The Newman Lecture 2021 - Human Rights: A Moral Language for our Times


This event is held in the Pichette Auditorium at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, and will be live-streamed. You are invited to join us either in person or online. When you register, please indicate which option you prefer.

Human rights is a vital moral language for our times. Although the critics of human rights language are many, in this lecture Professor Hogan makes the case for its continued importance. She discusses some of the shortcomings with the liberal politics of human rights, specifically its excessive individualism, its failure to address growing economic inequalities within and between states, and its anthropocentrism. Professor Hogan draws on the tradition of Catholic social ethics, as well as on feminist and post-colonial theologies to address these limitations. She concludes by sketching a theological account of human rights as a moral language through which the requirements of social justice, human flourishing and ecological sustainability can be established and vindicated.