If human rights express the equal claim of every person to the recognition and protection of their vital interests, they necessarily assert universal obligations of justice that cross borders. Sharon Anderson-Gold asks here whether there is a normative consensus on human rights and articulates the role of a cosmopolitan or global community in shaping the theory and practice of international politics. She considers several important works in the field of universal human rights and discusses whether a cosmopolitan system of law is a necessary condition for the stable association of nation...

Kant infamously claimed that all human beings, without exception, are evil by nature. This collection of essays critically examines and elucidates what he must have meant by this indictment. It shows the role which evil plays in his overall philosophical project and analyses its relation to individual autonomy. Furthermore, it explores the relevance of Kant's views for understanding contemporary questions such as crimes against humanity and moral reconstruction. Leading scholars in the field engage a wide range of sources from which a distinctly Kantian theory of evil emerges, both subtle and...

No philosopher has been more committed to the idea of the moral progress of humanity than Immanuel Kant. But is this idea of the moral advancement of the species compatible with the individualist basis of Kantian ethics? Do individuals have obligations to contribute toward the welfare of future generations? Here, Sharon Anderson-Gold affirms the compatibility of Immanuel Kant's philosophy of history and ethics by reversing the individualistic reading of the nature of virtue and vice. Arguing that Kant's definition of radical evil as a characteristic of the social condition of humanity makes...