History: Rights

Leslie Allan demonstrates how human rights are unproblematic for utilitarian moral theory and how, upon consideration, utilitarianism turns out to be the best theory for justifying human rights. Using case studies of historical and contemporary human rights conventions and recent psychological research, he argues how our concept of human rights is founded on the satisfaction of fundamental human needs and the consequences for human happiness.

In addition to authoring the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of Citizen (1791), for which she is generally known today, Olympe de Gouges devoted several writings to denouncing slavery. In this article, I present the contents of these works by placing them in the context of both the Parisian debate and the situation in the colonies. Furthermore, I highlight the theoretical contribution of these writings with respect to the specific situation of slavery and, more generally, with respect to (...) the question of the universality of human rights. For this purpose, I analyse de Gouges’ reflection on women’s rights and compare her position with that of classical social contract theorists. I conclude by highlighting how de Gouges’ position still provides an effective critique of the pitfalls of a self-proclaimed objective and universal Reason. (shrink)

2018 marked the centenary of Wesley Hohfeld’s untimely passing. Curiously, in recent years quite a few legal historians and philosophers have identified him as a Legal Realist. This article argues that Hohfeld was no such thing, that his work need not be understood in such lights, and that he in fact made a smaller contribution to jurisprudence than is generally believed. He has nothing to do with theories of official decision-making that identify “extra-legal” factors as the real drivers of judicial (...) decision-making, and nor must his schema of jural relations advance a “Realist” political agenda. Distinguishing Hohfeld from the Realists will correct some misunderstandings about his work and demonstrate its utility in many more contexts than a Realist reading of it allows. (shrink)

This paper has four aims. First it distinguishes two kinds of philosophical accounts of the ‘formal’ features of rights: models and theories. Models outline the ‘conceptually basic’ types of rights (if indeed a given model deems there to be more than one), their differences, and their relationships with duties, liabilities, etc. Theories of rights posit a supposed ultimate purpose for all rights and provide criteria for determining what counts as ‘a right’ in the first place. Second, the paper argues that (...) Monistic rights models (ones positing only a single basic type of right) are under-inclusive. They wrongly exclude and cannot explain relevant data, i.e., ordinary and legal linguistic practices. The third aim is to show that certain Pluralistic models are over-inclusive in terms of what they count as ‘rights’. Fourth, the paper begins to touch upon, but does not provide, criteria for determining what counts as ‘a right’. Two candidate factors will be addressed. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 36, Issue 1, pp 63 - 77 At the basis of modern natural law theories, the concept of the _suum_, i.e. what belongs to the person, has received little scholarly attention despite its importance both in explaining and justifying not only the genealogy of property, but also that of morality and war. In this essay I focus on Grotius’s account of the _suum_ and examine what it is, what things it includes, what rights it gives rise to, (...) and how it is extended in the transition from the state of nature to civil society. I then briefly suggest that reviving this concept could help to illuminate the current discussion on the foundations of basic human rights, and to re-evaluate cases where these seem to clash with property rights. (shrink)

Until now, arguments for the distribution of resources by those who care about the plight of human-used animals have been either utilitarian or libertarian in nature. The utilitarian case has been made in writing by both activists and philosophers. The libertarian case is more a position that I have found comes naturally to many in the animal movement. In this article I make use of elements of Rawls’ A Theory of Justice to make a case for two principles of justice (...) for the distribution of human resources by those in the animal rights community. My argument arises within the tradition of Tom Regan and Marc Rowlands where animals are held to possess negative rights. This is an argument largely by analogy to Rawls’ manner of making a case for his two principles. (shrink)

The principal authors whose fiction is drawn upon in this fine book are James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. This book, which is clear and straightforward in its presentations, is obviously useful for providing graphic illustrations for, and heightening interest in, political science courses. The openness of students to engaging stories is thereby put to salutary use by a political scientist who always has something instructive to say about the often-familiar fiction that (...) she discusses. (shrink)