Freedoms and Solidarities: In Pursuit of Human Rights

Much has been written about growing global disparities in wealth and resources, how global capitalism has adversely affected human populations and the environment, and the dangers that a unipolar world order poses to peace and global pluralism. After summarizing the evidence for these arguments, the authors develop two main themes: first, that there is a growing transformative peoples' movement that challenges global capitalism and the imperial superpower; and, second, there is an extraordinary worldwide shift underway in human consciousness that accompanies practical global interdependencies and connectedness. The authors provide evidence for an emerging foundation of what philosopher Peter Singer describes as a 'one-world ethic,' and they show how this ethic is closely connected with what is called the 'human rights revolution.' They compare the western, liberal conception of freedom with conceptions of freedom found in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Amartya Sen, and draw from Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition to clarify that freedom has both collective and individual dimensions. They build on these foundations to address the following topics: positive human rights, collective goods, cosmopolitanism, social and cultural pluralism, and they pose alternatives to capitalism and liberal democracy. The authors work in the tradition of critical social science, but go beyond that to encourage readers to engage in emancipatory projects and utopian thinking. The worlds' peoples face too many terrifying prospects not to engage such projects and thinking.