"Human rights are only a particular modern version of the ancient commitment by Plato and Deuteronomy—and Cyrus—to the cause of justice. Even among modern schemes of freedom and equality, they are only one among others; they were far from the first to make humanity’s global aspirations the central focus. Nor are human rights the only imaginable rallying cry around which to build a grassroots popular movement."
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Academics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesJews from the United StatesHarvard University facultyYale University faculty
Original Language: English
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Sources
The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010), Prologue
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Moyn
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Samuel Moyn
Samuel Aaron Moyn (born 1972) is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale University, which he joined in July 2017. Previously, he was a professor of history at Columbia University for thirteen years and a professor of history and of law at Harvard University for three years. His research interests are in modern European intellectual history, with special interests in France and Germany, political and legal thought, historical and critical theory, and sometimes Jewish studies.
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