David Little: A Modern Calvinist Architect of Human Rights

Witte, John

David Little: A Modern Calvinist Architect of Human Rights

Sumner B. Twiss, et al., eds., Religion and Public Policy: Human Rights, Conflict and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3-23; ISBN-10: 1107090369

17 Pages Posted: 13 Jan 2017 Last revised: 29 Jul 2019

See all articles by John Witte

John Witte

Emory University School of Law

Date Written: 2015

Abstract

For the past half century, David Little has done path-breaking work in exploring the religious foundations and dimensions of human rights. While working on a wide interreligious canvas, he has focused in especially on some of the Calvinist foundations of human rights, notably in the work of John Calvin, John Locke, and Roger Williams. This chapter offers an appreciative appraisal of Little’s contributions, and shows its place in the emerging scholarship on Calvinism and law and on religion and human rights.

Keywords: David Little; John Calvin; Roger Williams; Puritanism; religion; human rights; religious freedom; Max Weber; hermeneutics; subjective rights; objective right; ius; libertas; malum in se; Karl Vasak; liberalism; secularism

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Witte, John, David Little: A Modern Calvinist Architect of Human Rights (2015). Sumner B. Twiss, et al., eds., Religion and Public Policy: Human Rights, Conflict and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3-23; ISBN-10: 1107090369 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2897101