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In Defense of Human Rights: A Non-Religious Grounding in a Pluralistic World
This book establishes a defence of human rights that can be shared by both non-religious and religious people.
- GenresPhilosophy
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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February 12, 2019
This is less of a review & more of a critique of linguistic philosophy. Academic books are not my favorite. This one was easier to read because it was summarizing arguments by Dworkin, Rawls, and the likes (all from the 20th century). Still. It makes you wonder, how much influence can academics have outside their fields if their arguments are linguistic (& theoretical) rather than empirical.
I'm starting to think that empirical arguments are really the only ones that are worth anything. This book for example looks at the word "freedom" and says that the lack of it is untrue by definition. The same is true about "breaking promises." You can not break a promise because it wouldn't be a promise. All of this is true. The conclusion? That you cannot impose on others since we were all born free. I must be misrepresenting this in its intricacy, but the core of the argument is the same.
Trying to summarize all the arguments in this book would be impossible. In reality, it does not matter if there is no such thing as breaking promises. People will still break them. People will still lie. But if you show them the actual - empirical - ramifications of breaking promises & lying, then there may be hope. I know it's helped me. I am open to rebuttals, however. If any linguistic philosopher wants to defend his field, I'd love to hear all about it.
I'm starting to think that empirical arguments are really the only ones that are worth anything. This book for example looks at the word "freedom" and says that the lack of it is untrue by definition. The same is true about "breaking promises." You can not break a promise because it wouldn't be a promise. All of this is true. The conclusion? That you cannot impose on others since we were all born free. I must be misrepresenting this in its intricacy, but the core of the argument is the same.
Trying to summarize all the arguments in this book would be impossible. In reality, it does not matter if there is no such thing as breaking promises. People will still break them. People will still lie. But if you show them the actual - empirical - ramifications of breaking promises & lying, then there may be hope. I know it's helped me. I am open to rebuttals, however. If any linguistic philosopher wants to defend his field, I'd love to hear all about it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review