Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights

Abstract

Abstract What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights? This book offers a survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focuses first on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. Secondly, it looks at the reciprocal relationship between the moral groundings of human rights and the law and politics of human rights. Thirdly, it discusses specific and topical human rights including freedom of expression and religion, security, and health, and more controversial rights such as a human right to subsistence. The final part discusses nuanced critical and reformative views on human rights from feminist, Kantian, and relativist perspectives among others. The chapters represent new and canonical research. Each section comprises of a set of arguments and replies, offering an analysis of different positions within the debate in question, with an introduction to help with navigating the diversity of views on the philosophical foundations of human rights.

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