Human rights are not enough: a critical assessment of challenges of inequality and care for international human rights
Date
2019
Authors
Harbour, Sophie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Abstract
This thesis takes human rights and presents two contemporary critiques that find fault in the
ability of the concept to adequately address current moral crises and to found a theory of moral
reasoning moving forward. What will develop is an argument that human rights are not enough
to be the starting point from where we form our ideas of moral theory and political and social
policy. They do not provide a framework that recognises the indelibly dependent nature of
human existence embodied by the ethics of care and they are ill-equipped to adequately
counteract the growing radical inequality which has considerable social, political and moral
consequences. Aside from critiquing human rights, an ethics of care also serves as a potential
starting point from whence to reassess how we understand political and social realities. It offers
insights into how we might approach the question of ‘why inequality matters’ and it is a lens
through which I see possibilities of expanding our ideas of motivation, power, vulnerability and
language, amongst others
Description
University of Witwatersrand
Department of Political Science
A thesis submitted for
Masters
By Research
2019
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Citation
Harbour, Sophie Elizabeth (2019) Human rights are not enough:|ba critical assessment of the challenges of inequality and care for international human rights, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://hdl.handle.net/10539/28337>