Truth, Politics, and Universal Human Rights »

Janet Holl Madigan holds a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from the University of Maryland. Currently homeschooling her five children, she has previously taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and Northeastern University.

This book uses the concept of universal human rights to explore the relationship between the individual, society, and truth. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was meant to provide a moral standard for judging the state's treatment of the individual, but some still contend that the principles expressed therein are not universal, but culturally relative. To answer the question of whether we can say something universally true about human beings while lacking the philosophical means to do so coherently, the author explores the changing relationship between truth and politics from Plato to Locke.

Introduction
• PART I: UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF MORAL DISCOURSE * The History of Human Rights in International Law
• The Relativism of Universality
• Human Rights as Moral Principles
• PART II: SOUL KEEPING AND STATE BUILDING: PRINCIPLES AND POLITICS FROM PLATO TO MACHIAVELLI * Natural Right: The "Philosophic Quest for the First Things" in Plato and Aristotle
• The Philosophic First Things in the Light of Christianity
• Machiavelli and the Low Road to Modernity
• PART III: THE DECLINE OF TRUTH AND THE RISE OF RIGHTS IN THE THOUGHT OF GROTIUS AND LOCKE * The Grotian Answer to the Machiavellian Challenge
• Locke's Natural Law: The Answer to Grotius's Prayer
• PART IV: BEING AND GOODNESS: THE ALPHA AND OMEGA OF HUMAN RIGHTS *

Being and Goodness: The Essence of Life and Law in the Philosophy of St. Thomas * The Logical Impossibility of Abortion as a Human Right
• Conclusion