Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part One Conceptualizing Human Rights
- Part Two Justifications for Human Rights
- Adagio
- 4 Legal Justifications
- 5 Interest Justifications
- 6 Agency Justifications
- 7 Ontology, Justice, and Human Rights
- Part Three Applications of Human Rights
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
6 - Agency Justifications
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part One Conceptualizing Human Rights
- Part Two Justifications for Human Rights
- Adagio
- 4 Legal Justifications
- 5 Interest Justifications
- 6 Agency Justifications
- 7 Ontology, Justice, and Human Rights
- Part Three Applications of Human Rights
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter sets out what I believe to be the best justification for human rights: agency justification. The strategy of this justification is in one way or the other about enabling people to carry out purposive action in the world. We have moved away from contractarian agreement (legal justifications) and interests (welfare or personhood) to a debate about what are the conditions necessary for agency. These goods are necessarily subject to a rigorous level of empirical justification and so the authors in this chapter should be required to accept some form of ethical naturalism. That is, the only concern is whether nature can tell us what conditions are necessary for action. Various versions of ethical naturalism are discussed in the following chapter.
Since the justification apparatus for my theory of natural human rights is largely set out here, my discussion of two other approaches – capability theory (Sen and Nussbaum) and minimum agency theory (Gewirth) – will be succinct. I fill up the rest of the chapter with my own approach.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Natural Human RightsA Theory, pp. 149 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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