As reports of genocide, terrorism, and political violence fill
today's newscasts, more attention has been given to issues of human
rights--but all too often the sound bites seem overly simplistic.
Many Westerners presume that non-Western peoples yearn for
democratic rights, while liberal values of toleration give way to
xenophobia.
This book shows that the identification of rights with
contemporary liberal democracy is inaccurate and questions the
assumptions of many politicians and scholars that rights are
self-evident in all circumstances and will overcome any conflicts
of thought or interest. "Rethinking Rights" offers a radical
reconsideration of the origins, nature, and role of rights in
public life, interweaving perspectives of leading scholars in
history, political science, philosophy, and law to emphasize rights
as a natural outgrowth of a social understanding of human nature
and dignity.
The authors argue that every person comes to consciousness in a
historical and cultural milieu that must be taken into account in
understanding human rights, and they describe the omnipresence of
concrete, practical rights in their historical, political, and
philosophical contexts. By rooting our understanding of rights in
both history and the order of existence, they show that it is
possible to understand rights as essential to our lives as social
beings but also open to refinement within communities.
An initial group of essays retraces the origins and historical
development of rights in the West, assessing the influence of such
thinkers as Locke, Burke, and the authors of the Declaration of
Independence to clarify the experience of rights within the Western
tradition. A second group addresses the need to rethink our
understanding of the nature of existence if we are to understand
rights and their place in any decent life, examining the
ontological basis of rights, the influence of custom on rights, the
social nature of the human person, and the importance of
institutional rights.
Steering a middle course between radical individualist and
extreme egalitarian views, "Rethinking Rights" proposes a new
philosophy of rights appropriate to today's world, showing that
rights need to be rethought in a manner that brings them back into
accord with human nature and experience so that they may again
truly serve the human good. By engaging both the history of rights
in the West and the multicultural challenge of rights in an
international context, "Rethinking Rights" offers a provocative and
coherent new argument to advance the field of rights studies.
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