Abstract
In this reply to his three critics, Talbott develops several important themes from his book, Which Rights Should Be Universal?, in ways that go beyond the discussion in the book. Among them are the following: the prescriptive role of human rights theory; the need to guarantee an expansive list of basic rights as a basis for a government to be able to claim recognitional legitimacy; the futility of trying to define human rights in terms of what there can be reasonable disagreement about; and the problems for any proceduralist account of human rights. Talbott also further elaborates his consequentialist defense of basic human rights and his arguments against cultural relativism about human rights.
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Notes
I do not mean to imply that human beings without normal cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning should have no rights, only that their rights may be different. For example, I do not believe that the severely brain-damaged should be guaranteed the right to vote.
In the following comments, I do not distinguish between governments, polities, or peoples. I realize that there are cases where it may be important to distinguish them. I intend that whatever I say about governments to apply mutatis mutandis to polities or peoples.
References
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Professors Reidy and Gould for their participation in the APA session, along with Professor James Nickel. I also benefited from the contributions of those who participated in the audience discussion.
I am also grateful to Professors Reidy and Gould for their participation in this forum. I also want to thank Jeppe von Platz for his contribution, especially because he focuses his comments on the metaphysics and epistemology of my view, which provides a useful addition to the comments of my other two critics. And I am especially grateful to have an opportunity to extend my conception of epistemic modesty as I do in my reply to Platz.
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This forum is based on an “Author Meets Critics” session at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association on March 25, 2006 in Portland, Oregon.
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Talbott, W.J. Reply to Critics: In Defense of One Kind of Epistemically Modest But Metaphysically Immodest Liberalism. Hum Rights Rev 9, 193–212 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-007-0039-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-007-0039-x