¶ … Michael Ignatieff's book Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry:
Does Ignatieff's analysis of the politics surrounding human rights shed any new light on the relativism/universalism question? Why or why not?
The language of human rights is often couched in the language of universalism, even when that rights-based language is really specific to a particular nation and a particular worldview. For instance, the idea that everyone is created equal and is therefore entitled to freedom, justice, and liberty, is actually from our own, American words of our nation's nationalist declaration of independence. This assertion is not considered a self-evident truth in the language of all human nations and in the minds of all human beings. However, the danger of lacking any notion of a doctrine of universal human rights is that international organizations can very easily fall into the justification of relativism, and atrocities may occur within and without different nations of the world.
In the first chapter of his text, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, Michael Ignatieff stresses that moral relativism is not a tenable way for international community of nations to function. Without certain legal human rights standards, more human rights abuses will occur, as transpired in Nazi Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda. International notions of cross-cultural human rights must define a kind of what the author calls irreducible minimum of individual freedoms, freedoms that...
Also, the death penalty still in use in a great deal of countries might provide another subject for debate from the point-of-view of human rights. A minimalist set of human rights, meant only to keep people safe from humiliation and pain cannot be effective. This is mainly because while certain human rights seem to be of little necessity, they are actually indispensable. Economic, civil, and political rights are of great
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now