Prof. Eric Blumenson
Suffolk University Law School

Abstract: In this seminar I shall present the first chapter of a book I have been writing on the moral idea of human rights. The book aims to identify the fundamental elements that together constitute the idea of human rights, defend them against the most serious skeptical challenges lodged against them, and indicate what they and their supporting rationales suggest about the content of positive international human rights law. These elements are: (1) Individual rights as priorities (i.e. Dworkin’s “trumps”): a human right safeguards some human capacity or interest so fundamental that it should presumptively prevail over majority wishes, market forces, or the aggregate interest – for example, the (recently contested) right against torture. (2) Essential interests: the second element identifies the particular interests that should count in this way. (3) Equal human dignity: every person counts equally as a rights-bearing moral subject. (4) Objectivity: The fourth element is meta-ethical, a claim about the status of the previous ones: that they constitute objective, trans-cultural moral imperatives. The introductory chapter describes in more detail these four premises and introduces the challenges to them that the book will explore.

El seminario se dictará en idioma inglés, sin traducción.