AP/HREQ 2030 6.00
Theoretical Foundations of Rights and Equity
This course explores the philosophical, religious, and moral foundations of human rights and equity. The course also examines ongoing debates concerning competing rights claims and the shifting paradigms in rights discourses. We also seek to examine human rights in their relation to contemporary concerns over how to enhance and promote local and global justice. We will begin our exploration by examining the multi-cultural sources of human rights ideas in diverse traditions that range from East to West, North to South, indigenous and non-indigenous. This will involve us in a discussion of the possible ‘sources’ of human rights language. Religion speaks to notions of moral and ethical concern for one’s fellow human beings. As a result, it invokes a universal discourse of ethical concern. These themes are also to be found in philosophical traditions from Plato and Aristotle to Confucius. Law and jurisprudence, politics, democracy, battles over equality and social justice will also be scrutinized to determine how they also contribute to the syntax of human rights language. At the same time, we will study the ways in which human rights have become synonymous with a global process of dominance. Some argue that human rights language is consistent with a neo-colonial project that continues to maintain a postcolonial hierarchy. The charged confrontation between the global north and the global south must be seen as both a challenge to the project of human rights construction and legitimacy as well as a necessary set of questions focused on the improvement of global equality.
Prerequisites: AP/HREQ 1010 6.00 (formerly AP/HREQ 2010 6.00) Open to HREQ majors.