Religion & Law

Rick, you write, in the post immediately below, that you are "inclined to think that claims about 'rights' to health care are not as helpful as arguments about the moral obligations of a political community to its members."  Oh my!  Please come to the University of San Diego this fall, where I'm teaching a course on human rights both to law students and to graduate students in peace studies.  One of the first things I'll explain to my students--in the course of disaggregating human-rights-talk into its two main kinds:  moral and legal, not to be confused with one another!--is that an argument in support of a human-rights-claim against government just *is* an argument in support of a claimed "moral obligation [of a certain sort] of a political community to its members..." -- and perhaps, depending on the claim, not just to its members, but to all human beings.

We can go running together--if you're willing to slow down--along the ocean!