The Relational Self and Human Rights

The Relational Self and Human Rights
Author: Tatiana Hansbury
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2022-05-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000583430

This book takes up Paul Ricoeur’s relational idea of the self in order to rethink the basis of human rights. Many schools of critical theory argue that the idea of human rights is based on a problematic conception of the human subject and the legal person. For liberals, the human is a possessive and self-interested individual, such that others are either tools or hurdles in their projects. This book offers a novel reading of subjectivity and rights based on Paul Ricœur’s re-interpretation of human subjectivity as a relational concept. Taking up Ricoeur’s idea of recognition as a ‘reciprocal gift’, it argues that gift exchange is the relation upon which authentic, non-abstract, human subjectivity is based. Seen in this context, human rights can be understood as tokens of mutual recognition, securing a genuinely human life for all. The conception of human rights as gift effectively counters their moral individualism and possessiveness, as the philosophical anthropology of an isolated ego is replaced by that of a related, dependent and embedded self. This original reinterpretation of human rights will appeal to scholars of legal theory, jurisprudence, politics and philosophy.

Religious Perspectives on Bioethics and Human Rights

Religious Perspectives on Bioethics and Human Rights
Author: Joseph Tham
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2017-09-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319584316

This book deals with the thorny issue of human rights in different cultures and religions, especially in the light of bioethical issues. In this book, experts from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and Confucianism discuss the tension between their religious traditions and the claim of universality of human rights. The East-West contrast is particularly evident with regards to human rights. Some writers find the human rights language too individualistic and it is foreign to major religions where the self does not exist in isolation, but is normally immersed in a web of relations and duties towards family, friends, religion community, and society. Is the human rights discourse a predominantly Western liberal ideal, which in bioethics is translated to mean autonomy and free choice? In today’s democratic societies, laws have been drafted to protect individuals and communities against slavery, discrimination, torture or genocide. Yet, it appears unclear at what moment universal rights supersede respect for cultural diversity and pluralism. This collection of articles demonstrates a rich spectrum of positions among different religions, as they confront the ever more pressing issues of bioethics and human rights in the modern world. This book is intended for those interested in the contemporary debates on religious ethics, human rights, bioethics, cultural diversity and multiculturalism.

Law and the Relational Self

Law and the Relational Self
Author: Jonathan Herring
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2019-11-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108425135

Describes the concept of the relational self and its potential significance to the law.

Law's Relations

Law's Relations
Author: Jennifer Nedelsky
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 559
Release: 2011-10-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0195147960

Jennifer Nedelsky claims that we must rethink our notion of autonomy, rejecting the usual vocabulary of control, boundaries and individual rights. If we understand that we are fundamentally in relation to others, she argues, we will recognize that we become autonomous with others.

Child Marriage, Rights and Choice

Child Marriage, Rights and Choice
Author: Hoko Horii
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 135
Release: 2021-11-18
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1000469085

This book addresses the issue of agency in relation to child marriage. In international campaigns against child marriage, there is a puzzle of agency: While international human rights institutions celebrate girls’ exercise of their agency not to marry, they do not recognize their agency to marry. Child marriage, usually defined as ‘any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age’, is normally considered as forced – which is to say that it is assumed that are not capable of consenting to marriage. This book, however, re-examines this assumption, through a detailed socio-legal examination of child marriage in Indonesia. Eliciting the multiple competing frameworks according to which child marriage takes place, the book considers the complex reasons why children marry. Structural explanations such as lack of opportunities and oppressive social structures are important, but not exhaustive, explanations. Exploring the subjective reasons by listening to children’s perspectives, their stories show that many of them decide to marry for love, desire, to belong to the community, and for new opportunities and hopes. The book, then, demonstrates how the child marriage framework – and, indeed, the human rights framework in general – is constructed on too narrow a vision of human agency: One that cannot but fail to respect and promote the agency of all, regardless of gender, race, religion, and age. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners in the areas of children’s rights, legal anthropology, and socio-legal studies.

Law and Anthropology

Law and Anthropology
Author: Michael D. A. Freeman
Publisher: Academic
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2009-11-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 019958091X

Law and Anthropology, the latest volume in the Current Legal Issues series, offers an insight into the state of law and anthropology scholarship today. Focussing on the inter-connections between the two disciplines it also includes case studies from around the world.

The Subject of Human Rights

The Subject of Human Rights
Author: Danielle Celermajer
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2020-09-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1503613720

The Subject of Human Rights is the first book to systematically address the "human" part of "human rights." Drawing on the finest thinking in political theory, cultural studies, history, law, anthropology, and literary studies, this volume examines how human rights—as discourse, law, and practice—shape how we understand humanity and human beings. It asks how the humanness that the human rights idea seeks to protect and promote is experienced. The essays in this volume consider how human rights norms and practices affect the way we relate to ourselves, to other people, and to the nonhuman world. They investigate what kinds of institutions and actors are subjected to human rights and are charged with respecting their demands and realizing their aspirations. And they explore how human rights shape and even create the very subjects they seek to protect. Through critical reflection on these issues, The Subject of Human Rights suggests ways in which we might reimagine the relationship between human rights and subjectivity with a view to benefiting human rights and subjects alike.

Christianity in Evolution

Christianity in Evolution
Author: Jack Mahoney
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2011-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1589017994

Evolution has provided a new understanding of reality, with revolutionary consequences for Christianity. In an evolutionary perspective the incarnation involved God entering the evolving human species to help it imitate the trinitarian altruism in whose image it was created and counter its tendency to self-absorption. Primarily, however, the evolutionary achievement of Jesus was to confront and overcome death in an act of cosmic significance, ushering humanity into the culminating stage of its evolutionary destiny, the full sharing of God’s inner life. Previously such doctrines as original sin, the fall, sacrifice, and atonement stemmed from viewing death as the penalty for sin and are shown not only to have serious difficulties in themselves, but also to emerge from a Jewish culture preoccupied with sin and sacrifice that could not otherwise account for death. The death of Jesus on the cross is now seen as saving humanity, not from sin, but from individual extinction and meaninglessness. Death is now seen as a normal process that affect all living things and the religious doctrines connected with explaining it in humans are no longer required or justified. Similar evolutionary implications are explored affecting other subjects of Christian belief, including the Church, the Eucharist, priesthood, and moral behavior.

States of Exception

States of Exception
Author: Costas Douzinas
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2023-12-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1800376448

Considering the major crises Europe has faced over the last three decades, this unique book offers a multidisciplinary examination of the ways in which law, human rights and politics have evolved and were affected by recent emergencies.