Human Rights: Origins and Justification - Part 1: A Consequentialist Approach

How did our notion of universal human rights arise? And how can we justify them? These are questions that have long exercised the minds of humanist thinkers. In this two-part talk, Leslie Allan will articulate and defend one humanist approach: that our idea of human rights arose as a response to abject suffering. Using case studies from history, he will show how our system of human rights requires no divine or non-natural justification, being grounded instead in our basic human needs for security and happiness. In the second part the following week, he will deal with objections to this consequentialist view.