The Community of Rights provides a detailed explication of the fundamental rights of agency as derived from a single rationally justified principle of morality and develops the contents of economic and social rights as a basic part of human rights. A critical alternative to both "liberal" and "communitarian" views, this authoritative work will command the attention of anyone engaged in the debate over social and economic justice.
Encompassing community development, organizing, planning, & social change, as well as globalisation, this book is grounded in participatory & empowerment practice. The 36 chapters assess practice, theory & research methods.
In Human Rights from Below, Jim Ife shows how human rights and community development are problematic terms but powerful ideals, and that each is essential for understanding and practising the other. Ife contests that practitioners - advocates, activists, workers and volunteers - can better empower and protect communities when human rights are treated as more than just a specialist branch of law or international relations, and that human rights can be better realised when community development principles are applied. The book offers a long overdue assessment of how human rights and community development are invariably interconnected. It highlights how critical it is to understand the two as a basis for thinking about and taking action to address the serious challenges facing the world in the twenty-first century. Written both for students and for community development and human rights workers, Human Rights from Below brings together the important fields of human rights and community development, to enrich our thinking of both.
The 23 papers that were prepared for a 1991 symposium that was cancelled beneath the weight of public and professional protests at some of the speakers invited, particularly Peter Singer. They analyze the application of theoretical considerations arising from philosophical reflection to particular concrete cases and situations of moral conflict in such fields as the environment, biology and medicine, business and professions, politics, law, and society. Among the topics are a philosophical critique of legal rights for natural objects, comparing the value of human and nonhuman life, business ethics as a goal-rights system, liberal society and planned morality, and moral philosophy and its function. No subject index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
One of the leading thinkers to emerge in the postwar conservative intellectual revival was the sociologist Robert Nisbet. His book The Quest for Community, published in 1953, stands as one of the most persuasive accounts of the dilemmas confronting modern society. Nearly a half century before Robert Putnam documented the atomization of society in Bowling Alone, Nisbet argued that the rise of the powerful modern state had eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. But as the traditional ties that bind fell away, the human impulse toward community led people to turn even more to the government itself, allowing statism—even totalitarianism—to flourish. This edition of Nisbet’s magnum opus features a brilliant introduction by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and three critical essays. Published at a time when our communal life has only grown weaker and when many Americans display cultish enthusiasm for a charismatic president, this new edition of The Quest for Community shows that Nisbet’s insights are as relevant today as ever.
This book provides a complete and convincing account of what rights we do and do not have, who has them, and why. Presenting the foundations of a liberal, individualistic theory of rights, Lomasky explains the place of rights within the overall structure of morality, arguing for the moral importance of individual commitments to and pursuit of "projects." After developing his theory of basic rights, Lomasky demonstrates its implications for a variety of problems and issues, including property rights, the rights of children, and the status of the unborn, defective persons, animals, and even the dead. Arguing for a fundamental reshaping of philosophical ethics, Lomasky develops a credible alternative to currently fashionable views.
An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival. What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world. This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival.
A noted theologian explains how the radical idea of Christian love animated the African American civil rights movement and how it can power today's social justice struggles Speaking to his supporters at the end of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared that their common goal was not simply the end of segregation as an institution. Rather, "the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community." King's words reflect the strong religious convictions that motivated the African American civil rights movement. As King and his allies saw it, "Jesus had founded the most revolutionary movement in human history: a movement built on the unconditional love of God for the world and the mandate to live in that love." Through a commitment to this idea of love and to the practice of nonviolence, civil rights leaders sought to transform the social and political realities of twentieth-century America. In The Beloved Community, theologian and award-winning author Charles Marsh traces the history of the spiritual vision that animated the civil rights movement and shows how it remains a vital source of moral energy today. The Beloved Community lays out an exuberant new vision for progressive Christianity and reclaims the centrality of faith in the quest for social justice and authentic community.
