The challenge of human rights - John Mahoney

The Challenge of Human Rights traces the history of human rights theory from classical antiquity through the enlightenment to the modern human rights movement, and analyses the significance of human rights in today's increasingly globalized world.

• Provides an engaging study of the origin and the philosophical and political development of human rights discourse.
  
• Offers an original defence of human rights.
  
• Explores the significance of human rights in the context of increasing globalisation.
  
• Confronts the major objections to human rights, including the charge of western ethical imperialism and cultural relativism.
  
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Argues that human rights logically culminate in an ethical cosmopolitanism to reflect the moral unity of the human race.

Jack Mahoney is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in the University of London and is a former Principal of Heythrop College, University of London. He is the author of several books and of many articles on general and applied ethics, including medical ethics, business and professional ethics and theological ethics, and he has lectured and broadcast widely in these subjects at home and abroad.

"Jack Mahoney has produced an account of human rights that speaks directly to contemporary audiences. It dodges none of the hard questions and its defence of human rights rings true as a result. It is a scholarly but also an intellectually exciting read." Conor Gearty, London School of Economics and Political Science

"Mahoney's text is excellent; it makes complicated issues accessible without lapsing into oversimplification. This is no small achievement and makes the text especially well-suited to undergraduate teaching. The range of issues covered is surprisingly comprehensive yet by no means superficial. The combination of philosophy and history is a major virtue." Maurice Wade, Trinity College

"Mahoney carefully surveys and discusses the various attempts to explain human rights in order to formulate a single, compelling, logical proof for their existence."
America, The National Catholic Weekly

"This book may be useful as an introduction to the concept of human rights." Journal of Peace Research