This chapter explores the relationship between philosophy and human rights and provides a philosophical analysis of the idea. It investigates the value of philosophical education for comprehending human rights and sees the right to study philosophy as a way to address societal problems. The chapter explores how philosophy might be practically incorporated into human rights education and debates whether it should be taught as a parable or directly performed. It also discusses challenges in fusing philosophy with human rights education, emphasizing that the chapter does not offer a conclusive answer but rather opens up possibilities for further research.
TopA Philosophical Diagnosis For Human Rights
Philosophy and human rights are among the bits of knowledge that are essential, even if for many they are expendable as “useless”, which does not mean that they are unnecessary, on the contrary! Let us read from Amarthay Sen,
The contrast between the widespread use of the idea of human rights and the intellectual skepticism about its conceptual soundness is not new. The U.S. Declaration of Independence, in 1776, took it to be “self-evident” that everyone is “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” and thirteen years later, the French declaration of “the rights of man” asserted that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” But it did not take Jeremy Bentham long, in his Anarchical Fallacies written during 1791 and 1792 (aimed against the French “rights of man”), to propose the total dismissal of all such claims. Bentham insisted that “natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights (an American phrase), rhetorical nonsense, nonsense upon stilts.” That suspicion remains very alive today, and despite persistent use of the idea of human rights in practical affairs, many see the idea of human rights as no more than “bawling upon paper,” to use another of Bentham’s barbed portrayals of natural rights claims. (Sen, 2017, p. 316)
Philosophical education in the twenty-first century entails training students to think critically and systematically about basic questions and problems in fields such as ethics, politics, metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics. It entails studying the history of philosophy and interacting with current debates and challenges in the subject. Several philosophers have made significant contributions to the field of philosophy throughout history. Here are a few instances,
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were ancient Greek philosophers who studied ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological concerns. René Descartes was a French philosopher of the 17th century who is most known for his contributions to metaphysics and epistemology, especially his theories regarding skepticism, rationalism, and the mind-body issue. Kant was a German philosopher of the 18th century who wrote extensively on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. His views on the limitations of human reason and the significance of moral autonomy are well-known (Siraz et al., 2020). Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the 19th century who concentrated on morals, culture, and the human condition. His challenges of traditional values and thoughts about “. Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher of the 20th century who published on feminist theory, existentialism, and ethics. Her most renowned work, “The Second Sex,” is regarded as a milestone in feminist philosophy. Recently, philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum, Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Judith Butler have made substantial contributions to debates on subjects such as justice, identity, and power. We shall focus on Friedrich Nietzsche a little bit more later.
Muslim philosophers have historically made important contributions to the field. There is an enduring legacy left by individuals like Al-Farabi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Al-Ghazali, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), Ibn Khaldun, and Mulla Sadra. They studied a variety of philosophical topics, such as logic, metaphysics, ethics, and political philosophy, and their writings are still widely read today. Indian philosophers have contributed significantly to the development of philosophical discourse, in addition to Muslim philosophers. The philosophical traditions of Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and Hinduism have all benefited from the contributions of Gautama Buddha, Adi Shankara, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Nagarjuna, Swami Vivekananda, and Rabindranath Tagore. Their observations covered a wide range of subjects, including reality's nature, spirituality, metaphysics, and ethics.