Human Rights and the Defense of Liberal Democracy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID14760740
AutoresAnthony J Langlois (0000-0002-3276-4086, Flinders University, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume35
Fascículo4
Páginas731-750
Data de publicação2007-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Religious Ethics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0384-9694 • E-ISSN: 1467-9795
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9795.2007.00330.x
OpenAlexW2015227995
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas25

In recent issues of the Journal of Religious Ethics (2006, 2007), David Little has defended the contemporary regime of international human rights against what he thinks of as the relativizing influences of the genealogical “just‐so” story told by Jeffrey Stout in his Democracy and Tradition (2004). I argue that Stout is correct about just‐so stories, and that Little does not go far enough in his reclamation of liberalism against Stout's “new traditionalists.” The main weaknesses of Little's approach are his insistence on the idea that human rights are to be thought of as natural rights, and that these in turn are to be thought of as self‐evident and self‐justifying. I argue that they are neither: they come to us via a Stoutian just‐so story, and that as part of a broader reclamation of liberalism, they can continue to serve as the basis for the kind of international liberal constitutionalism that Little advocates

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