Human Rights I

Human Rights 201/301, Philosophy 316[1]

Autumn 2000

Tuesdays and Thursdays 12-1:20                 Thursdays, 12-1:20

Kent Chemical Laboratory 120

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mgreen

Michael Green

office: Gates-Blake 440

phone: (773) 702-8503

email: michaelgreen@uchicago.edu

office hours: Tuesdays 2-4             Tuesdays, 2-4

Content: what human rights are there?

Introduction and historical background Thursday, 28 September

“A Survey of Human-Rights Law”; Ignatieff “Human Rights: The Midlife Crisis”; Major International Human Rights Documents[2]

Rights in general

What are rights? Tuesday, 3 October

Raz “On the Nature of Rights”

How much weight do rights have? Thursday, 5 October

Dworkin “Taking Rights Seriously”

Why should rights trump the greater overall good? Tuesday, 10 October

Nagel “War and Massacre”

Are there economic rights?

No duties, no rights Thursday, 12 October

Cranston “Human Rights, Real and Supposed”; Shue Basic Rights

Does the form of rights imply negative content? Tuesday, 17 October

Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia; Scheffler “Natural Rights, Equality, and the Minimal State”

Are there communal rights, for example, a right to culture?

Why think there is a right to culture? Thursday, 19 October

Kymlicka Multicultural Citizenship

How important is cultural preservation? Tuesday, 24 October

Waldron “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative”;

Kymlicka, pp. 101-105

** First paper topics distributed

Foundations: what support do human rights have?

Relativism

Relativist challenges Thursday, 26 October

Locke Second Treatise of Government; American Anthropological Association “Statement on Human Rights”; Williams Morality

A properly formed relativism? Tuesday, 31 October

Waldron “How to Argue for Universal Claims”

Cases: “Asian” vs. “Western” values Thursday, 2 November

Bell ”The East Asian Challenge to Human Rights” Thursday; Donnelly “Human Rights and Asian Values”; Sen “Human Rights and Economic Achievements” (B)[3]

 

** First paper due Monday, 6 November

Guest lecture, topic TBA Tuesday, 7 November

Reading, if any, will be announced

Deep foundations

Gewirth’s principle of consistency Thursday, 9 November

Gewirth “The Basis and Content of Human Rights”       

Critical discussion of Gewirth Tuesday, 14 November

MacIntyre After Virtue; Golding, “From Prudence to Rights: A Critique”

** Second paper topics distributed

Shallow foundations

Rawls’s project Thursday, 16 November

Rawls The Law of Peoples, pp. 3-58[4]

Rawls’s argument Tuesday, 21 November

Rawls The Law of Peoples, pp. 59-128

Critical discussion of Rawls Tuesday, 28 November

Pogge “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples”

What kind of cross-cultural agreement is really possible? Thursday, 30 November

Othman “Grounding Human Rights Arguments in Non-Western Culture: Shari'a and the Citizenship Rights of Women in a Modern Islamic State”; Chan “A Confucian Perspective on Human Rights for Contemporary China” (B)

** All papers due Monday, 4 December

Policies and Requirements

For undergraduate students. Two seven page papers, due 6 November and 4 December.

 

For graduate students. One fifteen to twenty page paper, due 4 December.

Warning: A draft, due mid-November, may be required.

 

For all students.  (1) All assignments must be completed in order to pass the course. (2) Late papers will not be accepted.  If you will be unable to complete an assignment on time, you must contact me before it is due. (3) Plagiarism will result in failure in this course and will be reported to the relevant academic authorities.  Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as your own.  If you are unsure about whether something would be plagiarism, please ask.


Readings for Human Rights I

Human Rights 201/301, Philosophy 316

 

“A Survey of Human-Rights Law” The Economist December 5, 1998.

“Major International Human Rights Documents” in The Philosophy of Human Rights ed. Morton E. Winston (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1989): 257-289.

American Anthropological Association. “Statement on Human Rights” American Anthropologist 49 (1947): 539-543.

Bell, Daniel A. “The East Asian Challenge to Human Rights: Reflections on an East West Dialogue” Human Rights Quarterly 18 (1996): 641-667.

Chan, Joseph. “A Confucian Perspective on Human Rights for Contemporary China” in Bauer & Bell: 212-237.[5]

Cranston, Maurice. “Human Rights, Real and Supposed” in Political Theory and the Rights of Man ed. D. D. Raphael (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1967): 43-53.

Donnelly, Jack. “Human Rights and Asian Values: A Defense of “Western” Universalism” in Bauer & Bell: 60-87.

Dworkin, Ronald. “Taking Rights Seriously” Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977): 184-205, 138.

Gewirth, Alan. “The Basis and Content of Human Rights” in NOMOS XXIII: Human Rights ed. J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1981): 119-147.

Golding, Martin P. “From Prudence to Rights: A Critique” in NOMOS XXIII: Human Rights ed. J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1981): 165-174.

Ignatieff, Michael. “Human Rights: The Midlife Crisis.” New York Review of Books May 20 1999.

Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995): 1-6, 26-33, 75-93, 101-115.

Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government Ch. II, §§ 4-6.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981): 66-71.

Nagel, Thomas. “War and Massacre” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1 (1972): 123-144.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974): 10-11, 26-35, 48-51.

Othman, Norani. “Grounding Human Rights Arguments in Non-Western Culture: Shari'a and the Citizenship Rights of Women in a Modern Islamic State” in Bauer & Bell: 169-192.

Pogge, Thomas. “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples” Philosophy & Public Affairs 23 (1994): 214-218.

Rawls, John. The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

Raz, Joseph. “On the Nature of Rights” Mind 93 (1984): 194-214.

Scheffler, Samuel. “Natural Rights, Equality, and the Minimal State” in Reading Nozick ed. Jeffrey Paul (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981): 148-168.

Sen, Amartya. “Human Rights and Economic Achievements” in Bauer & Bell: 88-99.

Shue, Henry. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980): Ch. 1.

Waldron, Jeremy. “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 25 (1992): 751-793.

Waldron, Jeremy. “How to Argue for a Universal Claim” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 30 (1999): 305-314.

Williams, Bernard. Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972): 20-25.



[1] Human Rights 201/301, Philosophy 316, History 293/393, Law 412, Law, Letters and Society 270, International Relations 316, Political Science 339, General Studies in the Humanities 287/387

[2] All unmarked readings are in a xeroxed course pack, available in Classics 11.

[3] Readings marked with (B) are in The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, ed. Bauer and Bell.; available from the Seminary Co-op Bookstore.

[4] The Rawls book is not in the course reader.  It is available from the Seminary Co-op Bookstore.

[5] Bauer & Bell = The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, ed. Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell.