scholarly journals Science, Technology and Religion: The Exchange Between Enlightenment Europe and Imperial China

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
Robert V. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Social Ethic ◽  
Military Technology ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
Cultural Currency ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Imperial China ◽  
Civic Virtues ◽  
Chinese Texts

Abstract The European Enlightenment fostered a sense of progress through a delineation of universal human rights as well as through a reductionist mathematization of nature. Science, technology and religion became a form of cultural currency between Europe and Imperial China. The Jesuits bartered mathematics, geographic surveys and military technology to win religious permissions with Chinese emperors. Other Europeans were convinced ancient Chinese texts corresponded to the Old Testament. China sent to Europe a Confucian model of a social ethic that demonstrated non-Christian civic virtues. This article examines this exchange using the intercourse in science, technology and religion as the metric.

Human Rights, Global Ethics, and the Ordinary Virtues

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ignatieff
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
Global Ethics ◽  
Citizen Action ◽  
Individual Person ◽  
The World ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
The Individual

In a 1958 speech at the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt took stock of the progress that human rights had made since the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ten years before. Mrs. Roosevelt had chaired the UN committee that drafted the Universal Declaration and had hoped that, in time, it would become “the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.” Her answer to the question of how to measure human rights progress has become one of the most frequently quoted remarks of the former First Lady: Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

scholarly journals SADC Mediation in Zimbabwe's Global Political Agreement (GPA): A Reflection on Opportunities and Complexities

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Modeni M. Sibanda
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Member States ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Regional Organisation ◽  
Power And Authority

This article analyses the opportunities and complexities of the SADC mediation in Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement (GPA) in facilitating and operationalising theprinciples and values of peace, security, human rights and democracy as set out in Article 4 of the SADC treaty. It attempts to interrogate the extent to which the regional grouping’s mechanisms for enforcing its principles and values have been successful.   The article argues that despite SADC’s noble commitment to promoting the development of democratic institutions and practices, as well as encouraging the observance of universal human rights, peace and security, the resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis shows that, in practice, the operationalisation of SADC protocol principles and values have been a sorry saga of delays, secrecy, purported agreements and nothing concrete coming out of it.  Using the Zimbabwe case study, this article further argues that SADC either lacks appropriate power and authority or is reluctant to hold member states accountable.  This seems so, given that as a regional body, it has allowed itself to be utterly inadequate to the task envisioned by the organ in resolving the Zimbabwe crisis. The paper concludes that the sum of all this has had the effect of exposing SADC and it being perceived as a weak regional organisation.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Cultural Identity

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon John-Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Ethical Relativism ◽  
Small Core ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Universal Human Rights

Abstract Universal human rights and particular cultural identities, which are relativistic by nature, seem to stand in conflict with each other. It is commonly suggested that the relativistic natures of cultural identities undermine universal human rights and that human rights might compromise particular cultural identities in a globalised world. This article examines this supposed clash and suggests that it is possible to frame a human rights approach in such a way that it becomes the starting point and constraining framework for all non-deficient cultural identities. In other words, it is possible to depict human rights in a culturally sensitive way so that universal human rights can meet the demands of a moderate version of meta-ethical relativism which acknowledges a small universal core of objectively true or false moral statements and avers that, beyond that small core, all other moral statements are neither objectively true nor false.

scholarly journals Keeping Human Rights on the Bioethics Agenda

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-226
Author(s):  
JOSEPH C. d'ORONZIO
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Moral Concept ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Nazi Era ◽  
The Ideal

The ideal of universal human rights is arguably the most potent moral concept marking the modern world. Its accelerated fruition in the last half of the twentieth century has created a powerful political force, laying the groundwork for future generations to extend and apply. Whereas anything resembling international legal status for human rights had to wait for the post-Nazi era, the bold proclamations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) loosened a revolutionary force with endless potential for application to the full range of human endeavors. The roots of this movement can be traced to each and every era in which the vulnerable and powerless sought justification to oppose arbitrary domination. Its roots are, therefore, deep and wide.

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