The Pendulum of Human Rights

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Samuel Moyn of Yale University to discuss the nature of human rights in history and his works Christian Human Rights and The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. Today, we talk about the rise and centrality of human rights in modern discourse.

Meet Dr. Moyn

Samuel Moyn is the Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. He received a doctorate in modern European history from the University of California-Berkeley in 2000 and a law degree from Harvard University in 2001. He came to Yale from Harvard University, where he was Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and Professor of History.

His areas of interest in legal scholarship include international law, human rights, the law of war, and legal thought, in both historical and current perspective. He has written several books in his fields of European intellectual history and human rights history, including The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010), Christian Human Rights (2015), and Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018).

Resources:

• Inventing Human Rights: A History by Lynn Hunt
• Works by Jeremy Waldron
• Works by John Tasioulas

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The Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker. 

Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.