Comprehension Test 2
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Two paradoxes inform and problematize every discursive and practical employment of “human rights”. The first is substantive and directly political: it concerns the relation between “the human” and “the political”, and belongs to the domain of political ethics in general. The other is more nearly epistemological and moral: it addresses the issue of how one understands and practises the relationship between idea and actuality, or moral universality and cultural relativity. Each stems from the fact that human rights would cobble together two kinds of concepts and practical relations that are not innately friendly and treat them as one, ignoring the inherent absence of complementarity in their relationship. Thus, the discourse of human rights synthesizes and occludes paradoxical features of the origins, history, and character of human rights as an idea and a practice, making it far from self-evident as a conceptual “thing” or guide to moral and political practice. Paradox has always marked the invocation of human rights. Since their discursive inception, the initial paradoxes have not been solved so much as layered by new iterations of them - namely, that initiated in the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), which identifies governments as the promissories for enforcement of human rights. Joining the paradoxes is an overarching feature that articulates human rights as a transpolitical phenomenon besides being a political phenomenon designed to uplift all human societies.
1. The first important area of human rights paradox is concerned with
(a) Problematization
(b) Discursive employment
(c) Human practice
(d) Political ethics
2. The epistemological paradox of human rights refers to the understanding of
(a) Human aspects of rights
(b) Moral degradation
(c) Cultural dimension of human rights
(d) Political relations
3. What is ignored in comprehending two paradoxes of human rights?
(a) Innate friendliness of paradoxes
(b) Absence of complementarity
(c) Relationship between idea and actuality
(d) Morality issues
4. What is missing in the discourse of human rights?
(a) Self evidence as a concept
(b) Paradoxical features
(c) Exclusion of human rights features
(d) Synthesis of concept and practice
5. What is added to the existing paradoxes of human rights?
(a) Iteration of UDHR
(b) Universality of human rights
(c) Invocation of human rights
(d) Political phenomenon across borders
ANSWERS
1. Option (d) is correct.
There are two contradictory statements which affect the employment of human rights. The first important area of human rights is related to political ethics.
2. Option (c) is correct.
The epistemological concept of human rights deals with the understanding of how a person balances the idea and reality. The understanding of how a person balances between moral and cultural issues.
3. Option (b) is correct.
Concept of human rights mixes two contradictory concepts without understanding the inherent difference between these two. It ignores the absence of complementarity in this relationship. Complementary relationship is when two concepts improve each other’s quality.
4. Option (a) is correct.
The discourse of human rights is not self-evident as a concept, because it obstructs the origin and features of human rights as an idea and practice.
5. Option (d) is correct.
The initial concept of human rights is not understood clearly but a new layer has been added to it. This new idea is initiated by UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) that identifies the government as being responsible for enforcement of human rights. This has made human rights a trans-political phenomenon or a phenomenon being discussed across various countries.