Human Rights And Ethics

This volume focuses on the ethical significance of human rights, aiming at contributing to a universal culture of human rights with deep roots and wide horizons. Its purpose, scope and rationale are reflected in the three-part structure of the manuscript. Part I has a broad introductory historical, theoretical and legal character. Part II submits that an Ethics of Human Rights is best understood as an Ethics of Recognition of human worth, dignity and rights. Moreover, it is argued that human worth consists in the perfectibility of the human species, rooted in its semiotic nature, to be accomplished through the perfecting of human beings, for which the right to education is key. In Part III, the main legal and political outcomes of the Human Rights Revolution are described and answers to the most lasting and common criticisms of human rights are provided. To conclude, the human stature of the Big Five drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is profiled and the priority that should be recognized to human rights education is highlighted. Some appendices supplement the manuscript. While making a case for the high value and liberating power of the idea and ideal of human rights, objections, controversies and uncertainties are not at all overlooked and emerging issues are explored. The diversity of content of this volume meets many needs of the typical syllabus for a human rights course.

This book is the product of a multi-year dialogue between leading human rights theorists and high-level representatives of international human rights NGOs (INGOs). It is divided into three parts that reflect the major ethical challenges discussed at the workshops: the ethical challenges associated with interaction between relatively rich and powerful northern-based human rights INGOs and recipients of their aid in the South; whether and how to collaborate with governments that place severe restrictions on the activities of human rights INGOs; and the tension between expanding the organization's mandate to address more fundamental social and economic problems and restricting it for the sake of focusing on more immediate and clearly identifiable violations of civil and political rights. Each section contains contributions by both theorists and practitioners of human rights.

Human Rights Ethics makes an important contribution to contemporary philosophical and political debates concerning the advancement of global justice and human rights. Butler's book also lays claim to a significant place in both normative ethics and human rights studies in as much as it seeks to vindicate a universalistic, rational approach to human rights ethics. Butler's innovative approach is not based on murky claims to "natural rights" that supposedly hold wherever human beings exist; nor does it succumb to the traditional problems of justification associated with utilitarianism, Kantianism, and other procedural approaches to human rights studies. Instead, Butler proposes "a dialectical justification of human rights by indirect proof" that claims not to be question begging. Very much in the spirit of Hegel and Habermas, Butler proposes to vindicate a "totally rational account of human rights," but one that depends concretely and historically on a dialectically constructed "right to freedom of thought in its universal modes."

The Global Citizenship Commission was convened, under the leadership of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the auspices of NYU’s Global Institute for Advanced Study, to re-examine the spirit and stirring words of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The result – this volume – offers a 21st-century commentary on the original document, furthering the work of human rights and illuminating the ideal of global citizenship. What does it mean for each of us to be members of a global community? Since 1948, the Declaration has stood as a beacon and a standard for a better world. Yet the work of making its ideals real is far from over. Hideous and systemic human rights abuses continue to be perpetrated at an alarming rate around the world. Too many people, particularly those in power, are hostile to human rights or indifferent to their claims. Meanwhile, our global interdependence deepens. Bringing together world leaders and thinkers in the fields of politics, ethics, and philosophy, the Commission set out to develop a common understanding of the meaning of global citizenship – one that arises from basic human rights and empowers every individual in the world. This landmark report affirms the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and seeks to renew the 1948 enterprise, and the very ideal of the human family, for our day and generation.

Ethical and human rights issues have assumed an increasingly high profile in the wake of miscarriages of justice, racism (Lawrence Inquiry), incompetence and corruption - in both Britain and overseas. At the same time the implementation of the Human Rights Act 1998 in England and Wales will have a major impact on policing, challenging many of the assumptions about how policing is carried out. This book aims to provide an accessible introduction to the key issues surrounding ethics in policing, linking this to recent developments and new human rights legislation. It sets out a powerful case for a modern 'ethical policing' approach. Policing, Ethics and Human Rights argues that securing and protecting human rights should be a major, if not the major, rationale for public policing.

"This reference considers some of the most important issues in the ethics of human interaction, whether in business, politics, or science and technology, covering issues such as cybercrime, bioethics, medical care, and corporate leadership"--

This title was first published in 2003. Environmental Human Rights redefines the political, ethical and legal relationships between the environment and human rights to claim the human rights to an environment free from toxic pollution and to natural resources. Through a focus on the operational dynamics of social power, this compelling book details how global capitalism subjugates concerns of human security and environmental protection to the values of allocative efficiency and economic growth. The capacity of social power to construct ethical norms and to determine the efficacy of law is examined to explain how ethical and legal concepts have been selectively applied to accommodate existing patterns of production, consumption and exchange that cause environmental degradation and human rights violations. By looking at how environmental values have been systematically excluded from the human rights discourse, the book claims that human rights politics and law has been constructed on double standards to accommodate the destructive forces of capitalism.

"Human rights include individual rights against government oppression, such as the right to freedom of thought, religion, speech, assembly, and to a fair system of criminal justice. But even in this basic political sense, ""human rights"" means different things in different historical and cultural contexts and advocacy of such rights has frequently been viewed as subjective. Justifying Ethics offers a thorough critique of the most common attempts to formulate objective standards through appeals to human nature, religion, and reason. Gorecki opens his inquiry by considering the role of norm-making concepts in the history of ethical thought: how standards of rights were claimed to conform to human nature and reason or have been stipulated by an external authoritative source such as God or social contracts. He then shows how such justifications may be discounted on analytical or practical grounds using such examples as divine will, Kantian reason, and the truth value of moral judgments. With respect to empirically grounded appeals to human nature, Gorecki argues against the notion that the innate plasticity of human behavior and potential for social diversity is sufficient grounds for human rights activity without objective justification. The search for justification remains essential in enhancing the persuasiveness of ethical action that aims at the moral ""contagion"" of the people by the human rights experience and the transition from moral acceptance to legal implementation.Broad in intellectual scope, Justifying Ethics draws upon moral and political philosophy, social policy, psychology, history, jurisprudence, and international law to clarify the prerequisites for the success of human rights activity. The book will be of special interest to political theorists, philosophers, sociologists, and human rights activists."