PHIL 2103: Philosophy of Human Rights
Carleton University
TERM:
TIME:
INSTRUCTOR:
OFFICE:
OFFICE HOURS:
EMAIL:
Early Summer, 2015 (May 4th – June 16th)
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:05 – 12:55
Dr. Shashi Motilal
3A47
TBA
[email protected]
COURSE SUMMARY
Most of us today believe that we humans have rights and that we possess these rights
quite independently of any laws made by governments or international bodies such as the
United Nations. (After all, we invoke these human rights as the reason for making laws
which promote and protect them and for criticizing laws which fail to respect them.)
Belief in such universal rights, moreover, plays a central role, both domestically and
internationally, in justifying and evaluating social and political policies, programs and
initiatives.
Despite the prominence of human rights, however, they remain puzzling, problematic and
controversial in many respects. One problem concerns their justification. How do we
really know that human rights exist, particularly in view of the fact that they cannot be
identified with any legal rights guaranteed by actual laws? Where do these rights come
from? What is their source? There are several competing answers to these questions, and
it is not easy to determine which of them is correct. A second problem concerns the scope
of human rights. Precisely what things do we have a right to? Civil and political rights,
e.g. the right not to be imprisoned unjustly, are fairly uncontroversial. But do we also
have a right to free health care, to an education, or to a decent job? And how is it to be
determined whether we have a right to these and other things? A third major controversy
about human rights concerns their universality. There appear to be cultures around the
world that do not acknowledge the existence of many of the rights we take for granted.
Are human rights, then, merely a Western cultural phenomenon, and is the attempt to
impose them on other cultures merely another form of Western imperialism?
Our objective in this course is to investigate and explore these and other philosophical
issues that arise in connection with human rights. In addition to this, however, we will
also do our best to provide a detailed, rigorous, systematic and convincing defense of the
conception of human rights embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
other prominent human rights documents.
Course Readings
Readings for the course are on Reserve in the Library.
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TEACHING METHODS AND CLASS FORMAT
The emphasis in the course will be on reasoning, analysis and critical evaluation of issues
related to human rights. Readings will be assigned for each class, and students will be
expected to come prepared to discuss them. Mode of instruction will be mainly lectures,
power point presentations and screening of documentary films followed by group
discussions and interactive sessions. The Instructor will not hesitate to defend particular
positions or views, but it is to be understood that students must form their own opinions
and be prepared to support them by their own arguments.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Grading
Midterm: A midterm exam will be held in class (date to be announced in the class). The
midterm will be worth 30% of the final grade. It will be closed-book and will consist of
short answer questions.
Class Quizzes: A simple quiz of up to 5 very short questions on the assigned reading
material, class discussions, films etc. will be taken at the beginning of each class. The
marks of 10 best quizzes will be calculated to make up 20% of the final grade.
Final Online Take Home Exam: Students will be set a Final online “Take Home Exam”
worth 35% of the final grade. This will be due at the end of the exam period for the
course. Details will be discussed in class.
Class Participation: This will count for 15% of your grade. Students will be graded on a
combination of attendance, their eagerness to participate in class discussions and class
preparation.
Topics and Readings (Background and Essential)
What are Rights; the Origin, Development and Evolution of the concept of Human
Rights
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Reading 1: L.W. Sumner, “Rights” in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory ed.
Hugh La Follette (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000) pp. 288-305
Reading 2: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (from the U.N. website,
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)
Reading 3: James W. Nickel, “Human Rights” in Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed.
Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker (New York: Garland, 1992) I:
pp.561-565. See also, James W. Nickel, “ Human Rights” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy
Reading 4: R. J. Vincent, “The Idea of Human Rights” and “Human Rights in
Western Political Thought” from Human Rights and International Relations,
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991). pp 7 – 36
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Reading 5: Henry Shue, “Subsistence and Security” in Basic Rights: Subsistence,
Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980) pp13
-34
Reading 6: John Hospers, “What Libertarianism Is”, from Social Ethics, Morality
and Social Policy, ed. Thomas A.Mappes and Jane S. Zembaty, 5th edition (New
York: McGraw Hill, 1997) pp. 349 - 356
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Reading 7: Maurice Cranston, “Human Rights, Real and Supposed”, from
Political Theory and the Rights of Man, ed. D.D. Raphael (Bloomington, Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1967) pp 43 -53
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Reading 8: G.J.H Van Hoof, “The Legal Nature of Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights: A Rebuttal of Some Traditional Views” in International Human Rights in
Context: Law, Politics, Morals, ed. Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1996) pp 279 -285
Justification/ Foundation of the Concept of Human Rights
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Reading 9: James W. Nickel, “Starting Points for Justifying Rights” and
“Justifying Specific Rights”, from Making Sense of Human Rights, (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1987) pp 82 – 119
Reading 10: John Stuart Mill, excerpt from Utilitarianism, from Utilitarianism,
On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, ed. H.B. Acton
(London: Dent, 1972) pp. 55 -57
Reading 11: John Locke, excerpts from Second Treatise on Government, ed. C.B.
Macpherson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980) pp 7 -22, 65 -68
Reading 12: Onora O’Neill, excerpt from: “Ending World Hunger” from Matters
of Life and Death, ed. Tom Regan, 3rd edition, (New York: McGraw Hill, 1980)
pp 258 -272
Reading 13 : The Politics of Aristotle, ed. and trans. Ernest Barker (Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1958) Bk. I, Ch. III-VII (pp. 8-18).
Reading 14 : Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789, with
introduction by Jeremy Waldron ‘Nonsense Upon Stilts’: Bentham, Burke and
Marx on the Rights of Man (London: Methuen, 1987) pp 22 -28
Critique of the concept of Human Rights
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Reading 15: Jeremy Bentham, “A Critical Examination of the Declaration of
Rights,” in Applied Social and Political Philosophy, eds. Elizabeth Smith and H
Gene Blocker (Englewood cliffs, New Jersey, 1994) pp 104-111
Reading 16: Mary Wollstonecraft, excerpt from The Rights of Woman (1792) in
The Human Rights Reader, ed. Micheline R. Ishay (New York: Routledge, 1997)
pp. 147- 158.
Reading 17: Virginia Held, “Rights” in Alison Jaggar and Marion Young (ed.) A
Companion to Feminist Philosophy, (Blackwell, 2000) pp 500 -510
Reading 18: Hilary Charlesworth, “Human Rights as Men’s Rights”, from
Women’s Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, ed. Julie Peters and Andrea
Wolper (New York: Routledge, 1995) pp 103 -113
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Reading 19: Charlotte Bunch, “Women’s Rights as Human Rights: Towards a
Re-Vision of Human Rights” from Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, ed.
Larry May and Shari Collins Sharatt (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1994) 41-50.
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Reading 20: R. Rorty, “Human rights, Rationality and Sentimentality” in S.
Shute and S. Hurley (eds.) On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures,
(New York: Basic Books, 1993) pp 112 -134
Reading 21: A. MacIntyre, “A Critique of Gewirth and the Notion of Rights” in
Louis P.Pojman, Ethical Theory: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 2nd
edition, (Wadsworth Publishing Co. 1985), pp 715 -718
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Some conceptual issues related to Human Rights
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Reading 22: David Lyons, “The Correlativity of Rights and Duties” in Nous, Vol.
4, No. 1. (Feb., 1970), pp 45 -55
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Reading 23: Henry Shue, “Correlative Duties”, Basic Rights: Subsistence,
Affluence and US Foreign Policy, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980)
pp. 52 -55
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Reading 24: Fernando R. Teson. "International Human Rights and Cultural
Relativism," in The Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Patrick Hayden (Paragon
House, St. Paul, Minnesota, 2001) 379-386. ISBN 1-557778-790-5.
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Reading 25: Ruth Benedict, "A Defense of Moral Relativism," in Do the Right
Thing, ed. Francis J. Beckwith (Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers,
1996) 5-9. ISBN 0-86720-972-0.
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Reading 26: Mary Midgley, "Trying Out One's New Sword," in Morality and
Moral Controversies; Readings in Moral, Social, and Political Philosophy, 6th
ed., ed. John Arthur (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002), 7781. ISBN 0-13-034155-X.
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Reading 27: A. Gewirth, “Are There Any Absolute Rights” Philosophical
Quarterly 31 (1981) 1-16
Reading 28: J. M. Alexander, “Capabilities, Human Rights and Moral Pluralism”
in The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 8/3, 2004, pp 355 -366
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The Concept of Human Rights in Non-Western Cultures
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Reading 29: Virginia Leary, “The Effects of Western Perspectives on
International Human Rights” in Human Rights in Africa: A Cross-Cultural
Perspective, ed. A.A. An-Na’im and Francis M. Deng (Washington, D.C.: The
Brookings Institution,1990) 15-30
Reading 30: Kwasi Wiredu, “An Akan Perspectrive on Human Rights,” from
Human Rights in Africa; A Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. A.A. An-Na‛im and
Francis M. Deng (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990) 243-260.
Reading 31: Jack Donnelly, “ Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytical
Critique of Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights”, American Political
Science Review 76 (1982) 303 -316
Reading 32: Shashi Motilal, “Human Moral Obligations, Dharma, and Human
Rights” (manuscript provided with permission from the author, professor’s copy).
Reading 33: Rhoda Howard, “Dignity, Community, and Human Rights”, in
International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals, ed. Henry J.
Steiner and Philip Alston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) pp 221 -223
Reading 34: Xiarong Li, “ ‘Asian Values’ and the Universality of Human Rights”,
from The Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Patrick Hayden (St.Paul, Minnesota:
Paragon House, 2001) pp 397- 408
Reading 35: Claude Ake, “The African Context of Human Rights,” from Applied
Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, ed. Larry May and Shari Collins Sharratt
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1994) 35-40.
Reading 36: Amartya Sen, “Human Rights and Economic Achievements,” from
from The East Asian Challenge For Human Rights, ed. Joanne R. Bauer and
Daniel A. Bell (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999) 88-99.
Is there a Right to Development?
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Reading 37: Jack Donnelly, “The Right to Development: How Not to Link
Human Rights and Development” from Human Rights and Development in Africa
ed. Claude E. Welch Jr. and Ronald J. Meltzer (Albany: SUNY Press, 1984) pp
261 -283.
Reading 38: Jay Drydyk, “Globalization and Human Rights” in Global Justice,
Global Democracy (Halifax: Fernwood, 1996) pp. 159-183
Reading 39: Henry Steiner and Philip Alston, “The Right to Development”;
Philip Alston, “Revitalising United Nations Work on Human Rights and
Development”; Georges Abi-Saab, “The Legal Formulation of a Right to
Development”; Mohammed Bedjaoui, “The Right to Development”; Jack
Donnelly, “In Search of the Unicorn: The Jurisprudence and Politics of the Right
to Development”; U.N. General Assembly, Declaration of the Right to
Development, in International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals,
ed. Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) pp.1110 1127
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Department of Philosophy and Carleton University Policies (Summer 15)
Assignments:
Unless specifically told otherwise by their instructors, students:
 must not use a plastic or cardboard cover or paper clips
 must staple the paper (there is a stapler on the essay box)
 must include the following:
student name
student number
course number and section
instructor’s name
• The Philosophy Department does not accept assignments by FAX.
You may send them by courier, if necessary.
• No assignments will be accepted after the last day for handing in
term work – see dates in next column.
• Assignments handed in through the essay box (just inside the glass
doors, Paterson Hall, Floor 3A) must be dropped into the box by
4:15 on a regular business day in order to be date-stamped with
that day’s date. Assignments handed in after 4:15 or on a nonbusiness day will be stamped as having been handed in on the next
business day.
• Students are required to keep copies of their assignments. If your
paper is lost at any point, you will be considered not to have
submitted it if you cannot produce a copy immediately on request.
Deferrals for Term Work:
If you miss a final examination and/or fail to submit a final assignment
by the due date because of circumstances beyond your control, you
may apply for a deferral of examination/assignment. For deferred
examinations, you must apply within 5 working days after the
scheduled date of your exam. To apply for deferral of a final
assignment, you must apply within 5 working days of the last scheduled
day of classes. Visit the Registrar’s Office for more information.
Plagiarism:
It is the responsibility of each student to understand the meaning of
‘plagiarism’ as defined in the Undergraduate or Graduate Calendars,
and to avoid both committing plagiarism and aiding or abetting
plagiarism by other students. (Undergraduate Calendar Academic
Regulations, section 14.3, or
http://calendar.carleton.ca/undergrad/regulations/academicregulation
softheuniversity/acadregsuniv14/
Academic Accommodation:
You may need special arrangements to meet your academic obligations
during the term. For an accommodation request the processes are as
follows:
Pregnancy obligation: write to your professor with any requests for
academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as
soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist.
For more details visit the Equity Services website:
http://www2.carleton.ca/equity/
Religious obligation: write to your professor with any requests for
academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as
soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist.
For more details visit the Equity Services website:
http://www2.carleton.ca/equity/
Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: The Paul
Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC) provides services to
students with Learning Disabilities (LD), psychiatric/mental health
disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism
Spectrum Disorders (ASD), chronic medical conditions, and impairments
in mobility, hearing, and vision. If you have a disability requiring
academic accommodations in this course, please contact PMC at 613520-6608 or [email protected] for a formal evaluation. If you are
already registered with the PMC, contact your PMC coordinator to send
your Letter of Accommodation at the beginning of the term, and no
later than two weeks before the first in-class scheduled test or exam
requiring accommodation (if applicable). After requesting
accommodation from PMC, meet with your professor to ensure
accommodation arrangements are made. Please consult the PMC
website for the deadline to request accommodations for the formallyscheduled exam (if applicable) at http://www2.carleton.ca/pmc/newand-current-students/dates-and-deadlines/
You can visit the Equity Services website to view the policies and to
obtain more detailed information on academic accommodation
at http://www2.carleton.ca/equity/
Important Dates:
May 4
May 11
Classes start.
Last day for registration and course changes for early
summer courses.
May 15
Last day for registration and course changes for full
summer courses.
May 18
Statutory holiday, university closed.
Last day for a full fee adjustment when withdrawing from
May 22
early and full summer courses.
June 9
Last day for tests or examinations in early Summer courses
below the 4000-level before the final examination period.
June 16
Last day for early summer classes. Last day for handing in
term work and the last day that can be specified by a
course instructor as a due date for term work for courses
that end on this day.
June 16
Last day for academic withdrawal from early summer
courses.
June 19-25 Final examinations.
July 1
July 2
Statutory holiday, university closed.
Late summer courses begin and full summer courses
resume.
July 9
Last day for registration and course changes for late
summer courses.
July 23
Last day for entire fee adjustment when withdrawing from
late summer courses.
Aug. 3
Statutory holiday, university closed
Aug. 7
Last day for tests or examinations in the late Summer
courses below the 4000-level before the final examination
period.
Aug. 14
Classes follow a Monday schedule. Last day for late and
full summer term classes. Last day for handing in term
work and the last day that can be specified by a course
instructor as a due date for term work for courses that end
on this day.
Aug. 14
Last day for academic withdrawal from late summer and
full summer courses.
Aug. 17-23 Final examinations.
Addresses:
Department of Philosophy:
Registrar’s Office:
Student Academic Success Centre:
Writing Tutorial Service:
MacOdrum Library
3A35 Paterson Hall
www.carleton.ca/philosophy
520-2110
300 Tory
www.carleton.ca/registrar
520-3500
302 Tory
www.carleton.ca/sasc
520-7850
4th Floor, Library
http://www1.carleton.ca/sasc/w
riting-tutorial-service/
520-6632
http://www.library.carleton.ca/
520-2735
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