Human Rights: An Anthology of Texts (60 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Anniversary Book, Vol.3)

Scarce cloth hardcover, 787 pages, NOT ex-library. Weight 1.25kg. Book is clean and bright throughout with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps, firmly bound. A straightened fold on 2 leaves; cosmetic damage on the front board (torn cloth along the upper spine). Issued without a dust jacket. -- "The broad historical spectrum covered by the texts contained in this book stretches from the sources of our Hellenic and Judeo-Christian civilization of the West, represented by Plato, Moses and Jesus, through the heritage of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, ending with what are now considered classical 19th century thinkers and a variety of contemporary perspectives on human rights, including communitarian, libertarian, utilitarian, natural law, feminist, postmodernist, relativist and religious points of view. We have included important political statements as well as philosophical texts in the strict sense of the term. The collected texts identify the problem of human rights as pertaining to a view of man that lies somewhere between two extremes: between the idea of the human being as an autonomous person endowed with inalienable dignity, and that of the human being as conditioned and determined by a variety of factors: social, political, economic, religious, sexual and cultural. Human rights are usually referred to as a project of modernity. According to some thinkers, e.g. Jürgen Habermas, this project, although successful, remains unfinished. To others, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, it has been a failure. Our anthology, however, shows that the debate about man, his freedoms, rights and duties, has a longer tradition, dating back to the earliest period of our civilization.".…