Next Wednesday, I've asked you to read a number of short-ish essays on women's rights and human rights. One of those essays in only available on the internets. It is reprinted hither and thither, but you can save yourself the trouble of googling and find Armatya Sen's wonderful and important essay "100 Million Women Are Missing" (originally published in The New York Review of Books in 1990) right here.
posted by David Watkins @ 9:45 AM
1 comments
A link of possible interest to some of you, given the topics we've been discussing.
David Velleman, a prominent moral and political philosophy professor, shares his thoughts on relativism. He's a universalist, and he's happy to reject relativism on the grounds that it "denies the universality of morality." Well, yeah. But that's not what makes this an interesting read. He agrees with me about the paucity of actual extreme relativists, and concludes that anti-relativists generally have some other agenda.
Note: I don't recommend reading the comments and discussion, unless you've got about four hours to kill. If you do, I'll give you better reading recommendations.
Update: Another blogger/philosopher chimes in to clarify debates about relativism, and particularly to speculate on why some want to connect liberals (in the contemporary political sense) with relativism. One particularly important point she makes is:
I have met people who think that if you are not a moral relativist, then you must believe not just that there are right answers to moral questions, but that you know what they are. If you think about it, there's no obvious reason why this should be true: in almost every other area, it's clear that we can believe both that there are right answers to questions and that we don't know what they are. (I mean: I don't know how tall Moe and von are, but that doesn't mean I don't believe that they have a determinate height.)
posted by David Watkins @ 9:37 AM
1 comments
Think about these discussion questions for next time:
An-na’im proposes to examine the HR based prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment” as an exploration of the cross-cultural approach. What conclusions does he reach? Does this make the CC approach to HR seem more or less appealing?
How do we determine what “cultural values” are if they are not universal within the culture in question? (In other words, does relativism mean, in practice, that the powerful speak for all of the culture?)
3) Falk says that “without cultural practices and traditions being tested against the norms of IHRs, there will be a regressive disposition toward the retention of cruel, brutal, and exploitative aspects of religious and cultural tradition.” (45-46) Why do you think Falk reaches this conclusion? Do you agree?
I'll begin class with a brief overview of the cross-cultural compromise, but I won't dwell on the details as they are in the reading.
posted by David Watkins @ 9:22 PM
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I'm flexible about papers, so I'll adjust the schedule. Papers will now be due Monday rather than Friday. I'll post a couple questions to choose from shortly. I won't necessarily post them on Friday from here on out; but I will post them before Monday.
Note: THIS WEEKS PAPERS ARE STILL DUE TODAY. Thank you.
Paper topics for this week (choose one).
1)An-Na'im wants to pursue a cross-cultural approach to human rights. Do you think this approach is capable of pursuing avoiding the twin dangers of universalism and relativism? Why or why not?
2)What lessons does Alford think we should draw from a better understanding of the Chinese protest movement? Do you agree that these are the correct lessons to draw from these facts? Why or why not?
Two general reminders on paper-writing.
1) Make sure your own voice shows up loud and clear. Be clear about what the author is arguing, but also be clear about what your assessment (positive or negative) is.
2) Always, always, always include page numbers for any direct quotations you use. This is important. I haven't been deducting points for failing to do this but I'll start soon.
Have a great weekend. See you Monday.
Update (Monday night): I fixed the first question.
posted by David Watkins @ 3:53 PM
4 comments
On Wednesday, I mentioned an essay that makes the argument that makes the case that everyday forms of "moral favoritism"--duties to families, communities, and even nations aren't opposed to the idea of international duty, but are rather complementary with it, and can be understood as the source of any sense of cosmopolitan obligation. Per one student's request, here is the citation.
Richard W. Miller, "Moral Closeness and World Community," in The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy (edited by Deen Chatterjee), Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp.101-122.
From the intro:
...in ordinary moral thinking, I have as an American citizen, a much more demanding duty to support tax-financed aid to the poor in the U.S. than to support such aid to the foreign poor. I have a duty t osave a drowning toddler I encounter at the cost of ruining my 400 dollar suit, but not a duty to donate 400 dollars to save children in a distant village....One of my goals is to defend these biases, showing that they express a deep commitment to moral equality. The other is to show that proper understanding of their justification establishes substantial, if less demanding duties to help the foreign poor. In this way, a vindication of ordinary moral favoritism toward closeness grounds a case for extensive foreign aid that could be believable to the vast majority of non-philosophers, who find it unbelievable that a strong duty of impartial concern for neediness, whether near or far, determines what should be done to help needy strangers.
posted by David Watkins @ 10:32 AM
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A couple of links of potential interest found on the internets regarding Henry Shue...
Here's an interview with Henry Shue from 2001, on the subject of World Hunger and Moral Obligation. He reiterates many ideas we've already discussed. One interesting issue that comes up is the difference between his position on our obligations to help compared to those of Peter Singer. Peter Singer is the most famous utilitarian philosopher (perhaps the most famous living philosopher, period) who is well known for vigorously defending moral positions that most people find insane, and doing it disturbingly well. The article Shue refers to in the interview is one in which Singer argued that our obligation to help, assist, and give to needy, distant others should have virtually no bearing on our relationship to them, and our moral obligation to give and assist shouldn't end until we've given away so much as to be just about as impovershed as they are. Shue disagrees with this strong utilitarian position, but he doesn't (to my mind) make clear exactly how much, and why.
There was some conversational drift toward the question of how Shue would address a "post 9/11 world." I myself am rather convinced the radical shift in the world before and after 9/11 is asserted more often than it is successfully argued or defended, but that's just me. Here is a link to a statement made by Shue only a few days after the fact. Personally, I don't actually find this all that insightful--mostly, he's issuing a warning that military solutions to what happened a) may not work, and b) may cause the rights of more innocents to be violated. I agree, in general, on both counts (as does almost everyone, I suspect--all proponents of military solution understand that it might fail, and it'll probably kill a fair number of innocent people--it's a question of tradeoffs). But nevertheless, here is Shue's raw (9/17/2001) take on the world after the terrorist attacks.
Speaking of terrorist attacks--did anyone realize that Tuesday was the 10th anniversary of the attack on the Murrah building in Oklahoma City? I'm somewhat amazed at how little press coverage that got. I think people forget a bit too easily that a sizeable portion of the terrorist threat we live under is from domestic terrorism, and the media doesn't help that perception when they let the 10th anniversary of the second worst terrorist attack of our lifetimes go unmentioned! Here's a link to one of the only stories on the 10th anniversary I've found on a major national news outlet.
posted by David Watkins @ 8:22 AM
5 comments
As it stands, through week four, the paper topics are distributed and due on Fridays. A proposal has been made (and seconded and thirded) to shift that the schedule shift to place the weekend at the end of the paper cycle, in other words, the topics and due date would be shifted to Mondays. As I see it,
Pros: Students would apparently like it. It would give students more time after the Wednesday class to work on your paper.
Cons: Students might (might!) be tempted to postpone work on their papers until Monday afternoon, and then be unprepared for class on Monday. I have visions of students stumbling in 20 minutes late, a freshly printed paper in hand (not you, of course, some other student).
So convince this won't happen, or tell me why I shouldn't care, or tell me why I should switch to this policy anyway, or why I shouldn't.
posted by David Watkins @ 10:05 PM
3 comments
Use the comments here to discuss any aspect you like of Shue's book. Some suggestions:
Are you convinced about the primacy and content of basic rights?
What are the greatest strengths of this book? Weaknesses?
Are there important or interesting sections and arguments from the book we didn't discuss?
If we buy the argument--what next? What sort of institutional reforms should be enacted?
posted by David Watkins @ 9:58 PM
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Policy: If you wish to write a 5th paper this quarter, I'll drop your lowest paper score from consideration in your final grade.
posted by David Watkins @ 9:12 AM
1 comments
Reflect on Shue's arguments in chapter 6. Shue focuses on the argument that we owe more aid to compatriots (fellow citizens of our country) than those without. Do Shue's criticisms of this view transfer to other groups? Obviously, most people accept that we owe more aid to our own children than children 1000 miles away.
Do Shue's arguments help us understand the difference? Do they give us a good way to understand our differential obligations? How would you address this issue?
Update (3/19) OK, here's what I was trying to get at. Shue argues in ch. 6 that we should doubt that any of the standard reasons offered for a greater duty to compatriots (that is, fellow national citizens) are suspicious. He's not convinced they hold up to scrutiny, in other words. I'd like you to use this paper to take up the issue of how Shue's arguments regarding national identity might apply to other forms of group identity. In other words, if Shue shows us we shouldn't prioritize national identity for aid provision as much as many people think, what about other forms of group identity? Community identity? Etc.
I wanted to get you thinking about the issue this way: it's clear that we owe more aid and protection (of basic rights) to our own children than to anyone elses. Shue gives us reasons to believe identity based on nation citizenship is a dubious means to prioritize aid and protection of basic rights. I want you to consider Shue's arguments with respect to other forms of identity, between the family and the nation-state (for example, fellow members of your community. Members of your neighborhood, social club, religion, etc.) What standard or reasons could we use to justify prioritizing basic rights associated duties to these people, if any?
I know this is kind of open-ended, so if you write this week, be sure to address this issue in some way, and have a clear point/argument to your paper. Sorry about the confusion.
posted by David Watkins @ 6:23 PM
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Great discussion going on below. I'll comment on some of the issues raised on Monday. We'll tackle the important issue that Chris raises more directly next week, with a couple readings that relate directly to his position (for it and against it).
This week, we're finishing up with Shue. We'll work through the final three chapters, all of which are meant to respond to an expected criticism of the inclusion of subsistence as a basic right.
For Monday, we'll read chapters 4 and 5. Try to follow all the major arguments here against the so called "realist" objection and the more "selfish" objection discussed in chapter 5. Take a particular look at an issue raised on page 94. "I have already conceded elsewhere that no right, not even the right not to be tortured, is absolute...." What is his argument here? If rights aren't absolute, what's the point? Are we simply back to utilitarianism?
I raise this issue in particular because it's a minor discussion in the chapter, but I want to spend a fair bit of time thinking about it.
Chapter 5: I'm interested in putting together the best possible version of the selfish argument we can put together? Can we respond to Shue's objections?
For Wednesday...I'm particularly interested in the argument of chapter six. A number of issues are raised in this chapter regarding what we owe to those in our immediate communities and nations as compared to those who are "distant." This question deserves its own course, but we'll consider it here.
Why do we regularly presume to have greater duties to those "closer" to us in some way?
Are these feelings ever justified? Why, and to what extent?
How does Shue address this controversy? Is his solution satisfying?
Also, be sure to read the afterward carefully. What does Shue mean by the "institutional turn"?
Pay attention to how he revises and extends his discussion of duties in chapter II. We'll look at these reconsiderations in some detail.
posted by David Watkins @ 6:05 PM
0 comments
Here's a link to the book by Jeffrey Sachs I will have talked about in class today.
Discuss: Does anyone in the world today have a duty to end extreme poverty? If so, who/what has the duty, and why do they have it?
(Update: Um, never mind. I meant to talk about this book in class yesterday but I forgot. I *will* talk about it tomorrow. Consider this another book recommendation!)
posted by David Watkins @ 1:05 PM
2 comments
Here's a paper topic:
What is Shue's view on the relationship between rights, on the one hand, and duties, on the other? (be as precise and clear as possible, vagueness is a danger here). Do you agree or disagree? Why/why not?
posted by David Watkins @ 11:36 AM
0 comments
Not much time to post (Chicago is waaaay behind Seattle in providing free wifi access....)
Reading Shue: I don't know if this will prove more or less difficult than Marx et al. Shue is careful, and you can't really skim. He's building an argument meticulously, carefully, and if you don't pay attention to one step, you might not see where he's going after that. But his preciseness can also lead to clarity if you read carefully.
First off, Shue defines what rights are, in more precise language than we're used to.
What are rights? What are the three necessary components to rights? Do you agree with this characterization?
How does Shue build his argument for the necessity of the inclusion of subsistence rights?
We need to evaluate that argument both internally (does it follow from his premises?) and externally (does it cause problems he doesn't account for?).
How does Shue understand the relationship between rights and duties?
One criticism of Shue is that rights and duties, while related in a very practical way, needn't be thought of as conceptually linked as strongly as Shue does. We might agree, for example, that rights should include subsistence rights, but disagree on how the duty to provide for that subsistence should be distributed. Is that a plausible position?
What is the difference between negative and positive rights?
Shue identifies a couple of positions on the difference between negative and positive rights that he then proceeds to disagree with. What are the main positions he disagrees with, and why?
What is Shue's position? Is Shue persuasive on the (lack) of difference between negative and positive rights?
--------------
w/r/t Wednesday's class, more coming. I assigned three authors: Cranston/Shue/Pogge. Forget Cranston. He's not online, I'll lecture all the important points in the argument.
I'm told Pogge's book is in. Go get it! In addition to chapter 2 (52-72) I encourage you all to read his introduction as well.
posted by David Watkins @ 11:22 AM
1 comments
A periodic feature of this blog will be to recommend books as they relate to some aspect of the course. These recommendations are simply FYI, for those of you with a broader interest in the subject of human rights.
Yesterday we discussed three 19th century critics of HR (well, two, we'll get to Marx soon enough). These essays, along with very insightful introductions and a 60 page response defending the idea of human rights against these criticisms are collected in Nonsense Upon Stilts: Bentham, Burke and Marx on the Rights of Man, edited by Jeremy Waldron. (who is one of human rights more eloquent defenders). Sadly, this book is out of print; otherwise I would have assigned it. Waldron's essays are enormously helpful, and generally fair, to these critical perspectives. (I have UW library's copy, so please don't recall it!)
Books you can actually get: I mentioned, in the course of discussion yesterday, some of my own views on the Rwanda genocide of 1994. This is probably the worst thing that happened in the world in most of your lifetimes. I think that as horrible as it is to face, there is a great deal to be gained from trying to understand how things this terrible can happen. To that end, I recommend learning as much about it as possible. Here are a few recommendations:
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, by Phillip Goutrevich.
This is a largely journalistic account, very well written, about what happened, from a number of different perspectives.
When Victims Become Killers, Mahmood Mamdani
This is a much more academic account by a political anthropologist who studies Africa. It is more ambitious than Goutrevich's book, and more difficult, but accessible for an academic study. He seeks to explain how something like this could happen. Of course, he acknowledges that an adequate explanation is simply impossible, but it's worth trying anyway. He does a wonderful job of showing how the history of the ethnic categories "Hutu" and "Tutsi" came into being, how immigration and regional politics helped make this possible, etc. It's hard to overstate how impressed I am with the quality of this book.
Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity In Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire
I haven't read this yet (it just came out), but I'm eager to. It's a first hand account from the Canadian UN General who was in charge of a small peacekeeping force in Rwanda in 1993. He saw evidence that a genocide was on the horizon, and he requested 5,000 troops to stop it. When his request was denied, and he was forced to do what he could with a few hundred troops, almost a million people were killed. Dallaire went on to retire from the military while struggling with Post-tramautic Stress Disorder and immense guilt over not being able to do more to prevent this. This will be very difficult to read, but I hope to give it a shot soon.
There are lots of books about this, but this is a good start. If you prefer movies to books (and in many ways, I do), I can't recommend enough Terry George's Hotel Rwanda. It tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a luxury hotel manager who managed to successfully give refuge to over 1000 Tutsi's who otherwise would almost certainly have perished. Not only is the film accurate on the details of the story (Rusesabagina was a consultant on the film, which involved his first trip to Rwanda since 1994--I very much hope the DVD will include a mini-documentary about that), it's very well made. And Jamie Foxx is a fine actor, but he's got an Oscar that rightfully belongs to Don Cheadle.
That should keep you busy. To tie this into the theory of human rights, I encourage you to think about how to address the issue at the heart of the controversy here. Every country in the world has some human rights violations going on in it's borders. How should the interational community determine when to intervene to prevent these abuses. It was suggested in class, and I'm sympathetic to the argument, that utilitarianism must play a role in making this difficult decision. Do you agree? Any other ideas about how this difficult issue is best approached. (discuss!)
Things get more complicated when we consider the possibility of a right of national self-determination. More tomorrow.
posted by David Watkins @ 12:06 PM
1 comments
As it stands, I have no policy to allow a rewrite of any of the essays for this course.
Should I initiate a policy?
What should it look like?
Convince me.
posted by David Watkins @ 12:03 PM
4 comments
Want to get an early start?
1) Which of the three critical perspectives on rights studied this week do you find most compelling, and why? Apply this critical perspective to some or all of the UDHR, and explain where this document goes wrong from a (conservative, utilitarian, or Marxist) perspective.
3-4 pages, typed, double spaced, standard font and margins. Submit it to me electronically by Friday, end of the day.
posted by David Watkins @ 11:47 AM
0 comments
On Wednesday, we talked about where "human rights (the idea) come from." A topic indirectly related to that is "Why we believe in human rights (if, in fact, we do)." Most people, I find, do, in fact believe in them, althougth they're often not sure why.
On Monday, we'll examine three critical perspectives on the idea of human rights. These three perspectives share little in common except their suspicion of the idea of HR.
Read the short readings from Burke, Marx, and Bentham for Monday. As you read them, try to figure out what their objection to human rights is, boiled down to one or two sentences. Second, try to figure out what to make of these objections. If you find merit to the objections levied here, do you think the idea of (or content of) human rights could be altered to take account of this criticism?
(This will be difficult to glean from these short readings, but do try. I'll fill in the gaps Monday)
-------------
For Wednesday, we'll examine in close detail the content of human rights, as determined by the authors of the UDHR. You'll read a bit about the story of how this document came into being in the Lauren text.
I don't plan on lecturing much on Wednesday; I want us to examine this text in considerable detail. I want you to think about what you think the content of universal HR should be, and why, and how the UDHR does (or doesn't) measure up. What potential problems do you see for this document? Do some rights potentially contradict others? Are important rights missing? Are inappropriate rights added? etc.
posted by David Watkins @ 11:19 AM
1 comments
Here.
(update: I have no idea why everyone is being denied permission to view this document. I hope to have this fixed shortly)
(update the second: fixed it. Link now works for IE and Mozilla, and hopefully other browsers as well)
posted by David Watkins @ 11:10 AM
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