The Politics of the Human [Paperback]

An elegant and forceful argument that represents the claim to equality as central to the meaning of being human.The human figures today as a central reference point for human rights, humanitarianism, and global justice. But who or what is that human? This book rejects accounts in terms of core characteristics, and argues for an understanding of the human as a claim and commitment to equality.The human figures today as a central reference point for human rights, humanitarianism, and global justice. But who or what is that human? This book rejects accounts in terms of core characteristics, and argues for an understanding of the human as a claim and commitment to equality.The human is a central reference point for human rights. But who or what is that human? And given its long history of exclusiveness, when so many of those now recognised as human were denied the name, how much confidence can we attach to the term? This book works towards a sense of the human that does without substantive accounts of 'humanity' while also avoiding their opposite  the contentless versions that deny important differences such as race, gender and sexuality. Drawing inspiration from Hannah Arendt's anti-foundationalism, Phillips rejects the idea of 'humanness' as grounded in essential characteristics we can be shown to share. She stresses instead the human as claim and commitment, as enactment and politics of equality. In doing so, she engages with a range of contemporary debates on human dignity, humanism, and post-humanism, and argues that none of these is necessary to a strong politics of the human.Acknowledgements; 1. The politics of the human; 2. Humans, with content and without; 3. On not justifying equality: Rorty and Arendt; 4. Dignity and equality; 5. Humanism and post-humanism; Bibliography; Index. Anne Phillips book is a hugely engaging critique of both descriptive and abstract accounts of the human as a basis for contemporary politics.
J. M. Browne, University of CamlSÒ