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Human Rights and Republicanism

Halldenius, Lena LU (2024) In Oxford Handbooks
Abstract
Republican political theory, with its commitment to a political and personal conception of freedom in terms of the absence of domination, has the potential to revitalize how we think about human rights. From a republican perspective, the aims of the politics of human rights are—in negative terms—to end exploitation, vulnerability, and precarity and—in positive terms—to establish a society of equals in a free political culture. It is suggested here that republican rights should serve as egalitarian levers. This chapter aims to explicate such a republican approach to human rights by outlining a unifying principle for what rights people have, what it is to have rights, or what a human right is, and offering an account of what the point of... (More)
Republican political theory, with its commitment to a political and personal conception of freedom in terms of the absence of domination, has the potential to revitalize how we think about human rights. From a republican perspective, the aims of the politics of human rights are—in negative terms—to end exploitation, vulnerability, and precarity and—in positive terms—to establish a society of equals in a free political culture. It is suggested here that republican rights should serve as egalitarian levers. This chapter aims to explicate such a republican approach to human rights by outlining a unifying principle for what rights people have, what it is to have rights, or what a human right is, and offering an account of what the point of human rights is. These three aspects of a republican approach to human rights underline the need to attend to the extension of human rights (what rights there are (in the world)), the concept (what we mean by a human right or how we use it), and the rationale for thinking in these terms at all (what the point of human rights is or what kind of work we want human rights to do). An analysis of this kind is inescapably normative. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
human rights, republicanism, liberty, economic inequality
host publication
The Oxford Handbook of Republicanism
series title
Oxford Handbooks
editor
Sellers, Mortimer and Lovett, Frank
publisher
Oxford University Press
ISBN
9780197754115
9780197754146
DOI
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197754115.013.36
project
Human Rights and Economic Inequality
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
33d7406f-0535-458e-840d-1e098949df8b
date added to LUP
2022-02-01 17:02:57
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:50:21
@inbook{33d7406f-0535-458e-840d-1e098949df8b,
  abstract     = {{Republican political theory, with its commitment to a political and personal conception of freedom in terms of the absence of domination, has the potential to revitalize how we think about human rights. From a republican perspective, the aims of the politics of human rights are—in negative terms—to end exploitation, vulnerability, and precarity and—in positive terms—to establish a society of equals in a free political culture. It is suggested here that republican rights should serve as egalitarian levers. This chapter aims to explicate such a republican approach to human rights by outlining a unifying principle for what rights people have, what it is to have rights, or what a human right is, and offering an account of what the point of human rights is. These three aspects of a republican approach to human rights underline the need to attend to the extension of human rights (what rights there are (in the world)), the concept (what we mean by a human right or how we use it), and the rationale for thinking in these terms at all (what the point of human rights is or what kind of work we want human rights to do). An analysis of this kind is inescapably normative.}},
  author       = {{Halldenius, Lena}},
  booktitle    = {{The Oxford Handbook of Republicanism}},
  editor       = {{Sellers, Mortimer and Lovett, Frank}},
  isbn         = {{9780197754115}},
  keywords     = {{human rights; republicanism; liberty; economic inequality}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Oxford Handbooks}},
  title        = {{Human Rights and Republicanism}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197754115.013.36}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197754115.013.36}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}