Online research in philosophy

The human rights discourse is vitiated by its tendency to reification, a tendency manifest in an ideologically motivated failure to take the reasons for human rights seriously. When a set of rights fall short, in range or strength, of the reasons adduced for them, any claim to the universality and priority of the rights in question is open to the charge of falsification and reification. Such a claim invites immanent critique insofar as a human rights discourse fails to take its own reasons seriously by working out a set of rights commensurate with them. Further critique is necessary if the human rights concept as such can be shown to be incapable of living up to the best reasons for human rights, in the shape, the author argues, of agency-based reasons. These kinds of critique, especially the latter, can serve as an antidote to the reifying tendency of the human rights discourse.

Human rights law inscribes a relation between the political and suffering. This relation is twofold, it facilitates the radical aspect of human rights’ struggle against domination, but at the same time seems to reduce the human rights horizon to the short-term philantropism of humanitarianism. We will argue that this twofold structure is crucial to understanding human rights. We can begin to imagine a different, non-metaphysical, human rights through thinking a different concept of suffering with emphasis on ‘sense’ and ‘vulnerability’. This article is an attempt to think a future of human rights, a future which is not determined by possessive individualism and the closure of the subject.

This book presents a historical perspective on patterns of human rights abuse in Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua and incorporates international relations in to the traditional theories of state repression found within the social sciences.

Using the accounts of Gewirth and Griffin as examples, the article criticises accounts of human rights as those are understood in human rights practices, which regard them as rights all human beings have in virtue of their humanity. Instead it suggests that (with Rawls) human rights set the limits to the sovereignty of the state, but criticises Rawls conflation of sovereignty with legitimate authority. The resulting conception takes human rights, like other rights, to be contingent on social conditions, and in particular on the nature of the international system.

Though some Christian theologians have argued that Western human rights theory is grounded in religious faith, human rights morality is, in fact, autonomous. The ideologies of religion and of human rights differ in their sources, the bases of their authority, their forms of expression, and even their substantive norms. Moreover, historically, religious communities have often themselves violated human rights norms-and such violations persist today in some geographical regions and with respect to some norms. On the other hand, religious communities have an obvious interest in the development and defense of some human rights, particularly religious human rights, and religious communities that once were hostile to the human rights ideology have more recently, particularly in the West, coopted the human rights idea and claimed it as their own. An "approchement" between religion and human rights is possible and highly desirable.

The consequentialist project for human rights -- Exceptions to libertarian natural rights -- The main principle -- What is well-being? What is equity? -- The two deepest mysteries in moral philosophy -- Security rights -- Epistemological foundations for the priority of autonomy rights -- The millian epistemological argument for autonomy rights -- Property rights, contract rights, and other economic rights -- Democratic rights -- Equity rights -- The most reliable judgment standard for weak paternalism -- Liberty rights and privacy rights -- Clarifications and responses to objections -- Conclusion.

The Proliferation of Rights explores how the assertion of rights has expanded dramatically since World War II. Carl Wellman illuminates for the reader the historical developments in each of the major categories of rights, including human rights, civil rights, women’s rights, patient rights, and animal rights. He concludes by assessing where this proliferation has been legitimate and helpful, cases where it has been illusory and unproductive, and alternatives to the appeal to rights.

The Challenge of Human Rights traces the history of human rights theory from classical antiquity through the enlightenment to the modern human rights movement, and analyses the significance of human rights in today’s increasingly globalized world. Provides an engaging study of the origin and the philosophical and political development of human rights discourse. Offers an original defence of human rights. Explores the significance of human rights in the context of increasing globalisation. Confronts the major objections to human rights, including the charge of western ethical imperialism and cultural relativism. Argues that human rights logically culminate in an ethical cosmopolitanism to reflect the moral unity of the human race.

Charles Beitz has presented us with a new and novel theory of human rights, one that is motivated by a concern for the enforcement of human rights in modern international practice. However, the focus on states in his human rights project generates a tension between the universal aspirations of individual human rights and the vulnerable individuals who through rendition or state failure find themselves outside the international state system. This paper argues that Beitz and other theorists of human rights make a mistake when they define human rights in statist terms. The scope of a theory of human rights must include all human beings, even if not simply in virtue of their humanity. The aspiration for human rights to be political and not metaphysical is interesting and admirable, but the human scope of human rights must be retained in order for human rights to retain their critical force.

In a variety of disciplines, there exists a consensus that human rights are individual claim rights that all human beings possess simply as a consequence of being human. That consensus seems to me to obscure the real character of the concept and hinder the progress of discussion. I contend that rather than thinking of human rights in the first instance as “claim rights” possessed by individuals, we should regard human rights as higher order norms that articulate standards of legitimacy for sociopolitical and legal institutions.