Truth, Politics, and Universal Human Rights

Part I. Universal Human Rights and the Impoverishment of Moral Discourse

1. The History of Human Rights in International Law
Janet Holl Madigan

2. The Relativism of Universality
Janet Holl Madigan

3. Human Rights as Moral Principles
Janet Holl Madigan

Part II. Soul Keeping and State Building: Principles and Politics from Plato to Machiavelli

4. Natural Right: The “Philosophic Quest for the First Things” in Plato and Aristotle
Janet Holl Madigan

5. The Philosophic First Things in the Light of Christianity
Janet Holl Madigan

6. Machiavelli and the Low Road to Modernity
Janet Holl Madigan

Part III. The Decline of Truth and the Rise of Rights in the Thought of Grotius and Locke

7. The Grotian Response to the Realist Challenge
Janet Holl Madigan

8. Locke’s Natural Law: The Answer to Grotius’s Prayer
Janet Holl Madigan

Part IV. Being and Goodness: The Alpha and Omega of Human Rights

9. Being and Goodness: The Essence of Life and Law in the Philosophy of St. Thomas
Janet Holl Madigan

10. The Logical Impossibility of Abortion as a Human Right
Janet Holl Madigan

11. Conclusion
Janet Holl Madigan

Keywords: Political Science and International Relations, Political Theory, Political Philosophy, Social Justice, Equality and Human Rights, Political Science, Human Rights, Political History