PHIL 338, Philosophy of Human
Rights
Talbott (5 credits)
This course will provide you with a comprehensive
introduction to the philosophy of human rights.
The course begins with an overview of the main issues in the
conceptualization and justification of human rights. The course then considers the following
special topics: Should human rights be
understood only negatively, as rights not to be coerced, or they include
positive rights—that is, rights to be provided with something (e.g.,
subsistence, health care, or education).
Are human rights culturally relative?
We will consider the position that human rights reflect "Western
values" and do not apply to other societies. We will also consider the potential conflict
between women's rights and traditional values; and feminist criticisms of human
rights as androcentric. Other questions
include: Are there gay and lesbian
rights? Are human rights individual
rights, or do they also include group rights? We will also discuss international
enforcement and the role of the International Criminal Court.
There will be a Midterm
Exam, a Final Exam, and several short written assignments. [In summer quarter, students do not have the
option of doing service learning with a Seattle-based human rights organization
and preparing a service learning report.]
Everyone will do a research paper on a human rights issue. This course qualifies as a core course for
the Human Rights Minor. Meets I&S Requirement.
Prerequisites: None.
Required
Texts: Patrick Hayden, The Philosophy of Human Rights and Volume
1 of the course reader.
Optional: William J. Talbott, Which Rights Should Be Universal? and
Volume 2 of the course reader. Volume 2
of the course reader contains the required readings from the Talbott
volume. You should buy one of them, but
not both. You have the option to choose
the one you want.
NORMATIVE TERMS are terms
that have ACTION-GUIDING [PRESCRIPTIVE/ PROSCRIPTIVE] force.
Some common normative terms
are: ought; duty; obligation;
permissible; and forbidden.
When applied to actions, appropriate and inappropriate are
normative terms. [Note that not all
NORMATIVE terms are MORAL terms. For
example, ought can be used in a NON-MORAL,
PRUDENTIAL sense, as in: One ought to
eat nutritious foods.]
NORMATIVE MORAL TERMS are
NORMATIVE TERMS with MORAL ACTION-GUIDING force.
EVALUATIVE TERMS are terms
that express approval or disapproval.
Some common evaluative terms
are: good; bad; excellent;
and awful. EVALUATIVE TERMS can
express moral approval or disapproval, but can also express other types of
non-moral approval or disapproval (e.g., The statement
that apples taste good is a non-moral evaluative statement).
PURELY DESCRIPTIVE TERMS are
terms that are NOT NORMATIVE and NOT EVALUATIVE.
PURELY DESCRIPTIVE STATEMENTS
are statements that contain only PURELY DESCRIPTIVE terms (no NORMATIVE or
EVALUATIVE terms).
NORMATIVE/EVALUATIVE
STATEMENTS are statements that include at least one normative/evaluative term. For
example, moral statements about what one ought or ought not to do (e.g., the
statement that one ought not to steal or the statement that one ought to tell
the truth) are NORMATIVE, because they contain the NORMATIVE term ought. [Note that not all normative statements are
moral. See above, for an example of a
normative prudential statement.]
[Note that
Normative/Evaluative statements can contain SOME Purely Descriptive terms, but
Purely Descriptive statements cannot contain ANY Normative/Evaluative terms.]
In this course, our focus is on normative moral
statements. You will be frustrated in
this course if you try to limit your statements to the purely descriptive.
METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Metaphysics Deals With The Nature
Of Reality‑‑How Things Really Are.
Epistemology Addresses How We
Can Have Knowledge Or Justified Beliefs.
Questions of Moral
Metaphysics: Are there moral
truths? If so, are they universal or
relative/parochial?
Questions of Moral
Epistemology: If there are moral truths,
can we ever have moral knowledge or justified moral beliefs? If so, are justified moral beliefs and moral
knowledge fallible or infallible?
MORAL BELIEF
1. RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS (in my special sense).
Metaphysics: Universal
Moral Truth
Epistemology: Infallible
Authority (e.g., sacred scripture). Individual judgment is not encouraged; often
it is forcibly suppressed.
2. THE PROOF PARADIGM (Positive Manifestation).
Metaphysics: Universal
Moral Truth
Epistemology: Infallible
Moral Knowledge. Reason Discerns
Self-Evident Truths and Uses Them as Premises for Infallible Proofs
Reasoning is Top-Down from Moral Principles to Particular Moral Judgments. The Proof Paradigm is individualistic.
FROM THE
"We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life,
4. NORMATIVE MORAL RELATIVISM.
Metaphysics: Moral truths
are relative (e.g., to a culture or a religious tradition)
Epistemology: The cultural
or religious group or individual determines applicable moral truths.
5. MORAL ANTI-REALISM/MORAL SKEPTICISM/EMOTIVISM
Metaphysics: No moral
truths.
Epistemology: No moral
knowledge and no rationally justified moral beliefs.
Moral judgments are not the product of reason. They involve emotions or something else
understood not to involve reasons or reasoning.
Views of this kind are often the negative manifestation of
the Proof Paradigm.
3. THE PROCESS OF MORAL DISCOVERY PARADIGM.
Metaphysics: Universal
Moral Truth.
Epistemology: Fallible
moral knowledge and justified moral beliefs.
Reasoning is Bottom-Up, from Particular Moral Judgments to
Moral Principles that explain them.
Because moral principles are
not self-evident, there is no presumption that they are simple principles. Moral judgment is complicated and messy. The Explanation/Discovery Paradigm is not
individualistic. We need each other to
help us correct our moral blindspots.
MORAL NORMS OR PRINCIPLES AND PARTICULAR MORAL
JUDGMENTS
A moral norm is a
generalization that applies to all acts of a certain kind (e.g., Killing
another human being is wrong.)
A moral principle is a
generalization that applies to a wide variety of kinds of actions (e.g., Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you.)
A particular moral
judgment is a moral judgment about a particular actual or hypothetical case
(e.g., it was wrong for Adolph Hitler to attempt to exterminate the Jews.
\
TWO PARADIGMS FOR MORAL REASONING
1. TOP-DOWN REASONING:
Reasoning from Moral Norms or Principles
and other Acceptable Premises to a Moral Judgment about a Particular Case (a
Particular Moral Judgment).
For religious traditions with an infallible moral authority
and for the Proof Paradigm, all moral reasoning is Top-Down. Both of them require an infallible source of
the fundamental moral principles (e.g., God or our Reason).
How the Assumption that Moral Reasoning Must Be
Top-Down Has Led to Moral Nihilism/Skepticism
Consider the following
particular moral judgment:
Hitler's attempt to
exterminate the Jews was wrong.
On the top-down model, to
justify that my belief in that particular moral judgment, I would have to be
able to derive it from a general moral norm or principle. What might that norm or principle be?
Possibilities: It is always wrong to intentionally kill
groups of 5 million people.
Or: It is always wrong to intentionally kill
groups of 5 million INNOCENT people.
Other
suggestions?
If I cannot find a norm or
principle from which to derive the particular moral judgment, there can be no
top-down justification of it. So I come
to the conclusion that there is no justification for believing any particular moral judgment. This is moral skepticism.
2. BOTTOM-UP REASONING:
Begin with judgments about particular cases. There are two kinds: In one kind, a judgment about one or more
particular cases leads to giving up a norm or principle. In the other kind, one begins from particular
moral judgments and tries to find the moral norms or principles that best
explain our Particular Moral Judgments about actual and hypothetical
cases.
AN EXAMPLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE CONTRAST BETWEEN TOP-DOWN
AND BOTTOM-UP REASONING
PREMISES: P1. It
is always wrong to kill another person. (This is a Moral Norm.)
P2. You are a person.
P3. If I shoot you, you
will kill die.
CONCLUSION: PMJ1.
It is wrong for me to shoot you now (This is a Particular Moral
Judgment).
A SECOND EXAMPLE
PREMISES: P1. It
is always wrong to kill another person. (Moral
Norm)
P2. You are a person.
P3. If I shoot you, I
will kill you.
P4. If I don’t shoot
you, you will kill me.
CONCLUSION: PMJ2.
It is wrong for me to shoot you now (even though you are going to kill
me if I don’t shoot you). (Particular Moral
Judgment)
Let PMJ2' be the judgment
that it is not wrong for me to shoot you now if it will prevent you from
killing me.
If I reject PMJ2 and accept
PMJ2', I must also reject one of the premises of the above derivation. The premise that seems to need revision is
the moral norm P1.
Finding a New Norm or Principle that Explains Both
Particular Moral Judgments
Why is it usually wrong to kill other people, but not wrong
in cases of self-defense? This question
suggests that there might be a more complex principle than P1 that would
explain why killing is usually wrong but not wrong in self-defense.
Consider the principle that everyone has a right to life
(i.e., a right not to be killed). This
principle is sometimes interpreted as though it is just another way of
asserting P1, that it is always wrong to kill another person. But I believe that this is a mistake.
The claim that everyone has a right to life does not imply
that killing another human being is always wrong. It is an attempt to articulate a more
complicated idea—roughly: It is wrong to
kill another person, unless that other person is failing to respect another
person's right to life.
This example illustrates how the attempt to explain
particular moral judgments could lead us to the discovery of human rights
principles by bottom-up reasoning. In
this sort of reasoning, we should not expect the fundamental principles to be
self-evident. On the contrary, it is
very difficult to discover them.
THE PROCESS OF MORAL DISCOVERY PARADIGM
On the Moral Discovery Paradigm, our Particular Moral
Judgments are based on a sensitivity to moral
rightness and wrongness in particular cases.
These judgments are not regarded as infallible. On the Moral Discovery Paradigm, moral norms
or principles are always regarded as fallible, because we may discover other
actual or hypothetical cases that they do not explain.
On the Moral Discovery
Paradigm, how would we rewrite the Declaration of Independence?
“Although for most of human
history it has seemed to most people to be almost self-evident that human
beings have very different capacities that justify their being treated in very
different ways, we have discovered through a long process of trial and error in
human social practices that all normally functioning adult human beings ought
to be treated in such a way that respects certain basic and inalienable human
rights. Any attempt to list these rights should be understood to be fallible
and subject to correction in the future, and the interpretation given to the
items on the list should also be understood to be fallible and subject to
correction in the future. Our best hope is that, over time, we will gradually
make progress in defining the basic human rights that should be guaranteed to
all adult human beings. Right now, the best we can do is to offer the following
list: . . . "
EPISTEMIC MODESTY AND METAPHYSICAL IMMODESTY
EPISTEMIC IMMODESTY = A claim
to certainty or infallibility.
EPISTEMIC MODESTY = An acknowledgment of fallibility and the lack of certainty.
METAPHYSICAL IMMODESTY = A
claim that moral principles are objectively universal—that is, they apply to
all moral beings, even those who don't agree.
METAPHYSICAL MODESTY = Moral
relativism. There are many varieties of
moral relativism—for example, the claim that our moral principles only apply to
members of our own species or our own linguistic community or own religion or
to those who accept our moral principles, etc.
One theme of this
course: It is possible to combine
epistemic modesty with metaphysical immodesty.
The best explanation of our particular moral judgments may be a
universal moral principle (e.g., a principle that all normally functioning
human beings have or ought to have certain rights). But we should acknowledge that our attempts
to formulate such principles are fallible and subject to revision and we should
be open to the opinions of other people, because they can help us to correct
our moral blindspots.