A Vindication of the Rights of Woman or The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Everyman's Library)

Author: Mary Wollstonecraft

The first novel of Samuel Beckett's mordant and exhilarating mid-century trilogy introduces us to Molloy, who has been mysteriously incarcerated, and who subsequently escapes to go discover the whereabouts of his mother. In the latter part of this curious masterwork, a certain Jacques Moran is deputized by anonymous authorities to search for the aforementioned Molloy. In the trilogy's second novel, Malone, who might or might not be Molloy himself, addresses us with his ruminations while in the act of dying. The third novel consists of the fragmented monologue—delivered, like the monologues of the previous novels, in a mournful rhetoric that possesses the utmost splendor and beauty—of what might or might not be an armless and legless creature living in an urn outside an eating house. Taken together, these three novels represent the high-water mark of the literary movement we call Modernism. Within their linguistic terrain, where stories are taken up, broken off, and taken up again. Where voices rise and crumble and are resurrected, we can discern the essential lineaments of our modern condition, and encounter an awesome vision, tragic yet always compelling and always mysteriously invigorating, of consciousness trapped and struggling inside the boundaries of nature.

Table of Contents:

	Introduction
	Notes
	Select Bibliography
	Chronology
	Author's Introduction	1
	Dedicatory letter to M. Talleyrand-Perigord	7
I	The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered	13
II	The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed	21
III	The Same Subject Continued	41
IV	Observations on the State of Degradation to which Woman is Reduced by Various Causes	56
V	Animadversions on some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, bordering on Contempt	84
VI	The Effect which an Early Association of Ideas has upon the Character	124
VII	Modesty--Comprehensively Considered, and not as a Sexual Virtue	131
VIII	Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation	142
IX	Of the Pernicious Effects which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society	152
X	Parental Affection	163

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The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights

Author: Joanne R Bauer

The "Asian values" argument within the international human rights debate holds that not all Asian states should be expected to protect human rights to the same degree. This position of "cultural relativism," often used by authoritarian governments in Asia to counter charges of human rights violations, has long been dismissed by Western and Asian human rights advocates as a weak excuse. This book moves beyond the politicized rhetoric that has dogged the international debate on human rights to identify the more persuasive contributions by East Asian intellectuals. The editors of this book argue that critical intellectuals in East Asia have begun to chart a middle ground between the extreme, uncompromising ends of this argument, making particular headway in the areas of group rights and economic, social, and cultural (ethnic minority) rights. The chapters form a collective intellectual inquiry into the following four areas: critical perspectives on the "Asian values" debate; theoretical proposals for an improved international human rights regime with greater input from East Asians; the resources within East Asian cultural traditions that can help promote human rights in the region; and key human rights issues facing East Asia as a result of rapid economic growth in the region.

Richard Halloran

While the Asian and Western scholars who wrote and edited this volume are too polite to say so directlytheir message is plain: All of you are wrong in the way you have framed and focused your running debate over human rights and Asian values....This book makes a compelling case that human rights are universalwhile Asian values are held mainly by those who advocate them. —Far Eastern Economic Review

Far Eastern Economic Review - Richard Halloran

While the Asian and Western scholars who wrote and edited this volume are too polite to say so directly, their message is plain: All of you are wrong in the way you have framed and focused your running debate over human rights and Asian values....This book makes a compelling case that human rights are universal, while Asian values are held mainly by those who advocate them.

What People Are Saying

Amitai Etzioni
This is an outstanding book on a whole set of crucial cross cultural issues we face: are we morally entitled to judge people of different cultures? And if the answer is in the affirmative -- on what grounds? The book has profound implications for our treatment of individual rights in authoritarian societies, female circumcision and child labor, role of women and relations among races and many other challenging moral and political issues of the day.

Perry Link
To allow the West to define 'universal' human rights seems wrong; to condone the abuses of authoritarians who hide behind 'non-Western values' seems equally wrong. This judicious and multifaceted book addresses the difficult but vitally important area that lies behind these two intuitions: What basic human values are shared in today's global village? How can we forge from them common conceptions of human rights?
— Princeton University