HR 705 Philosophy of Human Rights
This course will present issues on the metaphysical and epistemological foundations of human rights as seen from the perspective of modern, western analytic philosophy, as well as from the perspective of ancient and contemporary non-western cultures and non-western moral philosophies. The class explores the discourse that western human rights are a proper part of moral discourse, and that human rights are a special topic within moral discourse. How individuals, societies, and world powers conceive of human rights have implications for the form and content of the political, social, and economic discourses relevant to them, but the issue of this conceptualization itself is properly both philosophical and moral/ethical in nature. The discourse on the foundations of morality as a whole is called “metaethics”. Thus, in understanding the metaphysics and epistemology of human rights, an apt place to begin is by investigating the metaethical options that are currently being discussed in contemporary (western analytic) moral philosophy as well as in contemporary non-western critiques of western human rights and critiques of globalization discourse. By understanding these options, we may then turn to how they apply to the special case of the philosophy of human rights.
Prerequisite
None