Publication details
Proč být utilitaristou? O smyslu a zdůvodnění lidských práv
| Title in English | Why Be a Utilitarian? On the Meaning and Justification of Human Rights |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Právník |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Open access časopisu |
| Keywords | utilitarianism; welfarism; hedonism; utility; moral intuition; human rights; absolute rights; universality of human rights |
| Description | The article is a response to the polemical papers to the book Utilitarianism and Philosophy of Human Rights. It provides a coherent set of arguments against the objections to the utilitarian justification of human rights. In the first part, the author discusses the criteria by which we should evaluate the relevance of theories of normative ethics. In doing so, he stresses that it does not make good sense to apply those that are in the character of moral evaluations and follow directly from an alternative approach of this type. In the second part, he deals with the criticisms associated with defining the concept of utility or pleasure. In what follows, the author addresses objections related to the conflict of utilitarian conclusions with our moral in¬tuitions and the ability of this attitude to justify human rights. In doing so, he emphasizes that absoluteness cannot be central to the idea of human rights and that utilitarians do not make do with the language of duties alone. The article thus shows that the rights mentioned do not conflict with the utilitarian ethic but rather represent its flowing outgrowth. |
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