The End of Human Rights (Book Review‪)‬

The language of human rights has captured our imaginations. But despite its predominance, the presuppositions, and limits of the language of human rights have been subject to little scrutiny. In The End of Human Rights, Costas Douzinas aires to take up this task. The present essay focuses on key aspects of Douzinas' critique of human rights so as to further Douzinas' path of questioning--a path leading toward a proper critique of human rights. In Part I, the author begins with Douzinas' key question: should we give up on human rights? Though Douzinas does not believe that we ought to give up on human rights, he does believe that they need to be saved from "human rights triumphalism" and, ultimately, from metaphysics. Douzinas attempts to save human rights by defending his version of transcendence: the idea that human rights, by acting as a negative "utopia", that is, as a negative pre-figuration of an impossible better future, allow for the possibility of critical judgment of the hem and now. Douzinas is keen to avoid "metaphysical thinking" in his attempt to find a "place for transcendence in a disenchanted world." The author questions Douzinas' attempt to present a "nonmetaphysical" approach to human rights. Despite attempting to be nonmetaphysical, Douzinas' search for a new ground of human rights turns out to be animated by metaphysics, the essence of which is a denial of this world in the name of a better and truer world.