Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-18 of 18 documents


articles in english

1. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Asha Bhandari

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Broadly speaking, the idea of human rights is in itself not new; its birth lay in the birth of man, and the concept is as old as human civilisation. However, it was World War II that put the spotlight on the necessity for formal recognition of these rights in the modern world, leading to the conception, adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the United Nations, possibly the most well-known concretisation of the concept of human rights in recent times. This paper is an earnest attempt to identify the similarities between the provisions of the Universal Declaration, provision in Indian Constitution related to human rights philosophy and Jainism. The principles of Jainism give sanction to some of the most important rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration; these principles being protected by the safeguards of the state in modern times, are invaluable in their ability to act as guiding lights for the provisions they sanction. The principles of Jainism are implicit moral codes for a good society, and if practiced sincerely, can guarantee the kind of international understanding and world peace which is really needed to enjoy basic human rights.
2. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Edward Demenchonok

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The paper examines the discourse-theoretic approach to human rights in a diverse world. In contrast to a “moralizing” conception of human rights as a set of fixed moral rights that can be determined independently of collective deliberation in a public sphere, discourse ethics seeks to promote a discursive approach and intercultural dialogue. Attention is paid to Jürgen Habermas’s theory, drawing a fine line between Western and non-Western concepts and between the universal meaning of human rights and the local conditions of their realization. Through a reflection on the pragmatics of protest Rainer Forst uncovers the idea of moral personhood and the related concept of a universal right to justification regarding official coercion. Seyla Benhabib’s basic assumption is that all human beings are capable of “communicative freedom”. This implies a fundamental moral “right to have rights.” The paper examines the difficulties involved in moving from a speech-act immanent norm to a claim regarding a basic moral principle, and then moving from a moral principle to the content of human rights as a set of rights and liberties. Human rights are viewed as the universal criteria for the evaluation and the possible critique of any society, including a democratic one. These rights are also enabling conditions, in the legal and political sense, of free democratic iterations among the peoples and cultures of the world.
3. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Cem Deveci, Mehmet Ruhi Demiray

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Human rights are conceived moral response of humanity to the experiences of gross violations of human rights. Yet, almost in every case we come across with such violations, we also witness a common and disturbing tendency to overshadow the arguments from human rights. Hence, human rights are not able to fulfill the very function we expect of them in the most pertinent cases. In our view, this is because of the mindset of the “political” that competes with the mindset of human rights for guiding human practices. This paper evaluates these two mindsets so as to show how spoiling impacts the mindset of the “political” has against the standpoint of human rights. We will then conclude that, if we are to hold out on the triumph of “the political” over human rights in the very cases, whereby we need appealing to human rights at most, we should renounce the main vestige of “the political” within international and national legal-normative frameworks. This vestige is principally the idea of “sovereignty”, which is the arch and peak concept of the mainstream political imaginary.
4. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Carlos Javier Ferrero Martínez

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The Kantian notion of sublime is taken to be a dynamic kind of feeling that human beings can experiment on/with. For example, when an alpinist is on a mountain, alone, at a snowy edge, close to the peak he wants to conquer or when he watches a sunrise; in these moments the alpinist realizes how wonderful the nature is, how incredible the world is, and he realizes that only a thin line separates that feeling from death. There is just a void over that edge, a scary fall for hundreds of meters. This paper suggests that the sublime is a consequence of the approach, through these kinds of activities, to the environment; a feeling that provides us with knowledge of the limitless and, most importantly, a knowledge of our human condition. In the mountaineering, as in other kinds of physical, exploratory activities, the sublime is possible due to the physical skill and the power of decision and adaptation to the hazards of being in an extreme situation. This paper also shows how, through these kinds of activities, the sublime is maintained in confrontation with the western “society of simulation” and the ideas of virtual experience and “safe experience”.
5. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Miracy B. S. Gustin

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
It is not possible to refuse the obvious condition that in complex societies law as ideology adds important values to the knowledge of contemporary problems. Here, we will understand ideology as the proposal of independent moral principles as “good life” in Dworkin’s terms. In his article in the New York Review of Books (2011), the author declares that “moral standards prescribe how we ought to treat others; ethical standards, how we ought to live ourselves. The happiness that Plato and Aristotle evoked was to be achieved by living ethically”. In our proposal, we will submit to the debate this theory of good life applied to the great problems of excluded social groups in large cities and how Law is able to politicize the themes of Human Rights in peripheral societies. I will establish that good life and living ethically is possible even in excluded conditions. In resume, I will apply some of Dworkin’s statements in his book Justice for Hedgehogs, where he tries to find some conceptions of what it is to “live well”. Since for him morality should not depend on any benefit that being moral might bring, it must be categorical. We are forced to reinterpret this view once a good life is required to face perverse human conditions of social justice.
6. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Renate Holub

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Gramsci has been regarded as one of the most important critical intellectuals in the 20th century, and Vico as one of the most important philosophers of Italy. In this paper, I introduce Gramsci’s critical reflections on Vico, because they have not widely circulated. In these reflections, Gramsci remained profoundly unimpressed by Vico’s philosophy. He arrived at this conclusion by comparing ‘progressive’ intellectual traditions in France, Germany, and Britain while noting that in Italy a tradition comparable to those in Britain [political economists], France [enlightenment philosophers] and Germany [philosophy of history] was absent. I argue in this paper that Gramsci’s rejection of Vico offers an opportunity to rethink the relations between ‘national political theory’ and ‘international political theory’: for what Vico offered at the beginning of ‘modernity’ is a blueprint of the principle of the right to violence-less-ness not only in ‘national political theory,’ but also in ‘international relations theory.’ In other words, while predominant ‘modern political philosophers’ in the English, French, and German traditions promoted the right to violence-less-ness in ‘national law,’ in international law and international relations theory they maintained a principle of violence. To this day predominant international theories disregard the right to violence-less-ness by adhering to the principle and the facts of ‘just war theory.’ Vico had begun a discourse over three hundred years ago which had been by-passed by the prestige and influence of transatlantic political theories framed in the category of the ‘national.’ However, over the past decade or so, theories and institutions of global justice have emerged which attest to the prescience of Vico’s contributions to the evolution of a concept of human rights to violence-less-ness beyond national borders.
7. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Kenneth Keulman

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Humanitarian agencies have confronted one disaster after another over the last twenty-five years. Decades of intense growth in reacting to complex global calamities have seriously affected humanitarian efforts. Contending organizations – NGOs, states – engage in transnational interventions. From regions of natural disaster to sectors marked by political clashes, a new rationale for intervention has appeared which merges humanitarian assistance and military engagement. Humanitarian intervention sanctions the notion that military power is a necessary part of the responsibility to protect. The imperative to safeguard lives in jeopardy results in a form of humanitarian and military government in constant motion from one disaster to the next. Under the mandate of the right to intervene, this tactic confronts state sovereignty, particularly since humanitarian organizations engage in political activities such as establishing respect for human rights. The relation between military and humanitarian intervention in the context of disaster, is founded on a calculus of security, based in the legitimacy of measures meant to safeguard human life. A new form of humanitarian governance is thus emerging from military occupations and natural disasters. This paper will examine the human rights consequences of these states of disaster and the novel form of government associated with them.
8. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Peter G. Kirchschlaeger

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The UN General Assembly has adopted without vote the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training on December 19, 2011. For the first time, the international community has created a specific legal instrument on human rights education. The member-states declared the intention to be more active in human rights education and training. The Declaration defines as one aim of human rights education and training “to empower (…) to contribute to the building and promotion of a universal culture of human rights” (article 2/1). The concept of a universal culture of human rights can be found in other human rights documents and contexts of the human rights discourse as well. The question arises what the meaning of this concept is. The paper will discuss the concept of a universal culture of human rights. It will analyze the interplay between law and ethos-building in a society in relation to a universal culture of human rights. Beyond that, the role of human rights education for a “universal culture of human rights” will be examined.
9. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Rex Martin

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
It has been claimed that several of the rights in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) - in particular the social and economic rights to the provision of welfare in, for example, education - cannot literally be rights of everybody. We find two main lines of analysis that have been raised to back up this claim. (i) One of these lines is theoretical or normative in nature. Here I take up Onora O’Neill’s concern with the counterpart obligations that attach to the UDHR social and economic rights. She argues that these obligations do not have a universal character and cannot backstop universal moral rights. I suggest ways around her argument. (ii) The other main line concerns feasibility. Here I take up the argument that the UDHR social and economic rights apparently cannot, under existing conditions, be fulfilled at even a minimal level for millions upon millions of people. James Nickel, well aware of this problem, argues that these rights nonetheless do not, on grounds of infeasibility, fail of universality. I try to counter his argument. But I add, in conclusion, that these pressing practical problems with the UDHR welfare rights could possibly be removed in time, with concentrated effort.
10. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Jędrzej Niklas

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In this paper, the author addresses the problem of the human right to health - one of socioeconomic rights for which states accept an obligation under international law. The right to health is one of the most controversial human rights. In search of its justification, the author concerns: the Kantian concept of dignity; vital needs and Rawls’s theory of justice. In the following, it is discussed the difference between the approach to global health based on the humanitarian aid on the human rights. In response to criticism of the right to health based on the conviction that it has very wide scope, the conception of core concept is proposed. The author is convinced that the right to health is a basic and essential part of the modern human rights system.
11. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Nelli Rakhmankulova

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In today’s world the growth potential of freedom with its resulting risks and responsibilities can be found in three major interrelated areas of globalization, epistemization and humanization. Our analysis is based on the idea of freedom as a personality’s value, viewed as an individual self-determination towards the most valuable of all possible choices. Globalization provides a general access to collective achievements and introduces new opportunities for development at a global, personal and local level (we call this phenomenon “glocapersonalization”). Epistemization presupposes that leadership positions in society are taken by individuals with what we call as “K-knowledge”; i.e., knowledge and competencies that are key to the advancement of society. We maintain that to implement K-knowledge such individuals ought to possess high ethical standards. Finally, humanization is the ongoing recognition, ideologically and practically of the priority of human dignity and the value of each and every individual. The advancement of human rights is rooted in the implementation of freedom opportunities in all the three areas but mostly agrees with humanization processes. As a result, humanization today needs developing meta-principles, embracing a variety of local value-regulatory systems. Our claim is that the umbrella meta-principles should be those of humanity, justice and tolerance.
12. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Claudia Sanese

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In 1983 President Raúl Alfonsín created the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP), a commission to investigate the crimes against humanity for what happened in Argentina during the Dictadura Militar (Military Dictatorship) occurred in 1976. No doubt, it was the most flagrant attack against human rights in our country. The members of Conadep gathered testimonies and reports of disappearances, abductions and torture that the military government had carried out during the years of lead. With all those testimonies a document was written, Nunca más, prefaced by Ernesto Sabato, and led to the Trial of the Juntas Militares in 1985. However, in recent years we are attending a turn of story of the Human Rights. There are many signs. The prologue of Nunca más was censored, the veracity of the number of testimonies collected by Conadep was questioned, some information about victims was modified, and so on. Thus, the changing story modified the meaning of memory for Conadep from memory to seek justice into memory to get revenge.
13. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Bharathi Thummapudi

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Human rights, which are the natural/fundamental rights of every human being, are denied to Dalits in India. The paper discusses who Dalits are, their social status and the historical cause for the denial of human rights; An important and suitable case study will be presented to prove how Dalits are exploited and denied decent life in a democratic country. The constitution of India in its preamble ensures justice, liberty, equality and fraternity to all its citizens. Every democratic country and civilized society recognizes and guarantees the value of dignity and equality to all its members. Unfortunately, in India human life and human dignity have been disregarded today. For centuries in India social gradation based on castes is a permanent uncrossable set up. Ironically, the Hindu religion has sanctioned some castes the “natural superiority”. This has compelled the oppressed castes to fight for their rights and their right place in the society. The knowledge of their oppression and the conspiracy of their “lower place” in the gradation have come to Dalits through the education system introduced by the British during their rule. The Scheduled Castes (untouchable castes) adopted the nomenclature Dalit as a symbol that denotes revolution and change. Dalits believe in humanism. But the fundamental Hindu social system has determined to destroy Dalit as a human being Dalit rights are human rights. Dalits demand their share in all systems of their country, whether they are social, economic or political. Dalits have lost their dignity, life and lively hood in the caste system - and all Dalit movements should strive to regain the lost human personality by working strongly to eliminate this obnoxious system.
14. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Paul Tiensuu

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
With the rise of human rights and international courts, the universal rights have become a lingua franca of legitimation theory, while remaining unfounded, and thus function in the role of an unfounded foundation, founding the other rights without themselves needing to be founded. The right to life in particular is reckoned as one of the most fundamental rights by, for example, ECtHR. This article addresses the foundations and fundamentality of the right founded on individual life itself. In the landmark euthanasia case Pretty v. UK (ECHR 2346/02) the right to life was interpreted as an inalienable right to persistence of the subject as opposed to her will to self-determination. This interpretation, we demonstrate that it necessitates a metaphysical distinction of the subject from the bodily individual, a distinction that rises in the classical philosophy simultaneously with the question of unfounded foundations. Examining the backgrounds of abstraction of subject in the simultaneous development of new foundations of science and law in classical philosophy, we aim to reveal the problems implied in this concept of subject and in the fundamental right based on it.
15. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Rodolfo Vázquez

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
A restrictive interpretation of the principle of autonomy in terms of “personhood” or “normative agency” restrains the extension of human rights (deflation) and ends up being counterintuitive when accounting for people with a severely handicapped biopsychic capacity, yet who are still susceptible to the recognition of their rights. The normative agency criterion is insufficient so the “needs” criterion that expands the breadth of human rights (inflation) is proposed as a more radical approach in that the proper valuation of autonomy entails the assessment of the conditions necessary for its full realization.
16. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Ozge Dericiler Yucel

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The relation between human rights and the rule of law has been a tricky one. Still, today’s constitutional democracies rely upon human rights and the rule of law. Additionally, the UN has been promoting the rule of law officially since 1992. Despite having theoretical difficulties relating to this matter, some practices of the UN enable us to concretise human rights norms and thus make easier to hold States accountable for their acts. This paper deals with one of those practices, namely setting human rights indicators, and it questions the function of indicators as a tool for assessing the accountability and the rule of law.

articles in german

17. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Birden Güngören Bulgan

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Die Kritik der Menschenrechte hat seit der Französischen Revolution nicht aufgehört. Die Menschenrechte wurden nach der Französischen Revolution auf unterschiedliche Weise kritisiert. Neben der utilitaristischen und positivistischen Kritik lässt sich eine historische Kritik finden. Die Kritik der historischen Rechtsschule und auch Hegels Ansatz konzentrieren sich auf die Kritik des Naturrechts und der Abstraktion der Menschenrechte. Die historische Rechtsschule und Hegel sehen als Grundlage der Rechte die Sitten, die sich über lange Zeiträume und durch die Struktur der Gesellschaft historisch entwickelten. Der kulturelle Relativismus der Menschenrechte benutzt heute ähnliche Argumente. Jeder Staat hat seine eigene Dynamik und deshalb sind die universellen Menschenrechte nicht in allen Kulturkreisen gleichermaßen realisierbar. Hinzu kommt, dass die Menschenrechte auch als Legitimation für militärische Angriffe auf einige Länder missbraucht werden. Dadurch verlieren sie in anderen Regionen ein großes Potential ihrer Glaubwürdigkeit. Kann uns die von der historischen Rechtsschule und Hegel gebotene theoretische Basis in der Diskussion der Menschenrechte heute noch weiterhelfen? Hinzu kommt die Frage, ob die Menschenrechte einem Staat aufgezwungen werden können oder ob sie nicht doch durch einen internen Prozess der Staaten gefestigt werden müssen, damit sie nicht nur als Abstraktion bestehen.

articles in russian

18. Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 15
Любовь Владиленовна Денисова

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Freedom of conscience belongs to universal natural rights. It is defined as claim of the possibility to confess any religion or to confess no reli-gion at all, individually. Freedom of conscience has natural boundaries for its realization. First, this is a characteristic of the subject of religion, depending on age. Secondly, it is the abuse, which humiliates religious freedom and, thirdly, it is an incitement to a crime that leads beyond the boundaries of loyalty and annulation of rights. The boundaries of freedom of conscience are primarily manifested by the right of propagation of religious views and the right of ac-complishment of religious rites.