Liberalism

Philosophy ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 49 (187) ◽  
pp. 13-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J. McCloskey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Value Judgments ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
Reduction Of Pain ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
Liberal Thought

Liberalism is commonly believed, especially by its exponents, to be opposed to interference by way of enforcing value judgments or concerning itself with the individual's morality. My concern is to show that this is not so and that liberalism is all the better for this. Many elements have contributed to liberal thought as we know it today, the major elements being the liberalism of which Locke is the most celebrated exponent, which is based upon a belief in natural, human rights; the liberalism of which Kant is the best known exponent, which is based on respect for persons as ends in themselves; and the liberalism of Bentham and the Mills, which is based upon utilitarian ethical theories and most especially with concern for pleasure and the reduction of pain. These different elements of liberalism have led to different emphases and different political and social arrangements, but all have involved a concern to safeguard values and to use force to that end. Today they constitute strands of thought which go to make up liberal thought as we now know it, hence it is not simply a historical fact about liberalism, but a fact about its philosophical basis, that liberalism is firmly involved in certain value and moral commitments. In the remainder of this paper I shall seek to bring this out.

Human Rights and the Vulnerability of Rights-bearers

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-67
Author(s):  
Diana Tietjens Meyers ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Human Vulnerability ◽  
Vulnerable Subjects ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Relationship

I seek to understand the relationship between human vulnerability and human rights as something more than a problem that respect for human rights solves. After characterizing vulnerability and noting that human rights are generally regarded as entitlements that respect the dignity of persons by securing their autonomous agency, I draw out the implications of these premises. I argue that human vulnerabilities are constitutive of the capacity for autonomous agency and therefore that the circumstances of respect for persons must include persons’ vulnerability to many sorts of harms. Given that the opportunity to lead one’s life in one’s own way—that is, the opportunity to exercise autonomous agency—is indispensable to human dignity, respect for persons entails respect for the vulnerability that underwrites autonomous agency. If so, rights-bearers are necessarily vulnerable subjects. I further defend this conception of rights-bearers by arguing that it comports with three types of human rights theory: agency-centered, needs-centered, and practice-based accounts of human rights.

Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rex Martin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
The West ◽  
Substantive Theory ◽  
Recognition And Enforcement ◽  
Considerable Controversy ◽  
Critical Morality

There is widespread consensus that rights are ways of acting or of being treated that are beneficial to the rightholder. Controversy begins, however, when one attempts to specify the notion of rights further. (1) It is sometimes said, perhaps too casually, that all rights carry with them correlated obligations – things that other persons are supposed to do or refrain from doing when some given person is said to have a right to something. The question is: how is it best to state this relationship between rights and correlated obligations? (2) Most people think that rights are, in some sense, justified. But there is considerable controversy as to what, precisely, is the proper focus of justification. Some say that rights are practices (certain ways of acting or of being treated) that are established, typically socially established. Thus, the issue for them is whether the fact of social recognition and enforcement is justified (or could be). Others say that rights themselves are claims; hence a right is a justified claim or principle of some sort (whether the practice identified in that claim exists or not). This dispute, between rights as justified practices and rights as justified claims, needs to be explored and, if possible, resolved. Other topics need addressing beyond the question of the initial characterization of rights. One of them is the question of the function of rights: what good are they anyway? what can one do with rights? Another is the question of how best to justify particular kinds of rights, such as human rights and basic constitutional rights. Is there a substantive theory of critical morality that can do the job? Many people are concerned, especially, with whether utilitarianism (one of the dominant ethical theories in the West today) is up to this task. Finally, mention should be made of one other issue much talked about of late: what kinds of beings can have rights, and under what conditions of possession and dispossession?

scholarly journals Prisoners' right to education: A philosophical survey

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Vorhaus
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Respect For Persons ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Right To Education ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right ◽  
International Conventions ◽  
And Training

Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares: 'Everyone has the right to education.' This implies that the right to education and training applies to all persons, including all persons in prison. This position is considered here from a philosophical point of view and it will receive some support. Yet it is not obvious that the position is correct, nor, if it is, how it is best explained. I will examine the basis for asserting a right to education on behalf of all prisoners, and consider what is required by way of its defence in the face of common objections. I illustrate how international conventions and principles express prisoners' right to education, and I look at how this right is defended by appeal to education as a means to an end and as a human right – required by respect for persons and their human dignity.

scholarly journals Reconciliation between the Islamic Human Rights and International Law: Prospects and Complications

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 609
Author(s):  
Siamak Karamzadeh ◽  
Massoud Alizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
International Human ◽  
Human Rights Norms ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between International Human Rights and Islamic Law has been always an arguable debate at the international level. This issue can be considered by jurists in two aspects. First, from National Law perspective, especially in the countries in which the law, to some extent is affected by Islamic rules. Second, by view of International Law to see that to what extent, there would be compatibility or likely contradiction between human rights norms and Islamic Law.Considering the historical aspect of the issue, this article is suggesting that although from the outset, International Law tried to separate religion from policy, but this historical fact would not prevent theoretical conciliation between religion and Human Rights rules. The review of the content of International Human Rights Law reveals that the rules in the systems in most part are compatible. However, in some cases the incompatibility between these two group pf rules is observed. The existence of different basis under Islamic Law and International Law makes the least difference unavoidable. The constant dialogue between Islamic scholars and publicists can decrease this difference in future.

scholarly journals Justice Problem with Marxist and Liberal Approaches: Philosophical Justification and Economic Interpretation

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-126
Author(s):  
M. S. Sushentsova ◽  
◽  
M. A. Miroshnichenko ◽  
Ph. A. Lymar ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Economic Interpretation ◽  
Fair Market ◽  
The One ◽  
Liberal Thought

This article compares Marx’s understanding of such concepts as rights, freedom and equality underlying the concept of justice with that of classical and modern liberalism. It is shown that Marx did not reject the key values of liberalism but approached them from two perspectives — historical and anthropological. On the one hand, Marx criticized the exercise of human rights under capitalism as «bourgeois», pointing out that they justify the alienation of the human condition and disguise economic exploitation as fair market exchange. On the other hand, Marx proposed his own model of future equality based on the values of self-realization and solidarity, and ultimately on his idea of the «generic» human nature. This approach goes beyond deontological justice, developed by modern liberal thought in the Rawlsian spirit, and at the same time brings Marx’s views closer to the tradition of natural law and modern communitarianism.

scholarly journals Jovan Pavlovic as a liberalism paradigm in the history of Serbian press

2017 ◽  
pp. 13-25
Author(s):  
Vladimir Barovic ◽  
Ljubomir Zuber
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Printed Media ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
Eastern Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Liberal Thought

This paper is focused on a celebrated Serbian journalist and liberal, Jovan Pavlovic, who founded and edited, in the second half of the 19th century, the following newspapers: Pancevac, Granicar and Novi Granicar. Pavlovic turned his newspapers into the most militant and the most liberal media printed in Serbian language in Austria-Hungary in the second half of the 19th century. This paper analyzes the beginnings of Serbian liberal thought and individuals who were significant for the development of liberal ideas in the 19th century. The work of Vladimir Jovanovic and other liberals in Serbia has been considered, including the influence of Svetozar Markovic and Serbian liberals in Austria-Hungary. The authors analyzed Pavlovic?s articles in Zastava, Pancevac, Granicar, and Novi Granicar. Pavlovic?s newspapers supported very liberal and militant attitudes unlike other printed media throughout the history of Serbian journalism. Pavlovic was very incisive when writing in anticlerical spirit, and in many of his articles he criticized church hierarchy. The Eastern question was also extensively dealt with in his articles. In the history of Serbian journalism, Jovan Pavlovic has been remembered as a great supporter of human rights, national liberation and emancipation, as well as a significant representative of liberal ideas.

Introduction

2014 ◽  
pp. xxiv-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Leavy
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Major Elements ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Philosophical Basis

This chapter serves as the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research. The first half of the chapter responds to two questions. First, the chapter addresses the question: What is qualitative research? In answering the question, the chapter reviews the major elements of research: paradigm, ontology, epistemology (which together form the philosophical basis of research), genre, methods, theory, methodology (which operate at the level of praxis), ethics, values, and reflexivity (which merge the philosophical and praxis dimensions of research). Second, the chapter addresses the question: Who are qualitative researchers? Leavy explains qualitative research as a form of bricolage and qualitative researchers as bricoleurs. The remainder of the chapter reviews the contents of the handbook, providing a chapter by chapter summary.

Putting Natural Law Principles into Practice

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-57
Author(s):  
Aryeh Neier
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The State ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
The Bible

This chapter cites ancient roots for the principles of human rights and concept of justice, such as Hammurabi's Code, the Bible, Plato, and Aristotle. It mentions Roman thinkers such as Cicero and Seneca who helped to develop commitment to freedom of expression and Mencius and Asoka as non-Western sources for roots of thinking about rights. The chapter illustrates the struggles of dissenting movements in England in the middle decades of the seventeenth century, in which men actively engaged in efforts to uphold their rights. It discusses religious and political sects during the turbulent period in England, such as the Levellers, the Diggers, the Ranters, the Quakers, and the Muggletonians that were preoccupied by their right to be treated fairly and humanely when the state sought to suppress their beliefs. It also analyzes the concept of natural law that provided the main philosophical basis for the rights movements.

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