Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures

Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc
Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures: Interpreting Human Rights in the International Community Author(s): Sumner B. Twiss Source: The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Fall, 1998), pp. 271-282 Published by: on behalf of Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40008660 . Accessed: 05/06/2013 13:04
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Wiley and Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Religious Ethics.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 180.190.30.2 on Wed, 5 Jun 2013 13:04:29 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
MORALGROUNDS AND PLURAL CULTURES InterpretingHuman Rights in the InternationalCommunity

SumnerB. Twiss
ABSTRACT After sketching the three basic types or generations of human rights recognized by the international community,the author explicates their principal conceptual-historical features in four theses concerning socially guaranteed priority interests; hermeneutical interaction; levels of intercultural and intraculturaljustification; theory-neutrality;he then explores yet further implications of those features (compatibility with both liberal and communitarian traditions; openness to alternative forms of social regulation; radical interdependenceof the generations). The article concludes by sketching alternative conceptions of the levels of human rights justification, relating these to recent philosophical positions on the prospects for a commonmorality. key words: human rights; intercultural/ intracultural justifications, -neutrality theory
in a number INVOLVED OVERTHE PASTFIVEYEARS,I HAVEBEEN ACTIVELY
of interculturaland internationaldialoguesabouthumanrights (see, a particular e.g., Twiss 1996).As a resultof this work,I have developed in of human the worlda concepunderstanding rights contemporary tionwhich,I believe,is sharedby manyin the international community
Versions of sections 1 and 2 of this article have been presented in three unpublished Humane Governance,and Human Rights, with Special Reference papers:"Confucianism, to the Political Thought of Huang Tsung-hsi," Conference on Confucianism and Humanism, East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, May 1996; "HumanRights through the Prism of Cultural Diversity:A Response,"Religion and Human Rights Consultation, American Academy of Religion, New Orleans, November 1996; and "Human University Forum on Human Rights, Rights, Individualism, and Communitarianism," Eastern ConnecticutState University,November1997. 1 gratefully acknowledgethe critical comments of Henry Rosemont(St. Mary'sCollege of Maryland),Stephen Angle (Wesleyan University), John Reeder Jr., Wendell Dietrich, Andrew Flescher, and Aaron Stalnaker (all of Brown University); Rosemont and Reeder have been particularly valuable (and challenging)conversationpartners.
271
272
Journal of Religious Ethics
and which reflects human rights developments from the time of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) to the present. I present this understanding in the form of four theses, three furtherimplications,and an all-too-briefconcludingreflectionon the justification of human rights. Although much of what I offer here will bedue to space and time constraints- baldly stated rather than fully argued, I will incorporatereferences that back up my claims. Since what I have to say emphasizes the conceptual features of international human rights, it seems best to remind all of us of the types of concrete human rights norms identified in international declarations, covenants, treaties, and conventions (see, e.g., UN 1993). There are three overarchingtypes of human rights norms:civil-political,socioeconomic, and collective-developmental. The first two types represent potential claims of individual persons against the state; the third type, claims of peoples and groups against the state. Civil-political human rights include two subtypes: norms pertaining to physical and civil security (for example, no torture, slavery, inhumane treatment, arbitrary arrest; equality before the law) and norms pertaining to civil-political liberties or empowerments(for example, freedomof thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of assembly and voluntary association; political participationin one's society). Socioeconomichuman rights similarly include two subtypes: norms pertaining to the provision of goods meeting social needs (for example, nutrition, shelter, health care, education) and norms pertaining to the provision of goods meeting economicneeds (for example, work and fair wages, an adequate living standard, a social security net). Finally, collective-developmentalhuman rights also include two subtypes:the self-determinationof peoples (forexample, to their political status and their economic, social, and cultural development) and certain special rights of ethnic and religious minorities (for example, to the enjoyment of their own cultures, languages, and religions).
1. HumanRightsPractice: FourTheses
I begin by articulating my account of human rights in the international community within the frame of four theses. The first thesis is this: human rights represent a modern social practice that embodies explicit intercultural and international recognitions of, and negotiated agreements about, crucial conditions of personal and communal flourishing. The practice employs the concept of rights in order to indicate that these conditions specify human interests of such fundamental importance ("priorityinterests") that they ought to be socially guaranteed by otherwise diverse political and social systems (see, e.g., Shue 1980). The fact that rights language is employed is doubtless due to the his-
MoralGrounds and Plural Cultures
273
toricalinfluenceof Westernlegal traditionsin the international arena, but the priorityinterests agreed upon are not exclusivelyWestern moraland politicalvalues. The secondthesis is that this practicehas a fifty-year historyof comto world-historical crises(for responsive plexandnuanceddevelopment WarII genocide; colonialdeprivation; racial,ethnic,and exampleWorld and markedby three generational emphasesgenderdiscrimination) and collective-developmentalwhichare socioeconomic, civil-political, mutually interdependentand hermeneuticallyinteractive(see, e.g., Weston1992).Whileall three generationswere presentin nucein the Declaration Universal of HumanRights,the crisespresentedoccasions and refinementof differenttypes of human for selectivedevelopment resulted development rightsin relationto one another.This interactive forexample: the conceptualizain a numberof important recognitions, and positiveempowerments tion of civil-political rights as protections of personsin their socinecessaryfor effectivepoliticalparticipation and collective-developmental that socioeconomic eties; the recognition andthe recognecessaryforsuchempowerment; rightsare functionally nition that civil-politicalrights are also functionallynecessary for interests of persons and developmental advancingthe socioeconomic andcommunities. Thethirdthesis is that humanrightsarejustifiedat two distinguishable levels (or in two distinguishable arenas),the first represented by consensusandnegotiatedpublicagreementsin the interintercultural and the otherreprenationalarena(a formof pragmatic justification) sented by diverseintracultural justifications,expressedin their own idiomsandwarranting distinctivemoralandphilosophical (internally) in the international consento abideby andparticipate theiragreement sus. Theseinternalculturalpositionsmaytake the formof incorporathumanrightssubtraditions), ingthe languageof humanrights(internal but this is not requiredso long as culturesand societiesrecognizeand abideby the internationalconsensuson the priorityinterests identified by human rights. This thesis implies that human rights are not in anyparticular with orgrounded set of themselvesstronglyassociated claims with or necessarilyincompatible metaphysical epistemological culturalmoralviews.I will returnto these issues in section3. The fourththesis is that the internationalpracticeof humanrights with a widerangeof sociopolitical is compatible systemsthat avoidthe destructive individual freedomwithextremes of socially pathological and personally out solidarity(forexample,an extremelibertarianism) withoutindividualfreedom(forexdestructivecommunal oppression an open-textured It achieves this by forwarding totalitarianism). ample, on humane that allows a (not theory) governance pragmatic agreement
274
a spectrum of ways of balancing personal interests in self-development and intimate relations with communal interests in solidarity and the social good (see, e.g., Loewy 1993, 124-25, 139-40). This thesis implies that human rights can, in principle, be compatible with, for example, both liberal and communitarian societies and traditions. It also implies that these rights are, in a significant sense, theory-neutral, permitting wide diversity at the societal and cultural level and resisting attempts to locate human rights within any one political theory or system to the exclusion of all others. Theory-neutrality does not mean moral neutrality. Human rights obviously have significant moral content. The claim is only that this moral content implies no one distinctive moral or political theory, and that this content can be affirmed by otherwise diverse cultural moral traditions and sociopoliticalsystems.
2. ThreeImplications
A number of implications follow from the preceding account. I offer three examples. First, given the pragmatic character of this international practice, its theoretical neutrality, and its openness to diverse support at the internal cultural level, it is incorrect to claim (as some have done) that human rights presuppose Western competitive individualism or related conceptions of self (for example, as radically autonomous) and society (for example, as a social contract). By the same token, it would be incorrect to claim that they presuppose any distinctive communitarian conception of self and society. While it is true that human rights practice ascribes civil-political and socioeconomicrights to individual persons, this ascription does not represent & philosophical position on the nature of individual persons but rather interculturally agreed-upon conditions perceived to be necessary for personal (and social) development in diverse societies and cultures (see, e.g., Henkin 1990, 6). These rights are open to various conceptualizations of the person, guided by international constraints on repression and oppression. Specifically, there can be (and are) moral and political traditions that are explicitly communitarian and that embody relational ontologies of the self which posit the constitutive social relatedness and interdependence of persons in helping one another to become contextually autonomous beings within the pursuit of communal flourishing. Such traditions can be quite compatiblewith human rights. While these traditions are likely to emphasize the importance of personal and social well-being (analogous to socioeconomic and collective-developmental rights), they still recognize the importance of personal development and autonomy (analogous to civil-political rights) in contributing to the attainment of communal flourishing. If examples are wanted, then I specifically offer the hundreds of indigenous peoples across the world, the
Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures
275
Catholic social tradition, varieties of Buddhism, the humane statecraft tradition of neo-Confucianism,and the social-cultural-politicalsystems of many Nordic countries. A second related implication is this: given again its pragmatic character, theoretical neutrality, and openness to diverse social patterns, the international practice of human rights functions to regulate diverse social-political systems in such a way as to encourage them to advance those agreed-upon conditions perceived to be crucial for personal and communal flourishing. Beyond requiring states to adopt legislative, social, economic, or political measures to create and socially guarantee the priority interests represented by human rights, the international covenants say very little about the precise mechanisms and policies that should be developed. This implies that the regulative function of human rights can be accomplished in diverse ways appropriate to different economic, social, political, and legal systems. The incorporation of the language and concept of human rights into national constitutions and bills of rights, together with judicial enforcement procedures, is one such way, but there are others, among them: the development of administrative and bureaucratic offices and procedures, the development of social and economicpolicies, and the development of political processes incorporatingpopular participation. Diversity within these options and overlap among them are considerable. As a consequence, it is not obvious that in order to advance the priority interests of human rights internally, a society must emphasize the concepts and mechanisms of rights per se (as, for example, the United States does). In cases where a society does not, there would be functional analogues to human rights, conditions of humane governance fulfilling the regulative role of human rights. There is already a body of literature that I find particularly suggestive with regard to this possibility in modern societies: the writings of philosophers and social theorists on the way that socialist societies could develop rules of social control, organizational rules, egalitarian distributive policies, long-term cooperative agreements, mediational jural agencies, investigative rather than adversarial court procedures, communal decision-makingprocedures,and the like to advance the priority interests represented by human rights (see, e.g., Campbell 1983, 264-89). The third implication- or set of implications- follows fromthe historical interdependence of human rights in the international arena. No one type or generation of human rights can be emphasized to the exclusion of the others without thereby jeopardizing persons and communities over time, including jeopardizing the very interests represented in the type or generation of rights being privileged. For example, to emphasize civil-political rights to the exclusion of socioeconomic and collectivedevelopmental rights runs the risk of creating socially disadvantaged
276
groups within a society to the degree of triggering disruption, which, in turn, invites the counterresponse of repression. To emphasize socioeconomic rights to the exclusion of civil-political rights runs the risk of ironically creating a situation where, without the feedback of political participation,the advancement of socioeconomicwelfare comes to be hampered or inequitable. To emphasize collective-developmentalrights to the exclusion of the other types runs the risk of not only fomenting a backlash against civil-political repression but also of under-cutting the equitable distribution of the socioeconomic goods needed for the continuing solidarity of the society. These examples of self-defeating imbalances among the three generations are supported by considerable empirical data, so I am inclined to reject as myopic and impracticable alleged incompatibilities between civil-political and socioeconomic human rights and between individual and collective rights (see, e.g., Park 1987; Arat 1991, esp. chap. 1). At worst, there may be tension between such rights in specific societies at periods of sociohistorical transition, but this does not mean that the tensions cannot be solved in a way that respects all three generations of rights. The interdependence of human rights is also revealed in another condition. Specific human rights associated with a particular type or generation often contain elements analogous to or presupposing rights of the other generations (see, e.g., Eide et al. 1995; Galtung and Wirak 1976). For example, protecting civil-political rights necessitates considerable socioeconomic expenditure on the part of the state in such activities as supporting public discussion and voting procedures,maintaining a legal system, and providing a police force. For another example, advancing the priorityinterest of education (usually classified as a socioeconomicright) involves enhancing personal development (civilpolitical aspect), investing social resources in public schooling (socioeconomic aspect), and protecting individuals' freedom of expression (civil-political aspect) and the local self-governance of school districts (collective self-determination aspect). My point here is that human rights are so thoroughly interconnected that it is difficult to conceive of them as operating properly except in an interdependent and mutually supportive manner. It makes no sense to construe the generations of human rights as adversarial with respect to each other.
3. Justification Revisited
The third thesis introducedabove proposesthat human rights are justified at two distinguishable levels or in two distinguishable arenas: (1) intercultural pragmatic negotiation and agreement in the international arena and (2) various forms of intraculturaljustifications in more local arenas. While I believe that this thesis is roughly accurate, I also
277
morecomplex than this think that the actualsituationis considerably capsuleformulation suggests- forreasonsof bothprogressive developI alternatives.By "progressive ment and hermeneutical development," referto the fact that justificationsof humanrights at both levels are and expansion.By "hermesubjectto changein the formof refinement I referto the fact that these two levels of justineuticalalternatives," ficationcan be interpretedin differentways. What followsis a brief expansionon these points,whichI hope will promptall of us to think andresponsibly aboutthejustification of humanrightsin the creatively world.I candidly admitthat these reflections arewoefully contemporary and sketchy,representingthinking on my part that underdeveloped correction-andmay,in the end, callsforfurtherexpansion, refinement, have to be, in parts, retracted.I welcome,though,the opportunity to offerthese tentativeproposals forreflection anddebate. 3.1 Progressive development Intercultural andagreement at the international level ennegotiation a widevarietyof ongoing andactivities(see,e.g., developments compass Weston et al. 1992).Included arethe successive interhere,forexample, national humanrightsdeclarations, andcovenants treaties,conventions, overthe past fiftyyears;the investigations, adoptedand promulgated and mediations humanrightscomby international reports, diplomatic the and of international missions; judicialfindings,rulings, precedents human rights courts and tribunals;and comparable regionalhuman and in Europe,the mechanisms jural rights charters,commissions, I and Africa. that such and Americas, suggest ongoingdevelopments considered a activities, collectively,represent historicallygrounded andjustification of humanrightsin pragmatic processof interpretation the worldcommunity-a progressive, and pragmatic, publicconsensus aboutsharednormsthat is continually evolving. Intracultural foraccepting, and participatjustifications supporting, in this international consensus more local interpreing encompass tations of and reasoning about internationalhuman rights norms. Theseactivitiesinvolvethe use of culturalmoralidiomsby largelynonhumanrightsagenciesandgroups(secularandreligious) governmental humanrightsnormsin morelocalsettingsandto to explore andsupport forpopulaces translatetheirmeaningandimplications unfamiliar with international humanrightslaw (see Twisset al. 1994,40-42). Suchactivities are mainlyinformal, that religious thoughit is to be remarked communities andtraditions(oftenin concert) do,in fact, issue declarations on humanrightsissues and that nongovernmental humanrights groupspressuregovernment agenciesto adoptlocallyinfluentialinterof and stanceson humanrightsconcerns. pretations
278
Journalof ReligiousEthics
In recentyears this intracultural to include activityhas broadened cross-culturaland cross-traditional dialogues about the interpretation and justificationof human rights norms and priorities- in the form of largely nongovernmental explorationsthat are somewhat to activityin the international arenaamongnationsandnaanalogous moreinformal andnonbinding. tionalrepresentatives, thoughobviously inasmuchas their Suchdialoguescan, in fact,be influentialindirectly, agencies findingsare passedup the ladder,so to speak,to government andto the international community. Special features of both intraculturaland cross-culturalhuman rights dialoguesincludeexplicit attempts,for example,to relate culturalmoralcategories to humanrightsnorms,to identifyandnegotiate sharedinterpretations of these norms,to scrutinizecriticallycultural and even to and socialtraditionsfor their humanrights implications, in traditions articulate new socialvisionscombining of different aspects a mannersupportiveof the priorityinterests representedby human rights (Twiss 1996). Recently,in cross-cultural dialogues especially, on there are effortsto identifysharedreasonsfornormative agreement humanrights and to discussthe most effectivesocietalimplementing mechanisms forhumanrights. 3.2 Hermeneutical options Thequestionnowis whatto makeof these variouslevels or arenasof activitywith regardto the justificationof humanrights. I have some to makeaboutthis issue whichI hopemayat verytentativesuggestions least clarifyand perhapsadvancethe discussion.I drawunabashedly fromsomerecentphilosophical for a comliteratureon the "prospects monmorality" becauseI believethat this literaturecanbothilluminate and be illuminatedby the state of affairsI havejust described (Outka andReeder1993;see esp. Reeder1993,204-6). Whatfollows,then, are reflections on the hermeneutical alternativesforjustifying provisional humanrightsin the international arena.1 Tobegin with, there are somehumanrights scholarsand advocates whoregardthe pragmatic international consensuson humanrightsas
1 In additionto the three justificatoryoptions that I discuss in this section, there are, of course, the more standard ones of appealing to one or another moral theory as somehow definitive and dispositive of the issue of human rights justification. I put these standard positions aside, however, for two reasons: First, on their face they appear to be largely Westernphilosophicalinternal cultural moraljustifications, unacceptableto many of the world's cultures and traditions (including those that recognize human rights norms as valid) and thus essentially contestable (at least at this periodin human history). Second, their invocationdoes not conformwith the options being actually exploredin the international community.
279
a largely self-sufficient (legallybinding)compactamongnations that or otherwise,not even at needs no furtherjustification,philosophical the intracultural level (Henkin1990, 34-36). On this view, all that is needed,possible,or even desirableis the pragmatically negotiatedinternationalconsensusto which nations have committedthemselves. with RichardRorty'sunderThis rather spare view begs comparison standing of liberal values as providinga commonmorality within Westernsocieties and needingno furthersupportfromother,deeper, troublesome(if not mythical)comprehensive indeed philosophically or doctrines schemes,frameworks, (Rorty1993;Reeder1993,205). Otherhuman rights scholarsand advocates,by contrast,aware of and opento the two levels of justificationI distinguishedabove,tend to regardthe internationalconsensusas a cross-cultural overlapping agreementon specifichuman rights norms supportedby diverseculschemesandvisionsfoundacrossthe tural,moral,and/orphilosophical worldandrepresented (however inadequately) by the variousnationsin arena.Thisricherview,then, takes very seriouslyinthe international at whatI havecalledthe secondlevel (see, e.g., tracultural justifications This An-Nacim view with John Rawls'sunder1992). begs comparison of Western liberal values as an consensussupstanding overlapping in schemes diverse Western societies,though comprehensive portedby of course,to includeothersocietiesas well (Rawls1996, hereexpanded, 133-72;Taylor1996;Reeder1993,204-5). Yeta thirdview,whichis onlynowemergingin intercultural human with the consensus cum intrarights dialogues,begins overlapping and moves somewhat it cultural on justifications beyond by focusing the for such to not potential dialogues identify only sharedhumanrights normsbut also sharedreasonsfor accepting these norms,forexample, similarviews of humanmoralcapacity, common vulnerabilities to sufmoral and and analogous virtues, fering oppression, principles,rules, and the like (Twiss 1996). This view begins to discerna possibleconsensus all the way down,so to speak,with regardto justifyinghuman rights norms. It seems to me that this view begs comparisonwith John P. Reeder'sproposalthat "appeals to generalfeaturesof human nature can perhaps furnish groundsfor agreement," which he sees at work"inthe growthof the humanrightsmovement" com(a prescient in Reeder 205). ment, my opinion; 1993, There are strengths and weaknessesassociatedwith each of these Thefirst spare,Rorty-like views of humanrightsjustification. position is similarto the line takenby the ThirdCommittee, whichdebatedand the Universal Declaration approved ofHumanRightssent to the United Nations GeneralAssembly for action in 1948. The Third Committee tookthe positionthat the Universal Declaration represented onlya pragmatic agreementon humanrightsnorms,while explicitlyeschew-
280
Journalof ReligiousEthics
andepistemological ing contestable languageandappeals metaphysical (Twiss 1998). On this view, only the normativeconsensuscounts for anything;the rest is irrelevant.The strengthof this positionis its exclusive focus on behaviorand the avoidanceof possiblyindeterminIts able philosophical argumentleadingto delays in implementation. weaknessis its failureto engagepeoples,communities, and traditions onissuesdearto them- issues which,if engaged, mightresultin greater socialacceptance of humanrightsnormsat the culturallevel, ensuring overtime a greaterdegreeof voluntary with thosenorms. compliance The second,overlapping-consensus, Rawls-likeview addressesthis latter problem, to developtheir encouraging peoplesand communities own ways of justifyinghumanrights normsin local moral-conceptual idioms.By the sametoken,however, this view maybe overlyoptimistic in its apparentconfidence that local comprehensive schemeswill not to be with some human norms (andwith each prove incompatible rights to underthe of such would tend other); emergence incompatibilities Reedermine acceptance and compliance. The thirdall-the-way-down, like view attemptsto addressthis issue by encouraging differentcomandpeoplesto learnfromoneanotherandpossibly munities,traditions, on the andjustification of humanrightsnorms, converge interpretation even though this might entail cultural accommodation and change. The strengthof this view rests on the realisticassumption that all cultures andtraditionsare opento changeif this canbe shownto enhance humanflourishing andlegitimate withoutundermining theirimportant constitutive values. Its weaknessis that it rests on a wagerthat might not cometo fruition,due to politicaland economic pressuresand posintractable cultural sibly disagreement. Takentogether,I believe that these three views capturethe actual state of affairs- in the formof hermeneutical options- of humanrights in the international arena. It is justification up to all of us to assess them critically,to wager on which might representthe soundestapproachforthe future,or perhapsto proposea fresh alternativeacceptableto the peoplesof the world.
REFERENCES
An-Nacim,AbdullahiAhmed 1992 "Towarda Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human Rights: The Meaning of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment of Punishment."In.Human Rights in CrossCultural Perspectives: A Questfor Consensus, edited by Abdullahi
Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures
281
AhmedAn-Nacim,19-43. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press. Arat, Zehra 1991 Democracyand Human Rights in Developing Countries. Boulder, Colo.:Lynne Rienner Publisher. Tom Campbell, 1983 TheLeft and the Right:A ConceptualAnalysis of the Idea of Socialist Rights. Londonand Boston:Routledge and Kegan Paul. Claude, RichardPierre, and Burns H. Weston, eds. Human Rights in the WorldCommunity:Issues and Action. 2d ed 1992 Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press. Eide, Asbj0rn,Catarina Krause, and Allan Rosas, eds 1995 Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Galtung, Johan, and Anders Helge Wirak "HumanNeeds, Human Rights, and the Theories of Development." 1976 In Indicators of Social and Economic Change and TheirApplications, 7-34. Reports and Papers in Social Science, vol. 37. Paris: UNESCO. Louis Henkin, TheAge of Rights. New York:ColumbiaUniversity Press. 1990 Loewy,Erich H. Freedomand Community:The Ethics of Interdependence.Albany, 1993 N.Y.:State University of New YorkPress. Outka, Gene, and John P. Reeder Jr., eds. 1993 Prospectsfor a CommonMorality. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Park, Han S. 1987 "Correlatesof Human Rights: Global Tendencies."Human Rights Quarterly9:405-13. Rawls, John 1996 Political Liberalism. New York:ColumbiaUniversity Press. Reeder,John P., Jr. 1993 "Foundationswithout Foundationalism."See Outka and Reeder 1993, 191-214. Rorty,Richard The Priority of Democracyto Philosophy. See Outka and Reeder 1993 1993, 254-78. Shue, Henry 1980 Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniversity Press. Charles Taylor, "AWorldConsensus on Human Rights."Dissent 42.3:15-21. 1996
282
Twiss, Sumner B. 1996 "ComparativeEthics and Intercultural Human-Rights Dialogues: A ProgrammaticInquiry." In Christian Ethics: Problemsand Prospects, edited by Lisa Sowle Cahill and James F. Childress, 357-78. Cleveland, Ohio:Pilgrim Press. 1998 "ConfucianContributionsto the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Historical and Philosophical Perspective." Paper presented at the Conference on Perceptions of Being Human in Confucian Thought: Human Dignity, Human Rights, and Human Responsibilities, Beijing, June 15-17. Scheduled for publicationin a special issue of the Journal of InternationalConfucianStudies (in Chinese) and, concurrently,in a volume to be published by Columbia University Press (in English). Twiss, Sumner B., AbdullahiAn-Nacim,Ann Elizabeth Mayer,and William Wipfler 1994 "Universality vs. Relativism in Human Rights." In Religion and Human Rights, edited by John Kelsay and Sumner B. Twiss. 31-59. New York:The Projecton Religion and Human Rights. Now available from The Projecton Religion and Human Rights, Emory University School of Law,Atlanta, Georgia. United Nations (UN) 1993 International Bill of Human Rights: Universal Declaration on Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and CulturalRights, and International Covenanton Civil and Political Rights and OptionalProtocols.New York:United Nations. Burns H. Weston, 1992 "HumanRights."See Claude and Weston 1992, 14-31 Weston, Burns H., RobinAnn Lukes, and Kelly M. Hnatt 1992 "RegionalHuman Rights Regimes:A Comparisonand Appraisal." See Claude and Weston 1992, 244-55.

Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc

MORALGROUNDS AND PLURAL CULTURES InterpretingHuman Rights in the InternationalCommunity

Journal of Religious Ethics

MoralGrounds and Plural Cultures

Journal of Religious Ethics

Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures

Journal of Religious Ethics

MoralGrounds and Plural Cultures

MoralGrounds and Plural Cultures

Moral Grounds and Plural Cultures

Journal of Religious Ethics

You might also like