WEEK TWO: INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES OF HUMAN RIGHTS

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WEEK TWO INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES OF HUMAN
RIGHTS
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Context

• Human history
• Human rights a response to suffering
• A covenant with humanity?

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Definitions

• basic moral guarantees that people in all
  countries and cultures allegedly have simply
  because they are people. Calling these guarantees
  rights suggests that they attach to particular
  individuals who can invoke them, that they are of
  high priority, and that compliance with them is
  mandatory rather than discretionary. Human rights
  are frequently held to be universal in the sense
  that all people have and should have them, and to
  be independent in the sense that they exist and
  are available as standards of justification and
  criticism whether or not they are recognised and
  implemented by the legal system or officials of a
  country. (Nickel, 1992 561-2)

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Analysing the terms of Nickels definition

• Basic moral guarantees
• Guarantees, not aspirations.
• Conditions for minimally good life.
• Human rights inflationism.

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Analysing the terms of Nickels definition

• That people in all countries and cultures
  allegedly have simply because they are people.
• Differences between people and human beings.
• HRs claims exist independently of culture.
• Universality vs. moral relativism
• Eurocentric

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Analysing the terms of Nickels definition

• Calling these guarantees rights suggests that
  they attach to particular individuals who can
  invoke them, that they are of high priority, and
  that compliance with them is mandatory rather
  than discretionary.
• Individuals and non-aggregative nature of HRs.
• Individual moral sovereignty.
• Weight of HRs claims correlativity thesis
• Derogable and non-derogable rights.
• Ronald Dworkin and rights as trumps.

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Analysing the terms of Nickels definition

• to be independent in the sense that they exist
  and are available as standards of justification
  and criticism whether or not they are recognised
  and implemented by the legal system or officials
  of a country.
• Legal rights vs. moral rights
• Definition of moral rights - Moral rights need
  not be written into actual legal codes maybe
  they are, maybe not. Moral rights exist either as
  rights within social moralities or as rights
  within what we might call a critical, or
  justified morality. A social morality is a widely
  believed and practised code of conduct in a given
  society. (Brian Orend, 200224)
• Problem of moral subjectivism.

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WEEK THREE THE MORALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
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Central question How can we ourselves account
for and explain our own belief in the presumed
value of human rights?
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The NORMATIVE question

• Two fundamental questions
• What type of doctrine is human rights?
• What kinds of justificatory arguments have been
  offered in support of human rights and how?
• How persuasive and compelling have these
  arguments proven to be?

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Human rights moral doctrine or merely a body of
law?

• What is a doctrine? Definition - a set of
  beliefs or principles held and taught by a
  Church, political party, or other group. (OED)
• Return to legal positivism
• David Hume distinction between facts and
  values.
• Legal positivism - the view that there is no
  rational procedure by which we can objectively
  know what is morally right and wrong.(Harris,
  19977)

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Justifications of human rights

• the intuitionist approach,
• the emotivist approach,
• the religious approach,
• the political approach
• the philosophical/rationalist approaches.

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Intuitionist approach

• Self-evident truths U.S. Declaration of
  Independence
• But, actual intuitions do not all support HRs
• Overly-generalised

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Emotivist approach

• Hume
• Morality is based upon emotions and not reason
• Richard Rorty HRs based upon sentiment and not
  reason
• Freemans criticism of Rorty
• Emotivism excludes possibility of judging between
  good and bad emotions

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Religious approaches

• Michael J. Perry and Max Stackhouse
• Appeal to theology
• HRs based upon faith, not reason
• Limitations of secular morality
• Moral absolutism
• Fagans criticism of religious approaches

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Political approaches

• Michael Ignatieff and David Forsythe
• Opposed to HRs foundationalism
• Ignatieff and HRs idolatory
• Ideology and political interests
• Freemans criticism
• Confusing means and ends

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Philosophical/rationalist approaches

• Interest theory Choice theory

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Interest theory

• John Finnis
• Bryan Turner
• Amartya Sen
• Martha Nussbaum
• Joseph Raz

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Choice theory

• Alan Gewirth
• Appeal to freedom
• Kant and foundationalism
• Criticisms and problems issue of marginal
  cases

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WEEK FOUR FREEDOM EQUALITY IN HUMAN RIGHTS

• Three questions
• Precisely what importance is placed upon freedom
  and equality within human rights?
• How have freedom and equality been conceived of
  both within and beyond the academic field of
  human rights?
• Which controversial issues does a commitment to a
  particular conception of freedom and equality
  within human rights raise in seeking to apply
  human rights in the real world?

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Freedom HRs

• Many faces of freedom and equality
• Evaluative nature of concepts and ideals
• Gallie and essentially contested concepts
• Connolly and freedom as an essentially contested
  concept
• Isaiah Berlin and two conceptions of liberty
• Negative liberty and positive liberty
• Negative liberty - I am normally said to be free
  to the degree to which no man or body of men
  interferes with my activity. Political liberty in
  this sense is simply the area within which a man
  can act unobstructed by others. (Berlin,
  1969122)

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Freedom HRs

• Positive liberty - the positive sense of the
  word liberty derives from the wish on the part of
  the individual to be his own master. I wish my
  life and decisions to depend upon myself, not on
  external forces of whatever kind. (1969131)
• Negative liberty private sphere and individual
  sovereignty
• Relationship to rights Peter Jones and negative
  positive rights
• Role of state and protecting HRs
• Article 25 of UDHR everyone has the right to a
  standard of living adequate for the health and
  well-being of himself and his family, including
  food, clothing, housing and medical care and
  necessary social services, and the right to
  security in the event of unemployment, sickness,
  disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
  livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

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Freedom HRs

• Negative liberty and civil political rights
  Maurice Cranston
• Positive liberty and economic, social and
  cultural rights
• David Beethams criticism
• Challenging the negative/positive distinction

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Equality HRs

• Problem of defining equality
• Distinction between natural and social equality
• Rousseau radical egalitarianism Marxism
• Formal equality
• Substantive equality

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Problems Criticisms

• Issue of conflicting rights
• Are all freedoms fundamental HRs?
• Positive discrimination and equality

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WEEK FIVE THE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• Can there only be one legitimate version of the
  human rights doctrine referred to as the strong
  universalist position.
• Can human rights be thought of as not so much a
  single, unified moral doctrine but as comprising
  a number of significantly different moral and
  cultural outlooks? If so, what criteria and
  attributes enable us to identify these as
  consistent with the spirit of human rights? This
  can be referred to as the weak universalist
  position.
• Is it more legitimate to dismiss the very idea of
  universality? This can be labelled the relativist
  position. What arguments can be offered to
  support this view and what are its implications
  for our understanding of the moral authority of
  human rights?

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Universality

• The concept of universality holds that there
  exist universally valid and true principles and
  values. Universally valid and true principles and
  values are valid and true independently of
  social, political, economic, historical,
  religious, intellectual and cultural
  considerations and conditions.
• The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms
  the solemn commitment of all states to confirm
  their obligations to promote universal respect
  for, and observance and protection of, all human
  rights and fundamental freedoms for all in
  accordance with the Charter of the UNThe
  universal nature of these rights and freedoms is
  beyond question.
• Culture and HRs abuse

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Relativism

• moral relativismoften takes the form of a
  denial that any single moral code has universal
  validity, and an assertion that moral truth and
  justifiability, if there are such things, are in
  some way relative to factors that are culturally
  and historically contingent. (David Wong,
  1991442)
• Cultural origins of moral beliefs
• Cultural and moral diversity
• Sociological arguments for relativism Benedict
  and Dundes Renteln
• Philosophical argument no moral facts
  J.L.Mackie
• Criticisms and problems

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Weak universalism

• Human rights community is a broad church
• Human rights based upon number of cultural and
  religious elements
• Ecumenical approach Chan Tatsuo
• international human-rights institutions have
  generally accepted that universal human-rights
  standards ought to be interpreted differently in
  different cultural contexts. (Freeman, 2002104)
• ECHR margin of appreciation
• Critique of Eurocentric bias AnNaim and Makau
• Pluralism Rawls, Larmore, Ackerman
• Problems and criticisms

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Strong universalism

• Strong universalism is based upon the claim that
  there exist a limited number of moral ideals and
  values that are universally valid even though
  these values and ideals have not been recognised
  as valid by everyone and everywhere.
• Donnelly
• Liberal individualism
• Ronald Dworkin liberal egalitarianism
• Problems and criticisms