In Defense of Human Rights: A Non-Religious Grounding in a Pluralistic World

by Kohen; Ari

• ISBN13: 9780415420150
• ISBN10: 0415420156
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-04-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The argument that religion provides the only compelling foundation for human rights is both challenging and thought-provoking and answering it is of fundamental importance to the furthering of the human rights agenda. This book establishes an equally compelling non-religious foundation for the idea of human rights, engaging with the writings of many key thinkers in the field, including Michael J. Perry, Alan Gewirth, Ronald Dworkin and Richard Rorty. Ari Kohen draws on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a political consensus of overlapping ideas from cultures and communities around the world that establishes the dignity of humans and argues that this dignity gives rise to collective human rights. In constructing this consensus, we have succeeded in establishing a practical non-religious foundation upon which the idea of human rights can rest. In Defense of Human Rights will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, philosophy, religious studies and humanrights.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Prologue: Starvin' for Justice	p. 1
Introduction: the first day of class	p. 6
Michael Perry and the religious cosmology: foundations and critiques of human rights	p. 13
Human sacredness and human rights	p. 14
The idea of a religious worldview	p. 20
Nietzsche and the death of God	p. 31
Conclusion	p. 35
The possibility of non-religious human rights: Alan Gewirth and the Principle of Generic Consistency	p. 38
Gewirth's case against previous theories	p. 40
The Principle of Generic Consistency	p. 44
A critique of Generic Consistency	p. 51
Conclusion	p. 61
The problem of secular sacredness: Ronald Dworkin, Michael Perry, and human rights foundationalism	p. 64
Toward a secular conception of "sacred"	p. 65
Michael Perry's objection	p. 69
The etymology of rights	p. 79
Human dignity without teleology: human rights and evolutionary biology	p. 85
The evolution of human nature	p. 88
Personal identity and the mind's "I"	p. 92
Human animals and human persons	p. 97
Dignity and "the boundaries of our existence"	p. 105
Does might make human rights? Sympathy, solidarity, and subjectivity in Richard Rorty's final vocabulary	p. 109
The trouble with irony	p. 111
Self-creation and humiliation	p. 117
Replacing "why" with "how"	p. 122
Conclusion	p. 126
Rights and wrongs without God: a non-religious grounding for human rights in a pluralistic world	p. 129
Constructing the foundation: a reply to cultural relativism	p. 134
Rights by committee and the idea of an overlapping consensus	p. 141
Can consensus have justificatory force?	p. 146
The limits of language	p. 148
Notes	p. 152
Bibliography	p. 192
Index	p. 199
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