The Challenge of Human Rights Origin, Development and Significance

by Mahoney, Jack

• ISBN13: 9781405152402
• ISBN10: 1405152400
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-10-13
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Jack Mahoney is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in the University of London and is a former Principal of Heythrop College, University of London. He is the author of several books and of many articles on general and applied ethics, including medical ethics, business and professional ethics and theological ethics, and he has lectured and broadcast widely in these subjects at home and abroad.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Human Rights in History

The Ancient Classical World

The World of the Bible

The Medieval World

Renaissance and Reformation Thought

Hobbes and Rousseau

Revolution in England

American Independence

The French Declaration of the Rights of Man

English Resistance to Human Rights

German Developments: Kant and Marx

The Modern Human Rights Movement

The Charter of the United Nations Organization

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Continental Developments

The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights

Wider Human Rights Developments

British Developments

Conclusion

Clarifying Human Rights

Some Useful Distinctions

Rights and Duties

The Proliferation of Rights

Individuals-in-Society

Selfishness and Social Divisiveness

Ethical Imperialism?

A Challenge to All Cultures

The Strengths of Human Rights

Establishing Human Rights

A Matter of Belief

An Essential Requirement

The Nature of Persons

Intuitionist Approaches

Human Dignity

"The Wonder of Our Being"

Major Opponents

Conclusion

The Globalizing of Human Rights

Global Expansion

Seeking a Global Ethic

Cultural Relativism

Global Human Rights

Towards Cosmopolitanism

The Inadequacies of States

"Principled" Cosmopolitanism

Human Solidarity

Bibliography

Index

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