POLI 2P47 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cultural Relativism, Immanuel Kant, Elitism
18 Jan 2016
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Document Summary
Global human rights from a normative and theoretical perspective. What are challenges which impede human rights. Concern about universality picks up post wwii for both practical and ethical versus us reasons. Sovereignty as responsibility approach and r2p: a moral imperative exists. Overspill: difficult to contain consequences of violations. Need for aid: guilt and/or necessity leads states to step in. Terrorist havens/ uprisings in response to weak states and/or repression. Using force in the implementation of hr. Act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere. Human rights should be a means not an end. Rights infers obligation: no rights without responsibility. Legal foundation of human rights: ascertaining responsibility. Secular approaches: commonwealth creation out of self-interest= ceding some rights but not all eg: locke- rights should exist to allow people to thrive. The right to thrive should be inalienable (in theory)
