Pragmatism Rights and Democracy by Beth J. Singer PAPERBACK 9780823218684

Pragmatism, Rights, and DemocracyAuthor(s): Beth J. Singer\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Fordham University Press, United States\nImprint: Fordham University Press\nISBN-13: 9780823218684, 978-0823218684\nSynopsis\n\""Singer's theory of rights, an impressive development of social accounts by pragmatists George Herbert Mead and John Dewey, was developed in Operative Rights [tel]. This successor volume includes applications, lectures, replies to critics, and clarifications. For Singer, Dewey, and Mead, rights exist only if they are embedded in the operative practices of a community. People have a right in a community if their claim is acknowledged, and if they would acknowledge similar claims by others. Singer's account contrasts with theories of natural rights, which state that humans have rights by virtue of being human. Singer's account also differs from Kantian attempts to derive rights from the necessary conditions of rationality. While denying that rights exist independently of a.