Freedom? The Battle Over America's Essay

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MacPherson goes on to point out how different seventeenth century theorists -- Leveller, Hobbes, and Locke, to name a few -- included these ideas in their philosophies. MacPherson further illustrates that a main similarity in these philosophies was the belief that human society was a series of market relations (266). At this point, these theories have "failed" liberal-democratic theory (MacPherson 270) because it has made impossible a valid theory of obligation. As such, MacPherson poses the question whether liberal-democratic theory and Hobbsian can be realigned and made to not be mutually exclusive (277). In relation to Western human rights, these theories recognize the certain aspects of freedom (unsurprising, as we have seen from Halcoff's piece) 'create' a man, in a sense. As such, it might be argued that these seventeenth century philosophers were some of the first to recognize, implicitly, a Western notion of human rights.

In their article, Bunch & Frost explain the usefulness of positing "women's rights" as "women's human rights." This approach came from the situation where "women's rights" -- labeled as such -- consistently took a back seat to human rights as the result of male-dominated human-rights organizations (Bunch & Frost). As such, the framing of "women's rights" as "human rights" forces human-rights organizations, such as the UN, to address, in their symposiums and policies on human rights, the rights of all women (Bunch & Frost).

Bunch & Frost first describe the history of human rights, and how it consistently gave more importance to male-centered rights than women's rights.

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Moreover, as women have traditionally been relegated to the private sphere of life, states often overlooked human rights abuses toward women that happened in the home (Bunch & Frost). Bunch & Frost argue that, through framing "women's rights" as "human rights," such abuses have recently, and rightfully, been finally addressed. Further, they argue that this reframing acts to give women political power, or leverage, and provides a system in which they can collaborate for the purpose of change. Bunch & Frosts' article is written solely within the notion of the moral superiority of Western human rights', and does not take into account the dilemma that Pollis and Schwab point out. However, they do recognize that universal human rights are indeed "universal," and not just reserved for men.

As a set, these articles represent a number of points on a veritable spectrum of issues that deal with human rights. The qualifier (and in my opinion, the wisest) of them all is Pollis & Schwab's, which, in a progressive vein, insists that the West needs to rethink its notion of human rights. The rest lie, in a sense, within their article, arguing specific points about the Western notion of human rights, rather than the Western notion of human rights, as a whole, versus some other notion of human rights......

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