ABSTRACT

The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and human rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act together towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’ The Declaration does not define the relationship between reason and conscience, but we can surmise that, in the wake of the Holocaust, the age-old definition of man as the rational animal was deemed insufficient. Rationality could serve human animality; technique could serve bestial purposes. Instrumental reason cannot be definitive of humanity.