individual? Why, precisely in modernity, do you feel the need to organize rights legally and to formulate human rights, while maintaining that they are the prerequisite for being part of civil society? Through a brief reconstruction of some salient moments in the history of law up to modernity, I will propose some reflections on the underlying conception of human beings. This conception remains problematic, however, it is important to ask the question about the sense of "human being" and the fact that this question remains "open" both in the formulation of the idea of law and in the values on which we believe it is based. The idea is that the revolution brought about by modern law is so well beyond its logical and legal forms - which however remain essential - and is of consequence not only to a new vision of the world order but also of human beings.