Fragile Freedoms
The Global Struggle for Human Rights
Edited by Steven Lecce, Neil McArthur, and Arthur Schafer
Author Information
Steven Lecce teaches political theory in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba, where he is also Associate Dean of Arts. His research is primarily concerned with contemporary theories of social and distributive justice, and the ethical bases of the liberal-democratic state. He is the author of Against Perfectionism: Defending Liberal Neutrality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), and numerous articles about political philosophy. Recently, he was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University's Centre for the Study of Social Justice. He is currently completing a sequel to Against Perfectionism entitled Equality's Domain.
Contributors:
K. Anthony Appiah is Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and was inducted in 2008 into the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and he has served on the boards of the PEN American Center, the National Humanities Center and the American Academy in Berlin. He has also been a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). Among his recent books are Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006, W. W. Norton), Experiments in Ethics (2008, Harvard University Press), The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (2010, W. W. Norton), Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity (2014, Harvard University Press), and A Decent Respect: Honor in the Lives of People and of Nations (2015, University of Hong Kong Law School).
Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, is currently Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. She is a leading barrister and an expert in human rights law, civil liberties and constitutional issues. She is a member of the House of Lords and chair of Justice - the British arm of the International Commission of Jurists She was the chair of Charter 88 from 1992 to 1997, the Human Genetics Commission from 1998 to 2007 and the British Council from 1998 to 2004. She also chaired the Power Inquiry, which reported on the state of British democracy and produced the Power Report in 2006.
John Borrows is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School. He is the author of Recovering Canada; The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (Donald Smiley Award for the best book in Canadian Political Science, 2002), Canada's Indigenous Constitution (Canadian Law and Society Best Book Award 2011), Drawing Out Law: A Spirit's Guide, all from the University of Toronto Press. Professor Borrows is a Fellow of the Academy of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (RSC), Canada's highest academic honor, and a 2012 recipient of the Indigenous Peoples Counsel (I.P.C.) from the Indigenous Bar Association, for honor and integrity in service to Indigenous communities. John is Anishinabe/Ojibway and a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.
Anthony Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy and other subjects; among his most recent are The Good Book, Ideas That Matter, Liberty in the Age of Terror, and To Set Prometheus Free. He is a past chairman of June Fourth, a human rights group concerned with China, and is a representative to the UN Human Rights Council for the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He is a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, the Patron of the United Kingdom Armed Forces Humanist Association, a patron of Dignity in Dying, and an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. Anthony Grayling's new book The Age of Genius was published in March 2016.
Germaine Greer has held positions in English literature at the University of Warwick and Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of the classic text The Female Eunuch (1970). Her other works include Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), The Change: Women, Ageing and the Menopause (1991), The Whole Woman (1999), Shakespeare's Wife (2007) and White Beech: The Rainforest Years (2013). She owns and finances Stump Cross Books, which publishes the work of 17th- and 18th-century women poets.
Steven Lecce is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba, where he is also Associate Dean of Arts. His research is primarily concerned with contemporary theories of social and distributive justice, and the ethical bases of the liberal-democratic state. He is the author of Against Perfectionism: Defending Liberal Neutrality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), and numerous articles about political philosophy. Recently, he was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University's Centre for the Study of Social Justice. He is currently completing a sequel to Against Perfectionism entitled Equality's Domain.
Neil McArthur is Director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manitoba. His publications include David Hume's Political Theory (University of Toronto Press, 2007). He is currently working in the area of sexual ethics.
Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at The University of Chicago. Her publications include Aristotle's De Motu Animalium (1978), The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986, updated edition 2000), Love's Knowledge (1990), The Therapy of Desire (1994), Poetic Justice (1996), For Love of Country (1996), Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (1997), Sex and Social Justice (1998), Women and Human Development (2000), Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001), Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (2004), Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006), The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future (2007), Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality (2008), From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (2010), and Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2010), Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach (2011).
Steven Pinker is a Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time and The Atlantic, and is the author of ten books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and most recently, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. He has served as editor or advisor for numerous scientific, scholarly, media, and humanist organizations, including the American Association the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Psychological Association, and the Linguistic Society of America.
Arthur Schafer is Founding Director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. He is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy and an Ethics Consultant for the Department of Child Health at the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. Professor Schafer has published widely in the fields of moral, social, and political philosophy. He is author of The Buck Stops Here: Reflections on moral responsibility, democratic accountability and military values, and co-editor of Ethics and Animal Experimentation.
Fragile Freedoms
