POLS 249: Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights Prof. Neal

Spring 2016 / M & W 3:30-4:45 / Old Mill 523
POLS 249: Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights
Prof. Neal
502 Old Mill
Course Description
Do human rights exist? If so, how do we know that they do, and how do we determine what
they are? Are they grounded in religious claims to truth, or secular philosophical claims, or
both, or neither? Are human rights universal? Are they essentially a western idea imposed
upon others? These and similar questions are at the forefront of discussion about the morality
of human rights in contemporary political theory. In this class, we will read the leading
contemporary literature that addresses them. Note that this is a course in political theory, not
in international law or politics; we will be concerned with the intellectual foundations (or lack
thereof) of the idea of human rights, not (at least primarily) with the contemporary
international law of human rights.
Course Texts
All readings will be available on BlackBoard or the web.
Although available on the web, you might want copies of the following relatively brief
paperbacks that we will be reading:
- Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as politics and Idolatry
- Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights
- John Rawls, The Law of Peoples
Non-Electronic Classroom
No electronic devices are allowed in the classroom. This includes laptop computers – they
cannot be used in class. Please try and remember to silence your cell phones, etc. before class
begins.
Course Requirements
Quizzes………………………………………………………………………….….…15%
Participation…………………………………………………………………..……10%
Final Exam, Friday, May 13 at 1:30 pm………......………...........20%
Two Essays of 2,000 words each
Essay #1, due at midterm………………………….….……….27.5%
Essay #2, due near end of term…………...............…..27.5%
Attendance and Participation
I expect you to attend each class, to come having done the assigned reading in advance, and to
come prepared to intelligently discuss and analyze these readings. Chronic failure to meet these
expectations will result in the lowering of your final mark. Please remember as well to always
bring to class the relevant reading material for that day. I will often ask people to be prepared
to introduce a day’s assignment to the class.
Numerous Quizzes
During the term, there will be a number (ten to fifteen) of occasions when we will have a brief
quiz, based upon the assigned reading, to open the class. Occasionally, the quiz may be a “takehome” one, where I ask you to write a brief (1-2 page) paper on the reading. Everyone can miss
one quiz with no penalty (or drop the lowest grade if you take them all); for other missed
quizzes, your lowest quiz grade will be repeated. It is thus very much in your interests to attend
class and take all quizzes. There are no make-up quizzes.
Essays
I will describe the requirements of the essay in greater detail in class. The essays will
involve analyzing and evaluating the arguments made in the readings assigned for a particular
section of the class.
Exam
The final exam is scheduled for Friday, May 13 at 1:30. Please note this date and time;
everyone must be prepared to take the exam at the prescribed time. I will discuss the format of
the exam in class.
Course Outline
Listed below are sections of the course with readings that will be available on BlackBoard.
Specific reading assignments will be made in class. Not all of the readings listed below will be
required readings.
January 20 – Introduction
The Idea of Human Rights
Glendon, Mary Ann: “Foundations of Human Rights: the Unfinished Business.”
Lukes, Steven: “Five Fables About Human Rights.”
Ishay, Micheline: “What Are Human Rights? Six Historical Controversies.”
Reidy, David: “Philosophy and Human Rights.”
Maritain, Jacques: “The Rights of Man.”
Nickel, James: “Human Rights” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Some Leading Contemporary Views
Beitz, Charles: The Idea of Human Rights.
Rawls, John: selections from “The Law of Peoples”
Ignatieff, Michael: “Human Rights as Politics and Human Rights as Idolatry.”
Brown, Wendy: “Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism.”
Cohen, Joshua: “Minimalism About Human Rights: the Most We Can Hope for?”
Miller, David: “Grounding Human Rights.”
Rorty, Richard: “Human Rights and Sentimentality.”
Taylor, Charles: “Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on Human Rights.”
Nussbaum, Martha: “Capabilities and Human Rights.”
Forst, Rainer: “The Justification of Human Rights and the Basic Right to Justification: a Reflexive
Approach.”
Habermas, Jurgen: “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights.”
Religious Groundings for Human Rights?
Perry, Michael: “The Morality of Human Rights.”
Perry, Michael: “The Grounds of Human Rights.”
Wolterstorff, Nicholas: “Can Human Rights Survive Secularization.”
Wolterstorff, Nicholas: “Is a Secular Grounding of Human Rights Possible?”
Wolterstorff, Nicholas: “A Theistic Grounding of Human Rights.”
Stackhouse, Max: “The Intellectual Crisis of a Good Idea.”
Henkin, Louis: “Religion, Religions and Human Rights.”
Waldron, Jeremy: “Human Rights in Judeo-Christian Thought.”
Williams, Rowan: “Human Rights and Religious Faith.”
Sachedina, A: “The Clash of Universalisms: Religious and Secular in Human Rights.”
A Human Right to Democracy?
Cohen, Joshua: “Is There a Human Right to Democracy ?”
Tully, James: “Rethinking Human Rights and Enlightenment.”
Gilabert, Pablo: “Is There a Human Right to Democracy? Reply to Cohen.”
Benhabib, Seyla: “Is There a Human Right to Democracy? ”
Bernstein, Alyssa: “A Human Right to Democracy?”
Christiano, Thomas: “An Instrumental Argument for a Human Right to Democracy.”
The Concept of Dignity in Human Rights Theories
Tasioulas, John: “Human Dignity and the Foundations of Human Rights.”
Donnelly, Jack: “Human Dignity and Human Rights.”
Beitz, Charles: “Human Dignity in the Theory of Human Rights: Nothing but a Phrase?”
Forst, Ranier: “On the Concept of Human Dignity.”
Pinker, Steven: “The Stupidity of Dignity: Conservative Bioethics' Latest, Most Dangerous Ploy.”
Khaitan, Tarunabh: “Dignity as an Expressive Norm: Neither Vacuous nor a Panacea.”
Some Criticisms of Human Rights
Zizek, Slavoj: “Human Rights and Its Discontents.”
Douzinas, Costas; “The Paradoxes of Human Rights.”
Geuss, Raymond: “Human Rights: a Very Bad Idea.”
Brown, Chris: “Universal Human Rights: a Critique.”
Pagden, Anthony: “Human Rights, Natural Rights, and Europe’s Imperial Legacy.”
Issues on the Grounding of Human Rights
Miller, David: “Grounding Human Rights.”
Shestack, Jerome: “The Philosophic Foundations of Human Rights.”
Langlois, Anthony: “Normative and Theoretical Foundations of Human Rights.”
Nickel, James, and David Reidy: “Human Rights: Philosophical Foundations.”
Kim, Eun-Jung Katherine: “Justifying Human Rights: Does Consensus Matter?”
Malachuk, Daniel: “Human Rights and a Post-Secular Religion of Humanity.”
Mendus, Susan: “Human Rights in Political Theory.”
Sadurski, Wojciech: “‘It All Depends’: the Universal and the Contingent in Human Rights.”
Loobuyck, Patrick: “Intrinsic and Equal Human Worth in a Secular Worldview. Fictionalism in
Human Rights Discourse.”
Griffin, James: “Human Rights: Questions of Aim and Approach.”
Granik, Maria: “The Human Rights Dialogue: Foundationalism Reconsidered.”
Subject Groups for Paper Assignments
1. The Concept of Dignity as a Possible Foundation of the Morality of Human Rights.
2. The Question of Religious and/or Secular Foundations for Human Rights.
3. The Idea of “Minimalism” in Human Rights Theorizing.
4. Is there a Human Right to Democracy?
5. Critics of the Morality of Human Rights.