The Sacredness of the Person : A New Genealogy of Human Rights

Hans Joas

ISBN 10: 1589019695 / ISBN 13: 9781589019690

Published by Georgetown University Press Feb 2013, 2013

About this Item

Neuware - What are the origins of the idea of human rights and universal human dignity How can we most fully understand-and realize--these rights going into the future In The Sacredness of the Person, internationally renowned sociologist and social theorist Hans Joas tells a story that differs from conventional narratives by tracing the concept of human rights back to the Judeo-Christian tradition or, alternately, to the secular French Enlightenment. While drawing on sociologists such as Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas sets out a new path, proposing an affirmative genealogy in which human rights are the result of a process of 'sacralization' of every human being. According to Joas, every single human being has increasingly been viewed as sacred. He discusses the abolition of torture and slavery, once common practice in the pre-18th century west, as two milestones in modern human history. The author concludes by portraying the emergence of the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 as a successful process of value generalization. Joas demonstrates that the history of human rights cannot adequately be described as a history of ideas or as legal history, but as a complex transformation in which diverse cultural traditions had to be articulated, legally codified, and assimilated into practices of everyday life. The sacralization of the person and universal human rights will only be secure in the future, warns Joas, through continued support by institutions and society, vigorous discourse in their defense, and their incarnation in everyday life and practice.

Seller Inventory # 9781589019690

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Sacredness of the Person : A New Genealogy of Human Rights
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press Feb 2013
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1589019695
• ISBN 13: 9781589019690
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 216W x 139H x 17D millimeters 216 millimeters width by 139 millimeters height by 17 millimeters depth
• Weight: 286 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Conventional wisdom holds that human rights emerged from the spirit of the French Revolution, itself a political expression of the French Enlightenment, which was commonly seen as anticlerical and anti-Christian and antireligious. An alternative interpretation contends that the current human rights regime is the result of the Judeo-Christian tradition, paved by the understanding of the human person imparted by the Christian gospels. Drawing on sociologists such as Durkheim and Weber and Troetsch, Joas sets out a new path and proposes an alternative genealogy. He proposes that the modern belief in human rights and universal human dignity is the result of a process of "sacralization," in which every single human being has increasingly been viewed as sacred. Two milestones of this process in the modern era, Joas points out, were the abolition of torture and slavery--common practices in the pre-18th century West. This process of "sacralization" culminates in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, demonstrating how values--what Joas calls value generalization--can shift over time and reflect human progress.

About the Author

Hans Joas is professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, where he also belongs to the Committee on Social Thought, and at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he is a Permanent Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, School of History.