Neither relative nor universal: A response to Donnelly

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 183-193

  Goodhart, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 39749084736     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.2008.0005     Document Type: Note

References (34)

1. Jack Donnelly, The Relative Universality of Human Rights, 29 HUM. RTS. Q. 281 (2007).
2. Id. at 282.
3. Id. at 294.
4. Id. at 281.
5. Id. at 292 n.27.
6. Id. at 299.
7. Id. at 306.
8. Id. at 282.
9. Id.
10. While many human beings - perhaps all normal human beings - possess the capacity for autonomous action, this capacity is not shared by all members of the species.
11. Donnelly, supra note 1, at 283.
12. Id.] at 282.
13. Id. at 287-88.
14. Id. at 288.
15. Id.
16. Id. at 289.
17. Id.
18. Id. at 290.
19. Curiously, what Donnelly describes resembles not an overlapping consensus on political principles but rather a convergence of comprehensive moral doctrines - precisely the opposite of what Rawls imagined. Perhaps Donnelly sees "the moral equality of all human beings" as a political rather than metaphysical principle and intends to signal that different moral traditions have divergent reasons for believing in this moral equality. These questions fall outside this essay's scope. Id. at 291.
20. Id. at 292 (original emphases.)
21. Id. at 284-86.
22. Id. at 292-93.
23. Id. at 292.
24. Id.
25. Id. at 292-93.
26. HENRY SHUE, BASIC RIGHTS: SUBSISTENCE, AFFLUENCE, AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY (1996); Donnelly, supra note 1, at 287.
27. Cf. Michael Ignatieff, The Attack on Human Rights, 80 FOR. AFF. (2001).
28. Crucially, this account accommodates civil, political, social, and economic rights. For an elaboration of this point see Michael Goodhart, "None So Poor That He Is Compelled to Sell Himself". Democracy, Subsistence, and Basic Income, in ECONOMIC RIGHTS: CONCEPTUAL, MEASUREMENT AND POLICY ISSUES (Shareen Hertel, Lanse Minkler & Richard A. Wilson eds., 2007); MICHAEL GOODHART, DEMOCRACY As HUMAN RIGHTS: FREEDOM AND EQUALITY IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION, at ch. 7 (2005).
29. See Charles R. Beitz, Human Rights as a Common Concern, 95 Am. POL. SCI. REV. 269 (2001); cf. Amartya Sen, Democracy as a Universal Value, 10 J. DEMOC. 3 (1999).
30. This account is quite similar to Donnelly's except for the broader range of threats it comprises.
31. Here, as in so many respects, Donnelly's arguments have been formative of my own thinking. See esp. JACK DONNELLY, UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 7 (2d ed. 2003).
32. Donnelly, supra note 1, at 297.
33. See Susan Mendus, Human Rights in Political Theory, 43 POL, STUD. SPECIAL ISSUE: POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS 11 (David Beetham ed., 1995); cf. David Beetham, Introduction: Human Rights in the Study of Politics, 43 POL. STUD. SPECIAL ISSUE: POLITICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS (David Beetham ed., 1995).
34. Except for the vocabulary, this view echoes a position recently outlined by Donnelly, who argues that "universal [sic] moral principles or practices are those which, given the state of our knowledge and our current degree of moral development, we are convinced are both proper and necessary." Jack Donnelly, Which Human Rights Should We Have? 7 HUM. RTS. & HUM. WELFARE 89 (2007).