This paper gives the outline of an argument for the viability and desirability of an antifoundationalist
approach to human rights and liberalism. The conception of normativity which
frames my argument stands on the intuition, central in the second Wittgenstein and in the
American pragmatist tradition, that accepting the ultimate circularity of our justifications does not
condemn us to the corrosive consequences of radical scepticism. The conception of liberalism I
prospect is centred on the deliberative democratic ideal that the best way to live with difference
and conflict is to subordinate decisions of collective interests to public deliberation, which equally
respects everybody’s freedom and dignity, and maintains its outcomes and principles open to
revision. I will argue that an anti-foundationalist conception of normativity is the most suitable for
the fuller realisation of this deliberative democratic ideal, and that a society inspired by this ideal
creates the most favourable conditions for the fuller flourishing of human potentialities in any area
of life. I will also point out that a volitional and discursive conception of normativity enables us to
focus our efforts on the concrete political and moral obstacles to the creation of a free and equal
society, thus enabling us to release the tensions between the universalistic claims of human rights
and democracy and the particularistic claims of recognition raised by different cultural groups.
