The work of T.H. Green provides a justificatory argument for human rights which is a powerful alternative to the still prevailing account of rights, which sees them as somehow tied to human nature and argues that humans have rights qua humans, and independent of society. Green's account of rights turns on the process of social recognition. However, the precise mechanism for recognition is left slightly ambiguous. This paper argues that recognition in Green can be usefully divided into two stages, 'recognition (...) of persons' and 'recognition of rights'. It will be argued that the two are separate and that the first is a necessary prerequisite for the second. Recognition of persons is the recognition of moral action based on the use of language; recognition of rights occurs in societies of persons and is the dialogical recognition of certain rights claims. (shrink)

This book takes a distinctive and innovative approach to a relatively under-explored question, namely: Why do we have human rights? Much political discourse simply proceeds from the idea that humans have rights because they are human without seriously interrogating this notion. Egalitarian Rights Recognition offers an account of how human rights are created and how they may be seen to be legitimate: rights are created through social recognition. By combining readings of 19th Century English philosopher T.H. Green with 20th Century (...) political theorist Hannah Arendt, the author constructs a new theory of the social recognition of rights. He challenges both the standard ‘natural rights’ approach and also the main accounts of the social recognition of rights which tend to portray social recognition as settled norms or established ways of acting. In contrast, Hann puts forward a 10-point account of the dynamic and contingent social recognition of human rights, which emphasises the importance of meaningful socio-economic equality. (shrink)

T.H. Green argues that rights cannot exist, save for in a society in which people recognise each other as “ ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι.” Green leaves the phrase untranslated, and there is a certain ambiguity about what exactly Green meant and a lack of attention to this stipulation in the secondary literature. This essay argues that equality and sameness in Green must be understood as two categorically different criteria, both of which must be satisfied in order to make rights recognition possible. (...) Further, this essay examines a tension this distinction between equality and sameness reveals in Green’s work: Green’s commitment to patriotism in his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation may seem at first to be at odds with his more cosmopolitan tendencies in the Prolegomena to Ethics. However, a way of resolving this tension is suggested: re-conceiving what patriotism and “sameness” means by reading Green’s work as less dependent on the concept of “nation” than that of subsequent British idealists such as Bernard Bosanquet demonstrates that sameness and equality, though different, complement each other. (shrink)

T.H. Green argues that rights cannot exist, save for in a society in which people recognise each other as “ ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι.” Green leaves the phrase untranslated, and there is a certain ambiguity about what exactly Green meant and a lack of attention to this stipulation in the secondary literature. This essay argues that equality and sameness in Green must be understood as two categorically different criteria, both of which must be satisfied in order to make rights recognition possible. (...) Further, this essay examines a tension this distinction between equality and sameness reveals in Green’s work: Green’s commitment to patriotism in his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation may seem at first to be at odds with his more cosmopolitan tendencies in the Prolegomena to Ethics. However, a way of resolving this tension is suggested: re-conceiving what patriotism and “sameness” means by reading Green’s work as less dependent on the concept of “nation” than that of subsequent British idealists such as Bernard Bosanquet demonstrates that sameness and equality, though different, complement each other. (shrink)

Introduction -- The fundamentals and their role in design -- Underneath it all -- Tiling the plane without gap or overlap -- Symmetry, patterns and fractals -- The stepping stone of Fibonacci and the harmony of a line divided -- Polyhedra, spheres and domes -- Structures and form in three dimensions -- Variations on a theme: modularity, closest packing and partitioning -- Structural analysis in the decorative arts, design and architecture -- A designer's framework.