Feminist Human Rights

Kristen Hessler is professor in the Philosophy Department at the University at Albany (SUNY).

• Chapter 1: The Orthodox/Political Debate and Its Methodological AssumptionsChapter 2: Towards a Political Philosophy of Human RightsChapter 3: Structural EqualityChapter 4: Case Study: Prosecutor v. AkayesuChapter 5: Structural Inequality and Hermeneutical InjusticeChapter 6: Engaged Moral Inquiry

Kristen Hessler persuasively argues that the practice of human rights can and must be viewed as a source of moral knowledge. The book offers an elegant, much-needed reimagining of the relationship between philosophical theorizing and human rights and of the role of moral theory in human rights practice. Feminist Human Rights: A Political Approach gives one of the clearest and most useful overviews of the dominant approaches to human rights in philosophical literatures out there. Using a self-consciously feminist methodology Hessler effectively explains both why the dominant approaches are so attractive to so many and why a comprehensive reimagining of these approaches is necessary. Hessler dismantles both the conceit that a “purely theoretical” conception of the moral underpinning of human rights is possible or desirable and the misconception that any concept intended to guide action – like a human right – can be adequately theorized without critical moral reflection. Hessler’s use of examples from international humanitarian law demonstrates the value of feminist practice and methodology for human rights. In championing the conceptual significance of how human rights are used, modified, and expanded by practitioners and social movements, Hessler makes a persuasive case for a practice-based, genuinely interdisciplinary approach to normative theorizing.