JUSTIFICATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: AUTONOMY, CONSENSUS, DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN DIGNITY

This paper deals with Carlos Santiago Nino's justification for human rights from Robert Alexy's perspective. For this purpose, it will seek to keep parallelism between both authors. That is, in the first part, it will address the basic lines of Alexy's theory of discourse and those of Nino's moral discourse. In the second part, it will deal with autonomy, consensus, and democracy in both authors. In the third and final part, it will examine Nino's justification for the principle of human dignity, which is connected to the principle of autonomy, one of the pillars of his moral discourse. Since Alexy does not make any comment on Nino's justification for the principle of human dignity, Alexy's reasoning on that will not be analyzed. This paper follows a hypothetical-deductive methodology, with a theoretical-analytical approach, using original writings by Nino and Alexy as bibliographic sources. The objective, therefore, is to present how Nino reflects on moral values, as well as on the elements that make up his moral dis-course. As mentioned, this will be addressed based on Alexy's comments, which inevitably adopts a comparative point of view (with his own theory) and, on occasions, critical.