A CONFUCIAN PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Professor Wu Teh Yao was an original drafter of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.1 I learnt from him that the idea of human rights is predicated on the respect for the dignity of the person2 and that Confucian Humanism, with belief in and commitment to the intrinsic worth of being human "among the lives of myriad things between heaven and earth, human beings are the most precious" (tiandi zhixing renweigui)3 is profoundly meaningful for rights-consciousness as well as the sense of duty. I share his belief that the Confucian tradition offers rich spiritual resources for human rights discourse…
I am grateful to Nancy Hodes and Rosanne Hall-Tu for their thoughtful critique and editorial help. In preparing for this lecture, I have used material from two unpublished essays of mine — a statement prepared for the Panel on Human Rights at the annual meeting of the Committee of 100 (Los Angeles, February 25, 1994) and a paper entitled "Beyond the Enlightenment Mentality — Humanity and Rightness: Exploring Confucian Democracy," submitted to the Seventh East–West Philosophers' Conference, East–West Center, Honolulu, January 13, 1995. This chapter is a reproduction of the Wu Teh Yao memorial lecture given by the author in 1995.
