Rights-Based Ethics: Foundations and Applications

The normative concepts of fundamental human rights and human dignity play an essential role in considerations about global justice and international politics. However, these concepts have not been taken up sufficiently in the standard approaches to normative ethics. This volume contends that rights-based approaches in ethics not only offer a theoretical framework to explain complex normative concepts, but they can also offer answers to some of today’s most complex moral questions. First, the book addresses the conceptual and foundational questions of rights-based ethics. Second, it offers historical and cultural perspectives on rights. Third, it explores how rights-based ethics can address applied issues related to climate change, health systems, global supply chains, and the finance industry.