Human Rights and Human Liberties: A Radical Reconsideration of the American Political Tradition - Hardcover

Machan, Tibor R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0882291599 ISBN 13: 9780882291598

Publisher: Nelson-Hall, 1975

Synopsis

Basic, natural human rights have been identified as the bulwark against government oppression and tyranny--- by John Locke, for example --- but are always disputed by skeptics on numerous grounds. Human Rights and Human Liberties takes up the challenge of those disputes and argues that human beings do indeed have the fundamental, unalienable rights to their lives, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and so forth --- indeed, to do whatever they will that does not violate the rights of others (even if the exercise of their rights isn't wise, prudent, or civil). That is the meaning of living as free adult men and women, with all the benefits and risks that flow from it. This book is especially germane now that the most prominent legal theorists in the West tend to dismiss basic human rights and even insist they are grants of governments, just as this had been viewed in earlier times when monarchs and such were believed to rule people and grant them some privileges.

About this title

About the Author

Tibor Machan was smuggled out of communist Hungary at fourteen, served in the US Air Force, and then went on to earn his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in philosophy (Claremont M. College, NYU, and UC Santa Barbara, respectively). He has written approximately thirty books and edited twenty-five ―- details may be found at http://tibikem.spaces.live.com/blog/ ―- and written over 200 papers for academic journals in numerous disciplines. He edited Reason Papers for twenty-five years. He was the editor and a founder of Reason Magazine. Machan writes syndicated columns for Freedom News Wire, Free Inquiry Magazine, and numerous web sites and blogs. He holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair in Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at Chapman University's Argyros School of Business and Economics in Orange, CA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Nelson-Hall
• Publication date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0882291599
• ISBN 13: 9780882291598
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300