Preface 1: Introduction Part I: Rights as Addressive Duties 2: Rights' Elusive Relation to Interests 3: Rights' Elusive Relation to Powers 4: Rights' Relation to the First and Second Person 5: Rights and Interests Revisited 6: From Directed Duties to Rights Part II: Human Rights for the Right-Holder's Sake 7: Teleological Groundings of Rights and Duties 8: The Individual's Place in the Grounding of her Rights 9: The 'Human' in Human Rights and the Law 10: Human Rights as Everyone's Business Part III: Property Rights for the Common Good 11: Introducing Property Rights 12: Modest Property Rights for the Right-Holder's Sake 13: Property Rights for the Common Good 14: Rights Protecting Performance of Duties 15: Conclusion: A Partial Vindication of Rights
Rowan Cruft is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Stirling. His work focuses on the nature and moral foundation of rights and duties. He is the co-editor of Crime, Punishment, and Responsibility (Oxford 2011) and of Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Oxford 2015). His research examines the nature and justification of rights and duties, and their role in shaping a democratic public sphere.
Rowan Cruft's ingenious addition to the canon of how to think about
human rights, and rights more generally, rewrites the score * Zofia
Stemplowska, Journal of Applied Philosophy *
Human Rights, Ownership, and the Individual is an extraordinarily
ambitious book. Professor Cruft develops a sophisticated abstract
framework for thinking about rights, which he then applies to
various areas of ethical and legal life, especially human rights
and property. This approach connects areas that might otherwise
seem disparate by viewing them through the lens of the same
philosophical abstractions * Nick Sage, Journal of Applied
Philosophy *
...extremely interesting... * Giulio Fornaroli, Journal of Moral
Philosophy *
The very first question philosophers of rights need to answer is
why we possess the language and practice of "directed duties" in
the first place. What makes Rowan Cruft's Human Rights, Ownership,
and the Individual such a critical contribution to the philosophy
of rights is that it provides a complete and thought-provoking
answer to that first question. * Giulio Fornaroli, Law and
Philosophy *
a valuable and original contribution to the recent philosophical
literature on rights and human rights. . . . ambitious and
wide-ranging . . . We have only been able to engage with a few of
the many topics of great interest and importance on which he has
advanced the state of the art. . . . His book is required reading
for anyone doing serious work on rights and human rights. * Allen
Buchanan and Gopal Sreenivasan, Ethics *
a rich and carefully structured book, written with clarity and
integrity . . . The author's appetite for argument is formidable,
his intelligence is obvious, and the analysis offered is always
thought-provoking and often subtle. While I find myself disagreeing
with some of the author's conclusions, the central ideas which
drive the argument of the book represent an important advance in
the literature. * N. E. Simmonds, American Journal of Jurisprudence
*
Cruft manages to do what few philosophers are able to do: offer a
genuine competitor to extant theories of rights in general, and
human rights in particular. The book is replete with arresting
insights and does not shy away - on the contrary - from reaching
controversial conclusions on (in particular) the grounds and scope
of property rights. Cruft's ability to conduct forensic dissections
of the literature without losing sight of his overarching aims is
extraordinary. With this book, he cements his status as a leading
legal, moral and political philosopher. * Cecile Fabre, University
of Oxford *
This is the most original, rigorous, and wide-ranging book on
rights in many years. Rowan Cruft makes fundamental advances in
describing how rights do - and should - structure our moral, legal,
and social relations to each other. * Leif Wenar, King's College
London *
In the face of criticisms of the concept of rights as no longer
useful for political theory and practice, Cruft's masterfully
argued book reveals their power and their humanitarian import. His
work is engaging, original, and profoundly important in these
difficult times. * Carol C. Gould, City University of New York *
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