Henry Phelps Brown
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198286486
- eISBN:
- 9780191596773
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198286481.003.0004
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Public and Welfare
The major part of this chapter is devoted to the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century––the American and French, both of which claimed the equality of man at their outset, but it starts by ...
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The major part of this chapter is devoted to the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century––the American and French, both of which claimed the equality of man at their outset, but it starts by looking at the ideas of John Locke in Britain at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke had been working out a philosophy of government that was to exercise international influence throughout the following century and to lay the philosophical foundations for the American Revolution, and he affirmed near the start of his enquiry (and as a by‐product of his argument) the original equality of man in the state of nature. The second section of the chapter examines the American Declaration of Independence in relation to belief in equality, and the third examines the French Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens. Most of the rest of the chapter considers the situation in Britain in the eighteenth century––looking first at social inequality, and then at the English tradition of revolt and levelling (the Levellers). The final section briefly considers the limits of eighteenth‐century liberalism.Less
The major part of this chapter is devoted to the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century––the American and French, both of which claimed the equality of man at their outset, but it starts by looking at the ideas of John Locke in Britain at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke had been working out a philosophy of government that was to exercise international influence throughout the following century and to lay the philosophical foundations for the American Revolution, and he affirmed near the start of his enquiry (and as a by‐product of his argument) the original equality of man in the state of nature. The second section of the chapter examines the American Declaration of Independence in relation to belief in equality, and the third examines the French Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens. Most of the rest of the chapter considers the situation in Britain in the eighteenth century––looking first at social inequality, and then at the English tradition of revolt and levelling (the Levellers). The final section briefly considers the limits of eighteenth‐century liberalism.
Anne Stott
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199274888
- eISBN:
- 9780191714962
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274888.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Hannah More's career as a conduct-book writer continued with her Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World (1791). In the early part of 1791, her writing career was disrupted by the elopement ...
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Hannah More's career as a conduct-book writer continued with her Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World (1791). In the early part of 1791, her writing career was disrupted by the elopement from the Park Street school of the Jamaican heiress, Clementina Clerke with Richard Vining Perry. The case became a cause célèbre. As a friend of Edmund Burke, Hannah More approved of his Reflections on the Revolution in France, and she became one of the most successful loyalist writers of the 1790s. At the end of 1792, she published anonymously her Village Politics, a landmark in the literature of popular loyalism, in response to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, in which she put Burke's conservative arguments into the mouths of common people. In 1793, she wrote Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont in order to raise funds for the émigré French clergy.Less
Hannah More's career as a conduct-book writer continued with her Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World (1791). In the early part of 1791, her writing career was disrupted by the elopement from the Park Street school of the Jamaican heiress, Clementina Clerke with Richard Vining Perry. The case became a cause célèbre. As a friend of Edmund Burke, Hannah More approved of his Reflections on the Revolution in France, and she became one of the most successful loyalist writers of the 1790s. At the end of 1792, she published anonymously her Village Politics, a landmark in the literature of popular loyalism, in response to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, in which she put Burke's conservative arguments into the mouths of common people. In 1793, she wrote Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont in order to raise funds for the émigré French clergy.
Peter de Bolla
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254385
- eISBN:
- 9780823261178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254385.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
This chapter explores how Tom Paine’s Rights of Man put into circulation a phrase ‘the rights of man’. It argues that this phrase is related but not identical to the concept ‘rights of man’ that was ...
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This chapter explores how Tom Paine’s Rights of Man put into circulation a phrase ‘the rights of man’. It argues that this phrase is related but not identical to the concept ‘rights of man’ that was developed in the colonies before the American war of Independence. It demonstrates how a conceptual form works in the world and also how during the 1790’s in Britain it was also effectively neutered.Less
This chapter explores how Tom Paine’s Rights of Man put into circulation a phrase ‘the rights of man’. It argues that this phrase is related but not identical to the concept ‘rights of man’ that was developed in the colonies before the American war of Independence. It demonstrates how a conceptual form works in the world and also how during the 1790’s in Britain it was also effectively neutered.
Peter de Bolla
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254385
- eISBN:
- 9780823261178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254385.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
This chapter presents a data dependent account of the formation of eighteenth century accounts of the rights of man. It makes a distinction between right and rights and demonstrates the difference in ...
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This chapter presents a data dependent account of the formation of eighteenth century accounts of the rights of man. It makes a distinction between right and rights and demonstrates the difference in architecture between these two concepts. The emergence of a third concept, ‘rights of man’ is also tracked through the analysis of word searches in Eighteenth Century Collections On Line.Less
This chapter presents a data dependent account of the formation of eighteenth century accounts of the rights of man. It makes a distinction between right and rights and demonstrates the difference in architecture between these two concepts. The emergence of a third concept, ‘rights of man’ is also tracked through the analysis of word searches in Eighteenth Century Collections On Line.
Matthew Craven
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199217908
- eISBN:
- 9780191705380
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217908.003.0004
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
This chapter explores the issue of extra-territoriality and its relations to economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights). The discussion of extra-territoriality and ESC rights is placed in the ...
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This chapter explores the issue of extra-territoriality and its relations to economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights). The discussion of extra-territoriality and ESC rights is placed in the context of the Arendt's critique of the ‘Rights of Man’ as developed in the work of Agamben and Balibar. It argues that Arendt's warning that the advancement of human rights might justify processes of exclusion and dispossession at precisely the same moment at which it opposes them, retains considerable force for the contemporary ESC rights project, particularly when the latter is framed in territorial terms.Less
This chapter explores the issue of extra-territoriality and its relations to economic, social, and cultural rights (ESC rights). The discussion of extra-territoriality and ESC rights is placed in the context of the Arendt's critique of the ‘Rights of Man’ as developed in the work of Agamben and Balibar. It argues that Arendt's warning that the advancement of human rights might justify processes of exclusion and dispossession at precisely the same moment at which it opposes them, retains considerable force for the contemporary ESC rights project, particularly when the latter is framed in territorial terms.
Peter de Bolla
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254385
- eISBN:
- 9780823261178
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254385.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
The Architecture of Concepts proposes a radically new way of understanding the history of ideas. Taking as its example human rights, it develops a distinctive kind of conceptual analysis that enables ...
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The Architecture of Concepts proposes a radically new way of understanding the history of ideas. Taking as its example human rights, it develops a distinctive kind of conceptual analysis that enables us to see with precision how the concept of human rights was formed in the eighteenth century. The first chapter outlines an innovative account of concepts as cultural entities. The second develops an original methodology for recovering the historical formation of the concept of human rights based on data extracted from digital archives. This enables us to track the construction of conceptual architectures over time. Having established the architecture of the concept of human rights, the book then examines two key moments in its historical formation: the First Continental Congress in 1775 and the publication of Tom Paine’s Rights of Man in 1792. Arguing that we have yet to fully understand or appreciate the consequences of the eighteenth-century invention of the concept “rights of man,” the final chapter addresses our problematic contemporary attempts to leverage human rights as the most efficacious way of achieving universal equality.Less
The Architecture of Concepts proposes a radically new way of understanding the history of ideas. Taking as its example human rights, it develops a distinctive kind of conceptual analysis that enables us to see with precision how the concept of human rights was formed in the eighteenth century. The first chapter outlines an innovative account of concepts as cultural entities. The second develops an original methodology for recovering the historical formation of the concept of human rights based on data extracted from digital archives. This enables us to track the construction of conceptual architectures over time. Having established the architecture of the concept of human rights, the book then examines two key moments in its historical formation: the First Continental Congress in 1775 and the publication of Tom Paine’s Rights of Man in 1792. Arguing that we have yet to fully understand or appreciate the consequences of the eighteenth-century invention of the concept “rights of man,” the final chapter addresses our problematic contemporary attempts to leverage human rights as the most efficacious way of achieving universal equality.
Peter de Bolla
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254385
- eISBN:
- 9780823261178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254385.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
This chapter traces the history of debate in the colonies during the mid eighteenth century and leading up to the First Continental Congress around the issue of rights. It demonstrates how a new ...
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This chapter traces the history of debate in the colonies during the mid eighteenth century and leading up to the First Continental Congress around the issue of rights. It demonstrates how a new concept, ‘rights of man’ came to have currency in the colonies at this time. This concept helped the colonists explain and understand how they could propose and eventuate a separation from the mother country.Less
This chapter traces the history of debate in the colonies during the mid eighteenth century and leading up to the First Continental Congress around the issue of rights. It demonstrates how a new concept, ‘rights of man’ came to have currency in the colonies at this time. This concept helped the colonists explain and understand how they could propose and eventuate a separation from the mother country.
Ayten Gündoğdu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199370412
- eISBN:
- 9780199370443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199370412.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
The chapter examines the distinctive contours of Arendt’s critique of human rights and centers on her analysis of “the perplexities of the Rights of Man” in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt’s ...
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The chapter examines the distinctive contours of Arendt’s critique of human rights and centers on her analysis of “the perplexities of the Rights of Man” in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt’s analysis highlights the need to rethink human rights in the light of challenging problems of rightlessness such as those posed by the twentieth-century crisis of statelessness. What distinguishes Arendt’s critique from that of various others (including those offered by Bentham, Burke, Marx, and recently, Agamben) is its aporetic approach attentive to the equivocal and contingent trajectories of human rights. To understand Arendt’s aporetic inquiry of human rights, the chapter turns to her reflections on Socrates, especially in The Life of the Mind. The analysis in this chapter responds to Jacques Rancière’s argument that Arendt’s critique renders human rights tautological or void. Contra what Rancière argues, Arendt’s aporetic approach allows her to interweave a radical critique of human rights with a call for radical rethinking in terms of a right to have rights.Less
The chapter examines the distinctive contours of Arendt’s critique of human rights and centers on her analysis of “the perplexities of the Rights of Man” in The Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt’s analysis highlights the need to rethink human rights in the light of challenging problems of rightlessness such as those posed by the twentieth-century crisis of statelessness. What distinguishes Arendt’s critique from that of various others (including those offered by Bentham, Burke, Marx, and recently, Agamben) is its aporetic approach attentive to the equivocal and contingent trajectories of human rights. To understand Arendt’s aporetic inquiry of human rights, the chapter turns to her reflections on Socrates, especially in The Life of the Mind. The analysis in this chapter responds to Jacques Rancière’s argument that Arendt’s critique renders human rights tautological or void. Contra what Rancière argues, Arendt’s aporetic approach allows her to interweave a radical critique of human rights with a call for radical rethinking in terms of a right to have rights.
Dan Edelstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226588988
- eISBN:
- 9780226589039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226589039.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
When the French themselves began drafting their own Declaration, they clearly had American models in mind: two-thirds of the final French articles have antecedents in American texts. But this family ...
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When the French themselves began drafting their own Declaration, they clearly had American models in mind: two-thirds of the final French articles have antecedents in American texts. But this family resemblance is also misleading. The French did not have the same judicial tradition to draw on. Instead, they adhered to the continental natural law tradition and sought the perfection of civil law on the basis of natural law. Rights, in this perspective, did not always trump laws. Critics who fault the 1789 Declaration for succumbing to légicentrisme are thus misguided. The French concern with la loi is not a legacy of Louisquatorzian centralization, but rather of a venerable, pan-European discipline of natural law. But the French did have their own constitutional legacy, which would come into conflict with this doctrine of social naturalism. Absent from the Declaration itself, the demand for protections of national rights would come to dominate political discourse after 1789. As France lurched from crisis to crisis, these collective rights came to be seen as more critical than individual ones. Those who violated these rights became the worst kind of enemy: l’ennemi du peuple, who would be the target of violent legislation during the Terror.Less
When the French themselves began drafting their own Declaration, they clearly had American models in mind: two-thirds of the final French articles have antecedents in American texts. But this family resemblance is also misleading. The French did not have the same judicial tradition to draw on. Instead, they adhered to the continental natural law tradition and sought the perfection of civil law on the basis of natural law. Rights, in this perspective, did not always trump laws. Critics who fault the 1789 Declaration for succumbing to légicentrisme are thus misguided. The French concern with la loi is not a legacy of Louisquatorzian centralization, but rather of a venerable, pan-European discipline of natural law. But the French did have their own constitutional legacy, which would come into conflict with this doctrine of social naturalism. Absent from the Declaration itself, the demand for protections of national rights would come to dominate political discourse after 1789. As France lurched from crisis to crisis, these collective rights came to be seen as more critical than individual ones. Those who violated these rights became the worst kind of enemy: l’ennemi du peuple, who would be the target of violent legislation during the Terror.
David Lieberman
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474449229
- eISBN:
- 9781474460200
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474449229.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Critics who were sceptical of the particular fusion of law and history in natural jurisprudence launched their assaults in the later eighteenth-century from within established religious ...
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Critics who were sceptical of the particular fusion of law and history in natural jurisprudence launched their assaults in the later eighteenth-century from within established religious denominations, or asserted the view that the anticipated reforms would fail, being insufficiently grounded on an accurate portrayal of human nature. The latter approach has been especially associated with Jeremy Bentham, who for many scholars has become the most prominent opponent of rights-based theories. This chapter reconsiders this view, charting Bentham’s view of natural rights from his earliest writings to the summary Constitutional codes developed for post-Napoleonic Europe. The Bentham who emerges, rather than being a consistent enemy of the kinds of declarations of rights that marked the American and French Revolutions, was instead building upon much of the jurisprudence he condemned in his rhetoric. The chapter revises the commonplace view of Bentham and his intellectual origins in consequence.Less
Critics who were sceptical of the particular fusion of law and history in natural jurisprudence launched their assaults in the later eighteenth-century from within established religious denominations, or asserted the view that the anticipated reforms would fail, being insufficiently grounded on an accurate portrayal of human nature. The latter approach has been especially associated with Jeremy Bentham, who for many scholars has become the most prominent opponent of rights-based theories. This chapter reconsiders this view, charting Bentham’s view of natural rights from his earliest writings to the summary Constitutional codes developed for post-Napoleonic Europe. The Bentham who emerges, rather than being a consistent enemy of the kinds of declarations of rights that marked the American and French Revolutions, was instead building upon much of the jurisprudence he condemned in his rhetoric. The chapter revises the commonplace view of Bentham and his intellectual origins in consequence.
Nigel Biggar
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198861973
- eISBN:
- 9780191894770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198861973.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter moves to extend the testing of the Sceptical Tradition’s objections to natural rights from the pre-modern or early modern periods to classic modern affirmations. It begins with the ...
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This chapter moves to extend the testing of the Sceptical Tradition’s objections to natural rights from the pre-modern or early modern periods to classic modern affirmations. It begins with the American and French declarations of the late eighteenth century, before proceeding to two famous treatises of the same period, Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and then ending with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants of the mid-twentieth century. The chapter concludes that its scrutiny of modern affirmations has found ample evidence to substantiate many of the sceptics’ charges: some of the rights asserted are truistic or merely aspirational; others are ludicrously or dangerously abstract, licensing unrealistic hopes and political recklessness; yet others conflate conditional positive rights justified by natural morality with natural rights, misleadingly endowing the former with the universality and inviolability of the latter. Further, David Ritchie’s claim has been substantiated: the content of certain rights cannot be determined by a sheer appeal to ‘nature’, and apart from consideration of the common good in the relevant circumstances. On the other hand, the critical survey of modern natural rights-talk also shows that it can acknowledge the insufficiency of rights for overall political well-being, talk of duties too, and recognise the need for virtue and a cultural matrix that generates it.Less
This chapter moves to extend the testing of the Sceptical Tradition’s objections to natural rights from the pre-modern or early modern periods to classic modern affirmations. It begins with the American and French declarations of the late eighteenth century, before proceeding to two famous treatises of the same period, Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and then ending with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants of the mid-twentieth century. The chapter concludes that its scrutiny of modern affirmations has found ample evidence to substantiate many of the sceptics’ charges: some of the rights asserted are truistic or merely aspirational; others are ludicrously or dangerously abstract, licensing unrealistic hopes and political recklessness; yet others conflate conditional positive rights justified by natural morality with natural rights, misleadingly endowing the former with the universality and inviolability of the latter. Further, David Ritchie’s claim has been substantiated: the content of certain rights cannot be determined by a sheer appeal to ‘nature’, and apart from consideration of the common good in the relevant circumstances. On the other hand, the critical survey of modern natural rights-talk also shows that it can acknowledge the insufficiency of rights for overall political well-being, talk of duties too, and recognise the need for virtue and a cultural matrix that generates it.
M. Anne Brown
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719061059
- eISBN:
- 9781781700365
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719061059.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
This book has explored the promotion of human rights practices and approaches in international life. It has argued for a shift in approach—a greater preparedness to reflect on some of the categories ...
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This book has explored the promotion of human rights practices and approaches in international life. It has argued for a shift in approach—a greater preparedness to reflect on some of the categories by which we construct our sense of human rights and some acknowledgment of the limits of our understanding, or even of our ignorance, of the complex life to which these categories, particularly that of the human, refer. This way of conceptualising human rights has provided a remarkably powerful framework for the characterisation of both the individual and political community and for the identification of abuse. Moreover, it has to a significant extent shaped the terms in which general debate over human rights in international politics has been repeatedly cast, particularly the polarity of universalism and relativism, of the ‘rights of man’ and the citizen's rights, and of political and economic (or social or cultural) rights. Human rights practices are not part of a progression to perfection, or its approximation, but a way of working with the systemic generation of suffering.Less
This book has explored the promotion of human rights practices and approaches in international life. It has argued for a shift in approach—a greater preparedness to reflect on some of the categories by which we construct our sense of human rights and some acknowledgment of the limits of our understanding, or even of our ignorance, of the complex life to which these categories, particularly that of the human, refer. This way of conceptualising human rights has provided a remarkably powerful framework for the characterisation of both the individual and political community and for the identification of abuse. Moreover, it has to a significant extent shaped the terms in which general debate over human rights in international politics has been repeatedly cast, particularly the polarity of universalism and relativism, of the ‘rights of man’ and the citizen's rights, and of political and economic (or social or cultural) rights. Human rights practices are not part of a progression to perfection, or its approximation, but a way of working with the systemic generation of suffering.
Richard Bourke
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691175652
- eISBN:
- 9781400873456
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691175652.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This chapter details Burke's political life from 1791 to 1793. After 1790, Burke's career was shaped by the reaction to the Reflections. The work was a sophisticated polemical assault on attempts to ...
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This chapter details Burke's political life from 1791 to 1793. After 1790, Burke's career was shaped by the reaction to the Reflections. The work was a sophisticated polemical assault on attempts to reduce the rights and responsibilities of citizenship to a perilous ideal of self-government. However, it was widely construed as an attack on the equality of human beings and the accountability of governments to the people whom they ruled. In fact, it was a critique of the resort to primitive equality as a justification for destroying equitable relations in civil society. At the same time, its aim was to distinguish responsible government from popular tyranny. From Burke's vantage, the doctrine of the rights of man represented a crusade against the values of cohesion and responsibility, and was therefore liable to shatter society and government altogether. However, the force of his argument was drowned out by subsequent political rhetoric.Less
This chapter details Burke's political life from 1791 to 1793. After 1790, Burke's career was shaped by the reaction to the Reflections. The work was a sophisticated polemical assault on attempts to reduce the rights and responsibilities of citizenship to a perilous ideal of self-government. However, it was widely construed as an attack on the equality of human beings and the accountability of governments to the people whom they ruled. In fact, it was a critique of the resort to primitive equality as a justification for destroying equitable relations in civil society. At the same time, its aim was to distinguish responsible government from popular tyranny. From Burke's vantage, the doctrine of the rights of man represented a crusade against the values of cohesion and responsibility, and was therefore liable to shatter society and government altogether. However, the force of his argument was drowned out by subsequent political rhetoric.
Ayten Gündoğdu
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- December 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199370412
- eISBN:
- 9780199370443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199370412.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory, International Relations and Politics
The chapter engages with Arendt’s notorious concept of “the social” in response to the claim that her critique of the Rights of Man results from her distaste for the politicization of social issues ...
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The chapter engages with Arendt’s notorious concept of “the social” in response to the claim that her critique of the Rights of Man results from her distaste for the politicization of social issues (e.g., Jacques Rancière). Partially agreeing with this claim, this chapter suggests that understanding contemporary struggles of migrants demands rethinking and revising Arendt’s arguments. The multiple and conflicting uses of “the social” in her works, as can be seen in her divergent assessments of Karl Marx and the French Revolution, offer novel interpretive possibilities in this regard. The chapter points to these possibilities by providing an unconventional reading of Arendt’s critique of the Jacobin approach to poverty in On Revolution. It mobilizes this reading to think critically about the anti-political trajectories that human rights can take and points to some worrisome contemporary trends: the rise of a compassionate humanitarianism centered on suffering, the tendency to treat challenging human rights problems as matters of humanitarian administration, and the rise of a military humanitarianism. The chapter finally turns to Arendt’s account of the labor movement in The Human Condition and concludes that an Arendtian politics of human rights centers on the democratic agency of subjects whose rights are at stake.Less
The chapter engages with Arendt’s notorious concept of “the social” in response to the claim that her critique of the Rights of Man results from her distaste for the politicization of social issues (e.g., Jacques Rancière). Partially agreeing with this claim, this chapter suggests that understanding contemporary struggles of migrants demands rethinking and revising Arendt’s arguments. The multiple and conflicting uses of “the social” in her works, as can be seen in her divergent assessments of Karl Marx and the French Revolution, offer novel interpretive possibilities in this regard. The chapter points to these possibilities by providing an unconventional reading of Arendt’s critique of the Jacobin approach to poverty in On Revolution. It mobilizes this reading to think critically about the anti-political trajectories that human rights can take and points to some worrisome contemporary trends: the rise of a compassionate humanitarianism centered on suffering, the tendency to treat challenging human rights problems as matters of humanitarian administration, and the rise of a military humanitarianism. The chapter finally turns to Arendt’s account of the labor movement in The Human Condition and concludes that an Arendtian politics of human rights centers on the democratic agency of subjects whose rights are at stake.
Jean-François Kervégan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226023809
- eISBN:
- 9780226023946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226023946.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The argument given in this chapter is that Hegel's theory of the "civil society" contains an implicit definition of what one shall names later "Rechtstaat" or "State of law" (or even "rule of law") ...
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The argument given in this chapter is that Hegel's theory of the "civil society" contains an implicit definition of what one shall names later "Rechtstaat" or "State of law" (or even "rule of law") and provides a foundation for a critique of its limits.Less
The argument given in this chapter is that Hegel's theory of the "civil society" contains an implicit definition of what one shall names later "Rechtstaat" or "State of law" (or even "rule of law") and provides a foundation for a critique of its limits.
Peter de Bolla
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254385
- eISBN:
- 9780823261178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254385.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
The final chapter addresses the vexed issue of contemporary international human rights. It uses the preceding account of the history of formation of the concept ‘rights of man’ to illumine current ...
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The final chapter addresses the vexed issue of contemporary international human rights. It uses the preceding account of the history of formation of the concept ‘rights of man’ to illumine current debates in the theory of universal human rights. It suggests that a concept of universal human rights must be structured through aspiration and outlines the consequences of this observation.Less
The final chapter addresses the vexed issue of contemporary international human rights. It uses the preceding account of the history of formation of the concept ‘rights of man’ to illumine current debates in the theory of universal human rights. It suggests that a concept of universal human rights must be structured through aspiration and outlines the consequences of this observation.
Susan Marks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780199675456
- eISBN:
- 9780191886621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199675456.003.0005
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
The rights of man ‘arrived’ in England, in the sense of beginning to circulate in public discourse and becoming a topic on which people staked out positions, during the final decade of the eighteenth ...
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The rights of man ‘arrived’ in England, in the sense of beginning to circulate in public discourse and becoming a topic on which people staked out positions, during the final decade of the eighteenth century. The context was debate over the significance of the French Revolution for England (the ‘Revolution controversy’). This chapter initiates discussion of the contested meaning of the rights of man in that debate, examining contributions by Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine. A vision of the rights of man emerges as the rights of the living to control the political community of which those latter are a part.Less
The rights of man ‘arrived’ in England, in the sense of beginning to circulate in public discourse and becoming a topic on which people staked out positions, during the final decade of the eighteenth century. The context was debate over the significance of the French Revolution for England (the ‘Revolution controversy’). This chapter initiates discussion of the contested meaning of the rights of man in that debate, examining contributions by Richard Price, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine. A vision of the rights of man emerges as the rights of the living to control the political community of which those latter are a part.
Susan Marks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780199675456
- eISBN:
- 9780191886621
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199675456.003.0008
- Subject:
- Law, Human Rights and Immigration
This chapter takes Hannah Arendt’s engagement with Edmund Burke in Origins of Totalitarianism as a starting-point for considering the interrelation in the Revolution controversy of nature, history, ...
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This chapter takes Hannah Arendt’s engagement with Edmund Burke in Origins of Totalitarianism as a starting-point for considering the interrelation in the Revolution controversy of nature, history, and rights. Evidence is presented of a mode of argumentation that is (by today’s standards) eclectic and historicising. Thus, the rights of man were at once natural and historical, and while Thomas Paine asserted the novelty of their study, Thomas Spence framed his exposition of the ‘real rights of man’ with reference to an older tradition that links him to the people and events touched on in earlier chapters of this book.Less
This chapter takes Hannah Arendt’s engagement with Edmund Burke in Origins of Totalitarianism as a starting-point for considering the interrelation in the Revolution controversy of nature, history, and rights. Evidence is presented of a mode of argumentation that is (by today’s standards) eclectic and historicising. Thus, the rights of man were at once natural and historical, and while Thomas Paine asserted the novelty of their study, Thomas Spence framed his exposition of the ‘real rights of man’ with reference to an older tradition that links him to the people and events touched on in earlier chapters of this book.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804753173
- eISBN:
- 9780804767873
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804753173.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The Ligue des droits de l'homme (League of the Rights of Man) leaned towards the Left for its commitment to civil liberties, which was evident in the Dreyfus affair that brought the League to its ...
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The Ligue des droits de l'homme (League of the Rights of Man) leaned towards the Left for its commitment to civil liberties, which was evident in the Dreyfus affair that brought the League to its existence. In reality, the League realized that it was difficult to reconcile its stand on civil liberties with its more general political goals. Based on its doctrine, politics should give way to principles. Throughout its existence, however, the League also had to deal with conflicts between the policies that must be dictated by liberal and civil libertarian theory and the more immediate political consequences of such policies. The League's dilemma in trying to balance its simultaneous commitment to civil liberties and left-wing politics was illustrated by the debates in France over freedom of the press, women's suffrage, and freedom of association for religious congregations.Less
The Ligue des droits de l'homme (League of the Rights of Man) leaned towards the Left for its commitment to civil liberties, which was evident in the Dreyfus affair that brought the League to its existence. In reality, the League realized that it was difficult to reconcile its stand on civil liberties with its more general political goals. Based on its doctrine, politics should give way to principles. Throughout its existence, however, the League also had to deal with conflicts between the policies that must be dictated by liberal and civil libertarian theory and the more immediate political consequences of such policies. The League's dilemma in trying to balance its simultaneous commitment to civil liberties and left-wing politics was illustrated by the debates in France over freedom of the press, women's suffrage, and freedom of association for religious congregations.
Green Georgina
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199689064
- eISBN:
- 9780191768170
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689064.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter argues that Thomas Paine increasingly focuses on exposing representation as provisional, and on deferring the absolute identification between the people and the ethical category of ...
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This chapter argues that Thomas Paine increasingly focuses on exposing representation as provisional, and on deferring the absolute identification between the people and the ethical category of Justice. An analysis of Paine’s writing demonstrates how theories of language and representation, politics and ethics are mutually implicated. This mutual implication becomes particularly apparent when the meaning of the majesty of the people is contested. What emerges is a tension between Paine’s conventionism, his belief in collecting the sovereign will of the people, and his commitment to the sovereignty of justice. The chapter begins by discussing Paine’s theories of language in Rights of Man, arguing that Paine treats language as provisional, as a representation. It continues to demonstrate how this stance is applied in his interventions at the trial of Louis XVI, in an attempt to render any representation of the people provisional, and thereby to undercut the totalitarianism of democratic perfectionism with the provisionality of representative democracy.Less
This chapter argues that Thomas Paine increasingly focuses on exposing representation as provisional, and on deferring the absolute identification between the people and the ethical category of Justice. An analysis of Paine’s writing demonstrates how theories of language and representation, politics and ethics are mutually implicated. This mutual implication becomes particularly apparent when the meaning of the majesty of the people is contested. What emerges is a tension between Paine’s conventionism, his belief in collecting the sovereign will of the people, and his commitment to the sovereignty of justice. The chapter begins by discussing Paine’s theories of language in Rights of Man, arguing that Paine treats language as provisional, as a representation. It continues to demonstrate how this stance is applied in his interventions at the trial of Louis XVI, in an attempt to render any representation of the people provisional, and thereby to undercut the totalitarianism of democratic perfectionism with the provisionality of representative democracy.
