Ebook: Rights and Reason: Essays in Honor of Carl Wellman

The papers in this book have been collected in celebration of Carl Wellman, who, after forty-five years, is retiring from teaching. Here I would like to highlight a few of the moments which have shaped Carl as a person and a philosopher. Although his childhood was not unhappy, Carl faced considerable challenges growing up in Manchester, New Hampshire. He ne ver knew his father; he and his mother, Carolyn, had little money; and he fought a long battle with Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, an illness which made hirn more familiar with hospitals than any young person should be. (His mother once told me that there were times when the doctors put Carl in his own hospital room because, while he was too young to be housed with adult men, they did not want the other children to see hirn die. ) Following a year of physician-prescribed rest after high school, the doctors recommended the University of Arizona in the misguided hope that the desert climate might improve his health. In spite of the doctors' hopes, life in Tucson was not easy. The heat takes its toll on everyone, but the desert was especially oppressive for Carl since his unusually sensitive eyes were no match for the intense sun. Still, Carl enjoyed college.

---

This is the most important collection of essays on rights theory to appear in the last decade. Most essays are published here for the first time. The collection honors the eminent rights theorist, Carl Wellman, on the occasion of his retirement. Stimulated by Wellman's extensive writings on rights, the newly written essays here address such topics as the grounding of rights, the universality of rights, conflict among legal rights, the nature of political rights, the care-based presuppositions of rights, the misuse of rights talk, the connection between rights and religion, and the rights of cultural minorities, as well as related issues concerning the foundations of morality and the nature of justice. Contributors include: AliceErh-Soon Tay, Joel Feinberg, James Griffin, P.M.S.Hacker, Virginia Held, Hermann Klenner, NeilMacCormick, Rex Martin, Diana Meyers, GeraldPostema, Joseph Raz, L. Wayne Sumner, G.H. VonWright, and Jeremy Waldron, with an introduction by Christopher Wellman. Aimed at researchers, scholars, graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the fields of philosophy, law, human rights and political theory.