Human Rights, the State, and Recognition

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-650
Author(s):  
Matt Hann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
The Holocaust

In three recent books, Andrew Vincent, Kelly Staples, and Jeremy Waldron offer much to enrich our understanding of the interface between human rights, the state, and recognition. Andrew Vincent offers an overview of the development of human rights from nineteenth century decline to twentieth century renaissance. He links the decline of natural rights to nationalism and evolution, and attributes the rebirth of rights to the horrors of the Holocaust. He claims human rights are qualitatively different to natural rights – though I argue this is not completely clear. Vincent argues that human rights require states, but that human rights are also protection against states. Kelly Staples uses two case studies to examine the effects of statelessness on human rights. She argues that statelessness, contra Arendt, need not mean deprivation of all rights. Her case studies are persuasive, though she may be reading Arendt on statelessness too strictly, and a more systematic setting out of Staples’ re-theorisation of statelessness would be desirable. Jeremy Waldron argues that ‘dignity’ should mean a set of rights, rather than being a reason to be held to have rights or something rights ought to protect. In making this argument, Waldron argues against Kantian and Roman Catholic conceptions of dignity. A potential drawback to Waldron’s theory is that it is silent on those outside the ‘dignitarian society.’ The three books together seem to represent a welcome shift towards thinking about human rights in terms of recognition.

Veiling Esther, Unveiling Her Story

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam J. Silverstein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Selection Of

This book examines the ways in which the biblical book of Esther was read, understood, and used in Muslim lands, from ancient to modern times. It zeroes-in on a selection of case studies, covering works from various periods and regions of the Muslim world, including the Qur’an, premodern historical chronicles and literary works, the writings of a nineteenth-century Shia feminist, a twentieth-century Iranian dictionary, and others. These case studies demonstrate that Muslim sources contain valuable materials on Esther, which shed light both on the Esther story itself and on the Muslim peoples and cultures that received it. The book argues that Muslim sources preserve important, pre-Islamic materials on Esther that have not survived elsewhere, some of which offer answers to ancient questions about Esther, such as the meaning of Haman’s epithet in the Greek versions of the story, the reason why Mordecai refused to prostrate himself before Haman, and the literary context of the “plot of the eunuchs” to kill the Persian king. Furthermore, throughout the book we will see how each author’s cultural and religious background influenced his or her understanding and retelling of the Esther story: In particular, it will be shown that Persian Muslims (and Jews) were often forced to reconcile or choose between the conflicting historical narratives provided by their religious and cultural heritages respectively.

The Theological Mediation

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-41
Author(s):  
Richard Viladesau
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Theology Of The Cross ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Hans Urs Von Balthasar ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Reformation Theology ◽  
Late Modern

This chapter examines late modern reappropriations of the classical theology of the cross. In continuity with medieval and Reformation theology, these hold that Christ’s suffering was a divinely willed redemptive act, in vicarious satisfaction for human sin. The neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth, in line with the Reformed tradition, emphasizes election and covenant. The theme of divine kenosis, found in nineteenth century German an English thinkers, is taken up into Orthodox trinitarian soteriology by the Russian theologian Sergei Bulgakov, with strong attention to Patristic dogma. Hans Urs von Balthasar stresses Christ’s “descent into hell” as the central symbol of the divine entry into the lost human condition. Jürgen Moltmann sees the suffering of God as the only possible theological response to the horrors of the twentieth century, especially the Holocaust.

Introduction

Veiled Power ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Doreen Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Private Business ◽  
Business Corporation ◽  
Conceptual Analogy ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Corporations have limited responsibilities in international law but enjoy far-reaching rights and privileges. International legal debates often conceive of this issue as a problem of business accountability for human rights violations. Conceptually, the issue of corporations in international law has focused on whether or not they are, or ought to be, recognized as ‘subjects’ of responsibility in international law and on the adequate conceptual analogy to the corporation. The introduction presents an alternative way of thinking about the role of international law and its relevance to the private business corporation. It traces the emergence of the contemporary legal architecture for corporations in international law and shows how modern international law constitutes a framework within which businesses and governments allocate resources and responsibilities—a framework that began to operate as early as the late-nineteenth century and continued throughout the twentieth century.

Are there Natural Rights? The Sceptical Critique and the Modern Roman Catholic Tradition

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-92
Author(s):  
Nigel Biggar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
Positive Rights ◽  
Rerum Novarum ◽  
The Common ◽  
John Finnis ◽  
Catholic Tradition

This chapter examines the modern Roman Catholic appropriation of rights-talk, in order to see whether or not Catholic tradition has proven better than other ‘modern’ traditions at meeting the sceptics’ objections to natural rights. It focuses particularly on Rerum Novarum, Jacques Maritain, ‘Pacem in Terris’, and John Finnis and, in passing, it criticises Samuel Moyn’s construal of twentieth-century Catholic thought on rights. It concludes that, through its affirmation of a larger moral order (‘natural law’), Catholic thinking about rights has shown itself more ready to talk in terms of moral categories other than ‘rights’. It is also unusual in the prominence it gives to the concept of the common good, although typically without offering any exact explanation of how this relates to individual rights—except in the case of John Finnis. Finnis also identifies a common problem with much other ‘modern’ rights-talk: that, since the very concept of a right has an absolute, ‘conclusory’ force, rights-talk has the logical tendency to shut down wider deliberation about justice. Instead, he argues, rights should emerge at the end of deliberation about a range of factors—moral, social, and political—rather than be invoked at the beginning. This appears to affirm socially contingent positive rights rather than absolute natural ones. But that is not the whole story, because the Catholic rights tradition consistently asserts some absolute natural rights. These, however, are either tautologous or practically unilluminating.

Human Rights & the National Interest

Worldview ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 18-21
Author(s):  
J. Bryan Hehir
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
National Interest ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Cautionary Note ◽  
National Goal ◽  
Stanley Hoffmann ◽  
Difficult Subject

The philosophical discussions about the nature and origins of human rights are learned, complex and fascinating; it can certainly be argued that before a statesman decides to make a national goal of their promotion he should have a firm moral theory about their essence and their foundations. But much of the literature has a tendency to overcomplicate what is already a formidably difficult subject.—Stanley Hoffmann, Duties Beyond BordersHeeding this cautionary note from a perceptive theorist who has explored the philosophical dimensions of rights policy, my limited purpose here is to examine three concepts from Roman Catholic theory that structure the Church's participation in the human rights debate. These concepts are: (1) the foundation of human rights; (2) the range of human rights claims; and (3) the conception of the state in international relations today.

Roman Catholic Polemicists, Russian Orthodox Publicists, and the Tsar-Pope Myth in France, 1842–1862

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-285
Author(s):  
Heather Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Spiritual Authority ◽  
National Unification

Abstract In the mid-nineteenth century it was typical for French Roman Catholic publicists to allege that the tsar was the supreme head or “pope” of the Russian Church and that consequently, the Russian Church was completely enslaved to the state. While this idea was largely created by Catholic publicists, some Russian Orthodox individuals contributed intentionally or unintentionally to exaggerated notions of the Russian emperor’s spiritual authority, demonstrating that the Orthodox publicists who wanted to defend Russian interests did not always agree about what those interests really were or about how best to defend them. Following Italy’s national unification (1859–1860), French public figures used these narratives about the Russian tsar-pope to promote specific policies towards Rome and the papacy. For French Roman Catholic publicists, the tsar-pope myth proved that it was vital to preserve unity between the French Church and Rome and to defend the papacy’s temporal power as a guarantor of the Roman Catholic Church’s independence.

Two Autobiographical Narratives of Conversion: Robert Hugh Benson and Ronald Knox

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-253
Author(s):  
George Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Autobiographical Narratives ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Church

Ever since the Reformation, and increasingly since the example set by Newman, the Church of England has had to contend with the lure of Rome; in every generation there have been clergymen who converted to the Roman Catholic Church, a group either statistically insignificant or a momentous sign of the future, depending on one’s viewpoint. From the nineteenth century Newman and Manning stand out. From the first two decades of the twentieth century among the figures best remembered are Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) and Ronald Arbuthnot Knox (1888–1957). They are remembered, not because they were more saintly or more scholarly than others, but because they were both writers and therefore are responsible for their own memorials. What is more, they both followed Newman in publishing an account of the circumstances of their conversion. This is a genre which continues to hold interest. The two works demonstrate, among other things, the continuing influence of Newman’s writings about the identity of the Church.

State Education and Culture

1982 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Selleck
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
The State ◽  
High Culture ◽  
State Education ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
State Schools

The state schools established in each Australian colony in the nineteenth century were often justified on the grounds that they offered an education which would enrich and enlighten cultural life. A study of the curriculum and methods they used and the manner in which they were organized and their teachers trained and paid suggests that the state schools, far from offering an introduction to culture (in the sense of ‘high’ culture), actually provided an alternative to it. In the early twentieth century, efforts were made to reform the elementary school so that it would provide at least a limited access to culture. These efforts, bitterly criticized at the time on the ground that they distracted attention from basic subjects such as the three Rs, continued to be resisted throughout the twentieth century. At the same time as the elementary school was being changed, the state endeavoured to broaden educational opportunity and access to the high culture by establishing secondary schools. Political, economic, and administrative considerations led the state to establish a structure of schooling which, at the secondary level, provided an alternative to the cultural activities being developed in the elementary/primary school. This paper warns against a ‘back to basics’ movement which would take the culturally impoverished nineteenth-century elementary school as a model, and suggests that, despite structural limitations, the establishment of state secondary schools has led to some widening of cultural opportunities.

The Social Outlook of Prussian Conservatism

1953 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Shanahan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fourth Decade ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
Coherent Body ◽  
Practical Conduct

Prussian Conservatism was not an ideology comparable to those which have breathed into every crevice of twentieth century totalitarian states. It was not really an ideology at all, if that term is understood to mean a system of thought enforced by the state so as to give every human act a political meaning. The Prussian conservatives, conditioned by an aristocratic disdain for a political rationale, were unable to agree on a uniform principle of political conduct. Shades of meaning, based largely on the balance struck between religion and political realism, persisted in coloring the conservative temperament. Yet by the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, Prussian conservatism had become a coherent body of thought distinct from liberalism, democracy, or socialism. Its historical importance became assured, when, at Bismarck's hands, Prussian conservatism entered wholeheartedly into the making of what the liberal historian, Erich Eyck, has called “German constitutionalism,” that is a system of politics respectful of authority, but equally disdainful of democracy and absolutism, in which the practical conduct of government may be guided by moral principles in an irrational world.

Universalizing Dignity in the Nineteenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mika LaVaque-Manty
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
United Nations Declaration

This chapter traces some of the conceptual history from the late eighteenth century, when arguments about equal, intrinsic, and universal human dignity became politically important, to the mid-twentieth century, when the idea of universal human dignity was enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The chapter argues that this universalization process primarily took place in the nineteenth century, in political controversies around gender, race, and labor. The chapter argues that a particular Christian conception about the dignity of labor, expressed by Pope Leo XII, helped cement the value of inherent human dignity while at the same time weakening its more radical political potential.

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