Between Desire and Reason

Rights Discourse at the Crossroads

Fernando Simón-Yarza (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

240 Seiten

2019
Rowman & Littlefield International (Verlag)
978-1-78661-440-7 (ISBN)

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Respect for and promotion of human rights have come to be seen as the basis of legitimacy of modern Western civilization. There is nevertheless a striking contrast between our common view on the importance of rights and our profound disagreement on their meaning and content. This disagreement has become increasingly sharp in the last decades, due to the emergence of controversial "new rights". The author gives an in-depth account of the most important moral debates, exploring the ethical and political foundations underlying the different understandings of rights. In the first part, he focuses on the role played by the ideas of "good" and "reason" in the Thomistic-Aristotelian and Kantian traditions; and he compares those concepts with the main currents of contemporary liberalism, which, among other things, focus on our emancipation from the limits of nature. The book attempts to show the dehumanizing effects of denying the relevance of integral human good in defining the scope of human rights and liberties, and offers an alternative way forward for our understanding of human rights in a pluralistic society.

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).

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

Erscheinungsdatum	21.11.2019
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	160 x 231 mm
Gewicht	517 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
ISBN-10	1-78661-440-5 / 1786614405
ISBN-13	978-1-78661-440-7 / 9781786614407
Zustand	Neuware