Synopsis
A history arguing that human rights emerged from a transformation in moral sensibility, in which people learned to feel empathy across social boundaries.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workRights became thinkable once people came to imagine others as fundamentally like themselves and capable of the same suffering.
It roots the rise of rights in cultivated empathy as much as in philosophy or law.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Jeremy Bentham, Anarchical Fallacies.
Reading note
Read it for the link between cultural change, such as the rise of the novel, and the birth of rights talk.
Best paired with
Jeremy Bentham, Anarchical Fallacies