ABSTRACT
The appeal to 'human rights' in anything other than a self-avowedly pragmatic way involves not only a metaphysical extravagance, but a moral violence which entails the suppression of alternative, non-Eurocentric, priorities and forms of life. This chapter explores first its philosophical provenance, and then its practical application. In both respects, it leads to the entrenchment of certain difficulties rather than their resolution. This in turn suggests that rather than rejecting the very idea of grounding human rights and along with it their admissibility as a critical resource, it would be better to reconsider certain assumptions as to what a defence of such an idea might entail. That the language of human rights may be ripe for abuse, or misappropriation, does not make the underlying notion redundant. The chapter focuses on this preliminary question, and the claim that it is indeed preliminary to discussion of the detail of human rights themselves.
