Useful Books To Read About Human Rights And Philosophy

Post Reply New Topic

As the title says, I'm on a hunt to find decent books to read from the Library concerning the two subjects, Human Rights and Philosophy. If anyone knows of any titles, ISBN numbers and Author/Authoresses names, please post them here. Thanks.

The Compassionate Revolution

If you don't insist on having both subjects in the same book, try John Pilger, or Rob Newman. Also, The Corporation.

Ok, here are some I can think of and so far I have only read 2 of my selections:

Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman, actually an economics book, it argues that capitalism and freedom are closely related and is basically an argument for capitalism from a libertarian scholar. This is not exactly what you are looking for likely, but it is considered one of the more important books for the public of the 20th century.

Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick, a book on societal ethics, which may or may not be what you are looking for depending on what you define as "Human Rights". Nozick is another libertarian and a noted professor of philosophy and this is his argument for a minarchist system on the basis of a libertarian view of human rights rather than utilitarianism. It is another one of the major books of the 20th century.

A theory of Justice by John Rawls, another book on societal ethics where Rawls argues for a distribution system known as "Rawlsian", which is sort of like a more egalitarian version of utilitarianism. Rawls is another 20th century thinker in philosophy and this book is also a very important book of the 20th century.

You also might want to look up any book by Peter Singer, who is a major author for animal rights. He is known for his utilitarian views based upon the cognitive abilities of creatures. I have not read any of his works but know he is a major thinker in ethics and that some people really like him.

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill is a well known book on human/individual rights for which Mill makes a utilitarian case for this.

Two Concepts of Liberty by Isaiah Berlin, also somewhat libertarian. It makes a distinction between positive and negative rights. It is not a full book per se but the ideas are very notable, at least within libertarian circles.

The Possibility of Altruism by Thomas Nagel, this is a book defending altruism by the philosopher Thomas Nagel and it is from a deontological perspective.

Umm.... hopefully this list helps a little, maybe only in defining what you are looking for. I did not include any codes though as a number of these books come in paper and hardback.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 17 May 2008, 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wow, this really makes me feel a lot better as I was worried I was leaning too libertarian.

You can always pick up books from Enlightenment thinkers. John Locke was an early proponent of "natural rights." Rousseau discussed the "social contract" and the concept of the individual subordinating their rights to the majority will. As AG pointed out, JS Mills had his utilitarian philosophy. Any other Enlightenment philosophers will also touch on ideas about what rights people have.

You could take a look at things like Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (from the French Revolution) the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, US Bill of Rights, and FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech to get an idea of how the concept of human rights has been articulated in the context of politics.

And yeah, AG, you really were leaning pretty far libertarian. Halfway through your post, I half expected to see you recommend Man, Economy, and State. But then, any discussion of human rights will either go libertarian (focus on negative rights) or socialist (emphasis on positive rights).

Well, the issue is that I don't like Rothbard. I mean, one *could* read his "The Ethics of Liberty" and it would not necessarily be a bad idea as it may help them figure out a good argument for absolute libertarian human rights to some extent, but I would not recommend it. Really though, I was not *that* bad, as I included Peter Singer, John Rawls, and Thomas Nagel. Who would you argue for to balance my choices out? I mean, I could have included The Law by Frederic Bastiat which is his argument for the role of the government in human society, or The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek which makes a case for human rights sustaining society. I can definitely see that distinction, and really, I do not know the left-wing scholars that well.

Ooh, I could recommend Amartya Sen, another economist but of a left-wing sort who argues about inequality and freedom. Or perhaps for one to look into Catholic social teachings. I am not an expert on this issue though.

I don't necessarily see a need for you to "balance your choices out." As I said, any discussion of human rights will either end up libertarian or socialist, and I rather prefer the libertarian position. If you really want more "balance," I suppose you could go for Das Kapital (Marx/Engels) or some other socialist writers. Or, you could focus on the rights of the state over the people with Leviathan (Hobbes), thus essentially arguing for less individual rights. Actually, I thought the issues in your list were less of ideology and more that it was pretty heavy on economists. Of course, my recommendations are all of much older authors (the most recent being the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948), which could also be seen as a flaw.

Jennifer: all of the works I listed are available over the Internet for free, and most can be found on gutenberg.org. If something doesn't show up on gutenberg, Google it. Wikipedia often links to complete texts online at the bottom of their articles. BTW, is there any particular reason you're seeking these books out, other than interest in the subject? Is it some type of school assignment?

I wasn't aware that Das kapital was a book that approached the subject of rights much. Frankly, I would suspect that criticisms of property by anarchists would be more productive. The Leviathan would work, as could The Prince by Machiavelli or The Ego and Its Own by Max Stirner, but those would not really be books ON human rights so much as in opposition to them. Frankly, I would have loved to recommend Machiavelli or Stirner but I did not think that they were called for.

Google books actually has a lot of books on various topics. Mostly books before 1920 are free, but there are some that can be read completely online that are after 1920.

Well, the right of the worker to control the produce of their labor, or the right of people in general to live lives free of poverty and exploitation. There are probably better examples of books advocating these things. Most Socialists seem to regard the necessities of survival (food, housing, health care etc) to be fundamental rights that society should provide to everyone, so it could fit into a discussion on human rights.

Well, that is drawn from socialism, but I thought that Das Kapital was just a Marxian economics book and a very very clunky one.

That's true enough. I don't really follow socialist thought closely enough to offer much better, though. The Communist Manifesto is shorter at least, and focuses more on perceived injustices committed by capitalism. We have a couple communist/socialist political parties and other organizations in this country, perhaps their websites would have articles/books to support their views?

The Communist Manifesto would likely be better. Yeah, their websites would probably be better.

the mismeasure of man by stephen jay gould is hugely important for honing a sharp sense of skepticism with regards to numbers and statistics and understanding that there must always be questioning, fact checking, and (again) skepticism. while it's not directly a "human rights" book, it's certainly vastly important and unlike garbage like the communist manifesto which is purely theory (and a garbage theory at that), this is fact and education.

IMO Marx makes a lot of good sociological and economic points in Das Kapital. His problem was that his Hegelian background caused him to take those points and come to a conclusion that Karl Popper famously demolished in The Open Society and It's Enemies.

Sociology, I can understand and Marxian sociology is still prominent. Economic.... well.... there are very few Marxists or close in modern economics and it is not as if Marxism is forgotten by the field necessarily either given that economics seems to put a significant emphasis on the history of it's thought compared to many fields. Most economists just reject Marx as his methodology was basically undermined by the time he had written Das Kapital due to the Marginalist Revolution. Not only that, but many, including former Marxians accuse Marx of internal inconsistency as well.