Human Rights and Philosophy

28 Donnelly on Concept vs Conception of Human Rights Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Second Edition (Cornell University Press, 2003) 2. Interpretation vs Substance “The Universal Declaration generally formulates rights at the level of what I will call the concept, an abstract general statement of an orienting value. ‘Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment’ (Art. 23). Only at this level do I claim that there is a consensus on the right of the Universal Declaration, and at this level, most appeals to cultural relativism fail” ( Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Second Edition, p. 94). When Donnelly talked to Iranians and asked them “Which rights in the Universal Declaration ... does your society or culture reject?” he says they accepted the concept of freedom of religion, but disagreed with particular conceptions of freedom of reli...

29 Donnelly on Misunderstanding Culture Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013) “Consider the common claim that Asian societies are communitarian and consensual whereas Western societies are individualistic and competitive. What exactly is this supposed to explain? . . .  Culture does much less explanatory work than most relativists suggest–at least that the ‘culture’ in question is more local or national than regional or a matter of civilization” (97). “Substantive cultural relativism risks reducing ‘right’ to ‘traditional.’ ‘Good’ to ‘old,’ and ‘obligatory’ to ‘habitual.’ Few societies or individuals, however, believe that their values are binding simply or even principally because they happen to be widely endorsed within their culture” (109). “Cultural relativism is particularly problematic when it presents culture as coherent, homogeneous, consensual, and static. In fact, though, differences within cu...

31 Donnelly on the More Recent History of Human Rights Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013) 4. The American and French Revolutions The transformation from ‘traditional’ hierarchical polities to ‘modern,’ egalitarian, rights-based polities was neither rapid nor easy. Three centuries separate the Peace of Westphalia from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, during which prolonged, intense, and often violent political struggles were required to expand both the substance and the subjects of ‘natural rights.’ Consider the American and French Revolutions. These eighteenth-century revolutions were in many ways quite distant from their seventeenth-century English predecessor. This is particularly clear in a comparison between the 1689 English Bill of Rights and the 1776 and 1789 American and French Declarations. The English Bill begins with “the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled at Westmi...

30 The Modern Invention of Human Rights Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013) Question: Why did the idea of human rights arise in the West? 3. The Modern Invention of Human Rights What in “modernity” led to the development of human rights? In a gross (but I hope insightful) oversimplification, I want to suggest that modern states and modern markets triggered social processes and struggles that eventually [87] transformed hierarchical polities of rulers and subjects into more egalitarian polities of offi ce holders and citizens. [8] To reduce three centuries to a few paragraphs, ever more powerful capitalist markets and sovereign, bureaucratic states gradually penetrated first Europe and then the globe. In the process, “traditional” communities, and their systems of mutual support and obligation, were disrupted, destroyed, or radically transformed, typically with traumatic consequences. These changes creat...

29   Donnelly on Misunderstanding Culture Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013) “Consider the common claim that Asian societies are communitarian and consensual whereas Western societies are individualistic and competitive. What exactly is this supposed to explain? . . .  Culture does much less explanatory work than most relativists suggest–at least that the ‘culture’ in question is more local or national than regional or a matter of civilization” (97). “Substantive cultural relativism risks reducing ‘right’ to ‘traditional.’ ‘Good’ to ‘old,’ and ‘obligatory’ to ‘habitual.’ Few societies or individuals, however, believe that their values are binding simply or even princiapply because they happen to be widely endorsed within their culture” (109). “Cultural relativism is particularly problematic when it presents culture as coherent, homogeneous, consensual, and static. In fact, though, differenc...

Donnelly on China and Rights Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Third Edition (Cornell University Press, 2013) 4. Twentieth-Century Encounters with “Rights” Let us jump now to the late nineteenth century. China, although still under imperial rule, was increasingly burdened by an increasingly oppressive and demeaning series of “unequal treaties” that restricted (but did not extinguish) Chinese sovereignty and granted punishing economic, military, political, and religious privileges to the Western powers. The state was nearing collapse. Chinese officials, intellectuals, and citizens largely across the political spectrum were grappling with the meaning of this degradation of China and a wide variety of possible remedies. One powerful strand of reformist thought traced Chinese decline to the backward-looking rigidities of Confucianism. (Scholar-bureaucrats trained primarily in the classics still dominated the civil service.) In the eyes of these modernist...