Meditating on rights and responsibility: remarks on ‘the limits and burdens of rights’

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Kathryn Sikkink
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Ethical Responsibilities ◽  
Forward Looking

Abstract Kratochwil's critique of rights as a dominant moral theory that cannot avoid ‘hegemonic’ politics appears to be too crude. This article suggests that more theoretical and practical attention to the responsibilities necessary to implement rights could address some of Kratochwil's concerns. The language of political and ethical responsibilities is often missing from the practical action discourse of human rights. The article emphasizes the multitude of potential ‘agents of justice’ and how they can discharge forward-looking responsibilities in open and discretionary ways.

Human Rights & the National Interest

Worldview ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 18-21
Author(s):  
J. Bryan Hehir
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Cautionary Note ◽  
National Goal ◽  
Stanley Hoffmann ◽  
Difficult Subject

The philosophical discussions about the nature and origins of human rights are learned, complex and fascinating; it can certainly be argued that before a statesman decides to make a national goal of their promotion he should have a firm moral theory about their essence and their foundations. But much of the literature has a tendency to overcomplicate what is already a formidably difficult subject.—Stanley Hoffmann, Duties Beyond BordersHeeding this cautionary note from a perceptive theorist who has explored the philosophical dimensions of rights policy, my limited purpose here is to examine three concepts from Roman Catholic theory that structure the Church's participation in the human rights debate. These concepts are: (1) the foundation of human rights; (2) the range of human rights claims; and (3) the conception of the state in international relations today.

Climate Change as a Business and Human Rights Issue: A Proposal for a Moral Typology

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Kristian Høyer TOFT
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Business And Human Rights ◽  
Moral Duties ◽  
Rights Issue ◽  
Forward Looking

AbstractTo explore the emerging and contested issue of business and human rights in the area of climate change, this article provides a critical discussion from the viewpoint of moral philosophy. A novel typology of businesses’ human rights duties (‘duty’ is considered synonymous with ‘responsibility’ here) is proposed. It claims that duties are both forward- and backward-looking. Cases of human rights litigation seeking remedy for climate-related harms are backward-looking, and duties should be determined on the basis of proportion of historical emissions, culpable knowledge and counter-acts to abate climate harms. Businesses’ forward-looking duties, however, depend on their power, privilege, interest and collective abilities. The typology is then assessed against the background of recent legal principles and instruments. It is concluded that moral duties of business reach beyond mere respect for human rights and national jurisdictions in the context of climate change.

scholarly journals The Case of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe: Human Rights Violations and Forward Looking Strategies

2017 ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Veronica Pavlou
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Life Issues ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Female Migrant ◽  
Forward Looking ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

<p>Female migrant domestic workers constitute one of the most vulnerable groups of workers in the international labour market as they are frequently found working and living in conditions that put their human rights at stake. They can be subjected to multiple and intersecting discriminations deriving from their gender, their status as migrants and their occupation. The aim of this article is to explore the issue of female migrant domestic workers through its human rights dimension. It first analyses the phenomenon by discussing aspects such as gender, ethnicity and migration. Secondly, it provides for an account of the International and European framework for the human rights protection of this group of migrant women. Then, some of the most important human rights concerns that the issue of female migrant domestic workers entails, such as the exploitative terms of work, the problematic living conditions and private life issues, are discussed. Finally, the article, examines suggestions that could improve the living and working conditions and the general status of female migrant domestic workers. The forward looking strategies presented are grouped in three core categories; how to prepare female migrant domestic workers for their entry to the destination country, how to protect them through migration policies and labour regulations and finally, how to empower them allowing them to develop skills and capacities for better civic participation.</p><p><strong>Published online</strong>: 11 December 2017</p>

scholarly journals Introducing Biosemiotic Ethics

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Tønnessen ◽  
Jonathan Beever ◽  
Yogi Hale Hendlin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Stable Coexistence ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Decisive Advantage ◽  
Ethical Responsibilities

In this introduction to the special issue on Biosemiotic Ethics, we introduce major concepts and themes corresponding to the topic. With reference to Ivar Puura’s notion of “semiocide”, we ask: what are the ethical responsibilities that attention to semiotics carries? We argue that if life is fundamentally semiotic, then biosemiotics and moral theory should be explored in conjunction, rather than separately. Biosemiotic ethics becomes relevant whenever one complex of signs impinges on another; particularly whenever human sign usage impinges on the wellbeing or sustainable functioning of human or non-human semiotic agents. Stable coexistence of sign systems is far from inevitable, but it is a meaningful goal that can be pursued. In complex ecosystems, for example, certain types of coexistent relationships have evolved to share space despite competitive needs and expressions. We describe the ways in which authors in this volume articulate various justifications for the view that what is morally relevant is semiosis. Given these perspectives in a growing approach to understanding moral relationships, biosemiotic ethics has the decisive advantage of drawing on contemporary biosemiotics’ empirically-informed biological acuity within a rich semiotic framework.

Economic and Social Council

1954 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-246
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Technical Assistance ◽  
Working Party ◽  
Basic Program ◽  
Practical Action ◽  
Social Council ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

The sixteenth session of the Economic and Social Council was resumed at United Nations headquarters in New York on November 30, and concluded on December 7, 1953. The Council worked out its basic program for 1954 and considered the provisional agenda for its seventeenth session drawn up by the Secretary-General (Hammarskjold). It transmitted to the Commission on Human Rights for appropriate action the resolutions of the eighth session of the General Assembly on the draft International Covenants on Human Rights and measures of implementation; the right of peoples to self-determination; and the development of the work of the United Nations for wider observance of, and respect for, human rights and fundamental freedoms. Amending its resolution of July 31, 1953, on the program of concerted practical action in the social field of the United Nations and the specialized agencies, the Council added to the list of projects on which such a program should concentrate the improvement of health, education and social welfare in the non-self-governing and trust territories. The Technical Assistance Committee, which had been instructed during the first part of the session to submit recommendations concerning the financial arrangements for the expanded program of technical assistance, informed the Council that the working party it had established had decided to refer the question to the Technical Assistance Board, and that since the Board was not due to meet until December 1953, it had received no specific proposals. Finally, the Council confirmed the members nominated by Denmark, Panama, Cuba, the Byelorussian SSR, and China to the Statistical, Social and Human Rights Commissions.

Moral Theory and Human Rights: Scheffler on Structure and Content

Dialogue ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-294
Author(s):  
Marlene Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Differences Of Opinion ◽  
Moral Universe

Human rights claims rely on both utilitarian and deontological perspectives of the moral universe. The persuasiveness of these claims depends on the extent to which they resonate harmoniously with a person's other moral opinions. If these opinions cannot be grounded in a larger structure of ra-tionally defensible moral principles, differences of opinion cannot be satis-factorily resolved. When this happens, action protective of rights —about which there may be not only different but diametrically opposed opinion — will be hard to achieve.

scholarly journals Roots and Branches

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-47
Author(s):  
Brian Orend
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Jus Post Bellum ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Peace Treaties ◽  
The Way ◽  
Forward Looking

Jus post bellum is commonly considered a new and novel concept. But it does have a deeper historical pedigree; and this past is of relevance for its future, both as concept and as practice. This chapter argues that the most plausible contender for ‘inventor of jus post bellum’ in its unique, substantive, recognizable, and forward-looking form, is the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). The main aim of this chapter is not to defend such a purely historical claim. It is, rather, to show in detail all that Kant had to offer regarding the jus post bellum: how he develops it in both a short-term (procedural) sense and a long-term (substantive) sense, ranging from immediate ceasefires and public peace treaties all the way to the worldwide spread of a cosmopolitan federation devoted to peace and the realization of everyone’s human rights.

scholarly journals Toward a Systematic, Rights-Based Moral Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 491-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan White
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Systematic Philosophy ◽  
Early Humans ◽  
History Of

AbstractThe structural-systematic philosophy requires a moral theory. This essay seeks to determine whether either of two recent works, Joshua Greene’s Moral Tribes and Michael Tomasello’s A Natural History of Human Morality, should influence that theory. It first argues that Greene’s fails to make its case for utilitarianism over deontology. It then argues that Tomasello’s thesis that early humans developed moralities of sympathy and fairness, particularly when taken in conjunction with aspects of Alan Gewirth’s moral theory, fits well with the moral theory envisaged by extant works on the structural-systematic philosophy. The envisaged theory maintains the objectivity of human rights.

Institutionally Divided Moral Responsibility

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry S. Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Common Notion ◽  
Administrative Responsibilities ◽  
Moral Fault ◽  
Forward Looking

I am going to be discussing a mode of moral responsibility that anglophone philosophers have largely neglected. It is a type of responsibility that looks to the future rather than the past. Because this forward-looking moral responsibility is relatively unfamiliar in the lexicon of analytic philosophy, many of my locutions will initially strike many readers as odd. As a matter of everyday speech, however, the notion of forward-looking moral responsibility is perfectly familiar. Today, for instance, I said I would be responsible for watching my nieces while they swam. Neglecting this responsibility would have been a moral fault. When people marry, they undertake responsibilities, of moral import, of fidelity and mutual support. When people have children, they accrue moral responsibilities to feed, rear, and educate them. Not all forward-looking responsibilities are moral. While finishing this essay, I have had to keep an eye on a number of my administrative responsibilities, and, while reading it, you may well be occasionally distracted by some of your own. The notion of a responsibility that we accrue or take on, to look out for some range of concerns over some range of the future, is, then, perfectly familiar. Because this common notion of forward-looking responsibility has not been integrated into recent moral theory, however, my philosophical discussion of it will initially seem strange.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document