On Human Rights
"thoughtful, interesting, informative, often illuminating." --Social Theory and Practice"This book is a masterpiece ...it will be studied for a long time to come."--Brad Hooker,Oxford Journal of Legal Studies"James Griffin's new book is a singular contribution to the philosophy of human rights. In it he defends his own well-thought-out account with great subtlety and ingenuity, but the exposition of his account and the discussion of the important issues are so nicely structured and so clear and well-informed that the book could clearly be used as a text in an undergraduate course. At the same time, Griffin's exposition of his view is so subtle and nuanced and the arguments so careful and cogent that the book is an essential work for specialists in the field... his book shows that philosophers have an important contribution to make to the conceptual and moral issues that are at the heart of much ongoing discourse on the nature and content of human rights."--William J. Talbott,Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"Arguably the most significant philosophical meditation on human rights...[since] the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.... Not only the most powerful, fully elaborated contemporary philosophical contribution to the topic, but also one that has put in place many of the foundations on which any future work should build."--John Tasioulas,Ethics"A fresh and timely look at the whole field of human rights. Griffin adroitly picks his way through this judicial and moral minefield in which a person's perception of a 'human right' can be condemned as a crime by someone of a different political or religious background."--Patricia Allen,NorthernEcho"James Griffin modestly sees his book as an early contribution to a theoretical critique of modern interpretations of rights, but it is more significant than that. Academic, intellectually demanding, clearly written and rigorously thought through. This is not a polemic but an important work of scholarly philosophy, one that may lead to a fundamental reappraisal of something that impinges ever more closely upon us. It is also one of those books that make philosophy matter."--Alan Judd,The Spectator