James Nickel

This chapter focuses on Griffin’s treatment of human rights to liberties in his 2008 book, _On Human Rights_. After a brief section explaining Griffin’s overall views on human rights the chapter explains and evaluates Griffin’s views on liberty and human rights. While welcoming Griffin’s attention to the liberty dimension of human rights, the chapter identifies some shortcomings such as his failure to take account of fecundity in thinking about freedom of movement and residence, having a too narrow a basis for liberties of self-defence, and not recognizing the great difficulties in providing a justification of the nondiscriminatory enjoyment by everyone of universal human rights without having an independent principle of fairness or equality as part of one’s justificatory framework. This final shortcoming leads him to underestimate the strength of the case for rights to political participation and democratic institutions in contemporary societies.

Theorists who assign functions to human rights often simply announce them as if they were obvious. Assigning a defining or typical function to a concept, artefact, or practice is not a straightforward empirical matter. It requires observation of uses and products, but also requires judgements of centrality and importance and uses selection criteria that can conflict. The first section of this chapter analyses the assignment of functions to artefacts, concepts, and practices and identifies some key methodological issues. The two following sections explore those methodological issues in the works of three philosophers who assign functions to human rights—James Griffin, John Rawls, and Charles Beitz. The conclusion suggests some ways in which the debate between proponents of “orthodox” and “political” conceptions of human rights can be improved.

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the contemporary conception of human rights. Combining philosophical, legal and political approaches, Nickel explains international human rights law and addresses questions of justification and feasibility. New, revised edition of James Nickel's classic study. Explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the" Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (1948) and subsequent treaties in a clear and lively style. Covers fundamental freedoms, due process rights, social rights, and minority rights. Updated throughout to include developments in law, politics, and theory since the publication of the first edition. New features for this edition include an extensive bibliography and a chapter on human rights and terrorism.

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel’s classic study explains and defends the contemporary conception of human rights. Combining philosophical, legal and political approaches, Nickel explains international human rights law and addresses questions of justification and feasibility. New, revised edition of James Nickel's classic study. Explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the _Universal Declaration of Human Rights_ (1948) and subsequent treaties in a clear and lively style. Covers fundamental freedoms, due process rights, social rights, and minority rights. Updated throughout to include developments in law, politics, and theory since the publication of the first edition. New features for this edition include an extensive bibliography and a chapter on human rights and terrorism.

This article is a critical review of work on the concept of rights, Including the concept of human rights, From 1963 to 1978. Our focus is mainly on issues of the analysis of rights and human rights. We do not deal with the closely related issues bearing on the normative foundations of moral and human rights. Nor have we attempted much in the way of historical treatment of our topic. Section I surveys general characterizations of rights. In section ii, We discuss treatments of the defeasibility of rights with special attention to the notion of a prima facie right. Section iii takes up attempts to give an account of human rights. Section iv provides a brief conclusion. A bibliography listing what we take to be the most important works in this area, Including everything cited, Concludes our essay

At least since the late Early Modern period, the Holy Grail of ethics, for many philosophers, has been to say how ethical values could have a kind of protagorean objectivity: values are to be both fully objective as values and yet depend on us by their very nature. More than any other contemporary foundational approach it is “constructivist” theories, such as those due to Rawls, Scanlon, and Korsgaard, which have consciously sought to explain how protagorean objectivity is a real possibility. Yet there remains considerable uncertainty about what the various versions of constructivism have in common, what, if anything, “constructivism” as a general approach is supposed to accomplish, and whether, if it is a general approach, it amounts to a distinctive foundational view.

This article criticizes an attempt by j. Brenton stearns to refute naturalism as an account of evaluative language ("a refutation of axiological naturalism," journal of value inquiry, I, No.2 (fall, 1967)). Stearns argued that if the goodness of a thing were, As naturalism claims, Equivalent to its possession of certain non-Evaluative properties, Then two things could differ from one another solely with respect to their goodness. And since this is impossible, Stearns concludes that naturalism is false. This argument is criticized by logical analogy. It is argued that if this argument shows that a naturalistic account of "good" is false, Then it equally shows that a naturalistic account of "large" or "primary color" is false

This revised and extended edition explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and subsequent human rights treaties. Combining philosophical, legal, and political approaches, Nickel addresses questions about what human rights are, what their content should be, and whether and how they can be justified. Chapters: 1. The Contemporary Idea of Human Rights; 2. Human Rights as Rights; 3. Making Sense of Human Rights; 4. Starting Points for Justifying Human Rights; 5. A Framework for Justifying Specific Rights; 6. The List Question; 7. Due Process Rights and Terrorist Emergencies; 8. Economic Liberties as Fundamental Freedoms; 9. Social Rights as Human Rights; 10. Minority Rights; 11. Eight Responses to the Relativist; 12. The Good Sense in Human Rights.

This chapter considers possible moral grounds for recognizing and realizing economic and social rights (ESRs) as human rights. It begins by suggesting that ESRs fall into three families: (1) welfareoriented ESRs, which protect adequate income, education, health, and safe and healthful working conditions; (2) freedom-oriented ESRs, which prohibit slavery, ensure free choice of employment, and protect workers’ freedoms to organize and strike: and (3) fairness-oriented ESRs, which require nondiscrimination and equal opportunity in the workplace along with fair remuneration for one’s work. To accommodate the normative diversity found in these three families, the chapter suggests a pluralistic justicatory framework that appeals to three kinds of moral reasons: human welfare, freedom, and fairness. A final section considers the possibility of subsuming all three of these approaches to justication under the idea of human dignity or the associated idea of equal respect for persons.

This is an excellent collection of critical essays on Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice. David Miller provides a comprehensive and lucid introduction to Walzer’s views on justice, and Walzer offers a brief—perhaps too brief—response to his critics. Contributors are drawn from philosophy, political science, and sociology, and include Judith Andre, Richard Arneson, Brian Barry, Joseph Carens, Jon Elster, Amy Gutmann, David Miller, Susan Moller Okin, Michael Rustin, Adam Swift, and Jeremy Waldron.