Rethinking Rights: Historical, Political, and Philosophical Perspectives

by Bruce P. Frohnen, Kenneth L. Grasso

Overview

As reports of genocide, terrorism, and political violence fill today’s newscasts, more attention has been given to issues of human rights—but all too often the sound bites seem overly simplistic. Many Westerners presume that non-Western peoples yearn for democratic rights, while liberal values of toleration give way to xenophobia.

This book shows that the identification of rights with contemporary liberal democracy is inaccurate and questions the assumptions of many politicians and scholars that rights are self-evident in all circumstances and will overcome any conflicts of thought or interest. Rethinking Rights offers a radical reconsideration of the origins, nature, and role of rights in public life, interweaving perspectives of leading scholars in history, political science, philosophy, and law to emphasize rights as a natural outgrowth of a social understanding of human nature and dignity.

The authors argue that every person comes to consciousness in a historical and cultural milieu that must be taken into account in understanding human rights, and they describe the omnipresence of concrete, practical rights in their historical, political, and philosophical contexts. By rooting our understanding of rights in both history and the order of existence, they show that it is possible to understand rights as essential to our lives as social beings but also open to refinement within communities.

An initial group of essays retraces the origins and historical development of rights in the West, assessing the influence of such thinkers as Locke, Burke, and the authors of the Declaration of Independence to clarify the experience of rights within the Western tradition. A second group addresses the need to rethink our understanding of the nature of existence if we are to understand rights and their place in any decent life, examining the ontological basis of rights, the influence of custom on rights, the social nature of the human person, and the importance of institutional rights.

Steering a middle course between radical individualist and extreme egalitarian views, Rethinking Rights proposes a new philosophy of rights appropriate to today’s world, showing that rights need to be rethought in a manner that brings them back into accord with human nature and experience so that they may again truly serve the human good. By engaging both the history of rights in the West and the multicultural challenge of rights in an international context, Rethinking Rights offers a provocative and coherent new argument to advance the field of rights studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826218315
Publisher:	University of Missouri Press
Publication date:	12/28/2008
Series:	ERIC VOEGELIN INST SERIES Series , #1
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

About the Editors
 
Bruce P. Frohnen is Editor of the Political Science Reviewer, Senior Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, and author of, among other works, The New Communitarians and the Crisis of Modern Liberalism. Kenneth L. Grasso is Professor of Political Science at Texas State University in San Marcos. His books include Catholicism and Religious Freedom: Contemporary Reflections on Vatican II’s Declaration of Religious Liberty, edited with Robert P. Hunt.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Rights in a Multicultural Age Bruce P. Frohnen Kenneth L. Grasso 1

Historical Roots of Modern Rights: Before Locke and After Brian Tierney 34

Natural Rights and Social Contract in Burke and Bellarmine Gary D. Glenn 58

Natural Law, Natural Rights, and the Declaration of Independence George W. Carey 80

Individual and Group Rights: Self-Government and Claims of Right in Historical Practice Bruce P. Frohnen 106

The Ontology of Rights Kenneth L. Schmitz 132

The Historical and Communal Roots of Legal Rights and the Erosion of the State Paul Gottfried 153

Reintegrating Rights: Catholicism, Social Ontology, and Contemporary Rights Discourse Kenneth L. Grasso 177

Toward a Social Pluralist Theory of Institutional Rights Jonathan Chaplin 212

Epilogue: Toward an Integrative Vision Bruce P. Frohnen 241

Notes on the Contributors 252

Index 255