Rights and Resistance: Interpersonal and Political Implications of Our Rights by Christopher Heath Wellman ISBN 9780197809808, 0197809804, 01093/9780197809839001000 instant download

Rights and Resistance: Interpersonal and Political Implications of Our Rights by Christopher Heath Wellman ISBN 9780197809808, 0197809804, 01093/9780197809839001000 instant download

Rights and Resistance features ten essays on our moral rights and the measures we may take to protect them. In addition to offering original accounts of various rights, these essays consider how we may permissibly enforce our moral claims against others. Virtually everyone agrees that we may defend our rights with only necessary and proportionate force, but should we accept these restrictions even when our resistance would be unnecessary or disproportionate only because a wrongdoer is employing overpowering force? What about citizens who endure political injustice? Although it is no longer fashionable to insist that we must obey the laws of an illegitimate regime, most theorists remain reluctant to condone forcible resistance against a legitimate government. Given that states can be fully legitimate without being perfectly just, prohibiting resistance against legitimate regimes requires oppressed citizens to simply endure injustices at the hands of the state. How are we exhibiting fidelity to justice if we constrain innocent victims whose moral rights are being trampled in these ways? Utilizing clear, intuitive ideas from common-sense morality, Wellman offers compelling answers to these and other pressing questions.