Human Rights have been widely criticised
An alternative to the concept of rights is capabilities. While human rights are said to be “entitlements” that all human beings have (Nussbaum, 1997, p.273), capabilities realistically look at what opportunities individuals have and what they are actually able to do or be in their situations or contexts (Nussbaum, 1997, p.285; Whiteside & Mah, 2012, pp.923-4).
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum are the central pioneers of the capabilities approach (Alexander, 2004, p.451). The primary concept of the capabilities approach is that is asks questions about individuals situations and opportunities such as, “what is this person actually able to be and do?” and “is this person capable of this or not?” (Nussbaum, 1997, p.285). This is an intentional move by capabilities pioneers to move away from the language of basic human entitlements and instead discuss what people are really capable of doing in their contexts (Nussbaum, 1997, p.275). This approach emphasises that the acquisition of rights, or capabilities depends heavily on the context of individua...
It is seen to be relevant for the moral evaluation of social arrangements beyond the development context, for example, for considering gender justice. It is also seen as providing foundations for normative theorising, such as a capability theory of justice that would include an explicit ‘metric’ (that specifies which capabilities are valuable) and ‘rule’ (that specifies how the capabilities are to be distributed). The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has provided the most influential version of such a capability theory of justice, deriving from the requirements of human dignity a list of central capabilities to be incorporated into national constitutions and guaranteed to all up to a certain threshold.
There have been many humanitarians that strive to help countries suffering with human right abuses. People think that the help from IGOs and NGOs will be enough to stop human rights violations. However, it hasn’t been effective. Every day, more and more human rights violations happen. The problem is escalating. People, including children, are still being forced to work to death, innocent civilians are still suffering the consequences of war, and families are struggling to stay firm together. Despite the efforts from the people, IGOs, and NGOs, In the year 2100, human rights abuse will not end.
Capabilities approach pioneered by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum is the theoretical framework that provides a foundation for assessing human well-being in terms of functionings and freedoms that individuals possess under certain political and social conditions. In contrast to alternative theories like utilitarianism that solely focuses on subjective phenomenon as pleasure in evaluating living standards, or commodity-focused approach that sees opulence as an objective indicator of welfare, capabilities approach is mainly concerned with choices that people can make and opportunities they are guaranteed in order to pursue their life goals. This approach addresses a number of issues within the political philosophy that are mainly practical in their essence. (1) How to combine broadness of the approach with its practical application
According to Thomas Jefferson, all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights. Unalienable rights are rights given to the people by their Creator rather than by government. These rights are inseparable from us and can’t be altered, denied, nullified or taken away by any government, except in extremely rare circumstances in which the government can take action against a particular right as long as it is in favor of the people’s safety. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America mentions three examples of unalienable rights: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. I believe these rights, since they are acquired by every human being from the day they are conceived, should always be respected, but being realistic, most of the time, the government intervenes and either diminishes or
Under the declaration’s conception of rights, rights are absolute and inflexible. To Burke, this inflexibility was a problem because it did not allow room for potential compromise and changes (Burke 104). The authors of the declaration believed that rights should function as fixed rules that dictate how government should act. But, in reality, it is not possible for these sets of rights to easily determine the correct course of action at all times. Often times the application of rights will need to depend on the situation and circumstance. By declaring rights before hand, the authors of the declaration are limiting the flexibility of rights, such as in the case of extreme
When some people has done a serious crime and could be considered as inhuman acts by law and/or other human and they might be punished for death penalty. Capital punishment or death penalty still exist until now in some big countries such as, Unites States, Singapore, China and Indonesia (Dieter, 1997). Capital punishment is used by some countries in order to disciplines the criminals. However, in some other opinion capital punishment seems to be dehumanizing because they believe that every single persons had their own value and worth.
Introduction One of the main reasons why human rights have been put in place is to protect the public life and public space of every individual being. One fundamental characteristic of human rights is that they are equal rights; they are aimed at providing protection to every person in an equal way. These rights have been entrenched through laws that are passed by states and international conventions. Human rights laws have evolved over time, and have been shaped by several factors, including philosophical theories in the past. This paper looks at the theories of two philosophers, Emmanuel Kant and John Stuart Mills, and how their teachings can be used to explain the sources of human rights.
In the video Star Size Comparison it displays the planets and stars all lined up next to each and it goes one by one from the moon to Mercury to Venus and Mars, Jupiter to Saturn etc.. I like the side to side comparison of all the planets/stars because it's a good frame of reference for how big the planets and stars are, in comparison to each other. The second video, To Scale the Solar System was a little different, in this video it primarily showcased the distance between the planets. A young man and his crew wanted to give you a sense of just how far the moon is from the earth and how far the Earth is away from Jupiter and Jupiter from Neptune and so on and so forth. I really liked that him and his friends invested so much time and effort
Capabilities approach pioneered by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum is the theoretical framework that provides a foundation for assessing human well-being in terms of functionings and freedoms that individuals possess under certain political and social conditions. In contrast to alternative theories like utilitarianism that solely focuses on subjective phenomenon as pleasure in evaluating living standards, or commodity-focused approach that sees opulence as an objective indicator of welfare, capabilities approach is mainly concerned with choices that people can make and opportunities they are guaranteed in order to pursue their life goals. This approach addresses a number of issues within the political philosophy that are mainly practical in their essence. (1) How to combine broadness of the approach with its practical application (2)
Human rights have been a longstanding and important issue that the UN has been addressing since its inception. One particular country of unrest is Serbia, where history has led to some unpleasant political situations and, as a result, severe human rights issue have arisen. Serbia – landlocked between Bosnia and Herzegovina on the West and Romania on the East – is a historically complex and very new country. Serbia only became separate from Moldova and Kosovo as recently as 2006 and 2008 respectively. Constant political distress has proven difficult to maintain an appropriate human rights code without high degrees of exploitation, especially during the breakup of Yugoslavia. It is the various human rights issues in Serbia that will be examined in this paper, looking to the UN for support and to head in the right direction.
Amnesty is a sovereign act of forgiveness for past offences (generally of a political nature that threatens the sovereignty of the Government), which is granted to a group of people as a whole (for individuals it is called pardon) and always through national law or governmental decree.
There is a huge variation in sizes of stars as well. They range from super giants to small dwarfs. Most often their sizes correlate to their age or the particular cycle they are beginning to progress into. For example, a star that is much older may be progressing into the stage before it undergoes supernova. Before it becomes a supernova it greatly expands. However, some stars are naturally very massive. We can see from the below pictures the huge ranges of stars. Both pictures depict how miniscule our own sun is compared to some of these giants.
Iain Banks once stated on the topic of torture, “torture is such a slippery slope; as soon you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons” (Goodreads). When used in the appropriate way, torture can be very effective; however, it is often taken advantage of and is never acceptable. It has shown in the past that once a country has been accused of using torture, all credibility is lost and they are understandably looked down on. Torture is an extreme violation of human rights.
Throughout societies in history and presently, we can see the employment of two primary forms of rights: positive and negative. The bulk of the following attempts to highlight the differences between the two. The proponents of each will also be discussed.
…rights which are inherent to the human being ... human rights acknowledges that every single human being is entitled to enjoy his or her human rights without distinction as to race, [color], sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. [To add on, human] rights are legally guaranteed by human rights law, protecting individuals and groups against actions that interfere with fundamental freedoms and human dignity (Human rights for