On Human Rights

On Human Rights
Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Total Pages : 360
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191623417
ISBN-13 : 0191623415
Rating : 4/5 (415 Downloads)

Book Synopsis On Human Rights by : James Griffin

Download or read book On Human Rights written by James Griffin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a human right? How can we tell whether a proposed human right really is one? How do we establish the content of particular human rights, and how do we resolve conflicts between them? These are pressing questions for philosophers, political theorists, jurisprudents, international lawyers, and activists. James Griffin offers answers in his compelling new investigation of the foundations of human rights. First, On Human Rights traces the idea of a natural right from its origin in the late Middle Ages, when the rights were seen as deriving from natural laws, through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the original theological background was progressively dropped and 'natural law' emptied of most of its original meaning. By the end of the Enlightenment, the term 'human rights' (droits de l'homme) appeared, marking the purge of the theological background. But the Enlightenment, in putting nothing in its place, left us with an unsatisfactory, incomplete idea of a human right. Griffin shows how the language of human rights has become debased. There are scarcely any accepted criteria, either in the academic or the public sphere, for correct use of the term. He takes on the task of showing the way towards a determinate concept of human rights, based on their relation to the human status that we all share. He works from certain paradigm cases, such as freedom of expression and freedom of worship, to more disputed cases such as welfare rights - for instance the idea of a human right to health. His goal is a substantive account of human rights - an account with enough content to tell us whether proposed rights really are rights. Griffin emphasizes the practical as well as theoretical urgency of this goal: as the United Nations recognized in 1948 with its Universal Declaration, the idea of human rights has considerable power to improve the lot of humanity around the world. We can't do without the idea of human rights, and we need to get clear about it. It is our job now - the job of this book - to influence and develop the unsettled discourse of human rights so as to complete the incomplete idea.


On Human Rights Related Books

On Human Rights
Language: en
Pages: 360
Authors: James Griffin
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-08-27 - Publisher: OUP Oxford

GET EBOOK

What is a human right? How can we tell whether a proposed human right really is one? How do we establish the content of particular human rights, and how do we r
Griffin on Human Rights
Language: en
Pages: 252
Authors: Roger Crisp
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

GET EBOOK

This volume presents responses to the work of James Griffin, one of the most significant contributors to the contemporary debate over human rights. Leading mora
The Idea of Human Rights
Language: en
Pages: 250
Authors: Charles R. Beitz
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-07-28 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

Human rights have become one of the most important moral concepts in global political life over the last 60 years. Charles Beitz, one of the world's leading phi
Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights
Language: en
Pages: 721
Authors: Rowan Cruft
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

Readership: This book would be suitable for students, academics and scholars of law, philosophy, politics, international relations and economics
Griffin on Human Rights
Language: en
Pages: 252
Authors: Roger Crisp
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-08-28 - Publisher: OUP Oxford

GET EBOOK

Human rights are one of the most controversial and widely discussed ideas in contemporary politics, ethics, and law. In recent decades, the philosophy of human