Work, Human Rights, and Human Capabilities

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-217
Author(s):  
Virginia Mantouvalou
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Moral Wrong ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Capabilities Theory

This chapter examines the value of work and the requirements of the content of work against two normative frameworks: first, human rights, and second, human capabilities. Its main question is whether working like a robot should be prohibited. The chapter identifies certain overlaps in the requirements imposed by the two frameworks, such as a duty to create opportunities to work and the prohibition of being forced to work. When it comes to the content of work, both frameworks prohibit workers’ exploitation, and both recognize the value of self-development in the workplace, up to a certain extent. The overlap is justified given that there are connections between human dignity and human flourishing, both values that are also linked to human rights. However, the chapter also suggests that capabilities theory, as a theory of human flourishing, requires the promotion of meaningful work for everyone. This requirement is more demanding than the duties imposed by human rights, which are primarily about identifying and addressing moral wrongs. Whether boring and monotonous jobs should be prohibited as a moral wrong, though, is not specifically addressed within capabilities theory. The lack of specificity as to the duties imposed is a weakness of the capabilities approach.

Capabilities Approaches and Labour Law through a Relational and Restorative Regulatory Lens

2019 ◽  
pp. 218-238
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Archibald
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Good For

This chapter examines the question of whether the law should prohibit or prevent jobs that are robotic in the nature of their performance against two normative frameworks: first, the framework of human rights and, secondly, the framework of human capabilities. These two frameworks justify controls, albeit not necessarily the same, over the sorts of jobs that are available on the labour market. The chapter finds that both frameworks recognize the value of work as an important interest and an element of human flourishing, and both frameworks impose duties as to the content of work. The duties that human rights impose include the creation of work opportunities and the prohibition of exploitation at work, rather than the creation of meaningful work. Working like a robot, or like a cog in a machine, is not necessarily incompatible with human rights. However, it appears to be incompatible with Nussbaum’s account of human capabilities. It undermines both architectonic capabilities of practical reason and affiliation, the exercise of which affects all other capabilities. Even though boring and monotonous work is incompatible with this approach, it is less clear whether there should be a state duty to prohibit it, according to the theory of human capabilities. This is because work, even if boring and monotonous, may still be conducive to human flourishing for it is good for the enjoyment of several human capabilities. This lack of clarity as to the duties imposed in this area is a weakness of the capabilities approach.

scholarly journals Rethinking Human Rights through the Language of Capabilities: An Introduction to Capabilities Approach

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Latika Vashist
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This paper seeks to contrast the language of human rights with capabilities approach conceptualized by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. While capabilities approach is an effective way of comprehending and mplementing the rights guaranteed to people, language of human rights remains the essential pre-requisite for the development and enhancement of people’s capabilities. While both these frameworks for justice operate within the western liberal paradigm, capabilities approach fills in the gaps of modern human rights discourse. The new idea of justice that accords a central place to human dignity mandates that the human rights entrenched in the Constitution be read as capabilities. The desperate vacuum that exists between the promises of law and realities of existence can only be bridged by institutionalizing a blend of rights and capabilities in the pursuit of justice. The paper argues that the language of human rights and that of capabilities ought to supplement and complement each other for true human flourishing

Human Flourishing, Human Dignity, and Human Rights

2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 539-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kleinig ◽  
Nicholas G. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Flourishing

THE FIRST WORD: TO BE HUMAN IS TO BE FREE

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 386-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond M. Tutu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The Image Of God

AbstractIn this essay, Archbishop Tutu explains how Christianity understands the inherent freedom, dignity, and human rights of each person to be a consequence of being created in the image of God. This idea contains radical liberative potential to challenge oppression and create structures for human flourishing. While Christianity has not always lived up to the liberative potential of its teachings, and too often has contributed to hatred, oppression, and violence, Archbishop Tutu argues, the power of religious voices remains essential in the struggle against oppression and for the protection of human dignity.

scholarly journals Augustine and Xunzi on Human Dignity and Human Rights: The Worth of Being Human and Its Entitlement to Institutional Measures for Protecting the Access to Human Flourishing

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 264
Author(s):  
Eun Young Hwang
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Self Transcendence

While some human rights theorists suggest that the universalistic project of human rights can be consistent only with an individualistic conception of dignity aligned with liberal regimes, there have also been some voices of discontent raised from Christian and Confucian thinkers in favor of incompatibility. I refer to the universalistic position of approaching cross-cultural human rights by focusing on Pogge’s contextualistic universalism and Joas’ universalistic emphasis on the sacredness of person. I show how it is possible to ground the religious foundation of human dignity on self-transcendence (Joas) and the institutional foundation on the capacity for the pursuit of a worthwhile life as flourishing (Pogge). This idea of dignity grounds human rights as the entitlement to institutional measures for securing the access to basic goods for human flourishing (Pogge). When reinterpreting Augustine and Xunzi in light of human dignity and human rights, I tackle two questions, following Pogge and Joas. First, I reinterpret Augustine and Xunzi by showing how human dignity rests on the relative worth of pursuing one’s flourishing distinct from animals and the absolute worth of pursuing flourishing open for self-transcendence, which also entails different ranges of social conceptions of flourishing. I also tackle how this sense of dignity leads to the entitlement to institutional measures for protecting the access to basic goods for human flourishing as the issue of human rights.

Cultivating Human and Non-human Capabilities for Mutual Flourishing

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Breena Holland ◽  
Amy Linch
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Political Justice ◽  
Capabilities Theory

The commitment to human flourishing in various traditions of political thought has been an important bridge between anthropocentrically conceived political theory and the more encompassing concerns of biocentrism and eco-centrism in environmental political theory. This chapter explores how this commitment has been developed and applied by scholars drawing on the theory of human capabilities—or “capabilities theory”—to imagine and construct an environmentally and ecologically just democratic politics. Treating the natural environment as both a component and condition of human flourishing, some have engaged capabilities theory without challenging anthropocentrism. Others have drawn on and expanded the theory to specify the non-human capabilities of animals, species, and the systems that comprise the natural world. Regarding non-human beings and ecosystems as having a dignity that makes them worthy of recognition as intrinsically valuable ends, these scholars use capabilities theory to include non-human beings and ecosystems as subjects of political justice.

Distributive Justice and Human Nature

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Casal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Evolutionary Approach ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Conservative View ◽  
Moral Demands

This chapter examines the relation between distributive doctrines and human nature. It reviews various responses to the conservative view that many progressive social reforms are doomed because of human nature. Some responses present a different view of human nature while others stress that human nature can be modified because it is the product of nurture or because it can be socially or biomedically altered. The chapter also offers an evolutionary approach to values like ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ and discusses whether human nature could have more than merely instrumental relevance to distributive justice. For example, our endorsement, and interpretation, of moral demands regarding human rights, human flourishing, and human capabilities, or even regarding the principles of sufficiency, equality and priority, may depend on assumptions about human nature.

scholarly journals "Adorn the cross with roses"? Justice and human dignity, beauty and human flourishing

2020 ◽  
Vol Supp (29) ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
N. Marais ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Good News ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Theological Language

What does beauty have to do with justice, justification, and salvation? Can the world be saved by beauty? In this contribution, some theological and rhetorical convergences and differences between the discourse on human dignity and the discourse on human flourishing are explored. The role of beauty, in these discourses, is a pivotal concern – especially as often justice and human rights shape the theological discourse on human dignity. A key proposed argument in this analysis is that justice is to human dignity what beauty is to human flourishing, and that these shape or mould the theological language with which salvation – the good news of the gospel – is articulated. The argument concludes by proposing that both forensic language and aesthetic language are born from the fold of Christian soteriology, and that not only the more static, forensic language of human dignity is required to speak about salvation, but also the more pliable, artistic language of human dignity.

scholarly journals The Sport for All Ideal: A Tool for Enhancing Human Capabilities and Dignity

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Impact

AbstractSport, as a child of modernity, is intertwined with typically modern elements, such as the search for universality, competition, and the fascination for measurement. As modernity is essentially defined, in legal and moral terms, as a search for universally grounded moral principles or basic human rights, modern sports are widely seen as a means to promote typically modern values such as dignity. This paper conceives of the term "dignity" in light of the capabilities approach upheld by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. According to these authors, dignity is conferred according to certain human basic capabilities that we all are entitled to. This is the reason why this article explores how sport can be a tool for enhancing and exercising such human capabilities. In so doing, I shall argue that the Sport for All ideal provides us with a normative proposal to achieve such a task since it embodies the basic spirit and ethical goals of our modern society. Moreover, connecting the promotion of dignity to the capabilities approach will allow us not just to use sport as a means for development, but also to provide us with specific criteria to evaluate the impact of sport in the wider society regarding the promotion of people‘s dignity.

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