ABSTRACT
Human rights abuses are as pervasive now as they have been in every civilization throughout human history. Talbott ascribes the drive behind developing basic human rights norms to the pervasiveness of patriarchy, religious intolerance, and absolute monarchy. Talbott observes that “the idea of rights develops as a response to the oppression of one group by another.” Slavery is a crime; a crime of the State, to be exact. Governments allowed intercontinental trade in human beings. Governments also allowed some of its citizens, the dominant social group to whom the State is beholden, to own human beings as property and exploit them to augment wealth. A government capable of prohibiting the sale of liquor should be able to proscribe the sale and exploitation of human beings. Talbot could have objected to referencing paternalism as justification for some human rights abuses in passing, since it is true that some have indeed tried this justification.
