Human rights are rights which all persons equally have simply insofar as they are human. But are there any such rights? How, if at all, do we know that there are? It is with this question of knowledge, and the related question of existence, that I want to deal in this paper. 1. CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS The attempt to answer each of these questions, however, at once raises further, more directly conceptual questions. In what sense may human rights be said to (...) exist? What does it mean to say that there are such rights or that persons have them? This question, in turn, raises a question about the nature of human rights. What is the meaning of the expression “human rights”? Within the limits of the present paper I cannot hope to deal adequately with the controversial issues raised by these conceptual questions. But we may make at least a relevant beginning by noting that, in terms of Hohfeld's famous classification of four different kinds of rights, the human rights are primarily claim-rights, in that they entail correlative duties of other persons or groups to act or to refrain from acting in ways required for the right-holders' having that to which they have rights. It will help our understanding of this and other aspects of human rights if we note that the full structure of a claim-right is given by the following formula: A has a right to X against B by virtue of Y. There are five main elements here: first, the Subject of the right, the person or persons who have the right; second, the Nature of the right; third, the Object of the right, what it is a right to; fourth, the Respondent of the right, the person or persons who have the correlative duty; fifth, the Justifying Basis or Ground of the right. (shrink)

In a posthumous paper, Perelman discusses his decision to bring his theory of argumentation together with rhetoric rather than calling it an informal logic. This is due in part because of the centrality he gives to audience, and in part because of the negative attitude that informal logicians have to rhetoric. In this paper, I explore both of these concerns by way of considering what benefits Perelman’s work can have for informal logic, and what insights the work of informal logicians (...) might bring to the project of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca. (shrink)

Infusing logic with new rhetoric, dialogical pragmatics, and emphasizing argument context revolutionized the practice of logic. Critiquing oppressive practices and promoting justice, argumentationists empower participants to mediate their own argumentative situations. Against relativism to rescue the normative utility of good argument, argumentationists invoke the universal audience. Still, context-concerns eclipse its independence or resurrect rationalist absolutism. This vacillation imposes an external mediation that subverts establishing theoretical ground for promoting an empowering culture of justice.