Seminar: Special Topics in Philosophy (410-0-3)
Topic
Understanding Human Rights
Instructors
Cristina Lafont
847/491-2550
Kresge 3-441
Meeting Info
Kresge 3438 Philosophy Sem. Rm: Tues 12:00PM - 2:50PM
Overview of class
The normative appeal of human rights in contemporary politics is an astonishing development. In fact, over the past decades most countries in the world have ratified at least some of the core human rights conventions and treaties. Although human rights have become the lingua franca of international political discourse, there is still a lot of disagreement on what human rights are as well as on what human rights there are. Moreover, on the wake of globalization, it is becoming increasingly difficult to answer the question of who has which human rights obligations towards whom. The traditional answer that only states have human rights obligations towards their own populations is becoming less and less plausible in light of the impact that actions of global economic institutions or transnational corporations have on the ability of states to protect human rights. These difficulties fuel recent criticisms of the human rights project that portray it as either insufficiently ambitious for achieving global justice or even as directly complicit in the perpetuation of injustices. With these problems in view, we will examine the main philosophical approaches to human rights currently under discussion to assess the plausibility of the answers they provide to these difficult normative questions.
Learning Objectives
The goals of the seminar are (1) to analyze the different contemporary conceptions of human rights, (2) to explore the conceptual tools that they provide for answering the challenges that globalization poses to human rights practice, and (3) to deepen the students' understanding of contemporary debates in political philosophy while enhancing their oral debate and writing skills.
Class Materials (Required)
All class materials will be available on Canvas at NO cost to the student.
Materials will include:
Arendt, H. "The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man" in The Origins of Totalitarism, Harcourt, 1968, 267-302.
Beitz, C. The Idea of Human Rights, Oxford UP, 2009, excerpts.
Brown, W. "‘The Most We Can Hope For…': Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism," South Atlantic Quarterly 103/2 (2004), 451-463.
Buchanan, A. The Heart of Human Rights, Oxford UP, 2013, excerpts.
Cohen, J. Globalization and Sovereignty, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 180-222.
Evans, G. "The Responsibility to Protect: From an Idea to an International Norm" in R. Cooper, ed., Responsibility to Protect, 2009, 15-30
. Gilabert, P. Human Dignity and Human Rights, Oxford UP, 2019, 113-25.
Griffin, J. On Human Rights, Oxford UP, 2008, 1-57.
Habermas, J. "The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights" Metaphilosophy 41/4 (2010), 464-80.
Lafont, C. "Human Rights, Sovereignty, and the Responsibility to Protect", Constellations, 22/1 (2015), 68-78.
Lafont, C. "Are Human Rights Associative Rights? The Debate between Humanist and Political Conceptions of Human Rights Revisited", Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (CRISSP), 25/1 (2022), 29-49.
Lafont, C. "Global Justice and Economic and Social Rights", in M. Langford and K. Young, eds., Oxford Handbook of Economic and Social Rights, forthcoming. MacNaughton,
G. "Equality Rights beyond Neoliberal Constraints", in G. MacNaughton and D. F. Frey, eds., Economic and Social Rights in a Neoliberal World, Cambridge University Press, 2018, 103-123.
Moyn, S. Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World, Harvard University Press, 2018, 1-11, 212-220. Nickel, J. "Rethinking Indivisibility: Towards a Theory of Supporting Relations between Human Rights" Human Rights Quarterly 30/4 (2008), 984-1001.
O'Neill, O., "Women's Rights: whose obligations?" in The Bounds of Justice, Cambridge UP, 2000, 97-105. Rawls, J. The Law of Peoples, Harvard UP, 1999, 78-81.
Raz, J. "Human Rights without Foundations," Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No.14 (2007), 1-21. Shue, H. Basic Rights, Princeton UP, 1996, excerpts.
Song, J. "Human Rights and Inequality," Philosophy & Public Affairs 47/4 (2019), 347-377.
Taylor, C. "Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on human rights," in J. R. Bauer and D. A. Bell, eds., The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, Cambridge University Press, 1999, 124-46.
Class Materials (Suggested)
Beitz, C. The Idea of Human Rights, Oxford UP, 2009. Shue, H. Basic Rights, Princeton UP, 1996.
Class Notes
Final paper.
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Registration is reserved for Philosophy PhD Graduate Students