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This book offers an in-depth account of the most important moral debates surrounding human rights today. They are the basis of legitimacy for modern Western civilisation, yet there still exists differences between our common view on the importance of rights and our profound disagreement on their meaning and content.
List of contents
Preface: A possible framework for understanding / Part I: Good and reason in two classical political traditions / 1. The Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition / 2. Immanuel Kant / Part II:Antiperfectionist liberalism and the desire principle / 3. "Free and equals": John Rawls's political philosophy / 4. "Equal concern and respect": Ronald Dworkin's philosophy of rights / 5. Goods and processes: Jürgen Habermas's ethical-political project / Part III: The dehumanization of human rights / 6. Mutual disinterest and civil liberties / 7. Desireless life and undesirable life / 8. Playing God? Promethean desires / Part IV. Constructive proposals / 9. Teleology of civil liberties / 10. Perfectionist liberalism and restriction of the rights discourse / Bibliography
About the author
Fernando Simón Yarza is Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Navarra (Spain). He has been a Visiting Scholar in the Universities of Münster (Germany), Boston and Princeton. He has been awarded the prestigious "Tomás y Valiente Prize" by the Constitutional Court of Spain. He is a member of the James Madison Society (Princeton University).
Summary
This book offers an in-depth account of the most important moral debates surrounding human rights today. They are the basis of legitimacy for modern Western civilisation, yet there still exists differences between our common view on the importance of rights and our profound disagreement on their meaning and content.
