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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Benjamin Gregg on Human Rights

Benjamin Gregg’s book, Human Rights as Social Construction, propounds an understanding of human rights that is based upon ‘a wholly naturalistic conception’ of humanity, one ‘that takes human nature as biologically understood and eschews supernatural explanations, whether theological or metaphysical’ (p. 185). He oscillates between two conceptions of this project: an abstemious, neo-Rawlsian political liberalism, and a comprehensive view that rejects religious and metaphysical claims.

I review the book, with a response from Prof. Gregg, in the current issue of Contemporary Political Theory, here.