Next Monday
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?
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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:
I think it's a fair point that he is a bit repetitive. As an analytic philosopher sort, he makes a number of closely related arguments that appear repetitive, but are actually slightly different. But basically, you're right.
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