Integral humanisms: Jacques Maritain, Vladimir Soloviev, and the history of human rights (original) (raw)

Politico-Theological Foundations of Universal Human Rights: The Case of Maritain

Politico-Theological foundations of universal human rights: The case of maritain social research Vol. 80 : No. 1 : Spring 2013 233 coSmoPolITANISm beTweeN PolITIcAl Theology ANd bIoPolITIcS Contemporary political theory took a turn toward cosmopolitanism roughly in the same years that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), according to the new historiography (Moyn 2012), began to take hold as a governance mechanism of the current neoliberal "world order." This new cosmopolitanism-understood as a legitimation discourse of the emergent institutionality of universal human rights-is accompanied by a new respect afforded "world" religions in the public sphere and by a new understanding of "human dignity," which is now recognized to all individuals by virtue of their status as living beings rather than as rational beings. Jacques Maritain was one of the earliest philosophical proponents of universal human rights, and he played a nontrivial role as leading intellectual advisor to the drafters of the UDHR (Glendon 2002, chap. 5; Moyn 2010). His case serves to support an hypothesis as to why and how the cosmopolitical underpinning of the new discourse of universal human rights brings together a political theology and a biopolitics of a special kind.

Theoretical foundation of human rights: J. Maritain philosophy of natural law

Journal of Scientific Research and Development , 2016

The paper is focused on the impact of philosophical ideology of Jacque Maritain -one of the most prominent French philosophers of XX century - onto modern concept of human rights in their legal implementation. The perspectives of Maritain's basic developments for modern democracy are proved to be rather promising. J. Maritain was the first one who managed to unite philosophical anthropological theory (personalism) with actual participation in elaboration of the ideas of human rights oriented against totalitarian offence against the liberty of a person. An author of more than 60 books, J. Maritain helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is the principal drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The foundation of Maritain's thought lays in Aristotle, St. Thomas and the Thomistic treatments. Maritain was a strong defender of a natural law ethics. He viewed ethical norms as being rooted in human nature. For Maritain the natural law is known primarily, not through philosophical argument and demonstration, but rather through "Connaturality". Connatural knowledge is a kind of knowledge by acquaintance. We know the natural law through our direct acquaintance with it in our human experience. Of central importance, is Maritain's argument that natural rights are rooted in the natural law? This was the key to his involvement in the drafting of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Samuel Moyn – Christian Human Rights

Samuel Moyn in his ‘Christian Human Rights’ argues that the Catholic Church’s endorsement of human rights in 20th century was a tactical appropriation of an ideology alien to Catholicism – and it was designed to stop Communism. In a 2016 symposium with him, I took a different view. Belief in human rights, this paper argues, was central to traditional Catholic moral and political theology – in particular, the Church’s use of human rights to oppose religious coercion by states had a clear basis within the Catholic tradition. The new factor was not simply fear of Communism, but a central feature of Vatican II - a novel complacency about the effects on human nature of the Fall. Published in King's Law Journal, 2017

The Long History of Human Rights: Review of Samuel Moyn, Christian Human Rights

Books and Culture, 2016

This Essay assesses Samuel Moyn's revisionist argument that human rights were born only in the mid-twentieth century and then mostly as a shrewd Christian response to the secular liberalism and communist materialism that endangered the Church's political interests and influence. This account largely ignores the West's enduring and evolving tradition of rights, which have been an integral part of its commitment to the rule of law and constitutional order. Jurists since classical Roman and medieval times used rights language to define the law's protection, support, limitations, and entitlements of various persons and groups in society, and to map the proper interactions between political and other authorities and their respective subjects. Early modern Catholics, Protestants, and Enlightenment liberals built on this tradition, setting out most of the rights that the twentieth century declared to be universal rights of humankind. Moyn exaggerates the conservative Catholic influences on the mid-twentieth-century international human rights movement, and fails to credit the wide range of religious and philosophical views that were equally influential. And he exaggerates the secular character of contemporary human rights discussions, and fails to recognize the essential role of religion and belief in making rights real.

GEORGES FLOROVSKY ON HUMAN RIGHTS.pdf

European Journal of Science and Theology, 2019

This paper analyses the extent to which we could approach a human rights perspective in G. Florovsky‘s work. The first part describes his conception relating to man‘s nature and destiny, a conception derived from the patristic ideas on the creation of the world in general and of man in particular. The second part of the study focuses on the relationship between Christians and the contemporary world, respectively on how the Orthodox Church should promote its permanent values in a (post)modern world. Finally, we tried to see the importance of this conception in current Orthodox theology, meaning if and to what extent it can represent a way of dialogue between Orthodox theology and the principles of a secularized modern Occidental world.

Vasilevich N., Jääskeläinen, K., Development of the Human Rights Concept

Development of the Human Rights Concept

In the article the evolution of human rights both as a moral and legal concept is traced. The authors give an overview of historical changes in the social context and the emergence of different ideas on the human individual, human personality, equality, unity as well as on human community and society as a whole. Different approaches to law and legal institutions are explored and sources of legal standards and institutions on human rights are explained.