Abstract

In this reply to his three critics, Talbott develops several important themes from his book, Which Rights Should Be Universal?, in ways that go beyond the discussion in the book. Among them are the following: the prescriptive role of human rights theory; the need to guarantee an expansive list of basic rights as a basis for a government to be able to claim recognitional legitimacy; the futility of trying to define human rights in terms of what there can be reasonable disagreement about; and the problems for any proceduralist account of human rights. Talbott also further elaborates his consequentialist defense of basic human rights and his arguments against cultural relativism about human rights