However, there is a second broad position that raises some critical questions for a "universal" or
"global" ethics, and yet which does not deny a basic ontology or anthropology common to all
peoples which could be articulated and used to build a genuine universal human rights theory.6
Thinkers who could be numbered in this second group often fall into one of two further subsets:
those who concentrate on pointing out the limits and/or inadequacies of many of the
contemporary approaches to "universal" human rights,7 or others who try to discern and decipher
the existence of a human rights position in a philosophical or cultural system which at first glance
seems to lack human rights as a well-developed concept.8 Those who adopt this approach often
undertake methodologically a "thick" description9 of human rights in their analyses of how this
concept might be traced in a particular culture or philosophical tradition. Yet, I suggest that the
contributions of both of these subsets can be brought together through a synthetic approach
which, on the one hand, pays proper attention to the particularity of an individual culture's
tradition, and, on the other hand, seeks to indicate ways in which the prevailing Western notions
of human rights might be corrected, refined, or augmented by a study of more cultures,
especially non-Western ones.10 This article attempts this sort of synthesis