This volume collects the principal works of the late Warren Quinn. The papers cover a broad range of topics and may, for present purposes, be divided three ways, as variously concerning problems of metaethics, of the rationality of morality, and of substantive or practical ethics. I will not discuss Quinn’s great papers on abortion, punishment, double effect, and the distinction between killing and letting die—except to remark that they are united by an underlying anticonsequentialist program. They are, I think, his (...) best-known works. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Basic Human Rights: Rawls's List Basic Human Rights: Their Nature and Function Basic Human Rights: A Rawlsian Justification Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes.

This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the "political" or "practical" perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional "humanist" or "naturalistic" perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have against all other individuals in virtue of interests characteristic of their common humanity. This essay argues that (...) once we identify the two perspectives in their best light, we can see that they are complementary and that in fact we need both to make good normative sense of the contemporary practice of human rights. It explains how humanist and political considerations can and should work in tandem to account for the concept, content, and justification of human rights. (shrink)

This article discusses Luigi Caranti’s Kant’s Political Legacy, which argues, among other things, that a Kantian reconstruction of dignity can provide a foundation for human rights. Caranti’s book is one of the most powerful recent reconstructions of Kant’s political philosophy. Four main points are argued in response. First, to what extent can dignity understood as a value ground the essentially relational character of human rights claims? Second, does Caranti explain why our mere rational capacity to set moral ends has dignity (...) rather than the realization of that capacity in a morally righteous will? Third, how can the argument provided avoid the conclusion that, because people’s capacities vary, their dignity varies too? Fourth, is Kant’s political philosophy incompatible with our modern understanding of human rights and, in particular, their function in international law and practice? (shrink)