Interrogating the Morality of Human Rights

Michael J. Perry, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law, US

• Contents: Introduction: Interrogating the morality of human rights – Introductory overview PART I THE MORALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS1. Preliminary questions 2. The most fundamental question: What justification, if any? PART II TWO FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS: MORAL EQUALITY AND MORAL FREEDOM 3. The human right to moral equality and the constitutional right to equal protection 4. The human right to moral freedom and the constitutional right of privacy PART III THREE HUMAN-RIGHTS-BASED CONTROVERSIES: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, ABORTION, AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE 5. Capital punishment as a contested human rights issue 6. Criminalizing abortion as a contested human rights issue 7. Excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage as a contested human rights issue 8. Who decides? PART IV ANTIPOVERTY RIGHTS—ANDVULNERABILITY THEORY 9. Poverty as a human rights issue 10 Vulnerability theory and the morality of human rights: Complementary, not competitive Conclusion: Human rights inflation? Extreme economic inequality and global warming as human rights issues Appendix. Index

‘The radical nature of Michael Perry’s “agapaistic” conceptualization of human rights seems at once intuitive, but somehow to have eluded the vast majority of commentators, particularly those with a legal background. Students and seasoned scholars alike will benefit from this return to the foundational ideas and claims of the human rights idea.’