Political Theory of Human Rights

Plan

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)

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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