Edited by Angus J.L. Menuge

When does the exercise of an interest constitute a human right? The contributors to Menuge’s edited collection offer a range of secular and religious responses to this fundamental question of the legitimacy of human rights claims. The first section evaluates the plausibility of natural and transcendent foundations for human rights. A further section explores the nature of religious freedom and the vexed question of its proper limits as it arises in the US, European, and global contexts. The final section explores the pragmatic justification of human rights: how do we motivate the recognition and enforcement of human rights in the real world? This topical book should be of interest to a range of academics from disciplines spanning law, philosophy, religion and politics.

Table Of Contents

Introduction, Angus J.L. Menuge

Part I The Foundation of Human Rights

Grounding human rights: Naturalism’s failure and Biblical theism’s success, Paul Copan

Theism and human rights, Paul Cliteur

Why human rights cannot be naturalized: The contingency problem, Angus J.L. Menuge

Human rights as legal rights, Friedrich Toepel

Part II Religious Liberty and the Secular State

Human rights in a secular state will depend on its legal definition of religion, John H. Calvert

Balancing secularism with religious freedom: In Lautsi v Italy, the European Court of Human Rights evolved, Vito Breda

Restrictions on religious freedom: when and how justified?, John Warwick Montgomery

Part III Enforcing and Motivating Human Rights

No human rights without retribution: Plights and promises of redress as if nothing happened, Hendrik Kaptein

The motivation to protect and advance human rights: A faith-based approach, Dallas Miller

Why is Man the primary and functional way for the Church?: The involvement of Christian teaching in the contemporary human rights discourse, Dobrochna Bach-Golecka

Index