CONTENTS:-
1. Introduction
• The Challenges
• What Does Philosophical Understanding Mean?
• A Definition and Initial Characterizations of Human Rights
• The Subject Matter and Plan of the Work
2. The Idea of Human Rights: Its Origins and Historical Development
• Rights: Tracing the Philosophical Lineage to the Ancient and Medieval World
• The Idea of Natural Rights: Historical Development in the Modern Period
• The Idea of Natural Rights: Some Critical Responses
• The Idea of Human Rights: Some Contemporary Developments
• Conclusion
3. Rights as Natural Endowment: Some Philosophical Theories
• Thomas Hobbes: Setting the Stage for Modern Rights-debates
• John Locke: Rights as Centre-piece of Political Thought
• Thomas Paine: Restatement of Natural Rights
• Conclusion
4. The Natural Rights Paradigm: Some Critical Responses
• Jeremy Bentham: Natural Rights as “Nonsense upon Stilts”
• Edmund Burke: Natural Rights as “Pretended Rights”
• Karl Marx: Natural Rights as Rights of “Egoistic” Man
• Some Other Critical Reactions
• Conclusion
5. The Western World-view and Natural Rights: An Assessment
• The Primacy of the Individual
• Rationality
• Conclusion
6. Human Rights: Inventing New Dimensions
• Rights as Recognized Claims
• Rights as Taking a Stand
• Rights as Constellations of Hohfeldian Elements
• Rights as Claims
• Rights as Recognized Entitlements
• Conclusion
7. Human Rights and Utility
• Utilitarianism: An Overview
• Evolutionary Utilitarianism and Rights
• Revisionist Utilitarianism and Rights
• Conclusion
8. Human Rights, Moral Diversity and Indian Thought
• Human Rights and Moral Diversity
• The Kantian Conception of Human Dignity
• The VedÀntic Conception of Human Dignity
• Conclusion
