Suchergebnisse

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- [ 1 ] the care of the self -- [ 2 ] the juridical subject as ethical subject: wollstonecraft on the rights of man -- [ 3 ] critique of human rights and care of the self -- [ 4 ] human rights as spiritual exercises: tocqueville in america -- [ 5 ] human rights as a way of life: bergson on love and joy -- [ 6 ] on human rights criticism -- [ 7 ] an ethic of resistance i: roosevelt and the universal declaration of human rights -- [ 8 ] an ethic of resistance ii: malik and the universal declaration of human rights -- [ 9 ] human rights education -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

"When we think of human rights we assume that they are meant to protect people from serious social, legal, and political abuses and to advance global justice. In Human Rights and the Care of the Self Alexandre Lefebvre turns this assumption on its head, showing how the value of human rights also lies in enabling ethical practices of self-transformation. Drawing on Foucault's notion of 'care of the self, ' Lefebvre turns to some of the most celebrated authors and activists in the history of human rights--such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Henri Bergson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Charles Malik--to discover a vision of human rights as a tool for individuals to work on, improve, and transform themselves for their own sake. This new perspective allows us to appreciate a crucial dimension of human rights, one that can help us to care for ourselves in light of pressing social and psychological problems, such as loneliness, fear, hatred, patriarchy, meaninglessness, boredom, and indignity."--

The work of Henri Bergson, the foremost French philosopher of the early twentieth century, is not usually explored for its political dimensions. Indeed, Bergson is best known for his writings on time, evolution, and creativity. This book concentrates instead on his political philosophy-and especially on his late masterpiece, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion-from which Alexandre Lefebvre develops an original approach to human rights.We tend to think of human rights as the urgent international project of protecting all people everywhere from harm. Bergson shows us tha

John Rawls was what we might call a "frenemy" to Stanley Cavell. Time and again, Cavell states his admiration for Rawls's political philosophy but criticizes it for two reasons. First, he believes that Rawls too hastily dismisses a perfectionist tradition that is essential for a flourishing liberal democracy. Second, he attacks certain aspects of Rawls's theory of justice as moralistic and legalistic. The first half of this article examines Cavell's critique of Rawls and argues that the two authors are more closely aligned than suspected. It begins by reconstructing Cavell's critique of Rawls, and using archival materials from Harvard University, presents for the first time Rawls's interpretation of this critique. The second half of the article highlights perfectionist themes in Rawls's A Theory of Justice. The contribution of this article is to reevaluate the relationship between two of the most important moral philosophers of the twentieth century and also to provide a more expansive theory of liberalism that incorporates the psychological depth, moral subtlety and political hopefulness of moral perfectionism.

In this article I interpret John Rawls's concept of the original position as a spiritual exercise. In addition to the standard interpretation of the original position as an expository device to select principles of justice for the fundamental institutions of society, I argue that Rawls also envisages it as a "spiritual exercise": a voluntary personal practice intended to bring about a transformation of the self. To make this argument, I draw on the work of Pierre Hadot, a philosopher and classicist, who introduced the idea of spiritual exercises as central to ancient and modern conceptions of philosophy. By reading Rawls alongside Hadot, this article portrays Rawls as a thinker deeply concerned with the question of how subjects can lead more just and fulfilling lives. It also proposes that the original position as a spiritual exercise can help defend liberalism as a social and political doctrine.

In this article, I claim that Mary Wollstonecraft and Edmund Burke both conceive of the rights of man as a medium for individuals to care for and cultivate the self. Beginning with Michel Foucault's doubts that a concern with the care of the self can be found in modern political thought, I turn to Wollstonecraft and Burke in order to show that their debate turns precisely on the question of whether the rights of man enables or disables a care of the self. For Wollstonecraft, on the one hand, the rights of man provide women with a means to overcome a destructive set of virtues—such as beauty, chastity, and modesty—that leave them spiritually destitute and deeply unhappy. For Burke, on the other hand, such rights devastate the system of manners that had previously nurtured the self's relation to itself. Regardless of this disagreement, my key claim is that both thinkers conceive of the rights of man not just as a juridical construction but also as a comprehensive way of life. In this way, I extend Foucault's notion of the care of the self—along with his conception of ethics, conversion, and personal cultivation—to a foundational debate in the human rights tradition.

If H. L. A. Hart brings philosophy to jurisprudence, he does so through a tradition based on criticism and re-evaulation of what it means to do philosophy: ordinary language philosophy. This essay concentrates on the opening chapter of Hart's The Concept of Mind and claims that Hart's vision of jurisprudence, as found in chapter one, is a powerful adaptation of the relationship Ludwig Wittgenstein establishes between ordinary and metaphysical language. Adapted from the source document.

Inspired by Gilles Deleuze's comments on the nature of jurisprudence, this paper evaluates the possibilities of a Deleuzian philosophy of law. Despite his relentless critique of law, the purpose of this paper is to argue that Deleuze provides us with concepts capable of creating a positive philosophy of juridical law. It is suggested that this approach modifies both how we understand Deleuze's relationship to law, but more importantly how we come to understand law & jurisprudence. The article proceeds by three broad steps. First, Deleuze's critique of law is detailed, & is divided into four major themes; it is shown that Deleuze's comments on jurisprudence can be understood as a thoroughgoing critique & replacement of scientific, natural, moral, & juridical law. The second section details how the mechanics of Deleuze's jurisprudence function. The third section lays out several specifications of the new image of law provoked but not executed by Deleuze. T. K. Brown

"This multidisciplinary volume explores the relationship between human rights and the subject. Each chapter considers how human rights norms and practices affect the way we relate to ourselves, to other people, and to the non-human world, drawing on the best work on human rights in political theory, cultural studies, history, law, anthropology, literary studies, and philosophy"--