A Global Political Morality

Michael J. Perry has held a Robert W. Woodruff University Chair at Emory University, Atlanta since 2003, where he teaches in the School of Law. Perry is also a Senior Fellow at Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion and a co-editor of the Journal of Law and Religion. He is the author of twelve books and over eighty-five articles, essays and book chapters.

• Introduction; Part I. The Morality of Human Rights: 1. What are 'human rights'? Against the 'orthodox' view; 2. What reason(s) do we have, if any, to take human rights seriously? Beyond 'human dignity'; Part II. From the Morality of Human Rights to Democracy and to Certain Limitations on Democracy: 3. The three pillars of democracy: the human rights to democratic governance, intellectual freedom, and moral equality; 4. Democracy limited: the human right to religious and moral freedom; Part III. Human Rights, Democracy, and Constitutionalism: 5. A theory of judicial review; 6. The theory illustrated: five constitutional controversies, five judicial opinions; 7. Poverty as a human rights issue: constitutionalism-related reflections; Concluding note: human rights foundationalism.

'… an extremely important and timely work, by one of the most prominent scholars of human rights, constitutional law and religious freedom in the United States. In it, Perry does nothing less than seek to reorient our understanding of human rights, by rooting them in the psychological phenomenon of agape – or love, as in brotherly love or the unconditional love of God, of the highest form. This foundation, which resonates better than liberal attitudes of respect with central tenets of the major world religions in both West and East, allows him to offer an account of human rights that should prove increasingly influential as globalization progresses. Perry's work presses us to think more deeply about how human rights might be perfected from a moral perspective, and not just better enforced. His views are especially laudable in that they draw on what is deep about religious experience without countenancing what is narrow.' Robin Bradley Kar, Walter V. Schaefer Visiting Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School and University of Illinois