ABSTRACT
The chapter offers a particularist or an instrumental universalist argument for limiting the demands of universalist morality. It suggests that arguments for allowing particularist considerations to trump basic universal rights lead to incoherence. The chapter considers whether basic rights theorists could overcome the problem of motivation by invoking alternative arguments for a division of labour. If basic rights are to be trumps in cases of conflict with non-basic rights, then the implication is that basic rights are in some sense more fundamental to well-being than other rights and goods. David Miller argues that his commitment to the ethical significance of nationality also generates a moral justification for not intervening to realise the rights of nationals of other countries. In the case of basic rights theories, the impartial perspective was captured by the commitment to a core list of universal rights, which served to constrain pursuit of personal or particular interests.
