The human right to moral equality and the constitutional right to equal protection

The morality of human rights consists both of a general requirement - to “act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood” - and of specific requirements: the various rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and/or in one or more of the several international human rights treaties. The general requirement, as I explained in Chapter 1, grounds the specific requirements. In this and the next chapter, I explicate and defend two of the most important specific requirements, beginning here with the human right to moral equality. I then explain that the human right to moral equality is closely related to a right that is part of the constitutional law of the United States: the constitutional right to the equal protection of the laws.