Thomas Hill Green and the Social Recognition of Rights

Abstract

This chapter introduces the concept of the social recognition of rights through the work of the nineteenth-century British philosopher Thomas Hill Green. It introduces Green’s work on rights in the twin contexts of Hegel’s work on recognition and the natural rights tradition, and argues that one of his crucial achievements was to combine these two literatures. The chapter argues that, within Green’s work, there are two forms of recognition: the recognition of persons and the recognition of rights. It further argues that human rights require recognition, and that this recognition can only occur in a society; there can be no rights outside of a society.