Making Human

Matthew S. Weinert

ISBN 10: 0472052497 / ISBN 13: 9780472052493

Published by University of Michigan Press, 2015

About this Item

pp. 280.

Seller Inventory # 26323908092

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Making Human
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0472052497
• ISBN 13: 9780472052493
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Differences between human beings have long been used to justify a range of degrading, exclusionary, and murderous practices that strip people of their humanity and dignity. While considerable scholarship has been devoted to such dehumanization, Matthew S. Weinert asks how we might conceive its reverse—humanization, or what it means to “make human.”

Weinert proposes an account of making human centered on five mechanisms: reflection, recognition, resistance, replication of dominant mores, and responsibility. Examining cases such as the UN Security Council’s engagements with crises and the International Court of Justice’s grappling with Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, he illustrates the distinct and contingent ways these mechanisms have been deployed. Theoretically, the cases evince a complex, evolving relationship between state-centric and human-centric views of society, ultimately revealing the normative potentialities of both.

Though the case studies concern specific human relations issues on an international level, Weinert argues in favor of starting from the shared problem of being human and of living in a world in which the humanity of countless groups has been demeaned or denied. Working outward from that point, he proposes, we obtain a more pragmatically grounded understanding of the social construction of the human being.

About the Author

Matthew S. Weinert is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware.