Ioanna Kuçuradi Bücher

The most significant achievement of 20th century is, probably, the importance ascribed to the idea of human rights. Perhaps the most significant endeavour of the world community in the second half of this century is its attempt to codify these ethical demands in declarations, covenants, and similar instruments expected to have universal validity. Yet besides the unscrupulous violence, torture, and social injustice which continue to prevail in our world, we also see gaining more and more ground tendencies to promote demands and practices which constitute unnoticed obstacles to the protection of human rights. Is it not the so-called "herd immunity," as a way to fight against a pandemic, a violation of the right to life? What are our shortcomings? The present volume is an attempt to bring into focus one of these the lack of clear knowledge of what human rights are.

Ideas play a more crucial role in history than they appear to do at first sight. If not sufficiently scrutinized, they sometimes lead to results far divergent from the initial intentions of those who put them forth as lines of orientation for practice. This seems to be also the case with the idea of "development," which has marked social and political practice in the second half of the 20th Century. In this volume philosophers from different parts of the world discuss, and attempt to evaluate from epistemological and ethical points of view, the idea of "development" as the principal objective of national and international policies during the past few decades.