H U M A N R I G H T S A N D C R I T I C A L T H I N K I N G S K I L L S

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

• By asking this question today I want to

a) give a picture about what philosophy of human rights is all about, and through that

b) explain how the study of human rights lends itself well to learning and practicing critical thinking skills

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

• The language of human rights is everywhere• Media, politicians, scholars, NGOs, etc.

Examples: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP_jLY0bLEk

• http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/414596/may-30-2012/robert-mugabe-s-u-n—tourism-tribute

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

• The discursive nature of the human rights practice and gives rise to worrisome skepticisms

• About the range of interests protected by human rights• About their “universal” character• About the elasticity of permissions to interfere

when human rights are violated, etc.

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS?

• To address these skepticism one needs to be able to explain what justifies human rights, i.e. what gives them their authority, i.e. what qualifies as a human right

• Good place to start that discussion is to go back and look at the various ways people talk about human rights

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS-POSSIBLE ANSWERS

Good place to start to answer the question of what are human rights is to look to what participants in the practice see themselves as being committed to when they say X is a human right

Human rights as protections of urgent interests from certain predictable threats. Human rights apply in the first instance to the political institutions of states, but are also matters of international concern (in the second instance).

JUSTIFICATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

• Natural rights?• Agreement theories?• Practical theories?

• Human rights as protections of urgent interests from certain predictable threats. Human rights apply in the first instance to the political institutions of states, but are also matters of international concern (in the second instance).

FREEDOM FROM SEVERE POVERTY, A HUMAN RIGHT?

• Severe poverty defined by the World Bank as living on less than $2 a day.

• Is there a human RIGHT to freedom from poverty?• Rights plausible only if correlative duties plausible (how

do we decide who has a duty to act?)• Am I a human rights violator if I go to movies instead of

alleviate poverty?• Assumes we know what a right to have basic necessities

entails…• Faulty Inference from “a human right to basic necessities

on some specifications gives rise to implausible duties…” to “all specification of a human right to basic necessities give rise to implausible duties…”

WOMEN’S RIGHTS- HUMAN RIGHTS?

• Why think of women’s rights as human rights• Something odd about saying that these are rights

that women have in virtue of being women rather than in virtue of being human• After all (aside from reproductive rights) the

interests of women are perfectly general• Common threats though are different- predictable

threats different

ASKING THE PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS

• ASKING these sorts of questions lends itself very well to practicing critical thinking skills students need in any field, because it requires students • a) to examine what sorts of reasons lead them

and others to include X amongst human rights, but not Y, • b) to discover the difference between the sorts of

reasons that count as GOOD reasons in favor of one view of human rights rather than another

HUMAN RIGHTS AND CRITICAL THINKING

• Instant interest• Preconceived notions that have rarely been

examined• Willingness to reconsider because while they by

and large have these notions they are not as central to their belief system as some others• Sustained interest in a methodic process and

system of questions

HUMAN RIGHTS AND CRITICAL THINKING

• Start by undermining the belief that we know what human rights are• Then ask what are possible grounds/sources of

human rights• How these sources lend themselves to justifying

including some but not other rights into the category of human rights• Test their intuitions by following that reasoning to

its natural conclusions - Common: students as relativists

HUMAN RIGHTS AND CRITICAL THINKING

• Other related skills students get from examining human rights in this way

* Understanding complexity of these issues* Putting a “face” on human rights talk- acknowledging it when they hear it in the media and in the classroom and not only being able to critically examine it but also understand why it is so important that we are careful when we speak of human rights* Better understanding of the distinction between describing and justifying

THANK YOU!