Philosophy of Human Rights

Anat Biletzki is the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Philosophy at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, having previously been at the Philosophy Department at Tel Aviv University for many years. Her publications include: Talking Wolves: Thomas Hobbes on the Language of Politics and the Politics of Language (1997), and (Over)Interpreting Wittgenstein (2003). She served as chairperson of B’Tselem—the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (2001–2006) and was nominated among the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize—2005.”

"Biletzki has written the definitive account of the human rights thinking that emerges from centuries of philosophical conversations. She covers, succinctly and clearly, the most fundamental classical writers, for example Hobbes, Locke, Mill, Rawls, as well as scores of contemporary ones like Arendt, Nussbaum, Balibar and Levinas. She deftly lays out complicated material about the most fundamental issues and conflicts within the field: the relationship between equality and freedom, the ability to have rights and its relationship to state formation, the way our very language shapes our thinking, whether human rights need to be religiously grounded, whether human rights doctrine is inherently Eurocentric, ferociously individualistic, and selectively enforced... If you are looking for one book on the swathe of human rights ideas, their history and practical implications, then this is the book for you." - Eve Spangler, Author of Understanding Israel/Palestine: Race, Nation, and Human Rights in the Conflict, Boston College, USA"Anat Biletzki gives us a sophisticated and accessible discourse on pivotal issues of philosophy—how rights are conceived and practiced, contested and reshaped, beaten back and reasserted. The Philosophy of Human Rights is both a substantial rendering of the attendant philosophical understandings of rights and illustrations of how rights emerge in lived experience." - John Tirman, Executive Director & Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for International Studies, USA"A deeply ethical, beautifully written philosophical exploration of our very notion of 'human rights'. Anat Biletzski’s masterful survey of theory, of practice, and current realities is timely, wise, and desperately needed." - Juliet Floyd, Professor of Philosophy, Boston University, USA

• IntroductionPart I: Overview1. Fundamentals2. The Legal Framework3. Some Questions (about Human Rights)Part II: Philosophical Groundings4. Liberal Underpinnings5. Theories of Rights6. Theories of Human RightsPart III: Issues in Human Rights7. The Universalism of Human Rights8. Groups and Other Collections9. Rights on Our Mind10. Global Economic Rights11. Security, Sovereignty, and Humanitarian InterventionPart IV: Critique12. Philosophical Critique of Human Rights13. Back to the Rough GroundEpilogue: On the Ground