Outline

Overview

This unit addresses central themes from the history and philosophy of human rights. Topics may include justifications for human rights, dangers and threats to human rights, the meaning and role of dignity, tensions between human rights and state sovereignty, as well as wider themes in political thought such as equality, liberty, and power. Thinkers may include Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine, Marx, Arendt, Levi, Rawls, and Nussbaum.

Details

Academic unit	Philosophy
Unit code	PHIL3613
Unit name	Philosophy of Human Rights
Session, year ?	Semester 2, 2020
Attendance mode	Normal day
Location	Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Credit points	6

Enrolment rules

Prohibitions ?	None
Prerequisites ?	12 credit points at 2000 level in Philosophy or 12 credit points at 2000 level in Politics or 12 credit points at 2000 level in International Relations
Corequisites ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff and contact details

Coordinator	Alexandre Lefebvre, alex.lefebvre@sydney.edu.au

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length
Participation	Weekly Questions n/a	10%	-
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Midterm Essay n/a	40%	-	2000 words
Outcomes assessed:
Assignment	Final Essay n/a	50%	-	2500 words
Outcomes assessed:

Weekly questions: Each week students are expected to prepare two questions based on the relevant reading. Each question can be as long as a paragraph or as short as a sentence. The questions will be counted, not graded. But to count they must reflect a real engagement with the relevant reading. (E.g., to ask when reading Burke, “Why do the rights of man make Burke so angry?” is not a real engagement. A good question is: “Burke objects to both the content (e.g., equality) as well as the form (e.g., as abstract) of natural rights. What is the relationship between the two?”) These questions must be submitted on Canvas before 11:59pm on Tuesday before class. Please write your name and tutorial time (e.g., Jane Smith, Wednesday 2-3 pm). Each set of questions will count as 1% toward your final grade, up to a maximum of 10%.

Midterm Essay: On September 23rd, you will receive a 2000 word (maximum) midterm assignment. Essay questions will be posted on Canvas. The midterm assignment is due October 14th. A late penalty of 5% per calendar day will apply, and work submitted more than ten working days after the deadline will not be assessed and a mark of zero will be recorded.

Final Essay: On November 11th, you will receive a 2500 word (maximum) final essay assignment. Essay questions will be posted on Canvas. The final essay is due December 2nd. A late penalty of 5% per calendar day will apply, and work submitted more than ten working days after the deadline will not be assessed and a mark of zero will be recorded.

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100
Distinction	75 - 84
Credit	65 - 74
Pass	50 - 64
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see sydney.edu.au/students/guide-to-grades

For more information see guide to grades.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

Special consideration

If you experience short-term circumstances beyond your control, such as illness, injury or misadventure or if you have essential commitments which impact your preparation or performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Academic integrity

The Current Student website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. The University expects students and staff to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

We use similarity detection software to detect potential instances of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breach. If such matches indicate evidence of plagiarism or other forms of academic integrity breaches, your teacher is required to report your work for further investigation.

You may only use artificial intelligence and writing assistance tools in assessment tasks if you are permitted to by your unit coordinator, and if you do use them, you must also acknowledge this in your work, either in a footnote or an acknowledgement section.

Studiosity is permitted for postgraduate units unless otherwise indicated by the unit coordinator. The use of this service must be acknowledged in your submission.

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Introduction - The Theory and History of Human Rights	Lecture (2 hr)
Week 02	Alexis de Tocqueville, Ancien Regime and the French Revolution (1856)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 03	Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 04	Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (1791)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 05	Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and Alexandre Lefebvre, Human Rights and the Care of the Self (2018)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 06	Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question” (1844)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 07	Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 08	Primo Levi, Survival at Auschwitz (1947)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 09	The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), Judith Shklar, “The Liberalism of Fear” (1989), and Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry (2001)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 10	Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (2010)	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 11	Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence, and John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.”	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 12	J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.
Lecture recording: Most lectures (in recording-equipped venues) will be recorded and may be made available to students on the LMS. However, you should not rely on lecture recording to substitute your classroom learning experience.
Preparation: Students should commit to spend approximately three hours’ preparation time (reading, studying, homework, essays, etc.) for every hour of scheduled instruction.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

All required readings are in the coursepack.

An aim of this class is to closely engage with a limited number of primary texts in order to dwell on key themes, and, more generally, to slow reading down. Students are not expected to read more widely than the required readings in the coursepack. If you wish to consult secondary material, however, I have placed the following two texts on reserve at Fisher Library (hardcopy only):

• Furet and Ozouf, eds. A critical dictionary on the French Revolution (1989). This volume has an outstanding entry on Tocqueville’s Ancien Regime. 944.04 282

• Lynn Hunt. Inventing Human Rights: a History (2007). Cultural history of human rights, concentrating on the 18th century. 323.09 5

The following texts are on eReserve, available through the link on the Canvas site:

• Jack Donnelly. Human Rights Theory and Practice (2013). Good general introduction to the theory and practice of human rights.

• Douzinas and Gearty, eds. The Meaning of Rights: the Philosophy and Social Theory of Human Rights (2014). Wide range of essays on topics in philosophy of human rights.

Two more useful resources: 1. The Cambridge Companion series. These volumes are provide excellent introductions to dedicated authors and topics, such as Burke, Tocqueville, Wollstonecraft, Levi, and Arendt. They are available in fulltext through Fisher Library. 2. The online Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. It has useful entries on Arendt, Burke, Human Rights, Rights, Respect, and much more. If you wish for further advice on secondary readings please send me an email.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University’s graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. analyse core concepts in the philosophy of human rights, such as dignity, rights, duty, sovereignty, natural law, universality, witnessing, and violence
LO2. distinguish traditions in the philosophy of human rights, such as natural law, positivist, liberal, and capabilities
LO3. demonstrate critical and charitable reading skills of primary texts.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Closing the loop

Additional session on human rights education (week 11)

Additional information

Here is a more precise summary of the unit of study content:

This year we will look at the longterm theory and history of human rights, from its classical origins in the French Revolution to the contemporary period. In particular, we will ask how and why the two main events of political modernity – the French Revolution, and the Second World War and the Holocaust – led to declarations of human rights. Our first cluster of texts covers great classical authors of the human rights tradition: Burke, Paine, Tocqueville, Wollstonecraft, and Marx. Here we will see how the Declaration of the Rights of Man closes out the feudal age of inequality and privilege, for better or for worse. Our second set of texts addresses two issues. With Arendt and Levi we will examine the unprecedented attack on human dignity in the Second World War. And, with our contemporary authors, we will track the rise of the contemporary global human rights regime. Through the study of these two foundational events, we will achieve a concrete understanding of the shifting purposes and practices of human rights and also the different kinds of abuses they are meant to check.

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Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

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Current students

Overview

Details

Enrolment rules

Teaching staff and contact details

Assessment

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Special consideration

Academic integrity

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Closing the loop

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect

Current students

PHIL3613: Philosophy of Human Rights

Overview

Details

Enrolment rules

Teaching staff and contact details

Assessment

Assessment criteria

Late submission

Special consideration

Academic integrity

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Closing the loop

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

Media

Student links

About us

Connect