Abstract
This essay elaborates in a historical perspective on some controversies concerning the human rights conception. The reason why I take a historical perspective as my analytic standpoint lies in the essence of the human rights conception which is recognized as a human-made thing, rather than a natural phenomenon. In other words, the human rights conception is a kind of interpretation, knowledge and narrative. In this essay, I will firstly examine the main changes of philosophical and social conditions influencing the development and evolution of human rights conceptions. After a brief introduction of human rights conception, the following work of this essay is premised on the questions of what might be broadly termed ¡§universalism vs. relativism¡¨, ¡§individual rights vs. collective rights¡¨ and ¡§sovereignty vs. human rights¡¨. Accordingly, it is concerned with focusing scholarly attention on the place of diverse values and cultures in contemporary international society. Besides, I will take ¡§Asian value¡¨ as an object to embody those controversies mentioned above. Briefly speaking, there are four premises on which the ¡§Asian value¡¨ is founded, namely ¡§priority of the socio-economic rights over the politico-civil rights¡¨, ¡§priority of the cultural particularity over the universality of human rights¡¨, ¡§priority of individual rights over collective rights¡¨, and ¡§priority of sovereignty over human rights¡¨. Finally, I will examine the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer. It is argued that the notion of the ¡§fusion of horizons¡¨, which Gadamer derives from the linguistic and nature and historicity of human existence, provides fruitful responses to those competing opinions outlined above. I suggest that an application of Gadamer¡¦s inspiring ideas opens the way to a more convergent and inclusive human rights conception.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-1225102-164341 |
| Date | 25 December 2002 |
| Creators | Yen, Ming-Hong |
| Contributors | Kuo-Hsiang Tseng, Ching-Chuan Huang, Chih-Yu Shih |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-1225102-164341 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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