Do justice and human rights go hand-in-hand or are they different ends of the spectrum?
The idea of human rights is being invoked by activists these days, often with admirable effect. However, critics argue that the idea of such non-legal rights is lacking in foundation. A frequently asked question is: where do human rights come from and what gives them force? One of the aims of the book is to show in what sense — and in what way — human rights have a strong foundation through public reasoning, and how that foundation relates to the basic analysis of social justice, which too is very dependent on the opportunity of public discussion. It is not so much that the concept of justice has come only to mean human rights but that the two related ideas go together. Do justice and democracy go hand-in-hand? Democracy and the real practice of democracy do assist in the advancement of justice. But this is not to say that if you do not have democracy, there is no way that you can advance justice because that can still be done. Many countries which are not democratic have done so. So
