This book demonstrates the importance of a duty-based approach to morality. The dominance of
what has been labeled ¿rights talk¿ leads to the neglect of duties without corresponding rights
(e.g. duties of virtue) and stimulates the proliferation of questionable human rights.
Therefore this book argues for a duty-based perspective on morality in order to first
salvage duties of virtue and second counter the trend of rights-proliferation by providing
some conceptual clarity concerning rights and duties that will enable us to differentiate
between genuine and spurious rights-claims. The argument for this duty-based perspective is
made by examining two particularly contentious duties: duties to aid the global poor and civic
duties. These two duties serve as case studies and are explored from the perspectives of
political theory jurisprudence and moral philosophy. The argument is made that both these
duties can only be adequately defined and allocated if we adopt the perspective of duties as
the predominant perspective of rights either does not recognize them to be duties at all or
else leaves their content and allocation indefinite. This renewed focus on duties does not wish
to diminish the importance of rights. Rather the duty-based perspective on morality will
strengthen human rights discourse by distinguishing more strictly between genuine and
inauthentic rights. Furthermore a duty-based approach enriches our moral landscape by
recognizing both duties of justice and duties of virtue. The latter duties are not less
important or supererogatory but function as indispensable complements to the duties prescribed
by justice. In this perceptive and exceptionally lucid book Eric Boot argues that a
duty-focused approach to morality will remedy the shortcomings he finds in the standard
accounts of human rights. The study tackles staple philosophical topics such as the contrasts
between duties of virtue and duties of justice and imperfect and perfect obligations. But more
importantly perhaps it also confronts the practical question of what our human rights duties
are and how we ought to act on them. Boot's book is a splendid example of how philosophy can
engage and clarify real world problems. Kok-Chor Tan Department of Philosophy University of
Pennsylvania A lively and enjoyable defence of the importance of our having duties to fellow
human beings in severe poverty. At a time when global justice has never been more urgent this
new book sheds much needed light. Thom Brooks Professor of Law and Government and Head of
Durham Law School Durham University
