The discourse of human rights has emerged as the dominant moral discourse of our time. Reflecting on this often contentious discourse, with both its enthusiasts and detractors, led me to consider the following questions: What constitutes an intelligible definition of human rights? What place should this discourse occupy within ethics? Can theology acknowledge human rights discourse? How is theological engagement with human rights justified? What are the implications of the convergence of what are two potentially universalizable discourses?

I came to this research with a worldview that has been profoundly enriched by living and working in the Caribbean and in...

Has this child no share in human dignity? Has he or she no appeal to human rights, the dominant moral discourse of our time? Richard Rorty describes the contemporary moral landscape as one primarily inhabited by “Kantians” or “Hegelians.” Those who hold that there are such things as intrinsic human dignity and universal human rights are Kantians. They also uphold an ahistorical distinction between the demands of morality and those of prudence. Rorty identifies a particular type of contemporary Hegelian as one who seeks to uphold the institutions and practices of liberal democracies without an appeal to their foundations in...

Where does theology find itself on the contemporary moral landscape described by Rorty as inhabited primarily by “Kantians” and “Hegelians”? The language of human rights is problematic for theology; for certain perspectives on rights assume an adversarial view of relationships within society and can be erosive of visions and structures of communal life. An extreme “rights mentality” that views rights not as a boundary discourse in ethics but as the discourse that trumps all other ethical concerns can encourage the coexistence of disconnected subjects and the demands of narcissistic claims. A theologian may be more comfortable with a biblical vision...

This chapter situates human rights as a “realist” discourse in time, located between the memory of suffering and hope for the future. It begins with a brief exploration of the concept of memory, particularly the efforts to develop what Paul Ricoeur calls a culture of just memory. The contribution of Recuperación de la Memoría Historica, produced by the Human Rights Office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala, to our understanding of the impact of human rights violations, not just on individuals—damaging thereby both victims and perpetrators—but also on the fabric of community, will be examined. The “interruption” of...

This chapter is neither an overview of liberation theology nor an exposition of particular liberation theologians but an exploration of the engagement of liberation theology with human rights discourse and the contribution it makes to this discourse through its focus on the preferential option for the poor and the historical realization of the rights of the poor.¹ My approach to liberation theology is both sympathetic and critical, conscious of the poles of idealization and dismissal that often characterize responses to this theology.

This sympathetic and critical perspective is forged not only by intellectual engagement with the texts, but also by...

This book has explored the engagement between theology and the discourse of human rights, a dialectical boundary discourse of human flourishing, positioned in ethics as “protective marginality.” As a dialectical language, human rights holds in tension the universal and the particular, the individual and the community, the religious and the secular, theory and practice. It draws attention to suffering and sets conditions and guidelines for the exercise of responsibility in response to the awareness of suffering.

Defining and locating human rights discourse as a boundary discourse prevents it from eclipsing other forms of ethical, political, or theological discourse. The argument...

Charles taylor holds that the contemporary philosophical preoccupation with issues of rights and justice reflects a narrow concern with “morality” in contrast with broader “ethical” questions about the “good life” and human flourishing.¹ In an argument akin to that of the “new traditionalists,” rights are juxtaposed with eudaimonia and addressing the latter is proposed as a more worthy pursuit for philosophers and theologians. Two major aims of this book have been to respond to that juxtaposition of rights and flourishing and to challenge the assumption that a concern about human rights is a “preoccupation” with a narrow range of issues....