Sample translations
Publisher's Summary
Reality and illusion of the Western world of values
If the idea of human rights is typical of Western culture, how did it come that slavery and torture have permeated most of European history?
Supporters and opponents of human rights often use the argument that these can only be understood against a certain background, namely that of the "West". This view is already stretched to its limits if the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 is taken seriously.
What's more, it is certain that in non-western religious traditions there is an ethos that human rights can link up with. But if human rights are not only "Western", how important are they then for the West?
Using as his starting point the way inhumanity in the West has been justified, Hans Joas asks how fragile progress is in the direction of the sacralisation of the individual and warns of all forms of cultural triumphalism that point to progress already achieved.
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