In my book, The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World, I set out to explore what impact human rights have had upon the ordinary virtues. The question I asked was whether human rights has become a global ethic, a standard reference point for moral judgment in ordinary life in cultures around the world.
Tag: rights
The Return of Sovereignty
Originally published in The New Republic SOVEREIGNTY IS BACK. Our debates about the global economic crisis keep returning to the problem of sovereign debt and the need for sovereign guarantees to reassure the markets. We keep hoping that somewhere, sometime, in the downward spiral of de-leveraging and disillusion there will be an authority— a sovereign—to take charge and put an end to our anxiety. This…
Needs and justice in the ‘Wealth of Nations’: an introductory essay
“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable […]” — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations