Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights

Political Theory 39 (4):439-467 (2011)
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Abstract

This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the "political" or "practical" perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional "humanist" or "naturalistic" perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have against all other individuals in virtue of interests characteristic of their common humanity. This essay argues that once we identify the two perspectives in their best light, we can see that they are complementary and that in fact we need both to make good normative sense of the contemporary practice of human rights. It explains how humanist and political considerations can and should work in tandem to account for the concept, content, and justification of human rights.

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Pablo Gilabert
Concordia University

Citations of this work

Dignity at Work.Pablo Gilabert - 2018 - In Hugh Collins, Gillian Lester & Virginia Mantouvalou (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law. Oxford University Press. pp. 68-86.
Justice and Beneficence.Pablo Gilabert - 2016 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19 (5):508-533.
Dignity: personal, social, human.Suzy Killmister - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (8):2063-2082.

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